In some very real sense, Ozempic was invented in 1990. Pfizer ran the human trials and just never published them. They showed it lowered blood glucose in diabetics, slowed gastric emptying, and killed hunger; the same 3 things that make Ozempic work today. The joint venture agreement said internal data stayed internal, and that was that. Pfizer killed the program in 1991. The reasoning, as far as I can tell, was that nobody would ever want an injectable diabetes drug besides insulin. So, the license went back to the hospital in Boston that held the patents. Novo picked it up in 1992 and spent the next two decades building liraglutide, then semaglutide. It's insane that data sat in a filing cabinet for 30+ years. I only know this because Jeffrey Flier, one of the Harvard scientists in the room, finally wrote it up. He's in his late 70s and didn't want the history to die with him. This makes you wonder what else is in those filing cabinets. Ozempic could've existed 27 years ago.

Europe is one of the best places in the world to live, but one of the hardest places to build and scale a company. After 5+ years in France, following 16+ in the US, I have a conflicted admiration for Europe. On the one hand, Europe has great potential. When I lived in the US, I was skeptical of the European quality-of-life argument. But after getting used to Sunday morning markets, walkable cities, and 4.5 meter ceilings, I get it. There are things that you simply cannot import or experience as a tourist. These things can make Europe very attractive for creative and intellectual work. I honestly believe some parts of Europe are the “best neighborhood” in the planet. But that’s not the full story. I am not only a husband and a dad. I am also an entrepreneur. I founded a company in the US 12+ years ago that has offices in the US and Chile and clients throughout the world. I live in France, yet I have not opened a subsidiary here. That is telling. We once hired someone in France through one of those remote employment platforms. The person received about 5,000 euros net per month, which is considered a very good salary here. But the total cost to the company was closer to 13,000 per month. That makes hiring feel less like a relationship between a company and a worker, and more like renting someone from the state. At the same time, you take an enormous amount of legal and administrative responsibility. The presumption is that all companies should operate like a 1960s car manufacturer. The response is simple. Don’t set up operations in Europe. But this is not a remote-work story. I know many small entrepreneurs in France who do not want to cross the threshold from being a one-person activity to becoming an employer. They sometimes refuse a new customer to stay small and avoid the obligations that come with hiring one person. That should worry us. Many social protections here are described as being provided by the state, but in practice, a lot of the cost and complexity of the implementation falls on the administrative shoulders of entrepreneurs. That is reasonable for a large energy company or bank. But for a small business, it is the difference between an entrepreneur waking up on a Monday to think about product or paperwork. Growth is not the enemy of the European social model. It is what enabled it. Much of the quality of life we enjoy here today dates back to growth incubated in the past. Growth that is increasingly hard to find. France once led frontier industries, like bicycles in the 1860s, cinema in the 1890s, and aviation and automobiles soon after. Since then, Europe built a more humane social model. But that model was built on the assumption that Europe and the US were the only two rich and industrialized places in the world. That is no longer true. Global competition in the 21st century is not what it used to be 50 years ago, and the padding built to protect us, may have grown into the handbrake that constrains the growth of the small and flexible firms we need to compete in new frontier sectors. We should be able to be critical about Europe in our own terms, without comparing ourselves to the US or China. Innovative parts of Europe, like Sweden or Switzerland, operate differently and provide clues. Sweden has embraced a dynamic of capitalization in its pension system for a long time in a continent where fewer people buy stocks. Switzerland, a place that shares an enormous amount of geography and culture with its neighbors, is built in part on strong internal competition among its cantons. But neither can light a candle to a French open-air market on a Sunday morning. A market where cash is king, and for a reason. Europe may be the best place in the world to live. But it is also one of the most challenging places to build and scale an innovative activity. The goal is not to weaken the European model. But to get to a place where we can lead again by example. The world will follow us, but only if we are ahead.

@AOC The idea that all billionaires got their money by exploiting peopl doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. JK Rowling wrote books about cheeky wizards. I invented a better way to make virtual reality headsets and games to play on them. We just made things people wanted.

I rarely post on Europe because @lugaricano always has better takes than mine. It is hard to be the second act! His post this morning: on the two Europes is particularly striking. Figure 1, which I reproduce here, is something European policymakers should keep in mind every day. Beyond the raw, somewhat abstract figures for GDP per capita, there is a reality I see every time I travel to Western Europe. I moved to the U.S. in 1996, six weeks after graduating from college. Every time I visit, I can tell that Spain (especially outside Madrid) is further behind the U.S. today than it was the day I left. The malaise in countries such as France, Germany, Italy, and Spain is not just economic. The public conversation is also more insular and focused on distributional fights over a pie that grows much less than in the past, with many more claimants. While I can listen to dozens of incredibly exciting podcasts in the U.S. about deep learning and technology, most of what one hears in Europe (Luis excepted!) is second-rate. Of course, this is not to say that everything is perfect in the U.S. Far from it. One only needs to ride the subway in Seoul a couple of times to realize that New York City is, on many dimensions, a major underperformer. When I visit New York City, I am not amazed by its prosperity but wonder how much richer it could be with a half-decent government. And California’s policies are a textbook example of how to waste the immense resources of one of the luckiest places on Earth. And Europe still has centuries of beautiful architecture and culinary traditions going for it But, Western Europe, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

I am a former H1B visa holder and US citizen. When I arrived in the US in 2004 with a trekker's backpack, an F1 visa, and $2,000, I had no idea how this country would change my life. Within six years, I was hired by MIT as an Assistant Professor and within ten I had started my own company. The US provided me with a level of opportunity that I doubt I would have seen anywhere else in the world. So let me tell you why I think the US is a perfect complement to foreign talent and why it is in our interest to keep it this way. I moved to the US in 2004 to pursue a PhD in Physics. When I landed, I expected my American classmates to be more advanced than I was in theoretical physics concepts. But I was wrong. I quickly realized that I had taken more graduate level courses than them. Their bachelor education had meandered through multiple topics, while I had been on a 100% physics and math track that helped me test out of graduate courses and move right into research. And that is where the American magic began. Back home, my brief encounters with research focused on making small improvements on well-established problems using sophisticated tools. Many people were competing to show how smart they were by dominating byzantine methods. In the US, I saw many researchers succeed by picking “simple” but relevant problems. That was a perfect complement for my technical background. I felt like Daniel San the moment he figured out the value of waxing all of those cars. I finally was at a place where my skills were useful. America is a land opportunity in big part because it has a fantastic work culture that values things such as relevance, communication, and simplicity. In X, international comparisons of work culture often veer into formal things like maternity leave. But as someone that has worked in a few countries, I am convinced that many subtle things, such as knowing how to take turns during a meeting, or responding to an email quickly, can go a long way. In many countries, work is an overregulated bureaucratic nightmare. American culture can be extremely refreshing for foreigners who know what it means to battle unnecessary processes and rules. But there is more. The US work culture is also open and optimistic. Most countries suffer from “well intentioned” cronyism, where people hire, associate, and promote others based on personal relationships. This certainly happens to some degree in the United States, but less than in other places. That openness, however, is key for providing opportunities for outsiders with more skills than networks. Also, many countries pessimistic work cultures, where people shoot others down as a way to flex their wit. But as Nat Friedman said, “Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.” American can-do attitude is a valuable intangible that is prevalent in the US. Now, to the point of this post, these aspects of American work culture are great complements for skilled foreign workers. Complements that favor America. America’s open work culture, with its emphasis on communication skills and optimism, is amazing for organizing teams. Skilled foreigners perform better in teams with an American work culture than in teams of bureaucratized pessimists that don’t know how to take turns during a meeting. When those surviving in those more hostile work environments move to America, they can unleash their technical skills in relevant problems within optimistic organizational cultures that are rare back home. Whether it is Von Braun and his team moving to Texas, or a brilliant young man or women from Sicily or Jakarta coming to the US for their PhD, America benefits from this complement. The fact that every year we get the first pick on the draft is a key competitive advantage. Sure, we do not always know if the first pick of the draft will turn out great, but getting the first pick of the draft is not something we want to lose. We should double down on what makes America exceptional.