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Comment by moeffju | Hacker News Reader

I love Berlin, but I recommend Hamburg over Berlin. Here in Hamburg, we don't have super-cheap housing, but there is one big advantage: Lots of capital. I'm currently working hard on getting more entrepreneurial and startup events going in Hamburg, because every time you talk to people from abroad and mention you're a startup in Germay, they all go "Oh, Berlin?" No, actually, we have several nice cities. Hamburg probably has the highest quality of life (compared to Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt). Berlin is fun if you like the scruffy look and hopping from one thing to the next, Hamburg is better if you want to live and build something sustainable.

And it's only 1:40h from Berlin by train... :)

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> they all go "Oh, Berlin?" No, actually, we have several nice cities. Hamburg probably has the highest quality of life

your comment reminded about scene from movie I.Q (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110099/) where very "proper" man, James Moreland is doing the experiment with the mouse. There are two switches the mouse can press: one that gives him food and one that gives him orgazm. The mouse hasn't eaten in three days. Moreland is genuily perplexed how this could possibly be the case ...

Compared to Munich? I assume you've yet to have a good wheat beer in Bavaria ;)

Allow me to commit the obvious faux paus: there's more to beer than weizen or weiss. The only reason i'd regret living in Germany is how hard it is to find a good IPA :(

Ha, there is also more to beer than how much hops you put in it.

Would you say speaking German is a requirement for a Hamburg based startup?

Ja - viele Deutsche sprechen kein English.

Und yes, meine German sind wirklich broken.

I lived and worked in Frankfurt for awhile (I'm American). My experience was different. Though I was fluent in German and worked for a company where German was the language of day to day work, I found very few Germans that didnt speak English (Those that had grown up in the former East Germany were the exception - this was 15 years ago when the fall of the Wall was more recent). I met Americans that had lived there for four or five years working at some of the international companies there that had never learned German. It did not seem to be an impediment.

I think it was meant sarcastically.

You can survive with no German knowledge if your coworkers target group predominantly speaks English. This is not a given, though.

I would say definitely. Maybe not for the inter-industry contacts but for the bureaucracy loved by Germans.

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