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Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

bloomberg.com

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Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#81

Post by jrockway »

kops wrote: post #48
tptacek wrote: post #29

German labor law has some features that might interact in interesting ways with startups. Germany lacks employment-at-will; it appears that disputed terminations can easily become lawsuits there (but German law also seems to have orderly mechanisms for resolving these disputes, which boil down to mandatory severance). German law has what appears to be a strict policy on hours worked per week and per day, and on worki…

I will embrace each of the supposedly problematic things you mentioned in your post any day. They seem rather fair to me. Do you have a different opinion? Why would you want startups to be exempt from this?

I think he wants to make sure people know what they're in for when they leave the US to start a company. In the US, as soon as you pay someone a salary, you basically own them. You can work them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no vacation or minimum wage. You don't have to provide benefits, and you can fire them for absolutely any reason at any time. You even own everything they do in their free time.

That's simply not the case anywhere else in the world, and it may be surprising to people from the US.

Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#82

Post by claudius »

nerfhammer wrote: post #72

What about language barriers? Many German companies officially use English as their business language on paper at least, but how true would this be for startups?

Standard in university groups is English if necessary (i.e. at least one person doesn’t speak German) and German otherwise. I would expect it to be roughly the same for highly technical startups.

Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#83

Post by jrockway »

zobzu wrote: post #41

because Germany has good laws and Berlin is a big city, yet EXTREMELY cheap. The visa doesn't have all that much to do with it really. Most of the people in the US don' need a US visa, and guess what, more of the Europeans are close to Berlin. Crazy I know.

Most of the people in the US don't need a US visa

I'd say about half of my friends in the US are not US citizens, and their most frequent topic of conversation is visas. If you want to just show up in the US and work illegally, that's fine. But if you want to do it legally, visas are a big deal.

Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#86

Post by levosmetalo »

gsnedders wrote: post #77
Aloisius wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I would change EU(ropean) way of life for 50+ work weeks, one week of vacation and no payed sick or parental leave, super expensive education and no universal health care. No paid sick leave? One week of vacation? Super expensive education (for kindergarten???)? Where in the US are you talking about? While we don't tend to have laws mandating sick leave, nearly every company that you'd immigrate for give…

> I've never worked anywhere that didn't offer at least two weeks of vacation. Anecdotal, and also, in most of Europe one is legally obliged to have at least four weeks. I'm pretty sure I'd just burn-out quite quickly only having two weeks a year, myself.

Anecdotal, but I personally don't know any engineer having less that 6 weeks of paid vacation here in Germany. Add to that 12 days of public holidays, a pair of days of "company holidays", and ability to actually get to (fully payed) sick leave whenever you get actually seek.

Now, compare that to parent comment which obviously considers two weeks of vacation per year a good deal for the USA.

Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#87

Post by [deleted] »

oscargrouch wrote: post #55

If you are a expat and want to create a startup in Berlin, how hard is it? what would you need? how hard is to get the visa? I've seen that France was creating a "startup visa" to help foreigners founders to create companies there. Is there something similar going on on Germany? Im realling looking over this, and was thinking about Berlin, Paris or Rio (on my own country) Edit: I also can go for the Polish citizenshi…

[deleted]

Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#88

Post by k__ »

spikels wrote: post #65

This is a weak article. The headline exaggerates the content of the article as is often the case. Based on anecdotal opinions of two Berlin techies who probably have an incentive to promote Berlin's tech scene. The conclusion is that the German visa process is still intolerable. Yet somehow the application process is better is some ways. Some details of the process would be nice as well numbers of visas granted and t…

Yes...

The politicians try to sell Berlin as the Valley of Germany to the world, which it really isn't...

Hamburg, Frakfurt, Stuttgart and Munich are way ahead of Berlin, but they aren't "hip"

Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#89

Post by justinhj »

tptacek wrote: post #29

German labor law has some features that might interact in interesting ways with startups. Germany lacks employment-at-will; it appears that disputed terminations can easily become lawsuits there (but German law also seems to have orderly mechanisms for resolving these disputes, which boil down to mandatory severance). German law has what appears to be a strict policy on hours worked per week and per day, and on worki…

At-will employment seemed like a terrible idea when I worked in the US, at least from the employees point of view. It's essentially enforced opt out of many protections you'd receive in other countries.

Re: Startups Like Berlin Because Visa Rules Are Nothing Like the U.S.

#90

Post by Aloisius »

tokenadult wrote: post #73

I didn't see any official statistics in this Bloomberg article, which is unusual for articles on public policy issues from that publisher. Such statistics would be helpful for putting the individual statements by business owners in context. What do we know about the total number of immigrants who arrive in Germany each year under the visa status described in the article? How does that compare to the total number of i…

As a matter of country-to-country net immigration, does the United States gain immigrants from Germany, or does Germany gain immigrants from the United States?

It is hard to find comparable statistics, but Germany claimed to have about 100,000 US citizens living there total in 2011[1]. In 2011, over 600,000 people who were born in Germany resided in the US[2].

1. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Bevoelke...

2. http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2013/01/PHC-2011-FB-Stat-Pr...

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