Brexit: Berlin eyes Britain’s tech talent
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
The German tax rates for singles are ridiculous (40+%) and the salaries are way below what the UK pays. In addition, the German culture's work mentality is very similar to that of factories. On top of that, the benefits are non-existent compared to the UK (let alone the US).
http://demonshalo.com/the-sad-state-of-the-european-tech-sce...
So, when compared to the average (which factors in cost of living, social security etc.), the salary really isn't that much better in the US:
US: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... UK: http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... FR: http://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... SE: http://www.payscale.com/research/SE/Job=Senior_Software_Engi... DE: http://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Senior_Software_Engi...
Which is very positive for workers.
I rather have that than the exploitation of workers in IT without unions.
I can enjoy my evenings and weekends without spending a second thinking to get reached from work, and if I need to be on call I will get properly paid for it.
What seems to be the problem?
for YOU! not workers. Thinking that what you like is good for everyone else is rather narcissistic don't you think?
> I rather have that than the exploitation of workers in IT without unions.
What does unions have to do with anything? ... I was referring to the work mentality as a cultural phenomenon. It is nothing to do with unions -.-
> I can enjoy my evenings and weekends without spending a second thinking to get reached from work, and if I need to be on call I will get properly paid for it.
That's what I am talking about. Your work for you is just that, work. Which is perfectly fine. However, There is no way for Germany to ever get a remotely interesting tech scene with that mentality in place. That's not how you foster a startup culture.
I see why the two or three people CEO'ing a startup invest their free time, but it feels like you're advocating a culture where they can force that way of life onto all of their employees and calling it "good for startups". Well, it is, but so is slavery ;)
"I’m Zach Holman. I was number nine at GitHub ..."
"More than once I had been confusingly introduced as a founder or CEO of the company."
"I had been the top committer to the main github/github repository for the last two years, I had just led the team that shipped one of the last major changes to the site, and around that time I had had a mid-year performance review with my manager that was pretty glowing ..."
"I’m pretty broke after working part-time and living in San Francisco for so long. Even though I helped move a company’s valuation almost two billion dollars, I haven’t made a dime from the company outside of making a pretty below-to-average salary. That’s after six years."
Although I do concede not all companies have them and some do some pressure their employees (like hints about possible repercussions) not to form one.
> However, There is no way for Germany to ever get a remotely interesting tech scene with that mentality in place. That's not how you foster a startup culture.
So how do you foster startup culture, exploring employees with 60+ hours week, promising perks that don't get delivered like in SV?
And showing them the door after yet another FB clone fails with a "Thank you and please shut the door on the way out"?
I rather be part of the European work / life balance.
If you are part of the union, you can either play ball, or ask for help.
It IT/software dev in the US there has been quite a bit of demand for the past several years, so when a company starts abusing their employees they see their dev team start to evaporate.
I don't understand how anyone can pick Berlin over the UK after seeing this!
You say the attitude is all wrong, but then you expect high salaries by default? I've made very good money in Europe (like 1% income before 30 good). But that was by joining the industry right after high school, so when my friends were done with with university I (and some of my other friends) had already been working 50 hour weeks for 5 years and were a partners at a consultancy company. Attitudes are "soft problems" that are great for people who are driven.
If you have more concrete arguments against Berlin I would be interested in hearing them.
What are the best prospects for your friends who did attend university or anyone else who didn't work 50 hour weeks for 5 years and become a partner at a consultancy company?
1. Fix the relatively low tech wages [in Europe]
You can make enough money in Europe to have enough runway to start a company. Especially if you give up working 40 hour weeks and having 6 weeks vacation.
2. Taxes [are high]
Many places in Europe have lower taxes than the US. Startups rarely feel the effects of taxes since they spend all their money on growth. To the extent they do it's just another cost.
3. The anti-startup culture [is bad]
In practical terms European welfare states are far more accepting of failure than other parts of the world.
4. Severe lack of capital
This can be a concrete problem, but most people making this statement have not saved their money and vacation time for at least year, taken leave from their job and started a company. So why should investors invest in them?
If you look at taxes that both countries have that can seem true in some places, but that's because European countries tend to have VATs and the US doesn't, so the rates on the shared taxes are often lower in Europe (also, the US tends to have more tax exceptions, so that the actual tax effective tax rates are lower than the nominal rates.) The US has the third lowest overall tax burden in the OECD, with only Chile and Mexico lower.
Every single source I've talked to always said some variation of this: "You cannot speak German (as a foreigner) in Germany, because everyone loves to answer/reply in English for various reasons (considering that polite/more interesting/easier than trying to autocorrect the German)".
Older people (50+ maybe?) might be worse here, but in general I'd say that everyone speaks English.
I especially challenge your 'Speaking German due to national pride', because that's really, really wrong (even HN had an - English of course - article about the special and challenging issue of national pride in Germany).
Sorry that you had a bad time, I'm not challenging your experiences. But your generalizations based on that are wonky as hell..
(Disclaimer: I'm German)
Apologies if my experience does not reflect the reality of the situation but That's all I have to go by as that is what I experienced. The "national pride" thing is something you might be able to challenge as you yourself do not feel it or see it. But I could see it as clear as the sun. It might not be as apparent as when Americans yell out loud "USA USA USA", but it is definitely there!
I am not exaggerating at all when I say that I spent 6 months in Germany and the only people I met who could speak English well are the foreigners. In fact, I could not even get a single contract (bank acct, phone, housing, insurance, etc) to be translated into English without using a lawyer or a cousin. Even my employment contract was written in German. Heck once a week I still get emails like this because when I contact the customer support for these companies they cannot speak English to terminate my contract... :D
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For the rest: My employment contract comes in German and English, with the notice that the German one is binding in case of errors and the English one is a translation for convenience. I'd expect IT companies to provide this, even if they don't have it readily available.
Talking English: Maybe that was also because most people I know hate to stumble. Some kind of 'I try to avoid sounding stupid, so I rather feign to know no $foreignLanguage'?
Regarding contract issues: Let me tell you about random mails in Hebrew that I still get every now and then or my time in Israel, Tel Aviv, trying to get a bank account.. :-)
edit:
> Regarding contract issues: Let me tell you about random mails in Hebrew that I still get every now and then or my time in Israel, Tel Aviv, trying to get a bank account.. :-)
haha I guess we are on the same boat then!
One can start seeing some positive results only after B1+ level.
And some banks do offer services in English while others explicitly forbid this.
Yes. And not only that. I would go as far as saying that it is the failing of the German system in general. Heck I am being too nice here. The way everything is structured in Germany is based on one idea and one idea only. The German worker > all others. Nationalistic pride at its best.
Why would bank employees speak English when dealing with foreign business consultants? its 2016, the world should speak German by now instead!!!
It is beyond me that in 2016 English literacy in Europe's biggest economy is basically 0. In fact, I speak 4 languages and all of them were useless there. Go figure...
In which other countries have you been and lived?
Would you get a bank account easily in the UK if you speak German? Ignoring German:
Are you certain that you'd get a bank account in France, Spain, Italy? You're coming off as rather agitated and aggressive here, plus these 'German pride' and 'Everyone should speak German' references are getting dangerously close to a rather painful and sensitive subject. I'm not sure if this is intended?
Syrian, Sweden, Austria, Germany, USA and Turkey.
I hold dual citizenship and speak 4 languages while learning a 5th (Spanish).
> Would you get a bank account easily in the UK if you speak German?
1. You make it sound as if "all languages are born equal". What a Jeffersonian claim that is...
2. Yes much easier than it is to open one in Germany if you speak English. how do I know? I have done it 3 times so far... When I first migrated to Europe I didn't know any English yet it all worked out within days.
3. English the 2nd most spoken language in the world, only surpassed by Mandarin. Spanish is a 2nd if you only account for native speakers only and English falls in 3rd place at that point. German is 13th on a falling scale.
4. The finance world has English as the dominant language so YES, I do expect a freaking bank to speak it.
> Are you certain that you'd get a bank account in France, Spain, Italy?
Yes I do. Especially in Spain (where I currently hold one and got it literally over the phone).
> You're coming off as rather agitated
no shit... What you said prior to my reply is just flat out infuriating.
> 'German pride' and 'Everyone should speak German' references are getting dangerously close to a rather painful and sensitive subject. I'm not sure if this is intended?
It is not sensitive at all since it is the truth. That is how people act when they want to exclude you and make you feel un-welcomed. They put up bullshit barriers that should not exist in 2016 especially not in Europe's biggest economy. All of this is purely designed to piss people off who are not a part of the German culture.
If you came over to Sweden and people acted like that toward you, I would be freaking ashamed and embarrassed. I would never make a ridiculous excuse such as "well you can't ask the most basic questions in my language"... It boggles my mind how you could even justify something like that in this day and age. It is 2016 ffs, if you are a middle-class European citizen and don't speak English, that means you have purposefully evaded learning it.
More anecdotes: I know several people in Munich that don't have much trouble managing only with English - doctors, banks, landlords, travelling etc. I also know people doing the same in cities 10x smaller than Munich, but there it's quite tougher and the odds are higher that you'll have negative experiences.
I think knowing German is a big advantage in any of those cities. And depending on luck one can have pleasant or also quite unpleasant experiences when interacting with the locals in English.
Taxes are another very complex issue.
In general though we could go circles around each point and never end up with much of a conclusion. I do agree that capital is very hard to acquire outside of Silicon Valley and the anti-startup culture is strong.
But I don't think Berlin is a bad place to be in. In fact, at the moment I think Berlin is one of the best places to hack something together because there is tons of talent around and they would not need to be compensated much (low cost of living). You could do the same under a Delaware corp hiring people in Berlin as freelancers and you'd still be able to get US VC investment if you're solving a problem in the states and have customers there.
Thanks!
> Now, that might attract talent but wouldn't that also raise the bar for starting up? One of the problems with SF startups at the moment is that it's impossible to start anything without tons of funding. Taxes are another very complex issue. In general though we could go circles around each point and never end up with much of a conclusion.
You are absolutely right about that. However, it is apparent, at least to me, that the middle class in Europe has no savings. And that is the reason for the lack of capital. Both income and consumption is highly taxed on all levels which makes it hard to save up and invest over time for the average middle-class worker. When I was in the US, My community college teacher had money saved up that he wanted to invest, my neighbors, colleges and everyone I knew was saving up in a hope for a good deal to show up.
Just as an example. I am a 1% income earner (in my age group) in Stockholm right now. And I can BARELY save up 10k USD/year. Those 10k would basically be burned in the 1st month of operation if I decide to start a business due to how expensive and taxed everything is. All of this makes it impossible for someone like me to take a chance and try something out in this hostile climate.
> But I don't think Berlin is a bad place to be in. In fact, at the moment I think Berlin is one of the best places to hack something together because there is tons of talent around and they would not need to be compensated much
From my personal experience, I barely saw any talent in Berlin. I consulted for a few companies there and the general software/code quality was so bad for some reason. English literacy was also another major problem that was rather shocking to me. Most of the German developers I spoke to barely knew English, which to me was so surreal :S
> You could do the same under a Delaware corp hiring people in Berlin as freelancers and you'd still be able to get US VC investment if you're solving a problem in the states and have customers there.
If I had a US visa, I wouldn't need to do any of that :P but that H1B program is just a pain in the rear.
I've lived in Frankfurt and in Berlin. I've lived in Paris. I've lived in Barcelona.
I've spoken with many stock brokers.
The one common denominator that I have found. Is that you can't just beat the feel of London.
I know if I had the choice, to live in Europe or live in London. It certainly would not be Europe.
And don't forget health insurance ... another smooth 20 percent off the result.
Add to that the absurd housing costs in, say, London, and things don't look too shabby for Berlin. Although you need to be tolerant towards the locals. I can understand some people having problems with that nonchalant "don't care if you care because, you know, I don't care" attitude that sometimes shows. But if you're capable of letting the occasional inflammatory/stupid remark slide, these guys and gals are quite nice. (Protip: This ability is great to have pretty much anywhere. Hanlon's Razor, anyone?)
To me, London is great to spend a few days of vacation. The atmosphere, the people, British humour, all great. Still, I never felt the urge to permanently move there to work. Too crowded, hard to get a decent flat... I guess it's not always just the money.
That is flat out wrong... If it wasn't for the sensitive information, I would have posted my own tax returns here for all to see.
Maybe you misunderstood your tax return?
I can agree that London is the most international city of Europe -at least right now, probably not in the close future-, but your descriptions of the other cities feel very off.
Once an exodus has begun the benefits and social compliance will pull a large portion of hold-fasts into wherever the tech sector would be.
The problem, however, is every country wants the tech sector to thrive, yet none are really attractive yet. We had a post on HN earlier about Romania, there was one yesterday about Spain and Netherlands has been on here twice.
It's a chicken and egg problem, where the companies move the people will follow, you can't expect people to go to Berlin if there aren't enough jobs and it's a hard sell to a company to move if there is no talent.
But companies absolutely have to make he first move.
But people have been moving to Berlin for years now, regardless of what Britain was doing.
Affordable flats are already scarce and only getting more expensive - if anything, I'm afraid Brexit will only accelerate that development.
Part of me is thinking where do England's new companies come from.
We'll find out in the next three to five years. The news machine wants dramatic events now but this one is more of a glacier.
It turns out though that roughly 30% of VCs money in the UK comes from the Europe Investment Fund (as Limited Partners in their funds), which is funded by the European Central Bank, of which the UK is currently a shareholder, although it will only be as long as it is a member of the EU.
From an FT article on the subject: "To put some numbers on it, as of the end of 2015, there were 144 UK private equity funds supported by the EIF and almost 30,000 small businesses. The EIF estimated that €3bn in equity capital in 2015 had been enabled by its €655m direct investment that year."
I wonder if that will have an impact on the ability to attract talent?
And referendums aren't always a good idea, prop 8 in CA was overturned because we eventually realised its a bad idea.
Scare-mongering. If you have to be in the EU to be able to trade, yes, to survive, then it is time to destroy the EU once and for all. No single entity should be able to terrorize the citizens of a nation state like that.
He said jumping off the cliff. That is literally just saying the Brits won't survive. Besides, England will be able to make a trade deal with China (something the EU doesn't manage to do). Medium- to longterm, the benefits for the British people will be vast - and I'm not even starting to argue about political independence.
How about the trade deal Britain will make with the EU which is currently its main trade partner (both imports and exports)?
I notice you use England, possibly a mistake but it seems this is the underlying attitude of the Leave vote - England is better off by itself. Which strikes me as frankly hilarious given how much we have to offer the world besides grumpiness, self deprecation and financial services...
I meant to say Britain so yes it was an error. The tensions between England and Scotland (and to a lesser degree Gibraltar) are unfortunate, especially that the leave vote increased them again. Same with northern Ireland tensions. I have no opinion on whether or not they are supposed to stay together since this seems to be a problem rooted deeply in culture that I might not be able to fully comprehend.
Apart from the campaigners on each side of the referendum.
Basically the whole thing descended into "FUCKING IMMIGRANTS TAKING YOUR JOBS, THATS WHY YOU DON'T HAVE PUBLIC SERVICES"
and on the other "YOU WON'T HAVE A JOB IF WE LOOSE THE EU. YOU WILL DIE OF AIDS"
Sadly people have been conditioned by various parts of the media to just see immigration as the reason for public service cuts. Not stopping to ask them selves, who makes the decision to cut the funding...
And this is entirely the fault of the political class, who wanted to mask cutting public services to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.
And now we have this right fucking mess, which will take many years to un pick, and I suspect will lead back exactly where we were before, just paying more, and having less influence.
The concept of sovereignty is secondary in most cases. A lot of the votes "up north" were based on the assumption that public services are shit because of immigration.
Talk about hyperbole. Plenty of countries like Switzerland or Norway don't feel terrorised by the EU, instead exist peacefully alongside it. Plenty more want to join voluntarily.
Another fact that seems completely ignored- you can't put a price on deliberately creating links so that European powers don't tear each other to pieces, just like they have done for thousands of years. The EU deserves credit for minimising the likelihood of devastating war, which has happened for much of recorded history in Europe.
The utopia of a united Europe is what caused all of the devastating wars - whether it was under the guise of a Spanish empire, a Napoleonic empire or a German reich. Whether it is done by military, political or economic power, it always backfires.
We are different people. What we have in common is mostly Christian religion and Christian morals. Or rather the purified, distilled secularised version of it called "humanism" now.
But some visionary always comes with this radical new idea (actually a thousand years old) that we are somehow all the same and should all be in some sort of union. And it always ends up in war.
As a person from Eastern Europe I am on the receiving end of Brexiters rhetoric, but I can totally understand that UK belongs to the British. Their country - their rules. No one but them has the right to live there - it is a temporary privilege that they have granted to some one way or another.
A resurgent Ottoman empire that leads united middle east and north afrika - while a long shot is not out of the question.
Luckily, at the moment, yes. But if you watch closely, you see the the EU has actually been consistently increasing its power and leverage over countries. Let's be frank: At this point, Greece is basically the property of EU.
Another advantage of London, the financial sector could get trimmed substantially if there's an exodus to Frankfurt. I'm not as bullish on London not facing major issues as a startup hub due to the Brexit as most people I've talked to.
The fate of London's financial sector will depend on what sort of trade deal the UK and EU negotiate. The worst case scenario would be if the UK was denied access to the single market for financial services, including "passporting". However, the UK imports a lot more from the EU than it exports[1], so countries like Germany and the Netherlands are likely to accept a deal which means London continues as Europe's financial capital, in order to protect their own economies.
1: https://twitter.com/JackGavigan/status/747338413754331136
You will be paid super low comparing to other big cities (MUC/HBR/FFM), your rent will be already on a very similar level, your managers will be selling you the "vibe", you'll be expected to work like a machine, and the only way for you to escape by winning the startup lottery by having significant chunk of equity won't be available to you. Win!