Mistral is doing one more thing: building up local know-how in the European ecosystem. This is worth more than money, you can't bootstrap an industry overnight.
There are a bunch of Europeans working in the top labs abroad. We do not lack any know how, we only lack the raw amount of capital invested in doing private research, since our companies cannot thrive and compete globally due to regulations. Mistral would be much bigger if it was founded in the US.
Or it would be gone. Or it would be in the hands of psychopaths. Europe trades off the extremes for a better middle. It doesn't produce quite as many big names, but US and EU economies are roughly the same size.
Ah, interesting I always thought USA’s GDP far ahead, but it’s not. Compared to EU it’s 20 vs. 30 trillions/y. Adding Switzerland, UK, etc. and it’s close.
According to wikipedia, EU has a 23 trillion GDP (30 trillion PPP) and 451 million people, making ~51k GDP per person (67k PPP).
US is at 32 trillion GDP and same PPP for 342 million people - 94k per person
