What Startups Need @ digital HUB Cologne
Recently I was honored to be invited to speak at the members-only pre-opening of the digital HUB Cologne about “What Startups Need”.
Spoiler alert: It isn’t corporate partners and digital hubs.
The digital hubs in the state of NRW in Germany is a political construct part financed with public money. It’s supposed to support and help small and medium companies get onboard with “digitalisation”, whatever that term means.
The ensuing panel debate and Q&A
As you might know, I’m much more of a libertarian than a socialist, so I’m not the biggest fan of this publicly funded hub concept for a number of reasons.
Some are:
- I don’t believe taxpayers should be subsidising private enterprises
- If the market had wanted or needed a “digital hub”, it would have created one already by itself
- The market is Darwinistic and self- correcting – putting public support-wheels or bandaids on failing businesses is wrong
- Creating publicly funded competition to existing local business offerings is wrong
You get the drift.
In sum, I think it’s a political innovation theatre paid for in part by us the taxpayers.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
These were the slides I used: