2026-01-31

A Long Talk in the Snow

This Tuesday, I attended YETI's Demo Day. YETI is an incubator where different teams present their startup projects. The event itself was interesting, but the most interesting part actually happened after it ended.

On the way out, I was walking with a German guy I had met there. We chatted briefly near the exit, said goodbye outside, and then started talking again because a few more questions came up. It was snowing heavily, and the conversation kept going deeper. We got so engaged that we stood there in the snow for more than half an hour. Our clothes were soaked, but neither of us noticed while talking.

I've been in Germany for quite a while now. This guy is one of the very few Germans I know who is genuinely interested in how the world is changing and keeps his understanding up to date. To be blunt, most people I've met in Germany, young or old, have a noticeably outdated understanding of today's world unless their work is closely tied to China and the U.S., or they have spent real time in one of those countries. Without exaggeration, many people are still operating on a worldview from twenty years ago. Germany itself has seen little real momentum over the past two decades, and relying on local media alone is almost useless for understanding global change.

What surprised me was that this guy has never been to China or the U.S. and has lived in Dresden all along, yet his understanding of the world is remarkably current. Our views on technology and the future were highly aligned. In Germany, it is rare for me to find people willing to seriously discuss where the world is heading. On one hand, many people's mental models are stuck in the past. On the other hand, a very common pattern I've observed is that most people are not genuinely interested in global change at all.

In my view, today's Germany looks a lot like late-Qing China: still living off past glory, showing limited interest in external change and new things, staying inside its own system while underestimating structural shifts happening in the outside world. If it cannot keep up with the times, the late-Qing outcome may well be Germany's future. Humanity keeps moving forward, but history often repeats itself.

Over the past twenty years, Germany has missed nearly every major tech wave and still has not produced a truly globally influential tech company. Now manufacturing and the auto sector are both under pressure: old industries are declining, new industries are not taking off, politicians keep shouting slogans, and many people just want to stay comfortable rather than build something meaningful or drive structural change. That drive is something I rarely see in young people in Germany, but I feel it often in young people in China. Without enough jobs and without a strong enough tax base, Germany's current social system will inevitably face much greater pressure. It is still living off its old foundation, but I don't think that window will last long. Within ten years, the shift will likely be obvious.

So meeting this German young man was a real bright moment for me. We went deep on topics that are usually hard to discuss here. Before we parted, I told him: you have to keep going and try to help rebuild the future of German or European tech.

If I were German, I would most likely make this my mission. I genuinely like this country, and since arriving in Germany, I have tried to approach everything here with a learning mindset, and to view things with humility, openness, and tolerance. But the reality is hard to avoid: Germany and Europe are facing very serious problems today. What shocks me even more is that most Germans and Europeans do not seem to fully realize this, and very few are willing to push for change. Especially over the past two years, as I have studied how Germany has been gradually drifting out of sync with the world and becoming marginalized, I have become increasingly certain of one thing: I still have choices. I should move to a better environment to pursue my ideals, rather than keep burning energy in Germany and Europe.