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Berlin has a problem that everyone will feel it after a while living there: Its scene roots are still very anti capitalistic. This still influences the culture

by rmoriz 13y ago

Berlin has a problem that everyone will feel it after a while living there: Its scene roots are still very anti capitalistic. This still influences the culture there, even CCC and other "digital culture groups". Still many people don't want to earn big money because they don't want to lose there scene credit. It's creepy, but still many of my Berlin colleagues think that way, especially in the CCC and pirate party orgs. Hamburg and Munich are much more focussed on deliverying value, real products, make money. They aren't cool, they're expensive and tight. You have to deliver there or you will run out of money very soon (pressure => focus). Imho Berlin needs to evolve without becoming the next Munich or Hamburg: Leave enough room to have a decent living/start up, to do experiments without having to burn millions for nothing (fancy rooms) — but also be able to rise money and go big, if there opportunities are there.

rdl 13y ago
The "anti-capitalism" is real, but at least all the people I've met are fine with "project which makes a product/service we sell", particularly if it's super disruptive -- more anti-corporate than purely anti-capitalist. San Francisco was explicitly anti-capitalist for a long time as well; it's unclear to be if being somewhat anti-capitalist while being anti-corporate is actually bad, compared to being super capitalist and super stodgy/corporate/consensus/big-corp, like many other parts of Europe.
- rmoriz 13y ago
  In the end a developer has to pay her or his rent and food. It's sad to see many hackers in berlin wasting their true skills in unpaid hobby work and sitting in some bozo-driven copycat startups from 9-5 coding in a crappy $language.
  - rdl 13y ago
    I think what will help them is some great local examples of people doing awesome technical work and changing the world through it and getting paid, and local investors who can support that. Right now there is the bad example of the Samwers, and the good example of Soundcloud. Bitcoin and small hardware projects (and security) seem like the main areas where someone could easily do that. Music/club/youth related startups too I guess.
    - rmoriz 13y ago
      For sure the situation would improve very much when some successful "tech founders" are able to invest themselves into tech focussing startups. Currently, this is still a very rare case.
bergie 13y ago
As a c-base regular, I'd say this is actually more of a strength for Berlin. There are lots of ideas and talent that can flow from the hacker and arts scenes into the business world
- rmoriz 13y ago
  I can't see this. CCC, C-Base… they don't influence the startup scene. Take the successful exits from the past 3-4 years. None of them was influenced by the artsy tech scene. They ware influenced by excellent business concept execution without letting a bad IT hurt the company too much (Samwers for example)
CookWithMe 13y ago
> Its scene roots are still very anti capitalistic. While this sentence is obviously a generalization, I'd say it applies more to the city in itself than to the startup scene. "The scene" is quite heterogeneous - yes, you'll find anti-capitalistic parts, but then there are also many people who once worked for one of the Samwers companies, the corporate incubators (axel springer, telekom, ...) etc. These people are probably not as hipster (although the corporate incubators try hard...), but they're everything but anti capitalist. Of all the bigger scenes in Berlin, the startup scene as a whole is in my experience one of the least anti capitalist.

by rmoriz 13y ago

rdl 13y ago

The "anti-capitalism" is real, but at least all the people I've met are fine with "project which makes a product/service we sell", particularly if it's super disruptive -- more anti-corporate than purely anti-capitalist. San Francisco was explicitly anti-capitalist for a long time as well; it's unclear to be if being somewhat anti-capitalist while being anti-corporate is actually bad, compared to being super capitalist and super stodgy/corporate/consensus/big-corp, like many other parts of Europe.

rmoriz 13y ago
In the end a developer has to pay her or his rent and food. It's sad to see many hackers in berlin wasting their true skills in unpaid hobby work and sitting in some bozo-driven copycat startups from 9-5 coding in a crappy $language.
- rdl 13y ago
  I think what will help them is some great local examples of people doing awesome technical work and changing the world through it and getting paid, and local investors who can support that. Right now there is the bad example of the Samwers, and the good example of Soundcloud. Bitcoin and small hardware projects (and security) seem like the main areas where someone could easily do that. Music/club/youth related startups too I guess.
  - rmoriz 13y ago
    For sure the situation would improve very much when some successful "tech founders" are able to invest themselves into tech focussing startups. Currently, this is still a very rare case.

bergie 13y ago

As a c-base regular, I'd say this is actually more of a strength for Berlin. There are lots of ideas and talent that can flow from the hacker and arts scenes into the business world

rmoriz 13y ago
I can't see this. CCC, C-Base… they don't influence the startup scene. Take the successful exits from the past 3-4 years. None of them was influenced by the artsy tech scene. They ware influenced by excellent business concept execution without letting a bad IT hurt the company too much (Samwers for example)

CookWithMe 13y ago

> Its scene roots are still very anti capitalistic. While this sentence is obviously a generalization, I'd say it applies more to the city in itself than to the startup scene. "The scene" is quite heterogeneous - yes, you'll find anti-capitalistic parts, but then there are also many people who once worked for one of the Samwers companies, the corporate incubators (axel springer, telekom, ...) etc. These people are probably not as hipster (although the corporate incubators try hard...), but they're everything but anti capitalist. Of all the bigger scenes in Berlin, the startup scene as a whole is in my experience one of the least anti capitalist.