The title of this post is a quote from Wittgenstein which kept popping into my head as I was traveling through Europe these past weeks. I visited France on a ski trip, stopped over in Vienna by airplane and then traveled to Budapest by car.
I speak Dutch, some English, a little German and unfortunately only know one word in Hungarian. The conference I’m visiting only had 4 English presentations: my own, Ernst-Jan’s and two more. Unfortunately none of the other presentations used the only Hungarian word I know.
Hungary has a population of about 10 million people. After WW1 the country got split up and Hungary lost 72% of its land (a sensitive subject even now) which means that there are about 14.5 million people who still speak the language.
In Europe we tend to compare ourselves to the US regularly. We are jealous of the great start-up cultures in cities like San Francisco and the entrepreneurial spirit that so many Americans seem to have. But how much difference is there really between these two parts of the world? Lets take a good look at some statistics.
Population
The US has a population of more than 300 million. Compare that to Hungary and you aren’t too well off. Compare it to Europe as a whole and the figures look different. There are more than 700 million Europeans. That is twice as big an audience as the US?! Suddenly I don’t feel so alone anymore.
Language
Those 700 million people are divided by language, right? They all speak different languages so it is too difficult to reach them? Well yeah, there are 23 official langauges in the European Union and 65 languages and/or dialects in total. That sure sounds fragmented.
Everybody in the United States at least speaks English, right? Well, almost. English is not the official language of the United States but more than 82% of the population speaks it as their native language.
Lets look at Europe again: 51% of all europeans speak English as a second or first language. That actually means that there are more people who speak English in Europe (357 million) than there are people in the United States, in total!
Money
It isn’t really about the language is it? It must be about the money. The United States is a richer market. But is that really true?
It looks like the GDP of the US was about USD 14,330,000 in 2008 and USD 18,930,000 in Europe (In millions of dollars).Yep, Europe is doing a lot better than the US when it comes to GDP. Maybe GPD growth? Is the US growing faster than we are? I don’t know what the results will be of the current economic crisis but when you look at from 2006 till 2007 the United States GDP grew 4.9% and our GDP grew 16%.
Maybe you say I’m making these numbers up as a biased European? Nope, they are from the CIA World Fact Book. Surely the CIA can be trusted on their own numbers?
The more I think about it the more interesting Europe becomes to me:
- There are more people in Europe
- More people speak English in Europe than there are people in the US
- We have more money in Europe than in the US
- We are growing faster
I have to admit, all these ‘facts’ are based on statistics. And we all know how trustworthy those are. But I do suggest you do your own research and look at what you can find out about the differences between Europe and the United States before you pack your bags and move to San Francisco.
Now all that is left for me to do is convince all the Internet Entrepreneurs in Hungary, and Europe, to actually start speaking English…
Great stats… though Americans must be sick of people stereotyping them as overweight and linguistically challenged.
Nice comparison. Treating Europe as one whole state makes that difference and brings it to a new perspective.
Greetings from Frankfort, Germany
Great post and you’ve definitely got my me thinking…I think, if you’re reasoning is that we are lagging behind startup cities like San Francisco because of language – I would say I’m sure it has an influence no doubt, but I think it’s more down to “pedigree”. San Francisco has created a number of great startups, some of which has sold in the millions, tens of millions and more. Once we in Europe have a city which spits out great startups like SF has done for years…this will all change.
14,330,000 USD to 18.930.000 USD is quite bad with 400 million inhabitants. We’ve got work to do ;)
Not just 5.000.000 more but 5.000.000 x 1000 more! See the fine print…
We could have a stronger voice if more of us knew about the European elections this year!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009
VOTE!
Over twice as much people and ‘just’5.000.000 USD more, that is. Grrrr.
Oh, right, and iPods/iPhones are cheaper there! ;)
Similar thing can be said of India
-More people.
-More people speak English.
-Not more money though
-We are growing faster.
We ‘Europeans’ like to talk about Europe as a single entity, but unfortunately, that is only true on paper.
On international level, Europe has never been able to act as one single entity. Our power in world politics is very limited, because there’s just no shared European vision. On paper, we could take the lead in many world conflicts where we find the US lacking. But, in reality, we don’t. Our voice is never heard in world conflicts, because we have no voice.
Comparing Europe to the US is difficult. US is one country, with one law, one president, one opinion. Europe is a mix of countries, some presidents, some king and queens, some prime ministers (and a guy that owns football clubs, tv stations, is exempt from the law, and probably will be president again soon :)), some democracies, some weak democracies, some corrupt democracies, many laws, for each country individually, between countries, for Europe as a whole (at least the countries that are part of the EU) etc etc.
It’s a fact that the US delivers a lot of great IT companies, ranging from startups to market leaders. How many market leaders do we have in Europe? Google? Myspace? Facebook? Microsoft? Apple? Twitter? There are many, many things wrong in the US, but they do have an advantage in their work ethic & work culture.
BTW taking the CIA World Factbook to compare countries is what a six grader would do. I’m sure you can do better.
:-)
great ted talk about hungary
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ben_dunlap_talks_about_a_passionate_life.html
Europe’s ‘smart startup city’ is probably about 5 years away. Or five minutes.
It’s going to be somewhere with good nodal and infrastructural advantages, enlightened national and local government initiatives, and truth be said, probably one where there is a big student and professional population, as well as a ‘wow’ factor.
Korea has already put its cards on the table for the new city of Songdo – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7425192.stm with a US$ 100bn investment.
A new-build city is probably not be the answer for Europe, but I think there are a number of port cities that might become the SF of Europe. Barcelona, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Dublin all are on the coast, and have a history of being open to new people and new ideas. Berlin, Madrid, London, Paris are accessible, but may almost be too large. Brussels, well, possibly.
For me, Barcelona is probably the best positioned because of the groundwork of the 22@BCN project, and it is a natural gateway to Southern Europe. I’ve spent some time there, and everyone I know who has been there always wants to return. Always a pretty good sign – but the same is true for Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Dublin.
All it needs is for a few people to kickstart something. Anyone fancy a Barcelona tweet-up?
great story by paul graham about bootstrapping a silicon valley startup hub elsewhere:
http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html
Interesting observation…
Interesting post Boris. Like this one.
Although I’m a regular reader @ thenextweb.com, I’m not a regular poster. This time I can not resist ;)
First of all I have to admit that sad when I see the borders fading away between the European countries. Not necessarily from a political/military/judiciary point of view (European Union), but most of all from a cultural point of view. I enjoy to visit Spain a lot, not just the coast, but you can see the new generation struggling with the new ‘phenomenon’ to speak proper English. Parents, proud of their youngsters when they tell me that their 5 and 7 year old’s learn English at school, but at the same time there are mixed feelings about it.
As a citizen of Amsterdam you can agree with me that we’ve many problems with the current teenage generation, either speaking & writing SMS/MSN-language or a mix of street languages (Moroccan/Turkish/Dutch/etc.) which surely decrease their opportunities when they’re getting older and need a job.
So yeah, it’s a nice thing to be able to travel across Europe and (often) have the ability to speak English. But we’re also facing an unstoppable cultural devolvement. Not just our language… It has it’s great sides too obviously, have a look in my kitchen ;)
@Wouter
It’s just a matter of time that it really will be single entity. It all goes with little, almost invisible steps…
It’s not just about ‘work’ isn’t it?
Their is no culture of Europe, there is culture in the individual countries in Europe.
Can we preserve this heritage (language/culture/etc.) without losing our identity? Can we really progress without that heritage – to live with a new obligated identity?
We’ll see in two generations what the consequences were, right?
Hi Boris,
I think you are mixing statistics here. There’s a difference between the EU (27 countries /500M pop.) and Europe as a whole, which also includes Russia and some ex-USSR countries (700M pop.).
Also, I’m not sure about your GDP growth. I think you forgot that a few countries recently joined the EU…
Another point is that the average English level in Europe is far from excellent. Just visit France, Germany or Italy and try to have a serious conversation in English. I think you should be happy with 30% positive results.
On the other hand, while the US is considered as one country, there are a lot of differences between the states. There are cultural differences (just compare the north to the south), different sizes in pop., local GDP etc.
Though it is right that the US creates many more start-ups, most of them only have a virtual value. I mean, what are companies such as Facebook or Myspace really worth? They don’t produce anything, they don’t bring any “real” value, yet they’re “worth” billions.
In Europe we have a different value perception (compare Netlog to Facebook), it is less superficial and more down-to-earth. This is where our strength lies, and we should nurture it!
The problem is that a lot of European CEO’s are getting “americanized”. They want fame and huge bonuses!
Also,based on your observation China is the most interesting market. You have 1 country of 1,2 billion pop. and over 350M speak english (largest english speaking country in the world).
Though India sounds as interesting, their political structure is extremely complex and can’t really be perceived as a unique market.
In fact the right one is the future of the left one…see the european chidren, even the mediterranean (with their famous diet).
I think I was more critical about Europeans than Americans right? Well, except for the image of course. :-)
Like germans are to? I’m sorry couldn’t resist myself for saying that.