9 ms·

Why Berlin should not look up to the Valley

80 points by urlwolf 13y ago

Tichy 13y ago
Can't open the article right now, but here is one question I have that might fit: hasn't Sillicon Valley actually started in the middle of nowhere? These days the saying is to go there because that is where the investors with the money are. But the money is there now because some people succeeded with their factories built in the countryside? Here in Germany there are also quite a few towns that are built around one big company, for example Wolfsburg for VW. No doubt Berlin is attractive at the moment, but the things that make it attractive are quickly disappearing - cheap cost of living, lots of empty buildings, lots of diverse culture. I for one don't look forward to the living conditions of the valley, where people have to share rooms at extremely high costs just to be able to be there. It seems very ironic that while it is presumably one of the richest places on earth, the valley sounds like a horrible place to live in.
- walshemj 13y ago
  SV started where it did because land was very cheap and large government contracts for "blowing stuff up" (tm)
room271 13y ago
A powerful critique. As developers we have the ability to effect profound change. But mostly we funnel our expertise into better advertising solutions. Our industry leaders (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) are all monopolies which pay little tax and employ anti-competitive practices to squeeze out competitors. And few seem concerned with inequality. Let's shape our companies towards something better.
- davidw 13y ago
  > monopolies http://it.bing.com/search?q=monopoly&go=&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt=all&pq=monopoly&sc=8-8&sp=-1&sk= http://it.bing.com/search?q=monopoly&go=&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt... http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Monopoly+economics&class= http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Monopoly+economics&class= Maybe not? > And few seem concerned with inequality. Companies are for making money. If the people they make money for are concerned about that, they can vote - or distribute their own money - accordingly.
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    > Companies are for making money Smart companies realize that their profits do not exist in a vacuum. In Germany it's a long standing view that capitalism must be balanced and that companies have a social function in society and must act accordingly. This is one of the secret powers of what we call "Mittelstand" which employs the majority of people in Germany and produces a huge share of the social product. Those companies are often family owned and pride themselves in taking good care of their workforce - a trait that often pays off when times are turning worse since the employees reward good treatment with loyalty. It's not uncommon for a complete workforce to accept pay cuts across the board instead of firing people which in turn allows the company to keep well trained and educated workers on the payroll until things get better. Both sides profit here. So yes, companies are for making money, but smart companies think further than next years profit statement.
    - davidw 13y ago
      > So yes, companies are for making money, but smart companies think further than next years profit statement. I won't disagree with that - I think it's sensible - but what you have written is different from "concerned about inequality".
      - Xylakant 13y ago
        > but what you have written is different from "concerned about inequality". I don't think so. Henry Ford for example realized that paying solid wages allows people to buy more cars [1], in turn increasing the profits for Ford. Reducing inequality in a society strongly correlates with social peace and happiness, which in turn fosters the economy. Good social equality also helps a larger part of the population to achieve good education, broadening the pool of skilled labor. Certainly, a single bad actor in a good environment can reap benefits from behaving "anti-social", but in the long run that's a spiral to the bottom. So I think that smart companies should be concerned about a raise in inequality, even if it's only for their own good. And making sure that you keep inequality low in your own workforce is the first step. [1] http://corporate.ford.com/news-center/press-releases-detail/677-5-dollar-a-day http://corporate.ford.com/news-center/press-releases-detail/...
- Swizec 13y ago
  > But mostly we funnel our expertise into better advertising solutions. That's the thing that pays most. For some reason our society rewards advertising platforms. Everything from popular films and music, to every successful medium ever, was founded as or taken over as an advertising platform. Maybe we as a society simply value advertising above all? Personally I try to only work with companies whose business model is providing values to users directly, but I can't argue with the fact that I am far more willing to give my money to advertisers (so I can make a profit), than I am to services that help me make the products I advertise. Why is that? I don't know. But I think the feedback loop from "put money in, get money out" is much quicker with advertising platforms than it is with services I use during creation.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - skriticos2 13y ago
    Well, if you have a product, you also need some form of advertising to let people know your offer. Sad thing is of course, that modern advertisement is based on subconscious influence to make the product part of your lifestyle instead of presenting you a balanced presentation of the benefits and drawbacks. Shameless plug: I released a desktop app for project tracking in the Ubuntu Software Center a few days ago as side project. Here is a non-subconscious manipulating presentation about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_KckRueLQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_KckRueLQ Note: the initial package has a dependency issue. A fix is in review.
  - david927 13y ago
    Prostitution also pays a lot. While that says something about our society, it justifies nothing.
sumoward 13y ago
Thanks, an erudite contrarian view like this is always stimulating. I had heard about but did not know very much about Mittelstand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand We have lessons to learn from European paradigms as you point out. However I think you are a little harsh on founders, the pursuit of fame may be an issue for a small minority but is hardly a universal issue.
phreeza 13y ago
Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:of5dj13mn20J:thirdwaveberlin.com/2013/10/week-158/&hl=en&gl=de&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:of5dj13...
jessaustin 13y ago
Tech is the new finance industry. That would be a good thing, right?
- qzr3 13y ago
  yes.sure
ekurutepe 13y ago
As the author states the tech sector does not directly employ Berlin's currently unemployed and has to import talent from outside (disclaimer: I'm such an imported talent into Berlin), it still creates demand for services and increases employment in other sectors as it grows, and gives an option for the city's youth to consider the tech sector for their future. However as the author states, the sustainability of the tech sector is very critical, but this not specific for Berlin. Even in the silicon valley there is a trend towards more sustainable growth models as the hundreds of SaaS startups here on HN would testify. Being a really open and relaxed city with a high quality of life, Berlin stands a good chance of attracting talent, allowing them to try out their ideas and hopefully create an IPO or two in the next ten years. I can't see why the author categorically dismisses that option.
- junto 13y ago
  My assumption is that the author doesn't believe much in trickle-down economics. His last statement is particularly telling: Let me finish with a question: what do you think who employs more people? A company like Facebook with a world- renown brand that is worth about $100 Billion on the stock market or a hundred companies that most people have never heard of which are each worth a billion people? The reality is that Germany's Mittelstand is full of SME's doing well for the themselves and employing lots of people. They have built themselves up using a very traditional model: 1. Idea 2. Borrow money from the bank 3. Employ people 4. Build products/services 5. Sell products/services 6. Profit 7. Re-invest and repeat from [3]. 8. After 20 years of repeating - sell company, take-over, child inherits Failure in this instance is often catastrophic to the founder. I also think that there are a number of SaaS startups that are simply SME's and use the label "start-up" in order to try and get target investment from the VC daisy chain. Their model is often aimed at short cutting and gambling without risk to themselves: 1. Idea 2. Borrow money from investors 3. Build products/services 4. Sell products/services 5. Repeat from [2] 6. After 10 years of repeating - fail, acqui-hire, sell (and integrate) or IPO Failure in this instance is often a learning experience to take into the next start-up venture. One notable point that the author doesn't mention is the German adversity to risk. The average Germans doesn't take massive risks. The start-up model holds massive risks to investors, but or course the returns for success are equally huge. Germans would prefer a guaranteed 1.5% return per year to a risky 1000%. That isn't likely to change in the near future.
danmaz74 13y ago
This is a really big problem, and I can feel it myself. Now that I've got customers and seed money, should I try to create a sustainable business that grows organically? Or should I move to London - I'm in Rome now - and try to enter the VC game as soon as possible, as a mentor insists? The sustainable business way appeals a lot to me, but what about the risk that competitors with lots of money crush us just by out-spending us? And what about the ecosystem? But the places with the best ecosystems are very expensive, how can you enter them without VC money? The problem is that there is no proof that the mittelstand model can work for tech startups, while there is proof that the SV model can.
- lumberjack 13y ago
  >The problem is that there is no proof that the Mittelstand model can work for tech startups, while there is proof that the SV model can. To me it seems pretty obviously that one is the antithesis of the other. Mittelstand seem to work well in established markets with a sensible good quality product or in niche markets where they could often be the only manufacturers worldwide. It does not strike me as the kind of enterprise that aims to grow fast and disrupt markets. Besides, there is already Middelstand tech businesses. They are the software houses that write niche B2B software like time table schedulers for schools and such.
  - danmaz74 13y ago
    Well, it all depends on how you define "tech startup" and "mittelstand". My impression is that neither of the two have a clear-cut definition.
  - zeigor 13y ago
    Disrupting market is not easy, but it significantly easier, if the first priority of the company is not being self sustainable and instead rely on on venture capital. Twitter is an interesting example in that context. A company that surfaced a unique user behavior and created utterly new communication patterns. Yet, because it didn't focus building a business, it ended having to rely on archaic business models to finance itself while in the process disregarding the people who helped make it grow.
dasil003 13y ago
I don't think the problem is with the Californian model. Silicon Valley knows how to do technology right for its own sake, and every technologist everywhere can learn a lot about how to do technology right by looking at Silicon Valley. Sure there is a gold rush mentality driving media and politics, and there is a lot of greed at play as well. But rich guys in Silicon Valley are no more greedy (and the true technologists among them are probably less greedy) than rich guys everywhere else in the world. The big difference between finance and tech is that deep down at the heart of tech is a natural curiosity and passion for problem solving, whereas finance is fundamentally about arbitrage. In order to take the right lessons from tech's failings you need to separate the tech from its social consequences. The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. It is about seeking greater efficiency in all things. This is why politicians are wrong to try to solve unemployment with tech. It would be great if everyone could move up the food chain in terms of creative and technical work and that tech could create more jobs, but the problem is that by its very nature, the 1% in the tech world will be more efficient than the bottom 90% no matter how much training they receive. 100 great developers will produce better returns than 10000 bad developers. There's no way around this fact. Hell, if you have a powerful enough intelligence that was orders of magnitude smarter than the smartest human then it could obsolete developers entirely by being more productive on its own than all the worlds smartest developers. Increased efficiency is theoretically good, but we're reaching the point where we don't have the social capabilities to cope. We are wired to work, and to need to feel needed, and to feel that we have an upward trajectory in life. These things make it very difficult to cope with the impending unemployment crisis and the environmental consequences of a ballooning disposable culture. Tech is at the very heart of these issues, but Silicon Valley is not the cause of these problems, it's just one microcosm of them.
- ibuildthings 13y ago
  "The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs." While a very relevant sentiment, do you have any quantifiable data to support this ?
  - BariumBlue 13y ago
    At the very least, it does obsolete jobs. The more accurate question to be asking would be whether tech or the economy create enough other jobs to come fill in those gaps.
zeigor 13y ago
Here is a re-post of the blog post: http://thirdwaveberlin.tumblr.com/post/64289810298/week-note-158 http://thirdwaveberlin.tumblr.com/post/64289810298/week-note... Sorry, I wasn't prepared for ending up on hacker news. Thanks for the feedback so far, will try to answer to some of the comments soon.
walshemj 13y ago
Having now manged to read the article the author does seem to have a chip on his shoulder and is writing this from a distinct political stance making glib remarks like “our spying American friends” doesn’t really help in this context does it. In addition “rich white men” comrade who do you think owns all those Mittelstand companies - Germanys far less diverse than the US or the UK in that regard. Mittelstand is all very well but there are a number of problems with then in that they are very tightly controlled secretive family businesses - there appears to be no worker participation in the ownership of these companies what so ever. Mittelstand companies have also recently benefited immensely from the Euro selling all those Porsche Cayennes to Greece I think possibly German concentration on traditional engineering means there is less hinterland to build tech start-ups from – and I suspect that IT training has been starved as mech and electrical engineering probably played the political game better.
- Swinx43 13y ago
  Just out of interest, how much worker participation does big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook really have? From what I can tell it is all perceived participation and the CEO and more importantly the investors have the final say. There is a massive difference between worker participation and investor control, workers are rarely investors or share holders in big companies.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    You haven't seen any of the stories on here about RSUs and stock options which are widely distributed in SV Companys? My Mate will be getting over £60k's (tax free) worth of shares next year from his FTSE100 employer this is just the basic share options that every employee has access to.
mrflett 13y ago
The author is correct. After attending a recent JS conference I didn't notice any of the hartz IV people there but just a bunch of exiles from other tech cities who had moved to berlin for something exotic. Unfortunately this will mean a direct copy of silicon valley as all the people moving here to create the tech boom know nothing else to copy. Would be good if the tech here was a focused on solving real world problems instead of creating the next latest and greatest advertising model...
- wuschel 13y ago
  Excuse me, but have you been to the Valley? I have not. But I have been in Berlin, and I can assure you that I have seen my fair share of hipster copycats. Not that there are not rock solid tech companies operating in the region. It is just my impression the startup scene in the german capital is a bit one sided: mostly marketing, media and marketplace platforms. Is that the future of mankind? I have found a few people that have a tech/scientific background and take up the fight in the startup scene, but so far all but one them have moved to the US. I would be greatly interested to connect and meet with people from technology/science that would like undertake a venture in wet-/soft-/hard-ware. But alas, there are few of them into the startup scene in Germany, for most a heading to the industry sector after their dissertation/master. So, if you are one of the above --> contact me.
triplesec 13y ago
Site down, cached text version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://thirdwaveberlin.com/2013/10/week-158/&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
oscargrouch 13y ago
I cant open this link, the domain name cannot be resolved :( $ nslookup thirdwaveberlin.com > Non-authoritative answer: * Can't find thirdwaveberlin.com: No answer
oscargrouch 13y ago
In simple (and sad) words: There is no passion anymore
oscargrouch 13y ago
A serious question speacially to the German crowd of this post: Im very interested in alternative cultural models for tech products in the digital age, specially because technology has such a impact in peoples live, and can improve the quality of life of everybody in so meaningful ways.. So, where can i find more about the Mittelstand? is there some discussions about it somewhere? is there any group trying to think new models that contrary to the status quo can create a virtuous cicle in the whole community and not only for a particular group of privilege? I am very interested at this, and as a Brazilian i keep an eye in what Europe are doing, and how they are thinking , since they are not taking the SV model for granted, and just repeating.. but trying to get a new meaning out of it, without forget its own cultural values.. (at least it was what i feel and are confirming by reading the posts from the german fellows) Im asking this, because is that what im trying to do too.. I dont want to just launch what i have in hands in the current model.. i think we can do better.. so im interested in all movements over this topic. Note: im specially interested in social groups, and less in literature about it.. as i think this is still in formation.. and new cultural models(if any) are in its infancy
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

80 points by urlwolf 13y ago

Tichy 13y ago

Can't open the article right now, but here is one question I have that might fit: hasn't Sillicon Valley actually started in the middle of nowhere? These days the saying is to go there because that is where the investors with the money are. But the money is there now because some people succeeded with their factories built in the countryside? Here in Germany there are also quite a few towns that are built around one big company, for example Wolfsburg for VW. No doubt Berlin is attractive at the moment, but the things that make it attractive are quickly disappearing - cheap cost of living, lots of empty buildings, lots of diverse culture. I for one don't look forward to the living conditions of the valley, where people have to share rooms at extremely high costs just to be able to be there. It seems very ironic that while it is presumably one of the richest places on earth, the valley sounds like a horrible place to live in.

walshemj 13y ago
SV started where it did because land was very cheap and large government contracts for "blowing stuff up" (tm)

room271 13y ago

A powerful critique. As developers we have the ability to effect profound change. But mostly we funnel our expertise into better advertising solutions. Our industry leaders (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) are all monopolies which pay little tax and employ anti-competitive practices to squeeze out competitors. And few seem concerned with inequality. Let's shape our companies towards something better.

davidw 13y ago
> monopolies http://it.bing.com/search?q=monopoly&go=&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt=all&pq=monopoly&sc=8-8&sp=-1&sk= http://it.bing.com/search?q=monopoly&go=&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt... http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Monopoly+economics&class= http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Monopoly+economics&class= Maybe not? > And few seem concerned with inequality. Companies are for making money. If the people they make money for are concerned about that, they can vote - or distribute their own money - accordingly.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  > Companies are for making money Smart companies realize that their profits do not exist in a vacuum. In Germany it's a long standing view that capitalism must be balanced and that companies have a social function in society and must act accordingly. This is one of the secret powers of what we call "Mittelstand" which employs the majority of people in Germany and produces a huge share of the social product. Those companies are often family owned and pride themselves in taking good care of their workforce - a trait that often pays off when times are turning worse since the employees reward good treatment with loyalty. It's not uncommon for a complete workforce to accept pay cuts across the board instead of firing people which in turn allows the company to keep well trained and educated workers on the payroll until things get better. Both sides profit here. So yes, companies are for making money, but smart companies think further than next years profit statement.
  - davidw 13y ago
    > So yes, companies are for making money, but smart companies think further than next years profit statement. I won't disagree with that - I think it's sensible - but what you have written is different from "concerned about inequality".
    - Xylakant 13y ago
      > but what you have written is different from "concerned about inequality". I don't think so. Henry Ford for example realized that paying solid wages allows people to buy more cars [1], in turn increasing the profits for Ford. Reducing inequality in a society strongly correlates with social peace and happiness, which in turn fosters the economy. Good social equality also helps a larger part of the population to achieve good education, broadening the pool of skilled labor. Certainly, a single bad actor in a good environment can reap benefits from behaving "anti-social", but in the long run that's a spiral to the bottom. So I think that smart companies should be concerned about a raise in inequality, even if it's only for their own good. And making sure that you keep inequality low in your own workforce is the first step. [1] http://corporate.ford.com/news-center/press-releases-detail/677-5-dollar-a-day http://corporate.ford.com/news-center/press-releases-detail/...
Swizec 13y ago
> But mostly we funnel our expertise into better advertising solutions. That's the thing that pays most. For some reason our society rewards advertising platforms. Everything from popular films and music, to every successful medium ever, was founded as or taken over as an advertising platform. Maybe we as a society simply value advertising above all? Personally I try to only work with companies whose business model is providing values to users directly, but I can't argue with the fact that I am far more willing to give my money to advertisers (so I can make a profit), than I am to services that help me make the products I advertise. Why is that? I don't know. But I think the feedback loop from "put money in, get money out" is much quicker with advertising platforms than it is with services I use during creation.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- skriticos2 13y ago
  Well, if you have a product, you also need some form of advertising to let people know your offer. Sad thing is of course, that modern advertisement is based on subconscious influence to make the product part of your lifestyle instead of presenting you a balanced presentation of the benefits and drawbacks. Shameless plug: I released a desktop app for project tracking in the Ubuntu Software Center a few days ago as side project. Here is a non-subconscious manipulating presentation about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_KckRueLQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_KckRueLQ Note: the initial package has a dependency issue. A fix is in review.
- david927 13y ago
  Prostitution also pays a lot. While that says something about our society, it justifies nothing.

sumoward 13y ago

Thanks, an erudite contrarian view like this is always stimulating. I had heard about but did not know very much about Mittelstand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand We have lessons to learn from European paradigms as you point out. However I think you are a little harsh on founders, the pursuit of fame may be an issue for a small minority but is hardly a universal issue.

phreeza 13y ago

Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:of5dj13mn20J:thirdwaveberlin.com/2013/10/week-158/&hl=en&gl=de&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:of5dj13...

jessaustin 13y ago

Tech is the new finance industry. That would be a good thing, right?

qzr3 13y ago
yes.sure

ekurutepe 13y ago

As the author states the tech sector does not directly employ Berlin's currently unemployed and has to import talent from outside (disclaimer: I'm such an imported talent into Berlin), it still creates demand for services and increases employment in other sectors as it grows, and gives an option for the city's youth to consider the tech sector for their future. However as the author states, the sustainability of the tech sector is very critical, but this not specific for Berlin. Even in the silicon valley there is a trend towards more sustainable growth models as the hundreds of SaaS startups here on HN would testify. Being a really open and relaxed city with a high quality of life, Berlin stands a good chance of attracting talent, allowing them to try out their ideas and hopefully create an IPO or two in the next ten years. I can't see why the author categorically dismisses that option.

junto 13y ago
My assumption is that the author doesn't believe much in trickle-down economics. His last statement is particularly telling: Let me finish with a question: what do you think who employs more people? A company like Facebook with a world- renown brand that is worth about $100 Billion on the stock market or a hundred companies that most people have never heard of which are each worth a billion people? The reality is that Germany's Mittelstand is full of SME's doing well for the themselves and employing lots of people. They have built themselves up using a very traditional model: 1. Idea 2. Borrow money from the bank 3. Employ people 4. Build products/services 5. Sell products/services 6. Profit 7. Re-invest and repeat from [3]. 8. After 20 years of repeating - sell company, take-over, child inherits Failure in this instance is often catastrophic to the founder. I also think that there are a number of SaaS startups that are simply SME's and use the label "start-up" in order to try and get target investment from the VC daisy chain. Their model is often aimed at short cutting and gambling without risk to themselves: 1. Idea 2. Borrow money from investors 3. Build products/services 4. Sell products/services 5. Repeat from [2] 6. After 10 years of repeating - fail, acqui-hire, sell (and integrate) or IPO Failure in this instance is often a learning experience to take into the next start-up venture. One notable point that the author doesn't mention is the German adversity to risk. The average Germans doesn't take massive risks. The start-up model holds massive risks to investors, but or course the returns for success are equally huge. Germans would prefer a guaranteed 1.5% return per year to a risky 1000%. That isn't likely to change in the near future.

danmaz74 13y ago

This is a really big problem, and I can feel it myself. Now that I've got customers and seed money, should I try to create a sustainable business that grows organically? Or should I move to London - I'm in Rome now - and try to enter the VC game as soon as possible, as a mentor insists? The sustainable business way appeals a lot to me, but what about the risk that competitors with lots of money crush us just by out-spending us? And what about the ecosystem? But the places with the best ecosystems are very expensive, how can you enter them without VC money? The problem is that there is no proof that the mittelstand model can work for tech startups, while there is proof that the SV model can.

lumberjack 13y ago
>The problem is that there is no proof that the Mittelstand model can work for tech startups, while there is proof that the SV model can. To me it seems pretty obviously that one is the antithesis of the other. Mittelstand seem to work well in established markets with a sensible good quality product or in niche markets where they could often be the only manufacturers worldwide. It does not strike me as the kind of enterprise that aims to grow fast and disrupt markets. Besides, there is already Middelstand tech businesses. They are the software houses that write niche B2B software like time table schedulers for schools and such.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  Well, it all depends on how you define "tech startup" and "mittelstand". My impression is that neither of the two have a clear-cut definition.
- zeigor 13y ago
  Disrupting market is not easy, but it significantly easier, if the first priority of the company is not being self sustainable and instead rely on on venture capital. Twitter is an interesting example in that context. A company that surfaced a unique user behavior and created utterly new communication patterns. Yet, because it didn't focus building a business, it ended having to rely on archaic business models to finance itself while in the process disregarding the people who helped make it grow.

dasil003 13y ago

I don't think the problem is with the Californian model. Silicon Valley knows how to do technology right for its own sake, and every technologist everywhere can learn a lot about how to do technology right by looking at Silicon Valley. Sure there is a gold rush mentality driving media and politics, and there is a lot of greed at play as well. But rich guys in Silicon Valley are no more greedy (and the true technologists among them are probably less greedy) than rich guys everywhere else in the world. The big difference between finance and tech is that deep down at the heart of tech is a natural curiosity and passion for problem solving, whereas finance is fundamentally about arbitrage. In order to take the right lessons from tech's failings you need to separate the tech from its social consequences. The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. It is about seeking greater efficiency in all things. This is why politicians are wrong to try to solve unemployment with tech. It would be great if everyone could move up the food chain in terms of creative and technical work and that tech could create more jobs, but the problem is that by its very nature, the 1% in the tech world will be more efficient than the bottom 90% no matter how much training they receive. 100 great developers will produce better returns than 10000 bad developers. There's no way around this fact. Hell, if you have a powerful enough intelligence that was orders of magnitude smarter than the smartest human then it could obsolete developers entirely by being more productive on its own than all the worlds smartest developers. Increased efficiency is theoretically good, but we're reaching the point where we don't have the social capabilities to cope. We are wired to work, and to need to feel needed, and to feel that we have an upward trajectory in life. These things make it very difficult to cope with the impending unemployment crisis and the environmental consequences of a ballooning disposable culture. Tech is at the very heart of these issues, but Silicon Valley is not the cause of these problems, it's just one microcosm of them.

ibuildthings 13y ago
"The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs." While a very relevant sentiment, do you have any quantifiable data to support this ?
- BariumBlue 13y ago
  At the very least, it does obsolete jobs. The more accurate question to be asking would be whether tech or the economy create enough other jobs to come fill in those gaps.

zeigor 13y ago

Here is a re-post of the blog post: http://thirdwaveberlin.tumblr.com/post/64289810298/week-note-158 http://thirdwaveberlin.tumblr.com/post/64289810298/week-note... Sorry, I wasn't prepared for ending up on hacker news. Thanks for the feedback so far, will try to answer to some of the comments soon.

walshemj 13y ago

Having now manged to read the article the author does seem to have a chip on his shoulder and is writing this from a distinct political stance making glib remarks like “our spying American friends” doesn’t really help in this context does it. In addition “rich white men” comrade who do you think owns all those Mittelstand companies - Germanys far less diverse than the US or the UK in that regard. Mittelstand is all very well but there are a number of problems with then in that they are very tightly controlled secretive family businesses - there appears to be no worker participation in the ownership of these companies what so ever. Mittelstand companies have also recently benefited immensely from the Euro selling all those Porsche Cayennes to Greece I think possibly German concentration on traditional engineering means there is less hinterland to build tech start-ups from – and I suspect that IT training has been starved as mech and electrical engineering probably played the political game better.

Swinx43 13y ago
Just out of interest, how much worker participation does big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook really have? From what I can tell it is all perceived participation and the CEO and more importantly the investors have the final say. There is a massive difference between worker participation and investor control, workers are rarely investors or share holders in big companies.
- walshemj 13y ago
  You haven't seen any of the stories on here about RSUs and stock options which are widely distributed in SV Companys? My Mate will be getting over £60k's (tax free) worth of shares next year from his FTSE100 employer this is just the basic share options that every employee has access to.

mrflett 13y ago

The author is correct. After attending a recent JS conference I didn't notice any of the hartz IV people there but just a bunch of exiles from other tech cities who had moved to berlin for something exotic. Unfortunately this will mean a direct copy of silicon valley as all the people moving here to create the tech boom know nothing else to copy. Would be good if the tech here was a focused on solving real world problems instead of creating the next latest and greatest advertising model...

wuschel 13y ago
Excuse me, but have you been to the Valley? I have not. But I have been in Berlin, and I can assure you that I have seen my fair share of hipster copycats. Not that there are not rock solid tech companies operating in the region. It is just my impression the startup scene in the german capital is a bit one sided: mostly marketing, media and marketplace platforms. Is that the future of mankind? I have found a few people that have a tech/scientific background and take up the fight in the startup scene, but so far all but one them have moved to the US. I would be greatly interested to connect and meet with people from technology/science that would like undertake a venture in wet-/soft-/hard-ware. But alas, there are few of them into the startup scene in Germany, for most a heading to the industry sector after their dissertation/master. So, if you are one of the above --> contact me.

triplesec 13y ago

Site down, cached text version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://thirdwaveberlin.com/2013/10/week-158/&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

oscargrouch 13y ago

I cant open this link, the domain name cannot be resolved :( $ nslookup thirdwaveberlin.com > Non-authoritative answer: * Can't find thirdwaveberlin.com: No answer

oscargrouch 13y ago

In simple (and sad) words: There is no passion anymore

oscargrouch 13y ago

A serious question speacially to the German crowd of this post: Im very interested in alternative cultural models for tech products in the digital age, specially because technology has such a impact in peoples live, and can improve the quality of life of everybody in so meaningful ways.. So, where can i find more about the Mittelstand? is there some discussions about it somewhere? is there any group trying to think new models that contrary to the status quo can create a virtuous cicle in the whole community and not only for a particular group of privilege? I am very interested at this, and as a Brazilian i keep an eye in what Europe are doing, and how they are thinking , since they are not taking the SV model for granted, and just repeating.. but trying to get a new meaning out of it, without forget its own cultural values.. (at least it was what i feel and are confirming by reading the posts from the german fellows) Im asking this, because is that what im trying to do too.. I dont want to just launch what i have in hands in the current model.. i think we can do better.. so im interested in all movements over this topic. Note: im specially interested in social groups, and less in literature about it.. as i think this is still in formation.. and new cultural models(if any) are in its infancy

deleted 13y ago
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