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Bringing Silicon Valley to Europe Please don't do this.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
logicallee 12y ago
yeah heaven forbid if a European should have the idea for the next Facebook and skills to start coding it, he could see it through to reality.
- rglullis 12y ago
  Funny how for all the talk about diversity that goes here on HN and on the West Coast, you guys still don't get that it is perfectly okay to not want to be Silicon Valley. In my opinion, one of the best essays from PG is "Cities and Ambition"[1]. As much as I'm enjoying my time here in Berlin, I still have the feeling that Berlin still doesn't know what to do when it grows up. Much of the hype here is actually the Kreuzberg types who are suffering from some Peter Pan syndrome, and have absolute zero ambition. Yet, even that is better than "if we don't have a plan, let's just mimic San Francisco". There is no need to turn everywhere into San Francisco. If an European wants to assimilate SV culture, by all means let him/her go to damn Silicon Valley. But Berlin can and should do something else. [1]: http://paulgraham.com/cities.html http://paulgraham.com/cities.html
  - gerbal 12y ago
    Well, Berlin is rare in that it's been a big city before, multiple times. It's got quite a bit of growing room before it has to answer hard questions. And there are a number of serious residents, not in the young, tech scene, who have pretty good ideas how to help it along and where Berlin should go.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- logicallee 12y ago
  -4, really? Let me explain. Silicon Valley is good at taking an idea that could be useful to one billion people, and having one billion people be able to use it. Yes, there are intermediate steps you might not like. Yes, the result might be homogeneous. But at the end of the day, SV is good at that. Mark Zukerberg was exactly the same same in every way except
qwerta 12y ago
Reduce buses 10x, remove subway and other urban infrastructure and you are almost there :-)
MatthiasP 12y ago
Please DO this. Venture capital invested by people who actually know a thing or two about tech startups is urgently needed here. Something like YC Berlin could untap a goldmine, IF done right and IF it takes the quite significant (business) cultural differences into account.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

yeah heaven forbid if a European should have the idea for the next Facebook and skills to start coding it, he could see it through to reality.

rglullis 12y ago
Funny how for all the talk about diversity that goes here on HN and on the West Coast, you guys still don't get that it is perfectly okay to not want to be Silicon Valley. In my opinion, one of the best essays from PG is "Cities and Ambition"[1]. As much as I'm enjoying my time here in Berlin, I still have the feeling that Berlin still doesn't know what to do when it grows up. Much of the hype here is actually the Kreuzberg types who are suffering from some Peter Pan syndrome, and have absolute zero ambition. Yet, even that is better than "if we don't have a plan, let's just mimic San Francisco". There is no need to turn everywhere into San Francisco. If an European wants to assimilate SV culture, by all means let him/her go to damn Silicon Valley. But Berlin can and should do something else. [1]: http://paulgraham.com/cities.html http://paulgraham.com/cities.html
- gerbal 12y ago
  Well, Berlin is rare in that it's been a big city before, multiple times. It's got quite a bit of growing room before it has to answer hard questions. And there are a number of serious residents, not in the young, tech scene, who have pretty good ideas how to help it along and where Berlin should go.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
logicallee 12y ago
-4, really? Let me explain. Silicon Valley is good at taking an idea that could be useful to one billion people, and having one billion people be able to use it. Yes, there are intermediate steps you might not like. Yes, the result might be homogeneous. But at the end of the day, SV is good at that. Mark Zukerberg was exactly the same same in every way except

qwerta 12y ago

Reduce buses 10x, remove subway and other urban infrastructure and you are almost there :-)

MatthiasP 12y ago

Please DO this. Venture capital invested by people who actually know a thing or two about tech startups is urgently needed here. Something like YC Berlin could untap a goldmine, IF done right and IF it takes the quite significant (business) cultural differences into account.