I have been neglecting Money talks, because I simply didn’t find the time. This sucks, because it has a lot of potential. This is changing from this week onwards, since I am partnering with Marta. I want to partner up more. If you are an expert and want to run excellent workshops and you’d like to work with me, approach me (see the latest example in the events section).

For the historical records: most of us have missed the northern lights last week, but that is fine, they aren’t so rare. For the record: the last edition was “Photogenic to Austria”. I tried to see them the second evening, but only lasted 5 sec on the balcony realising its facing south anyhow. For those wanting to make sure you never miss them again: you can get alerts with different apps or websites.

Nextbike will stay in town even after losing a court case requiring it to remove all bikes from Berlin streets due to lacking a special usage permit. Now they plan to apply for the permit (duh?) and continue to operate a reduced fleet (-1k bikes, now 5.5k).

Meanwhile, BVG achieved the highest reliability in 2025 in December last year. In the last week of 2025 on average 99.2% of all planned U-Bahns also ran (maybe it also has something to do with Berlin being deserted?). BVG writes that’s also due to new trains introduced on small lines (U1-U4), which lifted the reliability to 95% from 88%.

One for your list: Klinke in Kreuzberg. I really liked the German tapas concept, but it was a bit cold sitting next to the window. Klopse are better at Trio, but otherwise excellent, everything we ordered was great.

Winter wellness in Berlin? 11 tips from the official tourist organisation. Related, we just passed statistically the coldest days in Berlin:

Merz again didn't do himself any favours and chose to question the sick leave process, proposing to ban telephone-based sick notes as a solution to Germany's high absence rate (nearly 15 days per worker annually). Besides the memes, there was also other pushback: apparently only 1% of sick notes are issued by phone, and the rise in sick days is due to better electronic tracking introduced in 2022, not increased abuse. I do, however, personally know people who faked sick leaves and I always felt that sick leave was very generously offered by my doctor, a week being almost minimum.

Stats: Applicants with German-sounding names receive responses to housing inquiries 55% of the time compared to 48% for MENAT-region (Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey) names and 49% for African names, and are invited to viewings 22% of the time versus 16-17% for the other groups. [more]

New rules for Berlin gastro businesses: Restaurants and bars to be allowed longer outdoor opening hours soon (read)

High-rises at Gleisdreieck Park to include housing after all (read)

Nearly 600 euros rent for eight square meters in Neukölln (read)

Berlin administration to switch to open-source software (read)

Tax investigators seize millions in cryptocurrency (read)

Career: Excellent mental model by Matthias Endler on when to reinvent the wheel: be curious, go down rabbit holes, and—since AI now makes it possible—start building small tools to improve your daily life. The last point is my addition.

Career: AI is coming in one way or another, and we can all prepare. You are at risk if your job is very transactional and organised. The messier, the better. If you professionally deal with people’s problems, you are probably safe. Here are some concrete ideas: chief of staff, AI transformation lead at a Mittelstand, country manager, M&A roles, customer success manager, technical project/product manager, first business hire at an early-stage startup, junior consultant at a transformation-focused consultancy, operations at a company with physical logistics. Shall we explore more? Let me know.

Timeless: The idea of regularly doing small steps and then stop for a rest in this essay is extremely good and I’ve been thinking about “25 miles & rest” almost daily since I read it. It makes the incremental progress so motivating. When I don’t feel like going for a run or to the gym or feel I am falling behind with my projects, I just think about “25 miles”.

Zalando will lay off around 180 employees in its content production department.

Stark (Berlin, defense) grew its headcount by 650% to 90 employees in 2025, making it the second-fastest growing startup in Europe by employee growth. [more]

Flink (Berlin, quick commerce) generated €467M revenue in 2023 (€287M in Germany). [more]

Everphone (Berlin, device-as-a-service) crossed €100M revenue in 2025 with single-digit million EBIT. [more]

Tesla has been reducing workforce in Grünheide, -1700 in the last year. [more] Their sales in 2025 are down 9% vs 2024.

Isar Aerospace (Munich) postponed the second test flight of its Spectrum rocket due to technical issues. [more]

Wolt is transforming from a food delivery app into a local shopping marketplace with a global relaunch across all 30 markets. [more]

Volkswagen generated €6B in cash flow in 2025, €1B billion more than 2024 and significantly above expectations despite challenges in China, Porsche struggles, and Trump tariffs. [more]

Imagine being that analyst: Deutsche Bank's CEO personally called US Treasury Secretary to distance the bank from an analyst's report on Greenland. [more]

Deutsche Bahn is cutting 30% of positions in its corporate management as part of a restructuring effort.

Deutsche Boerse will acquire Dutch fund distribution platform Allfunds for €5.35B.

Bending Spoons (WeTransfer, Komoot, Meetup, Evernote, Vimeo and more) operating model being discussed at Hacker News. [more]

EU-INC, one single entity for all the EU markets, seems to be becoming reality. A company in 48h and with 1€ minimum capital? Let’s go. [more]

Rossmann will launch its own online pharmacy, following their competitor DM. The market is worth €14B annually.

When something is free, you are the product: ChatGPT advertising edition. [more] Related, search is not really dying? [more]

Oviva | Berlin/Potsdam | AI digital obesity and chronic care | €200M Series D | Careers.

Cloover | Berlin | Climate-tech financing platform | $22M equity | Careers.

GeneralMind | Berlin | AI autopilot for supply chains | €10.2 Pre-seed | Careers.

Cancilico | Dresden | AI oncology blood diagnostics | €2.5M Seed | Careers.

Orbem | Munich | MRI and AI fruit inspection | €55.5M | Careers.

Twentyfour Industries | Munich | European defense drones | $11.8M | Careers.

Sinpex | Munich | AI-powered KYB automation platform | €10M Series A | Careers.

One.five | Holm | Packaging development software | €14M Series A | Careers.

Terralayr | Berlin/Zug | Battery storage systems | €192M | Careers.

Exciva | Heidelberg | Alzheimer's disease therapies | €51M Series B | Careers.

Senseup | Cologne | Biological pest control solutions | €3M Seed | Careers.

NEOintralogistics | Düsseldorf | Robotics-as-a-service for intralogistics | €3M Seed | Careers.

Reddit: Unconventional street names in town. And yes, one of the two tower at Frankfurter Tor is an event space you can visit.

Reddit: Speculation about what do food delivery employees talk about. I wish this job to nobody.

elsewhere: This is just January.

Be careful what insurance/pension scheme you buy. For insurance, talk to Mirja and Michael (both and then compare what they say!).