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Thank you to everyone

who came to the Apple event yesterday: the crowd was amazing, and we had two spontaneous rounds of applause in the middle of the panel. Love to see it. The event is also the reason I am finishing this newsletter very late on Wednesday evening, but why am I even adding this to the intro? I guess to brag that I sometimes work late.

Berlin really feels like everyone is on summer break: this is clear by the amount of events scheduled. We had 48 new events to pick from in the next 3 weeks. But the number of jobs went up (+300 compared to the last week).

I am also planning something radical and what I have never done before. For the first time its’s not something more, but something less.

📌 Pinned

AI is literally EVERYWHERE in my bubble. Even my dad is using ChatGPT. New models get released all the time and give me FOMO. But it’s also clear: my Opus 4.8 still gets the job done, and I don't really need anything better at this time. Does anyone remember the OpenClaw hype? Or Perplexity? 😅

Reading about latest developments...

Anthropic simply getting off the hook by paying €1.5B for stealing content, OpenAI stealing Apple's tech, OpenAI accidentally (?) hacking HuggingFace, OpenAI's Brockman apolitically (lol) supporting MAGA, open weight models from China getting better and better, investors pushing money into AI like there is no tomorrow, Ed Zitron zitroning the AI bubble, SOTA model just deleting stuff and more

does make me wonder: has everyone lost their mind?

Or I simply expect too much from the tech bros? Probably. But the grift is UNREAL. A friend said, "Nothing good came out of Silicon Valley," and it made me wonder that it might be true.

👀 Jobs

7 job highlights of the week

See 2,421 more jobs →

💸 Funded in Germany

  1. dsb | Berlin | Energy-efficient home renovation platform | $11.4M Series A | Careers.

  2. Omio | Berlin | Multi-modal travel booking platform | €8.7M | Careers.

  3. Beatsquares | Berlin | AI content repurposing for publishers | $2M seed | Careers.

  4. Arken Labs | Berlin | AI for infrastructure data analysis | 7-figure | Careers.

  5. Prodlane | Leipzig | Industrial knowledge AI for engineers | €4M | Careers.

  6. microagi | Munich | AI robotics deployment platform | $55M seed | Careers.

  7. deltaVision | Munich | Space fluidic and refuelling systems | €10.2M | Careers.

  8. All About Accuracy | Potsdam | Millimetre-accurate indoor localisation sensors | 7-figure | Careers.

  9. Sereact | Stuttgart | AI robotics for warehouses | additional $6M for their $110M Series B | Careers.

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📅 Events

This week we reviewed 48 upcoming events and handpicked 9. Check all 24 events at luma.com/handpicked

From our partners

  • Here is your last chance to upgrade your AI skillset - next week on Thursday, our last "Build your first app in one evening" before summer break, or maybe ever. You never know.

Our picks

Submit your event

☕️ Coffee Talk

This time I don't have a guest, so I am just resurfacing five tips from the past that I can also personally vouch for. Here we go:

  • by Rajiv Desai: Restaurant - Patakha - "Best Indian food in Berlin?" is a hard question because Indian cuisine itself is not a monolith. My tips: Avoid Google reviews, go with an Indian friend, and avoid places with extensive menus (typically means the use of cooking short-cuts that affect overall authenticity). My go-to is Patakha for their menu, flavours and friendly service.

  • by Zim: La Buvette - This restaurant has solid steak and French classics that won't break the bank. It's relaxed, unpretentious and has a good wine list. They drop a bottle of tap water on the table without asking. That should count for something!

  • by Madeline von Mohl: Naturpark Südgelände — Natur-Park Südgelände: a wild urban escape in Berlin where nature, old railways & art meet. Explore forest paths, rusty tracks & sculptures—just minutes from the S-Bahn. No bikes or pets, just peace.

  • by Graham Strong: Hunter S. Thompson, who became known for Gonzo journalism with The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved and later Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, started writing long before that. This article on Big Sur, California, shows the seeds of what would grow into a whole new style of journalistic storytelling. More importantly, the writing is gorgeous.

  • by John Ismailoglu: How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling* (book) - One of the top sales books. Valuable even if you're not in sales, because we're always 'selling' something.

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:

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🌍 From the Community

  • Sinan is open-sourcing a text-based, local-first video & podcast editor: "I built Poddie for my own podcast workflow. I wanted a faster way to rough-cut spoken-word recordings without scrubbing timeline, uploading to cloud, or paying for Descript :) I'm releasing the beta for creators working with talking-head videos."

Share to Community

🧭 Career compass

  1. Signals from Monday: Omio acquired Rail Europe [careers]; Bliq.ai cleared for driverless testing in Finland [careers]; ICEYE Germany launched, targeting ~200 roles by end of 2027 [careers]; Pflegia: Ardian took majority to fund European expansion [careers]; Delivery Hero acquisition by Uber confirmed [careers].

  2. Thinking of raising money for your venture? If possible, don't. Here is a good LinkedIn post of a founder with a $15M exit and the result. It’s probably common for all first-time founders and a good reminder that the interests of investors and founders aren't always aligned.

  3. Which reminds me about this great book you should probably read if you are interested in this topic: Founder vs Investor: the honest truth about venture capital from startup to IPO*.

  4. AI makes it very easy to build and create an illusion of progress, and this post by Aditya Anand is great in reminding us that what still matters is customer development, finding the real problems, and not wasting tokens and water on too many irrelevant things.

  5. What happens to companies that become complacent and don't reinvent themselves? Something like this:

    It’s the number of questions on Stack Overflow. Here is the discussion on HN.

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