We have a new Money Talk: this time it’s Sara, 35F from Prenzlauer Berg. A very interesting story and some great tips for your salary negotiation.

Ever got a spam call from a German number? Yes, me too. I was happy to see this list by Finanztip. And because I love my subscribers, I created this Spam Number contact, which you can download, save to your contacts and then BLOCK.

Did you get to see any films at Berlinale? I did, and they were a pretty mixed bag. I didn’t like Nightborn (Yön Lapsi) or The River Train (El Tren Fluvial) at all. Berlinale Shorts 4 was better, but one of the five shorts really made me wonder (the director was a funny chap who kept on talking). Here are all the Jury winners, and here is a list of the winners in all categories. So many juries and awards!

Well, who will do all the work if we are already missing so many workers and if the population in Germany is likely to decline much faster than initially expected? The latest population projection now expects a ~10% population decline by 2070.

The previous one in 2022 assumed it would stay roughly constant, mainly because it was built on wrong numbers — the 2022 census revealed that 1.3M people (mostly foreign nationals who had left without deregistering) were ghost entries in the statistics. On top of that, fertility kept falling instead of recovering as assumed, and net migration came in much lower than expected.

East vs. West divide is visible too: -22% in the East vs. -9% in the West (Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are expected to be growing slightly). Pardon my French, but we will really need robots to wipe our asses. Not to mention the pensions: people aged 67+ will increase by nearly 30% by the mid-2030s compared to 2021, and will be 24.9% of the population (now at 19.6%). Or maybe AI productivity gains will save us?

Oh, the irony. The German government just cut funding for voluntary integration courses, blocking an estimated 130k people this year from learning German, even though they want to. Among those affected: people who want to become care workers but can't afford the €1,500–2,000 language certificate on their own. The Interior Ministry says that the integration courses should be reserved for people who "can stay permanently in Germany."

It’s hard to believe that in one of the richest countries in the world, we aren’t capable of properly cleaning governmental buildings. For example, the Berlin Immigration Office (LEA) in Moabit is mouldy, dirty and has extremely questionable hygiene standards. The problem seems to be that the contractual partner, BIM (Berliner Immobilienmanagement), isn’t able to meet the basic standards. A disgrace.

A new initiative, Berlin auf die eins (BAD1), built around The Delta Campus, had its first event last week with prominent guests, including the governing mayor Wegner. The idea of the initiative is to make Berlin the place for builders in Europe. Here are three reports on the event from LinkedIn: Julian Teicke (one of the initiators), and two Handpicked community members, Punit Thakkar and Darrena Mamm. A very interesting initiative in the year of the elections, worth following.

Related, Dealroom released a report about the Berlin Startup ecosystem together with the Senate. I found a couple of datapoints interesting: for example, that startups employ 94k people; 133 companies were founded by former employees of Zalando, Delivery Hero and N26, and I counted 19 current unicorns, but the list might need an update (not sure about Flink and Razor). Let’s hope Gen AI is not a bubble:

Stats: German industry cut approximately 124k jobs in 2025, a 2.3% decline (automotive lost 50k positions). Since 2019, a total of 266k industrial jobs have been eliminated while revenues have shrunk nearly 5% since 2023. It’s likely structural, not cyclical. [more]

Rent cap: Berlin landlord fails at Federal Constitutional Court [read]

Minus 20 percent: significantly fewer cars stolen in Berlin in 2025 [read]

BVG tests system for more accurate displays at subway stations [read]

XXL tram "Urbanliner" might be too heavy for subway tunnel [read] 🤦🏻‍♂️

Berlin rent review office presents figures: only six percent of contracts are within the permitted range [read]

Görlitzer Park to be closed at night starting March 1 [read]

Bookmark the EU tech map. I already registered my new official email address with Migadu. I’m way too dependent on Google at this moment.

Yes, yes and yes. AI writing is generic, boring and dangerous precisely because it’s all polished in the same way. I realised I am getting allergic to the patterns. I’ve used them myself before. Now just imagine this cycle: AI generating more and more text and then training on the same text. We will end up with a very bland soup. Keep your creativity, mistakes and style, folks.

Bad news: I've heard from a subscriber that Payrails (Berlin, fintech) recently made cuts to its Sales & Marketing team. I've reached out to the company for comment.

SPD proposed a social media ban for under-14-year-olds. I guess I am in favour. And you?

An exit: Sanity Group (Berlin) was acquired by Organigram (Canada, cannabis producer) for up to €250M. [more]

We are at this stage now: Stark (Berlin, drones) was backed by Peter Thiel, and now the defence ministry, their most likely main customer, expressed concerns about the investor. [more] They are reportedly a unicorn now after their last undisclosed funding round.

Cloover (Berlin, climate tech) is expanding to Austria by opening an office in Vienna. They want to finance for €50M worth of PV systems, heat pumps, and charging infrastructure in Austria this year. [more]

Scenes at Enpal (Berlin, solar): A works council election failed dramatically when 250+ employees voted against all candidates, after which some employees danced and sang "Ihr könnt nach Hause gehen" ("you can go home") at the organisers and IG Metall representatives. [more]

Sofatutor (Berlin, edtech) acquired French competitor SchoolMouv. [more]

Peec AI (Berlin, adtech) spent between €40-50k on their recent Out-Of-Home campaign after raising their Series A. [more] You probably have seen the outdoor ads in Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg. Were they inspired by Accountable? I remember seeing a number of around €200k for their first campaign in 2025, but I lost the LinkedIn source.

Delivery Hero (Berlin, food delivery & quick commerce) investors are pressuring CEO Niklas Östberg and supervisory board chair Kristin Skogen Lund to break up the company, with potential removal of both executives being discussed. [more] The stock price is down 83% in last 5 years.

Bayer (Berlin, pharma) reached a settlement with major US law firms in its glyphosate litigation, agreeing to pay up to $7.25B over multiple years to resolve approximately 67k pending claims.

Klarna (Sweden, fintech) reported a full-year loss of $273M despite 38% revenue growth to $1.1B in Q4. The stock now trades around 66% below its September IPO price.

Starlink introduced three new tariff models for private customers in Germany, with satellite internet access continuing to be available starting at €29 per month. [more]

Reddit: Someone addressed drug users smoking crack/meth/fentanyl in the U-Bahn stations. I found the first reply hilarious. But yeah, it’s getting out of hand, especially on very cold days.

Instagram: How to properly recycle glass in Germany. I learned you don't need to rinse it, and you can toss it in with the lid still on. Surprisingly, broken glasses and vases don't belong in the glass recycling bin.

Clothes sizing chaos by The Pudding. Mostly affecting women.

Mastodon: “Q: I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive? What do you think the LLM output was?"