Carsten Maschmeyer warns: “We are losing our economic position”

Carsten Maschmeyer warns
“We are losing our economic position”

February 14, 2024, 10:00 a.m

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Carsten Maschmeyer is an optimist. And he also wants to remain optimistic when he looks at Germany as a business location. In order for this to work, from the perspective of the investor and Lion’s Den star, various adjustments have to be made.

“We are increasingly losing a good economic position in our location,” Carsten Maschmeyer attests to his home country and points to Germany’s mediocre ranking in digitalization indexes. A situation that worries him: “Ahead of us are Slovenia, Malta, Spain. We are on average in the EU. It is unimaginable how we are currently gambling away the present of tomorrow.”

There is no lack of potential. There are many “great founders who make a big difference”. But startups and every other company in Germany has to struggle with bureaucracy and a lack of digitalization in administration. “It’s a shame that the largest client doesn’t trust German startups in particular,” the investor criticizes the hesitant attitude of the public sector.

German railway? “Train has left”

Meanwhile, Maschmeyer made a harsh judgment on another public company. It’s about Deutsche Bahn, which is currently making headlines again and again for various reasons. The state-owned company recently advertised a job offer looking for an employee for a Windows operating system that was over 30 years old. “Far too little has been invested in new systems and old data sets have been held on to for far too long. And that’s the same in large banks and insurance companies,” criticizes Maschmeyer. In general, the “train has already left” for him at the railway. The company is highly loss-making and did not take care of progress in a timely manner.

With Carsten Maschmeyer spoke Frauke Holzmeier and Andreas Laukat. You can watch the entire conversation in the podcast “This is how Germany techs” listen.