. SEEDTABLE

December 6th | #53

This week in Europe: A playbook for European Tech Hubs

or what would you do with €100 million?

I’m fascinated by the rise and fall of civilizations. Guns, Germs and Steel, a Roberto Caro-esque account of how geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world, is my favorite book.

When a friend mentioned there was a book on why some Asian countries succeeded and why others didn’t, I immediately clicked Buy Now. I’m glad I did.

How Asia Works argues that there are three critical interventions that government can use to speed up economic development.

1. Redistribution of land to maximize output from agriculture by household farming. This makes use of all available labour in a poor economy (typically ¾ of the population) and the initial productive surplus boosts demand for goods and services.

2. Industrialization by directing investment, subsidies and entrepreneurs (often in no-so-nice ways) towards manufacturing and exports. Unskilled farmers who start to emigrate out of agriculture can be re-trained to produce tradeable goods.

3. Capital controls to target money towards efforts with long term payoffs (agriculture, manufacturing), not short-term gains, free market speculation and individual consumption.

Where these interventions have been employed most effectively in Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and now China) they have produced the quickest progressions from poverty to wealth that the world has seen.

In short, How Asia Works is a simplified playbook for turning a developing country intro a world powerhouse.

Why am I boring you with all this crap? Because today is all about playbooks. So bare with me for a minute.

This weekend I read that to start writing, don’t think about an idea but a question.

“Shift your emphasis from ‘what’s the right answer’ to ‘what’s the right question?’” - Michael Gelb, from How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

So I’m going to do just that. And the question for today is: how would you build a tech hub in Europe if you had €100 million?

I don’t know the answer to that question. But I’m going to do my best to take a step back and attempt to come up with a playbook for it.

Let’s do it.

A playbook for building a tech hub in Europe

When Tyler Cowen asked Sam Altman how would he revitalize his hometown, St Louis, Missouri, Sam answered that he would invest in startups on the condition