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Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

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Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#41

Post by zerostar07 »

toyg wrote: post #37

One main difference between Europe and the US is that wealth concentration in America is much, much higher than in Europe. This is one of the main forces behind the VC scene: for a multi-millionaire, throwing a few hundreds here and there to some young gun is nothing, even if you lose them all you'll still have your Porsche and your boat. In Europe, wealth is more distributed, which means that, for many, a bad invest…

I don't think it's so much a lack of funds, but a lack of motivation and an entrepreneurial focal location. Unfortunately europe's riches are typically not entrepreneurial and state-subsidized entrepreneurship fails. Maybe the successes of a first generation of entrepreneurs will create such a hub.

There used to be great entrepreneurship hubs in Europe... in the 1500s. Wealthy europeans are more likely to invest in experimental art than experimental businesses nowadays.

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#42

Post by gaius »

toyg wrote: post #37

One main difference between Europe and the US is that wealth concentration in America is much, much higher than in Europe. This is one of the main forces behind the VC scene: for a multi-millionaire, throwing a few hundreds here and there to some young gun is nothing, even if you lose them all you'll still have your Porsche and your boat. In Europe, wealth is more distributed, which means that, for many, a bad invest…

I would say liquid wealth. There are plenty of very, very rich people in Europe, but their wealth is tied up in land, property, art, etc that can't easily be "invested".

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#43

Post by RyanMcGreal »

toyg wrote: post #37

One main difference between Europe and the US is that wealth concentration in America is much, much higher than in Europe. This is one of the main forces behind the VC scene: for a multi-millionaire, throwing a few hundreds here and there to some young gun is nothing, even if you lose them all you'll still have your Porsche and your boat. In Europe, wealth is more distributed, which means that, for many, a bad invest…

It seems that some kind of mutual fund could be a way for a large number of people to pool enough modest individual contributions of wealth into a fund big enough to seed a large number of startups.

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#44

Post by route66 »

pgeorgi wrote: post #40
blumentopf wrote: post #28

Tell HN: I participated in a German Government startup program in 2004/2005 called EXIST-SEED (nowadays called EXIST Gründerstipendium). I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. The funding I got was relatively modest (35 kEUR in my case -- as a consultant I now earn more than that within 4 months) and I was drowned in bureaucracy. To this very day, I am arguing with the German IRS because they do not want to treat a fai…

And then there's the other issue that a failed founder in Germany is pariah. From reading here and elsewhere, in the US you seem to get a reasonable chance (and maybe even some recognition) for having tried to start a company (and managed to keep it alive for some time). Here, you failed, so you will fail, so why should anyone employ you?

In a (possibly flawed) attempt to cheer you up: be aware that you basically say

- failing is frowned upon in Germany

- I do not want to run that risk

- so I will not try to start a company

Thereby effectively continuing the mantra "do nothing you could fail in".

I think that entrepreneurship has got a lot to do with "acting in spite of" and would not assume the situation in the US (I don't know personally) to be like there are happy parties where people are celebrating crashed businesses...

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#45

Post by coldarchon »

ecaradec wrote: post #36

As a french, I get very strange feeling reading comments here. Germany is presented as an example by French gov for it's better industry (presidential elections are in May ). Does that means that Germany is not better, or that France is even worse ?

No, it means the author wrote about something that exceeded his short time memory. If he really thinks Germans are not very well represented in Silicon Valley and therefor they are bad at entrepreneurship while he is happy that Germany ignored some of them with whom he can make a start-up, then he is out of his mind. Obviously Germany DID have many good start-ups because that's why so few had to go to Silicon Valley and the German industry is in such a great position.

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#46

Post by ThomPete »

_delirium wrote: post #34
ThomPete wrote: post #13

It's a European cultural issue. Denmark is not any different. There are big discussions in Denmark right now about how to create growth. So the following can be applied to Germany as well I think. I am saddened to see that most politicians thinking is: 1. Education 2. Green Tech (Wind Mills and Wave Mills primarily with government funding. Yes you heard that right) 3. Upgrading your education 4. Education 5. Innovati…

My impression (foreigner in Denmark) is that visibility and what "counts" is some of the problem as well. For example, university masters programs track employment statistics of their graduates, but the statistics, in many cases, count people who start their own businesses as basically in the "not employed" bucket, so there's no incentive for universities to promote entrepreneurship, and to the extent they do, they g…

Salaries are not the issue for engineers. But for production blue collar it kind of is. That plus the fact that automation is really starting to kick in.

I mean in 30 years from now, can you see construction workers build houses the way they do today in most modern societies?

I certainly can't and yet some young guys today is going to choose to work in that field because that is what they think they can manage.

I mean hell even the creative industry is feeling the heat in many ways.

Danish healthcare is a plus but I think it's only a matter of time before we will see the end of it.

It's unsustainable because you can never put enough money into healthcare. 100% taxes arent enough to compensate.

The US system is broken in many ways but so is the Danish. It's just not visible yet.

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#47

Post by zalew »

derrida wrote: post #39
zalew wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greesy kebabs with a lot of sauce 'spicy, mild or mix?' are a European invention I think. I've been to a few middle-eastern countries including Turkey and haven't seen sauce in kebab ever (still they give sauce in Berlin).

That is because they are Shwarma's and are completely different again. The kebab is a Berlin invention (according to TimeOut Berlin). Which makes sense, a marriage of the German sausage + bread culture with some dish from the middle east.

> The kebab is a Berlin invention

Wait, wat? Kebab is middle-eastern food with hundreds of years of history. 'Doner kebab' (the popular one in a bread) is Turkish. German sausage has nothing to do with it.

There are lots of ways you can serve kebab/shoarma and none of them are 'wrong' per se. The popularity of doner and roll is probably just a matter of convenience for customers and business owners. The sauce thing was just an observation, and frankly I don't know how what local influence made it served that way in Europe.

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#48

Post by smsag »

toyg wrote: post #37

One main difference between Europe and the US is that wealth concentration in America is much, much higher than in Europe. This is one of the main forces behind the VC scene: for a multi-millionaire, throwing a few hundreds here and there to some young gun is nothing, even if you lose them all you'll still have your Porsche and your boat. In Europe, wealth is more distributed, which means that, for many, a bad invest…

We've got billionaires in Germany, too. But those guys do invest their money in shitty financial products or odious investment deals (lookup Schickedanz Quelle). As starting a company is a matter of attitude so is investing into startups.

There are platforms like seedmatch for example which generated 100k in 46 minutes from various people, so there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#49

Post by stdbrouw »

ThomPete wrote: post #13

It's a European cultural issue. Denmark is not any different. There are big discussions in Denmark right now about how to create growth. So the following can be applied to Germany as well I think. I am saddened to see that most politicians thinking is: 1. Education 2. Green Tech (Wind Mills and Wave Mills primarily with government funding. Yes you heard that right) 3. Upgrading your education 4. Education 5. Innovati…

With all due respect, but it feels like you're railing against those political priorities because they don't suit you, not because they are wrong.

I would love to have a startup hub somewhere in Europe (C'mon London, kick it up a notch!) but there are tons of other ways for governments to create jobs and further the economy.

We shouldn't automatically assume that fostering tech startups is macroeconomically superior to, say, creating an environment that's enticing to big multinationals.

Re: Why Germany should copy Silicon Valley's culture rather than their startups

#50

Post by ThomPete »

stdbrouw wrote: post #49
ThomPete wrote: post #13

It's a European cultural issue. Denmark is not any different. There are big discussions in Denmark right now about how to create growth. So the following can be applied to Germany as well I think. I am saddened to see that most politicians thinking is: 1. Education 2. Green Tech (Wind Mills and Wave Mills primarily with government funding. Yes you heard that right) 3. Upgrading your education 4. Education 5. Innovati…

With all due respect, but it feels like you're railing against those political priorities because they don't suit you, not because they are wrong. I would love to have a startup hub somewhere in Europe (C'mon London, kick it up a notch!) but there are tons of other ways for governments to create jobs and further the economy. We shouldn't automatically assume that fostering tech startups is macroeconomically superior…

The challenge is not to create jobs. That is relatively easy.

The challenge is to create businesses that can sustain themselves and thus help grow the economy.

What do you mean with "they don't suit you" how wouldn't growth of danish economy suit me if that was the case?

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