Is Europe doomed to watch the United States and China build the future, while contenting itself with the memory of a glorious past? For Hugo Geissmann, this fatalistic view is an insult to European potential. Setting ambition against regulation and innovation against protection is a false choice. Europe has no reason to envy other continents: it has talent, resources, and a vision that could make it a global leader. But first, it must learn to believe in itself and turn its strengths into levers. In this interview, Thiga’s CEO urges the Old Continent to stop being a spectator and become an ambitious player in the 21st century.
As early as 1849, during his opening speech at the International Peace Congress in Paris, Victor Hugo called for the creation of the “United States of Europe.” More than 150 years later, we have to admit that we are still not there. Yes, we’ve made progress; the creation of a common currency was one major step forward and the free movement of people and goods another.. Yes, Europe is home to great literature, history and architecture, but let’s not kid ourselves, in the realm of digital innovation, and economic power, we Europeans are lagging behind.
Just look at where the global giants are concentrated. Where were Amazon, Google, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft born? The United States. Where are the BATX? China. And what are we doing in Europe in the meantime? We admire. We regulate. We comment. But we do not act, at least not enough.
What if we started putting the horse before the cart?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not holding up foreign systems as models. Ultraliberalism? Not for me! It’s clear that the American social model is completely unbalanced, with massive wealth disparities. But when it comes to the ability to build economic heavyweights, it’s no contest.
There’s a cultural element to this, of course. In Europe, and especially in France, entrepreneurial success is less celebrated than elsewhere, more likely to arouse suspicion than admiration. We’re more risk-averse. We like norms, laws—in short, we like everything to be well regulated. We love frameworks, markers, safeguards. It’s part of our DNA. And that’s not inherently a bad thing! But when applied to innovation, it’s a drag. In the U.S., you launch, you learn, then you regulate. Here, we want to regulate before launching. In short, we slam on the brakes before even getting started.
Laws like the Digital Markets Act or the AI Act are emblematic of this reflex. At their core, these regulations are on the right track. They carry a humanist, universalist vision of digital, which we can be proud of. But if they’re not accompanied by investment capacity, industrial vision, and administrative simplification, they risk driving talent away, discouraging founders and leaving innovation to others. In the innovation race, there’s only one winner: second place is already last. So imagine finishing fourth or fifth!
People often ask me: is it possible to build this ambition while staying responsible? The answer is yes. Is it sustainable? Maybe—if we adopt a more coherent, more aligned global vision. But let’s be honest: we’re still far from such consensus. Our European choices—often driven by admirable intentions—weigh little on a global scale where other logics and priorities dominate.
I understand the countries that say to us, “After gorging yourselves for so many years, now you want to regulate everything? No way!” But the truth is we can’t compete with foreign companies in the same market offering nearly identical services at half the price, simply because they are not subject to any of the constraints we’ve imposed on ourselves..While we’re limiting energy use to train your AI models, they’re maximizing raw efficiency without a second thought. The result: a product created with no regard for responsible standards, but more advanced. Michelin CEO Florent Menegaux is right to sound the alarm. It’s impossible to be competitive under these conditions. It’s not just a matter of morals or intentions—it’s an economic reality. And as long as there’s no shared vision at the global level, those doing things the ‘right’ way will always be at a disadvantage.
Let’s seize the AI opportunity!
Does that mean we should give up? Absolutely not! We still have a card to play, because AI has reshuffled the global deck. But where are the massive investments? Where are the industrial bets? We can’t, on the one hand, impose heavy constraints on startups and, on the other, deny them the means to compete globally. At the lower level—infrastructure, chips, foundational models—we’re already outpaced. I don’t believe for a second that we can create a new Nvidia in Europe. That’s simply not our playing field.
However, at the upper level—applications, use cases, applied models—we have the talent andthe ideas. And indeed we have some brilliant companies, such as Mistral AI in France or Lovable in Sweden. We have demonstrated that we can create powerful, ethical, efficient, and sustainable European models. However, we have to stop suffocating them with a maze of administrative and regulatory obstacles. And, above all, we need to start thinking like Europeans.
Europe as a whole is a massive internal market. From an economic space of 60 million people, we jump to a playground of 700 million inhabitants if we include peripheral countries. This is more than the United States. And yet, each country continues to act in silos. Creating a European company today means facing as many tax, social, and legal regimes as there are member states. Want to hire someone in Germany? You need a local office, local accountants, a local lawyer. It’s a nightmare! We call it a “Union,” but there’s nothing unified about it.
I firmly believe that we can take the best of both worlds: American boldness and European balance.
The result: we think small. We think nationally. “I’m starting a company in France. And if it works, I’ll expand to Germany, then Spain.” But never: “I’m starting a company in Europe.” This is especially absurd when one considers that from the outside, we’re all seen as Europeans. An American doesn’t always distinguish between a Portuguese person and a Lithuanian, just as we don’t necessarily differentiate between a Californian and a Texan. There’s an urgent need to create a European company status, with harmonized rules. And it’s possible. The United States does it. Although each state has its local differences and rules, they share a common framework. We must create this framework! Together, we can carry weight. Divided, we’re insignificant.
Creating European champions
At Thiga, we don’t just want to support companies; we want to help them build a European ambition, to accelerate taking things to the next level. We have one goal: to create champions capable of playing on the same field as American or Asian giants. So let’s be clear about what a champion is. A European champion isn’t a company making revenue in three European capitals, it’s one that is also recognized in New York, Shanghai, São Paulo— such as LVMH, Michelin, or Schneider. That’s where we want to take the companies with whom we work. In short, we want to play the role of catalyst.
I stand by it: at Thiga, we think on a continental scale in our vision, our teams and our way of working. We want to be able to operate across all of Europe, capable of understanding local specificities and juggling the economic realities of each country. We’re convinced that it’s possible to combine ambition and responsibility and to move fast, without abandoning our values. I firmly believe that we can take the best of both worlds: American boldness and European balance.
I say this half-jokingly, but it’s not entirely absurd to say that Donald Trump almost deserves the Charlemagne Prize. Why? Because he may have given Europe the wake-up call it’s been needing for decades. He showed us what happens when America retreats, hardens, and abandons multilateralism. It’s now clear that Europe cannot depend on the United States forever. It’s impossible to base our strategic future on such an unstable partner! We need to build something solid here, for ourselves.
Now is the right time to make this change. For my generation, working in the U.S. was the ultimate dream. Today, the Silicon Valley fantasy is starting to fade. We’re realizing that Europe offers great conditions to build and grow. But it has to catch on. And for that, we need a vision, a stable environment. This is something that we still lack: we go from one election to the next and one government to another. This political instability leads to economic stagnation, because without vision, you stand still. An entrepreneur doesn’t think in three-month cycles. They think in five, ten, twenty years. When you invest in a production site, it’s for a generation, not an election cycle.
But let us be careful: if Trump disappears and a more moderate Democratic government returns, we must not fall back into our slumber. Let’s set a common vision and stick to it! Ultimately, what matters is not what others do, it’s what we decide to do ourselves. In the end, I share Victor Hugo’s belief. Like him, I don’t believe in a future for Europe as just a collection of countries. Call it the United States of Europe or the European Union—it doesn’t matter. The conviction remains the same. And at Thiga, we fully intend to defend it.
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