I’ve been in London for the last month and have heard policymakers react to the wake up call Elon Musk just delivered. The decision of the U.S. to shut off intelligence and throttle the military v…
And yet, I still do not see corporate Europe make even the tiniest move to hedge against the risk that at some point, oligarch-owned U.S. companies will pull the plug on them. I wonder what their rationale is. Are European corporate strategists just too stupid or stubborn to see this as an obvious threat to their companies’ very existence? Do they believe this will just “blow over” and things will just return to normal after Trump? (Spoiler: they won’t.) Are they planning to lobby European politicians into kissing ass and bending the knee once the U.S. returns with new demands running counter to European interests?
I assume the corporate ones are only looking for shortterm gains, and the strategists in government/politics that actually have influence are all bought.
Why should I buy a fire extinguisher? My house isn’t on fire, so what am I going to do with that investment? In the meanwhile, I can use that money on something that will bring about an immediate benefit, such as a mini fridge for my 7up cans or a deep fryer for chicken wings.
Sounds stupid, I know. That’s exactly how companies work. That old code written in the 1980s still works, so why bother rewriting it. This old server still runs and we’re not even maxing out its capacity, so we’re definitely not upgrading it. Instead we will keep on pouring millions on patching the old code even though there are only a handful of people who know that language. Meanwhile, we will also complain about electricity prices, even though newer servers would cut electricity expenses to a fraction. Companies are totally allergic to capex, but somehow they can always handle absurdly high opex.
I assume the corporate ones are only looking for shortterm gains
Plausible, unfortunately. After all, the first one to make a move is the first one to be hit with cost, and is thus exposed to a competitive disadvantage as compared to the other idio… err, corporations who do not take any action.
That said, I had hoped European corporate leaders would be less short-sighted. After all, the possibility of the U.S. leveraging big tech to rugpull the EU’s economy is far from an abstract threat. At this point, not hedging against this scenario is like driving without a seatbelt. Yes, things might work out just fine for you - good if they do! But in the event of a collision, you’re thoroughly fucked, and if and when that event will occur is not for you to decide…
I would guess the US tech companies have bribed, lobbied or otherwise bought the decision makers at these EU companies, and got them into contracts and sales deals.
U.S. companies kind of have, of course, kind of “bought” European CEOs, and not even in a sinister way: they showed them what they (the first-movers and quasi-monopolies in the market, chock-full with VC money) could offer, and at what cost. Of course, European alternatives to that would seem relatively limited and expensive. At the time, choosing U.S. hyperscalers certainly was the rational thing to do because they offered the best “bang for the buck” for European companies.
But now with the looming threat of these same hyperscalers having to cut off European companies’ access, European companies need to reevaluate their cost-benefit analysis. By my estimate, the threat of somebody being able to remotely shut down your business from one day to the other should scare the living shit out of companies and leave them scrambling for alternatives, or a hedge against this risk at the very least. And yet: crickets.
Yeah, it’s been one reason after another since Trump took office. And it was already an issue before that.
And yet, I still do not see corporate Europe make even the tiniest move to hedge against the risk that at some point, oligarch-owned U.S. companies will pull the plug on them. I wonder what their rationale is. Are European corporate strategists just too stupid or stubborn to see this as an obvious threat to their companies’ very existence? Do they believe this will just “blow over” and things will just return to normal after Trump? (Spoiler: they won’t.) Are they planning to lobby European politicians into kissing ass and bending the knee once the U.S. returns with new demands running counter to European interests?
I assume the corporate ones are only looking for shortterm gains, and the strategists in government/politics that actually have influence are all bought.
Why should I buy a fire extinguisher? My house isn’t on fire, so what am I going to do with that investment? In the meanwhile, I can use that money on something that will bring about an immediate benefit, such as a mini fridge for my 7up cans or a deep fryer for chicken wings.
Sounds stupid, I know. That’s exactly how companies work. That old code written in the 1980s still works, so why bother rewriting it. This old server still runs and we’re not even maxing out its capacity, so we’re definitely not upgrading it. Instead we will keep on pouring millions on patching the old code even though there are only a handful of people who know that language. Meanwhile, we will also complain about electricity prices, even though newer servers would cut electricity expenses to a fraction. Companies are totally allergic to capex, but somehow they can always handle absurdly high opex.
Plausible, unfortunately. After all, the first one to make a move is the first one to be hit with cost, and is thus exposed to a competitive disadvantage as compared to the other idio… err, corporations who do not take any action.
That said, I had hoped European corporate leaders would be less short-sighted. After all, the possibility of the U.S. leveraging big tech to rugpull the EU’s economy is far from an abstract threat. At this point, not hedging against this scenario is like driving without a seatbelt. Yes, things might work out just fine for you - good if they do! But in the event of a collision, you’re thoroughly fucked, and if and when that event will occur is not for you to decide…
I would guess the US tech companies have bribed, lobbied or otherwise bought the decision makers at these EU companies, and got them into contracts and sales deals.
U.S. companies kind of have, of course, kind of “bought” European CEOs, and not even in a sinister way: they showed them what they (the first-movers and quasi-monopolies in the market, chock-full with VC money) could offer, and at what cost. Of course, European alternatives to that would seem relatively limited and expensive. At the time, choosing U.S. hyperscalers certainly was the rational thing to do because they offered the best “bang for the buck” for European companies.
But now with the looming threat of these same hyperscalers having to cut off European companies’ access, European companies need to reevaluate their cost-benefit analysis. By my estimate, the threat of somebody being able to remotely shut down your business from one day to the other should scare the living shit out of companies and leave them scrambling for alternatives, or a hedge against this risk at the very least. And yet: crickets.