Levels is all hype, no depth. It’s absurd that he frames himself as somehow “disadvantaged” by the EU’s HPC access rules, when those systems are explicitly reserved for scientific research, not for cranking out AI avatars or the latest “AI-generated game” cash-grab. Complaining that you can’t use taxpayer-funded supercomputers for your next hype cycle isn’t a sign of innovation - it’s Levels' so often displayed self-entitlement and pseudo-intellectualism.
Sure but he became the poster child of a certain trend. Besides, you can see the mentality all over the place.
Contrary to what the social media makes you believe, EU isn't run on tickets income for old building - the place is packed with high tech niche businesses but they don't seem to be interested much in scaling.
Even the Ruby on Rails guy, David Heinemeier Hansson, never went for dominating an industry, becoming a platform with investor money and become an Unicorn. They just keep making money. It's really cool, he loves his life and He's probably much happier than Zuck or Musk but with that approach you end up staying a niche instead of a behemoth like the American companies. In USA the instinct seems to be how to make this global and take all the money. The European approach is good for society IMHO, no enshitification once you circle the market however when your market is open to people who are willing to do the put a lot of money first, kill the competition be a monopoly or duopoly and then screw everyone and and make filthy level of money then you become one of those killed.
> Even the Ruby on Rails guy, David Heinemeier Hansson, never went for dominating an industry, becoming a platform with investor money and become an Unicorn
If something in europe has potential to dominate then it's eventually being bought by US capital, see Skype, Nokia. If someone is throwing at you 10+ digit check then it's hard to resist and even if you want to resist good luck with persuading your early investors about not taking the money.
EU doesn't have petro-dollar and as good money printer as US. EU doesn't also have citizens & big funds that ape savings into local stocks, another reason most companies IPO in US.
