Everyone from my country (NL) has a safety net to start with (you can screw up but still) and that goes for many EU countries anyway and yet all the entrepreneurs I know from NL are extremely risk averse compared to the US ones. Most of my NL friends are entrepreneurs but more of the lifestyle kind than even wanting to become the #1 in their field with the monetary status that comes with it. I dare to say that I only know Chinese and US entrepreneurs that look beyond getting more than few million on their account and that is it.
One idea I have: In these countries you don't really need that much more because you're already cushioned against risk. You also don't need to provide a cushion to anyone around you (since everyone's taxes are already doing that). Which means, below you is not the gaping abyss but a shrub that is a little bit thorny.
I've often wondered about this. I wonder how much is a cultural mindset. In other words, is the U.S.'s relatively risk tolerant stance an artifact that many U.S. citizens are the progeny of people willing to take risks to start out as an immigrant in an unknown land and has that artifact become part of the collective mindset? Or possibly does the slow morphine drip of a safety net make one perceive all risks as something to avoid as opposed to a calculated risk? Or is all this based on a nonsense notion of American exceptionalism?
I wonder why that is.