The reasoning might not sound crazy, but the result is that a founder based in Hong Kong, opening a holding in Singapore, and creates a subsidiary in Germany is much much better off than a founder running the same business out of Germany - and that's before considering personal income taxes or similar

is this hypothetical Hong Konger real? Someone who wants to set up a company in Germany and is repelled by a theoretical exit tax should they plan to leave a few years later?

We're a big country and the world's 3rd largest economy. From our perspective it makes no sense to become a financial haven for foreign founders who just want to benefit from government support which can be quite extensive only to leave after a few years for some tax haven.

We need to do do more to encourage people to invest here and build ecosystems and make starting companies easier but an exit tax clearly only matters to the get-rich-quick and relocate to Dubai crowd.

Yup. That's why the advice is to leave ASAP and it's a good one.