For the record, I think this whole debate about Europe making it difficult to scale new businesses is completely off. Scaling a new business is a nightmare in the US too, as it is everywhere else on Earth. That is pretty much what scaling a new business means: finding increasingly creative ways to be miserable. There are two things that make it easier in the US, though: 1/ You can raise much more capital, all else being equal, for macroeconomic reasons. 2/ You can use that capital to pay lawyers to deal with all the problems for you, turning “this is an absolute nightmare” into “this is an absolute nightmare that costs $500k”. Cc @SineadOS1 @misssaxbys @johnthornhillft @michaelxpettis

Having conducted a lot of business in both Europe and the US, this just isn't true. I've waited months for basic things to happen in Europe despite being willing to spend very large amounts on lawyers. And lots of things in the US (like incorporation) have minimal legal fees.

Thanks for this— I must mention that I’ve never used Stripe Atlas, so perhaps I lack experience with a much simpler incorporation workflow. However, I DO have direct experience incorporating, managing, and dissolving both corporations and partnerships across the following jurisdictions: the UK, France, Germany, Estonia, Luxembourg, the US, Hong Kong, and the Cayman Islands. My experience is that NONE of these countries makes the overall process particularly light when you look at everything from incorporation to taxation to other things to dissolution. And in most cases, the burden is simply offloaded to highly paid professionals who wear different hats: lawyers, accountants, tax advisors, and other professional service providers. In addition, your initial question, Patrick, was about scaling, not incorporating, and as an officer or manager of multiple entities that hold shares in US companies that scale, I see a LOT of lawyers’ work along the way, even just on the corporate side. I expect there is much more on the tax, labor, and regulatory sides. (Not to mention dealing with employees who sue for harassment and demand huge settlements, which I hear is a uniquely American feature.) I would assume Stripe has paid a lot of specialized lawyers along the way when it comes to payments, compliance, and financial services in general, and on that front I would be surprised if things were more difficult or complex in Europe than in the US.