A love letter to America

from a european perspective

I’ve been living in the United States now for over two months. I thought that it could be a good idea to share the best insights about how the American society is different from the European.

In the US you have a culture of success, people measure you by your success, which is far more fair than it sounds. It’s actually possible to be pretty successful in America, it’s also way easier to be very poor. This reminds of the IQ graph comparing women with men. Women tend to cluster around the average while there’s more men at both the very high and very low ends of the spectrum. There’s more very smart men and very dumb men, while in the women side, there’s fewer very smart women and fewer dumb women, most of women are in the average part. The same happens comparing the United States with Europe. You have tons of very successful people but also tons of very poor people in the US. In Europe, most of the people are in the average part, you don’t have so many poor people but you also don’t have so many very successful people. This is due to the capitalist state it exists in the US, while in Europe, there’s always a kind of social democratic state so it’s tougher to be at the deep bottom because you always have support (the same happens in the US but not at the same degree).

Theres a culture of improvement in the US. People are constantly looking to learn new things and joining more and more tribes, you are celebrated and rewarded for the weird parts of you. This though, is not true of Europe. There’s somewhat an intellectual laziness is Europe, people are very capable and smart there (no less than in America) but they don’t really get things done. People are extremely complacent in Europe, they are extremely conformist, they are content with little and don’t think too much about how to change for the better nor seem to have a long term view. Americans, on the other side, are the “adventurous Europeans”. There’s not such a strong aspiration to progress in Europe comparing to America and the US is certainly the leading force of progress in the West (either by its ideas per se, its values, or the way it’s governed). There are, nevertheless, a lot of problems with the United States, but we shall always be at the beginning of infinity, there’s no perfect or final society, so we should not think the American society is the “perfect” society, we shall always look for improving upon our current systems and ideas.

The US is a country that acknowledges and rewards human agency. It’s deeply rooted in Americans minds these concepts of individual freedom, individual responsibility and individual rights. Americans are the risk takers and the world movers, they are the ones who make the world move and improve. You go to Europe if you want to eat pasta, drink wine, and have fun, you go to America if you want to pursue your dreams and challenge yourself.

Europe has now zero companies left in the global top twenty five in terms of market cap. There’s not a friendly dynamic environment in Europe for startups, it’s not appealing. There’s a kind of assumption in Europe that you can’t just build things or projects. People don’t go from ideas to reality. The most recent example of this is precisely AI. All major AI companies or startups are based in America (more specifically, the tech industry in San Francisco). Only already big companies can really strive in Europe. This is, again, a reflection that Europeans don’t really got from idea to reality.

Go live in the US if you’re ambitious, and specially during your twenties I would say it’s the most crucial time to go to the US (if you’re not already there) because it’s when you can set yourself apart and it’s the time when you are most generally, willing to take risks, fail, start all over again and try new things.

I clearly exaggerated a lot throughout the blogpost. Europe is great and full of wonderful people, food, places and cultures, but there’s a lot of opportunities that you can have in the US that you can’t in Europe. I also meant to say “America” and “Europe” instead of Americans and Europeans because there’s a big distinction here. Smart people are everywhere, but opportunities aren’t. America (still) is the land of opportunities. Talented and ambitious people meet in the US. It’s somewhat strange to me to think of someone highly promising, ambitious and with high agency that lives in Europe. Most of those people end up by moving to the US, where they are more rewarded by their person, more appreciated and surround themselves of equally ambitious people.