Berlin is awesome, beautiful, lovely -- in the summer, for tourists / temporary guests / foreigners. BUT... being an ex-local -- in the cold season (that lasts

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.