While everyone, including me, is bashing European bureaucracy and tendencies towards statism, there are a lot of examples of hugely successful and transformative European companies started by real entrepeneurs:

RyanAir & EasyJet: These completely transformed the European airline industry in a very disruptive way. The old "flag carriers" are dying off one after the other, and I'm pretty sure I speak for us all when I say "good riddance" to that. Now we just need to get rid of the state monopolies on rail transport (which is coming soon), and we're going to see the same sort of transformation on high-speed and conventional rail.

Free.fr: Unfortunately only in France for the moment, this ISP is what every ISP should strive towards: Low prices, good service, lots of features, etc. If you ever wish your ISP would just do or change <something>, Free has already done that and more, including standing up to Sarko's ridiculous Hadopi law.

Skype: Was started in Europe and has and still is transforming the telecom industry along with other companies providing VOIP services.

As an addendum to this comment I just want to say how much it frustrates me that there aren't more companies like these in Europe. These are shining examples of what we could achieve if our mindset was a little different. There is huge potential for disruptive business in Europe, but no-one's taking advantage of it.

While the article exaggerates some points, there is a cultural difference between Europe and America when it comes to these things. As someone who was born and has lived most of my life in Europe I'm well familiar with how the "system" works and how people think, and it frustrates me. While there of course are lots of individuals in Europe with an entrepreneurial mindset, the vast majority still relies too much on the states and their bureaucracies. It's not so much the governments' fault as it is everyone's. When noone steps up to do the job, the state has to do it for them.

Which European countries have you lived in?

Despite what you may believe (or want to believe) that's not completely true. Europeans tend to exaggerate internal differences to an extreme and are not able to see the big picture. There exists a culture that is uniquely European as opposed to American, or Chinese. For example, when Americans talk about European tendencies towards bureaucracy they're right, and it's something that affects all of Europe (yes, that includes you, "but we're not like all you continental types" UK). Ironically, this narrowmindedness ("we're not all the same") is a feature of said European culture.

Yeah, the countries don't have nearly as much in common as US states, of course, but the longer you spend in "Europe" (whichever countries you pick, it seems to me), the more subtle but serious differences to the US you notice... that seem fairly cross-cultural within Europe.

I haven't been anywhere that reminded me of the US' typical daily grind.

As others have pointed out, if you take away the oil, Norway's economy is crap. The infrastructure sucks, there aren't really any other industries to speak of, taxes are very high and the incentives for someone to start a business there are appallingly low.