🎪 Start your week inspired ...

Issue #67 (04 Sep) – we are 4000+ strong; business and strategy jobs; coffee with John; how to f*ck up an airport; rents in Berlin; what to do in September.

Sep 04, 2023

Programming note: 🍾 Last week was full of milestones. Newsletter crossed 4000 subscribers, LinkedIn page 500 followers and my not-updated-since-ages cooking blog lindyrecipe turned 2 years old.

🎊 Our first joint get-together this Saturday (17 until late) at Crack Bellmer is SOLD OUT. I feel humbled and excited to meet so many new people! If you were not sure before but would still like to join, please e-mail me. 📸 We also NEED a photographer—do you know anyone? Let me know, please!

🚀 Next stop: 5000! 🚀 Now share this with Simone or someone!

👀 Handpicked twenty-six

📨 Readers submitted

📍 Hypofriend - Senior Frontend Engineer
submit yours on the link; it’s free and gets a lot of free attention and exposure, what is not to like?

🚀 Business & Strategy

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🌟 Handpicked Kleinanzeigen

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

😎 Cool stuff:

I am looking for photographers/videographers, magicians, upcoming caterers, sommeliers and in general people who do stuff at events whatever it may be. We are also looking a photographer for a couple of hours on Saturday—do you know someone? Do let me know.

🔍 Searching for roles:

Divya (mail) has 7+ years of experience in PR and Corporate Communications, and is looking for a suitable role either in-house or with PR agencies. “Proactive”, “Enthusiastic”, “Way too much love for PR” is what her co-workers say about her.
this could also be you, but you haven’t submited anything on this link:

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🗞 Top inspiration snippets

☕️ Coffee with John Ismailoglu

This week I am hosting John, a bekannte from Linkedin with a good dry sense of humour and good content. He thinks you will like these:

Joe Rogan Experience #1309 - Naval Ravikant (podcast) - I come back to this episode from time to time which is filled with life lessons, wisdom and knowledge bombs.
Berlin Ausländer Memes (meme page) - Laughter breeds positivity and this hilariously accurate content resonates with foreigners in Germany.
How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling (book) - One of the top sales books. Valuable even if you're not in sales, because we're always 'selling' something.

🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff

🔒 I published The Best of August 2023 for supporters.
🤦🏻‍♂️ I started to listen to How To F#€k Up An Airport from Radio Spätkauf, a podcast from 2018 about BER. They ran it AGILE, how mad! It really makes you think “wtf”, how can you make so many bad decisions consecutively? Extreme incompetence and shortsightednes plus corruption? We will never know. Btw, it took eight months to build Tempelhof Airport (as opposed to 14y for BER). And BER does feel old, doesn’t it?
🙏 This the last call for your feedback on how I deliver the content (order of sections and structure). It takes 2 minutes.
🌯 I wrote about the most expensive Döner in Berlin (Hotel Adlon) in Issue #28, and still need to try it—but guys at doenerguidesberlin did it and fazit is “try it once.”
📍 MorgenPost made this interactive dashboard on rents (rent as % of your income) in Berlin. Slide over areas for more data. Related, FT article “Extreme renting: limits on rents leave Berlin’s new tenants vying for homes” (€) touches on the rent controls, which favours everyone living here since years. Also:

🧑🏻‍💻 You can get a reward of at least €100 (or more if a family) if you want to track your expenses for three months to help Destatis with their EVS survey. It could help you to understand your cash (out)flow better. More info here.
🧐 In Saxony, AfD is first at 35%, which is… worrying? Adam Tooze recently published this great analysis on driving forces behind far-right surge (1. dissatisfaction with migration policy and 2. protest vote). The question remains to what extent CDU will shift to the right.
📊 In the second quarter of 2023, real wages in Berlin increased by 0.7% supported by rising nominal wages and lower inflation. Nominal wages went up by 7.3%, while consumer prices rose at a slower pace than in previous quarters. (St. BB) Meanwhile, the the unemployment rate is at 9.4%, +0.3 YoY.
👨🏻‍💼 Stepstone published data about the magical six figures (100k gross annually): these are most commonly found in management, law, and finance. Specifically, 17% of employees work in management, 15% in the legal field, and 10% in finance. Industries: Pharma industry 16%, then Aerospace with 15%, followed by banking and the chemical industry, each with about 14%. A bit more at t3n. (🇩🇪) But, tiger, can AI disrupt lawyers? I say not likely, they will just be able to bill faster!
😔 Bad news: Xpay (Munich) insolvent; Van Moof (e-bikes) acquired by Lavoie; N26 to lay off 15% of Brazil staff; Join (Berlin) at least 4 employees (via layoffs.fyi).
🎪 What to do in Berlin in September guide by Exberliner could make you say “why do I have so many responsibilities in life?” because you won’t be able to attend all the cool events.
🤖 What sort of a robot are you? I enjoyed Gurwinder’s framework about humans who, in their search for “truth”, behave as predictably as video game Non-Player Characters (giving scripted responses and engaging in automated behaviours). You can choose from: #1. The Conformist, #2. The Contrarian, #3. The Disciple, #4. The Tribalist, #5. The Averager. I like the suggestion to pick your battles.
💬 Briefly:
1. Glovo (Delivery Hero brand) could face €400M legal costs if couriers reclassified as employees, affecting fines and back taxes. (Sifted)
2. Food startup Circus (Cologne) acquires kitchen robotics company Aitme (Berlin).
3. Back to the office!!! Amazon’s CEO pushes for end to remote work, asks for 3 days/week in-office. When the big ones start, small ones follow.
4. Buycycle (Munich), pre-owned (=used, no?) bikes, is expanding to the US. Careers.
5. Berlin’s film studio Babelsberg is affected by strikes in Hollywood. 40/100 employees are in kurzarbeit.
6. Open AI released ChatGPT Enterprise ~~to make your information security and data protection people feel better~~ to compete with Azure.
7. Deutsche Bank is, according to Handelsblatt, looking into cooperation/buying Scalable Capital.
8. From 1st of September you will be able to book a taxi for fixed price in Munich. More (🇩🇪) — other cities might soon follow.
9. PandaDoc (SF) acquired Berlin-based fintech Denario.

💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany

traide | Berlin | Optimizes customs processes to make international trade more efficient. | Seven-figure investment (amount not specified) | No careers.
Ivy | Munich | Global API for instant bank payments offering lower transaction fees. | $20M | Careers.
fraud0 | Munich | Protects advertising budgets from fake and low-quality traffic. | €6M | Careers.
AskUI | Karlsruhe | Redefines process automation through visual AI technology. | €4.3M | Careers.
Logistikbude | Dortmund | Specializes in cargo carrier management. | €2.2M | Careers.

🤓 Timeless and useful

Last week I gave you a tip on how to stop smoking. A reader e-mailed with this podcast related to the book and it seems that nicotine is actually not as useless as presented by Carr. Whatever rocks your boat!