6 ms·
Don't let Google take over Berlin
- originalsimba 8y ago"The State of the Nation, violation; A broken promise is as good as a lie; The Hell is humongous, the Devil's among us; And we will burn 'cause we won't unite." - Slipknot, When All Hope Is Gone I'm glad to see this story revived.
- detaro 8y agorecent discussion of a guardian article covering this (175 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027834
- tzakrajs 8y ago> Instead of a nice friendly “campus” we see a Google farm for harvesting Kreuzberg’s brains and talents, or a Google mine in which ideas and data will be extracted out of Berlin It's simply not a zero sum game. Google will bring culture and resources with it that could enhance Berlin.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoThat’s up to the people of Berlin to decide, not a faceless American tech company.
- ryanworl 8y agoIs that actually even true? Google already has an office in Berlin. They can just buy more buildings. Even if some local politician decides to block a construction plan, I’m not sure how they would stop Google from just buying existing stuff nearby their old office like Amazon does. Google in Manhattan bought a building the size of an entire block essentially. It isn’t even what I would call a campus there either.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoBerlin’s council can prevent additional real estate acquisitions by Google. They’re already taking measures to keep housing affordable with government intervention. Germany is not broken how America is, so it’s easier to put people ahead of corporations there.
- make3 8y ago..yes indeed the German people can decide not to go work at the campus..
- mseebach 8y agoAfter all, democracy is the idea that the people know what is best for them, and deserve to get it good and hard. I prefer Munich anyway.
- BurningFrog 8y agoDo some companies have faces? Does the city of Berlin?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- have_faith 8y agoWhat culture could Google bring to Berlin?
- tzakrajs 8y agoThere are tons of books written about Google's culture, but my favorite is ”How Google Works” by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg.
- aw3c2 8y ago> Jonathan Rosenberg is the former Senior Vice President of Products at Google and current advisor to Alphabet Inc. CEO Larry Page. > Eric Emerson Schmidt is an American businessman and software engineer. He is known for being the Executive Chairman of Google from 2001 to 2017 and Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017. That book surely will paint a fair and objective view.
- tzakrajs 8y agoIt is a subjective account by people who were and are very close to Google. Thank you for pointing out the bias for people who may have missed it.
- knuththetruth 8y agoSo we’ve reached the point where hagiography of corporations is now the same thing as culture? In that case, I hope Google doesn’t bring its “culture” of colluding with competitors to fix wages to Berlin.
- ForHackernews 8y agoWhat "culture and resources" will Google bring that will benefit anyone except Googlers?
- tzakrajs 8y agoThere are tons of books written about Google's culture, but my favorite is ”How Google Works” by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg. With regard to resources, Google has by far has the most sophisticated access to future tech (quantum, ML for example), the most infrastructure (GGC, oceanic fiber, DC/pops), and their incredible scale comes with great advantages.
- ForHackernews 8y agoWell, that's an appropriately non-responsive answer. Thanks!
- tzakrajs 8y agoI edited my answer. Sorry for the lag time.
- kuschku 8y agoSo even more research becoming only possible at companies, and not at public universities? Even more research that will be kept secret? Even more infrastructure that is only available to the Google monopoly? No thanks.
- Bizarro 8y ago"harvesting brains?" What is this zombie apocalypse?
- EdwardDiego 8y ago> Google will bring culture and resources with it that could enhance Berlin. Like what? Berlin has a vibrant and energetic tech scene, what is Google going to bring that Kreuzberg is lacking?
- pyvpx 8y agocoffee that is even more expensive. restaurants and cafes that only Google salary expendable income can afford. and....nothing else.
- Gudin 8y agoThat's a nice Material Design on that page that's saying Google is Evil!
- iotku 8y agoIt's a reasonably sleek Wordpress theme [1], but pretty far off from Material Design proper [2]. The animation while clicking links/buttons typically gives away if something was designed to implement Material Design or not. https://extendthemes.com/mesmerize/ https://extendthemes.com/mesmerize/ https://material.io/design/introduction/ https://material.io/design/introduction/
- nothis 8y agoThey nailed the look tbh. Sarcasm at its finest.
- ahbs66 8y agoI'm sure you can make an argument against gentrification without making it look like some anarchist bs
- VikingCoder 8y agoI'm not really sure you can. :(
- tootie 8y agoGoogle refused to do business in China due to censorship. Calling Google evil sets an extremely low bar for evil. Especially coming from Germany. They're still a bunch of companies in operation that worked with Hitler.
- ArmandGrillet 8y agoThe rents in Kreuzberg already increased a lot this past decade: https://guthmann-estate.com/marketreport/micro-market-reports-berlin/kreuzberg/ https://guthmann-estate.com/marketreport/micro-market-report... Gentrification is a problem, but long time renters in Germany are really having it good. An example of how does the system works here: I pay twice as much as some German friends living in my district because my parents didn't sign me up in a union 20 years ago. I'm OK with that, it's the game, but refusing new buildings/companies to keep the rents low is BS. Kreuzberg is very well located, Berlin is huge, time to accept that 1989 was a long time ago.
- partiallypro 8y agoI don't understand this new mentality that "Gentrification is a problem," companies and wealthier people moving in makes everyone in the area more wealthy. The problem of affordable housing has less to do with those companies moving in and more to do with local real estate monopolies that lobby against rezoning for residential and expanding building permits. That's basically the bay area in a nutshell. People complain about the lack of affordable housing, yet building new residential areas is a tapestry of red tape. And let's face it, that's largely to protect real estate investors that don't want prices to come down. I would like to see bigger companies that move new offices to areas to use their weight to push for more housing developments and permits as part of their local agreements. I think that would go a long way (though still short) in helping the situation.
- legulere 8y ago> wealthier people moving in makes everyone in the area more wealthy Wealthier people buy up houses and kick out residents living there since decades. Wealthier people moving in does not mean that pensioners or factory workers will suddenly earn engineer wages. Wealthier people usually even lead to a reduction of apartments, as they combine smaller apartments to a bigger one. Increasing density is not always possible and often connected with a reduction of life quality (e.g. less green)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tempuracat 8y agoWhy people are afraid of dystopian future? Enjoy it!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- analognoise 8y agoI wish there was a way to make the page appear as though it was drawn in Crayon. It would be appropriate.
- 2trill2spill 8y agoPretty immature website, I get why people are against Google and specifically this campus but this website rubs me the wrong way. If they made the same arguments, cleaned up the language and delivery and cited it with studies, papers and facts it would be a much more credible site. They should probably change the domain name as well.
- happyraul 8y agoI agree with your points, but it's worth noting that to non-native English speakers, certain words, in particular profanity, don't have the same meaning/impact that they do for native speakers. Just the same as if you uttered a string of, say, Hungarian expletives at the dinner table with your family (assuming you aren't Hungarian speakers), it would not be considered terribly offensive, most likely. I found this to be an interesting article on this topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/fashion/06love.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/fashion/06love.html
- Panoramix 8y agoThe lack of numbers and clear facts in there are very telling. I'm always wary when significant claims are made but no numbers or studies are cited to support them. In this case it's just about feelings; believing something like a sort of religion. I'm not saying all of their claims are outright wrong, but this borderline childish website did not persuade me of anything - if anything I have some antipathy against this movement now.
- dmix 8y ago> borderline childish website It's fully childish, it's called "Fuck off Google" and the call to action button is "WTF?", and it's promoting tagging graffiti on stores/public places with ugly slogans and calling it "street art": https://fuckoffgoogle.de/2018/04/17/street-art-against-google/ https://fuckoffgoogle.de/2018/04/17/street-art-against-googl...
- holografix 8y agoDef time for Google/Amazon/Facebook to have some real competition in Europe. Can’t let the Chinese do all the work.
- bitL 8y agoThere was this company, how it was called, erm, ah I know: Nokia. It was the dominant force in fastest growing industry. For some reason they decided to become a headless chicken for some US corp, who knows why? That's the short version of any EU-based competition to US companies in software. Dreams don't correspond to reality.
- jimmaswell 8y agoIf you kicked out every company that's done anything unethical or amoral, you'd have no companies left. If Berliners really want to shoot themselves in the foot like this then Google can take its operations elsewhere at no loss while the locals are out better paying tech jobs and a market signal that would invite more tech companies and startups to the area. I'm glad I don't live in Berlin right now.
- pdimitar 8y agoI think you are overestimating the IT market's talent abundance right now. There are many people trying to get good programming wages and that doesn't make them good programmers. IMO Google -- and any other corp -- has a lot to lose if they close an office. Real talent doesn't just exist everywhere you go. I am not supporting or attacking the website, just clarifying the above point.
- jimmaswell 8y ago> Real talent doesn't just exist everywhere you go. Colleges outside cities, like the one I went to, are brimming with compsci students that are then forced to move when they graduate, like I was. I'm sure if companies set up locations in such areas, they'd be able to tap into a decent amount of people like me who'd take a moderate pay cut to be able to live and work in a less dense region - not just the graduates I mentioned, but people who'd moved away from their home town and now could move back, or at least to somewhere more resembling it.
- pdimitar 8y agoI don't disagree but it seems to be a bit like the chicken and the egg problem: companies would love to tap on that talent but most business developers want hard evidence that the investment will repay itself, and for that to happen somebody has to actually try. It becomes a mutual deadlock. Furthermore, emphasizing on hiring graduates isn't a very sustainable strategy; many startups prey on the naivete and energy of young people and their hiring strategy usually revolves around draining a wave of young people of their creativity and energy, fire them when they realize what's going and then hire the next wave of naive and energetic youngsters. Many companies do that, not only startups. But for that model to work they need a big hiring pool. Not sure if rural-like areas have the volume of candidates for that hiring model to be sustainable.
- m90 8y agoJust like people repeatedly breaking the windows of a coffee shop nearby because the owners are "bankers from London" (this was stated as the #1 selling point for boycot in a flyer) this entire movement exposes the worst Kreuzberg has to offer: an incredibly self-righteous xenophobia. People think they are so incredibly open minded when they are pro refugees, but as soon as it's the "wrong kind of Ausländer" (the one where it's not possible to impose moral standards as easily as it's not possible to exploit their need for protection anymore) it's all evil all of a sudden. People will need to realize that they will need to be welcoming to either everyone or noone, everything else is just bigotry. Let's be welcoming to everyone I would propose.
- knuththetruth 8y agoAh, the old “hating rich people is the same as racism” defense.
- mseebach 8y agoAh, the old "my hateful violent behavior isn't literally racism" defence.
- weirdstuff 8y agoThat's not what they're saying. They don't want Google specifically, for reasons they detail in-depth on their website. Being welcoming to everyone doesn't really work, or otherwise we wouldn't have prisons. Being open-minded is a two way street, remember.
- m90 8y agoI don't know if you live in the area (I only work there), but this is a recurring pattern that has happened quite a few times over the last years, not only to Google. Everything that is a. wealthy and b. from abroad will receive instant hatred. I talked to a few of these people and unfortunately it's only a very short way to conspiracy theories and open antisemitism surfacing. If you show up being German and wealthy, treatment will be way different unfortunately.
- trentmb 8y agoThey should build a wall.
- WiseWeasel 8y agoI don't have a dog in this race, so I'm not interested in the premise, but that favicon is great. Also, it's refreshing to see that standard startup site template used for 'why fuck google'.
- lazyjones 8y agoTypical leftist/anarchist nonsense, although Google should probably choose a better location anyway. In these areas of Berlin, their engineers will more likely be mugged, their cars burned, their offices vandalized. Munich would be a more sensible choice, or even Vienna.
- pyvpx 8y agoI think you mean knit bombed and unable to find parking. plenty of street art as well as graffiti on buildings. you have to wonder, if Berlin is just a bunch of nonsensical leftists and anarchists, why would Google be so interested in opening an engineering office here? it couldn't have anything to do with the talent they want to hire and retain wanting to live in Berlin, would it? I mean, does Google really give a shit about 18euro pqm versus 24 o4 25 in Frankfurt? highly doubtful. so what do you think the reason is, if you truly believe your Berlin anarchy thesis?
- hajderr 8y agoYou got the NSA stuff Right and that should suffice. People tend to forget so easily...geee. Will we see a global awakening against Google soon?
- steenreem 8y agoI think the author is correct in thinking that Google will cause him discomfort by creating this campus. Everyone in this area not employed by Google will have to move because Google is basically buying the land, directly or through its employees. Some of Google's money will flow to locals not directly employed by Google, but will this offset the increased cost of their living expenses?
- pas 8y ago> Everyone in this area Everyone in this area should have bought the flats they live in, or should have signed long term leases with inflation-pegged rent adjustments. Other than that it's simply people trying to tell someone to not eat their cake, because they want it.
- steenreem 8y agoWell, I think I can make a simpler argument. Google will change this neighbourhood. The culture will change, the cost of things, not just rent, will increase. Assuming that the author is very happy with how his neighbourhood currently is, I can see how he doesn't want Google's change. I think that, if the majority of the people in the area side with the author, there is an argument to be made to, through political means, block bringers of gentrifications such as Google from entering this area.
- pas 8y agoI'm all for self-determination of individuals and groups. And the delicate quest for the balance between those. If the majority wants Google out, I want them to be able to do that. Currently, that decision is very likely not up to them. > The boroughs of Berlin are not independent municipalities; the borough governments' power is limited, and subordinate to the Berlin Senate. And even if it were up to the district/borough, there are 270+ thousand people there. They should hold a referendum, and let's hope for a high brow campaign. Also, singling out Google is easy, and important. It's a milestone. It means that gentrification is already - very likely - going to continue to happen with full force there. Google picked the place because it's full of "talent", small startups, "cool places/parties", etc.
- zamalek 8y agoThere is some blatantly false information on this page. > Google was caught red-handed participating in NSA’s illegall surveillance of almost everyone PRISM was infiltration. The wiki also calls out Apple in this event, who are known to proactively limit surveillance. Many of the arguments also suffer from severely flawed logic, especially where the actions of others are held against Google. There is some truth here, but it is far outweighed by false information.
- amoshi 8y ago>PRISM was infiltration. According to the leaked documents, the companies were "partners". Of course the companies denied it, what else did you expect? >Government officials and the document itself made clear that the NSA regarded the identities of its private partners as PRISM’s most sensitive secret, fearing that the companies would withdraw from the program if exposed. “98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft; we need to make sure we don’t harm these sources,” the briefing’s author wrote in his speaker’s notes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligenc...
- zamalek 8y ago> the companies were "partners" Except for the slide where the Google inflitration is documented?[1] > we need to make sure we don’t harm these sources A "source" in intelligence does not not necessarily imply complicitness, an "asset" does. [1]: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Edu6LPu9--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/194thbtyencs0jpg.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Edu6LPu...
- reacharavindh 8y agoPoorly represented information (lack of links to proper sources, and use of profane language), but there is content worth discussing about. Would Google's entry to Berlin trigger a rise of inequality for the city's inhabitants and make life difficult for everyone that is not working for Google? (for example private Google buses for their employees in San Francisco) Also a company that is morally a bad one in the public eye, with all the data collection, appearance in NSA revelation, is not something that the citizens of a city would NOT protest...
- pgeorgi 8y agoNot sure Berlin and the Bay Area are comparable. Berlin has working public transit (for some definition of working, much better than Caltrain and BART though). San Francisco has 700k inhabitants, Berlin has 3.5m inhabitants (half as many as the entire Bay Area, but much more cohesive).
- muehlbau 8y agoI'm from Munich where Google opened their first engineering office in Germany and continuously expanded their presence ever since. I don't see that Munich and the area were transformed by this as described here. However, Munich is a very different city than Berlin. I can see why it might be tempting for a big tech company to open an office or campus in Kreuzberg, because it represents a certain style, but personally, I don't think the area is ready for this yet.
- solarkraft 8y agoI would see Munich as very expensive already. The Berliners are probably afraid of this happening to them.
- megamindbrian2 8y agoI actually like Google. Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple are way worse.
- zyngaro 8y agoTo be honest their argument is sound: the business model of google is to transform grey matter or brain power into money. And that is the ultimate business model.