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Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

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Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#21

Post by rob74 »

Tomte wrote: post #19
sushshshsh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I also additionally ask how on Earth a 50k salary for a software engineer is at all justified? After paying taxes and rent, it seems to me there is not much money left over for saving or lifestyle spending? It seems like an unfair situation

And yet, people manage to buy houses and fly on vacations on that income.

Trust me, in Germany with that income you can either buy an apartment (not a house, at least not in a place where you will find a software developer job nearby) or fly on vacations, but not both...

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#22

Post by [deleted] »

rob74 wrote: post #21
Tomte wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, people manage to buy houses and fly on vacations on that income.

Trust me, in Germany with that income you can either buy an apartment (not a house, at least not in a place where you will find a software developer job nearby) or fly on vacations, but not both...

[deleted]

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#23

Post by woodpanel »

xchaotic wrote: post #18
mschuster91 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But yeah, how they missed that is hard to comprehend. Look at the German DAX and what is in there. That is explanation enough. Heavy industry, consumer goods, banks, insurances. The only IT company other than Wirecard is SAP and it is not exactly known for innovation. Everyone, especially politics, wanted Wirecard to succeed: the only actually somewhat innovative IT company in the DAX. It's the same pattern with th…

As one person in Germany explained to me - there is no corruption at the low level - it is not worth it for the policeman to lose a nice salary and a pension for a few hundred euros bribe. So you will get a speeding ticket everytime and Germany is known for that sort of 'solidity'. On the higher end, however, the stakes and balances are different - high pay is frowned upon and owners of Aldi supermarkets etc are know…

I'd would rather say: a) Incompetence instead of curruption. Plus b) trust culture as entry-vector.

a) It has been bemoaned on many instances regarding Germans and finance: We're just inapt when it comes to knowledge about finance. Teachers unions fight tooth and nail to keep finance and business acumen out of the curriculum. This (itself being rooted in culture) will have to bear fruit in some way or another. Eg. Germany has the lowest share of people invested in equities of all industrialized nations. Even with negative interest rates, people rather use savings accounts than "risky" products with yields above 2%. And then there is real estate…

So it is no wonder to me that a state-agency is even easier fooled than E&Y was. Afterall (regarding leaked chats of Eno Kurniawan), they internally boasted about "brainwashing" the E&Y guys.

b) after all, what short-cuts our lack of understanding most of the time, is that we assume there is no wrong doing in the first place. So Markus Braun, claiming everything is fine until the very last minute seemed plausible. Even after the news broke on Thursday it seemed plausible for many, that the wrong doing was on the side of some Philippinian actors only.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#24

Post by rasz »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #3
matsche wrote: post #2

it baffles me that it had to come this far. There were warning signs all over it. The German BaFin messed up so badly that one must either fundamentally doubt theircompetence or question their integrity.

At least BaFin boss Felix Hufeld admitted they messed up and that the whole thing was the biggest debacle he ever witnessed. This is rare, and I find it respectable. But yeah, how they missed that is hard to comprehend.

witnessed or personally ran?

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#25

Post by ulfw »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #3
matsche wrote: post #2

it baffles me that it had to come this far. There were warning signs all over it. The German BaFin messed up so badly that one must either fundamentally doubt theircompetence or question their integrity.

At least BaFin boss Felix Hufeld admitted they messed up and that the whole thing was the biggest debacle he ever witnessed. This is rare, and I find it respectable. But yeah, how they missed that is hard to comprehend.

It's Neuer Markt all over again. This fuck-uppery was the same twenty years ago. I don't think they have learned a thing since.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#26

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #20
djpr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany doesn't have many "unicorns" so politics will protect them until way too late, for the companies, for the share/stakeholders and the planet. Interesting. Is there a strong feeling of innovation/unicorn envy among the wider business culture in Germany? Is it a fear of being stale, comparisons to Silicon Valley & Asian tech scene, or something else? I'm curious if you have more insight on this?

I mean SAP has roughly 30 BN € in revenue and according to their marketing more than 70 % of all transactions worldwide run through an SAP system. If that's not a "unicorn" company I really don't know what qualifies. You could of course argue that SAP is quite old already (founded in 1972, soon to be 50 years old), but so is e.g. Intel (founded in 1968). It's true we missed the boat on the second and third waves of I…

Nobody says SAP is not a good example but the problem is that it's only 1(one) company in such a huge and wealthy country.

Smaller countries like Sweden or The Netherlands host more successful unicorns than Germany.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#27

Post by lazyjones »

djpr wrote: post #5
mschuster91 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But yeah, how they missed that is hard to comprehend. Look at the German DAX and what is in there. That is explanation enough. Heavy industry, consumer goods, banks, insurances. The only IT company other than Wirecard is SAP and it is not exactly known for innovation. Everyone, especially politics, wanted Wirecard to succeed: the only actually somewhat innovative IT company in the DAX. It's the same pattern with th…

> Germany doesn't have many "unicorns" so politics will protect them until way too late, for the companies, for the share/stakeholders and the planet. Interesting. Is there a strong feeling of innovation/unicorn envy among the wider business culture in Germany? Is it a fear of being stale, comparisons to Silicon Valley & Asian tech scene, or something else? I'm curious if you have more insight on this?

> Is there a strong feeling of innovation/unicorn envy among the wider business culture in Germany?

It's not the business culture that's driving this, it's politics. Germany simply isn't a competitive environment for entrepreneurship anymore with problems in many areas: schools, taxation, immigration (too easy for unqualified workers), legislation. Politics is in denial and desperate for success stories that would prove things aren't so bad.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#28

Post by mschuster91 »

woodpanel wrote: post #23
xchaotic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As one person in Germany explained to me - there is no corruption at the low level - it is not worth it for the policeman to lose a nice salary and a pension for a few hundred euros bribe. So you will get a speeding ticket everytime and Germany is known for that sort of 'solidity'. On the higher end, however, the stakes and balances are different - high pay is frowned upon and owners of Aldi supermarkets etc are know…

I'd would rather say: a) Incompetence instead of curruption. Plus b) trust culture as entry-vector. a) It has been bemoaned on many instances regarding Germans and finance: We're just inapt when it comes to knowledge about finance. Teachers unions fight tooth and nail to keep finance and business acumen out of the curriculum. This (itself being rooted in culture) will have to bear fruit in some way or another. Eg. Ge…

> Eg. Germany has the lowest share of people invested in equities of all industrialized nations. Even with negative interest rates, people rather use savings accounts than "risky" products with yields above 2%

That is mostly to be blamed on savings accounts being decent in interest until the 2008 financial crisis while at the same time, especially in the dotcom boom, a lot of money was destroyed in the stock markets. The "Volksaktie", today known as Telekom (yes, this Telekom, for the US folks), wiped out a lot of people's savings and they remembered this.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#29

Post by lazyjones »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
djpr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany doesn't have many "unicorns" so politics will protect them until way too late, for the companies, for the share/stakeholders and the planet. Interesting. Is there a strong feeling of innovation/unicorn envy among the wider business culture in Germany? Is it a fear of being stale, comparisons to Silicon Valley & Asian tech scene, or something else? I'm curious if you have more insight on this?

> Is there a strong feeling of innovation/unicorn envy among the wider business culture in Germany? Everyone wants to be like the SV hipsters, no one can because the higher-ups are still mentally and literally stuck in fax times, there is almost no venture capital (and the venture capital that is here gets invested into stuff like Rocket Internet whose "business model" is to copycat US ideas), banks (across the EU) w…

> there is almost no venture capital

That's simply not true. There is a lot of VC but there aren't many good startups - because the best people are heading straight for SV instead of dealing with a second-rate environment and a second-rate (in IT) labor force.

Re: Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun arrested

#30

Post by ThePhysicist »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #26
ThePhysicist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean SAP has roughly 30 BN € in revenue and according to their marketing more than 70 % of all transactions worldwide run through an SAP system. If that's not a "unicorn" company I really don't know what qualifies. You could of course argue that SAP is quite old already (founded in 1972, soon to be 50 years old), but so is e.g. Intel (founded in 1968). It's true we missed the boat on the second and third waves of I…

Nobody says SAP is not a good example but the problem is that it's only 1(one) company in such a huge and wealthy country. Smaller countries like Sweden or The Netherlands host more successful unicorns than Germany.

As I said I think the problem is more that most people from IT just tend to ignore companies that don’t fit into their worldview. There are plenty of highly successful technology companies in Germany, just not so many in software.
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