Programming note #179: This is the last regular newsletter of the year. I have a surprise for next week.

I already made some plans for changes in 2026, and would love to get your thoughts on the newsletter.

I read every single line of feedback. A massive thank you to everyone who has already contributed. <3

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone.

The email subject in the map in Snippet #4.

🌟 Handpicked community

Meet — 3 handpicked events:

• AD | ✨ Considering a career upgrade? Join us for drinks at ESMT Berlin and learn about its Master’s and MBA programs. Discover how an international business school in Berlin (and the best business school in Germany) can lead you to new opportunities in 2026! | Fri, 23/01 16:00 | ESMT Berlin

• Thinking of investing in real estate? You can research property for months and still not feel ready to buy. Join this Webinar from Financemate that explores why confidence is often missing and what can help you move from endless comparison to informed real estate investment decisions. | Tue, 06/01 19:30 | Online (Zoom)

• RUN-N-RAVE x BAMNAT soul food sunday | Sun, 28/12 11:00 | Bamnat Korean Restaurant

Show cool stuff or Ask for something:

• AD | WahlheYmatPost is a weekly English newsletter that helps Berlin's international community understand how the city actually works — from local politics to bureaucracy to civic life. Written by immigrants for immigrants, it breaks down complicated German systems and shows you how to participate in democracy, even without voting rights. If you want to get out of your bubble, decode Berlin's bureaucracy, and turn your Kiez into home, this is for you.

• Patients in Ward 15 of Odesa Psych Hospital live in unsafe, damaged rooms amid blackouts and air raids. A Berlin-led charity auction is raising funds to rebuild the ward. Bid on exclusive startup, pitch, PR services and DTM conference items and more.

• “Starting a business in Germany can feel complicated. This e-book breaks the process down into simple steps. I'm giving away this ebook for free to the first 100 people who want to start their entrepreneurial journey.”

• Something interesting to share? Go for it.

👀 Handpicked jobs

3️⃣ job highlights of the week

• ESMT - Director Learning Innovation Lab

• Databricks - Staff Product Manager

• Stromnetz Berlin - Business Information Security Officer & Data Analyst

The remaining jobs are on the Handpicked job board. This week’s focus was on jobs from companies mentioned in the newsletter and sourced directly from their career pages.

Submit a job for free.

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☕️ Coffee Talk with Leo Ginsburg

Leo is in charge of Gründerszene, one of the oldest startup & tech outlets in Germany. He’s behind their recent newsletter improvements, and I was happy to see he also loves movies. He even has his own weekly recs substack (in German). Here is what he prepared for you:

• Caligari - My favourite restaurant in Berlin is Caligari in Neukölln. It’s tiny, which I think makes it better, and they change the menu every day. Short menu, three starters, three mains, three desserts. I’ve never had the same thing twice, and every dish has been perfect.

• Yorck Unlimited - I think the best media you can get is cinema. With Yorck Unlimited, you pay around €20 a month, and it’s all‑you‑can‑watch. It almost feels too cheap. I go about once a week, so I’m basically paying €5 a movie. It’s amazing.

• Bench in Charlottenburg near Wilmersdorf - There’s this bench I love on Meyerinckplatz in Charlottenburg, close to Wilmersdorf. Old houses around, a few benches under the trees. I can’t even say why, but it’s one of the five nicest places in Berlin for me. Once I slept there for three hours on a weekend. Sometimes I just sit. I’ve only been a handful of times, but I think about that bench a lot.

🗞 Snippets

Berlin & Germany, career & timeless

1. This newsletter is long. It could be shorter or longer. More focused. Or designed differently. It could be more newsletters. Or it could stay as it is. So many possibilities! That’s why I love to listen to the most valuable thing: your input. It’s 3 min. Thank you so much.

2. We did 4 Money Talks and will have more in the coming months. I’d love to show as many diverse perspectives as possible and would love to have you included. It’s anonymous, and I won’t reveal your name. Drop me an email.

3. In 2026 high earners and single parents with higher incomes will pay more tax overall. A single earner at €100k will be €239 worse off, and a single parent at €70k will be €216 worse off. Another example, families with 2 kids at €90K combined income will be €126 better off (€231 with commuting).

4. Berlin is a city of singles: 56.5% (1.25/2.22M households). The most single district is Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg at 63%. From the neighbourhoods, the highest are Reuterplatz (Neukölln) at 71.6% and Boxhagener Platz (Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) at 71.4%. You can find the complete map here.

5. How to optimise your holiday for 2026? I decided not to do an article this year, so I am directing you to this Instagram post from Mit Vergnügen.

6. The German automotive industry is in serious trouble (-74% YoY), also compared to other big car-producing countries. The reasons are lower demand for luxury cars, tariffs, a strong euro and the high cost of a transition to EV. Related, the EU softened the combustion engine ban this week to help the automotive industry.

   

7. Career: One of the most bizarre HR inventions are ghost jobs designed to… keep the pipeline warm? Helping the company appear as a growing company? Depends on the data, but apparently 22-34% of positions are fake!

8. Career: This sounds counterintuitive, but I find this view that collaboration is dangerous very interesting. It reminded me of my primary school days when we just loved to volunteer for responsibilities in pairs: “yes, WE will take care of it.” “The point is, if you aren’t actively attempting to collaborate less, you are probably collaborating too much by default and hurting your ability to go far, fast.”

9. Career: Unfortunately, the original post was deleted, but you can still see the discussion. If you speak German and want to have an amazing work-life balance: energy sector jobs are an overlooked career path - well-compensated, stable, low stress, but not widely known outside the industry. In Berlin, you could look at 50Hertz, Vattenfall and Stromnetz Berlin.

10. Timeless: If you want to make new friends or keep your existing ones in 2026 (or in general), this is the only article you will need to read.

11. Stats: According to Cloudflare’s 2025 report, in Germany, 43% of mobile traffic is from iOS devices. Android’s share is 58%.

Berlin-related headlines

1. Behind the scenes of Berlin's Pergamon Museum renovation (read)

2. 100 days of A100 highway chaos in eastern Berlin: "I'm so angry, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it" (read, €)

3. Senate misses its own target: Only 20.5 kilometres of new bike lanes built in Berlin this year (read)

4. IT transition in medical practices: Berlin patients should expect longer wait times at the start of the year (read)

5. Refund only after months: Heimstaden sends incorrect utility bills to Berlin tenants (read)

Briefly on business, tech and economy

1. Bad news: Amazon -370 jobs at its European headquarters in Luxembourg.

2. Miles was fined €25M for parking fees

3. Trade Republic (Berlin) had a €1.2B secondary and is now the most valuable German startup at a €12.5B valuation. For comparison, Robinhood has a market cap of around €110B.

4. The German parliament approved almost €50B investment in defense equipment. Rheinmetall’s share is at €1,500 up from €80 before the Russian invasion.

5. N26 is struggling with BaFin compliance and risk management requirements. A former UBS executive, Mike Dargan, will take over as CEO in April 2026.

6. Funke Mediengruppe has acquired Wetter.com from ProSiebenSat.1. The weather portal has over 25M visitors monthly.

7. TikTok will sell its US operations to Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX (Abu Dhabi sovereign fund). It’s only valued at $14B or a bit more than one Trade Republic!

8. Peec AI (Berlin, adtech) reached $5M ARR helping companies maintain AI-based search visibility.

9. Quantum Systems (Munich, defence) has acquired Fernride (Munich, autonomous driving software).
   Lucent AI (Berlin, agentic AI for risk managers) was acquired by osapiens (Mannheim, ESG compliance).

10. The German government launched Deutschlandfonds with €30B billion to support approximately €130B in private investments for AI, energy, industry and defense.

11. Three interesting foreign funding rounds: Notion (productivity software) reached $11B in valuation after a secondary share sale; Databricks (data analytics) raised $10B Series L (!) at a $134B valuation and Lovable (vibe coding platform) raised $330M at a $6.6B valutaion.

12. The Franco-German armoured vehicles manufacturer KNDS announced an IPO in 2026 in Paris and Frankfurt. Careers.

13. Not a good look? Solaris CEO Carsten Hültkemeyer is leaving the troubled fintech at the end of 2025, much earlier than the initial October 2026 plan.

14. Douglas Q4/Full year: €4.6B (+3%), net profit ~€175M. Outlook up to €4.8B. Shares were down due to weak consumer demand.

Weekly social and outside interests

1. Reddit: Someone asked why all Ubers are bad. The solution is to order a taxi.

2. Reddit: A solid discussion on Japanese restaurants in town.

3. elsewhere: Freakpages: a directory of esoteric articles across the internet.

4. A good video by ZDF Magazin Royale: Wegwerfagenten, Brückenköpfe, AfD: Russlands hybrider Krieg in Deutschland

💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany

Nothing going on in Berlin this week!

1. Arx Robotics | Munich | Autonomous land systems and defense | €42M Series A Extension | Careers.

2. Limehome | Munich | Design hospitality accommodations | €75M | Careers.

3. T-curx | Würzburg | Non-viral cell therapies for blood cancers | €17.7M Series A | Careers.

4. Mirelo | Tübingen | AI-generated video sound software | $41M Seed | Careers.

😅 Meanwhile

at the Kasse

Igor Ranc

Founder & Curator of Handpicked Berlin

Five articles with a treat:

• Create Better CVs with AI: no subscriptions, just results

• The best coworking spaces in Berlin

• Why you need a mentor (or become one)

• Learning German with Netflix: benefits and limitations

• Signing a new employment contract in Germany? Read this before.

• ❓Surprise treat for the curious

• …all the rest of Handpicked articles

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• Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin

• 20% Berlin: all the Berlin news twice a week, in English!

• The German Review: analysis and opinions on German current affairs

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