Germans and Jaywalking: An American's Perspective on the Berlin Tech Scene

I'm an American that's lived in Berlin for the last 7 years, and run a startup here. This post is mostly correct; in fact, it's pretty impressive that the author soaked up the vibe that much in such a short span. But there are a couple points worth clarifying:<p>The jaywalking analogy is stretched. Like, the source of it is partly true, but it's a pretty boring social convention. There are enough places where Berliners proudly flaunt the law that make Californians seem like straight-laced prudes.<p>However, what the argument gets right is that the issue is more cultural than structural. There are a lot of things that come together to make German startup-culture somewhat tamer than the US variety, among them less of a drive for polarized go-big-or-go-home attitude, the historical strength of the German <i>Mittelstand</i> (medium sized companies) and less tolerance for risk.<p>Also, the thing on data and Google Maps seems off. I'm not sure why Google Maps has only recently started to integrate Berlin's subway data, but there are excellent apps for Android [1] and iOS [2] that accomplish the same (and are not published by the local transit authority, and I can't imagine that solo app authors have more clout to get at the data than Google). It seemed a bit lame to assume that since Google Maps doesn't have the data that it must be the city's fault.<p>[1] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.oeffi&#38;hl=de" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach....</a><p>[2] <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/berlin-brb/id409357982?mt=8" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/berlin-brb/id409357982?mt=8</a>

OTOH people smoke spliffs in bars and drink beers while bicycling. There's a strong hacker mentality here. Its anti corporate and there's a distrust of American style funding and bullshit valuations. Lots of open source people here.<p>Many people here work at music technology firms, and those lead the world. Ableton and Native Instruments employee 400 programmers total. Emagic was from Hamburg. Soundcloud of course. Somehow these are never mentioned in articles about Berlin.<p>There's a lot of activism. wiki leaks has or had many core people here. We protest and riot without permission. The squats are slowly being evicted one by one.<p>And yes, we jaywalk. Maybe not up in prenzlauer.

Berlin may not be the best representation of Germany as a whole right now. It is somewhat of an anomaly and may be the least German city in Germany right now due to attracting a large number of foreigners (which I'm not saying is a bad thing). Anecdotal evidence: Last time I was walking through Kreuzberg on a Saturday night at least half of the people on the streets seemed to speak English. However, as a German I have to say that he has a point. People not jaywalking is a symptom of a certain mindset in Germany with regard to rules and respect for authority. Along with this comes a lack of individual initiative and risk-averse behaviour. Being self-employed or starting a company is not seen as something to strive for but to avoid due to its inherent risks. People will actually give you funny looks when you tell them that you don't have a 9-5 job and they may actually pity you. When I quit my job to go freelance, everyone always pointed out the risk of not being in steady employment but interestingly nobody pointed out the benefits. This is curious as our social security system is rather extensive (expecially compared to the US). Even if you fail and fall, you're not going to starve or end up homeless and it'll be a comparatively soft landing. In theory this should benefit risk taking, but it does not. In fact, studies show that numbers of companies being founded and people going freelance go up in times of economic distress (e.g. '07-'09) and go down in times of a booming economy. When asked, the people answered that the did it out of necessity and not out of genuine desire to be independent. So we can conclude that Germans do prefer a 9-5 over the risk of being on their own despite the social security net. My interpretation of this is that most German's perception appears to be biased towards seeing the risks and not the possibilities even when the risks are objectively much smaller than perceived. Coming back to jaywalking this may mean that saving a minute or so may in their perception not be worth the risk of being run over or stopped by the cops however unlikely that may be in reality.<p>I also think that this mindset is a bad thing and has larger ramifications in a world that appears to be changing at an ever increasing pace than most people realise yet. Germany as an economy is highly dependent on the ability to export innovative premium products due to the relatively high costs of labour. Mechanical and chemical engineering are two of the main contributing sectors when it comes to exports. The extent of this becomes obvious if you take a look at the 30 stocks in our DAX index most of which stem from these sectors. What is also obvious is the distinct lack of IT companies. There is SAP and then there's Infineon, that's it and those are neither new nor particularly innovative companies. SAP is a 40 year old enterprise software company. I've never used their products but everybody I know who has, hates it. They may be very well on the forefront of companies ripe for disruption in the coming years. Infineon is a chipmaker that was spun off by Siemens (yes, THAT 165 year old Siemens). They have been struggling for years and had to spin off some of their departments which subsequently filed for bankruptcy to save themselves. There is really no company in Germany that would compare to the likes of Apple, Google or Microsoft in size or innovative potential and this looks like a major deficit in our economic structure to me. What I find notable is that nobody in Germany seems to be noticiing or even talking about this. Given that in the future IT will probably become even more important, this may very well come back to bite us.

I lived in Germany for a long time, and have actually been called out by a kid in a stroller who disapproved of my jaywalking (Rotgänger!).<p>But my favorite story comes from a friend, an American who lived in Germany in the 90s. To paraphrase:<p>A firetruck is in front of an apartment building where, evidently, there had been a small fire. The scene is basically calm now, the situation dealt with, and several of the firemen are waiting to climb back into the truck and leave. But a firehose still runs from the truck, across a bike lane, over the sidewalk and into the building.<p>As my friend walks by, she hears crazy, incessant ringing. Turns out it's a man, on a bike, irate that the bike lane is blocked, demanding that his path be cleared.<p>What gets me about that story isn't that the man is batty, not at all. In fact it reminds me of lots of similar experiences I had in Germany where someone's iron-clad, inflexible attachment to rules and order created a totally absurd situation.

Thanks for the write up! Its always hilarious to read about experiences others made in the country I grew up in.<p>Here are some reactions: Jaywalking - I definitely do that and in Berlin of all cities, I saw folks jaywalking all the time. But yes - generally, there is more discipline to wait for the green light, like in Japan, Korea or China.<p>"multimillion dollar round was not given in one big check". This is what I heard is common practice in the valley as well. When a company raises 10 million, my understanding was never that the VC just transfers 10M cash to their account but that this investment would be rolled out. We should definitely review/discuss this.<p>Also, I agree with the appreciation with something fitting into a puzzle. That probably stems from system thinking, growing up in a European community where Germany is only a part in the whole of the continent and its political and economical bodies.<p>Who owns data... mhhh. I think that depends on the industry. Oeffi (<a href="http://oeffi.schildbach.de/" rel="nofollow">http://oeffi.schildbach.de/</a>) for example leverages the public transport schedules of public local agencies as well as Deutsche Bahn. Pretty awesome!<p>On the other hand, data can be very proprietary in the States too. Take for example movie showtimes. There is NO public, free API for that you could build apps on. But yes, overall, you might be right.<p>In in case you want to see other impressions, US-Americans have in Germany, I totally recommend this blog: <a href="http://www.nothingforungood.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.nothingforungood.com</a> (seems it got hacked but hopefully will be up again ;-).

<p><pre><code> &#62; The &#60;nationality&#62; like &#60;stereotype&#62;. </code></pre> What's funny to me is that I found Berlin completely different to all the other cities I had previously been in Germany. One could say too much hype, but I sort of enjoyed it.

Funny story. I'm from the US but during college, I rented a room from a family in Hamburg for a summer job. One day, the home's owner was driving me somewhere and jokingly explained to me that the purpose of the 'star' on a Mercedes Benz was to help the driver target jaywalkers and chase them back onto the sidewalk. What I inferred was that German drivers hate jaywalkers.

Ahh come on, that's just trying to see a lot more in psychology then there really is. I'm from Berlin and many people DO jaywalk. BUT they don't (and i don't) when there are kids around. And unless it's night there are kids around more often then not. Is that so bad now?!<p>As if you can analyze a whole nation by seeing them jaywalk (or not)... pfft.

Good article overall but anecdotal evidence is anecdotal<p>&#62; Standing at a street corner I was shocked that no one jaywalked. There wasn’t a car in sight, yet Germans young and old stood there obediently, waiting for the green walk signal.<p>I am from Berlin and I jaywalk all the time :) I think people who were actually raised in Berlin are very likely to jaywalk. Looking as to how you visited ITB I suppose many people you've seen were not originally from Berlin (also many startup founders are not originally from Berlin but from all over Germany)<p>/nitpick

Thanks for the write up. I've been working for a start-up in the Silicon Roundabout(London) for the last two years. I am not surprised by some of David's observations about the investment culture in Berlin. The German word for Venture Capitalism is Risikokapital - the word in itself already encapsulates German investors' attitudes towards start-ups. The tech scene is picking up dramatically is becoming shinier and a lot more exciting than where I am right now. ...

No way to read what is almost certainly just pure text or text and images without enabling scripting on an random, unknown website...

hm. was in columbus, ohio a few weeks back: if you are at certain places in the US (an like walking) you have no other possibility then jaywalking. cities and especially indudstrial/commerical areas are not constructed in a way to make it easy for pedestriants. you can be happy if there is a pedestrian crossing within the next mile...

My aunt wouldn't jaywalk with me across a one-lane turn lane in downtown Boston with no traffic nearby.<p>Yes, my family was German. And she'd lived in Los Angeles for decades.

I'm a relentless jaywalker, sometimes unconsciously, and my career has only been in tech startups. Coincidence?

So we need to encourage more Germans to jaywalk?