4 ms·
You forget a very big factor: only US citizens can move to SV or NY without many hoops. If you are from EU, you can go to Berlin with no fuss, if you can get a
by dragandj 10y ago
You forget a very big factor: only US citizens can move to SV or NY without many hoops.
If you are from EU, you can go to Berlin with no fuss, if you can get a job. Maybe your US counterpart can go to SV, but you need a visa rain dance, which make sense only if you are a star that some company want to pay a fortune to bring there.
Maybe Google and Facebook take the 0.001 % of the top developers. But, top 1% is not bad either.
Also, there is a lot of talent in Eastern Europe. For them, there are hoops and work visas for both EU and US, but, US hoops are much more difficult to pass.
Not to mention that Berlin has a great nigthlife. SF? Only complaints about the male/female ratio and nerd-dominated culture.
So, while SV is certainly the center of the industry, 100K in Berlin can give a much better life than 200K in SV, especially for people with EU citizenship.