Happy Monday!
Last week I experienced power abuse on the internet for the first time by a subreddit moderator. It's nothing serious at all, but it did make me think about how terrifying it must be when you deal with a totalitarian regime where arguments and truth don’t matter at all. And we are seeing a lot of this now: everything goes.
Nobody will be accusing you of anything at our partner's Finom Conf, on Wednesday the 28th in the gorgeous Kino International. It's for freelancers and founders and free to attend. Trends & Plans is for anyone doing or planning to do some business. Check out the speakers and apply for a free ticket here. See you there!
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📌 Pinned
The Bundestag approved a tobacco tax increase last week, covering vapes too. In 2025, the tobacco tax brought in €17.6B, and the finance ministry expects another €1.5B in 2027. A pack of 20 cigarettes costs on average €8 today, which could increase up to €11.36 in 2030.
Smoking indoors is banned in Germany, except when it isn't. The country's 16 states have their own rules. The last data point I found is that Berlin had almost 1.2k smoking bars ten years ago (via Tagesspiegel).
When Berlin introduced its ban in 2008, larger bars could set up separate smoking rooms. Smaller bars couldn't, so pub owners took the case to the Constitutional Court and won: either ban smoking everywhere, without exceptions, or make exceptions for small pubs too. Berlin chose the latter. That's why the Raucherkneipe still exists: under 75 m² (Berlin's threshold) of customer space, no separate room, no food prepared on-site, no under-18s, a sign at the entrance, and registration with the authorities. I somehow feel I've been to larger smoking bars, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out nobody is checking.
Does smoking decide which bar you go to?
🗞 Berlin
A new project! Together with my friend Simon I developed Make the cut, a four-day retreat in Brandenburg for anyone with a big work decision they keep postponing: a product idea, a pivot or a career change. Register if you're interested. Closer to now: our Handpicked Berlin Coworking at The Delta in Neukölln is on Monday, 26th of October (few spots left!). Next up: our Everyday AI Club is back, this time for Product Teams at HomeToGo. We are also looking for demos - see at Luma.
You are also invited to our sponsor's event on Thursday: AI-First Engineering. Same Old Bottlenecks?, a panel with engineering leaders from Superhuman (formerly Grammarly), Zalando, DeepL and doctorly on how AI is changing software development. Register here.
New government (pre-)coalition discussions are a total rollercoaster. SPD and Greens left the discussions early last week only to rejoin them almost immediately afterwards (I guess the Greens realised they can't really go to bed with CDU?). The main problem is (was?) antisemitism in parts of the Linke and the breach of the parties' joint antisemitism declaration. Linke is now, in a typical* leftist way, infighting and doing the opposite of holding together just as it was about to govern the capital of Germany. They will still probably form a coalition, because the concrete coalition discussions just started.
*And when I say typical, I speak from my own experience: some people struggle to understand that politics is also about bending and adapting your principles for the greater good. Never forget: the arc of moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.11 interesting new places that opened in Berlin in October by the city blog. We had Rogacki here already, but there is also Knast, a boutique hotel in a former women's prison and a laser-and-sound installation NEBULA at Beelitz Sanatorium.
BVG really going digital! They plan to replace Berlin's ticket machines with compact contactless validators that read bank cards, phones or prepaid cards and store the ticket in the cloud. The rollout is expected in 2029. Anonymous prepaid cards will be available for cash payers.
Related, guess how many years the staircase and entrance of U8's Hermannplatz station have been under renovation? Less than seven, but more than five years. If we are lucky, they will finish in December. BVG blames the historic preservation requirements. Well.
Berlin's asking rents rose fastest among the eight biggest cities in the third quarter of 2026, up 2.1%. Hamburg still leads year-on-year at 6.7%, against a 3.7% rise across the 30 largest cities in the dataset.
Nothing new for some of you, but Tagesspiegel's look inside Trade Republic's performance culture found the Berlin-based neobank runs twice-yearly reviews sorting staff into green, grey and red boxes, with red meaning likely dismissal regardless of performance. A manager said: "I have to fire people who are good, people we need. Simply because it's the rule." Must feel crazy to get laid off even if you are doing a good job.
Stats: 27.2% of new car registrations in Germany between January and September were electric. In Berlin, 27.7%. More at FAZ.
In brief
Mall of Berlin (Berlin, real estate) has lenders considering selling off around €550M of loans on the shopping centre.
Bonial (Berlin, retail marketing) acquired Nordic retail-marketing company Tjek, expanding its footprint from two to six European markets.
Tesla (Grünheide, autos) is pushing ahead with its factory expansion, aiming for 1M cars a year (currently under 500k) [more].
Dunia Innovations (Berlin, AI materials tech) won the public-vote AI Start-up award at the Deutscher KI-Preis 2026.
A nationwide alcohol consumption ban has taken effect at 5.4k Deutsche Bahn stations [more].
Berlin's autumn school holidays started today. Expect the city to be emptier.
rbb24: Berlin's Burgsdorfstraße in Wedding reopened after almost ten years [more].
rbb24: a Berlin school is allowed to ban demonstrative prayer [more].
Tagesspiegel: another Berlin neighbourhood is getting paid parking, where 15 minutes will cost €1 [more]. (Askanischer Platz in Kreuzberg)
FC Union Berlin says it's secured the €190M funding for its stadium expansion to 34.5k [more]. During the 18-month construction, they will move to the Olympic stadium. Related, Joshua Wander, who invested in Hertha BSC through his company in 2023, turns out to be a serious fraudster facing a long prison sentence [more].
Berlin is holding an online vote for its 2026 sports champions. You can vote until 15 November [more].
An MP asked how many residential buildings Berlin has expropriated and how compensation was calculated: the Senate says no residential building has actually been expropriated this way in at least the past 20 years, so there's no case to report — by law, compensation would be based on market value at the time of the decision [more].
An MP asked how many Berliners have died from heat in 2026: the Senate confirms RKI's count of almost 200 heat deaths by mid-July, nearly 120 of them in the last two weeks of June alone [more].
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What's inside Potsdamer Platz's old IMAX cinema now?
If you ever watched a film at the IMAX in the former Sony Center, you might have wondered what happened to it. After sitting empty for almost six years, it has a new tenant: Superhuman, the company formerly known as Grammarly.
Superhuman has been in Berlin since 2022, and its local team has now grown to 200+ people. The old cinema is now their Berlin home, and the tiered seating is still there.
Wanna see what it looks like today?
☕️ Coffee talk
Ilya Sakharov is another long-time reader of the newsletter and a newsletterist himself. On his Substack he writes about IT, engineering, and leadership. Here is what he prepared for you:
Britzer Garten - This is one of Berlin's most underrated escapes: huge lawns, lakes, themed gardens, and plenty of space to wander. Plan to definitely go in spring (dates vary each year) for Tulipan, when thousands of tulips turn the park into one of the city's most beautiful seasonal experiences. But something is blooming there all the time, so go!
The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman - For anyone who has had enough of relentless positivity, motivational speakers, self-made gurus, and other pollution. The case that tolerance for uncertainty and negative emotion beats optimism is one I find more persuasive the older I get. It explores alternative mindsets to navigate our reality, and Marcus Aurelius gets his recognition too.
Bundeswehr Military History Museum - I have a long-standing passion for military aviation history, so it's one of Berlin's hidden gems for me. A cool place because you can walk among aircraft, helos, radar and defence systems, tracing the history of military aviation, especially through the Cold War. Gatow was a British airfield and had a role during the Berlin Airlift. And it's free.
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🌿 Worth your time
Last week I was thinking a lot about the economy, also because I made a huge mistake and listened to Alice Weidel's interview with the Economist just before bed. (Facts don’t matter anymore, and she sounded like a fact-bending Putin-supported libertarian fascist who will magically make all the problems go away.) But anyway, here is What do economists know? by Scott Sumner. It turns out quite a lot, for example, why fuel subsidies and price controls don't work. Interesting throughout.
Money-related: how about we do some mental gymnastics about billionaires? "The day all billionaires died…" by noneofthisisok.
Eight marvellous and melancholy things I've learned about creativity by Matthew Inman. Eight illustrated lessons, worth a read. AI could never ever.
Build your Career in Germany
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😅 Meanwhile
this really is a minefield
Weekly social
Reddit: a chart claiming Ukraine's strikes on Russian data centers made pro-AfD bot activity disappear made rounds on social media, but “bot activity down” in a web-traffic report does not necessarily mean “propaganda bots down”.
Instagram: I knew some stuff is possible, but this app-ads connection in Block Blast is sick. Wow. This should surely be regulated away? The same dude also made other videos, for example for Duolingo.
Reddit: Beware of the AirBnB scam! A renter signed a contract, paid half the deposit, and got working keys — then the landlord disappeared.
Results were very much against housing as an investment. Last week I asked you if housing should be an investment: 29% said homes shouldn't be traded, 27% wanted clear rules, 27% backed small landlords only, only 14% saw it as an asset, and 3% just wanted a flat.
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