(Don't wanna be an) American Idiot....

....is a song by Green Day, a US post punk band beloved of my kids (listen below) - more about them later!



This post is in response to a brilliant post by TechCrunch's Mike Arrington - brilliant because it is both totally right, horribly wrong, and manages to offend everyone else not yet offended by the Bra-less Valkyries - except for the Americans. It doesn't offend any Americans - so I have set out to do that missing piece of the man's ouvre here

(Besides, its the weekend, and what is Le Weekend without Le Bitchmeme)

Firstly, he notes that:

The last session at Le Web was a live Gillmor Gang It will be posted soon but you can watch it below, care of Ustream. At about the 14 minute mark a discussion of Europe v. Silicon Valley erupts.

Don't watch it - I did, so you don't have to. The Gillmor Gang episode was a process that took a bunch of bright, articulate, (mostly) Americans and then produced a rambling, incoherent, no-clue trainwreck of a show. The smartest guy onstage there was Gabe Riveira because he basically STFU.

So there is hope for us Europeans - we can do that sort of thing all on our own, we don't need US help

Secondly, the reason that Europe is a bunch of no hopers in the Startup stakes is that:

Conference organizer Loic Le Meur (a French entrepreneur who moved to Silicon Valley for his most recent startup Seesmic) says that Silicon Valley moves too fast, and that Europeans enjoy a good two hour lunch just to experience the joy of life.

My response... .....the joy of life is great, but all these two hour lunches over a bottle or two of great wine and general unwillingness to do whatever it takes to compete and win is the reason why all the big public Internet companies are U.S. based. And those European startups that do manage to break through cultural and tax hurdles and find success are quickly gobbled up by those U.S. companies. Skype (acquired by eBay) and MySQL (acquired by Sun) are recent examples.

Most of the Euro-entrepreneurs I know who have gone to Silicon Valley have by and large only done it for one reason - access to money. I don't know many who would willingly choose to live there if the VC's didn't make it a pre-requisite of funding (I believe that is true in non SV USA as well, by the way). The Euro-failure is not the courage to innovate or start businesses, it is the cohones to invest in them. Also, having a (semi) homogenous market of c 300m people gives a certain advantage. And besides, if you can sell Skype for $$$$ then those Yanks can't be all that smart

Thirdly, Mike notes that:

The panelists would have better served the audience by urging them to help shift European culture to be more supportive of their entrepreneurs. These people need a fighting chance to survive, and just telling them what they want to hear isn’t helpful. Joie de vivre is fine once you’ve sold that startup and have a summer house in the south of France. In the meantime, get to work. Le Web needs more Europeans on stage next year, and it just may be you up there telling the world how you overcame European culture and grew a successful company.

You know he's right of course - on both counts:

- We do need to encourage the entrepreneurs, but its not a shift of culture they need - its a f*cking great boot up the *rse of the financial value chain to make it attractive to fund risky startups. The UK government spends millions a year setting up 50:50 co funding schemes but still the funding community (excepting a few brave souls) won't fund anything vaguely risky.

- We do need more Europeans on stage - lets be honest here - did any of the US people tell you anything you didn't know? (excepting product announcements that is, and Dr Helen Fisher's excellent talk about how drugs maketh man). Today, news flashes across that Atlantic at the speed of a blog's send button. And as our resident grumpy man, Dennis Howlett noted ( our Grumpy Men are Grumpier than Your Grumpy Men so there ) wrote about David Weinberger's talk:

....Cluetrain Manifesto co-author David Weinberger’s dream of crowdsourced leadership. If it was anyone else delivering this message it would be considered risible. As it is, I can only hope that someone takes David aside and gives him a gentle lesson in leadership principles.

(there is a comment to put in here, but I'll leave it to you, dear reader.....)

And what about Green Day, I hear you ask - well, they are American, make great music using a format (3 chords and sharp lyrics) they basically pinched from the Brit Punks, and provide me with a brilliant title for this post

(Update - Loic Le Meur, Le Web organiser, asks if Mike Arringon should be invited back next year - I think so, its too good a show to miss. You?