If Falko looks to Buttler on his Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, with the sky blue paint, black racing stripes and underbody lighting, then he no longer knows why he wants to return to Germany. “Because I would have bought a car like this will probably never,” laughs Butler. “But here I wanted to fulfill a dream.”
In Germany is for dreams, not a lot of space, so see it at least Buttler and his wife, Christina. That’s why the two have left eight years ago in Bremen, and went in the United States, first to Wisconsin and then to Silicon Valley. Regret, you have the step never. “It’s all a lot of positive here,” says Christina Buttler. “Every time I come to Germany, I would like to thank the love of God, that I may back in the United States.” FOCUS Online dream fulfilled: Falko Buttler in front of his new Dodge
Goodbye Deutschland
The Buttlers are founders, entrepreneurs, creators. In 2008, the two had developed an App called “Calory Guard”, which is to count calories and lose weight. Apple had just brought the second iPhone on the market and its App Store opened. With your diet application, the Buttlers offered one of the first German-language Apps. Result: 800,000 Downloads and several awards from Websites and magazines.
Today Falko Buttler works in Sunnyvale for the health company Castlight Health, which had bought his previous employer Jiff. With Buttlers help Jiff was to grow within a period of three years from 15 to 150 employees. FOCUS Online 14 countries, 14 Reporter – solutions, which can be for our society as a model
FOCUS Online launches a new and constructive Reportage series. The target: perspectives for Germany’s social and societal future. What other countries do better and what you can learn Germany from international models? To find answers, travel 14 FOCUS-Online-a Reporter in 14 different countries.
All previously published stories can be found here.
That people like Falko and Christina Buttler Germany, turn their backs and their talents to Silicon Valley, can the German economy not want. However, the Buttlers are not the only ones, by far. Depending on the estimated life of between 50,000 and 70,000 Germans in Silicon Valley, working for Tech giants such as Google and Facebook, studying at one of the Elite universities or try your luck with a private company. Many of them come back to Germany. But not all.
entrepreneurial spirit, flat hierarchies and nice people
“I could not imagine to go back to Germany,” says Kati Schmidt. The Münsteranerin since 2011 for the Apartment marketplace Airbnb and moved to 2015 in the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, until she made at the beginning of this year with the Dating Service “Pina Colada” independently.
in addition, Schmidt is one of the pillars of the German-speaking Community in the Region: In the program “German Accelerator” advises deutsche Startups who want to take in the USA. And with her friend Kristina Traeger Schmidt runs a Podcast in which German tips for living in the Silicon Valley get – about how this all works with the driver’s license or what needs to be considered with your visa application. Todd Westphal “Here, I have so many friends there to cheer me on,” says Kati Schmidt about their new home of San Francisco
Kati Schmidt, the Buttlers and the many thousands of other German, here is what you missed in Germany: entrepreneurial spirit. Flat Hierarchies. But above all: support. And nice people.
Critical reactions? To felt “100 percent made in Germany”
With their Dreams and ambitions, the Californian-in-exile-German in the own country is often misunderstood. “If I had an idea for something, and other people’s Feedback will have caught up with, then the critical reactions came to 100 percent from Germany,” says Schmidt. “Here, I have so many friends there to cheer me on. All fevers with and with help. Even if you have none of them.“
Schmidt has even given it a name: the “Pay It Forward”principle, to Give English: “more”. New arrivals in Silicon Valley will receive help from the Established, get valuable contacts, or maybe just a couple of tips along the way. “Everyone has given me here is equal to ten contacts, with whom I must speak,” says Schmidt. “Often, without that I would have asked for it.” AFP Networking is everything: guests at a meeting of the professional network Linkedin, which is based in San Francisco
Because you never know whether the newcomer is based on the end of the new Facebook – and maybe even a Favor. And who is so warmly received, considers it his duty to help the following newcomers as well. “In Germany this is different,” says Schmidt. “People think: Why should I help you, what’s in it for me?”
The typical German Schadenfreude
And who fails with his business idea – as it often happens in Silicon Valley get from home to hear: We have said Yes. Startup-founder Roman Weishäupl: “If you are not good in Germany, then the people are happy almost. Because – the thought of it.“ As the Weishäupls had set a few years ago, your App Twyxt, was the most common response from Germany: “too Bad, then you go back in your old Job.”
But in the old Job hardly anyone wants to return here. Even the Germans in Silicon Valley, which are as “simple workers” engaged, thinking and working as founder. As David Ikuye about. The Baden-württemberg had established in Berlin a Startup, this is a reward system for people in big cities developed, the do without a car and take the bike. But Ikuye returned to Berlin quickly back, and went to San Francisco. FOCUS Online He wants to someday again something of my own reasons: David Ikuye in the headquarters of the taxi service Lyft
“I was pretty sick of the Startup scene in Berlin”, Ikuye. “Too little money, too little company, and this is too little high-caliber Talent.” Today Ikuye works at the taxi-service App Lyft, the biggest rival of the industry leader Uber. There he is working on new Ways of how the processes between customers and drivers can still continue to improve and hopes to learn as much as possible about the local industry until the next big idea comes.
“I always had the goal to establish again what is Private in the Transport section, at some point,” says Ikuye. “And that is still my goal. In Germany the people are a lot more to a career in well-established companies.“
“Why did the boss again with a new car?”
“Many in Germany see the work only as a means to an end, as a means to Survive,” says Christina Buttler. And not as a “Purpose”, as the Americans call it, as a way to self-realization. But that’s exactly what the Californian-in-exile want to-German. Anyone who sees David Ikuye with shining eyes to talk about how new innovations in the transport sector, the lives of the people around the world can improve, then the thought comes quickly: already fits quite well here.
The typical German debates on the choice-Californians debt. “In Germany there are quite a lot of envy,” says Falko Buttler. “Seriously, Why did the boss again with a new car?” In the US, such discussions are rare. There you can try instead, to his own car. As Buttler made it has Hellcat, with its new Dodge Challenger SRT. All of the stories from the US:
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