Seo-suedwest.de, hier.
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Beyond Draghi and Letta: read the #BertrandReport...in a Post!
Arnaud Bertrand and I both read the same WSJ piece, and while my reactions were partly scribbled down on Bluesky, his are far more expansive, thoughtful, and useful. I’m sharing them below. They also include a nice discussion of how European media helped US Tech companies overcome the chicken-and-egg problem, for free!
I'm afraid that, like most articles on this topic, it largely misses the mark.
Which in itself illustrates a key reason why Europe is lagging behind: when you fail to understand the root causes of an issue, you have zero chance to solve it.
What makes me competent to speak on this topic?
Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I founded and led HouseTrip which at the time was one of Europe's top startups. We were the first historical startup in which all top 3 VC investors in Europe invested.
So I have a pretty intimate knowledge of the European entrepreneurship ecosystem and what it takes to create and grow a tech company in Europe.
We were pretty promising as a startup. In fact as promising as it can possibly get.
We had a similar concept to Airbnb (with some notable differences I won't bore you with), except we created the company 1 year before they did. Which means we were the first-mover - globally - with a multi-billion-euro concept, strong financial backing by the 3 top investors in Europe and, at some point, a team of 250 people with some of the brightest minds in tech in Europe. Everything we needed to succeed.
And yet we didn't succeed: ultimately we were essentially crushed by our American competitor Airbnb in our home turf - Europe - and we had no choice but to sell ourselves to another American company, Tripadvisor.
Believe me, I've reflected long and hard on how that could have happened. In fact after I left the company in 2015 I even spent 3 months in isolation in the Annapurna mountains in Nepal to reflect full time on exactly that 😅
And I then moved to China, where I spent the next 8 years and where I had the chance to study their ecosystem to understand why they're successful and Europe isn't.
So all in all, I think I have some degree of legitimacy to comment on this topic.
The WSJ article says that Europe lags behind due to the usual suspects, the reasons you constantly hear about: too much regulation, fragmented European markets, limited access to financing, a culture that isn't conducive to the startup grind, etc.
Some of those are true, but imho all are secondary.
Take excessive regulations for instance, which gets mentioned all the time. If they were such a hindrance to startups, why would American startups succeed in Europe - like Airbnb in our case - and European startups not? We all face the same regulations 🤷
Or take fragmented markets. Same question: how could US startups successfully conquer these fragmented EU markets when European startups can't?
Because that's the real elephant in the room, and really the story of the European tech scene since the advent of the internet: US startups have shown a remarkable ability to capture European markets despite the supposed barriers, making many of the "usual suspects" explanations for Europe's tech struggles very unconvincing.
In other words, logically, any explanation where both US and European startups face identical barriers fails to address the fundamental difference in outcomes we consistently observe.
Based on my experience, the key problem faced by European startups can be summarized in one word: patriotism.
There is virtually none in Europe, and more than anything that's what's killing EU startups, or preventing them from developing.
It used to drive me absolutely nuts at HouseTrip. What a startup needs first and foremost, especially a consumer-facing startup like we were, is marketing, to become famous.
At first, when I created the company and before Airbnb was even a thing, I used to pitch the company to the media and the general response I would get was almost one of contempt, as in "why would I belittle myself to write about your startup? And furthermore, who would be stupid enough to stay in an apartment when there are hotels? You guys have no future..."
And then Airbnb got launched and the American media started their thing, hyping the company like it was the greatest innovation since sliced bread, like they were national heroes, giving them hundreds of millions in free publicity.
That's when European media started to take notice. Not of us, god forbid, but of Airbnb. The concept was promoted by Silicon Valley, see... so now it was valid.
So I went back to pitch HouseTrip to European media. This time around I was met with a different kind of contempt: "So you guys are like Airbnb? Why would we cover a European copycat when we can just write about the real American original?" Luckily I'm not violent but lets say those moments really tested my civility 😅
All in all, we arrived in the absolutely grotesque situation where, despite Airbnb not having yet set foot in Europe, they were already a cultural phenomenon there, promoted by European media, for free, when the European original - yours truly - had to spend millions on paid marketing (mostly to Google and Facebook, American companies) to achieve a small fraction of the brand recognition.
Which means that, insanely, Airbnb was probably doing more business in Europe than we did before even opening an office there, simply on the back of the free publicity they were getting. How on earth can you even compete with that?
This dynamic was at play with general European elites too. I remember very clearly having dinner next to a legendary European entrepreneur and investor - who I won't name, a man who supposedly, on paper, is dedicating his life to furthering the European tech ecosystem. We naturally got to talk about HouseTrip and he literally told me, and this is an exact quote: "you know I don't really like copycats, they really hurt the European ecosystem." Another big test for my civility that night...
And even if we had been a copycat, so what? That's how China got started, there's nothing to be ashamed of. You need to learn to walk before you can run.
In fact if you study the history of innovation you'll find that every major tech power, including the US, started by imitating and adapting others' innovations before developing their own.
Speaking of China, again a country that I know in depth for having lived there for 8 years after HouseTrip, I've come to the conclusion that patriotism, a deeply rooted mindset of sovereignty, is truly the magic ingredient behind their success.
Contrary to popular belief, they don't do it in a stupid way by just banning competition. Those cases are actually very rare and only occur if the companies in question violate Chinese law in pretty egregious ways.
Most of the time it's the exact contrary: they welcome foreign companies and competition, but create conditions where local alternatives can thrive alongside them, giving Chinese users and businesses legitimate options to choose domestic champions.
Which means you end up with, for instance, Apple doing well in China but simultaneously allowing the rise of Huawei or Xiaomi. Or Tesla doing well in China but simultaneously allowing the rise of BYD or Nio. Etc.
And China is, interestingly, more comparable to the EU than most people realize. It is, again contrary to popular belief, extremely decentralized when it comes to doing business, with various provinces competing against each other much the same way EU countries compete against each other.
But they do it in such a way where, again, the overarching sense of Chinese sovereignty never gets sacrificed at the altar of provincial competition. And where the ultimate goal is to develop Chinese champions which can successfully compete on the global stage.
So there you have it, the dirty little secret behind Europe's lag. We're essentially witnessing a "colonization of the minds" whereby Europe has structurally internalized its technological inferiority, celebrating American startups while dismissing its own homegrown companies.
Why does this barely ever get talked about? Think about it: do you seriously think that the Wall Street Journal would start advocating for, essentially, policies hostile to American tech dominance?"
Much better to focus on the usual red herrings like too much regulation or fragmentation which, conveniently, would primarily result in clearing obstacles for American tech giants to dominate European markets even further, rather than nurturing homegrown competitors. This article is, in itself, an illustration of the "colonization of the minds".
That said, I’ve always found it a touch odd, if I’m honest, that a banker and a politician, both hailing from a city I adore, albeit a glorious ruin, should be the ones, hand-picked by a German doctor, to tell Europe how to become more innovative ;-).
I'm afraid that, like most articles on this topic, it largely misses the mark.
Which in itself illustrates a key reason why Europe is lagging behind: when you fail to understand the root causes of an issue, you have zero chance to solve it.
What makes me competent to speak on this topic?
Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I founded and led HouseTrip which at the time was one of Europe's top startups. We were the first historical startup in which all top 3 VC investors in Europe invested.
So I have a pretty intimate knowledge of the European entrepreneurship ecosystem and what it takes to create and grow a tech company in Europe.
We were pretty promising as a startup. In fact as promising as it can possibly get.
We had a similar concept to Airbnb (with some notable differences I won't bore you with), except we created the company 1 year before they did. Which means we were the first-mover - globally - with a multi-billion-euro concept, strong financial backing by the 3 top investors in Europe and, at some point, a team of 250 people with some of the brightest minds in tech in Europe. Everything we needed to succeed.
And yet we didn't succeed: ultimately we were essentially crushed by our American competitor Airbnb in our home turf - Europe - and we had no choice but to sell ourselves to another American company, Tripadvisor.
Believe me, I've reflected long and hard on how that could have happened. In fact after I left the company in 2015 I even spent 3 months in isolation in the Annapurna mountains in Nepal to reflect full time on exactly that 😅
And I then moved to China, where I spent the next 8 years and where I had the chance to study their ecosystem to understand why they're successful and Europe isn't.
So all in all, I think I have some degree of legitimacy to comment on this topic.
The WSJ article says that Europe lags behind due to the usual suspects, the reasons you constantly hear about: too much regulation, fragmented European markets, limited access to financing, a culture that isn't conducive to the startup grind, etc.
Some of those are true, but imho all are secondary.
Take excessive regulations for instance, which gets mentioned all the time. If they were such a hindrance to startups, why would American startups succeed in Europe - like Airbnb in our case - and European startups not? We all face the same regulations 🤷
Or take fragmented markets. Same question: how could US startups successfully conquer these fragmented EU markets when European startups can't?
Because that's the real elephant in the room, and really the story of the European tech scene since the advent of the internet: US startups have shown a remarkable ability to capture European markets despite the supposed barriers, making many of the "usual suspects" explanations for Europe's tech struggles very unconvincing.
In other words, logically, any explanation where both US and European startups face identical barriers fails to address the fundamental difference in outcomes we consistently observe.
Based on my experience, the key problem faced by European startups can be summarized in one word: patriotism.
There is virtually none in Europe, and more than anything that's what's killing EU startups, or preventing them from developing.
It used to drive me absolutely nuts at HouseTrip. What a startup needs first and foremost, especially a consumer-facing startup like we were, is marketing, to become famous.
At first, when I created the company and before Airbnb was even a thing, I used to pitch the company to the media and the general response I would get was almost one of contempt, as in "why would I belittle myself to write about your startup? And furthermore, who would be stupid enough to stay in an apartment when there are hotels? You guys have no future..."
And then Airbnb got launched and the American media started their thing, hyping the company like it was the greatest innovation since sliced bread, like they were national heroes, giving them hundreds of millions in free publicity.
That's when European media started to take notice. Not of us, god forbid, but of Airbnb. The concept was promoted by Silicon Valley, see... so now it was valid.
So I went back to pitch HouseTrip to European media. This time around I was met with a different kind of contempt: "So you guys are like Airbnb? Why would we cover a European copycat when we can just write about the real American original?" Luckily I'm not violent but lets say those moments really tested my civility 😅
All in all, we arrived in the absolutely grotesque situation where, despite Airbnb not having yet set foot in Europe, they were already a cultural phenomenon there, promoted by European media, for free, when the European original - yours truly - had to spend millions on paid marketing (mostly to Google and Facebook, American companies) to achieve a small fraction of the brand recognition.
Which means that, insanely, Airbnb was probably doing more business in Europe than we did before even opening an office there, simply on the back of the free publicity they were getting. How on earth can you even compete with that?
This dynamic was at play with general European elites too. I remember very clearly having dinner next to a legendary European entrepreneur and investor - who I won't name, a man who supposedly, on paper, is dedicating his life to furthering the European tech ecosystem. We naturally got to talk about HouseTrip and he literally told me, and this is an exact quote: "you know I don't really like copycats, they really hurt the European ecosystem." Another big test for my civility that night...
And even if we had been a copycat, so what? That's how China got started, there's nothing to be ashamed of. You need to learn to walk before you can run.
In fact if you study the history of innovation you'll find that every major tech power, including the US, started by imitating and adapting others' innovations before developing their own.
Speaking of China, again a country that I know in depth for having lived there for 8 years after HouseTrip, I've come to the conclusion that patriotism, a deeply rooted mindset of sovereignty, is truly the magic ingredient behind their success.
Contrary to popular belief, they don't do it in a stupid way by just banning competition. Those cases are actually very rare and only occur if the companies in question violate Chinese law in pretty egregious ways.
Most of the time it's the exact contrary: they welcome foreign companies and competition, but create conditions where local alternatives can thrive alongside them, giving Chinese users and businesses legitimate options to choose domestic champions.
Which means you end up with, for instance, Apple doing well in China but simultaneously allowing the rise of Huawei or Xiaomi. Or Tesla doing well in China but simultaneously allowing the rise of BYD or Nio. Etc.
And China is, interestingly, more comparable to the EU than most people realize. It is, again contrary to popular belief, extremely decentralized when it comes to doing business, with various provinces competing against each other much the same way EU countries compete against each other.
But they do it in such a way where, again, the overarching sense of Chinese sovereignty never gets sacrificed at the altar of provincial competition. And where the ultimate goal is to develop Chinese champions which can successfully compete on the global stage.
So there you have it, the dirty little secret behind Europe's lag. We're essentially witnessing a "colonization of the minds" whereby Europe has structurally internalized its technological inferiority, celebrating American startups while dismissing its own homegrown companies.
Why does this barely ever get talked about? Think about it: do you seriously think that the Wall Street Journal would start advocating for, essentially, policies hostile to American tech dominance?"
Much better to focus on the usual red herrings like too much regulation or fragmentation which, conveniently, would primarily result in clearing obstacles for American tech giants to dominate European markets even further, rather than nurturing homegrown competitors. This article is, in itself, an illustration of the "colonization of the minds".
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Mikaël Hervé: BigTech & Digital Advertising: Analysis of the Latest AdTech Competition Law Cases
Chez Oles, here.
Not clear to me who the current (and past) clients - and the conflicts of interests - are, TBH.
EX ANTE INTEROPERABILITY REGULATION FOR COMPETITIVE DIGITAL MARKETS: CONTRASTING THE EUROPEAN UNION, UNITED KINGDOM, AND AUSTRALIAN APPROACHES
I. Brown, C. Marsden, R. Nicholls, here.
Wish list for the next Merger Guidelines
All of them, please!
'Targeted' here.
'General' here.
While waiting for the publication of Meta non-compliance decision, new research project : "A
GDPR-coloured Lens for Merger Control."
Monday, May 19, 2025
Dear DMA Team (just wrote, sent...And the DMA Team wrote back!)
Dear DMA Team,
It has been nearly a month since the non-compliance decisions were announced. May we kindly inquire when they will finally be published? The delay is detrimental to growth, innovation, public opinion and research.
Thank you and kind regards.
Very kind response from the DMA Team 💙
Dear Madam,
Kind regards,
The EC DMA team
In the meanwhile, however, I moved to a different research topic. [Thinking: would it help if you had more resources? Like the Commission already has for the DSA?]
Sunday, May 18, 2025
DMA: Behind the Scenes
F. Chirico, here.
Meta 5(2) decision mentioned at 1:04. Filomena said she was following this case directly. Glad that I had the chance to present to her and the other conference attendees our views in October last year.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
Bad, really bad for US companies: PayPal launches iPhone NFC payments in Germany
The Verge, here.
In some areas, the complementarity between DMA and competition enforcement worked really well...
5+ years of anticompetitive practices followed by some commitments to better behave in the future?
If you're Big Something, you're perfectly entitled to rationally behave as you like. EU competition law provides you plenty of incentives to do that!
EC, here.
Has the Ombudsman's proceeding ended, BTW?
Friday, May 16, 2025
Competition in the Provision of Cloud Computing Services
OECD, Background Note here.
(Already on my syllabus).
Viral outrage over Apple’s EU payment warnings misses key fact [indeed 😀: non-compliance with the DMA!]
The Verge, here.
"Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases.
"The Commission found that Apple fails to comply with this obligation. Due to a number of restrictions imposed by Apple, app developers cannot fully benefit from the advantages of alternative distribution channels outside the App Store. Similarly, consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and cheaper offers as Apple prevents app developers from directly informing consumers of such offers. The company has failed to demonstrate that these restrictions are objectively necessary and proportionate"
Not covered, Apple is telling us. Non-compliance decisions not published yet. We were used to waiting for months (years?) for the publication of 101 and 102 decisions but the DMA was supposed to be much quicker and there is also the need to ensure adaptation.
Ripples in the Generative-AI Pond
Across the competition policy landscape, many are jostling for vantage over GenAI—a scramble laid bare in the ICN sessions in Edinburgh last week and, at the same moment, in the remedies phase of US v Google. In Europe, it was the German Verbraucherzentrale that dropped the first pebble, swiftly followed by NOYB, and the ripples carry particular weight in the shadow of the Court’s 2023 Meta ruling—a fact of which Meta is, needless to say, acutely aware.
[More soon in a paper].
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Y Combinator says Google is a ‘monopolist’ that has ‘stunted’ the startup ecosystem
TechCrunch, here.
"TechCrunch asked YC how it would respond to this critique, and whether it has any specific examples of areas that it probably would have funded had it not been for Google. So far, YC hasn’t responded to our comment request"
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Commission organises DMA compliance workshops with Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft
EC, here
"The fabric of the DMA does not assign a central or institutionalised role to actual
or potential competitors in the enforcement process. The Commission has
nevertheless sought to make the process more participatory by organising a series
of public compliance workshops. This format has allowed stakeholders to voice
concerns and provide input on specific aspects of the compliance measures
adopted by gatekeepers, in an effort to promote broader engagement and
transparency in the enforcement of the DMA. The most significant contribution
to emerge from the public workshops has been the ability of stakeholders to flag
potential compliance issues linked to the technological solutions proposed by
gatekeepers. These exchanges have highlighted not only possible gatekeepers’
shortcomings in meeting DMA requirements, but also the complex ripple effects
such solutions may have across various categories of actors within the ecosystem.
Moreover, participants have drawn attention to the intricate interactions between
DMA obligations and other regulatory frameworks, notably data protection and
security" - From here.
Google’s bringing Gemini to your car with Android Auto
TechCrunch, here.
I was wondering whether the Bundeskartellamt proceeding covers Gemini for Android Auto at all. ("In Commitment 1 (“Interoperability with GAS”), Google undertakes to create and provide
the technical conditions to enable the Google Maps, Google Play and Google Assistant
services contained in GAS, collectively referred to as the “GAS Software Components”29,
to interoperate with voice assistants, map services and app stores of third-party suppliers
in IVI Systems in an equivalent way and to an equivalent extent as the GAS software
components interoperate with each other and that they are thus fully interoperable with
services of other suppliers. Google will make the necessary APIs, terms of service for the
use of the APIs and the documentation required for the implementation available to vehicle
manufacturers and their suppliers"
Republicans Aim To Enshrine Rental Price-Fixing
The Lever, here.
Good luck explaining this to Europeans.
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
A conservative vision for antitrust
Podcast here.
[Skip the first part about conservative v. khanservative, waste of time]
Me bubbling along on Bluesky while listening to it.
Monday, May 12, 2025
Lessons from the past: market power and democracy
M. Snoep, here.
I agree with the article on almost every point, but I find the argument that market power can exist and be maintained without anti-competitive practices rather unconvincing, especially when applied to the DMA. In reality, such a notion is more of a legal fiction: either anti-competitive behaviour goes undetected, or – more troublingly – antitrust laws are not enforced, often due to a reluctance to act or the perception that enforcement is largely ineffective.
Unpacking “America First Antitrust” for Europeans
C. Caffarra, here.
[My take would be a bit different, of course]
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Friday, May 09, 2025
Pope Bob the Builder of a Better Digital Future? Law and math degrees
He also said that we are in the midst of a new revolution: during the time of Leo XIII, the Industrial Revolution was underway, while now the Digital Revolution is taking place." here
Corporate influence in competition policymaking
OECD, here.
What to do also about corporate influence in international organizations and networks active in competition policysteering? How does this fit within the very helpful Table 1?
["Story two — an academic associated with an institute funded by several large technology firms signed an amicus brief opposing a country’s enforcement action. Later, without disclosing that fact, they gave a purportedly expert presentation at the OECD attacking that same enforcement action and advocating the OECD take a position favoring the institute’s funders" - J. Kanter, here]
When I was still attending ICN conferences as a NGA, I was also personally struck by the army of corporate NGAs present. I wonder if this has changed since.
Thursday, May 08, 2025
Review of the Merger Guidelines
EC, here.
I briefly read the Innovation related one and found it isn't exactly a page-turner. But I'll read it again.
Wednesday, May 07, 2025
Fireside Chat Google Remedy
VSA framework on my mind - I received some great comments, working on a second version...
They have set on a name: America First Antitrust
Can you be from Africa, Asia, or Europe, and be in favour of "America First Antitrust" - like there have always been those adhering to the Chicago, Post-Chicago School? Even Ordoliberalists, Neo-Schumpeterians, New Brandeisians could be from almost everywhere on the planet. This choice of conceptual isolationalism by the US antitrust enforcers is, well, unprecedented.
When on stage herself at the ICN, Gail Slater managed to make America First Antitrust more palatable to an international audience, also with some help from SC (first principles! Draghi Report! 2 of the 4Ps! You can apply it also to the ICN!).
Tuesday, May 06, 2025
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Don't look for it in Rome... Nearly two months on, the Commission’s DMA non-compliance decision against Meta was finally published... -
And two seconds later she did block me 😇- nothing personal, ofc. Just belonging myself to one of those DMA groupies as annoying as mosqu... -
P. Samuelson, here.
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D. Baldacci, here.
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Orf.at, hier (Max Schrems ab 9:34).
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Podcast, here.
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T. Höppner, here.
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Not the usual Competition Commissioner's statement. Whole-of-Commission Approach? EC, here . [Dutch company buying an US company, mind...