Graham Johnson

[Daniel Lismore @daniellismore]

Remember the promise of cheaper food after Brexit.
Here is the reality.
£5 for a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk.
£8 for a jar of Nescafe.
£12 for a bottle of olive oil.
This is the Brexit dividend.

Oh and prices went up 20% on top of that since 2023

Keep waving those flags and you won’t be able to afford new ones. You might end up living in a tent. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧☕️🫖

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@robpowellnews ref your article on the sky news site, are you aware of Patriotic Millionaires??

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

I just read this WSJ article on why Europe's tech scene is so much smaller than the US's and China's.

I'm afraid that, like most articles on this topic, it largely misses the mark.

Which in itself illustrates a key reason why Europe is lagging behind: when you fail to understand the root causes of an issue, you have zero chance to solve it.

What makes me competent to speak on this topic?

Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I founded and led HouseTrip which at the time was one of Europe's top startups. We were the first historical startup in which all top 3 VC investors in Europe invested.

So I have a pretty intimate knowledge of the European entrepreneurship ecosystem and what it takes to create and grow a tech company in Europe.

We were pretty promising as a startup. In fact as promising as it can possibly get.

We had a similar concept to Airbnb (with some notable differences I won't bore you with), except we created the company 1 year before they did. Which means we were the first-mover - globally - with a multi-billion-euro concept, strong financial backing by the 3 top investors in Europe and, at some point, a team of 250 people with some of the brightest minds in tech in Europe. Everything we needed to succeed.

And yet we didn't succeed: ultimately we were essentially crushed by our American competitor Airbnb in our home turf - Europe - and we had no choice but to sell ourselves to another American company, Tripadvisor.

Believe me, I've reflected long and hard on how that could have happened. In fact after I left the company in 2015 I even spent 3 months in isolation in the Annapurna mountains in Nepal to reflect full time on exactly that 😅

And I then moved to China, where I spent the next 8 years and where I had the chance to study their ecosystem to understand why they're successful and Europe isn't.

So all in all, I think I have some degree of legitimacy to comment on this topic.

The WSJ article says that Europe lags behind due to the usual suspects, the reasons you constantly hear about: too much regulation, fragmented European markets, limited access to financing, a culture that isn't conducive to the startup grind, etc.

Some of those are true, but imho all are secondary.

Take excessive regulations for instance, which gets mentioned all the time. If they were such a hindrance to startups, why would American startups succeed in Europe - like Airbnb in our case - and European startups not? We all face the same regulations 🤷

Or take fragmented markets. Same question: how could US startups successfully conquer these fragmented EU markets when European startups can't?

Because that's the real elephant in the room, and really the story of the European tech scene since the advent of the internet: US startups have shown a remarkable ability to capture European markets despite the supposed barriers, making many of the "usual suspects" explanations for Europe's tech struggles very unconvincing.

In other words, logically, any explanation where both US and European startups face identical barriers fails to address the fundamental difference in outcomes we consistently observe.

Based on my experience, the key problem faced by European startups can be summarized in one word: patriotism.

There is virtually none in Europe, and more than anything that's what's killing EU startups, or preventing them from developing.

It used to drive me absolutely nuts at HouseTrip. What a startup needs first and foremost, especially a consumer-facing startup like we were, is marketing, to become famous.

At first, when I created the company and before Airbnb was even a thing, I used to pitch the company to the media and the general response I would get was almost one of contempt, as in "why would I belittle myself to write about your startup? And furthermore, who would be stupid enough to stay in an apartment when there are hotels? You guys have no future..."

And then Airbnb got launched and the American media started their thing, hyping the company like it was the greatest innovation since sliced bread, like they were national heroes, giving them hundreds of millions in free publicity.

That's when European media started to take notice. Not of us, god forbid, but of Airbnb. The concept was promoted by Silicon Valley, see... so now it was valid.

So I went back to pitch HouseTrip to European media. This time around I was met with a different kind of contempt: "So you guys are like Airbnb? Why would we cover a European copycat when we can just write about the real American original?" Luckily I'm not violent but lets say those moments really tested my civility 😅

All in all, we arrived in the absolutely grotesque situation where, despite Airbnb not having yet set foot in Europe, they were already a cultural phenomenon there, promoted by European media, for free, when the European original - yours truly - had to spend millions on paid marketing (mostly to Google and Facebook, American companies) to achieve a small fraction of the brand recognition.

Which means that, insanely, Airbnb was probably doing more business in Europe than we did before even opening an office there, simply on the back of the free publicity they were getting. How on earth can you even compete with that?

This dynamic was at play with general European elites too. I remember very clearly having dinner next to a legendary European entrepreneur and investor - who I won't name, a man who supposedly, on paper, is dedicating his life to furthering the European tech ecosystem. We naturally got to talk about HouseTrip and he literally told me, and this is an exact quote: "you know I don't really like copycats, they really hurt the European ecosystem." Another big test for my civility that night...

And even if we had been a copycat, so what? That's how China got started, there's nothing to be ashamed of. You need to learn to walk before you can run.

In fact if you study the history of innovation you'll find that every major tech power, including the US, started by imitating and adapting others' innovations before developing their own.

Speaking of China, again a country that I know in depth for having lived there for 8 years after HouseTrip, I've come to the conclusion that patriotism, a deeply rooted mindset of sovereignty, is truly the magic ingredient behind their success.

Contrary to popular belief, they don't do it in a stupid way by just banning competition. Those cases are actually very rare and only occur if the companies in question violate Chinese law in pretty egregious ways.

Most of the time it's the exact contrary: they welcome foreign companies and competition, but create conditions where local alternatives can thrive alongside them, giving Chinese users and businesses legitimate options to choose domestic champions.

Which means you end up with, for instance, Apple doing well in China but simultaneously allowing the rise of Huawei or Xiaomi. Or Tesla doing well in China but simultaneously allowing the rise of BYD or Nio. Etc.

And China is, interestingly, more comparable to the EU than most people realize. It is, again contrary to popular belief, extremely decentralized when it comes to doing business, with various provinces competing against each other much the same way EU countries compete against each other.

But they do it in such a way where, again, the overarching sense of Chinese sovereignty never gets sacrificed at the altar of provincial competition. And where the ultimate goal is to develop Chinese champions which can successfully compete on the global stage.

So there you have it, the dirty little secret behind Europe's lag. We're essentially witnessing a "colonization of the minds" whereby Europe has structurally internalized its technological inferiority, celebrating American startups while dismissing its own homegrown companies.

Why does this barely ever get talked about? Think about it: do you seriously think that the Wall Street Journal would start advocating for, essentially, policies hostile to American tech dominance?

Much better to focus on the usual red herrings like too much regulation or fragmentation which, conveniently, would primarily result in clearing obstacles for American tech giants to dominate European markets even further, rather than nurturing homegrown competitors. This article is, in itself, an illustration of the "colonization of the minds".

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@RobertJenrick @NeilDotObrien Why did you allow the prisons to become full with no plan so that this happened?

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@NeilDotObrien After 15 years of chaos, how surprising they haven't fixed it after a couple of months

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@NeilDotObrien No they've done it because the tories have nigh on bankrupted Britain including an unaffordable cut in NI.

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@NeilDotObrien Don't you mean the Tory's 15 years of management of HMP??

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@FraserNelson Presumably won't be asking any experts for their views

[Gary Neville @GNev2]

They partied , they bet on elections , they crashed the economy, they broke every public service, they destroyed integrity and honesty in public office , they paid their mates billions , they put their friends in the House of Lords, they gave their cronies knighthoods, they went into the jungle , they lied again and again, they were convicted by police, they went on holiday when they shouldn’t and they have the cheek to question Keir Starmer’s work ethic. I would never take anything for granted but I hope they are annihilated on Thursday. The worst people and government we have ever had!

P.S good afternoon all 😊❤️

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

Jacob Rees-Mogg claims that nobody cares about #partygate anymore.

The BBC say the documentary only makes people angry.

The truth is it shows everyone what lying assholes the Conservatives are.

So do you care?

Feel free to RT to show that you do.

[Jay Rayner @jayrayner1]

The timing of the election might cause problems for some, esp students coming to the end of term or those who have holidays booked (whoever they intend to vote for). The solution is to apply for a postal vote. Here’s the link to do so. Please share.

https://t.co/he4VaTk6Hz

[NHS Million @NHSMillion]

If everyone who wants The Conversatives out on the 4th of July follows and retweets we'll reach a million by midnight and have a much bigger voice for the next six weeks.

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@NeilDotObrien You may not know this but they aren't in Europe. But within Europe yes we could join Russia and Belarus "who do well without it"

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@GuillermElodie Of course we should- there are zero benefits with Brexit and increased trade leading to GDP inside it

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@Fishnpeas @patrickjbutler @AudreySuffolk @guardian The whole point of having vouchers which DWP are withdrawing is to ensure that only the needy get the food

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@MPIainDS @Conservatives If there was a 2nd referendum and the people decided to rejoin how would that defy the British public or don't you believe in democracy

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@afneil Similar to Brexit then

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@LandRover Hello, how does a customer make a complaint to Range Rover?

[Graham Johnson @GraJohnson1000]

@GuillermElodie Yes

[Nick Reeves #RejoinEU #NAFO #FBPE @nickreeves9876]

Starmer has written in the Express that he will not restore Freedom of Movement.

Please retweet if you want our Freedom of Movement restored.

We were robbed of our right to live, work, study and love in 30 countries by the worst abuses of democracy in modern British history.