Silicon Valley aside, why are Americans more willing to risk a startup?

American's love David and Europeans love Goliath. <p>The British believed in their Empire. They believed that it was right to put Squash courts and Polo fields in far flung countries. They believed that Britishness was the most natural state of man. The French, Russians and eventually the Germans felt the same way about themselves, only more so and less sucessfully. These empires were Goliaths and their people were proud of them. <p>The US was the first major colony to successfully break free from the Brits. The most formidable military force ever deployed sailed into the East River and bore down on a bunch of un-uniformed barefoot rabble representing our (at that time) pathetic revolution. Yet somehow we won. That picture was chopped up and burned into the DNA of every American. We re-live it when Bruce Willis crawls through air-ducts and elevator shafts to outwit German terrorists. And again when he leads his band of blue collar drillers to blow up a merciless asteriod. And his goals are simple too. Bruce just wants to get home in time for dinner whereas James Bond is "keeping the British end up." Americans are wary of higher causes which makes them distrust things bigger than themselves.<p>It's everywhere in this country, Big is bad and small is good. We hate Wallmart, Microsoft, Nike and Exxon. Nevermind that Target, Adobe, Reebok and Shell are doing the exact same thing as their bigger counterparts. They're not big so we can't hate them. The only thing that will "kill" Google (IBM / MS style) will be bigness. We will turn against them once they become Goliath. <p>Our people (formerly your people) banded together way back then and forged our ideals in violent reaction against bigness. And so it's been ever since. We were the 12th biggest army just before WWII and few thought we would outlast the Soviets. But once the Soviet Empire fell we became Goliath and we have hated ourselves ever since. The Brits and Russians in their prime would have no problem with Iraq. The Russians would roll in and kill everyone and the Brits would pit the Sunnis against the Shias and colonize what's left. We have gone in half cocked and we don't truely believe that it's our place to tell other people how to live. It is cruely ironic that we may have to sail back across the pond and ask our British cousins how we can best play the part of Goliath. <p>This is all a long way of saying that revering startups is just natural to us. It's what we've always done and for better or worse, it's all we know. I'm actually not sure why they were ever called startups. Upstarts is way more fitting...

<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html</a><p>"I think what holds back European hackers is simply that they don't meet so many people who've done it. You see that variation even within the US. Stanford students are more entrepreneurial than Yale students, but not because of some difference in their characters; the Yale students just have fewer examples.<p>I admit there seem to be different attitudes toward ambition in Europe and the US. In the US it's ok to be overtly ambitious, and in most of Europe it's not. But this can't be an intrinsically European quality; previous generations of Europeans were as ambitious as Americans. What happened? My hypothesis is that ambition was discredited by the terrible things ambitious people did in the first half of the twentieth century. Now swagger is out. (Even now the image of a very ambitious German presses a button or two, doesn't it?)<p>It would be surprising if European attitudes weren't affected by the disasters of the twentieth century. It takes a while to be optimistic after events like that. But ambition is human nature. Gradually it will re-emerge."

I think it also has a lot to do with the way Americans view failure (versus Europeans and a few Asian countries).<p>In America while failure is not a good thing, it is also not a permanent thing that can scar you forever as a pariah in both society and the business community. You can try again and again... I could be wrong, but I don't think this is the case for Europe or countries like Japan; it's much harder to try something entrepreneurial more than once if you failed the 1st time...<p>Case in point, I think it took Sam Walton over ten tries before he got it right with Walmart. (Hell look at Edison too)<p>(I think as Americans we're just crazier than the Europeans.)

On a quick note...I would have to say that the laws of the US provide a unique and time-tested opportunity for startups. This has driven the US to become a destination for many of the world's immigrants, leaving their own countries less populated with potential risk takers. <p>The notion of a free market is what distinguished the US from its European counterparts at its inception and has since demonstrated the ability to learn and grow. The benefit of the US at that time was a clean slate economy without all of the potential 'baggage' that the European countries possessed in the monarchical systems. What's more, for the most part it didn't matter where you came from or who your family was in the US. All that mattered was market potential.<p>Though European countries have moved their economies in much the same direction they still have to contend with the history of their governments. Culture and history are slow to let go of a people group. New ideas take time to be successfully introduced on an indigenous level if they are to become part of the cultural paradigm and identified history.

I believe another part of it has to do with the cost of incorporation. In most places in the US, you can do it yourself for under $100. Comparatively, in most of Europe, it costs between $2,000 and $10,000 to form a company.<p>Also, with America's long standing tradition of entrepreneurship comes easy money for financing a new venture. In Europe, the spirit isn't there so to speak, so I assume the money would likewise be harder to come by. <p>I don't know anything about European law. Are companies in Europe afforded the same rights as in the US?

As an (expat) British person myself I notice than many British people are very pessimistic about the chances of success compared to what I can gather from Americans.

I'm not convinced that there are fundamental differences between attitudes in the US and Europe or at least Britain. The industrial revolution began in Britain and was a time of immense innovation and entrepreneurism. Us Brits still point to that as an example of our inherent entrepreneurial spirit however I reluctantly feel compelled to pour cold water on that idea. I think that period in our history could have taken place in any country given the same economic, educational and scientific conditions etc. <p>So my point is basically that you can find people with the right attitude anywhere. But that also is kind of the problem; unlike in the US, we don't have a Silicon Valley to gravitate towards. Some entrepreneurial people gravitate towards London but unlike Silicon Valley every other person you meet isn't going to be a budding empire builder. So in conclusion, they are there but you'll just going to have to look that much harder to find them.

Desperation. Lack of security to any in the long haul, unless you make it big. The fire is always below your feet, here. Any given job sucks, until you can make your own, work on something you /want/ to work on and make it. Bleak, but that's behind my own attitude.

Some of them might be telecommuting for a US based startup. For instance, it is very hard to find people who are good with audio/video signal processing in the USA. The good ones are all in Europe. We have guys in France, Spain, London, and Estonia.

Out of curiosity, where have you been looking and what would you expect from people if they joined you? Is it a part time thing?<p>(You have an interesting looking product there so I think you could do well out of it if you get it going)