is your corporate job dead as well?
Issue #168 (6 Oct) - 93% of rents excessive; October events; Munich crushing it; age is just a number.
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Programming note #168: How often do you really slow down? I’ve been pushing way too much lately, so I am slowing down this week.
For the ones who are on the list for the Berlin Builders Circle… more info will be coming soon after this week! Thanks a lot.
Thanks to our sponsor, NAO (alternative investment platform).
The email subject is an article in Snippet #9.
🌟 Handpicked community
Meet — 6 handpicked events:
💰 Money in your account but no plan? Join Financemate's free webinar to see exactly how to build your financial plan in hours, not months. Live demo shows how to transform scattered finances into one clear action plan. | Thu, 09/10 18:00 | Zoom Webinar*
Discover the FemRide story with co-founder Dr. Kerstin Wendt. Learn how Berlin’s new women-focused ride-sharing startup is reshaping mobility, followed by networking. | Fri, 10/10 15:30 | IPB
betabreakfast with Agile Negotiations: Negotiate everything! You don’t get what you deserve—you get what you negotiate. Hear this pitch at betahaus. Breakfast included. | Thu, 09/10 10:00 | betahaus Kreuzberg
14. Jobmesse Berlin | Fri & Sat, 10-11/10 10:00 | Olympiastadion Berlin
How to automate your Marketing with AI | Thu, 16/10 17:00 | CIC
European defense tech hackathon – Berlin | Thu, 13/11 12:00 | Location after registration
This could be your event! Advertise it.
Show cool stuff or Ask for something:
AD | If you are a company with under 50 full-time employees, you can get 100% covered AI upskilling training for your employees, plus 50% of the personnel costs covered for almost a year. And the best part is you don't need to deal with bureaucracy at all. Book your free 15-minute call with Victoria from Sector Education to learn more.
The best 23 startup accelerators for early-stage founders in the US and Europe.
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 Data, Analytics and Finance.
You’re not diversified. You’re tied to one tide.
Salary, RSUs, company stock plans, broad tech ETFs — they move together. When tech stumbles, your pay and savings feel it. That’s concentration risk.
NAO brings in the institutional building blocks that can help smooth the ride:
Private equity — Diversified funds investing in established companies
Venture capital — Long-horizon startup exposure, no daily price ticks
Infrastructure — Roads and energy assets with contracted cash flows
Private debt — Income linked to credit, not equity multiples
Don’t let your career and portfolio hinge on the same cycle. Add diversification — starting small is fine.
Disclaimer: Capital at risk. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
☕️ Coffee Talk with Maria Ledentsova
Maria is a marketer that I'd hire in a heartbeat. But sadly, she isn't looking for a job, because she wants to build her own empire (you can join her community launch/anyway). She can help you with anything marketing, LinkedIn, and Notion, and I can 100% vouch for her excellent work. Here is what she prepared for you:
LOTTA Tagesbar - It's my go-to place for when I need to get out of the house and change up my work location: the design of the café is beautiful, it's full of natural light, and I've never had a problem finding a place to sit. WIFI is stable, too. Great food and matcha. P.S. A great pilates studio "Beyond" is next door, so you can work out & go work or refuel after.
"The Burnout" by Sophie Kinsella - Instead of another productivity book, here’s a fun read. It’s witty, dramatic, and follows a burned-out marketing director who quits and escapes to a rundown UK resort to “fix” her life. A great take on our obsession with self-optimisation — with a bit of romance, too. Perfect vacation/park read.
Urban Sports Club Membership - My life got 30x better once I started working out regularly & trying new workout classes I never dared to try before. In the past year, I've done boxing, callisthenics, pilates, aerial acrobatics, bouldering, hyrox, spinning & more. I even started a WhatsApp group with friends where we share workouts we're going to. Best subscription EVER, I mean it!
🗞 Snippets
Berlin & Germany, career & timeless
Do you work for a fabulous company in Berlin? Or do you know someone who does, and they keep on raving about it? I am looking into profiling a couple of more after Almedia, which will be published this week. Reply to this email or contact me on Linkedin or Instagram. Any tips are appreciated. You are the best.
Do you have great ideas about team events? Help others out and get inspired yourself (r/handpickedberlin). I also published a digest of the digest for September.
We celebrated the reunification last Friday. One thing that didn't reunify are the salaries: the wage gap between East and West Germany stands at 17.4%. Full-time workers earn €4,810 monthly in the West versus €3,973 in the East. Higher earners still face a 19.3% gap that has barely changed since 2014. Low-wage earners have nearly caught up thanks to the minimum wage.
Here is a selection of the October events from Mit Vergnügen. And from Tip Berlin.
I am not surprised at all. Are you? Berlin's rent price review office found excessive rents in 93% of cases examined over six months, with 63% (120/190 cases) exceeding comparable rents by more than 50%, potentially being criminal "exorbitant rents."
Berlin was featured in the latest Schwarzbuch, an annual publication by the Taxpayers’ Association, three times: spending €368k for a scarf campaign that would generate max €75k for homeless aid; spending €691k for 48 bicycle rental storage facilities that generate no revenue for the city; spending €60-65k annually for translation software on Berlin government websites. Tja.
NGP Capital released its DACH Decoded 2025 report. In the past 12 months (Q3 24–Q2 25), Berlin-based companies raised $2.80B, falling behind Munich's $3.44B. This marks a reversal from the previous year, when both cities were neck-and-neck at $2.0B each, and a deviation from the usual Berlin coming out on top. Both cities are far ahead of the 3rd Zürich ($0.81B).
The business initiative "Made for Germany" has grown to 105 members, including Berlin's largest family-owned company, Dussmann. Together they pledge €735B in investments by 2028. It isn’t clear, however, how much of this is the actual new investment beyond the already-planned spending.
Career: Are the corporate jobs dead? If I got 100€ for each slide deck that I made that ended up in a Schublade, I would have many euros today. Add €500 for meetings about meetings and I’d be rich.
Career: Great thinking about the problem of slipping attention and ways to get it back. Visual muscle really works, same with linking present actions to future outcomes. Interestingly, “research shows that pure positive visualization can actually demotivate us”.
Career: Try this simple and fun tool to help you focus your energy on things that really matter. A valuable exercise that could help you get rid of energy-draining things or people.
Timeless: An excellent point of view on ageing. Time flies because we are caught in our routines and are less and less surprised by the world around us. “As you get older, you barely pay attention to things that you would have been entranced by when young.”
Briefly
Bad news: Fiverr (Israel, -30%, does this mean the impact of AI showing?), Lufthansa -4000 until 2030 (prepare yourself for strikes!); ZF -7600 (automotive supplier) until 2030.
Stats: Every year, 75 kilograms of food per person are thrown away in Germany.
Daniel Ek is stepping down as the CEO of Spotify.
You can only take the night train from Berlin to Paris until 14.12. It lasted two years.
The mood among companies in Germany has dropped. The ifo Business Climate Index fell to 87.7 points in September, down from 88.9 points in August. Unemployment dropped below 3M again, in Berlin at 10.3% (+0.5% YoY).
Compare renewables energy generation (54% in Q2 25) to the energy consumption (still mostly oil, coal and gas). We need storage.
Ottobock (prosthetics, Duderstadt) producer is planning to IPO on the 9th of October in Frankfurt (€62-€66).
RWE invested €10M in Focused Energy (Darmstadt, laser fusion). Careers.
Engels & Völkers (luxury real estate) is in trouble in Barcelona. The authorities want €16M for bogus self-employment.
Digitalisation going well! Starting in October, doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies are required to use the electronic patient record system, which should make it easier to transfer data between different institutions. FAQ is available in the article.
Weekly social is turning into a collection of Reddit links.
Reddit: Cheat codes in life that actually work. Compliments rule.
Reddit: Saturn car commercial.
💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany
Fliz Pay | Berlin | Digital payments provider | $1M Pre-seed | Careers.
StratifAI | Dresden | AI-based oncology platform | €12.5M | Careers.
Clockin | Münster | Mobile team process automation | €10M Series A | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
Labubu of the people, by the people, for the people
Igor Ranc
Founder & Curator of Handpicked Berlin
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Five articles with a treat:
How to learn German? Be better than “Genau” and “Mit Karte, Bitte!”
Football in Berlin: where to play, watch and how to get involved?
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