Have you already gotten the ticket to our summer party on Friday, the 17th of July? I'd love to see you there. We will have a fun game, great wine, unhinged gelato and great tunes. At a fantastic new space from Mitte Daily. In terms of events, I'd also like to invite you to our AI workshops, where we will open your AI chakras and teach you how to build your first App with AI. These two workshops are the last ones before summer break.

We survived heatwave number one of the summer. To prep for round two, here are some tips from a Southeast Asian on Reddit. Three highlights: bring your own shade with a UV-coating umbrella. Keep a wet towel around your neck too, dry to absorb sweat and wet to cool you down, re-wetting whenever it dries out, which works better than mist since it lasts longer. And the unconventional one: freeze tinned pineapple slices, place in a reusable bag, and eat on them for a cold sweet-and-sour treat as you go. Apparently, they hold up in the heat way better than something like frozen grapes.

The government announced a couple of reforms and immediately shot itself in the knee by suggesting abolishing workers' ability to get sick notes by phone and requiring a medical certificate from day one. It caused an absolute outrage. Who is so bad in reading the room and didn't think that the plebs would go absolutely ballistic? This reel collected over 100k likes in an hour. So much about the sentiment. I don't know, maybe it was some 4D chess move, but I doubt it: they are already retracting and blaming each other for who suggested what.

And how happy are YOU with the work of the Berlin government (=the Senate)? Only 16% of the voters are happy with it. In April, 1% were very happy, but they have now disappeared. No surprise: the most important topics for voters are the housing situation (30%) and mobility/traffic management (12%). At the moment Die Linke leads in Berlin:

Here are three recommendations for cocktail bars: if you are ever in Bergmannkiez, try Suspiria. I passed it a thousand times and only went in because my neighbour recommended it. I was positively surprised by all the love put into the place: you can even play a clue game. Great stuff. Another two good cocktail bars in the area are Limonadier and Galander. All worth a visit.

Related, I cannot believe that it’s 2026 and we are still doing indoor smoking in Berlin, but here is a good map of smoke-free bars in town. And btw, there is a nazi connection: Hitler was strongly against smoking and Nazi Germany ran one of the first large-scale anti-tobacco campaigns on the planet. They were way ahead of time.

It’s been a while since we had DB in the newsletter: They presented their 10-year strategy, which now tries to catch up decades of under-investment: 80% punctuality in long-distance traffic by ​2035 and an investment of €23B and 28k (!) construction sites this year alone.

CDU-SPD coalition pushes back the target year for Berlin's cycling network by five years [more]

Urbanliner cleared for Berlin: the XXL tram runs on the M4 from mid-July [more]

Turnaround at the RAW-Gelände: investors and Berlin clubs are talking again [more]

Gitex will be no more: Berlin's flagship tech trade fair pulls out [more, €]

Trouble with airlines is growing: consumer advocates report record travel complaints [more]

"Effectively cut total consumption": the medical chamber demands higher taxes on beer and wine too [more]

This essay from Ryan Moulton on colours that screens cannot display was mind-blowing. I followed the instructions and observed the green light on the traffic light, and yes, it is not actually green. Totally recommended.

It's the World Cup (go France, go underdogs except Paraguay, such dirty players!). Have you ever wondered why South America is so good in football? And why is India so bad? It's just a numbers game: the total number of kids (=future talent) playing the game. In short, it’s old clubs + a lot of talent.

Outside interests #1: Google was ordered by a Swedish court to pay $2B in damages to Klarna for systematically favouring its own price-comparison engine over Klarna's PriceRunner in search results.

Outside interests #2: Binance lost its bid for a MiCA licence and must exit the EU market as of July 1, 2026.

Outside interests #3: Meta is exploring an entry into cloud infrastructure, planning to sell AI compute and access to models hosted on its own stack — competing directly with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. [more, €]

Outside interests #4: Bending Spoons (Italy, tech) went public on the NYSE at a $20B valuation.

Outside interests #5: Anthropic received US government permission to resume providing its top AI models Mythos 5 and Fable 5 to foreign customers.

Outside interests #6: WhatsApp introduced usernames, allowing users to connect without sharing phone numbers. The reservation phase started Monday, with rollout continuing through the year.

Outside interests #7: Lime (San Francisco, micromobility) and its shareholders raised $174M in a US IPO priced at $25 per share.

Mister Spex (Berlin, eyewear) is closing its production centre as part of a hard restructuring. [more, €]

Almedia (Berlin, adtech) opened a London office and plans to expand its data team there.

JD.com (China, e-commerce) received approval from Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs to acquire MediaMarktSaturn for €2.2B, subject to data-protection conditions. The deal for Europe's largest electronics retailer still needs EU approval.

Infineon (Dresden, semiconductors) opened its Smart Power Fab three months ahead of schedule, a €5B investment adding 1,000 jobs. The plant will produce chips for EVs, wind farms and AI data centres.

Bayer (Leverkusen, pharma) spun off its US glyphosate business into a new subsidiary called Ruveon after a Supreme Court victory that weakened the basis for many glyphosate lawsuits.

Axel Springer (Berlin, media) completed its £575M acquisition of Britain's Telegraph Media Group after three years of uncertainty.

Germany's inflation rate fell to 2.3% in June, the lowest since the start of the Iran war. [more]

Personio (Munich, HR software) reached €260M ARR in 2025 and hit profitability for the first time, but market observers now value it at only $4-5B, below its 2022 funding valuation of $8.5B. [more, €]

KNDS (Munich/Paris, defence) unexpectedly cancelled its planned IPO after a dispute over the tank maker's valuation. [more]

Depot (Großostheim, home decor) is closing 66 stores as part of its ongoing insolvency proceedings, cutting around 330 jobs. Roughly 80 stores remain, with more closures possible. [more]

Siemens (Munich, industrials) is investing €300M to expand its German energy-distribution manufacturing, adding around 700 jobs by 2030.

SAP (Walldorf, software) is tightening rules on hiring and business travel to free up funds for AI investment, following a report of a hiring freeze.

Mercedes-Benz (Stuttgart, automotive) is seeking to end the 35-hour work week and negotiate longer hours without wage compensation with its works council, which called the situation "serious." [more]

A founder in Celle who built a care service employing 17 people and earning €80k annual profit has been denied permanent residency. [more]

Reddit: how LLMs would talk if they were real people. (Love the water bottle!)

Redditors discuss their controversial opinions about Berlin. I'd like to sign this one: "In this sub? That Berlin is actually not the reason you are miserable"

Reddit: timeless advice of the commentariat after OP is worried they have now ruined their landlord-tenant relationship by triggering a Mietrüge. Full disclosure: I am also suing my landlord and am extremely biased on this topic. After it’s resolved, I'll do a short recap.

Instagram: How easy is it to poison Google's AI overview? Very easy. Find your independent sources and trust them.

In last week's poll, I asked you how many bikes you lost to theft in Berlin: