😎 Jobs are back! Are you a Product Manager? Check if you are paid fairly.

Issue #74 (23 Oct) – 20+ jobs focused on design & UX /UI; three gorgeous links from Christian; FAQ on Gen AI; are you a quiet quitter?; books on dating apps; the best hummus and crow wisdom on döner.

Oct 23, 2023

Programming note: We started our Get sh*t done! sessions this morning. I cannot tell you how it went because I wrote this days before, but at the time of writing, I was really looking forward to waking up at 5:30 AM to get ready. More next week!

“Are you ready for a serious, intellectual and thought-provoking trivia night? Neither are we, which is why our quiz host Arva is here to host a quiz that will make you laugh, cry and teach you almost nothing.” We still have A COUPLE of tickets available for our next joint event with Berlin Events Weekly. Don’t tell me, “I wanted to buy but didn’t, and now it’s sold out.” 😜

🌟 Handpicked Kleinanzeigen & Tech Events

🎪 Events:

📨 Amplify Workplace Communication with 6 Dynamic Styles: A Malt Freelancer's Guide | Tue, 24.10 at 17.00 | Webinar
Women and Climate: Berlin Networking and Swap Event | Wed, 24.10 at 19.00 | Tourlane
betabreakfast | Thu, 26.10 at 10.00 | Betahaus

😎 Cool stuff:

Survey alert: Gintare is looking for expats with at least six months of work experience in Germany for an 8-10-minute online survey for a master’s dissertation project. 20€ Amazon voucher for three participants.
Cofounder alert: Justin is a sustainability engineer looking for a technical cofounder to help him build a global heatwave resilience solutions platform—useful skills: geospatial, data science, and product management.
Christopher is a veteran expert in cybersecurity, web, cloud, and networking, with a track record spanning over 30 years. He is looking to help entrepreneurs and startups on the road to successful business, product or exit with technical guidance and strategic insights.

🔍 Searching for roles:

Such empty. A pity. This could be you next time. Alone, with a lot of attention:

Submit your ad

👀 Handpicked twenty+

📨 Readers submitted

Gemma Analytics - Senior Data Analyst
dltHub - Working Student: Team Assistant
submit yours on the link; it’s free and seen by thousands

🧞‍♂️ Design & UX/UI

More positions in Handpicked online database.

🗞 Top inspiration snippets

☕️ Coffee with Christian Näthler

Christian, a freelance writer, is one of the subscribers with his own Substack. I have previously promoted him and asked him to share three links with you this time. Gorgeous inputs; read them yourself:

Quitting the Paint Factory by Mark Slouka: The author laments our rapidly diminishing belief in the value of unstructured time and criticizes the pervasive culture of relentless work. In his canny takedown of the "grindset," – from 2004! – Slouka extols idleness for its power to inspire contemplation, joy, play, renewal, and presence.
Stone Skipping is a Lost Art. Kurt Steiner Wants the World to Find It by Sean Williams: You're not supposed to read about a man who exiled himself from society to spend his entire adult life skipping rocks and think, I could see myself doing that. And yet...
The Art of Dying by Peter Schjeldahl: Whenever someone asks me what they should read, I immediately recommend this article. It's a moving meditation on a remarkable life, written in short, witty bursts, by the New Yorker's long-time art critic after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff

🍜 Check my Instagram and read my review of Buya Ramen Factory. Like if you like, follow and recommend it. I am grateful for every single comment, like, or follow.
🏛️ Exberliner has this interesting article on crazy architectural projects that were never built. My favourite is easily the Europa Center.
👨🏻‍🍳 How about this lengthy discussion (Instagram) about döner? My choice is a comment on three underrated Döner places by @doenerguidesberlin—Yaprak: "Mira" in Neukölln, Chicken: "Dunya" in Friedrichshain and Berlin Standard: "ballim" in Gropiusstadt. Also, “The real döner shows the quality without any sauce.” Not a döner fan? Then check out the crowd wisdom (Reddit) on the best hummus in Berlin!
🏦 If you are a regular reader, you must have noticed I published a lot of JP Morgan positions in Berlin. It’s because they are increasing their presence in Berlin to compete in the space of direct and online banking. Forward Finance made a list of founders invited to an event with Jamie Dimon (🇩🇪) back in July. Some on the list could be future IPO customers of the American banking titan.
🧺 Did you know it’s possible to launder money with fake Spotify streams? Neither did I! Related, White Noise Podcasts account for 3M daily consumption hours on the platform, costing them $38M. Fascinating to see what sort of problems platforms need to deal with.
🤖 Ethan Mollick has this great FAQ on the Generative AI with an interesting poll where people were guessing which photo is “real”; none of the answers was over 50%. It turns out you cannot detect AI writing (unless the prompt is lazy!) and you should just use it as much as possible to figure out the best way to use it.
💸 Are you being paid fairly as a Product Manager? Product Academy surveyed PMs across Europe, and you can download their report (scroll down on the page for the link). They also have raw data.
🤫 Have you heard of Quiet Quitting, a method for employees to improve work-life balance by not leaving their jobs but not going above and beyond their duty? Remarkable:

😅 How about you? (these polls are anonymous)

📸 If you are on dating apps, maybe you should consider starting READING and posting a photo with books or reading books. “According to a recent study, both men and women find reading to be the biggest “green flag” behavior for prospective partners.” More here.

😔 Bad news: LinkedIn -700 employees; Enlivar (Berlin) bankrupt; Wingcopter (Darmstadt) cancelled 12,000-drone contract in Africa; Volta Trucks bankrupt.
r/berlin choice of the week is How is Berlin different to other big cities you have lived in before? My 2 cents: compared to Stuttgart… well, Stuttgart isn’t really big, but Berlin definitely has so much more to offer in terms of everything, which also includes dirt and dogshit on the streets. Stuttgart has a better location, but I have 0 regrets about moving to Berlin.
💬 Briefly:
1. Picnic seeks €500M in growth capital. Edeka aims for 25% stake. Projected revenue in 2023 €1.2B.
2. Softbank took a major stake in Agile Robots, a Munich-based robotics unicorn. Careers.
3. Lieferando will start to deliver items from Media Markt/Saturn. But no fridges or TVs, only smaller items.
4. PitchBook's Q3 2023 report showed a 49.1% YoY decline in EU VC transaction volume. VC exits were at their lowest since 2013.
5. Deutsche Bahn plans to sell its international transport business, Arriva.
6. SAP expands its presence in Berlin with a new 13-story office building. The investment in Berlin-Moabit totaled €250 million.
7. Berlin court bars HelloFresh from claiming climate neutrality. Lawsuit by Deutsche Umwelthilfe.

💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany

inuru | Berlin | Bringing paper to life through digital printing of OLED technology | €10M | Careers.
Cloover | Berlin | Empowering renewable energy tech providers with financing options | €7M | Careers.
Nala | Berlin | Software to measure and manage a company's impact on nature and biodiversity | €1.7M | Careers.
BLUU Seafood | Berlin | Developing cruelty-free, cell-based fish food as a sustainable alternative | €1.32M (Grant) | Careers.
Circadian | Berlin | Offering hardware and SaaS for energy management, focusing on underdeveloped African nations | €1.25M | Careers.
Zeedz | Berlin | A game focused on fighting carbon emissions by collecting plant-like creatures | $1M | Careers.
Numbat | Kempten | Aiming to accelerate e-mobility with a high-power charger and battery storage solution | €140M | Careers.
Schüttflix | Gütersloh | Offering a platform to select construction material with price comparison | €45M | Careers.
Lanes & Planes | Munich | All-in-one solution for travel bookings, approvals, and expense management | $35M | Careers.
Hey Holy | Marnheim | Subscription-based high-quality dog food | €2M | Careers.
Meet5 | Frankfurt am Main | Leisure app for people over 40 | €1M | Careers.