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It's different if you have a shot at being rich in the Bay Area via a successful exit as an early employee, or if you, as in case of Berlin, get a laughable equ
by bitL 8y ago
It's different if you have a shot at being rich in the Bay Area via a successful exit as an early employee, or if you, as in case of Berlin, get a laughable equity and instead are motivated by the "coolness" of startups and Berlin being a city for "hipsters", trading your peak effort/prime years for literally nothing. Of course, start up is a lottery in SF as well, but the potential wins are orders of magnitude higher than e.g. an amount of one-time mid-tier car purchase like it is with German startups.
- hobofan 8y agoI value equity at 0, so that's why might be seeing them as not that different. If you are a bit of a startup veteran you can also make good bank at German startups, probably even more so if you come from SF. There are sadly (but also understandably) few software engineers that stay in the startup ecosystem for long, and those that do can be quite valued. That combined with the low cost of living, actually makes it very realistic to build up some wealth and achieve financial independence, no startup equity lottery needed. From everything I read on HN, that looks very different in SF.
- bitL 8y agoIn the Bay Area you now pay $3k/month for a room with 2 roommates ;-) Similar situation is going on around Seattle and Boston/Cambridge as well, though it's not as bad yet. Of course, more distant locations have lower rents, but one also wastes too much time by commuting.