Wunderbar Together

After playing soccer for most of his childhood, Moritz Wagner discovered his ease with mastering the game of basketball. As a teen, he skyrocketed through the ranks of his home town club Alba Berlin, before trying the impossible: At age 17, he turned down an offer to play professionally in Germany and joined the college team at University of Michigan with the dream of becoming a NBA player.

And he did it. After being drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018 he currently plays on the Center position for the Washington Wizards in the nations's capital.

On episode 12 of the Wunderbar Together, Moritz takes us on his unique journey from Berliner to B-Baller, taking over the position as Center, playing with superstar LeBron James and being an immigrant in the NBA. Representing a new generation of outspoken athletes, he also dives deep into being actively anti-racist in the current environment.

Follow Moritz 'Moe' Wagner

Hosts of this episode: Felix Zeltner, Olli Nermerich

Nora Abousteit grew up in a household of makers and tinkerers. Today, as the founder & CEO of CraftJam, she teaches the U.S. and the world how to craft, reintroducing the digital generation to using their hands. "We are what we make" is her mantra, and wants us all to make more – and consume less.

Join Nora on her journey from Munich to Cairo to New York, discovering her cultural identities, before finding her true calling as part of the maker movement in the U.S. – on episode 11 of the Wunderbar Together podcast.

"Back in the days, crafting was looked down upon. Now, it's t's cool, it's mainstream, it's even political."

Find out more about CraftJam: http://craftjam.co

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

Marco Schnabl's affinity for all things cars and engines goes back to his childhood near Cologne. But after putting himself through a tough dual study program with Daimler and starting a career in one of Germany's key industries, he left his secure job to become a car salesman in America's largest city. „Selling cars in Manhattan exposes you to all walks of life.”

In episode 10 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, Marco Schnabl describes how his journey eventually lead to revolutionizing the car selling process altogether – and how he, together with his co-founder, built automotiveMastermind, a company that was recently acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

"How did a guy from Heidelberg end up in the hills of L.A.? I got lucky", says Paul Ripke, who moved to California with his family four years ago. He works as a visual storyteller, photographer, fashion designer and influencer – a creator of the digital age with over half a million followers on Instagram alone.

In episode 8 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, Paul discusses his journey from djing for GIs in his hometown in Southwestern Germany to being thrust into the global spotlight with the German Nationalmannschaft winning the FIFA World Cup in Brazil to working with Formula 1 superstar Lewis Hamilton – and always staying true to creating whatever he likes best. "Following your followers is stupid. Don't create for the audience. Create for yourself."

Follow Paul Ripke on Instagram @paulripke. Check out his fashion label PARI and his German podcast with Joko Winterscheidt, AWFNR.

This episode of the Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and Oliver Nermerich and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

Mel, born in Ireland, wanted to learn German. Anita, born in Germany, wanted to improve her English. As an intercultural couple in New York City, they wanted to understand each other and their respective cultures better. But they couldn't find any lessons or teachers they liked.

Taking life by the horns, they started their own thing in 2016: Talaera, a platform for personalized English training. Today, they are a husband-and-wife-team employing half a dozen full-time staffers while the platform connects hundreds of learners and coaches around the world every day.

On episode 8 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, Anita & Mel explore their successes and failures with German and English, discuss the challenges of being married AND running a company and – in a surprise plot twist at the very end – share why learning to cope with loss has helped them find deeper meaning in life.

Find out more about Talaera here: https://talaera.com/

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

From Papua New Guinea to Saudi Arabia to the Turks and Caicos islands – Sebastian Steinau has worked in some of the most exotic places on our planet. Without ever planning on it, he became the broker of the wealthy. And eventually, he moved to New York, to make it in the toughest real estate market of all.

On episode 7 of the Wunderbar Together, Sebastian Steinau, Senior Global Real Estate Advisor at Corcoran Group, reveals his journey from horseback jumping in Germany to living and failing in the Caribbean - "I never knew there was a pirate in me" - to what it really means to turn around billions of dollars in real estate. "The German client is probably the most difficult client I have to deal with."

As this episode of the podcast was recorded just prior the coronavirus pandemic, with real family members in a real apartment, please find an update at the very end.

More on Sebastian: https://www.corcoran.com/nyc-real-estate/agents/east-side/sebastian-steinau/18046

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

Vince Ebert is a physicist and comedian – and a big hit in his native Germany. But after two decades of playing sold-out theaters, publishing bestselling books and hosting his own television show, he recently relocated to New York City.

His goal: Breaking through in the toughest stand-up scene in the world. His opening line: "German physicist – double the fun." His takeaway: "It wasn't a complete disaster."

In episode 6 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, Vince Ebert shares the cost of being on stage for five minutes, how the experience changed him as a comedian, and what Germans really think about Americans.

More from Vince Ebert:

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

Hilke Schellmann is one of the few Germans who ever won an Emmy for documentary filmmaking. She is an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Professor for Journalism at New York University.

In episode 5 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, she dives into the different approaches to journalism in the U.S. and in Germany, #MeToo in media and her investigations of artificial intelligence.

In her most recent work on A.I. and hiring, she is trying to answer one of the biggest questions of our crisis-stricken days: what happens when intelligent machines decide on who gets a job, and who doesn't?

Further reading:

Hilke Schellmann on Twitter

Hilke Schellmann's WSJ piece on The Future of Hiring

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

He is one of the most experienced and well-known investors in technology in the United States, and also somebody who permanently lives a few steps ahead in the future. Please welcome Albert Wenger, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures.

In episode 4 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, Albert Wenger discusses his Twitter feed @albertwenger, his plan for the post-pandemic economy (details on his blog), and "Humanity Forward", his latest venture together with democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

Albert Wenger also talks about his upbringing in Germany, his most important lesson from working over three decades in the United States, and takeaways from homeschooling his three children: "One hour of focused learning a day is enough."

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and supported by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.

In December 2013, artist Uli Beutter Cohen asked a young woman on the Q train what she was reading, and if she was ok to have her picture taken.

It had caught Uli's attention that New York City was a place where more people would read on the subway than anywhere else – always with a special sense of pride, and many emotions.

Uli posted the picture of the women – a young dancer – reading “Catching Fire” on Instagram, on a new account she called Subway Book Review. The caption read >"I liked the first two movies and wanted to read the book. I like post-apocalyptic books”.

Today, the Subway Book Review is a global community and social media phenomenon, portrayed all the way from the BBC to Glamour to DER SPIEGEL.

In episode 3 of the Wunderbar Together podcast, Uli shares how growing up in Germany shaped her, how moving to Portland, OR, turned her into a young entrepreneur, and how she built Subway Book Review into a platform with hundreds of thousands of followers. In our update call at the very end, she shares her radical reinvention in the current crisis.

The Wunderbar Together podcast is hosted by Felix Zeltner and produced by Peter Tooke. It is inspired and partly funded by Wunderbar Together 2018/19, the Year of German-American Friendship. Find out all about it at wunderbartogether.org.