Wow, timing is everything. I had booked my ticket 2 days ago for Berlin. I am finishing up my time at StartupChile and heading to Berlin after being convinced by many at SUP, that Berlin has many things happening. I needed a high quality affordable city, that was startup friendly and supported my photography addiction. Berlin hopefully will allow me the time to focus and finish my two iOS games.
Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
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Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#92Top 5 reasons why you should move to Berlin, now: 1. Lowest livings costs with highest quality of living. Stay in gorgeous, perfectly renovated apartments in pre-WWII residential buildings with high ceilings, right in the middle of the center and pay a fraction of costs of any other capital (even cheaper than any Eastern European capital). No need for a car—Berlin has one of the densest subway nets and wide streets m…
"In addition, Germany has an amazing social health care system including health, unemployment and pension (when working as an employee)." I am sorry but this is simply wrong. There are social health and pension systems but both of them suck and are horrible broken. If you are under 30 and not nearly dead you should do everything possible to get out of those and take care of your self with private insurances.
It's true that you are better of with the private insurances, but the health care system in Germany is still way better than the one in most other west european countries.
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#93Home for start-up business? Yes. For tech start-ups? I don't think so. I have yet to meet one engineer-driven tech start-up from Berlin. Most founders I met and know are some business guys with oh-so-clever ideas looking for just the right CTO guy to make their plan reality. And most German developers I know also never thought about working for a start-up. They happily flock to every large German company you may know. The previous start-up I worked for had more Spanish developers than German ones.
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#94Wow, timing is everything. I had booked my ticket 2 days ago for Berlin. I am finishing up my time at StartupChile and heading to Berlin after being convinced by many at SUP, that Berlin has many things happening. I needed a high quality affordable city, that was startup friendly and supported my photography addiction. Berlin hopefully will allow me the time to focus and finish my two iOS games.
I'm also finishing StartupChile and 24pfilms is flat-sharing with us in Buenos Aires right now. We're returning to London for a while but Berlin is still on our list (nowhere else in Europe is on our list).
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a US citizen. My take is that if I was still single and not a parent, I would be in Berlin immediately. In some ways, it sounds better than Silicon Valley or New York. Transportation around SV doesn't sound like it's based on public transportation and housing prices are crazy. New York has great public transportation, especially with the addition of water taxies on the East River, but housing is out of control. L…
By the numbers, Germany's public education system is basically identical to that of the US (scoring 525 and 524, respectively). http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou... What makes you believe it's education system is better? Or it's health care system, for that matter?
I'll start with health care.
I'm referring to the overall system and its premise. The problem is that the system is based on employment and the government fills in for certain populations during unemployment.
There are 4 large problems in that simple statement.
One is that employers are even involved in shopping for health care. If I own a company that makes software for the education market, for example, why should I have to know or care about the nuances of health care plans? Why should I have to do periodic cost analyses of plans to see if my company should switch? My business is software. My concerns should be about developing a product, selling it, supporting it, and accurately reporting financials to the government. Health care is out of my expertise and out of scope.
The second issue is that employers are not required to offer health care. We don't see it so much in the IT industry, but health care plans are quite often not offered by employers or, if plans are offered, it's to full time employees only. Effectively, it leaves out people who work part-time out of necessity or choice.
The third issue is knowing when the government will cover you and when it won't. A multitude of programs exist to cover children, but not parents; or, cover children and mothers but not fathers; etc. In some instances, one plan covers you for a certain amount of time during unemployment but then you have to apply for a different plan after the first plan's coverage period expires. This is too complicated. People who don't deal with these issues routinely quite often don't know they're even eligible.
(Ironically, our fear of the government completely managing health care due to its bureaucracy is causing by far more bureaucracy.)
Finally, according to the WHO, the US ranks 37 in the world for system efficiency. I'm sure statistical methodology and data collection accuracy can be questioned. But, we're not talking about being 10 and we think we should be 3. We're 37 . I'm not willing to chalk up such a low ranking to those factors.
Many individual components of our system are really good, e.g. clinicians. The high skill positions we train, we train well. But the system overall is not a healthy one.
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#96Top 5 reasons why you should move to Berlin, now: 1. Lowest livings costs with highest quality of living. Stay in gorgeous, perfectly renovated apartments in pre-WWII residential buildings with high ceilings, right in the middle of the center and pay a fraction of costs of any other capital (even cheaper than any Eastern European capital). No need for a car—Berlin has one of the densest subway nets and wide streets m…
Not everyone speaks English. This might be true in the most touristy areas or in international corporations but it's definitely not the case in cafes, grocery stores etc. So if you move there be prepared to learn a bit of German,
For the most part everything else you mentioned is true. I'm not sure about the work permissions. Berlin is an awesome city overall.
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#97Top 5 reasons why you should move to Berlin, now: 1. Lowest livings costs with highest quality of living. Stay in gorgeous, perfectly renovated apartments in pre-WWII residential buildings with high ceilings, right in the middle of the center and pay a fraction of costs of any other capital (even cheaper than any Eastern European capital). No need for a car—Berlin has one of the densest subway nets and wide streets m…
genuine question: if it's so great and the capital of a rich country, why is it so cheap? (e.g. what you mentioned about apartments in the city center.)
Anyone spent a winter in Berlin? It's incredibly cold. Traveling around the city on bicycle, train etc is great during the pleasant summer months but it's literally painful during the winter.
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#98feel free to drop me a mail if you want to know anything about working at soundcloud. i'm an engineer. rany@soundcloud.com
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#99How is life for non white people? I'm from latin-america.
Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]
#100Top 5 reasons why you should move to Berlin, now: 1. Lowest livings costs with highest quality of living. Stay in gorgeous, perfectly renovated apartments in pre-WWII residential buildings with high ceilings, right in the middle of the center and pay a fraction of costs of any other capital (even cheaper than any Eastern European capital). No need for a car—Berlin has one of the densest subway nets and wide streets m…
Be aware, however, that if you're black you can get killed in Berlin. Lots of Neo-Nazis in the city.