zinssmeister

how much is rent running these days for a 2 bedroom (3 ZKB)?

Frankfurt is still relatively cheap compared to London. But you are right, if you want cheap rent then Berlin is unbeatable. Also probably has a better startup scene than London at this point. (if that's what you are looking for)

My wife and I are sharing a similar setup and often find ourselves contemplating a move to Europe (currently we are based in SF). First one should nail down a target city. We found Berlin to be the easiest market: cheap rent, many tech startups that hire english speakers. If I had to pick a second location I'd go with London or Frankfurt. To find work in Berlin you can tab into the startup scene, there are some blogs that cover job listings (e.g. http://berlinstartupjobs.com/) or if you want something more traditional: monster.de. London has an interesting craigslist competitor called: gumtree.com that has some interesting job posts. And of course, like Berlin they also have curated startup job listings (e.g. http://workinstartups.com/). To connected to recruiters (mostly in the UK like you said) I found linkedin and even more so xing.com to be a good destination.

"if you are less than 40 and aren’t working at least 15-18 hours a day you are not working enough" I find this to be very bad advise. Nobody should work 18 hrs every day.

Seems to be working out for them... http://www.businessinsider.com/no-murders-in-new-york-2012-1...

read about the long term unemployment benefits here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept#Hartz_IV

see my post above. Germany provides rent, money and healthcare to all citizens. But they have to be either unable to find a job or keep trying.

"without an apartment almost without money, totally without medical care" nobody has to endure these things in Germany's social market economy. I guess you are taking the route you are on because you feel like it's the right thing to do (to not live off the social system provided). But actually asking for money/charity/investment online is basically the same thing.

I think mega ran into trouble because it was parked in a grey zone. Also didn't help mega that it was run by someone that in his previous venture ended up getting arrested, deported back to Germany and charged for embezzlement.

A good front-end/UI engineer is in general hard to find, because these individuals ideally need to live at the intersection of development and design. You should also consider searching http://dribbble.com/ for engineers with design/UI interest. Another good destination would be to post a job at http://jobs.37signals.com and make sure you have the right job description. Good front-end guys/girls are usually looking for specific requirements in a job post, to make sure their potential employer is aware of their unique position within the technology stack. Feel free to reach out to me if you wanna know more...

I feel like http://postmates.com/ is sorta in the same category.

Yeah that's one way of looking at it and I once did so myself. I've seen various projects of Kim Schmitz (aka Dotcom, aka Kimble) since the late 90s and all of them ended up failing because they weren't sustainable in one way or another. But he always came back with something fresh... This time he is trying the same things twice. So my personal opinion: lame.

lame.

thanks! I actually wanted to remove the pointer/cursor but forgot. Will update this shortly.

"So-and-so has sent you a message." This is actually not true at all. Facebook will email you about a new message and include the message content in that email. Not sure how old this article is (hate when people publish stuff online and don't include a proper date).

that wouldn't make them fat enough.

It's nice to see that a Goliath like facebook also started out a david.

I wonder this exact thing. Sometimes I wonder if the lack of boredom plays a role. As a kid you feel bored a lot more.

"...fears that immigrants are going to eat away local jobs. This is SO wrong." I am not sure you successfully explained why you think they are wrong. I'm an immigrant from Europe and in my opinion it is easy math. There is 1 job and if you fill it it's gone. So you can either fill it with Americans or an immigrant (like me). It's kinda foolish to think all you have to do is open the gates and expect all these foreigners to come in and build companies that hire more Americans. But maybe I'm missing something?!

Jony Ive should be in charge of ads.

the german Digg clone Yigg.de also sold today. Funny how that timing works out. (http://yigg.de/nachrichten/2012/07/12/ekaabo-uebernimmt-yigg)

Most of us get more conservative with age and the more responsibility is attached to us and as a result the less likely we are to simply jump into something. Following your dreams in my opinion starts by preparing yourself, working towards making it possible, saving money, lowering bills. Society makes it way to easy to tie yourself down: Buy a house, take out a loan for that shiny new car. If you really wanna chase your dreams you should untie yourself first.

I was looking at it on Chrome/Mac. Where it doesn't look messy but I just thought the font/size/weight choice is poor.

wish the typography was nicer, esp. since they are in the news sector. But those fun-animations are definitely showing off the type of culture they are going for?

he's gotta start somewhere.

I met Kurt for the first time about 4 months ago and have been sharing beers with him since. Definitely a guy with vision, the right kind of work ethic and attitude. Also a very talented Product Designer.

there is also nothing wrong with hiring a friend in a funded tech startup (as employee #1). I'd actually recommend it, because you are still in that phase where you are looking for people to work with you and not for you. And just like when finding a co-founder, getting along with a person is very important.

that shouldn't stop a company of that size to take their product to the next level.

sproutcore is probably the most complete framework to deliver desktop class apps. But I find the combination of Backbone.js and the Handlebars.js template engine very effective as well. They feel lighter and not so set in stone.

I hope you hate your job a bit :)