the most evil regime ever to inflict itself upon humanity, Berlin was bombed into oblivion and cut into quarters to be ruled by four different nations. The Berlin Wall followed as an effect of this quartering, tearing apart families and undercutting both the morale and the economy of the city for decades. The Wall fell just 25 years ago, and the city has been healing itself economically and spiritually ever since.
While real estate is booming, the cost of living remains lower than most other major cities, including other places in Germany. I’m no expert on either history or real estate, but my impression on what’s happening here is the fresh shoots of new growth emerging from the scorched earth of a hundred years of horror and struggle.
I loved that every company I worked with had very international teams. People come from all over Europe, especially countries currently suffering economic challenges. Spain and Italy, for example, have essentially negative GDP right now. This means you’ve got gifted engineers graduating college with literally no jobs in their home countries. They flock to Berlin, with its booming economy and fun nightlife. And those coming from other EU countries, immigration requires no paperwork of any kind. These gifted young people can simply move here and start working.
English is the language here among startups, and in the city in general. While street signs and transit announcements are all in German, you can (and many do) live here without gaining any kind of proficiency with the spoken language. This is somewhat unusual among mainland European cities.
On the downside, Europe is still a bit of a second-class citizen when it comes to tech products. One example is Netflix, which shows a page stating “Netflix is not available in your country” if you visit their website from a .de IP address. Of course, this is circumventable via a VPS tunnel or a VPN provider.
Legal Concerns for Startups
Precedent for how to structure arrangements like advisor shares are still early. In Silicon Valley, you’ve got templates like FAST or Y Combinator’s public documents. The results of my search indicate that similar things do not yet exist for Europe.
On the other hand, I was astonished by the simple and logical wording on the shareholder agreements that I read. I don’t know if it’s a cultural difference, or a legal one, or even the language difference — but American legalese is incredibly unapproachable by comparison.
There are some challenges for European startups. For example, rules governing companies larger than 10 employees make it difficult to fire employees who are not performing or no longer a fit for your company. One technique is to build a 6-month trial period (the longest allowable by German law) into the employment contract, during which time either party can terminate the agreement with no questions asked.
Conclusion
Berlin is a great place to live and full of awesome startups, and well-worth a visit if you’re a tech person. And if you’re a founder, investor, or tech worker interested in career opportunities beyond Silicon Valley, you should take a look at Berlin. San Francisco is clearly the center of gravity for tech entrepreneurship, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. But I’m very excited for the prospects for Berlin as an emerging tech hub.
