how do you defeat populists?
Issue #166 (Sep 22) - Berlin Builders Circle; Coffee with Zim; Payrails breakdown; Entstuckung?; 11 unknown places; career advantages of natives.
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Programming note #166: First off, congrats to everyone completing the marathon. Last week I was mostly wondering where the summer had disappeared while wearing 3 layers and sweatpants in my room. Maybe I am more sensitive because my hair also disappeared?
Anyway, I am testing a new idea, Berlin Builders Circle, a capped community of people building interesting stuff. Join us here.
Please check out our sponsors, GetSafe (private health insurance) and Vanta (a great webinar for growing startups).
The email subject is a paper I linked in Snippet #8. It seems it’s all about addressing genuine policy preferences of the voters.
🌟 Handpicked community
Meet — 6 handpicked events:
🚨 Join us tomorrow at Techspace Eiswerk: enjoy breakfast, lunchtime yoga, and a productive riverside workspace. Drop in, meet the team and experience where change-makers are made—sign up now. | Tue, 23/09 09.00 | Techspace Eiswerk
betabreakfast panel with Creative Parenting Club on how creatives balance family and work + plus breakfast and networking with founders, parents, and creatives | Thu, 25/09 10:00 | betahaus Kreuzberg
Founders & friends Berlin meetup - Team & talent development | Wed, 24/09 18:30 | Avomind (HANDPICKED15 for discount)
❤️🔥 LOOSH x Fora x Erchy's: Recovery Walk & Brunch | Fri, 26/09 08:30 | Erchy's & FORA
People & Culture Festival 2025 | Thu, 09/10 10:00 | Colosseum Kino
BITS & DRINKS // Networking für digitale Köpfe der Hauptstadtregion | Wed, 24/09 18:00 | Spreegold Bikini Berlin
This could be your event! Advertise it.
Show cool stuff or Ask for something:
Did you lose your job? Applying for too long without success? Want a higher salary and better work-life balance? It is good to talk to an expert, who knows the market. Annika is an international career coach supporting people in transition.*
Simon is building an AI-augmented business coaching platform and looking for a Berlin-based coach as a co-founder. He successfully exited his previous venture. Email him here.
Something interesting to share? Go for it.
👀 Handpicked jobs
3️⃣ job highlights of the week
The remaining jobs are on the Handpicked job board. This week’s focus was HR & Recruitment.
Level Up Your Health Insurance: Lock In Your Entry Age
Whether you’re employed, self-employed, an expat, or a long-time resident - choosing between public (GKV) and private health insurance (PKV) is one of the key decisions in Germany.
🔹 Public Health Insurance (GKV)
💶 Income-based: ~17% (capped at €66,150)
👨👩👧 Free cover for dependents
⏳ Longer waits for specialists
🏥 Fewer extras, shared hospital rooms
🔹 Private Health Insurance (PKV)
🧑 Premiums by age, health & plan
⚡ Fast access to specialists
🛏️ Private rooms & higher-quality treatment
🌍 English-speaking service available
👶 Low child premiums → affordable family cover
☕️ Coffee Talk with Zim from BEW
I am finally featuring one of my best friends who is insisting on his stage name. So be it. We met because of his newsletter, Berlin Events Weekly, and I never looked back. Subscribe if you want an extremely well-curated list of events. Here is what Zim prepared for you:
La Buvette - This restaurant has solid steak and French classics that won’t break the bank. It's relaxed, unpretentious and has a good wine list. They drop a bottle of tap water on the table without asking. That should count for something!
Hidden Brain by NPR - Podcast - An NPR podcast that makes sense of how your mind works and what drives the people around you. Practical stories on why we think the way we do and simple ways to improve life. It's useful and easy to listen to.
Crazy Bastard Sauce - Tried CBS hot sauces recently, and they were damn good. Minimal ingredients, big flavor. Carolina Reaper & Blueberry is my current open bottle. Worth a spot in the pantry and a solid gift for fellow hot sauce fans.
🗞 Snippets
Berlin & Germany, career & timeless
I am starting Berlin Builders Circle: a curated community for solopreneurs, builders and founders to help each other. Our first meeting will be at my home sometime in October. I would love you to join us. We have 17 more spots.
What do they do in Payrails, a Berlin fintech? I learned a lot while doing this breakdown, my second after saint sass. Who should I do next? If you have an idea, send it to me.
The inspectors didn’t work much over the summer, but here is the regular list of not-so-clean restaurants in Pankow. I also did a short video on the clean ones.
I found this very interesting video about Entstuckung, the reason some buildings in Berlin look so plain compared to the others. A fascinating insight that also helped me understand the reasoning behind architects opposing historicism/eclecticism. I assume the majority of people prefer “the old style”.
Example of partial Entstuckung from Vienna. Author: Liberaler Humanist, Wikipedia. The construction of the extension of the most unloved road ever, A100, towards Storkower Straße was deprioritised (budget constraints) by Autobahn GmbH and won’t begin before 2029. CDU wants it, while the Greens say, “why don’t we just forget it?”. Money is also a problem for the planned renovation of the Tegel airport, which was now moved to after 2030. I wonder if this newsletter will still exist by the time the project is finished.
Deutsche Bahn is allegedly cooking their statistics books by terminating trains with long delays early. This way, these particular delay have no impact on already abysmal punctuality statistics. DB denies it. What was it again… when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure? Yep.
If you fancy an adventure or discovering something new, here are 11 places in Berlin that are probably unknown. The Museum of Letters is closing on the 6th of October for good.
A very interesting paper on what’s causing populism: “Our estimates indicate that the AfD’s vote share would shrink by as much as 75% if the CDU adopted its immigration stance. These results suggest that the electoral success of populist parties is strongly linked to genuine policy preferences, rather than being driven solely by dissatisfaction with political elites or protest voting.” (PDF) Not totally sure it’s that simple.
Career: Do native Germans have career advantages? (reddit) The discussion goes in all directions. It probably depends on the company, but I feel we are far from an Indian or a Slovenian immigrant leading Volkswagen, Mercedes, SAP or Deutsche Bank.
Career: Can you spot signs of AI writing? “Delve” and “It’s not X, it’s Y” (negative parallelism) are one of the classics. Here are some more words, and here is a detailed Wikipedia article about the topic of identifying AI on the website. I was able to add my parentheses in the first sentence because I read the article.
Timeless: Did you know that you can try to like stuff? Take something you don’t like and try to like it. Worth a bookmark and a ponder.
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Briefly
Stats: The number of asylum applications in Germany dropped by 43% to just over 70k in H1 2025. The EU average was -23%.
In January, prices of public transport tickets will increase by 6% on average. A regular BVG ticket will set you back for €4. Deutschlandticket for €63/month (€58 now).
Burgermeister sold 1 million burgers in the last 12 months. I don’t remember anyone protesting against burgers. I guess LAP truly is something special.
Zuckerberg had a bad live demo day. I wonder what happened next to the employees responsible.
TikTok employees in Berlin began their four-day strike, supported by Verdi.
Vivid Money (Berlin fintech) now also offers a treasury service where companies can buy almost all asset classes, also crypto.
JD.com’s takeover of Cecenomy (Saturn, Mediamarkt) was approved by the federal cartel office. The deal can still be vetoed by the government.
Treitschkestraße (Steglitz) will be renamed to Betty-Katz-Straße. Treitschke was an antisemitic historian.
Tesla’s factory in Grünheide revised its production planning for the third and fourth quarters, up. They struggle with sales in Germany (-40% YoY). VW and Porsche also revised their forecasts, but down.
Germany’s opposition to Chat Control has been reverted to undecided.
Weekly social
Reddit: Did you know that blue strips on the roads for the Berlin Marathon are the ideal race line that is exactly calibrated for its length?
Reddit: If you want to walk the Ringbahn, here is a report and a route for you.
Instagram: Phone data by Chris Kohler.
💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany
Terra One | Berlin | Large-scale battery storage developer | €150M Mezzanine | Careers.
Kertos | Munich | AI compliance software platform | €14M Series A | Careers.
Feld.energy | Munich | Agricultural photovoltaic systems | €10M Seed | Careers.
Suena | Hamburg | Energy trading autopilot platform | €8M Series A | Careers.
Encentive | Hamburg | AI energy cost reduction | €6.3M Seed | Careers.
Vinlivt | Munich | AI fintech platform | €3.5M Seed | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
is your body a machine too?
Igor Ranc
Founder & Curator of Handpicked Berlin
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