As a native Berliner and ex-Bostonian, I have to unfortunately concur with the article. There is quite a lot of talk. While I love Berlin as a city, and even love the generally positive and helpful atmosphere of the startup scene in Berlin, there is no denial that doing a startup is the hip thing to do, and it wouldn't hurt some people to get to work.

"I'm CEO of a startup" is a phrase I have heard way more than in the Valley or in Boston. For me a bit surprising as a native, was the aforementioned influx of consultants and management grads. It has become so sexy to do a startup. Or asking for technical co-founders.

However, as much as we can criticize this development, I believe it's generally positive that more people are trying to question the status quo, trying to find alternatives to the coorperate route. As far as I remember, that hasn't been the case a couple years ago. So sure, we should be vary of the hype, but we can go back to the roots and steer all this energy into the right direction.

On that note, here comes a shameless plug: We are a Boston-started, Berlin-relocated startup that wants more people to use p2p-marketplaces such as Airbnb etc. We do so by helping marketplaces battle the largest friction for a transaction: trust. Our mission is the belief that a world in which we can trust each other is a better world, a world worth building. If you think so too, we'd love to talk to you. (nam@webcred.co)