The German CEO of GetYourGuide says that Germany does not have enough talent to staff his firm. During a recent podcast appearance, Johannes Reck revealed that 90% of his employees in Berlin are not German and have instead been hired from countries like India and the United States.
Reck, the co-founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, said that his company goes the extra mile to make the process of relocation smoother for employees. He gave the example of GetYourGuide’s Indian CTO, Gaurav Agarwal, who struggled for six months to get a German visa.
Reck revealed that Agarwal was working for Netflix in the United States when he was hired as the CTO of GetYourGuide. The CEO had to personally work hard to remove the red tape so Agarwal could move to Berlin.
“We hired a CTO from Netflix, Gaurav Agarwal, last year,” he told podcast host Harry Stebbings. “Amazing guy. He was the guy who led all of the growth at Netflix. Very successful - he was at Meta before. Tremendous resume. He’s Indian.”
Struggle for a Germany visa
Despite his tremendous resume and stellar career, Agarwal struggled for six months to get a German visa.
{{/usCountry}}Despite his tremendous resume and stellar career, Agarwal struggled for six months to get a German visa.
{{/usCountry}}“For him to get a visa to come to Germany after he had signed a job contract – this guy makes a lot of money – took him 6 months. Why? Because he had to go to the consulate in San Francisco and they only take appointments two times a week and they've been booked out for the next six months,” explained Reck.
So how did the CEO of GetYourGuide make things happen? “I literally had to call up the foreign office in Germany to get him an appointment in San Francisco so he could bring his paperwork, so that he could get the visa and migrate to Germany” Reck revealed.
He blamed visa red tape in part for the lack of a tech ecosystem in Europe. “If you make it that hard, it’s no wonder we don’t have a tech ecosystem in Europe,” said Reck.
Before joining GetYourGuide, Agarwal was Director of Engineering at Netflix and led multiple growth engineering teams at Meta. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.