where to pivot your career?
Issue #158 (21 Jul) – 28th regime; work-life balance; Coffee with Katharina, negotiate a better package; Berlin real estate in shambles; 15 years of renovation.
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Programming note #158: Thanks to everyone who, despite the rainy weather, made it to our event on how to win the first 100 customers. I learned so much in the panel, and loved the extended networking. I didn’t imagine we would need to cut it short due to the store closing. There’s more coming.
Thanks to our sponsors: Feather (they will help you save on dental care costs) and Hypofriend (they will help you find a perfect home).
The ideas for your career pivot are in Snippet #7.
🌟 Handpicked community
Meet — 5 handpicked events:
ProductLab CMTY & CONF> is bringing together top EU speakers to share insights, knowledge, and network about shipping AI, productivity, sustainable growth, and leadership. A 2-day event focuses on best practices, disruptions, and AI capabilities that we need to learn more about to stay competitive! Get one of the last available tickets. Use HPBXPLC for 5% off. | 17-18 September | CIC*
SummerUP - One week of non-stop building and selling powered by CODE University | Fri, 01/08 10:00 | CODE University
Founders Co-Working Event | Thu, 24/07 09:00 | CIC Berlin
Yap circle 02: An idea potluck | Wed, 23/07 18:30 | Vinosteria
Späti stories x The next day berlin - Book swap picnic #1 | Tue, 22/07 18:00 | Körnerpark
This could be your event! Advertise it.
Show cool stuff or Ask for something:
🔥 HOT SUMMER OFFICE ALERT!
The GOAT of offices just hit the market: bright, flexible space at Moritzplatz, Kreuzberg, steps from Berlin Mitte. A rare find that won’t stay available for long.
👉 Book your tour — ready to move in!*FixMyDiaper is a collaborative map for parents to find and share baby-friendly spots with changing tables in Berlin. 100+ places so far — add yours or check it out when you’re out with your baby!
Mahmoud (Circadian) is inviting you to Neue Nationalgalerie, where you will be able to try some of Japan's rarest teas along with some cool tunes on the terrace bar. Thu, 31/7 17:30.
If you are thinking of building something, here are two cool calls for residencies: The Sandbox by {Tech: Europe} (deadline: 27 Jul) with and Antler ONE (deadline: 22 Sep).
📨 Submit your input for the community here.
👀 Handpicked jobs
3️⃣ job highlights of the week
The remaining 25+ new jobs are on the Handpicked job board. This week’s focus on the job board was business and strategy.
Your teeth aren’t the problem. Your insurance is.
German public insurance barely covers proper dental care.
You’ll get a metal filling and a bill. That’s more or less it.
Feather fixes this. For €10.90/month:
Covers professional cleanings (€85–€125/session)
Replaces metal fillings with natural-looking ones
Stops problems early: Fluoride for strong enamel, sensitivity treatments, and fissure sealing
€200 teeth whitening every two years (on the advanced plan)
No forms. No calls. No German bureaucracy.
100% digital. 100% in English.
☕️ Coffee Talk with Katharina Beitz
Katharina works in climate venture capital and has an unusual career path from studying philosophy over consultancy to comms and marketing. On top, she worked alongside bouncers as a door selector at Watergate! Here is what she prepared for you:
Piano Salon Christophori — The salon is hidden in a concrete jungle, in an atmospheric former industrial hall filled with antique wooden furniture. Every day, renowned classical musicians perform intimate concerts amidst these antiques. For around €20, you reserve a spot, enjoy complimentary drinks, and experience world-class performances up close. The booking process is vintage too, operating via an outdated website that adds to the unique experience.
Pivot Podcast — Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway's Pivot podcast stands out, especially given recent turbulent months in the US. The hosts blend sharp humour, candid discussions, and insightful analysis of tech, business, and pop culture without diluting their perspectives. It’s authentic, provocative, and consistently engaging.
Finanzwende — Finanzwende is an organisation shedding light on complex financial scandals such as Cum-Ex, educating the public and advocating for financial sector transparency. They recently gained lots of media attention after a former Senior Public Prosecutor joined as Managing Director. Working in the financial sector myself, I believe we need rigorous self-examination of our own agendas to build trust and take responsibility and supporting Finanzwende represents a crucial step forward.
🗞 Snippets
Berlin & Germany, career & timeless
I was among the lucky few who managed to get the tickets to this year’s opening of the ICC. They built a ticket checkout system that couldn’t handle the demand, so there will be more tickets released in the coming days. On Saturday, the date and time were unclear. It’s worth trying.
I’ve previously linked to EU Inc., an initiative for a single EU-wide legal entity for startups, the so-called “28th regime”. This week Cate at Tech.eu prepared a summary of the current state of the process because the European Parliament published a draft report. As far as I understand, the main complaint is that EP proposed a directive (=binding to a result, not form or method) instead of a regulation (=binding in its entirety).
💎 It was long overdue, but I finally made it to the Liu Nudelhaus, and I warmly recommend it. Gotta love the Sichuan pepper. They offer several levels of spice (I went with “1” and felt it). And btw, the first dinner club meeting is happening at the end of September.
Remote, an HR systems company, released their 2025 work-life balance index. Germany climbed to #4 worldwide (#6 in 2024), just behind New Zealand, Ireland, and Belgium.
Berlin’s real estate is in shambles. We have too much commercial real estate and not enough apartments. A bizarre consequence of the Mietbremse (with no sanctions for landlords who violate it) is that the city is really expensive for newcomers, while some people are subletting their ancient €5/sqm contract for a hefty profit. On top, in the first half of the year, 27 property developers went bankrupt. Related, Mietbremse got extended, and the Senate is considering the short-term furnished apartment rentals loophole in all Milieuschutzgebieten. These rents are easily over €30/sqm.
Since Berlin is still one of the cheapest capitals in Western Europe, you might want to consider buying something. Our friends at Hypofriend offer a great service - you answer a few questions and see how much you can afford. They will also help you with getting the best deal with the banks. Their service is free and fully in English. If you decide to buy, the broker's commission will be paid by the bank. I tested it and it works great! (sponsored snippet)
Career: If you are thinking of a career pivot, here are the estimates from IW Cologne on roughly 770k skilled workers missing in 2028. The shortage will hit retail and childcare hardest. I doubt AI can help there. Related, airlines will need hundreds of thousands of pilots by 2043. Similarly, BVG needed to temporarily cancel U1 because of … summer holiday and lack of drivers?
Career: Patrick McKenzie podcasted his great essay on how to negotiate a better salary package (I have already linked to it here a couple of times). Worth checking, especially if you're more of an audio type.
Career: A slightly contrarian and well-written angle on AI and programming: now might be the best time to learn software development.”Devs spend far more time discovering reality underlying the problem than writing code to solve it.” I think this is true for every good problem solver.
Timeless: A short text about the Minimum levels of stress by Morgan Housel is a useful reminder that in the absence of big problems, we always shift our worries to smaller ones. “The dumber the disagreements, the better the world actually is.”
Briefly
Bad news: Tomorrow (Hamburg, fintech) -50% (-50); Lieferando will outsource 2k riders in Germany.
Stats: Berlin's net migration gains dropped from 84,584 people in 2022 (Ukraine war) to 32,765 in 2023 and 27,107 in 2024, with the city gaining 47,288 foreign nationals while losing 20,181 German residents (76,521 Germans and 82,594 foreigners left the city in 2024). (St.BB)
dltHub, a NYC/Berlin-based open source project, released its initial workflow for Python developers: LLM-native pipeline for 1,000+ API sources.
ASML Q2: €7.7B in total net sales with a 53.7% gross margin, €2.3B in net profit. Shares dropped because of tariff uncertainty, but you should still check their career page.
Lovable (Sweden) raised $200M at a $1.8B unicorn valuation. Thinking Machines Lab (founded by Mira Murati, ex-OpenAI) raised $2B at a $12B valuation without a product. Phew.
Zalando closed the acquisition of About You. Stark (Berlin, defence tech) acquired Berlin-based Pleno.
You can now get a N26 eSIM with 10, 30 or 100GB data plans. And at Revolut, business customers can get a 1.75% annual interest rate on their checking account (paid out daily).
Raisin (Berlin, fintech) will sponsor Union Berlin.
Flix is expanding to Australia. They plan to start the operations in December.
I could barely believe it, but Karl-Marx-Straße in Neukölln was being renovated for 15 years. Unfassbar. What a time to be alive.
Weekly social
Reddit: Why would you keep such a big dog off the leash? Reminds me of an incident in my street when a big dog almost killed a smaller one, and I wondered what is the best thing to do in cases like those?
Reddit: Imagine being such a micromanager — for a dog.
Tired of arguing with your landlord and paying for his holiday in Mallorca? Maybe it’s time for you to buy something. Check out Hypofriend — they offer several cool tools and a smooth user experience.
💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany
Thermondo | Berlin | Heat pump installation services | €50M credit facility | Careers.
GIGA.GREEN | Berlin | Solar and charging infrastructure | €25M | Careers.
MOTOR Ai | Berlin | Autonomous driving system L4 | $20M Seed | Careers.
Alva Energie | Berlin | Decentralised energy management solutions | €5.2M | Careers.
Q.ant | Stuttgart | AI and HPC processors | €62M Series A | Careers.
Ordio | Cologne | Workforce management system | €12M Series A | Careers.
Hey Holy | Marnheim | Subscription dog food service | €5.7M | Careers.
Starflight Dynamics | Munich | In-space operations foundational technologies | €2M Pre-Seed | Careers.
Commutator Studios | Germany | Quantum computing infrastructure | €1.5M | No careers.
enerkii | Munich | Commercial emission-free energy systems | Seven-figure amount | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
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