Do US and European founders differ systematically in how accurately they present their own strengths?
4 recorded positions from 4 people, first said Dec 7, 2022. They do not agree — the readings below are what each one actually argued.
European founders lack confidence due to absence of local role models not innate trait
Alex Taussig · Feb 12, 2024
European CEOs' conservatism and fear of failure is a product of the conditions they grew up in rather than something innate
Thomas and other European CEOs lacked the surrounding examples and big-picture global framing that Alex has helped supply, and his confidence has grown as they discussed it
Scope: framed as Thomas's biggest weakness
62:12 20VC: The Ultimate Guide to Scaling Marketplaces, Why Rule of 40 and EBITDA Optimisation is BS, How Founders & VCs Should Approach Market Sizing and Outcome Scenario Planning and Why Europe is Failing with Vinted CEO, Thomas Plantenga & Alex Taussig
Thomas Plantenga · Feb 12, 2024
It is genuinely hard for European founders to think as confidently as Silicon Valley founders because they lack local examples and see Silicon Valley builders as half-gods
Without those examples around you, the people who build those companies seem unreal, so the confidence is hard to reach
Scope: accepts it as a personal weakness he has worked on with investors
63:00 20VC: The Ultimate Guide to Scaling Marketplaces, Why Rule of 40 and EBITDA Optimisation is BS, How Founders & VCs Should Approach Market Sizing and Outcome Scenario Planning and Why Europe is Failing with Vinted CEO, Thomas Plantenga & Alex Taussig
Also on the record
Harry Stebbings · Dec 7, 2022 · hedged
Europeans gravitate to process because they have less self-confidence, and process supplies a structure to point to instead of relying on intuition and gut.
Process gives you something external to rely on other than pure intuition and gut.
49:38 European under confidence drives reliance on process over intuition in product leadership
Danny Rimer · Jun 17, 2024
Founder spikes present oppositely in the US and Europe: US founders project confidence even in areas where they're weak, so you must sift through polish, while European founders don't realise how good they are
This is why Index likes investing in both geographies — the work in Europe is recognising and celebrating the spike so the founder keeps focusing on it
48:27 Us founders project confidence beyond competence while european founders underestimate their strengths
Your assistant can query this graph directly — 4 positions here, 19,646 across the corpus. Add 996.fm over MCP.