🎉 Wow, this is the fiftieth edition of handpicked!

Issue #50 (08 May) – a short holiday edition with good stuff! Jobs return next week.

Check the website and join an amazing group of people by subscribing for free.

Programming note: I am finalizing this in Lisbon, one of my new favourite cities. I will be back to a full schedule next Monday. I expected to be able to do more for handpicked during my holiday, but then life happened.

🎉 I sent the first issue of handpicked a year ago, on the 2nd of May. The structure was similar, but I feel that the content improved significantly. A toast to the coming 50 issues! 🥂

❤️ I am extremely grateful for you reading it.

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⛱️ Handpicked twenty return soon

🧢 skipping the jobs selection due to my holiday

🧞‍♂️ Outliers.

🎬 Projects & Product.

💾 Data & Operations.

🥇Interested in sponsoring handpicked?

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🌟 Handpicked Kleinanzeigen

Submit yours here or leave a comment. Please be fair to the readers and me.

😎 Cool stuff:

• Jenny is a freelance podcast producer and offers distinctive, high-quality podcast creation beyond interviews for organisations, companies or individuals.

Repeats from the last two weeks:

🔍 Searching for roles:

• Mike (e-mail) is a Brit based in Berlin, seeking a molecular biology role in disease research. PhD candidate with prior experience at RKI and Public Health England.

• Semone is an HR-experienced data analyst with >5yrs in start-ups & multinationals. Seeks a dynamic, collaborative team that prioritizes growth & learning.

• Jacek is looking for a Lead/ Head of roles in all that is AI. “If you need AI in your company, I'm the right guy with 7+ YoE and a focus on NLP.”

• Elise is seeking a marketing role in a startup that needs a hands-on marketer with XP in a strategic and lead role in the B2B software industry.

• Tuhina is looking for a role in Recruiting with 10 YoE in Silicon Valley. Proactive, leadership-oriented and always ready to share a good time!

• Olivia is seeking a Scrum/Agile role in a company that needs someone who can problem solve creatively and connect the dots!

• Willie is looking for Biz Ops, strategy or operations for a Series B or C scale-up. He has a solid CV showing real impact in multiple companies.

• Magdalena has 10+ years of customer service experience in Canada, seeking job opportunities in Berlin. She is flexible and ready to take on any job.

• Anon is a Berlin-based UX designer with 4+ yrs experience looking to transition to UX Researcher. “I want to master gathering evidence through quantitative and qualitative methods.” (contact me for details)

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📢 Shoutout to 🇵🇹

This is a shoutout to the country of Portugal. I mean, if you have never been, go. Still plenty to discover after two weeks. Highlights: Lagos, Lisbon, Cascais, west coast around Aljezur. If you are a couple, Tavira. Faro max one night.

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🗞 Top inspiration snippets

🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff

1. 🚂 If you have decided to take on €49 ticket, Exberliner prepared a nice list of suggestions for excursions from Berlin. Worth a save!

2. 🥷HR people, beware. Over a fifth of younger employees considered leaving you, mostly because they are paid badly and do not feel appreciated.

   tagesschau

   

   A post shared by tagesschau (@tagesschau)

3. 🤑 Here is a summary of research on money and happiness. I like Nick’s conclusion: Increased income is associated with greater happiness for lower-income individuals. For high-income, unhappy individuals, further income is unlikely to increase happiness. For high-income, happy individuals, while more income could enhance happiness, the effort required may not be worth it.

4. 🔐 I am surprised to see #7. Do yourself a favour: stop using similar passwords for different sites and use 2FA wherever possible.

   tagesschau

   

   A post shared by tagesschau (@tagesschau)

5. 😔 Bad news: CleverShuttle (Berlin) insolvent; Shopify 20% of employees (according to

   Gergely Orosz
   most of German org).

6. r/berlin choice of the week is an interesting Reddit AMA from an U-Bahn driver from a year ago.

7. 💬 Briefly:

   1. Getir wants to own them all and is reportedly buying Flink—enjoy it while it lasts;

   2. Tier reportedly selling itself;

   3. Vice News, a former alter news source loved by millennials and eventually copied by everyone, is in serious trouble;

   4. TeamViewer from Ba-Wü posted 13% YoY growth (151M);

   5. SAP wants to enter LLMs with an investment into Aleph Alpha—it will surely be expensive;

   6. Lilium (Munich) needs/wants to raise €250M;

   7. founder of once-hyped Gorillas, Kagan Sümer, is building something new in HealthTech called Mirror (no website yet);

   8. his other three colleagues founded meal-as-a-service for restaurants, Tasty Urban.

💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany

1. Spread | Berlin | Engineering intelligence for complex mechatronic products | $16M Series A | Careers.

2. NetBird | Berlin | Cybersecurity firm creating open-source platform for easy VPN deployment | €1.1M | No careers page yet.

3. Sykell | Berlin | Zero waste packaging solutions for the food industry | €4.5M | No careers page yet.

4. recoupling | Berlin | Developing an app to accompany couples in all relationship phases | €150k Angel | No careers yet.

5. Prematch | Cologne | Content & stats app for amateur football players | €2.4M | Careers.

6. HelloBetter | Hamburg/Berlin | Digital therapeutics for mental health | €7M Series A extension | Careers.

7. Pinpoint | Chemnitz | Inside buildings positioning systems | €1M+ | Careers.

8. Testbirds | Munich | Crowdtesting platform | €1M+ revenue-based financing | Careers.

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🤓 Timeless and useful

Gwern’s list of questions not only makes you appreciate the man’s intellect, but it is also a learning experience in itself.

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😅 Meanwhile

Frankfurt (maybe ex HBF?)

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This is a footer 🛤️ comparison between the US and Europe. I am sure it has something to do with Henry Ford.

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