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 September, we crossed 4k subs, and I finally opened a new channel, Instagram.
Unpublished extras
Should you Angel Invest? by Byrne Hobart. Based on my stock-picking experience I would say definitely not. Thinking I could be the next Warren Buffett was probably the worst mistake of my life.
Critical Periods For Language: Much More Than You Wanted To Know by Astral Codex Ten goes deep into the ways we learn languages. Nothing conclusive, but I feel that proper accents are tough to pick up, and children have a clear advantage!
Expressionist Architecture: Where Berlin Looks Like Gotham City from Exberliner has some nice buildings to check out.
Seasonal allergies kill! “We demonstrate that high pollen days are associated with increased accidents and injuries—one of the most extreme consequences of cognitive impairment.”
A dying writer and blogger, Jake Seliger, on regrets. Do you have some?
🤦🏻♂️ I started to listen to How To F#€k Up An Airport from Radio Spätkauf, a podcast from 2018 about BER. They ran it AGILE; how mad! It really makes you think, “wtf” how can you make so many bad decisions consecutively? Extreme incompetence and shortsightedness plus corruption? We will never know. Btw, it took eight months to build Tempelhof Airport (as opposed to 14y for BER). And BER does feel old, doesn’t it?
🌯 I wrote about the most expensive Döner in Berlin (Hotel Adlon) in Issue #28, and still need to try it—but guys at doenerguidesberlin did it, and fazit is “try it once.”
📍 MorgenPost made this interactive dashboard on rents (rent as % of your income) in Berlin. Slide over areas for more data. Related, FT article “Extreme renting: limits on rents leave Berlin’s new tenants vying for homes” (€) touches on the rent controls, which favours everyone living here since years. Also:
🧐 In Saxony, AfD is first at 35%, which is… worrying? Adam Tooze recently published this great analysis on driving forces behind far-right surge (1. dissatisfaction with migration policy and 2. protest vote). The question remains to what extent CDU will shift to the right.
🤖 What sort of a robot are you? I enjoyed Gurwinder’s framework about humans who, in their search for “truth”, behave as predictably as video game Non-Player Characters (giving scripted responses and engaging in automated behaviours). You can choose from: #1. The Conformist, #2. The Contrarian, #3. The Disciple, #4. The Tribalist, #5. The Averager. I like the suggestion to pick your battles.
💬 Briefly:
Back to the office!!! Amazon’s CEO pushes for end to remote work, asks for 3 days/week in-office. When the big ones start, small ones follow.
🇫🇷 If you can sleep on moving things (I can’t), you might be interested in night trains: Starting in winter 2023, a thrice-weekly night train will connect Berlin and Paris. Daily service to Paris and Brussels begins in autumn 2024. Ticket prices start at €34.90 for seats, €49.90 for sleepers, and €79.90 for private sleepers. Meanwhile, in August, DB only achieved 63.4% punctuality (an improvement from 56,8% last August!). But I guess you won’t care because you will be sleeping!
👌 Here are some good news on solar energy. Some countries are well ahead of their 2030 national plans:
👏 I loved this video of thelanguageblondie changing her English accents on the go! (Instagram) Made me think again how cool it is that we have these accents, it would be so boring without them. My favourite is probably Greek! This made me wonder: How well do you speak German? I was C1, but since moving to Berlin it declined a bit.
Career advice: My colleague (I am remote) uses an interesting template for communicating important stuff on Slack, which is actually a disaster for anything serious. It works exceptionally good: you separate it into What, Want, Who, Whenand context. More here.
☝️ Berlin's population grew by 15,576 or 0.4% in H1 2023, totalling 3.87M residents. Foreigner share rose to 23.9%, up by 2.6% in six months (+23,654). The highest % of foreigners is in Mitte (37,1%), followed by Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (30,2%) and Neukölln (28,0%). (St. BB)
🧐 Görli will, after a special Gipfel on Friday, get lockable entrances, selective video surveillance, improved lighting and occasional nighttime closures. Additionally, dedicated drug consumption spaces and more toilets (partially with personnel) will be added to the park and also Leopoldplatz in Wedding. No timelines were provided. While you wait, you can read this excellent report (🇩🇪) from RBB on why people even sell drugs in Görli. Spoiler alert: because there is often nothing else to do.
🤓 What makes a good story? Here is a good explanation from Kurt Vonnegut(Twitter): “Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it.” Last year in another dimension I also summarised a book on the art of storytelling by George Saunders and in a nutshell Good story = escalation + pattern + causality. Useful for thinking about why some stories work and others don’t.
r/berlin choice of the week was this discussion about slower cyclists overtaking other faster cyclists at the red light. Amazing! I only do Kurzstrecken with my Nextbike, and I can recommend getting an annual subscription for €50. (addition on 3.10: sometimes the transponder is broken, so I was wrongly charged service fees, but so far the customer service has responded)
🏦 Random tip: Plenty of coins lying around? You can exchange them for cash FOR FREE at Deutsche Bundesbank on Leibnizstraße 10.
🥷 There were plenty of robberies in Berlin, and Exberliner made an excellent overview. Oceans Eleven material! This impressed me: “Somehow, they managed to dispose of the 120 tons of excavated sand and earth unnoticed.” Well played, Simon Segura, well played.
👨🏻🍳 Here is an interesting opinion/factoid on built-in kitchens from a pro. (LinkedIn) Basically, it makes no sense to pay for it via the rent. Interesting, and I have previously never thought about it this way.
🌟 Kununu published a list of top employers in Berlin in 2023. Interesting, but not so sure about the methodology. This looks similar to Forbes XYZ under XYZ, which is often more like who-you-know or whoever-pays-can-get-there. My previous company was one of the best in Germany for several years in another competition. It was a Great place to work, but I don’t think they still pay for it.
Career advice: I agree with this context switching cost (LinkedIn post) because I experienced it by myself. The best is to pick a topic and work on it intensively until it’s done/partially done if broken down. Put that phone away. The phone is for closers only!* I'm not sure about the term “deep work”; it sounds full of s*it. My life also improved after I turned off all notifications years ago.*if you got this reference, I owe you a beer! Let me know!
💸 This reminds me to write to my landlord: In 2022, the average 'cold rent' was €643 in Berlin & €9.60 per square meter, exceeding the national average of €8.60. Only Hamburg and Bavaria had higher rates. (St. BB)
r/berlin choice of the week is this thread on the most overrated hip restaurants. I can add Kimchi Princess to the list, but I'm not sure if it’s considered hip. The way the guy made a steak for us was terrible.
💬 Briefly:
Miles reported €48.2M of revenues in 2021; by the end of this year, they plan to reach €90-100M, doubling again. No clue about profitability, but I take an under!
From my coffee with section—this suggestion by Louis Pereira on why you should go to the same places:
Familiarity and Belonging: A piece that goes against a lot of today’s 'Instagram wisdom’, and hits home.
🎉 The article I was marinating much longer than my chicken, What do hiring managers look for in CVs? is finally published. Spoiler alert: get your cover letter sh*t sorted for increased chances. I know, I know, a lot of work and I hate it too. But was anything good ever easy? Save it for your next job search!
🎨 👟The paint from Last Generation at Brandenburger Tor was more stubborn than expected; they still struggled to clean it at the time of this writing. But at least I can give you a tip on how to make your sneakers white again: one tbs of dishwashing detergent, one tbs of washing powder/detergent, one ts of soda bicarbonate, mix it until thick and runny (add a tiny bit of water if needed). Apply on wet sneakers and leave for 20 min. Scrub with a brush and thank me later.
🏆 List are lists, but here is one more: Cledara, SaaS management platform, prepared a list of 47
potential customers for their serviceshottest startups in Germany in 2023. Useful if you want to get inspired on where to look for the next opportunity, but some data is wrong.🤔 This can only mean more “come to the office more” policies or broke real estate companies (empty office space in Berlin rising):
🇩🇪 Does anyone remember “cheap Russian gas for Germany” theory?
🥩 Here is the latest video from the most authentic YT chef, Kenji Alt-Lopez, on how to prepare a steak. Kenji knows what he is doing, trust me. He had a similar video a couple of years ago; I tested it and never looked back. When someone says, “should not be salted because of the meat quality,” you can tell them to GTFO.
🐣 Speaking of meat, disturbing footage from a “Bio” egg production facility leaked this week. TIL: one of the conditions for “bio” is to have max six chickens per sqm as opposed to nine. (RBB, 🇩🇪) Your choice if you want to pay for that.
Funded in Berlin & Germany
traide | Berlin | Optimizes customs processes to make international trade more efficient. | Seven-figure investment (amount not specified) | No careers.
Ivy | Munich | Global API for instant bank payments offering lower transaction fees. | $20M | Careers.
fraud0 | Munich | Protects advertising budgets from fake and low-quality traffic. | €6M | Careers.
AskUI | Karlsruhe | Redefines process automation through visual AI technology. | €4.3M | Careers.
Logistikbude | Dortmund | Specializes in cargo carrier management. | €2.2M | Careers.
Nuventura | Berlin | Provider of sustainable electrical grid technology to replace harmful greenhouse gas-based tech. | €25M Series A | Careers.
Ostrom | Berlin | Accelerating the green energy transition. | $18M Series A extension | Careers.
Blue Farm | Berlin | Plant-based drinks and other products| €1M | Careers.
E-Mobilio | Munich | Aims for a cleaner, more efficient electric vehicle ecosystem. | €9.5M Series A | Careers.
volytica | Dresden | Software provider for battery diagnostics and analytics. | €5.5M Seed | Careers.
DGTAL | Hamburg | SaaS platform processes unstructured insurance data using AI. | €3M Seed | No careers.
inContAlert | Bayreuth | Helps patients with neurogenic bladder dysfunction manage their condition. | €1.5M Seed | Careers.
Tilta | Berlin | Integrated solution for purchase financing in digital B2B transactions | €30M | Careers.
Circula | Berlin | Offers travel expense, credit cards and employee benefits for companies | €12M | Careers.
Kenjo | Berlin | Supports HR teams to become strategic partners within their company | €8.8M Series A | Careers.
cleverly | Berlin | Kids coaching provider for personal and academic skills | €4.6M Extended Seed | Careers.
Helsing | Munich | Specializes in defence AI technology | €209M Series B | Careers.
VIDA | Munich | Software for evaluating investment risks in the fields of climate, ESG, and impact | €3M | Careers.
rooom | Jena | Specializes in 3D content and digital experiences in Augmented and Virtual Reality | €17M | Careers.
Moss | Berlin | Expanding its EU and UK footprint for affordable payment-related credit. | €50M Credit Line | Careers.
Plan A | Berlin | AI-driven platform for companies to manage emissions and ESG data. | $27M | Careers.
PowerUs | Berlin | Empowering electricians and installation mechanics for a transition to renewables. | €24M Series B | Careers.
HelloBetter | Berlin | Specializes in digital therapeutics for mental health. | €12M Series A | Careers.
Cardino | Berlin | Marketplace for used Electric Vehicles. | €1M Pre-Seed | Careers.
Fernride | Munich | Pioneering autonomous, electric trucks for yard and port logistics. | $50M Series A | Careers.
kyp.ai | Cologne | 360-degree productivity and process mining platform for organizations. | €17.5M | No Careers.
Rencore | Munich | Software for cloud-collaboration governance on Microsoft platforms. | €7.5M | Careers.
Burnhard | Düsseldorf | Outdoor kitchen and barbecue equipment. | $16M | Careers.
Companyon | Düsseldorf| Enables SMEs for fast setup in planning, controlling, and liquidity management. | €2M | Careers.
Arx | Munich | Autonomous unmanned ground vehicles for military and civilian purposes. | €1.15M | Careers.