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How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

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Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#691

Post by slowmotiony »

Loveaway wrote: post #288
whalesalad wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the redeeming qualities of Germany?

Orderly, rational people. Hard working, rich country, despite no natural wealth. No cutting corners, one of the reasons bureaucracy is so horrid. You are expected to have your shit together, still people are as lenient as they can be. Things work, you can trust people. Low crime, clean streets. Good sense of morality. Country is capable of much more, still holds itself back a lot, preference in humbleness. Things are…

> clean streets

There's junkies fighting for crack in their underwear in minus degree weather right in the center of Frankfurt, shit and needles everywhere all around hauptbahnhof, come on.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#692

Post by thsksbd »

moomoo11 wrote: post #323
thsksbd wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If foreigners are in of the hated groups, my personally lived experience serves a counter point. During my naturalization I was caught by surprise by how quickly my application had been handled. The agent giving me the exam winked and said: "it's election season". Whatever that means.

Are you highly educated? My father has only a certificate and no degree or anything like that. It took him 20 years to get citizenship. We came 3 years after he come here and we all became citizens together. My friends whose parents were doctors or had masters degree would get their GC and citizenships in like 5 years.

You're conflating things. GC is different (albeit necessary) from naturalization. I clearly said my citizenship took 6 months. My GC took 6 or 8 years and I got it through my wife.

For those 6 to 8 years I had a student visa then an H1B. Despite having a PhD in the top US program in my field from a top five school.

My wife got her GC through the lottery before she finished university (ie w/ a HS diploma) with 0 years living in the US

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#693

Post by Baguette5242 »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #553
Baguette5242 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in France, in China and now in Germany. I would say that somehow, France and Germany are quite similar, it's just that one suck more than another on specific areas and vice-versa. The net salary is somehow higher in Germany but the amount of subsidies you can get from the state is lower also so it's pretty much the same. I prefer the decentralized aspect of Germany (unlike France where everything is just cent…

China has 0.07%, France 10.3%, and Germany 18% immigrants. It's obvious how this explains the difference and why no lessons can be learned from Chinese bureaucracy about how to deal with immigrants.

Exactly what I was referring to in my previous post:

_I am tired of the pretentious western europe politics/administration point of view that immediately ranks everything (including good ideas) coming from Asia/global South as "not transposable to Europe" or just "not as good as our ways"._

Did you live in China as an immigrant, did you settle down there for several years, did you have to go through their immigration process ?

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#694

Post by usr1106 »

anewhnaccount2 wrote: post #471
usr1106 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with both German and Finnish bureaucracy. German bureaucracy is (in)famous for paperwork and using faxes. Citizens/residents have no unique identifier (more and more weakened recently) and need to present documentation for everything. If you have no paper birth certificate you are not born... Finland has had much higher digitalization for decades. You have a person number and authorities store everythin…

The degradation comes from waves of austerity politics by right wing governments. These services are expensive and require staff to keep things going. Austerity ideology dictates that there simply must be inefficiency in public services, and cuts are the cure to this disease since this will cause the public sector to "make do and mend" and end up running more efficiently, rather than having a knock on effect and decr…

> The degradation comes from waves of austerity politics by right wing governments.

There was a right wing government in Finland before 2019 and there is a more far-right wing government since last year.

I don't like either of them for their politics, but I cannot see how they could be blamed for authorities getting increasingly dysfunctional. They have not done anything like fired 50% or even 20% of the employees.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#695

Post by zarzavat »

rtpg wrote: post #368
nicbou wrote: post #114

I document German bureaucracy for a living,[0] and everything is like that. Every life event - immigrating, getting a job, getting married, having a child, buying a car - is mired in slow, paper-based bureaucracy. It is a constant, significant impediment to life in the country. Just last week, I was telling people that the best way to get married in Germany is to get married in Denmark. I cannot overstate how terribl…

I got married in Japan so was curious about the differences. The two differences seem to be needing to schedule an appointment and needing proof of income. Doesn’t seem really much worse than most countries (tho I can get Denmark being easier) I do place some blame on embassies not issuing documents in local languages. I’m not asking for proof I’m not married for fun! Extremely unhelpful, tho a good job generator for…

The common law jurisdictions are simply more honest. If German requirements force people to marry in Denmark, and registering a foreign marriage in Germany takes 4 years to process (the actual waiting time in Berlin), then Germany doesn’t know if someone is married either. They are just more willing to pretend that they do.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#696

Post by beAbU »

miningape wrote: post #563
beAbU wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all it's many many faults, I have to say I'm sometimes surprised by how efficient some South African bureaucratic state organs function. To get a renewed passport is a 5 minute online form, electronic payment, and then a 30 minute appointment at a local bank branch to get biometrics taken. Then about 1-2 weeks later you can go and pick up your new passport. Driving license not much different. For most people, pay…

This is interesting because I have the exact opposite experience. I'm a South African but I live in the EU, for me, I need to book my new passport 1 year+ in advance of it expiring because it takes on average about that long (if I pay the bribes).

I was thinking about exactly this was I was writing my original post.

I'm currently also an expat living in the EU. The common sentiment from a lot of other South Africans here is to go back to SA for a 2 week holiday to get your passport. Apparently dealing with anything home-affairs related via your local embassy is a total shitshow. People have been waiting years for birth certificates for new babies and such.

It seems that the intersection between Home Affairs and International Relations (embassies) is in total shambles.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#697

Post by callalex »

emmelaich wrote: post #320
callalex wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a USA perspective, I find that usually when a bureaucratic process is hopelessly broken, it is because a small portion of the population actively hates the people that would benefit from the process and want to harm them. However they cannot legally or popularly discriminate against them so instead they destroy the processes that benefit the hated group. Do you get that impression where you are too?

I love this comment because it's such a Rorschach blot, to be read any way you want. To properly read this in your intended meaning, do we need to find the political and ethnic makeup of the immigration department? Or society at large?

I wasn’t even speaking specifically to immigration, but I can understand why everyone thought that because of who I replied to.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#698

Post by tonis2 »

Beijinger wrote: post #569
lifestyleguru wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT in general is stuck in blind valley and doesn't make anything easier anymore with its aggressive outsourcing and profit extraction. The only systems which go quickly and efficiently are those against the interests of an average citizen - e.g. the covid certification apps determining and limiting basic citizen rights. Oftentimes I prefer to show up in person with ID and fetch a printout with confirmation, than to i…

Biggest problem: Germans don't understand digitization. They often try to recreate the paper process with IT, instead of making a complete new setup. Example: Previously, you had to go to the City Hall or whatever in your pace of birth to get a birth certificate. Now you can email them, pay, and they mail you the certificate via snail mail. How it should be: Use an online token, log into your account, request a birth…

Yeah, I worked in a German startup for 2 years, managers were running it like we were manufacutring cars.

Lots of decision's, made no sense in software development.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#699

Post by malthaus »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #568
duggan wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can deal with the world either how you wish it were, or how it is. The reality is that bureaucracies are full of humans – and we all know how humans are.

Everything is full of humans, but private companies with terrible processes workers would usually have consequences that demand some change. Government services have no competition sos they are exempt from consequences if they're terrible.

ah - i see you've never dealt with vodafone germany customer support then

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#700

Post by tietjens »

egorfine wrote: post #647
gambiting wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm, no - when did you try travelling last? I just crossed the border to Germany from Poland(both ways) and there is nothing there. And before that I drove over in January and there was a huge queue because of "checkpoints to combat illegal immigration" and that checkpoint was just a bunch of border guards standing there looking at cars passing by, they weren't checking passports or much of anything really, it's all…

About five days ago, Szczecin → Berlin, stopped, had my documents meticulously examined and asked some typical questions I haven't been asked for a decade ("What's your proof of residence", etc). I look like a typical WASP programmer in his forties, so no selection bias or something.

What counts as proof of residence in this case? Asking so I could prepare.
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