Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany plans €3B in AI investments

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 161 posts

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#131

Post by woodpanel »

chimeracoder wrote: post #123
StreamBright wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The companies in my network (anecdotal evidence) are full with international people. In our office we have nationals from 13 countries. This is the most diverse environment that I have ever seen (including San Francisco). There are some companies however who are hiring strictly Germans, just like with anything else the market will correct these mistakes. This is not the norm but the exception though. I am…

> The companies in my network (anecdotal evidence) are full with international people. In our office we have nationals from 13 countries. This is the most diverse environment that I have ever seen (including San Francisco) I'll probably get downvoted for saying this, but it's important enough that I need to: country of origin is a completely meaningless way to measure diversity. Especially in Europe, where most count…

> Bavaria as a whole, it is incredibly racist

Do you mind stating some sources for that (and no, the conservative party ruling there for the last 70 years doesn't count)?

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#132

Post by tomp »

iagooar wrote: post #109
bitL wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A typical Berlin startup: - hires devs with extremely low salaries - gives 0.004% equity at best - is run by people that are "better than anybody else" - expects constant overtime and 24/7 employee reachability - has managers with issues saying "thank you" - hires friends/family to higher echelons of company Does this sound like a recipe for success?

OK, so let's talk about what we, a Berlin startup that I co-founded, do offer: - fair salaries for the experience and attitude - no equity, because we believe that a fair salary is better than a lottery equity - we don't expect people to work overtime and value work-life balance a lot - we say thank you A LOT - we hire people who are the best fit for the job And since we're talking about this: we're hiring a software…

Thanks for including the actual salary. It annoys me when companies say “extremely competitive compensation” but then you realize it’s like 50k (in London).

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#133

Post by baxtr »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #128
chimeracoder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The companies in my network (anecdotal evidence) are full with international people. In our office we have nationals from 13 countries. This is the most diverse environment that I have ever seen (including San Francisco) I'll probably get downvoted for saying this, but it's important enough that I need to: country of origin is a completely meaningless way to measure diversity. Especially in Europe, where most count…

>Especially in Europe, where most countries are comparable to the size of individual states in the US I understand what you are saying, but having travelled around the US, mostly for business but some for pleasure, there are remarkable and under-appreciated differences among the states. I would go so far as to say that my state, Washington, and its neighboring Canadian province of British Columbia, have more in commo…

People will hate you if you ask for an Alt Bier in Munich...

Seriously, though. I think you make a very strong point, which I’d like to call “resolution effect”. If you look at that something like the US from far away things look petty similar. However, once you zoom in patches appear and suddenly homogenity is replaced by heterogeneity. People tend to forget that easily. Conversely, I never felt more European than during my two years in the States

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#134

Post by obstbraende »

bitL wrote: post #71
obstbraende wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a degenerate organisation. But if we're sharing anecdata: My pay in this Berlin startup is very decent, I have respectable equity and it's a friendly & rational environment. I'm scared of US startup work culture, rather.

I remember one Deep Learning startup in Berlin ran by ex-Googlers that was offering 85k salary, minuscule equity, and expected a Stanford top-graduate with interview that had to demonstrate complete mastery of all Stanford Deep Learning courses and probabilistic graphical models... I hope it's not your employer, you are likely undervaluing yourself 10x otherwise.

You probably need to factor healthcare, rent etc for a fair comparison to, say, the Bay area -- 85k affords a nice upper-upper middle class lifestyle (it scratches the 99th gross income percentile in germany). So 10x sounds like a stretch. What profile would you suggest someone who takes 200-800k € might have? (Tangentially, out of curiosity: Are you in a position to share what the ex-googlers worked on?)

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#135

Post by woodpanel »

gnulinux wrote: post #110
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked as a programmer for 6 years in an EU country, the salaries are pretty reasonable, in the top tier of office workers, below exec level. Maybe it's the US programmers, particularly the ones in Sillicon Valley that are being over - paid? The way I understand it, you can only expect six-figure salaries for working in one of the top companies in SV, and that only if you have graduated from one of the top uni…

Sorry but this is such bullshit. Not only in the Bay Area, but in Seattle, Boston, NYC etc... 6 figures is definitely NOT expected only from FAANGs. Any startup paying less than 90/100k to juniors, 150/200k to seniors won't find any engineers. FAANGs pay 200 to 300k. My graduating class last May had $105k average salary in the Bay Area and for me finding a 6 figure job wasn't even that hard. It's a bit ridiculous to…

I'm sorry, but comparing just the gross pay between EU and US is superficial at best.

(Taking Germany as an example, single, no kids) If you're offered say 100k in Germany - due to heavy tax-burden and social security costs - you will get less than 60k net. But what is hidden from your paycheck is that the company has to double your social security. So in reality you're getting paid 115k.

If you make more than 250k, that means you get an extra slap on the wrist: "wealthy tax" means every € you make above 250k gets taxed at an excessive 45%. Which is why at that kind of pay employees seek out different kinds of compensation schemes. And because of these schemes those people often aren't count in the employment statistics and thus lower the average pay.

On the plus side: From what I hear from European expats in the US, a lot of your high pay gets eaten by having to pay private enterprises for things that are provided by the government in Europe (getting a degree, good schools or kindergartens, healthcare, using the courts/legal system etc).

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#136

Post by sophistication »

rsp1984 wrote: post #25

The problem is not a lack of funds. The problem is bureaucracy and a lack of startup infrastructure. My feeling is that the people in charge have absolutely no effing clue about how to most efficiently deploy this money so they will do what sounds good on paper but will have 0 effect in reality. If it goes how it usually goes the largest part of this money will likely to to universities and other research institution…

From the point of AI safety, slow progress seems to be beneficial.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#137

Post by tluyben2 »

cabraca wrote: post #17
_match wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> When has that ever not worked out in our favor? Would you explain a little more? I'm ignorant about the history of German government investment in IT. But here in America, federal investment has helped ignite new industries. And as a data science engineer, I'd love to see more German code.

"Investments in IT" by the german government means we somehow funnel money to the big companies to make sure they dont fire people. Deutsche Telekom daughter T-Systems decided in september to cut 6000 jobs in germany (10k worldwide) to save 600mio €/year. Now the Government spents 3B on "AI". Coincidence?

T systems. Do not think I have ever worked with people more incompetent than the 'senior consultants' from that place. No surprise it is not going well with them.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#138

Post by tluyben2 »

swift532 wrote: post #6
Isn0gud wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, but I was wondering how an alternative could look like. Probably just giving it to universities to create more and better paid PhD possitions?!

That, and maybe instead of giving the money to a big, inefficient corporation that's going to spend it on low quality bullshit and snake oil, spreading the money along multiple established companies and startups, seeding them all with some money and offering additional incentives for achieving milestones/whatever.

> giving the money to a big, inefficient corporation that's going to spend it on low quality bullshit

Like T systems.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#139

Post by chimeracoder »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #128
chimeracoder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The companies in my network (anecdotal evidence) are full with international people. In our office we have nationals from 13 countries. This is the most diverse environment that I have ever seen (including San Francisco) I'll probably get downvoted for saying this, but it's important enough that I need to: country of origin is a completely meaningless way to measure diversity. Especially in Europe, where most count…

>Especially in Europe, where most countries are comparable to the size of individual states in the US I understand what you are saying, but having travelled around the US, mostly for business but some for pleasure, there are remarkable and under-appreciated differences among the states. I would go so far as to say that my state, Washington, and its neighboring Canadian province of British Columbia, have more in commo…

> Silly case in point - it's been a few years, but you go to Frankfurt and ask for an alt beer, you get served. You ask for an alt beer in Munich, you get funny looks.

If this is what you think is remotely relevant in a conversation about a "diverse environment", I'm not sure what more can be said.

Re: Germany plans €3B in AI investments

#140

Post by jashmatthews »

bitL wrote: post #95
jashmatthews wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

L5 SWE in London is ~US$200k total comp. No, not quite as much as SF, but that's still insane money outside of finance.

£160k/year won't allow you to even buy a family home within 1 hour distance to the office over 10 years that is around maximum you'd spend @ FAANG as a SWE. It's truly pointless to feel good about it even if it is considered "insane money" due to really low London engineering salaries (worse than Munich on average). For the same work you'd likely get 350k CHF in Zurich (and won't be able to buy apartment either as Sw…

Working near a major station like Kings Cross where Google is gives you a really wide area with a sub 1 hour commute. Plenty of commuter towns in that radius have housing easily affordable on half that salary.
Post reply on HN