Hey there,
this is a strong Thursday issue with lots of useful things. If you are struggling to get a job, check out Annika’s offer in the Community section. I know several people she has helped so far.
In other news, our workshop where you build an AI app before lunch is selling fast, so don’t wait too long to book a spot (find it on the calendar below). We also have a template for your L&D budget. Aaaand… our next Everyday AI Club will happen on Tuesday, the 7th of July (not announced yet on Luma).
📌 Pinned
Raise your hands and say yeah! New EU Pay transparency rules are taking effect across the EU. Employers will need to:
state the salary or pay range in the job ad or before the interview, and not ask candidates about their pay history
give employees, on request, their own pay level and average pay levels by sex for workers doing equal or comparable work
publish their gender pay gap (employers with 100+ staff)
conduct a pay assessment if reports show an unjustified gender pay gap of 5% or more
Sounds good even if I somehow cannot get rid of the GDPR smell, which today seems more like a data protection awareness campaign with limited real-world impact. But before we start celebrating… even if we are looking at a Directive, member states can be slow. And Germany is slow. Substantial amendments to the Entgelttransparenzgesetz haven’t even been proposed yet. The coalition plans to amend it in the coming months and into early 2027, and then target June 2028 as the implementation deadline with softer rules. Something is still better than nothing? On a side note: German Gender Gap is higher than the EU average (15.6% vs 11.1%).
Do you actually want to know what your colleagues earn?
👀 Jobs
If you can explain and teach AI well, you can apply to teach Rick Rubin over the summer. Looks like loads of fun.
This week I spent 4h on improving classification on the job board. We now have an Operations, Admin & Legal category, an internship toggle, and we have dropped a bunch of job types to increase the quality. More is coming, week by week.
💸 Funded in Germany
Galvany Energy | Berlin | Heat pump platform for buildings | €10M seed | Careers.
INXM | Berlin | AI process execution for enterprises | €5.7M pre-seed | Careers.
Tokura | Berlin | Outpatient surgery infrastructure platform | Mid-seven figures Seed | Careers.
Isar Aerospace | Munich | Launch vehicles for satellites | €270M | Careers.
eleQtron | Siegen | Ion trap quantum computers | €57M | Careers.
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📅 Events
This week we reviewed 112 events and handpicked 19. Check all 36 events at luma.com/handpicked
From our partners
💡Curious what an MBA classroom actually feels like? Join ESMT Berlin online for a session with Ulf Schäfer, senior lecturer in strategy and get a taste of the ESMT learning experience. | Thu, 18/06 17:00 | Online
Some free tickets still available for GITEX AI EUROPE! It will bring together leading voices from AI, cybersecurity, startups, investment and digital innovation. We’re excited to share an exclusive offer with our network for one of Europe’s leading AI and tech events (GE26HAND for a free ticket) | Tue, 30/06 09:30 | Messe Berlin
💼 Is an MBA really worth it? Join ESMT Berlin to unpack the ROI of an MBA, career growth opportunities, and what a business school degree can mean for your future. | Fri, 19/06 12:00 | Online
Berlin AI Day is a full-day event bringing together 550 leaders, operators, and builders to explore how companies are implementing AI and automation in their work. Speakers from AWS, HiBob, Revolut, HelloFresh, Mobile.de, FINN, and more will share what's working, where they've struggled, and lessons learned. 25% discount at checkout! | Tue, 15/09 9:00 | Festsaal Kreuzberg
Most tech startups qualify for €4.2M/year in R&D grants — but miss out while fundraising. See how smart startups combine state funding with VC capital & extend their runway. Free live session with Cusp Capital & Coup. | Wed, 24/06 11:00 | Online
This week's highlights
Semrush x Berlin Product Managers June Meetup @ Spiced | Thu, 11/06 19:00 | Spiced Academy
Build & Lead – How Do You Measure Success with AI? | Thu, 18/06 06:00 | Near Ostkreuz
AI-Memory Hackathon: Building your own Agent LLM Wiki 🚀 | Fri, 19/06 17:00 | Paul-Lincke-Ufer
Bliss Reading Group - June 22 | Mon, 22/06 18:45 | Merantix AI Campus
Späti Stories Meet Up #4 — Schöneberg | Wed, 24/06 18:30 | KiezKiosk Späti Schöneberg
🎫 Mobile.de: THE BIG SECRET SUMMER COMMUNITY EVENT | Wed, 24/06 18:30 | Berlin, Berlin
Berlin Defense Tech Forum | Wed, 08/07 13:00 | Berlin, Germany
☕️ Coffee Talk
Miguel Encarnacion is the founding GP of Unifier Ventures and a Rebel Princess Dad. He builds highly curated spaces for people who exist between worlds. His current focus: Asian investors in Europe, regenerative businesses in Berlin, Filipinos in tech and expat parents raising daughters with intention. Here is what he prepared for you:
Cafe: Kape de Filipina - I'm glad the global Ube craze has finally arrived in Berlin! I met the founder 2 years ago when I was craving the classic Filipino flavor and ordered an Ube Latte from her online store. Since then, I've kept coming back for Filipino coffee beans and chocolate. I'm so excited that they're opening a cafe in Helmholtzplatz in June!
Book: Invisible Women, Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men - Necessary reading for everyone, but especially parents with a daughter. This book hit me hard: crash test dummies are male, so women are 47% more likely to be seriously injured in crashes. Heart attacks in women are misdiagnosed 50% more often because research defaulted to male patients. I want the world to change in the lifetime of my daughter!
Parenting Hack: Cooperative board games - My hot take: unbridled capitalism (Monopoly) and global domination (Risk) traumatised generations out of board gaming. But there was a design revolution in the last 30 years! IMO, cooperative games are now the most underutilised tool in the parenting toolkit. Try out Loki Games: Detective Charlie, Spotlight, SOS Dino, Kraken Attack and Fluffy Valley.
Don't miss what Berlin's talking about
Thousands start their week with my Berlin weekly briefing. News, business, tech & culture you won't find elsewhere. Mondays, 7 AM. Free.
Most popular last Monday:
🌍 From the Community
Did you lose your job? Applying for too long without success? Want a higher salary and better work-life balance? It is good to talk to an expert who knows the market. Annika is an international career coach supporting people in transition. Schedule a call.
Months of waiting for a Schengen Visa. Bots stealing your appointment. Then a rejection with no clear reason. If this is your reality, here's how to use real EU Commission data to apply in a smarter and more strategic way. A great insight article by TK.
Last week I was asking if you think companies that cut roles due to AI will rehire. Consensus is large:
🧭 Career compass
Signals from Monday: Apple opening Europe's first developer center in Berlin [careers]; Enpal brought 300+ Colombian and Brazilian electricians to its Brandenburg academy [careers]; Contentful being acquired by Salesforce, closing by October [careers]; Factorial raised $150M Series D and is opening a Munich office [careers]; Black Forest Labs powering Scorsese's film storyboards [careers]; Schwarz Digits won a €250M GovTech contract via STACKIT [careers]; Scalable Capital hit 1M users and €50B AUM [careers].
A good reminder that you should NEVER EVER send AI slop to people. If you send it to me, we are more or less done. It's not overreacting, just common sense, bwahaha. Take your verbose slop and shove it.
While we are at it, here is a short list of various LLM smells. I chuckled at cards, because I have them in my own tools. It’s meant as a joke, but you should probably save this website with "components that signal how oversubscribed your funding round is." Gorgeous. And, of course, you should totally reuse the components for your oversubscribed seed round.
It’s also good to read this from time to time: Wikipedia's Signs of AI writing. And don't bother adding it to your tone of voice file because it’s impossible to move the post-training weights and get rid of that specific AI taste.
They accidentally googled an interviewer and had a revelation, but I think you should always do that. Get stalky, do background research, check out their social media posts. If they did a podcast or a talk, watch it. You will know their vibes, it will prepare you for the interview, and you can drop a line or two in the conversation. As Dale Carnegie teaches us: show genuine interest in others and people will like you.
For everyone looking for jobs: 10 job search rules that just broke. I don't love the drama, but there are some good tips inside. Especially on the side of building stuff: if you can add links to things that you built yourself to your CV, go for it. In fact, just build your own website/CV.
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