Great weekend with lots of good talks. Many thanks to the flawless organization! Truly excellent. It would be great if Berlin could develop into a rationalist/EA hub, as was mentioned at the end.
I remember reading somewhere that of all European cities, Berlin has the most freelancing-oriented, startup-oriented, so Silicon Valley-ish business culture. This could be relevant as it tends to mesh well with Rationalism IMHO although in ways I am not 100% sure I understand. But “Berlin freelancers” is almost a stereotype now.
I don’t know the details, I wasn’t there since way before the Wall fell. I assume things must have changed a bit :-))
Also, what facilitated the freelancing/startup culture in Berlin? Here in Vienna people seem to be really loyal to their jobs, less of this kind of dynamicity. Is Berlin significantly less credentialist? As it is AFAIK a well-known problem in German-speaking cultures that businesses would e.g. value more employees who have a university degree in programming vs. employees who simply learned it on their own and do it well. I think the common name for this is credentialism. And it seems to me that this stick to your job culture here is due to credentialism, that people can only be employed in their official profession. So I would imagine a more dynamic business culture could come from less credentialism.
Lots of young people want to live in Berlin, because it’s big and liberal and there’s so much going on, meaning there’s a good supply for young driven people. Berlin doesn’t have much financial industry to compete with tech for the smart ones. And because of Berlin’s history, the centers of Germany’s large tech companies are elsewhere.
But I don’t think Berlin stands out from other metropolitan areas nearly as much as Silicon Valley does. There are a lot of technology start-ups in and around Munich, a center of medical tech a bit north of there, and the gaming industry is centered in Hamburg.
Great weekend with lots of good talks. Many thanks to the flawless organization! Truly excellent. It would be great if Berlin could develop into a rationalist/EA hub, as was mentioned at the end.
I remember reading somewhere that of all European cities, Berlin has the most freelancing-oriented, startup-oriented, so Silicon Valley-ish business culture. This could be relevant as it tends to mesh well with Rationalism IMHO although in ways I am not 100% sure I understand. But “Berlin freelancers” is almost a stereotype now.
I don’t know the details, I wasn’t there since way before the Wall fell. I assume things must have changed a bit :-))
Also, what facilitated the freelancing/startup culture in Berlin? Here in Vienna people seem to be really loyal to their jobs, less of this kind of dynamicity. Is Berlin significantly less credentialist? As it is AFAIK a well-known problem in German-speaking cultures that businesses would e.g. value more employees who have a university degree in programming vs. employees who simply learned it on their own and do it well. I think the common name for this is credentialism. And it seems to me that this stick to your job culture here is due to credentialism, that people can only be employed in their official profession. So I would imagine a more dynamic business culture could come from less credentialism.
Lots of young people want to live in Berlin, because it’s big and liberal and there’s so much going on, meaning there’s a good supply for young driven people. Berlin doesn’t have much financial industry to compete with tech for the smart ones. And because of Berlin’s history, the centers of Germany’s large tech companies are elsewhere.
But I don’t think Berlin stands out from other metropolitan areas nearly as much as Silicon Valley does. There are a lot of technology start-ups in and around Munich, a center of medical tech a bit north of there, and the gaming industry is centered in Hamburg.