
Next Silicon Valley? Berlin's battle to be a tech hub - uladzislau
http://bbc.com/news/technology-26770568?ocid=socialflow_twitter
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tomelders
I'm bored of hearing about how dull, miserable, offensively expensive and/or
painfully trendy places are poised to be the next Silicon Valley.

Now if somewhere like Spain sorted out their bureaucracy and local corruption
and made it feasible to set up business somewhere nice, by the sea maybe,
somewhere with plenty of nice countryside, in a place where people could
actually afford to buy their own homes, and the weather was consistently nice,
then I'd be there in a Flash. Who cares if it's not on London or Berlin's
doorstep. The actual Silicon Valley is as far away from the US's financial and
political capitols as you can get, and used to be a good thing.

Quality of life. That's what will make me sit up and take notice of the next
silicon valley wannabe. Until then I'll begrudgingly just go where the work
is.

~~~
rdl
In my experience, more young people in the tech industry prefer crappy weather
and lots of clubs/music/dating/party/etc. and living in an urban core, vs.
having awesome houses in great weather.

San Francisco vs. South Bay is a perfect microcosm of that choice. (which is
ironic since I'm a huge house with a car with no neighbors within line of
sight kind of guy)

~~~
tomelders
There's more to the tech world than young people.

~~~
rdl
While true, young people are _vastly_ more willing to move, especially
internationally, from a first world country to another first world country,
especially for a startup which is likely to fail. (and for the SF vs. SJ
example, it seems to be "people under 40-45, or generally without kids", so
not _that_ young)

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ekpyrotic
This article is little more than an advertisement for a couple of companies
that have set-up base in Berlin. Much like everyone else, I'd tired of these
technology 'gossip columns' that add very little to the dialogue.

At the very least tell me /why/ you think Berlin vs. London vs. Santiago is
the next Silicon Valley. Instead, all I get is a list, series, catalog of
companies that are based in the area (alongside a few quotes from people who
have massive amounts to gain from feeding a bubble) - what am I suppose to
conclude from that?

Parading an odd few companies is hardly worth your time. Maybe these companies
haven't gotten to the size where they are able to move to SF yet. I want some
deep, interesting research; research and insight tells me why 'X' is the next
Silicon Valley.

This type of deep insight and research is sorely missing from this particular
article. Here's a prime case in point: "One factor helping Berlin become more
like Silicon Valley is that the attitude to risk is changing."

In this quote, the writer alludes to European's aversion to risk. Sure, I
agree that's a problem, but I'd prefer some analysis rather than depending an
a quote from a pop technologist. In particular, there's a lot to discuss about
the treatment of bankruptcy in the US vs Europe; the European system penalizes
bankruptcy a lot harder than the US, squishing risk-taking.

This is an interesting argument, but in this article, it doesn't get a look
in.

Here's the point I'm trying to make: It's bad/unwise to write quick articles
about technology that drive pageviews (like this one), but /it is/ a shame to
see them keep bubbling to the top of Hacker News.

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rmoriz
Berlin has a problem that everyone will feel it after a while living there:
Its scene roots are still very anti capitalistic. This still influences the
culture there, even CCC and other "digital culture groups". Still many people
don't want to earn big money because they don't want to lose there scene
credit. It's creepy, but still many of my Berlin colleagues think that way,
especially in the CCC and pirate party orgs.

Hamburg and Munich are much more focussed on deliverying value, real products,
make money. They aren't cool, they're expensive and tight. You have to deliver
there or you will run out of money very soon (pressure => focus).

Imho Berlin needs to evolve without becoming the next Munich or Hamburg: Leave
enough room to have a decent living/start up, to do experiments without having
to burn millions for nothing (fancy rooms) — but also be able to rise money
and go big, if there opportunities are there.

~~~
rdl
The "anti-capitalism" is real, but at least all the people I've met are fine
with "project which makes a product/service we sell", particularly if it's
super disruptive -- more anti-corporate than purely anti-capitalist.

San Francisco was explicitly anti-capitalist for a long time as well; it's
unclear to be if being somewhat anti-capitalist while being anti-corporate is
actually bad, compared to being super capitalist _and_ super
stodgy/corporate/consensus/big-corp, like many other parts of Europe.

~~~
rmoriz
In the end a developer has to pay her or his rent and food. It's sad to see
many hackers in berlin wasting their true skills in unpaid hobby work and
sitting in some bozo-driven copycat startups from 9-5 coding in a crappy
$language.

~~~
rdl
I think what will help them is some great local examples of people doing
awesome technical work and changing the world through it _and_ getting paid,
and local investors who can support that. Right now there is the bad example
of the Samwers, and the good example of Soundcloud.

Bitcoin and small hardware projects (and security) seem like the main areas
where someone could easily do that. Music/club/youth related startups too I
guess.

~~~
rmoriz
For sure the situation would improve very much when some successful "tech
founders" are able to invest themselves into tech focussing startups.

Currently, this is still a very rare case.

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jacquesm
I've travelled to Berlin several times last year to look at start-ups about to
be invested in.

I'm in general (with a few exceptions) very much impressed with the
businesses, the people and the 'gruendlichkeit' on display. Berlin matters,
and whether or not it will be a tech hub or not is not really up for
discussion.

In the German language section of Europe it has already won its place as a
hub, people from all over the continent have found their way there, and even
some from other continents.

And in a larger context, of all the European capitals Berlin is moving the
fastest, it likely will not eclipse London any time soon for sheer access to
capital but in most other areas it definitely stands a chance to become the
winner in the longer term.

~~~
nick2
Can you mention some companies that are doing cool innovative stuff? Most of
the stuff coming out of there that I know of seem to be copies of US start-ups
geared toward the EU market.

~~~
davidw
These guys went through YC, but are located in Berlin:
[https://www.directededge.com/](https://www.directededge.com/)

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chriseidhof
I live in Berlin. It's awesome. I don't think it'll ever be the next SV, or
even come close. If it ever becomes as "successful", it'd be in a very
different way.

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spikels
Ciaran O'Leary, a partner in the Early Bird VC firm: "I think Berlin still
needs a couple more years to really be one of the top _one or two_ places in
the world."

A bit if VC hype. Berlin won't be as big as either SV or NY in two years.
Sorry.

~~~
rdl
Realistically Berlin just needs to become a/the top place in _Europe_ (i.e.
competing with London). USA is essentially one entity at this scale, and
Israel is the other. Berlin _could_ be the third, and probably could become #2
without too much growth (Israel is amazing, but it's tiny)

~~~
Kurtz79
Agreed. A tech hub in Europe has a potential pool of talent/investors as high
as the US, and doesn't have to compete with it.

Still, I'm very skeptical about ANY city here coming close to SV, mostly
because of different mentality/tradition/culture across the ocean.

London in theory has everything going for it (ok, high cost of living, but so
SV and NYC), but you don't hear so many success stories coming out of it.

The biggest drawback of Berlin would be the language, in my opinion.

~~~
rdl
Agree on language, but that's actually a strength of Berlin vs. anywhere else
on the Continent: you can get by with English-only quite well. Maybe not quite
as well as in the nordic countries/NL, but cost of living is absurd in
nordics, and they're "boring" so not so appealing to 15-35 year old immigrants
from the US/UK/etc. who could live/work anywhere.

(If I were the DE or Berlin governments, I'd make a huge focus of putting dual
German/English _signage_ all over in government and private life; everyone
meaningful can speak English, but there are a bunch of places with German-only
signage. In Frankfurt, there's the semi-absurd situation of English _only_
signage, for stuff like Rental Car Return; due to the US military presence and
international companies, there are probably more English-only renters than
German-only renters.)

(I'm not sure what's gone wrong with Amsterdam. It had some great early
successes, and some great universities, and hfh were about as awesome as ccc,
if smaller, but people seem...not so risk-taking, and consensus focused?)

~~~
neverminder
I've travelled quite a bit around Europe, spent probably a year of my life in
Germany, 5 years in Norway and now 5 years in UK. I can only tell you this -
if you stay in the country and not speak it's language you will always be a
designated "tourist". Speaking the language means that you're serious about
investing in that country and that gives you undeniable credibility. So yes,
in Berlin not speaking German can definitely be a problem, but I don't think
that learning it is a big problem either. Determination of a startup founder
goes a long way, eh?

~~~
rdl
The surreal thing for me was that the only people I encountered who didn't
speak (great) English, and forced me to rely on my mediocre 20-years-ago High
School German, were Turkish (fairly recent immigrants; I was staying in
Neukoelln).

You definitely would want to learn German for social reasons but it's
absolutely not a prerequisite for moving there and being effective at most
companies -- unlike, say, a top Japanese or Chinese company, or (from what
I've been told) major French or Italian companies. In those places you might
get away without good local language skills briefly if you're a specialist
consultant, but it's going to make you pretty useless professionally
otherwise, long term.

I suspect a reasonably intelligent English speaker could pick up enough German
to be happy socially in months, based on my reasonably intelligent English-
speaking friends who moved there without speaking German beforehand.

------
watt
"[Zoobe] Founder and chief executive Lenard Krawinkel told the BBC: "[...] You
can employ people for far less money than in San Francisco - and even for far
less money than in Asia.""

Yes, the wages are low. Comparable to east-european wages.

~~~
raverbashing
"Comparable to east-european wages."

I suspect you don't know what you are talking about.

If it was really comparable to E-E wages, there wouldn't be a lot of Eastern
Europeans working there (and yes, there are, I've seen it)

For a tech-startup job you can bet on 30k€ per year minimum. And cost of live
in Berlin is still cheap, €1k per month gives you a _very comfortable_ living.

~~~
purringmeow
They are comparable.

 _Bulgaria /Romania_: You can easily get 1500-2500 Euro gross with a few years
of XP. Taxes and cost of living are lower too.

 _Ukraine_ : An acquaintance of mine, who's sold a few startups, didn't have
success there, because experienced people wouldn't work for less than 4k Euro.
Developers get paid a lot in the big cities.

 _Russia_ : Crazy high wages in Moscow/St.Petersburg, though cost of living is
insane too.

Don't know much about other countries, but the situation is definitely
comparable.

~~~
raverbashing
Ah good.

However there are still some regions not so fortunate, like Bielorussia

~~~
sentenza
Never, ever think about doing any of your startup business in Belarus. It is
_not_ part of the common market and your operation can be annihilated by the
(still autocratic) state at a whim.

If you find good people from Belarus (which undoubtetly there are), try to get
them visa to come to where you are.

------
spikels
Anyone know DTZ's 2014 cost per workstation for San Francisco and Silicon
Valley? In the 2011 it was much cheaper than New York and London and similar
to Berlin. Not sure why the BBC author left it off the story.

------
hiphopyo
I thought Malaysia's Cyberjaya was the "next Silicon Valley" due to its close
proximity to the Iskandar megaproject with Singapore?

~~~
rdl
Cyberjaya is...in Malaysia. And essentially the product of government. It's
not really any more likely to succeed than Russia's attempts at a "Silicon
Steppe".

Berlin is organic (as is London); that's why they have a decent shot. Berlin
has some issues (mainly, a lack of great local investors; I'd love to run some
money there on the side). It has the other elements (top universities,
attractive to immigrants, especially from EU, stellar local talent (although
maybe more "projecty" vs. "company-y"). CCC alone is worth about as much as UC
Berkeley in the Bay Area.

I'm going to be sad if I'm not living in Berlin at least 50% time by the end
of the year.

~~~
davidw
> Berlin is organic

This is hugely important. So many places have tried to copy Silicon Valley,
but it's just not very easy to artificially put everything together.

~~~
rdl
I'm also pretty down on Malaysia as a country due to the racism directed by
their government (generally anti-Chinese/pro-Malay), which seriously
influences economic policies -- both in their goals, and their general desire
for a top-down centrally imposed plan for things. This sort of works in
natural resource extraction, but is antithetical to startups. I'd probably bet
on Indonesia instead of Malaysia long term for this reason; less state-
directed, more chaotic and natural.

~~~
shardinator
I can't speak for Malaysia, but agreed on Indonesia. I just visited a co-
working space, Jogja Digital Valley (Yogyakarta), and got the feeling that
good things would come of it. It will take time, but the combination of skills
(Gadjha Mada and many other universities) and capital are here (8 companies
get around 30k which goes much further here). The main problem with Indonesia
is their poor Internet connectivity, unless something is done, it seems hard
to imagine a Facebook being born in a dorm room or garage.

~~~
rdl
Yogyakarta was great when I visited in November -- it's got a lot of
universities. I didn't know about the coworking spaces.

The "dark horse" for SEA is Myanmar; assuming the elections go well in
2014/2015, I could see them turning into a great place with essentially
greenfield infrastructure investments over the next 5-10y.

~~~
shardinator
Thanks for the heads up, might have to make that my next work/travel
destination!

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drpgq
No mention of the Samwers?

