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EU AI Businesses Software

Dutch Software Firm Bird To Leave Europe Due To Onerous Regulations (reuters.com) 33

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Cloud communications software firm Bird, one of the Netherlands' most prominent tech startups, plans to move most of its operations out of Europe, its CEO said, citing restrictive regulations and difficulties hiring skilled technology workers. "We are mostly leaving Europe as it lacks the environment we need to innovate in an AI-first era of technology," CEO Robert Vis told Reuters on Monday. "We foresee that regulations in Europe will block true innovation in a global economy moving extremely fast to AI," he said in a text message response to Reuters queries.

Bird's operations in future will be mostly split between New York, Singapore and Dubai, he said. Vis first announced the move abroad in a LinkedIn post over the weekend. Bird, formerly known as Message Bird, was founded in Amsterdam in 2011. It is a competitor of U.S.-based Twilio in the market for helping companies manage their communications with consumers across digital mediums such as messaging, email and video apps. It says it has developed an AI-powered platform that automates and streamlines business operations across entire organizations including tech leaders.

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Dutch Software Firm Bird To Leave Europe Due To Onerous Regulations

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  • 2 stories (Score:5, Funny)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday February 24, 2025 @07:42PM (#65192695)

    I get duping big news, but running 2 stories about a company no one has heard of with 360 employees world wide which just went through a downsizing and renaming last year and are now chasing buzzwords to try and stay relevant is a bit much.

    And yeah I know about them because I looked them up last time the story ran.

    My cat did a poo just now, should we post that story here too?

    • by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Monday February 24, 2025 @07:49PM (#65192705) Homepage

      Twice. Because we know a poo is number 2.

    • My cat did a poo just now, should we post that story here too?

      Was it an AI poo, or a cryptopoo? Because otherwise you're not getting your story submission accepted.

    • My strong suspicion is that the mods here have regular sock puppet accounts they browse with. They see the debate about the EU losing it's technical edge and ceding ground to both the US and China. They see the strong cognitive dissonance that the "europe stands for censorship, regulation, and technical decline" has on the site. They don't get many comments anymore on technical stories because they ran off most of the technical folks years ago. So, they go for divisive shit-flinging political clickbait.
      • My strong suspicion is that the mods here have regular sock puppet accounts they browse with. They see the debate about the EU losing it's technical edge and ceding ground to both the US and China. They see the strong cognitive dissonance that the "europe stands for censorship, regulation, and technical decline" has on the site. They don't get many comments anymore on technical stories because they ran off most of the technical folks years ago. So, they go for divisive shit-flinging political clickbait.

        My strong suspicion is that the mods here have regular sock puppet accounts they browse with.

        Never attribute to malice what can better be attributed to stupidity. Your UID is very high so you're probably new here. A history lesson: Dupes on Slashdot have been a thing of legend since its inception. As is the poor job moderators do.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      I pooped too many times earlier today thanks to my IBS. :P

    • by Njovich ( 553857 )

      Yes but the story fits the narrative so well!

  • They're not only leaving... they're leaving TWICE!

  • This is definitely spam.

    • I believe the gentle, sensitive new-agey way to callthis is "Slashvertisement."

      I'll also accept "complete and utter failure at editing."

      • by ebunga ( 95613 )

        I guess the slashdot editors are taking the google approach of letting the site run without anyone at the helm, just autopost everything.

      • Could it be a glitch in the Matrix? Maybe they changed something (not Slashdot's editing practices though).

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      TFA: "in the market for helping companies manage their communications with consumers across digital mediums such as messaging, email and video apps."

      Isn't that PHB-speak for spamming?

      If so, they deserve the EU boot. EU should help them pack.

  • Disclaimer: Dutch here. First, I might not've been completely up to date, but this startup, I've never heard of them (while I work for national government and plenty of medium or bigger companies), so I guess that big of a startup they're not. Second, if you process data which can be linked to a person, company or a combination of both, and if you're working for any governmental entity, you are required to enlist your actions at the newly formed national register for algorithms, AI and machine learning in
  • """We are mostly leaving Europe as it lacks the environment we need to innovate in an AI-first era of technology"""

    I'm thinking that this is not the flex they think it is, and that the EU dodged a bullet on this one

  • Thatâ(TM)s what Iâ(TM)m hearing here
  • by pele ( 151312 )

    So you'll be INNOVATING in Dubai???
    Last time I checked Dubai had this new tech innovation called Talabat - you can order a nice shawarma from the comfort of your home and it arrives in half an hour!
    You can also get a taxi with Kareem. Real innovative.
    You sure your move has nothing to do with taxes because on 550mill in sales you managed 3% profit so you're trying to squeeze out every last drop?

  • Please get an AI to edit this site.
  • Well, if you move outside of europe to circumvent these regulations, you'll also loose a lot of current business, as a lot of dutch companies require the data to be held on, at least, EU servers. So if Bird wants to keep those customers, they still need to adhere to local regulations.

  • Let me guess, they wanted to "innovate" by gobbling up a bunch of private and personal data to feed into some AI, and just having piss poor data protection practices. And those meanies in the EU said there were laws against that. Good riddance then.

  • ... to avoid taxes. Bird gets the bird from me.

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