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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]

#121

Post by nirvana »

_ex_ wrote: post #99

How is life for non white people? I'm from latin-america.

Berlin has the largest turkish population outside of instanbul. They have turkish restaurants everywhere and also grocery stores.

The population is ethnically very diverse, though of course, more middle eastern people than latin american ones.

Germans tend to be proper. So, drinking beer on the subway might be frowned upon, but nobody will comment. If you're obnoxious or noisy or otherwise being a jerk, germans will not be friendly to you. If you're polite, they don't care what you look like. If you've got a chip on your shoulder, you may mistake their coldness, which is really professionalism, for judgement, which it isn't.

Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]

#122

Post by nirvana »

hastur wrote: post #15
cageface wrote: post #9

I enjoyed the time I spent in Berlin last year and I've considered going back there but this seems imprudent with the Euro on the verge of implosion.

That's funny. ;) Some Euro countries (Greece) might be on the verge of implosion, but there's no way the general currency could suffer any significant damage and Germany is the very reason for that. The German economy is among the most powerful in the world and quite frankly you're more likely to experience an economic collapse in the US than in Germany. (Albeit that's pretty unlikely too, obviously. At least for now…

By definition the problems of greece are the problems of germany because they share the same currency. As greece is unable to pay its debts, the only ways to help it are inflationary. Monetary inflation is what drives down the value of currencies, and thus the value of the currency germany uses will be driven down at the same time.

We're in the process of experiencing an economic collapse in the USA, and in Europe right now, and have been since 2008. The thing is, these things start small and people don't understand them until they are well underway... just as people didn't think there was going to be a problem in 2008 back in 2001 when the cause of the collapse started.

Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]

#123

Post by sbouafif »

Any city has its pros and cons. I am currently an intern in a tech start-up in Paris, the city has many co-working spaces / incubators. The start-up scene is bigger every day, and yes you won't speak french 70% of the day.

Anyway just saying the document seems to be a nice post card from Berlin but the same things are happening everywhere.

Last year it was Paris (Wired.com): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt2bHumqDFs

Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]

#125

Post by hfaber »

wickedchicken wrote: post #112
webjunkie wrote: post #93

Home 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…

Ableton? Native Instruments?

They're not startups.

Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]

#126

Post by w1ntermute »

mekwall wrote: post #13
iconfinder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"which no one studies in school" In Denmark we can select German classes in both elementary and high school.

Same goes in Sweden. It's quite easy for us Scandinavians to learn German since our languages are closely related (all except Finnish are Germanic languages). In fact, its the same with English, which is also a Germanic language.

The difference with English is that the more sophisticated vocabulary is Romantic in origin, meaning that if an American wants to advance past a basic level of German proficiency, he'll have to spend a lot of time memorizing words.

Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]

#127

Post by Argorak »

lacosaes0 wrote: post #100
urgeio wrote: post #10

Top 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.

While Neo-Nazis are a problem that is not to be understated, getting killed is uncommon in Germany in general. The last matching statistics I could find were for 2003:

In Germany, the rate of successful murders is 1.0 per 100000 inhabitants: http://www.bka.de/nn_229340/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Publikat... ("vollendete Fälle")

The murder rate in the US is 5.7: http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/06statab/law.pdf

The rate for Berlin is higher, but thats true for American cities as well. So, getting killed in Germany is much more unlikely than getting killed in the US in general.

Also, while any extremist murder is a horrible thing, the rates in Germany are low in general. There is an exhaustive list of right-extremists murders in germany on Wikipedia:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todesopfer_rechtsextremer_Gewal...

In 2012, there is no noted case, but that might be because those are still in court (This list only lists cases where the Judge determined the motivation to be extremist). Ignoring the number, you will find that if you really want to get killed by Nazis, going to Berlin is the worst plan, rates in other parts of Germany are much higher. There are admittedly places where I wouldn't go with black skin color because of fear of aggression, but Berlin and all larger towns are not among those.

Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]

#128

Post by asdkl234890 »

urgeio wrote: post #10

Top 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…

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).

Why is this true? Honest question, how can a great large Western European city cost a fraction of other, even Eastern European cities?

Was there a sudden glut of real estate recently? A lot of people suddenly leaving Berlin? But why would they leave if it so great? I am really puzzled by this.

Re: Is Berlin the new home for tech start-up business? [video]

#130

Post by vitorbal »

urgeio wrote: post #10

Top 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…

How easy is it to get a blue card compared to the old way of getting a work visa for germany? Would you say this is something companies are not going to worry anymore when hiring?
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