I live in Berlin. It's a pretty good place to work on a startup - great transportation, excellent & cheap infrastructure and cheap apartments/office space. Also, a lot of universities with cheap students to work.
Another advantage is that a lot of european young people go to berlin, for example from france, U.K, holland, poland and so on. It's a city that draws the young upwardly mobile crowd, rather than the working class. So there is the sense of a diversity of ideas, and many different people doing different things. It's a city that does not feel very "german", it feels very european.
Berlin is not so great for people looking to work in the tech industry because there is no concentration of tech companies. But for self-starters, it's quite conducive.
I doubt that Berlin will really become the mecca for technology though, because I do not think it's easy to learn the german language, and in the end, Berlin is in Germany, and Germany is not very multi-cultural. London feels much free-er, English laws are much more conducive to small companies, and people already speak english.
Berlin imposes berlin on you, you have to kind of be the berlin type to like berlin, but I get the feeling, you can just be yourself in London.
The city might be great, but how about the German bureaucracy? I kid you not, but a friend of mine didn't need a permit anymore because of some new regulations for EU citizens, so the German authorities asked him to obtain another permit, which states that he doesn't need the first permit anymore.
I have that same no-permit permit. It was a rather amusing runaround to obtain, but every place that "needed" it was extremely lenient with timing. I found for every circular dependency, you could satisfy it by getting one element in the circle to accept a promise that the dependency that depends on them will be filled "later". Later can be months. It seems everyone dealing with the bureaucracy is used to it, and workarounds like these for seemingly impossible circular stuff are common.
You have this kind of insanity practically in every place with a bureaucrazy. It's not unique for Germany. You shouldn't worry too much, there's always a way around or through.
I lived in Berlin for three months and it's definitely possible to get by without speaking German, it helps, but English is widely enough spoken that you can survive without it (assuming you're working for an English speaking company)
because I do not think it's easy to learn the german language
I'd actually disagree with you there. Given that English is a Germanic language, the little German I know was far easier to learn as a native English speaker than French or Japanese (the two other languages I studied for a short while).
It's easy to pickup basic german, but it's difficult to speak german properly. Also, there are few variations on german like there are on English or French, so you need to speak it correctly. There is no "African German" or "Canadian German" or "Australian German". So the language is not tolerant of many variations like english or french is.
You're flat wrong about the variations. German dialects are almost like completely different languages. I grew up in Berlin, and we vacationed in Austria and Switzerland on a few occasions. I spoke fluent German (I attended German public schools) but when the natives were speaking their dialects to each other I didn't have a clue what they were saying. They would switch to "Hochdeutsch" when speaking to non-locals. The Austrian and Swiss dialects are probably the most extreme cases. Other regions have "dialects" that are really closer to accents with a few local phrases thrown in (kind of like New England).
German dialects are not as grossly different as let's say Nigerian English vs British English. Most people who speak dialectical german can speak normal german, but a british english speaker cannot switch to nigerian english or jamaican english.
German is diverse are as many languages, but English and French are far more diverse.
I'm torn here. I mostly agree with you (both the Berlin presentation and the language topic). I tend to believe that I speak very high level, accent free German (heck - I'm German. But 'accent free' is key..). I had to do business in Switzerland for roughly two years.
My takeaway:
* Lots of people there (no offense intended if any CH people read this) referred to the language I know as 'written German'
* Lots of people (TV news guys are kind of the only counter examples) have a _heavy_ accent if they speak what they consider de_DE (Time for an anecdote: A good local CH friend of mine told me once that he talked with a DE guy for quite a while, on his best official German level, and was told all of a sudden if he can talk German (probably considered as 'accent-free') as well).
After fighting the 'everybody speaks German in CH/AT' a bit I'd like to point to the fact that there are lots of accents and dialects that just sound like gibberish if you're not used to them. Let's leave AT/CH out of this for a moment: If I visit the northern part of Germany/the shore, if I visit the most southern places, if I go to the southwest (Platt/Bayrisch/Hessisch) and people speak 'normally' I end up understanding 50%-70%. And I didn't even mention some dialects from the east of Germany.
Actually - if people from Berlin talk fast and use the local dialect, I'm lost..
It's not that they're blissfully unaware. It's being thaught in school and almost all official writing is done in the so called 'written German'. But it's simply not the language you speak (safe for a reason to the contrary, like not everybody understanding it). Even in written (private) communication it's used quite a lot, like in mails, sms, ...
Oh, and at least for Swiss German: It is kinda a different language (but extremely related to the written German): It's not just an accent with some funny words, but has a slightly different grammar, too. Most glarious is the lack of most of the verb tenses in Swiss German. So pupils have to learn quite some stuff to be really fluent in written German.
And even just within Switzerland there are dialects I don't understand (as in no clue what they're talking about). People speaking these usually switch to a more conformistic pronounciation when talking to people from other areas and don't use some of the more obscure words.
And for the reasons this all exists (at least for Switzerland): It's cultivated and all kinda part of your local/national identity. Politicians who speak a "too good" written German are deemed suspicious, almost all of the local culture (theater, local movies, even most of the Swiss tv produciton ...) is in Swiss German.
In DE, ~everything~ on TV is in 'high level' German. Bah, we even dub every movie, special we-show-you-the-real-thing cinemas notwithstanding. Still, you have local dialects that are mostly used on the streets. Often these are part of the local identity, part of belonging to a place and people speaking different (even if that means 'correct') are easily identified as outsiders. I guess it's just a natural thing: I regularly hear people from the USA joke about southern/northern/eastern/western dialects as well - and Europe had a couple of years more to develop those.
Switzerland is a very specific case, I guess. The level of national pride is very high, with a very prominent political party living close to the racism edge (and crossing it every now and then), protecting the country from outside influences (contractors from i.e. Germany are not really welcome there, often seen as stealing jobs).
Add to this national pride a good amount of _local_ awareness: CH is a federal system, each 'state'(Kanton) fighting for as much independence as possible. Heck, they don't even have a real capital city [1] because they don't want one state to surpass the others. Your local region of origin seems to be much more important there.
In addition CH has 4 (erm.. 3.5?) official languages and already some 'borders' that separate parts of the country into ~mostly french/german/italian regions. You drive 5 min and every sign switches from German to French and the whole culture changes (food, lifestyle are the easiest things to spot).
I think this irrelevant in this context. If you are going to do a Startup and especially in a big city like Berlin, everyone you work with will speak proper German.
And of course those people will know some English, too.
There are various variations in Germany alone not to mention Austria and Switzerland and even for native speakers they can be almost impossible to understand.
The proper spelling is the least of your worries if you want to learn German.
No way. English certainly has germanic roots but it was more recently influenced by french. We have over 17k french words in English where as in german the word might have a german root but it's no longer recognizable in most cases (e.g. enough comes from the root genug. They don't look alike but the enough came from the french not being able to make the ch sound that genug had on the end at the time).
It's true, there are a lot of french words in it. But English hasn't picked up the grammar of france. Because it was way harder to learn. You rather switch some words, than the whole logic in your sentence-making. That's why I think that if you're able to speak english, you'll be able to speak german too.
Well I'm american, have learned German and am learning French and I think I would have had a much easier time with French. The actual German grammar isn't that English like really. It's a kind of reverse old English. It has really strict rules about where verbs go and in what cases. Also, any verb past the first one has to be tacked on the end of the sentence, no matter how many there are. So you end up with things like:
He had yesterday at 3pm with his huge knife the postman killed should could.
German may be easy to "pick up" because of all the cognates, but I've found that the German grammer is both complex and not very "English".
French, on the other hand, has significant vocabulary overlap with English and it's grammar rules are either easier to learn, or easy to fudge when speaking.
As a speaker of both English and German, and a dabbler in the other Romantic languages, I find German impossible to learn. I've taken years of classes and am still no good at it.
Its grammar is really close to ancient Greek, but that makes learning it no easier. Greek has three genders also, but you can usually tell the gender from the noun's suffix. In German, you have to learn the article with the word. It is one of the hardest languages I've met.
I love that essay - and he agrees with you on the gender issue:
---
To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female -- tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it -- for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.
Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a man may think he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter closely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth he is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort himself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this mess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will quickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any woman or cow in the land.
Ah, I've read this before, it's delightful, but I go one further. I don't actually mind the detached genders (Greek has them, the door is a she, the table is an it, the bench is a he), as long as you can guess it from the word itself somehow (in Greek, gender is determined by the word's suffix, the girl is still neuter but you can tell even if you've never seen the word before).
In German, you basically have to learn an extra bit of information for every word.
Ah, right. Yes, it's just arbitrary and completely disconnected from the words as far as I can tell.
In fact, we tend to argue about the gender of things here regularly. One well-known (and mocked) example is a very popular local hazelnut cream. People actually discuss if the brand name should be considered female or of no gender at all (not sure if anyone wants to claim that it should be male).
Since there's no real logic behind all these rules it's fair game to argue about it..
It varies by region and dialect, also - very popular example is the soda pop "Cola".
In Austria Cola is neuter "it", in Germany it is female, which for me as a native speaker from Austria always "feels" like they are referring to the can (which is female in Germany and Austria).
You are heavily under-estimating just how much more grammar there is in German compared to English and once you know how to correctly apply that grammar, there are quite a few exceptions to those rules which would all mean different things. And also we have those three "genders" and "the little girl" is NOT considered female, for example.
ah, and the legal issues is interesting to discuss. as far as i am wrong, continental legal system neglects the shareholder agreements -> you'll need to give up more that 25% to VCs so they would not be afraid you dilute their share somehow. (until the ecosystem becomes more mature and even closed)
German isn't that spread in the world as English or French, so you can count on that if you speak English, you will be understood as Germans all speak English (as the opposite to France)
Students will all be able to talk to you but people who went to school in East Germany before the '90s will most likely not have learned English. Due to the fact that most adults never used English outside of school and have never used it afterwards they, too, will be unable to speak English.
And even if you can't attend any of those events. Dont visit Berlin without the c-base. Its a really awesome place to hang out. Same goes for the Tacheles. [1]
Tacheles will be closed by end of july as far as I know. Last time I was in that area there were a hell lot of cops. The artists living in the building try to fight for their space, but I don't think they'll make it. It's a shame that a lot of these alternative spaces are closed down without thinking to make room for yet another useless shop.
Berlin is not particularly welcoming to posh types, or the kind of people who enjoy high-class exclusive nightlife. You really don't want to park your luxury car on the street.
For everyone else, I'd say Berlin is extremely free and tolerant and generally welcoming.
Yeah, you can get away with being old, boring, settled, and moderately wealthy in Charlottenburg. But if you're moving to Berlin for Berlin, it's probably not where you want to go. (Judging from the Toytown crowd, it seems to be full of people who are forced to be in Germany for their jobs and hate it.)
The outskirts are really suburban more than anything, and completely different.
In the Western city you have more the established businesses, in the Eastern city you have more the experimental and new ones. Both have their (dis)advantages, it depends on your industry / business model and who your customers are. I wouldn't dismiss one half of the city so easily.
at the risk of sounding a little snarky, i wouldnt put too much stock into what the toytown people are saying.
the two main stereotypes who use toytown are probably not the best for networking and startup related interests.
but the disparate nautre of east/west berlin is one of the best things going for it. especially in the crossover areas like kreuzberg (not kreuzkoelln) and bits of mitte (that haven't been gentrified yet)
i think the stories of cars being burnt in the east part of the city are a little exaggerated.
i havent really seen this type of behaviour in a long time.
> Berlin imposes berlin on you, you have to kind of be the berlin type to like berlin, but I get the feeling, you can just be yourself in London.
Funny you should say this, I have the same feeling for the rest of Germany (that I have seen so far) as well... Germany and Germans tend to impose Germany and the German way on you.
Don't agree at all, having lived 4 years in Germany. Certainly it's cheap, dirty cheap compared to London; certainly it has a good, creative vibe; certainly it's a awesome city. But that's all.
Facts I learnt in 4 years in Germany:
- it's very difficult to conduct business in Germany (with German customers) if you aren't fluent in German. And while people correctly says it's not difficult to pick up some German, proficiency requires at least 9 months of full time study
- taxes are prohibitive
- setting up a Gmbh it's expensive, and requires a lot of paperwork. The mini, entrepreneur-friendly UG (aka mini-Gmbh) it's a laughable joke, just political propaganda with so many limitations (number of founders, need to save 25% of profits to build the reserve fund, ...) that's hardly usable for a startup
- tax authorities are, as a matter of fact, going after (I'd like to say, persecuting) contractors, especially those coming from abroad or working for foreign companies. I have a dozen of stories of people asked to pay undue VAT, or asked to provide proofs that their employer are conducting business legitimately in Germany, asked to explain why some months they didn't earn any salary, ...
When my business partner told me about the cost and effort in setting up a GMBH I was shocked. In London, we got our Ltd company registered with Companies House for well under 100GBP in about 3 hours. We were registered the same day we submitted our application.
I like Berlin, but I wouldn't incorporate over there and the winters in that part of the world are too cold for me!
On the other side, tax authorities actively try to punish foreign companies operating in Germany with taxes like the Außensteuergesetz (AStG); applicability varies from country to country, from case to case, and in my experience if you ask two accountants whether your Ltd is subject to AStG, you'll get 2 opposite answers.
Berlin is awesome, beautiful, lovely -- in the summer, for tourists / temporary guests / foreigners. BUT... being an ex-local -- in the cold season (that lasts 8-9 months out of 12 per year) and for locally-registered sole traders or companies or employees, it's not THAT outstanding. Since I do the "lifestyle business" thing for now, as a German citizen I chose to de-register with the tax authorities and from other registers and stay out of the country except for 2-4 lovely summer months (just arrived back a few weeks back) where I stay here as a long-term "tourist" in holiday flats.
Need to socialize with Hacker types? In any place with at least 100k population, you'll find a few. And how many do you need really? My hometown Potsdam had enough of them to have a fun social life. I happily geeked out and co-worked with Hacker Newsers on Malaysian islands. If Berlin really does attract "more of them", how much value does that really add if 1-5 cool people is all that's needed?
It's a groovy place for sure for Indie hackers and creative types. But my "company" is registered elsewhere: the authorities here just simply get in the way too much, obstruct your core business with mindless pointless bureaucracy and take WAY too large a cut of your turnovers. I understand when locals or citizens who get together to form a company register it here and suffer through taxes, forms and labour regulations simply because they, their co-founders, employees and clients were born here or are locals too. But US/UK startup founders moving to Germany to set up their company here? I don't see it. Spend your first 3-6 months pre-incorporation product building here on a Ramen basis on a tourist visa, sure, OK. But don't set up shop here unless you have to. If you want to head offshore from the US or the UK, then either Chile or Asia could prove much more worthwhile. And I cannot reiterate enough: geeks and more specifically talented enthusiastic hackers -- they're really everywhere on the planet, not just in SF, Berlin and London. You'll find them wherever you go, as soon as you figure out how and where to look.
I'm not sure what the cost of living is like in Berlin but here in London it's astronomical.
People might have some degree of infrastructure to build a start up down here (especially around the Old Street area) and there's plenty of office space but the problems lie in the fact that if you want to employ young graduates (or people with a few years of experience) you're going to struggle to pay them without adequate investment.
A 1 bedroom property down here will cost you roughly £1200 a month + bills (£1300 - £1400 in total) and then travel in zones 1 and 2 will cost you £106 a month for a travelcard
If you're going to pay a youngster £30k a year then they're going to be forking out 70-80% of their income on accommodation which is absurd.
People who want to avoid getting fleeced by landlords should consider becoming a member of the local "Mieterverein". It usually costs around 60 Euro per year to be a member and they will give you free legal counsel whenever you have trouble with your landlord:
http://www.berliner-mieterverein.de/
Berlin's advantage is not just the rents but also the law of tenancy. Germany's laws are tenant-friendly, whereas British laws are -- from what I've read -- landlord-friendly.
That's helpful if you're a young person looking for accomodation or office space to found a company and want to avoid taking too many risks.
In example, period of cancellation may not be more than 3 months in Germany, security deposit may not exceed 3 months' rent, etc.
> It's not just the rents but also the law of tenancy. Germany's laws are tenant-friendly, whereas British laws are -- from what I've read -- landlord-friendly.
Not sure it actually matters. Zürich is probably as tenant-friendly as Berlin, but the rent is as high or higher than London. I think what matters more is the state of the market: Berlin still have lots of real estate available (vs 0.07% of vacant apartments in Zurich).
Meh, twin rooms are NOT common in the US. If you do what the girl in the article did and you are looking to share a flat in the US, the expectation would be that you would have your own bedroom at the very least.
It's about a third of that in Berlin. I have a (nice, freshly renovated, wooden floors, high ceilings, new appliances, balcony) two bedroom place about a 5-10 minute walk from our office in one of the cool parts of town (dozens of restaurants and bars within a 15 minute walk) and pay EUR 580/month. My co-founder and I shared the place for a couple years when we were getting going.
I live and work in Berlin and my rent is about 25% of my income after taxes. I have about 100 square meters, two balconies and a lift (third floor) in a quiet pre-war (Altbau) building (redeveloped 2005) with a big playground right in front of it. It's about 6km to my work (20 minutes by bicycle) in Berlin Mitte (the east center of Berlin).
I'm glad someone else thinks this too. In Nottingham a 2-bedroom terraced house in a good area can be rented for £500 a month and in a bad area £300, a whole year's bus travel is £350, or £199 for 100 days of your choosing, and there are extensive cycle lanes. There' s lots of fun stuff going on , varied nightlife. Its under 2 hours on the train to London when you need to go. To me this is the sort of place people should be doing startups, not London. £18k salary here would get you a reasonable existence for a few years while in a startup company.
It seems to me to start a startup one has to have some basic business sense which means one understands balancing ingoings and outgoings. Therefore it seems a bit flawed to try to start a company somewhere so insanely expensive that, like you say, its employees spend 70%-80% on accommodation. Its rather important to retain key early technical staff. Not very easy for that to happen in London.
Be curious to see what sort of flat you have for £1200 a month. Must be very nice...I currently pay £1300 a month to rent a three bedroom house with a large garden. If I was willing to downsize then £900 is doable for a 2 bedroom apartment.
I happen to work at a startup near Old Street and it takes me 30 mins to get to work on the tube from the suburbs. Whilst we'd all love to live in Angel or Notting Hill, the centre of any large city is always going to be expensive.
Agreed, the costs of living in London (especially Zones 1 and 2) puts London in the top 20 of most expensive cities to live in the world. However, If you're going to pay a youngster £30k they will not (and should not) be expecting to live in Zones 1 and 2.
Which is my argument suggesting London isn't suitable for a youthful startup culture as many younger people will be put off from moving into the suburbs because of the costs involved.
I live in a houseshare with a bunch of strangers at £675 a month.
Where I used to live I had my own place, but ever since moving down here I've had to 'downgrade' to living with people you don't really like or don't really speak to.
The fact that us young folk have to bunk up with others to make living down here affordable is an indictment of the property market in London and the UK.
Who decided that the number of hipsters in a concentrated area correlate with successful tech companies?
These 'cool', 'creative' pockets within cities such as San Francisco, London and Berlin that the article suggest as a vital ingredient for developing the perfect startup environment are merely the result of artists after cheap spaces to work, exhibit and live.
After time, cool-hunters follow, prices go up, locals are pushed out, companies move in.
London, particularly the East, is full of areas such as this.
Presumably the same things that makes an area attractive to artist and hipsters makes it attractive to start-ups: Cheap spaces to work and live. At least if you are bootstrapping, that is a big deal.
I come to the startup world as someone who's also a musician - and music will always be my first love - and I don't think the two worlds are necessarily that far apart. Obviously not everyone wants to hang out at cool gigs and art galleries, but generally startups are started by people who are younger and more energetic and like to hang out in those areas where the artists are. In my experience those areas are normally the fun parts of town.
I grew up in Berlin, starting a few months after I was born up until the summer between the fifth and sixth grades. When we moved back to the states, I was completely shocked at how the cities felt, because they didn't feel anything like Berlin. Since Berlin was the only city I really knew well, I had naively assumed that all cities were like Berlin; it took me a while to realize that Berlin was the exception, not the normal case.
But there were places in America that reminded me of Berlin: places right on the line between "large town" and "small city." Not exactly like Berlin, but a very similar feel.
Of course, all of this was from the perspective of an eleven/twelve-year-old, so I could have been missing a lot of stuff that an adult would have noticed. Also, for almost the entire time I lived there, the wall was up and I would imagine that things have changed significantly since then. We left after the wall came down but not long enough after for things to have changed significantly yet--the summer before official re-unification, IIRC.
That's not quite a fair comparison since the area of Berlin is well over double that of Portland, for example. Those 3 US cities are all still noticeably less dense, however.
i like how they compare... btw, those who want to become the second San Francisco, will always be the second. better to be first yourself. when people say, like, Chicago is an American Berlin or like that
As someone who just dipped their toe into the startup scene, the number of networking groups in the city is amazing. But it seemed very chaotic. the entire time, I was trying to figure out who I should talk to, and where to find them.
Its a great place to try and start something though. The creativity, along with the cheapness of this city is fantastic.
Getting an over view was the problem. The groups seemed to be isolated from each other, with their own agenda our theme. Maybe that's how it usually is.
To start with, maybe check "Silicon Allee". I think that is one of the biggest. They meet once a month in mitte.
This sounds right. Berlin, unlike London, has the right vibe for doing creative work. In London nowadays it feels like the three choices for your role in life are "banker", "football hooligan" or "curry shop owner".
It's also, though it's not mentioned in the article, much cheaper -- I think you'll pay about one third as much for your apartment in Berlin as you would in London.
> 'In London nowadays it feels like the three choices for your role in life are "banker", "football hooligan" or "curry shop owner".'
This is actually the most ridiculous things I have read in a while. There is so much opportunity in London right now, it's a great place to be even for those whose aspirations differ from "banker", "football hooligan" or "curry shop owner".
Not sure which London you've been living in (or visiting) but I would say there are many more choices than the three you outline above. I know many people here who work in startups/online media/web dev etc.
The one thing I will agree with is that it's not cheap. I think it is fair to say London is probably 3X more expensive than Berlin.
I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about. London's stuffed to the gills with media companies doing interesting work. This article exists because it's accepted orthodoxy that London is the capital of tech and media in Europe.
How many karma points do I need before I can downvote stupid and slightly racist comments? We keep the bankers trapped in the square mile; the football hooligans are generally not even in London and the curry shop owners are just part of the landscape.
There's a lot of bright people doing a lot of cool things in London albeit under the smoke screen of the financial industry.
Rents may be cheaper in Berlin but I believe that salaries are also less. So that might be good for a founder but only _IF_ they can convince good developers to work for less in Berlin.
A lot of contemporary artists and designers have come out of London in the last ten to twenty years. And a lot of the stellar agencies that have international locations usually choose London for at the very least, a satellite office.
We've been planning to move to Berlin this autumn with my girlfriend. The last barrier I need to cross is to find a programming job from there. I've sent several applications and some of the companies have already answered. I think I'm a good programmer and I hope I'll find a job.
Berlin seems to be the perfect place for a couple like us. There's cheap and excellent food, cheap and beautiful apartments, lots and lots of culture, lots of DIY attitude and so many abandoned warehouses for underground raves... :)
We just held our European Founder Institute bootcamp in Berlin end of March. We had an amazing time: 100 founders from all over Europe, mix with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and lock the building for 48 hours.
The only reason I never talked about it is that there are no words to describe how great it was.
After living in Munich - the self proclaimed (former) IT capital of Germany - for over 10 years I'm planning to move to Berlin, too.
For several years I've tried to build a community around Ruby/Rails but looks like people don't care and all the cool stuff is made in Berlin anyway...
I actually agree with Sarah/Paul. OK, London will still be THE European centra for startups because the VCs, successful companies and a lot of great people from all over the world + the English language.
But...
Berlin has a great international atmosphere, a lot of talented people and people really love startups. But the most important thing is that startup people actually moving to Berlin from all over the world to start their startups or to join others.
When people want to move to a city because of the startup scene there... that's a sign of that something great is happening there.
I've never stopped reading something faster than I did after I got to "'Feels like' is an important disclaimer here." and glanced up to see that it was written by Sarah Lacy.
Dear Sarah: don't worry, I think that London will not be that pissed.
What's lacking in Berlin is technology. There are a lot of interesting startups when it comes to commerce or media but not many who can you impress you with their technology. And it lacks the investors that will invest in a high risk technology venture.
To what degree is the tech scene in Berlin international? My German isn't bad, but I'm definitely not fluent. Are there so many internationals that tech meetups etc. are usually in English, or is German still dominant?
Sign up for the Berlin StartupDigest - about 90% of the events are in English (ruby UG, up.front.ug, ...) and most of the time, there's at least one person presenting in English that can't speak a single word of German. Of course, ze Germans will converse in German amongst themselves afterwards but choose English whenever it's a mixed crowd. Very easy to get by, imo.
As much as I love Berlin as a city, Germany's legal system is very much focused on protecting employees rather than helping small businesses. Starting a business and dealing with employment law is much easier in the UK than it is in Germany.
Beyond that Berlin does have the developer talent pool nor the access to finance that London does.
Actually this doesn't apply to very small companies as far as I am aware. Don't just take my word for it, but I believe companies up to ~7 employees are treated differently..
Another advantage is that a lot of european young people go to berlin, for example from france, U.K, holland, poland and so on. It's a city that draws the young upwardly mobile crowd, rather than the working class. So there is the sense of a diversity of ideas, and many different people doing different things. It's a city that does not feel very "german", it feels very european.
Berlin is not so great for people looking to work in the tech industry because there is no concentration of tech companies. But for self-starters, it's quite conducive.
I doubt that Berlin will really become the mecca for technology though, because I do not think it's easy to learn the german language, and in the end, Berlin is in Germany, and Germany is not very multi-cultural. London feels much free-er, English laws are much more conducive to small companies, and people already speak english.
Berlin imposes berlin on you, you have to kind of be the berlin type to like berlin, but I get the feeling, you can just be yourself in London.