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Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

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11–20 of 166 posts

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#11
It's because they don't need to. Startups often include difficult and intense work environment. For exactly what? Better than average compensation discussion is frowned upon in Germany. There is ramphant latent descrimination against people from other countries. Which German company has a foreign born CEO?

In US, Google and Microsoft have foreign born CEOs.

This is my own experience, so downvoting is only silencing a voice.

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#12

Germans absolutely do tech startups, in fact they’ve been on the forefront of building tech companies that mirror Silicon Valley, but in German. There’s been a German eBay, PayPal and Facebook. Europe doesn’t really do major companies though, and part of that is certainly a lack of demand to go global from capital investors, but there are other parts as well. Like language and regulation. I went to harzen for holiday…

Usually when I go around in Eastern Europe I have an easier way trying to speak German than English.

And in southern Europe I am lucky to be able to speak most languages, as anyone beyond a certain age hardly speaks any word of English, specially outside the major cities.

Which is indeed a challenge, on the other side is also something quite rich, as most traveling Europeans tend to speak fluently three languages on average.

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#13

It's because they don't need to. Startups often include difficult and intense work environment. For exactly what? Better than average compensation discussion is frowned upon in Germany. There is ramphant latent descrimination against people from other countries. Which German company has a foreign born CEO? In US, Google and Microsoft have foreign born CEOs. This is my own experience, so downvoting is only silencing a…

> Startups often include difficult and intense work environment

Compared to the USA? Lol, you have no clue. The standard for a software engineer in SV is to take drugs to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week, pay a fucking high rent living with 4 other people and if he's foreigner and freshly arrived, he has to suck his boss' cock everyday because they might take away his visa sponsorship and put him into troubles.

In Berlin most people I know work less than 8 hours a day, can afford to have their own apartment at their first or second job and save enough money and energy to go travel somewhere every 3 months. Because you know, we have 30 days of holidays per year.

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#14

Germans absolutely do tech startups, in fact they’ve been on the forefront of building tech companies that mirror Silicon Valley, but in German. There’s been a German eBay, PayPal and Facebook. Europe doesn’t really do major companies though, and part of that is certainly a lack of demand to go global from capital investors, but there are other parts as well. Like language and regulation. I went to harzen for holiday…

As a German, I have no idea what you mean by the German eBay and PayPal (Facebook was StudiVZ, I guess, but now it's just Facebook).

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#15
post #9

Has the author not heard of Rocket Internet? Hello Fresh? Zalando? Contentful? SumUp? Wooga? Deepstreamhub? Delivery Hero? N26?

Rocket Internet were just the scumbags that ripped off every US based idea and tried to implement it in Germany. A few "me-too" businesses. Okay.

There are very few big ideas that investors in Germany would pour money into.

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#16
post #12

Germans absolutely do tech startups, in fact they’ve been on the forefront of building tech companies that mirror Silicon Valley, but in German. There’s been a German eBay, PayPal and Facebook. Europe doesn’t really do major companies though, and part of that is certainly a lack of demand to go global from capital investors, but there are other parts as well. Like language and regulation. I went to harzen for holiday…

Usually when I go around in Eastern Europe I have an easier way trying to speak German than English. And in southern Europe I am lucky to be able to speak most languages, as anyone beyond a certain age hardly speaks any word of English, specially outside the major cities. Which is indeed a challenge, on the other side is also something quite rich, as most traveling Europeans tend to speak fluently three languages on…

[deleted]

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#17
post #12

Germans absolutely do tech startups, in fact they’ve been on the forefront of building tech companies that mirror Silicon Valley, but in German. There’s been a German eBay, PayPal and Facebook. Europe doesn’t really do major companies though, and part of that is certainly a lack of demand to go global from capital investors, but there are other parts as well. Like language and regulation. I went to harzen for holiday…

Usually when I go around in Eastern Europe I have an easier way trying to speak German than English. And in southern Europe I am lucky to be able to speak most languages, as anyone beyond a certain age hardly speaks any word of English, specially outside the major cities. Which is indeed a challenge, on the other side is also something quite rich, as most traveling Europeans tend to speak fluently three languages on…

As a southern European I'm very happy about this situation. I don't want my country to be like the Scandinavian countries, the GP summed it up pretty well. Everybody knows English and American culture is literally swallowing the local culture. I'm happy with my language and my culture, thank you.

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#18

We do have tech startups here in Germany, and quite a few of them. It's just that they tend to be funded differently, and with less of the wild valuation-speculation that goes on in the US. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. As a corollary, the article cites European data protection law (in the context of not being able to collect usage data to improve the product) as a barrier to building startups which ... is also ve…

meanwhile there is not a single tech startup from germany worth talking about, but yeah sure not everyone has to do it the SV way of doing things, like actually being successful

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#19

We do have tech startups here in Germany, and quite a few of them. It's just that they tend to be funded differently, and with less of the wild valuation-speculation that goes on in the US. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. As a corollary, the article cites European data protection law (in the context of not being able to collect usage data to improve the product) as a barrier to building startups which ... is also ve…

I’ve lived in Berlin for some years. What I‘ve seen from most of the startup scene there was that people are more collecting memories than building businesses. The predominant mindset was like „we don’t want to take over the world and we will most likely fail anyway“.

The successful ones, like Dubsmash, leave for the US after a while.

If I, as a German, was to create a startup in Europe today, I’d do so in London.

Re: Germans don’t do tech startups – more access to capital might change that

#20

Germans absolutely do tech startups, in fact they’ve been on the forefront of building tech companies that mirror Silicon Valley, but in German. There’s been a German eBay, PayPal and Facebook. Europe doesn’t really do major companies though, and part of that is certainly a lack of demand to go global from capital investors, but there are other parts as well. Like language and regulation. I went to harzen for holiday…

> Except for maybe eBay who couldn’t enter the market.

https://www.ebay.de/

??

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