[ashray]

I read your article and found it quite interesting. However, all the points you raised would have been more interesting if you'd have gone deeper into them. Like raising tech wages. Now, that might attract talent but wouldn't that also raise the bar for starting up? One of the problems with SF startups at the moment is that it's impossible to start anything without tons of funding (see recent Sergey Brin article).

Taxes are another very complex issue.

In general though we could go circles around each point and never end up with much of a conclusion. I do agree that capital is very hard to acquire outside of Silicon Valley and the anti-startup culture is strong.

But I don't think Berlin is a bad place to be in. In fact, at the moment I think Berlin is one of the best places to hack something together because there is tons of talent around and they would not need to be compensated much (low cost of living). You could do the same under a Delaware corp hiring people in Berlin as freelancers and you'd still be able to get US VC investment if you're solving a problem in the states and have customers there.

[demonshalo]

> I read your article and found it quite interesting.

Thanks!

> Now, that might attract talent but wouldn't that also raise the bar for starting up? One of the problems with SF startups at the moment is that it's impossible to start anything without tons of funding. Taxes are another very complex issue. In general though we could go circles around each point and never end up with much of a conclusion.

You are absolutely right about that. However, it is apparent, at least to me, that the middle class in Europe has no savings. And that is the reason for the lack of capital. Both income and consumption is highly taxed on all levels which makes it hard to save up and invest over time for the average middle-class worker. When I was in the US, My community college teacher had money saved up that he wanted to invest, my neighbors, colleges and everyone I knew was saving up in a hope for a good deal to show up.

Just as an example. I am a 1% income earner (in my age group) in Stockholm right now. And I can BARELY save up 10k USD/year. Those 10k would basically be burned in the 1st month of operation if I decide to start a business due to how expensive and taxed everything is. All of this makes it impossible for someone like me to take a chance and try something out in this hostile climate.

> But I don't think Berlin is a bad place to be in. In fact, at the moment I think Berlin is one of the best places to hack something together because there is tons of talent around and they would not need to be compensated much

From my personal experience, I barely saw any talent in Berlin. I consulted for a few companies there and the general software/code quality was so bad for some reason. English literacy was also another major problem that was rather shocking to me. Most of the German developers I spoke to barely knew English, which to me was so surreal :S

> You could do the same under a Delaware corp hiring people in Berlin as freelancers and you'd still be able to get US VC investment if you're solving a problem in the states and have customers there.

If I had a US visa, I wouldn't need to do any of that :P but that H1B program is just a pain in the rear.

[ashray]

Would you mind sharing your contact info with me? I'd love to pick your brain about some of this stuff, especially your perspective on Berlin, startups, tech cofounders, etc.. I checked your profile AND your website (and domain WHOIS too :P) for contact info. My email address is in my HN profile so if you could please drop me an email with your info, we can take it from there.