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Interesting post. >> The whole point of limited liability companies in other countries is to de-risk the process of creating new businesses for individuals so

Interesting post. >> The whole point of limited liability companies in other countries is to de-risk the process of creating new businesses for individuals so that people might do innovative things that benefit the economy. Germany does the opposite. It actively discourages people from doing that. And a Gmbh actually exposes you to a lot of liability. Can you elucidate what you think the philosophy or psychology is that drives this kind of anti-risk-taking attitude or, as you said, why "Some Germans get really defensive on this topic"? It sounds cultural rather than logical. [edit: My first guess would be that it's a product of a social welfare state, overly secure in its benefits and redistribution of wealth in the most generic sense; but sometimes I've observed some other types of self-assured blindness to simple reality in Germany that I suspect have something to do with it, and that's what I'm curious about].

jillesvangurp 2y ago
It is definitely a weird cultural thing. I can speculate a bit. It might have some roots in social well fare. But I've also lived in Sweden and Finland which have a very different attitude towards building tech companies. Especially Finland is quite successful at doing startups and scaleups. Especially considering its small population. And of course both countries have a strong social well fare culture. And Germany is actually fairly conservative on the spectrum. E.g. minimum wage did not even exist here until fairly recently. State pensions aren't that great, etc. I'm from the Netherlands originally, our social security is a lot better and more efficient. And so is our economy, infrastructure, healthcare system and all the other things that are clearly very broken and neglected in Germany. It's very visible when you cross the border. The state of the roads is very different on both sides of the border. That's true for most countries that border Germany. Germans just seem very reluctant to change anything. There's a lot of hesitation doing anything. That's also why their infrastructure is such a mess. Big investments are risky. So they prefer not to. Their default attitude to almost anything is "no". Modernizing anything is frowned upon. So they still bank like it's the nineteen eighties, which is stupidly annoying. They stubbornly stick with a lot of paper based processes. And they employ a lot of pencil pushers, accountants, lawyers, etc. that actually rely economically on things not changing. And of course they refuse to modernize rules that flat out barely make any sense. It's always been this way, it can't be that bad, etc. They are very proud of keeping their national debt low. But that also means they've been neglecting their infrastructure for decades. Which is now affecting them economically. The way out would be massive investments. But that requires changes they are not comfortable making. So they are just dilly dallying and going around in circles. With startup culture, their own rules are stopping foreigners from investing in their german companies. Too hard. too risky, etc. That's irrational. They should be welcoming that cash. Not putting up lots of obstacles. That money would go directly into their economy. But instead it's going elsewhere. Lots of German companies with their headquarters in Amsterdam, Dublin, London, etc.
- noduerme 2y ago
  It's surprising to me that Germany isn't at the forefront of incentivizing an agile startup economy in any way possible. Especially as they've always been the economic powerhouse of Europe, failure to get ahead of these global trends is surprising. And this is the first time I've ever heard anyone describe Germany's infrastructure as anything below world-class, although it's been ten years since I've been there now. The idea that the roads would be rougher than those in the Netherlands is fairly shocking. I do think it's a great teller, though. I live in Oregon where the roads immediately degrade when you cross the border from California; and I used to live in Argentina, where the roads degrade when you cross from Chile. The feeling you have crossing one of those borders says quite a bit about what's happening in the place. Thanks for your honest reply.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    germany made a few strategic mistakes. one is allowing NIMBY attitudes to prevail to gain votes, which slows infrastructure development to a crawl, and another very specific is to not build a dedicated high speed rail network, instead believing that high speed tracks can be shared with other rail.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

It is definitely a weird cultural thing. I can speculate a bit. It might have some roots in social well fare. But I've also lived in Sweden and Finland which have a very different attitude towards building tech companies. Especially Finland is quite successful at doing startups and scaleups. Especially considering its small population. And of course both countries have a strong social well fare culture. And Germany is actually fairly conservative on the spectrum. E.g. minimum wage did not even exist here until fairly recently. State pensions aren't that great, etc. I'm from the Netherlands originally, our social security is a lot better and more efficient. And so is our economy, infrastructure, healthcare system and all the other things that are clearly very broken and neglected in Germany. It's very visible when you cross the border. The state of the roads is very different on both sides of the border. That's true for most countries that border Germany. Germans just seem very reluctant to change anything. There's a lot of hesitation doing anything. That's also why their infrastructure is such a mess. Big investments are risky. So they prefer not to. Their default attitude to almost anything is "no". Modernizing anything is frowned upon. So they still bank like it's the nineteen eighties, which is stupidly annoying. They stubbornly stick with a lot of paper based processes. And they employ a lot of pencil pushers, accountants, lawyers, etc. that actually rely economically on things not changing. And of course they refuse to modernize rules that flat out barely make any sense. It's always been this way, it can't be that bad, etc. They are very proud of keeping their national debt low. But that also means they've been neglecting their infrastructure for decades. Which is now affecting them economically. The way out would be massive investments. But that requires changes they are not comfortable making. So they are just dilly dallying and going around in circles. With startup culture, their own rules are stopping foreigners from investing in their german companies. Too hard. too risky, etc. That's irrational. They should be welcoming that cash. Not putting up lots of obstacles. That money would go directly into their economy. But instead it's going elsewhere. Lots of German companies with their headquarters in Amsterdam, Dublin, London, etc.

noduerme 2y ago
It's surprising to me that Germany isn't at the forefront of incentivizing an agile startup economy in any way possible. Especially as they've always been the economic powerhouse of Europe, failure to get ahead of these global trends is surprising. And this is the first time I've ever heard anyone describe Germany's infrastructure as anything below world-class, although it's been ten years since I've been there now. The idea that the roads would be rougher than those in the Netherlands is fairly shocking. I do think it's a great teller, though. I live in Oregon where the roads immediately degrade when you cross the border from California; and I used to live in Argentina, where the roads degrade when you cross from Chile. The feeling you have crossing one of those borders says quite a bit about what's happening in the place. Thanks for your honest reply.
- em-bee 2y ago
  germany made a few strategic mistakes. one is allowing NIMBY attitudes to prevail to gain votes, which slows infrastructure development to a crawl, and another very specific is to not build a dedicated high speed rail network, instead believing that high speed tracks can be shared with other rail.