A month has passed, and here is the collection again. A roundup of my favourite snippets, up to 6 per week or more. Thank you so much for your support! ❤️ You can also easily navigate to each issue by clicking on the title.
In November, we crossed 5k subs and I found some badly needed focus.
Unpublished extras
30 Useful Principles (Autumn 2023) by Gurwinder has some great ideas that can inspire you.
Morgan Housel’s Same as Ever is a top gift for a friend or partner. It’s basically a a collection of essays/blog posts you can always return to. I also liked his previous book, The Psychology of Money.
How to prioritize tasks when everything feels important by Zapier is a good overview of useful techniques. I just do small list of stuff to do and then tick them off one by one.
In early November a shipping giant Maersk announced they will cut 10k jobs as the cargo boom ended. This means nothing good for the likes of Sennder and Forto in Berlin. And guess what, I heard rumours Forto was quietly laying of recently.
E-bikes are slashing oil demand far more than electric vehicles, because “There were over 280 million electric mopeds, scooters, motorcycles, and three-wheelers on the road last year. Their sheer popularity is already cutting demand for oil by a million barrels of oil a day.”
Maps:
and illusions (for a proof, see the tweet):
Ok, and now to the best of:
Week of 6th (issue #76)!
🔥 The poster boy of VC excess, WeWork, is on the way to bankruptcy (SPOILER, they filed the following week, added on 1.12). They IPOed in 2021, and some investors surely made a killing, but their "Community Adjusted EBITDA" metric, which excluded significant costs like rent and salaries, raised many eyebrows. From $47B to nothing. Guess which magazine had Adam Neumann on its cover? The same one who did Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried. (Forbes)
🤯 We previously discussed Silent quitting, but just look at this world champion with his $400,000 a Year and 10 Hours A Week At Google. (YT, 15min) Possible with busy management that doesn’t really care or understand. It makes you think about the size limit of efficient organisations: some say it’s Dunbar’s number (150).
💪 A remarkable story of the persistence of Katalin Karikó, a Nobel prize-winning researcher (mRNA); she was bullied/ignored for years by her superiors at Penn University—a truly inspiring story. Keep showing up, week after week!
💸 Time of higher interest rates means your money can work for you risk-free on your Tagesgeld account (savings account with no withdrawal restrictions). If you feel like shopping around, this is a good BS-free website. (🇩🇪, but they still probably get kick-backs/sell leads!) Interestingly, some of the highest rates are coming from car producers!
Reddit choices of the week: this comment on raising the topic of ombudsman when having problems with fintechs/insurance/banks. Form r/berlin, we have survival strategies in the long dark winter in Berlin. My suggestion is acceptance and to try living your best life. 😅
💬 Briefly:
Aware has launched a blood testing clinic in Berlin, offering subscription-based preventive healthcare at €15/month. What’s your take on it? I’d be tempted to try.
🥷 Berlin crises: Housing is also in crisis because many “old” Berliners sit on ancient contracts. Report on sublet torture by exBerliner. And clubs ($1.6B business) are in crisis also because … they are too selective?
😟 Commercial real estate in Berlin has also seen better days! WeWork has 11 locations here and has officially filed for bankruptcy (Softbank lost $6.2B with it!). They say operations in Germany aren’t affected (SPOILER: THEY WERE, added 1.12), but who knows? Actually, Mindspace’s CEO, Mr. Lehmann, thinks he does. Insecure landlords already offered them locations. (More, 🇩🇪) Also, massive Signa-Holding (Karstadt and other projects) is in trouble. (RBB, 🇩🇪) Many call for the head of its founder, René Benko, one of the richest Austrians.
🎧 The noise map of Berlin allows you to check the levels on most of the streets. Noise is terrible for concentration and health; I noticed how loud the city is after I started using noise-cancelling headphones on my walks.
🕵️ Your manager is probably the most important person career-wise. So, if you are interviewing, check out these tips from Erika about ways to get information on your future manager. Remember, shovelling shit with a great team can still be fun, but a great topic in a shit team will eat you alive.
😅 Are you a product manager or want to become one? This exploded on Hacker News some weeks ago: “The product manager role is a mistake.” It’s a bit cynical but has valid points, for example: “The enormous mistake you can make is to adopt a model that requires tremendous people without having these tremendous people.” Related, debate on HN. Now, let me go back to my Jira tickets.
➗ Click around: Your life in 3526 free calculators. Groceries, ticket optimizers, break-even, health stuff. I mean, whatever you want, its there, with good explanations. An extremely clean website. Let us know if you find anything amazing in the comments.
💬 Briefly:
Remember self-driving cars/taxis promise? It turns out that US-based Cruise needs 1.5 people to operate one Robotaxi which is exactly 0.5 more than a normal taxi. I am bearish. (More, 🇩🇪)
👨🏻🍳 Are you thinking of turning your hobby into side income? Then Don’t make these mistakes with it—a lot of surprising information for me.
💸 I found this Instagram account, posting different salary slips across Germany, interesting. I don’t even know where to start: some have it great, some must struggle! So many different professions: chefs, construction workers, and lawyers. Related, the minimum salary will increase to €12.82€/hour next year.
📫 Another anecdotal proof that a good cover letter makes sense is this LinkedIn report from the Engineering manager at Substack (it will help you answer “Why do you want to work at..” better, too). When the market is tight, you must find ways to stand out. I wrote an article on how to impress the hiring manager.
☝️ Berlin is relatively safe, but it will still be helpful for you to look at this YouTube video on 9 Levels of pickpocketing from the magician Ben Seidman. Recommended.
💬 Briefly:
GoTiger, Berlin-based delivery for Asian groceries, took a break (??) until next year. This is a first for me. Love the name, though! Related, Getir acquired FreshDirect to
burn more cashbeef up in the US.Trade Republic increased revenue to €96M but expanded loss to €124M (from €50M) in 2021/22, focusing on growth and product expansion. Deeper analysis by Finanz-szene (🇩🇪). Hmm, read before applying. Related, Commerzbank received a crypto custody licence in Germany.
Stiftung Warentest evaluated insurance broker apps like Check24, Clark, and others, revealing mediocre advisory quality. Clark and Good24 scored a 2.7, Check24 got 3.4, Feelix a poor 4.6, and Schutzklick Makler, recently acquired by Clark, a 3.7. It’s like in German schools: the higher the number, the worse the result.
🎶 You should check out Gezelling Sessions (my Instagram review and their website), a cosy living room concert series, and the community Manoj is building around it.
🚌 Get ready to…. wait for your bus. BVG faces a shortage of 350 drivers, so it needs to cut 6% of the bus schedules starting the 10th of December. All 6500 bus stops will remain to be serviced, only less frequently. Essential lines to schools and hospitals won't be affected. (BZ Berlin)
🎁 Here is a treasure you should know about—a blog about the typography of Berlin by Jesse Simon. Sadly not active anymore, but it's great content where you can get lost. Here, for example, is an article about the fonts of S-Bahn stations. For more recent content, there is still Twitter.
🧐 What are large language models? Here is a great talk by Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI. Basically, they are zipped parts of the internet that are afterwards “searchable” with the help of different assistants. Worth having a look.
🤭 Why are funny people more desirable? “New research reveals that humor in a romantic partner is highly valued because it is perceived as an indicator of creative problem-solving skills.”
💬 Briefly:
I was surprised to read that Klarna’s CEO Siemiatkowski used an animal farm analogy, calling himself a farmer in the recent crisis with Klarna’s union (supporters of which were called pigs). (more @Tech.eu) Spoiler alert! It ends like this: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Funded in Berlin & Germany
Cambrium | Berlin | Biotech molecular provider for skincare formulas | €8M Seed | Careers.
Tupu | Berlin | Urban mushroom farming with AI and robotics | $3.2M | Careers.
Smalt | Berlin | Accelerating Europe's green energy transition via talent development | €4.1M Pre-Seed | Careers.
GlassFlow | Berlin | Simplifying event-driven data pipeline development | $1.1M Pre-Seed | Careers.
TVARIT | Frankfurt | AI-powered solutions for the metal industry | €6.5M Series A | Careers.
Graylog | Hamburg | Software for efficient data analysis | $39M ($30M in debt) | Careers.
Raydiax | Magdeburg | Advancing CT technology for minimally invasive therapies | €3.5M | Careers.
Rausgegangen | Köln | Digital guide for cultural experiences | €1.275M | Careers.
Raus | Berlin | Nature-immersive cabin rentals | €8.5M | Careers.
doctorly | Berlin | Healthcare digitization with innovative practice software | $7.2M extended Series A | Careers.
Langfuse | Berlin | Observability and analytics for LLM applications | $4M Seed | Careers.
🚨 Aleph Alpha | Heidelberg | AI technology for enterprise applications | €500M Series B | Careers.
InPlanet | Munich/Piracicaba | Regenerative agriculture to remove carbon from the atmosphere | €4.3M | Careers.
StrollMe | Munich | Subscription-based baby gear | €3.6M | Careers.
deepeye Medical | Munich | Ophthalmologic care through AI-powered diagnostics | €2.5M Seed | Careers.
EZE | Munich | Accelerating the rollout of public charging infrastructure for EVs | Mid-single-digit million investment | No careers.
PiNCAMP | Berlin | A booking platform for camping in DE and CH | €6.6M | Careers.
Filu | Berlin | Personalized pet care experience | €5.1M | Careers.
Frieda | Berlin | Empowering women for better health in menopause | €2.5M | Careers.
Scenarium AI | Berlin | Automating building plans for all stakeholders | €1.6M | No careers.
Retorio | München | Making everyone a people expert through psychology and AI | €9M | Careers.
Seqstant | Teltow | Shaping the future of pathogen diagnostics with 1-click sequencing technology | €1.8M Seed | Careers.
Floy | Munich | Innovating for patient well-being in radiology through AI technology | €5.4M Seed | Careers.
Leevi/Lilio Health | Munich | Providing meaningful insights to parents about their child's wellbeing | €2.2M Seed | No careers.
Bace | Dortmund | Aiming to revolutionize logistics with expanded service interfaces for all | €1.3M Seed | Careers.
This was it, see you in January!