New Europe: admitting failure is good first step

From Le Monde, a thoughtful article on why France has been unable to produce its own Microsoft.

Salient quote: “Selon une étude du Comité Richelieu, six entreprises créées aux Etats-Unis après 1960 figurent parmi les 25 plus grandes sociétés américaines : Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, Home Depot, Intel et Wal-Mart. Mais une seule, l'éditeur de logiciels allemand SAP, figure parmi les 25 plus grandes firmes du Vieux Continent.”

Rought translation: 6 of the 25 largest US companies are less than 40 years old, whereas same is true for only 1 of the 25 largest European companies.

This doesn’t even factor in the great companies created in the last 10 years: Yahoo (american), Ebay (american), Amazon (american), Google (american), AOL (american), Interactive Corp. (american).

Where are the European equivalents?? In the past, for every Ford there was a Volkswagen, for every Exxon there was a Shell, but now? In the internet, it’s almost shocking how few good, solid, innovative companies Europe has been able to produce.

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