4 ms·

I have to disagree. We don’t do tech startup like in the US or China. Yes, we do have a lot of great B2B industrial startups. But ask yourself this questions: a

by baxtr 8y ago

I have to disagree. We don’t do tech startup like in the US or China. Yes, we do have a lot of great B2B industrial startups. But ask yourself this questions: as a developers where would you want to work? In the US that’s easy to answer, Google, MS, Apple, amazon. Where do you want to work in Germany? Which tech company provides the opportunity to earn a lot of money while working on really interesting topics at a large scale? That’s one reason the big US companies have offices here, to attract the talent.

thatfrenchguy 8y ago
“In the US that’s easy to answer, Google, MS, Apple, amazon. ” That’s a dangerous thing though to push as a one-stop solution I think. There is huge advantages to work for one of these companies, but the drawbacks are also there, and they’re definitely not made for everyone
- baxtr 8y ago
  Well it worked for us in the car space. As engineer coming from university it is clear where you want to work in Germany: Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Audi, great places to start a career.
  - expertentipp 8y ago
    > As engineer coming from university it is clear where you want to work in Germany: Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Audi, great places to start a career. meh, working with embedded hard-heads on experimental features for a car segment driven by oligarchs, CEOs, and mafiosos.
    - baxtr 8y ago
      Please have look at that ranking: https://www.ingenieur.de/karriere/arbeitsleben/arbeitgeber/die-beliebtesten-arbeitgeber-angehender-ingenieure/ https://www.ingenieur.de/karriere/arbeitsleben/arbeitgeber/d...
      - expertentipp 8y ago
        I don't buy the German automotive dream and it doesn't impress me, sorry.
        baxtr 8y ago
        Sure, but my comment was not about you. I’m just pointing to some stats to substantiate my point
  - this_user 8y ago
    Because most graduates would rather work in a safe job at one of those large companies than do anything actually challenging at a more risky place. I know engineers who work at several of those companies, and it's the same kind of of overly bureaucratic, conservative corporate culture that is dominated by middle managers who are primarily preoccupied by not making any mistakes they could be held accountable for everywhere. Furthermore, there are a lot of jobs that are being filled with engineers that don't really require an engineer. A good friend of mine is currently working for one of those companies, and his job mainly consists of building spreadsheets with risk models that are then passed on to, and mostly ignored by, the sales force. Needless to say, he's probably going to switch careers in the next few months. For some people that is enough as long as they get paid at the end of the month, but if you actually want to do something, these companies are not the place for that.
johannkaupen 8y ago
While I tend to agree, I am confused by the examples. If you are looking at GAFA, you are not looking at startups. Tech =! Startup If you are looking at it that way, you have only one company in Germany which is SAP.
- baxtr 8y ago
  You’re right. Probably not the best examples. But it’s not like we started doing startups yesterday. We should have 5 SAPs by now
roadbeats 8y ago
I worked in Bay Area for 6 years and never wanted to work for Google. Amazon? That’s a terrible place to work at. Instead, I worked for seed stage startups with ambitious missions such as changing the world. Even some crazy ideas can get funding in US because today’s angels are used to be engineers of yesterday. Germany is not there yet. The market here needs to evolve years to get there. For example, if I could get my startup funded and successfully exit, then the next generation startups could have better angel options as I’d be willing to invest in startups with crazy & ambitious goals.
- baxtr 8y ago
  I agree. Also, Please replace the companies I mentioned by of your favorite startup, the result is the same
jashmatthews 8y ago
> Where do you want to work in Germany? Which tech company provides the opportunity to earn a lot of money while working on really interesting topics at a large scale? Global companies have massively increased their presence here. Google has a huge presence in Munich, notably including a chunk of the V8 developers. Apple has a large hardware team in Munich. Amazon Berlin is aggressively hiring for developers to work on AWS. If you're after SF style salaries go work for Google Zürich and take home €200k.
- baxtr 8y ago
  That’s exactly my point
- s3nnyy 8y ago
  I still don't get why Germany is underpaying engineers. After taxes, a cleaning lady in Switzerland can earn more than an engineer in Germany. Net salaries in Zürich are the only ones in Europe that match Bay Area level. (Living costs are lower than you think, see my blogpost titled "Nine reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech", which I wrote after I emigrated from Germany: https://bit.ly/2GNlJcA https://bit.ly/2GNlJcA) So why should top notch talent move to Germany, if they can move to Norway, the Netherlands or Switzerland where they earn double or triple? What I hear from recruitment firms is that "mediocre engineers move to Berlin and great ones to Zurich". Also, GetYourGuide has their core backend engineering staff still in Zurich, but marketing and sales in Berlin. One of the founders writes that in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and complex data analysis, there are more talents in Switzerland than in Berlin: https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/getyourguide-chef-reck-direkter-draht-zum-vatikan https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/getyourguide-chef-... Switzerland is even more founder/investor-friendly than the US. Example: Capital gain tax is 0%, that means, if you start a company, and sell it (=shares usually surgue in value), you don't pay taxes on this gain. Also, no capital gain taxes need to be paid, if you buy a publicly listed stock/ETF and hold it for more than 6 months. (More in another thing I wrote: "Switzerland: How buying real-estate can kill you financially and reasons to go for stocks instead" - https://bit.ly/2xIe8ri https://bit.ly/2xIe8ri). Despite the legal infrastructure, we still lack the "American" mentality to become a startup place, but for small businesses it's much better here than in Germany: A friend of me once said: "Germany is a rich country of poor people". The system in Germany hates small businesses / freelancers and is optimized for conglomerates like Siemens or BMW. If you open a company, you immediately drown in red-tape and upfront taxes. As a comparison, in Switzerland you can just start issuing invoices without a tax-code or anything. Only after you reach a certain threshold, you need to have to inform the authorities during the same tax-year. Also after that, things are very reasonable and easy. My tech recruitment firm generates "normal revenue" and I still haven't gotten a tax-consultant because I can do taxes myself. If I have a question, I call the tax authorities and they help me / give "free advice", which shocks my German entrepreneur friends. There, the tax-authorities treat them as criminals, no support is given and one is triple-checked thoroughly that no taxes are evaded, which, of course, happens anyway especially because taxes are damn high. If you make median wage, it's 45%. In Switzerland median wage is taxed at ~17%. Also, tax-authorities treat taxpayers like clients, whom one is grateful to. That reflects in the simplicity of the tax code: In Germany, if you go for dinner with clients, you need to subtract and can't deduct the part from the bill which you consumed; in Switzerland, you just deduct the whole bill. (Content marketing from here: If you are European and you want to move here, shoot me an email to iwan@coderfit.com. I am well-connected in the local tech scene because I match programmers with jobs for a living.)
k__ 8y ago
We have a few, but a bunch of "mittleständische IT firma"/"Enterprise" manager dudes are just founding new sub-companies so they can call their old crap start-up.

by baxtr 8y ago

thatfrenchguy 8y ago

“In the US that’s easy to answer, Google, MS, Apple, amazon. ” That’s a dangerous thing though to push as a one-stop solution I think. There is huge advantages to work for one of these companies, but the drawbacks are also there, and they’re definitely not made for everyone

baxtr 8y ago
Well it worked for us in the car space. As engineer coming from university it is clear where you want to work in Germany: Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Audi, great places to start a career.
- expertentipp 8y ago
  > As engineer coming from university it is clear where you want to work in Germany: Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Audi, great places to start a career. meh, working with embedded hard-heads on experimental features for a car segment driven by oligarchs, CEOs, and mafiosos.
  - baxtr 8y ago
    Please have look at that ranking: https://www.ingenieur.de/karriere/arbeitsleben/arbeitgeber/die-beliebtesten-arbeitgeber-angehender-ingenieure/ https://www.ingenieur.de/karriere/arbeitsleben/arbeitgeber/d...
    - expertentipp 8y ago
      I don't buy the German automotive dream and it doesn't impress me, sorry.
      - baxtr 8y ago
        Sure, but my comment was not about you. I’m just pointing to some stats to substantiate my point
- this_user 8y ago
  Because most graduates would rather work in a safe job at one of those large companies than do anything actually challenging at a more risky place. I know engineers who work at several of those companies, and it's the same kind of of overly bureaucratic, conservative corporate culture that is dominated by middle managers who are primarily preoccupied by not making any mistakes they could be held accountable for everywhere. Furthermore, there are a lot of jobs that are being filled with engineers that don't really require an engineer. A good friend of mine is currently working for one of those companies, and his job mainly consists of building spreadsheets with risk models that are then passed on to, and mostly ignored by, the sales force. Needless to say, he's probably going to switch careers in the next few months. For some people that is enough as long as they get paid at the end of the month, but if you actually want to do something, these companies are not the place for that.

johannkaupen 8y ago

While I tend to agree, I am confused by the examples. If you are looking at GAFA, you are not looking at startups. Tech =! Startup If you are looking at it that way, you have only one company in Germany which is SAP.

baxtr 8y ago
You’re right. Probably not the best examples. But it’s not like we started doing startups yesterday. We should have 5 SAPs by now

roadbeats 8y ago

I worked in Bay Area for 6 years and never wanted to work for Google. Amazon? That’s a terrible place to work at. Instead, I worked for seed stage startups with ambitious missions such as changing the world. Even some crazy ideas can get funding in US because today’s angels are used to be engineers of yesterday. Germany is not there yet. The market here needs to evolve years to get there. For example, if I could get my startup funded and successfully exit, then the next generation startups could have better angel options as I’d be willing to invest in startups with crazy & ambitious goals.

baxtr 8y ago
I agree. Also, Please replace the companies I mentioned by of your favorite startup, the result is the same

jashmatthews 8y ago

> Where do you want to work in Germany? Which tech company provides the opportunity to earn a lot of money while working on really interesting topics at a large scale? Global companies have massively increased their presence here. Google has a huge presence in Munich, notably including a chunk of the V8 developers. Apple has a large hardware team in Munich. Amazon Berlin is aggressively hiring for developers to work on AWS. If you're after SF style salaries go work for Google Zürich and take home €200k.

baxtr 8y ago
That’s exactly my point
s3nnyy 8y ago
I still don't get why Germany is underpaying engineers. After taxes, a cleaning lady in Switzerland can earn more than an engineer in Germany. Net salaries in Zürich are the only ones in Europe that match Bay Area level. (Living costs are lower than you think, see my blogpost titled "Nine reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in tech", which I wrote after I emigrated from Germany: https://bit.ly/2GNlJcA https://bit.ly/2GNlJcA) So why should top notch talent move to Germany, if they can move to Norway, the Netherlands or Switzerland where they earn double or triple? What I hear from recruitment firms is that "mediocre engineers move to Berlin and great ones to Zurich". Also, GetYourGuide has their core backend engineering staff still in Zurich, but marketing and sales in Berlin. One of the founders writes that in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and complex data analysis, there are more talents in Switzerland than in Berlin: https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/getyourguide-chef-reck-direkter-draht-zum-vatikan https://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/getyourguide-chef-... Switzerland is even more founder/investor-friendly than the US. Example: Capital gain tax is 0%, that means, if you start a company, and sell it (=shares usually surgue in value), you don't pay taxes on this gain. Also, no capital gain taxes need to be paid, if you buy a publicly listed stock/ETF and hold it for more than 6 months. (More in another thing I wrote: "Switzerland: How buying real-estate can kill you financially and reasons to go for stocks instead" - https://bit.ly/2xIe8ri https://bit.ly/2xIe8ri). Despite the legal infrastructure, we still lack the "American" mentality to become a startup place, but for small businesses it's much better here than in Germany: A friend of me once said: "Germany is a rich country of poor people". The system in Germany hates small businesses / freelancers and is optimized for conglomerates like Siemens or BMW. If you open a company, you immediately drown in red-tape and upfront taxes. As a comparison, in Switzerland you can just start issuing invoices without a tax-code or anything. Only after you reach a certain threshold, you need to have to inform the authorities during the same tax-year. Also after that, things are very reasonable and easy. My tech recruitment firm generates "normal revenue" and I still haven't gotten a tax-consultant because I can do taxes myself. If I have a question, I call the tax authorities and they help me / give "free advice", which shocks my German entrepreneur friends. There, the tax-authorities treat them as criminals, no support is given and one is triple-checked thoroughly that no taxes are evaded, which, of course, happens anyway especially because taxes are damn high. If you make median wage, it's 45%. In Switzerland median wage is taxed at ~17%. Also, tax-authorities treat taxpayers like clients, whom one is grateful to. That reflects in the simplicity of the tax code: In Germany, if you go for dinner with clients, you need to subtract and can't deduct the part from the bill which you consumed; in Switzerland, you just deduct the whole bill. (Content marketing from here: If you are European and you want to move here, shoot me an email to iwan@coderfit.com. I am well-connected in the local tech scene because I match programmers with jobs for a living.)

k__ 8y ago

We have a few, but a bunch of "mittleständische IT firma"/"Enterprise" manager dudes are just founding new sub-companies so they can call their old crap start-up.