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This could equally illustrate the difference between long established multi national companies with an overbearing corporate culture vs young upstart companies

This could equally illustrate the difference between long established multi national companies with an overbearing corporate culture vs young upstart companies with a dynamic startup culture.

calgoo 4mo ago
Yea is there not a saying about when the suits and bean counters take over a company the culture dies?
- chao- 4mo ago
  I know it as "when the Elves leave Middle Earth" from an essay of the same name: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
joe_mamba 4mo ago
The question is why doesn't Germany have any young upstart auto companies when the US and China do? The question being the rhetorical kind.
- tormeh 4mo ago
  It's not like the US has that many either. It's not the kind of winner-takes-all network effects industry that attracts venture capital outside of the Musk reality distortion field.
  - joe_mamba 4mo ago
    >It's not like the US has that many either. Math was never my strong point, but AFAIK the "not that many" of the US is still a greater number than the zero of Germany.
    - consp 4mo ago
      If you look at the greater NW European area there were (are still?) several startups, non got big enough to matter and they did not have infinite money to survive like some US based PE funded ones can. And even for Germany a quick "car startup germany" search will give you a few.
      - joe_mamba 4mo ago
        Which German/NW car start brands are start-ups?
        brnt 4mo ago
        StreetScooter
        joe_mamba 4mo ago
        Passenger cars? That's more of a tuktuk for deliveries.
        brnt 4mo ago
        Moving goalposts and a sneer in 10 words!
        joe_mamba 4mo ago
        Yeah, but am I wrong though? Is that a passenger car or not? When people talk about the "auto industry" of a country they typically mean passenger cars. Golf carts don't count.
- mschuster91 4mo ago
  Access to capital, mostly. The US has always been willing to grant hefty amounts of taxpayer money to startups, something culturally foreign to Germany (startups are risky, Germans don't want taxpayer money to be spent on risky adventures that might bring losses) and the US also has dozens of billions of dollars a month in 401k pension savings making their way into the asset markets. And China, well, it's a dictatorship with effectively unlimited foreign currency reserves. They can do whatever they want.
  - joe_mamba 4mo ago
    >Access to capital, mostly. German auto makers were wealthier than the US auto makers. Germany's GDP is now third in the world. There is capital. >Germans don't want taxpayer money to be spent on risky adventures But they wanted it to be spent on Russian gas pipelines, foreign aid, anti nuclear activism, and in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations? >that might bring losses If they hate losses, why do they keep losing? Germany decline in past 15 years seems like its a self fulfilling prophecy. The more risk averse they are to avoid change or losses, the more they keep losing to economies who embraced change, disruption and risk.
    - mschuster91 4mo ago
      > German auto makers were wealthier than the US auto makers. Germany's GDP is now third in the world. There is capital. The problem is, that capital is stuck in the bank accounts of the uber rich. > But they wanted it to be spent on Russian gas pipelines, foreign aid, anti nuclear activism, and in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations? - Nordstream was privately funded, half by Gazprom, half by a consortium of privately owned large utilities - Germany has drastically cut back on foreign aid funding, which in return killed off a lot of the goodwill Germany enjoyed in the Global South, we all know that China and Russia filled the gap. The numbers go up in theory but that's only due to funding for Ukraine. - Anti-nuclear activism never got significant amounts of funding, instead dealing with the nuclear waste costs 1.4 billion euros a year, only 400 million euros are actually going towards the environment [1]. The only point you actually got somewhat correct is > in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations? The problem is, again, risk avoidance. Public tenders are written to prefer established players like SAP, T-Systems et al that can prove decades of experience in government projects. Partially that is due to incompetence, partially it is to shrink the bidder pool and avoid the risk of getting entire projects held up for years by lawsuits of bidders who lost. The lack of internet speed doesn't come from a lack of public investment. Telekom has been privatized for decades. The problem here is regulatory incompetence. > Germany decline in past 15 years seems like its a self fulfilling prophecy. The more risk averse they are to avoid change or losses, the more they keep losing to economies who embraced change, disruption and risk. Agreed. The b00mer brainrot runs heavy here. [1] https://taz.de/Budget-des-Umweltministeriums/!6102402/ https://taz.de/Budget-des-Umweltministeriums/!6102402/
- chadgpt3 4mo ago
  Extreme over-regulation/regulatory capture. If you do anything worth doing in Germany and one of the established players doesn't like it, they find some reason to arrest you or raid your company and shut it down. As a result, people are afraid of doing things unless there's an explicit government-approved path to doing that exact thing. You can open a restaurant because there's a process for opening restaurants, but if you want to do something off the beaten path, its a bad idea.
tormeh 4mo ago
Yeah, this is just the difference between the "cash cow" and "question mark" companies on the BCG growth-share matrix. The Chinese companies will sooner or later turn into stodgy cash cows themselves.
ImPostingOnHN 4mo ago
I think you two are talking about the same thing. The overbearing corporate culture is the cause of valuing dress formality over performance and dynamicism.

This could equally illustrate the difference between long established multi national companies with an overbearing corporate culture vs young upstart companies with a dynamic startup culture.

calgoo 4mo ago

Yea is there not a saying about when the suits and bean counters take over a company the culture dies?

chao- 4mo ago
I know it as "when the Elves leave Middle Earth" from an essay of the same name: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

joe_mamba 4mo ago

The question is why doesn't Germany have any young upstart auto companies when the US and China do? The question being the rhetorical kind.

tormeh 4mo ago
It's not like the US has that many either. It's not the kind of winner-takes-all network effects industry that attracts venture capital outside of the Musk reality distortion field.
- joe_mamba 4mo ago
  >It's not like the US has that many either. Math was never my strong point, but AFAIK the "not that many" of the US is still a greater number than the zero of Germany.
  - consp 4mo ago
    If you look at the greater NW European area there were (are still?) several startups, non got big enough to matter and they did not have infinite money to survive like some US based PE funded ones can. And even for Germany a quick "car startup germany" search will give you a few.
    - joe_mamba 4mo ago
      Which German/NW car start brands are start-ups?
      - brnt 4mo ago
        StreetScooter
        joe_mamba 4mo ago
        Passenger cars? That's more of a tuktuk for deliveries.
        brnt 4mo ago
        Moving goalposts and a sneer in 10 words!
        joe_mamba 4mo ago
        Yeah, but am I wrong though? Is that a passenger car or not? When people talk about the "auto industry" of a country they typically mean passenger cars. Golf carts don't count.
mschuster91 4mo ago
Access to capital, mostly. The US has always been willing to grant hefty amounts of taxpayer money to startups, something culturally foreign to Germany (startups are risky, Germans don't want taxpayer money to be spent on risky adventures that might bring losses) and the US also has dozens of billions of dollars a month in 401k pension savings making their way into the asset markets. And China, well, it's a dictatorship with effectively unlimited foreign currency reserves. They can do whatever they want.
- joe_mamba 4mo ago
  >Access to capital, mostly. German auto makers were wealthier than the US auto makers. Germany's GDP is now third in the world. There is capital. >Germans don't want taxpayer money to be spent on risky adventures But they wanted it to be spent on Russian gas pipelines, foreign aid, anti nuclear activism, and in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations? >that might bring losses If they hate losses, why do they keep losing? Germany decline in past 15 years seems like its a self fulfilling prophecy. The more risk averse they are to avoid change or losses, the more they keep losing to economies who embraced change, disruption and risk.
  - mschuster91 4mo ago
    > German auto makers were wealthier than the US auto makers. Germany's GDP is now third in the world. There is capital. The problem is, that capital is stuck in the bank accounts of the uber rich. > But they wanted it to be spent on Russian gas pipelines, foreign aid, anti nuclear activism, and in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations? - Nordstream was privately funded, half by Gazprom, half by a consortium of privately owned large utilities - Germany has drastically cut back on foreign aid funding, which in return killed off a lot of the goodwill Germany enjoyed in the Global South, we all know that China and Russia filled the gap. The numbers go up in theory but that's only due to funding for Ukraine. - Anti-nuclear activism never got significant amounts of funding, instead dealing with the nuclear waste costs 1.4 billion euros a year, only 400 million euros are actually going towards the environment [1]. The only point you actually got somewhat correct is > in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations? The problem is, again, risk avoidance. Public tenders are written to prefer established players like SAP, T-Systems et al that can prove decades of experience in government projects. Partially that is due to incompetence, partially it is to shrink the bidder pool and avoid the risk of getting entire projects held up for years by lawsuits of bidders who lost. The lack of internet speed doesn't come from a lack of public investment. Telekom has been privatized for decades. The problem here is regulatory incompetence. > Germany decline in past 15 years seems like its a self fulfilling prophecy. The more risk averse they are to avoid change or losses, the more they keep losing to economies who embraced change, disruption and risk. Agreed. The b00mer brainrot runs heavy here. [1] https://taz.de/Budget-des-Umweltministeriums/!6102402/ https://taz.de/Budget-des-Umweltministeriums/!6102402/
chadgpt3 4mo ago
Extreme over-regulation/regulatory capture. If you do anything worth doing in Germany and one of the established players doesn't like it, they find some reason to arrest you or raid your company and shut it down. As a result, people are afraid of doing things unless there's an explicit government-approved path to doing that exact thing. You can open a restaurant because there's a process for opening restaurants, but if you want to do something off the beaten path, its a bad idea.

tormeh 4mo ago

Yeah, this is just the difference between the "cash cow" and "question mark" companies on the BCG growth-share matrix. The Chinese companies will sooner or later turn into stodgy cash cows themselves.

ImPostingOnHN 4mo ago

I think you two are talking about the same thing. The overbearing corporate culture is the cause of valuing dress formality over performance and dynamicism.