As someone living in a German city which is a world leading car manufacturing center, I would actually like to see the end of German auto industry. The whole German economic system is geared towards those big car manufacturers, and it's very hard for small businesses and enterpreneurs to navigate through all of that bureaucratic mess created by big German corporations. Letting them fail would actually help making German economy much healthier in the long run.
I am not even sure, that Silicon Valley is ahead when it comes to "digital stuff" inside cars. It is my perception at least, that companies like Mercedes or BMW had many of the digital helpers first. I therefor think Germany would be a great place to start a tech-startup apart from the next social network.
You mean besides the extreme bureaucracy, poor funding opportunities, poor exit opportunities.
Germany is probably one of the WORST places for a start-up.
As someone doing business in Germany since the age of 17, I would actually like to know, what you mean by that. Of course employment works different here (like generally in Europe), and I also give you that it is much harder for non-Germans, but if you know the language you can generally just call the folks at our IRS and they are happy to help you.
Starting to freelance is literally just filling out a one page online form at the Gewerbeamt, after that do not call them, they call you.
Setting up an entity is a bid harder, but come on, registering an UG or a LTD (in the UK, this is Europe after all, you can register your company pretty much where you want to) is not black magic either. It could be easier, but I do not buy that we are missing opportunities, because you have to google it first.
> poor funding opportunities, poor exit opportunities.
>Germany is probably one of the WORST places for a start-up.
I give you lacking funding opportunity, but the notion seems to be, that early stage funding is pretty okay, mid and later stage rounds seem to be the problem. We do have an exchange in Frankfurt and car companies are buying startups in their space, the problem is more, that there simply are not that many of them.
There is also the possibility to join Rocket, their E-commerce and (locale) marketplaces seem to do just fine, funding-wise.
I think we are pretty okay, even without the short-lived social stuff, that SV creates, which some people call a scheme anyway. What I would like to see more of are SaaS products in many different spaces. I do not think that missing funding or a bureaucracy are the reasons why we do not have more of them. I think the reasons are rooted deeper in society, which is slowly changing over time, thanks David Fincher.
Also: Compared to what? SV or the 192 other countries that exists besides Germany and America?
Denmark 4
France 46
Germany 62
Italy 77
Netherlands 10
Spain 71
Sweden 29
Japan 94
Korea 83
US 15
Canada -73
Mexico -19http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_nus-z00_mbblpd_...
Any attempt by Europe to try that, would destroy the European economy. Germany is hyper dependent on exports. The US eats most of its own dog food when it comes to manufacturing, Germany does not. Nearly all of Europe, other than Russia and perhaps Norway, lacks the ability to be truly energy independent today. It's obvious who would win the import / export restriction war.
There's one country capable of being fully self-sustaining across science, innovation, manufacturing, natural resources, technology - that's the US. Europe has barely shown an ability to cooperate even in a poorly functioning manner when it comes to integration, much less of the extreme integration such a command economy system would require. Even the Eurozone experiment has been a disaster for the majority of countries involved. There's no possibility of the kind of extreme integration the kick-the-Americans-out plan would require, ever happening.
Kick the Americans out? Ok, well now BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes are banned in the US. Germany just lost a huge part of its economy (look up the two biggest markets for their vehicles: the US and China).