[leviliebvin]

I think he makes a good point about immigration. Immigration is not going to save Germany, because Germany is not an attractive destination. The only people who move to Germany are the ones who failed to get a VISA from an English speaking country, and even those will leave as soon as they gain enough experience to reapply for a VISA. The only way forward is for Germany to really invest in its own population and to retain them by giving them attractive enough opportunities.

But how do you accomplish this? Where do you get the money from? Nobody wants to invest in Germany, not even the Germans themselves. So the government tries to jump start investment, but the government is both incompetent and corrupt, so for example the German government bet on Quantum Computing instead of AI. Now the government in investing in AI, but instead of investing in LLMs they are investing in "AI for science" projects, 99% of which are complete deadends. Actually this is a sort of theme. The government funded startups are always doing some sort of "science" based product. For some reason this appeals to the founding agencies because science sounds like a solid investment. But most of these startups are either attacking a problem that is way too improbably of yielding any results, or they are projects that sound good to the uninitiated but are actually fundamentally flawed when you actually dig deep into them (like a lot of AI for science crap).

I think, if there is a way forward, it's for the government to stop trying to be a startup accelerator. They are too incompetent and corrupt for that. Instead, it should be a mediator between foreign investors and local talent. Make it attractive to build in Germany and use local talent to do that. And make sure the local talent gets competitively compensated so they do not emigrate.

[ChemSpider]

I disagree. The main downside of moving to Germany - or any other EU country except Ireland - is the need to learn German (or French etc) if you want to fully participate in daily life. Other than that, the quality of life is better compared to USA. Example: EU Bluecard better than H1B and Greencard, health care, public safety, public transportation, walkable cities,... even now, I would recommend Berlin over San Fransciso - especially if you plan to start a family.

If there would be a magic pill that enabled anyone to learn a new language instantly, that would be the end of the US and UK as major immigration destinations.

[leviliebvin]

I know where you are coming from, but I want to point out that this is not the typical skilled immigrant experience.

I have met a couple of Americans with 10+YOE who have been imported to Germany with competitive salaries, like 150k€/year. They live in Berlin or Munich, are already partnered up, have a nice nest egg from their years working in the US, and just enjoy being expats on a little adventure.

This is not the typical skilled immigrant experience. If you start with 0YOE in Germany, it's much harder to go anywhere in life. And when you don't already have a well populated nest egg, you start getting anxious about your inability to accumulate savings. And a lot of jobs are unfortunately not in Berlin or Munich. A lot of these skilled immigrants end up in some 20,000 pop town, 1hr away from the nearest mid sized city. And then, if they come from non-western countries and they do not look European enough, that also adds something to the experience.

[ChemSpider]

Honest question: What major German company is in a 20,000 pop town in the middle of nowhere?

And if so, would that mean life in such a town is worse than in a comparable small town somewhere in the middle of the US?

Indeed, salaries are better in the US, especially AI jobs salaries.

But you also need less savings in the EU due to a much better social security system, e. g. free healthcare in case you get unemployed, free university (that alone saves you > 100K US$/kid),...

[leviliebvin]

Lots of bigger companies like Zeiss or Bosch have many locations and depending on your team you might or might not end up in a really terrible location.

> would that mean life in such a town is worse than in a comparable small town somewhere in the middle of the US?

You lose a lot of the advantages that you listed such as public transportation, walkable cities and free healthcare (availability is terrible in certain locations). But honestly, it's a terrible location to live in, if you want to have any kind of social life, and consider that as a foreigner you probably don't have loads of contacts in the country.

[sshine]

> I would recommend Berlin over San Fransciso

In most capacities except for salary.

[ofheadit]

What do you mean with "not attractive destination"?

[loa_in_]

Even a failed project generates high profile jobs for the duration. Which still could be years. As I understand it, the government isn't lacking profit, just opportunities for people.

[leviliebvin]

The problem is there are no good long term prospects.

For example, you might get a job at a research institute or at government funded startup and gain experience working with cutting edge technologies. The pay is mid, but you don't care because you are gaining experience. Then your contract ends. The private sector cannot make use of your experience. So you have to pivot to programming CRUD webapps or you emigrate, or you get another public sector contract with the corresponding public sector salary.