competition economist, optimist, trail runner // tech & policy // building the future of travel @bookingcom // #ForçaBarça & #SVB04 // my opinions

🇪🇺 Amsterdam (mostly)
Joined February 2012
Ben Schroeter retweeted
The riots in France and the anti-Israel protests in the U.S. are part of the same movement. @WSJFreeEx:
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Plus the one moat that has made and maintained more American fortunes than any technical innovation: regulatory capture.
Technical moats are mostly over at this point. If you’re building something that is meant to be durable, the only moats now are: • Proprietary data • Network effects • A physical component
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Mistral leaning in on sovereign AI marketing.
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“The EU cannot close the competitiveness gap without deeper and different reforms than those currently under consideration. Brussels needs to reverse course and rethink its onerous technology regulations.”
The European Union’s technology regulations are inadvertently stymying competitiveness and innovation, argues @amcafee. How can Brussels revive the European economy? foreignaffairs.com/europe/eu…
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Adding one datapoint: Half of EU tech regulations were proposed in the last five years.
Some data we recently assembled on entrepreneurship/compute in Europe: eudata.vercel.app. We hope that one of the useful roles that Stripe can play is in collecting and publishing empirical data pertaining to entrepreneurship and industry in Europe. There's growing appetite to get Europe on a better footing, and cross-sectional comparisons can often shine light on where opportunities lie. If you're interested in this kind of thing, we publish more at stripeeconomics.substack.com.
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Ben Schroeter retweeted
Die Rechtsgrundlage ist die Binnenmarktkompetenz, Art. 114 AEUV (COM(2026)599) - der Grundsatz der begrenzten Einzelermächtigung (Art. 5 I EUV) ist nur noch ein blasser Erinnerungsort. housing.ec.europa.eu/documen…
Seit wann liegt dies im Kompetenzbereich der EU?
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Europe will be a safe haven. We don't allow AI here.
I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
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Ben Schroeter retweeted
Die demokratisch nur recht indirekt und schwach legitimierte EU-Kommission will den Kommunen Europas stärker diktieren, was sie tun dürfen und was nicht. Kompletter Irrsinn!
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Dutch government take notice #Box3
Taxes on wealth or unrealized capital gains are a bad idea. Not just because of all the well-known implementation issues. But also in theory. Our paper, now forthcoming in Econometrica:
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The EU's Affordable Housing Act just dropped. It allows for significant restriction of property rights, including property acquisition, in areas of housing stress. This represents a massive usurpation of power from EU countries to the EU level.
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The future is here. It‘s just unevenly distributed.
The future has arrived in Austin
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Ben Schroeter retweeted
I am currently in downtown Austin. There are @Tesla Cybercabs EVERYWHERE. All of the Cybercabs in these clips have no steering wheels or pedals. Makes the vibe downtown feel so futuristic. Can’t wait for tomorrow! 🤖
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Finally the IMF is speaking out against regulations that impede growth
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Ben Schroeter retweeted
Phenomenal chart of LinkedIn profile retrospective-edits
People are going into their previous job descriptions on Linkedin and adding "A.I." while removing "D.E.I." and "remote work." nber.org/papers/w35546
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Ben Schroeter retweeted
Can housing policy overcome folk economic errors? Housing advocates have won policy change. But the public doesn't believe that more supply lowers prices & instead wants supplier crackdowns New #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with Chris Elmendorf niskanencenter.org/can-housi…
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Regression to the mean.
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Should Europeans now complain about the FTC weaponizing antitrust?
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Ben Schroeter retweeted
However well intentioned, the anti-AfD Brandmauer policy has begun to warp German politics out of recognition. It may be too late to fix the damage. My essay in @TheEconomist How the firewall broke German politics economist.com/europe/2026/08… – at Berlin, Germany
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