
Ask HN: Next european hub Berlin? - DrNuke
As you know for sure, the UK chose to leave the EU on Thursday. As an immediate consequence, uncertainty is going to dominate for weeks or months until they realise their next move: sharp exit, stand-by, second referendum maybe. My question to you HNers is pretty simple: where do you think the next European hub will be, that is to say the new London, if any. I have had a quick survey within my network and the majority say it is going to be Berlin, also because there is something there already and critical mass will be easier to reach within the very heart of the EU. What do you think about? Thanks.
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drinchev
I've been living in Berlin since 3 years ( doing freelance web-development &
my own "entrepreneurship" adventures ).

IMHO Berlin might sound cool as a startup hub, but there is a huge lack of
talent. Companies are struggling to find a decent dev/design team, probably
because the payment is way too low than average. It's true that Berlin is
cheaper than London ( and overall Germany ), but definitely is not so cheap to
attract good IT people to join your journey with those numbers.

On top of that, giving stock-options here is a bit hard ( legally ), so
companies are struggling to offer some "virtual shares" of an employee pool as
a compensation, which will never make you as rich as if you are one of the
first employees of a unicorn.

Everything else from offices, meet ups, parties, nice food, international city
is here and I think is much better than overcrowded and expensive London (
That's why I'm still here :) ).

~~~
zerr
> there is a huge lack of talent. Companies are struggling to find a decent
> dev/design team, probably because the payment is way too low.

Exactly. You can't whine about the lack of talent and at the same time offer
50K-60K EUR to senior engineers...

I'd say, "cheap labour" is (was?) the main reason one might find Berlin
attractive.

~~~
hocuspocus
With a 60K salary you can live _anywhere_ in Berlin (I'm 2 minutes from my
office, in the most expensive part of the city). Many people mention London in
this thread and even assuming a 60% raise (not impossible but not so easy
either from what I've seen) I'm not sure I could live 2 minutes from work in
central London. When I interviewed with Palantir they were offering 700
GBP/month to people who live within 15 minutes of their office, and that's
probably going to barely cover 1/3 of your rent.

That being said, I'm all for higher wages in Berlin and happy to see that some
companies (like mine, SoundCloud, Zalando, ...) are paying quite a bit above
market average to attract talent.

~~~
kafkaesq
_With a 60K salary you can live anywhere in Berlin_

Except that people contemplating a move from elsewhere -- especially from
outside the continent -- need to think about certain things beyond their
immediate living expenses. Like, you know, building savings buffer for the
(inevitable, for most) return home, and maintaining a salary level not
astronomically far off from what they can get in other major hubs (simply to
not have to flinch at that inevitable question, "How much are you currently
making?").

Which is what is fundamentally broken with the idea that salaries just need to
match local living expenses. 80K salaries would do a lot to bridge the gap for
outside talent, and wouldn't cost all that much more -- and in any case not
nearly much as the opportunity cost of missing business opportunities due to
not being able to assemble performant teams.

~~~
hocuspocus
I relocated from another continent. My company gives decent relocation/signing
bonuses, so I assume our competitors do too.

Again, I'm all for higher wages in Berlin, but let's be realistic, the market
rate is what it is, no company in its right mind is going to hire someone
asking for +50% with no good reason.

Also, this thread is about _European_ tech hubs. Have a look at average
startup salaries in London, Paris, Nordic countries, ...

~~~
kafkaesq
_No company in its right mind is going to hire someone asking for +50% with no
good reason._

They can give up on the idea of recruiting people from major hubs
(SV/London/NYC) then.

Generally people who have some sense of reasonableness and proportion (that
is, who don't aren't fixated on the dollar amount of their salary to the
exclusion of all other factors) don't mind taking a bit of haircut to live in
a greatly more affordable area (and to do interesting work).

But a 50% haircut ($120K to $60K) is really a hard pill to swallow for such
folks.

~~~
hocuspocus
> They can give up on the idea of recruiting people from major hubs
> (SV/London/NYC) then.

From the SV and NYC, you're probably right. From a company's point of view,
why would you even try? In Berlin you can easily hire people from all over
Europe _and_ nearby countries without much immigration hassle.

As for London, I don't agree, it's very easy. London salaries aren't that
great on average, not every software developer works at a hedge fund.

~~~
kafkaesq
_In Berlin you can easily hire people from all over Europe and nearby
countries without much immigration hassle._

Well a few lines up from here someone was claiming the exact opposite --
"there's a huge lack of talent." (Which would seem to imply both local talent,
and talent that can be drawn from outside).

~~~
hocuspocus
Again, look at the competition. Is it any easier for other cities?

\- London: higher salaries, much higher CoL => lower disposable income

\- Dublin: barely higher salaries, higher CoL

\- Amsterdam: similar/lower salaries, higher CoL

\- Paris: lower salaries, higher CoL

\- Stockholm, Helsinki: lower salaries, higher CoL (and crazy housing
situation in Stockholm)

\- Southern/Eastern Europe, Baltics: low CoL but the salaries are bad

You want to make good money? This leaves Oslo and Copenhagen where your
overall purchasing power isn't going to be that much higher. The true outliers
are Luxembourg and Switzerland where the tech ecosystem sadly isn't very
exciting (why do you think a Swiss would take a job in Berlin? :)

I don't think Europe will ever be able to create a tech hub similar to the SV.
And without a high concentration of talent, salaries can't go that much
higher. London might get somewhere closer to NYC, but right now there's a very
significant gap between finance and the rest. And Brexit will certainly not
help.

~~~
NetStrikeForce
You're missing places like Reading, where the salaries are London-ish (as you
can just take a 25 minutes train to London for work), but the housing is
cheaper. I pay for a decently sized house as much as I would pay for a tiny
studio in London (and probably not in Zone 1)

Still probably more expensive than Berlin though :)

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greenspot
London. Not Berlin.

Berlin is affordable but that's it. You won't find the best people, the best
teams and a good legal framework.

The UK has a better legal system. The UK Ltd. is way superior to the German
Ltd. and soon they will move away from the EU inherited laws which are too
much market regulating. Especially consumer protection and labour law are just
a big bummer for many and for startups in particular.

Besides, just check total fundings, exits, average fundings sizes, etc. then
you see the difference. Berlin based startups got much moeny the recent years
but slowly people question again the ecosystem since exits are missing. Ok the
city doesn't have the startup history like a Valley or London but still. Clear
successes are missing. The only huge thing was Zalando's IPO.

~~~
EiZei
You are going to have to abide by those "bummer" consumer protection laws if
you are going to sell goods or services to the common market which
coincidentally will become harder if the UK really decides to go forth with
this lunacy.

~~~
AndreyErmakov
>> You are going to have to abide by those "bummer" consumer protection
laws...

If you're dealing directly with consumers then yes. If it's B2B then no, you
won't have to. And there are lots of startups offering services for businesses
only.

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znpy
Dublin ?

It's right there, many big companies already have their offices there, English
is the official spoken language, it is basically a far as uk to reach from the
point of view of any European citizen, and it is cheaper (I guess).

Taxation is lower BUT actually enforced: there is no such thing as City of
London corporation, isle of man or crap like that.

I guess it is less "developed" than London, but becoming the next European
tech hub might be a great drive for development.

~~~
znpy
The sad thing about Germany is their loathe for the English language: you
basically cannot expect to fully live there without learning German. ATMs and
self-dispensers (example: bus/subway ticket machines) are poorly translated to
English, for example.

For example, bus/subway stops are only announced in German, not in English.

In Milan, Italy, bus and subway stops are announced in both Italian and
English, public transport works very well in my opinion.

It's a pity that doing business in Italy is basically a rat race, taxation is
ridiculously high (compared to the services and services level you get) and
there is a crazy bureaucracy, otherwise Milan would be an awesome place for a
tech hub.

~~~
kafkaesq
_The sad thing about Germany is their loathe for the English language: you
basically cannot expect to fully live there without learning German. For
example, bus /subway stops are only announced in German, not in English._

Well, yeah -- it's like, a foreign country, you know.

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marvel_boy
London is and will be the start-up hub. Barcelona is also is a good place to
start a business, but London has a lot a talent form around the world. No
brexit can change that.

~~~
BjoernKW
> London has a lot a talent form around the world. No brexit can change that.

Actually, quite likely it will. One of the main arguments of the "Leave"
campaign was curtailing immigration as in effectively reducing it to zero.
Now, of course this isn't actually possible and Farage and others are already
sheepishly back-pedaling on most of their bold claims.

If this whole Brexit affair is supposed to make any remote sense at all there
will be limits on immigration, because if the UK will still allow free
movement of people and goods from the EU what's the point of leaving in the
first place?

Limits on immigration will mean less talented people in the city. It's as
simple as that. Besides, people from the EU who're already living and working
in London either will have to leave or apply for permanent resident permits.
Only time will tell how hard those will be to come by but it'll be at least a
major hassle.

~~~
phatfish
Immigration was the main argument because that is what people wanted to hear,
and got the opportunists like Boris a shot at more power. In reality it is not
going to happen.

1\. When have politicians ever followed through with a promise they made?

2\. Not even the Brexit bunch are stupid enough to intentionally cripple the
economy, especially as immigration was an issue for a demographic of voter the
Tories actually care nothing about.

What the UK could do is put more restrictions on migrants without a job and
what in work benefits they can access.

Reforms to benefits for migrants were a part of the deal Cameron got from the
EU earlier this year -- which is now void -- so Brexit really changes nothing
there. Maybe the UK could be stricter with migrants out of work and still get
the trade deals.

~~~
letitleak
The British as non-EU can't get a better deal than the Swiss as a non EU
Schengen area member.. I think the British will either lose more control of
immigration from this vote or be pretty crippled by poor EU trade agreements
leading to the US learning to deal direct with the mainland.

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kator
IMHO It's too soon to tell. If several other states do the same the EU will
become a disjointed mess. Some polls say as many as 43% of Germans feel more
power should come home. If other member states show intention to leave it
could ignite a surge of support for Germany to do the same. Then Berlin would
just be another really nice place to visit but, isolated in German laws and
the same chaos the UK is about to experience.

The real challenge is we live in very fragile times and the EU is like a big
Jenga game, as parts start to slip away the entire thing could easily topple
and drive Europe back into a chaotic state not seen in many people's
lifetimes.

~~~
allendoerfer
Actually, it is the other way round: 69% of Germans wanted Britain to stay.
Since the beginning of the year support for the EU rose and now for the first
time a majority of Germans (45%) think that the EU has more advantages than
disadvantages (38% think both advantages and disadvantages, 14% more
disadvantages) [0].

Also: If you look at the numbers also from the Brexit votum, you will see that
young people are very much pro EU.

[0]: [http://www.heute.de/mehrheit-eu-wird-wegen-brexit-nicht-
zerb...](http://www.heute.de/mehrheit-eu-wird-wegen-brexit-nicht-zerbrechen-
fussball-em-hoffnung-auf-titelgewinn-gestiegen-44100560.html) (German)

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niftich
European hub? Hub of what? There's no Silicon Valley in the EU, so both talent
and industry is decentralized. Brexit won't change this.

London will remain an important node, but without additional incentives (ie.
subsidies) no single place will take over the roles that it fulfills now
inside the EU's talent market.

------
LuisFerreira
Lisbon will be the place;),nice people, lots of talented people,english is
common language,food .

[http://rethink.beta-i.pt/2016/05/04/report-lisbon-startup-
sc...](http://rethink.beta-i.pt/2016/05/04/report-lisbon-startup-scene/)

~~~
wallflower
From the Airbnb thread

[http://www.buala.org/pt/cidade/quem-vai-poder-morar-em-
lisbo...](http://www.buala.org/pt/cidade/quem-vai-poder-morar-em-lisboa)

~~~
uola
Yes, unfortunetly I think it's very likely that costs will grow faster than
the startup scene in Lisbon. Loosing much of it's attraction.

