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'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

theguardian.com

141–150 of 184 posts

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#141
post #9

I think Berlins "Poor but happy" times are fast coming to an end. Rents have been rising quickly the last few years and tech companies and startups becoming more prevalent. Heck, Neukölln went from being a cheap alternative to being as trendy and expensive as Kreuzberg. Berlin kinda, from what I understand, enjoyed it's special culture much because it wasn't an industrial city and lacked an large international airpor…

> Mark my words, Berlin will be Europe's Silicon Valley within a few years.

Reminds me of this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e22vY4CWpEI

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#142
post #132
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about "language" isn't convincing to me, as everyone speaks English in the IT sector anyway. And what sort of "xenophobia" are you referring to?

Many of the East European countries are not very open and friendly to foreigners. Speak Poland, Czech Republic for example. Travel there and see for yourself. Sometimes it is country specific (e.g. Russians and Germans in Poland) or Ethnic specific (Say Hungary and Poland) or sometimes they hate everyone (speak Czech republic). Travel there to see yourself. Try to bring a foreign looking girl friend. Enjoy. People in…

Czech Republic sort of has a reason for that.

They got ripped off after the cold war/ the wall fell - most of the countrys assets (land/buildings) beeing sold of to western investors for cheap.

Ironically that is what makes them so good at tech now- if all you got is your head and your skils and no investments to sit on, that blad will be sharp.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I would be happy to have higher salaries here, they are not really comparable to the US. Here you have a social system (free education, public health insurance) and work way less (hardly 8 hours a day, 25-30 days vacation as normal, etc.). For European standards salaries here are actually rather decent. With the current rent situation, I hope though they rise to the standards of the more affluent German south.

Let’s say you can make €45k in Berlin. Let’s say you can make €90k in the US. “Free” education costs roughly €45k per year. In the US, 2-3 weeks of vacation is normal (for tech jobs,) so let’s say in Germany, you get an additional week. Let’s now say that US workers work an extra 200 hours per year. So “free” education plus an additional week off plus 200 annual hours of less work. Costing €45k per year. In a work we…

>In the US, 2-3 weeks of vacation is normal (for tech jobs,) so let’s say in Germany, you get an additional week

Are you expected to take those 2-3 weeks? Is your time away actually respected? I'm sure for some it is, but I don't believe that to be universal.

>a great place to live, but in pure economic terms, you are definitely worse off by comparison to a similar job in the US.

Economic comparisons like this hardly capture all that accounts for the differences between these two scenarios. Work culture, quality of life, personal fulfillment, etc. This purely monetary estimation can be informative, but, it is only part of the story.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#144
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest to Silicon Valley is London, however salaries there are pitiful. By the time Europe has any attempt to actually create an extremely well-paid bleeding-edge tech hub, that tech will be already in consolidation phase... Dream on.

contractor salaries in london are sweet!

Same in Berlin.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#145
post #120
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly speaking, Tallinn is a boring place. Might be good for business but I don't see it as attractive for people willing to move, maybe in the short-term for a job but it's not a place I'd see many settling in. Go visit it anyway, that's, of course, just my impression, but even living in Stockholm (a place I consider a bit boring for my standards of big city life) I found Tallinn very very dull.

Tallinn is massively more fun than Helsinki

Haha, that I really can't disagree with.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I would be happy to have higher salaries here, they are not really comparable to the US. Here you have a social system (free education, public health insurance) and work way less (hardly 8 hours a day, 25-30 days vacation as normal, etc.). For European standards salaries here are actually rather decent. With the current rent situation, I hope though they rise to the standards of the more affluent German south.

Let’s say you can make €45k in Berlin. Let’s say you can make €90k in the US. “Free” education costs roughly €45k per year. In the US, 2-3 weeks of vacation is normal (for tech jobs,) so let’s say in Germany, you get an additional week. Let’s now say that US workers work an extra 200 hours per year. So “free” education plus an additional week off plus 200 annual hours of less work. Costing €45k per year. In a work we…

I complain about low salaries for permanent positions all the time, but you can definitely do better than 45k. A programmer with a few years of experience should be able to get 60-75k without too much trouble.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way. Europe's Silicon Valley will establish in Eastern Europe, where living is cheaper and governments are more willing to ease up on regulations to accomodate the flexible start-up employer-employee relationships. Warsaw, Sophia, Tallinn, those are the spots to keep an eye out for.

I really think none of these places (including Berlin) will be the Silicon Valley of Europe just because the salaries are too low. Why would talent leave elsewhere to go to eastern Europe and earn significantly less?

>Why would talent leave elsewhere to go to eastern Europe and earn significantly less?

I hope that whatever emerges in Europe is nothing but unattractive to Americans. The idea of Americans, particularly Bay Area techies who've already ruined a number of cities in that area, up and moving to Europe is utterly horrendous, as a European.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#148
post #132
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about "language" isn't convincing to me, as everyone speaks English in the IT sector anyway. And what sort of "xenophobia" are you referring to?

Many of the East European countries are not very open and friendly to foreigners. Speak Poland, Czech Republic for example. Travel there and see for yourself. Sometimes it is country specific (e.g. Russians and Germans in Poland) or Ethnic specific (Say Hungary and Poland) or sometimes they hate everyone (speak Czech republic). Travel there to see yourself. Try to bring a foreign looking girl friend. Enjoy. People in…

In the Czech Republic, people are certainly more reserved and less outwardly cheerful than in the US, but it's got nothing to do with xenophobia. You won't have any issues making friends as a foreigner, just because people smile less and strangers don't instantly treat you as their best friend does not mean they hate you.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I would be happy to have higher salaries here, they are not really comparable to the US. Here you have a social system (free education, public health insurance) and work way less (hardly 8 hours a day, 25-30 days vacation as normal, etc.). For European standards salaries here are actually rather decent. With the current rent situation, I hope though they rise to the standards of the more affluent German south.

Let’s say you can make €45k in Berlin. Let’s say you can make €90k in the US. “Free” education costs roughly €45k per year. In the US, 2-3 weeks of vacation is normal (for tech jobs,) so let’s say in Germany, you get an additional week. Let’s now say that US workers work an extra 200 hours per year. So “free” education plus an additional week off plus 200 annual hours of less work. Costing €45k per year. In a work we…

Depending on where you are in Germany you can get 30 days off per year, and on the low side is 25 days. Anything lower isn’t worth considering. So it’s not 1 more week, it’s at least 5-6 weeks of vacation per year, double what you might get in the states, on top of which is fully respected (no one would care if you take 1 consecutive month, even if you are a CEO). In the states you have to sometimes fight for your vacation even if it’s in your contract because of the work culture.

I would say you could make, before taxes, $100k per year in San Francisco with solid 2-3 years of experience, whereas in Berlin it’s around €60k average. On top of that if you’re talking about the whole of the US it’s wildly different between Cleveland and San Francisco, so your comparison isn’t really fair. 100k in SF is not great, 100k in Cleveland is. So your math doesn’t really work here, unless you compare directly two cities and also compare taxes.

Re: 'Google go home': the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant

#150
post #9

I think Berlins "Poor but happy" times are fast coming to an end. Rents have been rising quickly the last few years and tech companies and startups becoming more prevalent. Heck, Neukölln went from being a cheap alternative to being as trendy and expensive as Kreuzberg. Berlin kinda, from what I understand, enjoyed it's special culture much because it wasn't an industrial city and lacked an large international airpor…

No way. Europe's Silicon Valley will establish in Eastern Europe, where living is cheaper and governments are more willing to ease up on regulations to accomodate the flexible start-up employer-employee relationships. Warsaw, Sophia, Tallinn, those are the spots to keep an eye out for.

I usually don't like phrases like "Europe's Silicon Valley" or "Venice of the North". As much as they can be informative in some respects, such comparisons obscure and brush over the specificities of the things in question. It makes more sense to talk about the emergence of a strong tech sector in general terms and as one component of a healthy economy.

Having said that, there is reason to think that the region in question will become Europe's most dynamic and technologically powerful, in particular Poland, because of a number of coinciding factors, such as entrepreneurial spirit lacking in Germany and west of it, geopolitical necessity and historical precedent.

The geopolitical angle is quite interesting. Poland and the other countries sandwiched between Germany and Russia are situated on a geopolitical fault line that demands that these countries cooperate out of mutual interest. Economic strength becomes one pillar in maintaining not just a materially comfortable existence but a matter of existential importance and of independence. That's a pretty strong motivator given the history of the region. On top of that, the United States has a geopolitical interest in the region's strength. We know from analogous cases that American interest of this kind has usually contributed positively to regional and thus economic strength. And from recent developments vis-a-vis the Three Seas Initiative, we are witnessing a formal recognition of the necessity of regional strength by the countries in that region. In fact, the recent brouhaha in the European Commission over Poland is, when interpreted synoptically, a telltale sign of the country's rising importance.

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