Bad management, basically, that's his complaint. I believe the issues with the Berlin startup scene lie somewhere else, though are related: a lot of the startups are started by former elitarian management students, often from WHU, that started companies because it was the fancy thing to do and a get-a-Porsche/Tesla-quickly scheme. A lot of the founded companies are therefore not original, but e-commerce or local copies of international startups. Rocket is a horrible role-model to follow, yet followed by a lot of people with similar backgrounds - the beforementioned WHU absolvents.
Other cities are different in that respect: Munich has its engineering and IT tradition, hence a lot of founders have a rather technical background; Hamburg has quite a gaming industry, so in a way far more interesting as well.
There is some interesting stuff going on in Berlin, yet what is desperately needed are nerds founding companies instead of MBA graduates doing it because their peers do it as well.
Agree, with one minor quibble: In what sense "elitarian" (do you mean elitist)? To my discredit, I went to one of those "elite" institutions before doing something better-suited for me, and I have to say those "elitarians" are at best middle of the barrel in terms of intellect or taste (and that's being generous). Their real strong suit is an above-average greed, strong "goal-orientation" [1] as well as an uncanny ability to think highly of themselves no matter what. I suppose business students/people have some role to play in society, but the best hedge fund (RenTec) has no use for them except in secretarial roles and the best tech companies (Apple, Google, …) seem to also have no use for them except in sales or interfacing to other people of their ilk, so there's that. "Elite" is far from what I would associate with this category of people. They can sell sugar water and they're administrators, really. In a rare flash of truth in advertising, it says it right there in the title: master of business administration! :-)
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[1] I am using "goal-orientation" in Alan Kay's sense of not being able to evaluate an idea on its own merit but only in relation to some external goal, usually "career advancement" (here's another one of those made-up, pretentious business words), ego protection, or ego inflation.
Indeed, I meant "elitist" - elitarian is the false friend of the German "elitär". And I absolutely agree - very often it is just their self-perception as being part of the elite, nothing based on true intellect or capabilities. Just pretty good at playing the game and knowing the symbols.
Other cities are different in that respect: Munich has its engineering and IT tradition, hence a lot of founders have a rather technical background; Hamburg has quite a gaming industry, so in a way far more interesting as well.
There is some interesting stuff going on in Berlin, yet what is desperately needed are nerds founding companies instead of MBA graduates doing it because their peers do it as well.