I thought my American readers would enjoy these comments from Dr Pedro Alonso, a Spanish doctor, via The Economist:
“The weight of so many failures throughout our history has made Europeans afraid to fail. Americans are not like that. As an American scientist said, perhaps we will fail for 30 years, it does not matter. We will carry on until we succeed.”
The European Union offers aid in little mini-programmes, “so we feel good”, but the Americans think big, “with that simplicity of theirs that we laugh at,” Dr Alonso told El País. “They are the ones with the generosity to see that it is unacceptable that the random fact of being born in one bit of the world, rather than another, determines if we live for four weeks, six months or a year.”
I have to say I agree with his comments. I wouldn’t say Europeans are less tolerant of failure, but public shame is a much larger concern in Europe than it is in America. Americans have an unending, almost naive, optimism. That has a strong impact on the business culture and you can’t fail to notice it when you live here.
It would be interesting to hear the views of French entrepreneur, Loic le Meur, now based in San Francisco, or any other entrepreneurs who have set up companies on the opposite side of the Atlantic.
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