> I think that folks overseas aren't as capable of communicating with Americans as other Americans are.

This is sortof absurd on the face of it. For context, I'm a European who's been working for US based companies for well over a decade now, and rarely do I have communications issues (and they're generally with non-native English speakers, mostly Europeans living in the US).

> I think that American tech companies would prefer a motivated at-will employee at 3x the cost of an unfirable European with a statutory month off every year.

It's important to note that not all Europeans are unfireable. In fact, none of them are, it's just that you need to 1) give a verbal warning, 2) give a written warning and 3) fire them if things don't improve. Granted, you can't fire them for not laughing at your jokes but the same sort of process gets followed in California where most US tech companies are headquatered.

> I think that none of this will magically make it easier to raise money outside the US.

This is the actual reason. There's so much capital available in the US that it sucks in a lot of ambitious people.

> There are obviously plenty of brilliant people outside the US. Unfortunately, intelligence is not the only factor that revenue per employee emerges from - or else the US would not dominate the tech sector and it would be uncommon to find remote-first companies based entirely in the US.

In fact, it's normally easier to get a better person outside the US, as they have less options at big-tech level wages. The US dominates the tech sector because of availablity of capital, not availability of talent.

In order to fire a German employee outside of their multiple month trial period they have to commit a crime or willfully ignore instructions, or the company must be in financial trouble due to outside circumstances. Underperforming is not a legal reason to fire somebody.

> This is sortof absurd on the face of it. For context, I'm a European who's been working for US based companies for well over a decade now, and rarely do I have communications issues (and they're generally with non-native English speakers, mostly Europeans living in the US).

You might have excellent fluency, but my experience is that it varies a lot depending on the person.

> Granted, you can't fire them for not laughing at your jokes but the same sort of process gets followed in California where most US tech companies are headquatered.

I think this is underselling the degree of employment protection in Europe, but I will freely admit I'm not an expert.

> In fact, it's normally easier to get a better person outside the US, as they have less options at big-tech level wages. The US dominates the tech sector because of availablity of capital, not availability of talent.

But "better person" here doesn't mean smarter - it means a more effective employee. Working in a very different timezone, language barriers, and culture differences make that an uphill battle, which is why offshoring hasn't exploded.

Yeah, the magical American is the reason for US tech dominance. There's a reason why the biggest software companies come from big countries:

1. large internal markets provide more funding and more competition at the start

2. which leads to better product-market fit

3. which leads to more dominance as the natural software monopolies happen

4. which leads to easier taking over of smaller foreign markets

Biggest software companies? American and Chinese. Also Indian ones are starting to rise, too.

In comparison Europe is super fractured. Ignoring big US companies, the average French person buys stuff from a totally different website than the average German, for almost category you can imagine.