Europe Isn’t Behind, It’s Playing the Wrong Game | Judith Dada, Visionaries Club

I think what we need is realism and at the same time agency. And so I think we definitely need optimistic spirit that the future can be better than the present. There's no question about that. That's what innovation, that's where venture capital, that's what risk taking is about. But we cannot just walk away from the very severe challenges that we have in the presence and just pretending like, you know, we're totally winning in AI on all fronts and we're totally winning in the world is just like blatantly ignoring the big mess that we are in.

This is Melanie. And this is Christian. You're listening to Follow the Gradient, the weekly podcast with actionable insights about how to build a business while staying sane.

Europe talks a lot about ambition, but too often it stops where things get uncomfortable. In today's episode, we sit down with Judith Data, General Partner at Visionaries Club, to unpack why performative Euro optimism is holding founders back, why Europe cannot afford to sit out the AI race, and what responsibility comes with building and investing at scale. Judith has backed some of Europe's most ambitious enterprise and AI companies, previously as a General Partner at La Familia, and today at Visionaries Club after starting her career at Meta. We talk about what it actually takes to build from Europe without lowering the bar from AI and leverage to making high agency decisions, taking responsibility for your own values, staying sane while scaling and raising a family and why the peer groups you surround yourself with might be one of the most underrated sources of leverage. Before we jump in, one quick ask. If you enjoy Follow the Gradient, subscribing and following the show is the best way to support what we do. We also share exclusive insights from our guests in the newsletter at followthegradient.io. But now enjoy the conversation between Judith, Christian and myself.

Judith, I'm so happy to have you on the show. We've been working together on some really exciting things over the past month that we'll come back to at the end. But more generally, whenever we talk or when I read your amazing newsletter, I keep thinking that more founders and operators should actually hear the thinking more directly. And so maybe as a starting point, what feels most unresolved or most urgent for you right now when you think about building companies in Europe? That's such an important question. mean, I think it's the elephant in the room, right? I think it's the fact that we live through this poly-crisis world in which technology is an amazing gift that we have been given, but we're also hugely dependent on it. And right now, most of the technology that we use is determined by countries that we previously thought of as allies that we would still, I think, very much to think of as allies in the future. But we have woken up to the reality that the presence is no longer what the past was before. you know, reconsidering the reliance and the dependency that we have on technology from other countries and figuring out in terms of our own sovereignty and our own ambition, to be honest, what can be done about playing a leading role in that field again. I think that's what really fills top of mind for me. And it was always something that sounded somewhat romantic and a bit cute, know, like all European sovereignty. And I think, you know, people are just waking up to the fact that it's freaking important. It's the stuff that runs our lives and we don't really have any answers for how to really defend our values and our importance going forward. you know, being a founder in Europe, working on innovation is quite literally saving the world right now. And so that feels very exciting and very urgent. Yeah, and this is exactly so. One thing that I truly appreciate about you is really that you're such a strong cheerleader for European founders, but at the same time, you're also being very honest about where Europe is failing short. And in your sub-spec that I've read in preparation of our discussion, the ugly truth about performative Euro-optimism, you say optimism without honesty does not help Europe and can actually lower our ceiling because it discourages real action.

So when you wrote that piece, what was maybe the behavior in the European tech ecosystem that frustrated you most, beside what you were just mentioning? Yeah, I think it was performativeness, right? And performativeness in both directions. So I think we first saw kind of performative negativity and pessimism and it was everyone was kind of shitting all over Europe and it was kind of cool, you know, it was a rite of passage to say the maximum amount of negative things and for all the founders to leave Europe behind because things are far horribly broken. Interestingly enough, most of those founders like in their early 20s and I always ask, did you try even for a second to change things? But that's a different story. And then as a counter movement, which I understand, like I have empathy for why that counter movement came about, where the Europeans who were still here, who were still trying, who were still fighting, who were like so fed up with that narrative. But I think that kind of, you know, went into almost the opposite problem, which is the same problem, which was performative Euro-optimism, where people were pretending like we didn't have problems. kind of in this almost viral anti-reaction of not wanting to talk only about the negative things and only about the problems. which I can understand, they were saying, let's just say Europe is amazing and pretend no issues exist, which I think is also the wrong solution, right? And so both performative pessimism as well as performative optimism, I think are failing reality, right? I think what we need is realism and at the same time agency. And so I think we definitely need optimistic spirit that the future can be better than the present. There's no question about that. That's what innovation, that's where venture capital, that's what risk taking is about, but we cannot. just walk away from the very severe challenges that we have in the presence and just pretending, you know, we're totally winning in AI on all fronts and we're totally winning in the world is just like blatantly ignoring the big mess that we are in. Now the US also happens to be in a very big mess, you know, even bigger than I would have ever anticipated. And so I think there's also so many reasons to be proud and to be, you know, kind of bullish on Europe because Europe is not unfixable in 10 years.

But we need to do that from kind of a point of realism to be able to actually make a dent in the universe and kind of see the kinds of changes through that are required to really change the trajectory. In what specific situations do you see this performative optimism coming up most clearly? And why do you think in these situations, people kind of deviate from a healthy realism, which would actually help? Yeah, think, I mean, it's, you know, again, I think this industry is an industry that, you know, some people say it runs on live, some other people say it runs on FOMO. I do understand that like a huge part of what makes the venture ecosystem tick is this kind of, you know, kind of like rallying and hyping. And in many ways, you know, that is also an important recipe. You know, sometimes I almost think that, you you need to get to a point where you have a belief system that is so strong that you can overcome any challenge, like almost like sect, but in a good sense of the word. But having said that, if we just pretend like we don't have problems, like how can we solve our problems? If we just pretend everything is awesome, how can we actually get serious and have the level of skin in the game to really make a change? And so I would say that, and this may be bit wonky, but let's take MAGA as an example, right? Like people could say, like MAGA is a cult, people are super passionate. They have the goals of revitalizing the American industry and kind of... bringing new dynamism to America. And in many ways, like on a headline basis, I would say, I agree with a lot of those promises. Now, what is the issue? It's so performative, it's so over the top that they're completely ignoring the actual reality of people on the ground. whatever the initial, you know, kind of dynamism was that started the movement and whether or not one agrees with it, it is completely disassociated from any reality and any actually, you know, kind of making things work on the ground today. In fact, it's only...

making things worse. And so it's a wonky example because it's completely different to the issues that we have in Europe. But in many ways, I think it's just an example that shows that something taken to its extreme and too cult-like that just makes it lose any kind of grounding with reality can be really hurtful for the overall cost that you actually wish to champion. And when we look at like both sides of the spectrum, where would you say are we too pessimistic and we are actually better in reality than a pessimistic storyline, which would suggest and where would you say, do we have examples of being too optimistic than a realistic view of the world would actually suggest? Yeah. So, I mean, two concrete examples. Where are we too optimistic? Whenever we say Europe will win on the application layer and we can just, you know, sort of ignore the model layer and the chip layer because it turns out other companies are way better in other nations. I think that's way too optimistic. I think that's not at least taking serious the possibility that in the future, a lot more of the value creation will accrue to the model and the infrastructure layer. than we may want to believe right now. I can also see a future in which that gets commoditized and the application layer will take the large piece of the pie, but like both futures are still kind of open. And the fact that we kind of gave up on that, you know, kind of first future so easily and just say, you know, like the model layer is for other companies to win. I just don't understand. And we're doing that with this optimistic perspective that like the application layer is still good enough, you know, but we don't know. And I think there's actually, you know, pretty big chances that the model and the, and the infra layer. will be way more significant than we want to believe as kind of these application layer fans. So I think that's one example where I think we've been too optimistic. Now, you know, an example for where we've been, you know, kind of overly pessimistic is I think this wider idea of, you know, kind of statistics in Europe. wrote an article where I talked about, you know, the 10 things that every European must know. And it was kind of going through the statistics starting from

What is our share of tokens or tokens from models that are built in Europe? What is our share in the infra stack? What is our share in energy? What is the cost of energy? I went through all the main ingredients that go into economic growth and AI and innovation. In Europe, when it comes to the summary statistics, things are looking really pretty bad on almost all fronts. And so what is, think, the op- the performative pessimism that comes out of that is like doomsday. We are absolutely F. There is no chance that we can ever, you know, kind of gain any ground again. And, know, kind of there's a couple of like really famous LinkedIn accounts where people are just like taking all of these stats every day and just saying, my God, everything is lost. like, we're not a statistic because it turns out like a statistic. It's just a summary of the underlying data points that it represents. you know, do on average US companies, you know, turn out to be more successful than European companies? Absolutely. If you just look at the mean or the median or whatever, you're right. But does that mean that being an outlier in Europe is not possible? Absolutely not. Like the example that I use is just because on average Danes are taller than Italians doesn't mean that you won't find an Italian that's taller than a Dane. There's all these like just logical deduction, you know, kind of faults that we're making. where we're kind of taking the status quo and the statistics and thereby deferring that all is lost. know, anything that was ever worth fighting for, kind of, you so many examples. If you look at history, like history is riddled with examples where people defied the odds, you know. Look at like Greek sagas, look at, you know, any story that is worth telling. It's always any fairy tale. It's always like in an unlikely situation, you overcome the bad witch, you overcome the ugly monster. This is the stuff that makes humans tick. And so the fact that we're so like overly pessimistic and just looking at the stats and saying, therefore we can never win again, it's just not understandable to me. So maybe those are two examples that kind of highlight how I would counter these pessimistic and optimistic streams and kind of bring them back to a common reality.

Absolutely. And I think this all goes back to the kind of baseline assumption that AI in general, or the language models are like one of the most influential technologies or the shift of technologies, which we have in the history of humanity. And I think I've heard so many times in the past, this comparison of AI is like the emergence of the internet. And I personally think this doesn't even come close. It's like more like the industrial revolution where you had the invention of the spinning jenny the invention of the steam wheel. And this really kicked off like hundreds of years of really fundamental shifts. And you also alluded to that fact in one of your pieces and you wrote, okay, this is like one of the most important technologies in the history of humanity. But when you then look sometimes at the behavior of Europe or people here on the continent, you sometimes have the feeling, okay, people don't realize how important that is that we keep our pace. And that we don't lose the race and you compare that to the analogy from the hunger games. So why do you think that is? do you, when you look at European founders today, where do you most strongly see that disconnect between on the one hand, having stakes, which are so high. And on the other hand, the type of companies which are being built. Yeah. So I think what you're saying is so important. And in my view, it is honestly the question of the hour, like the one question that I grapple with when I lie awake at night, because let's take a step back. What is currently happening is a transformation that is the transformation of intelligence. And so why does the Industrial Revolution or the internet like not really come close to comparing to that? Because it was much more boxed in a certain paradigm than kind of the horizontal, you know, kind of automation and potentially not just automation, but going beyond kind of all of human intelligence. that it kind of breaks the mind to even think about it. And therefore it makes it very difficult to concretely size it. Many economists are trying

actually not many economists, few economists are trying, but you kind of, have to get your brain into a weird place, a very uncharted territory to even start to want to comprehend what is happening here. Now, what is more is that this is a field that is defined by a very narrow and small elite that is almost exclusively living in Silicon Valley, not completely. There's a few folks in Europe, there's a few folks in Asia, you know, in other countries that are also playing an important role, but the frontier of this wave is being defined in a very small community. Now, what is even more is that the frontier of this technology is accelerating and becoming, I want to say, specialized and, you know, kind of losing grip with the rest of the world, that it increasingly feels like there is this huge divide in between people who kind of feel the AGI in San Francisco and everyone else. And why is that? Because the amount of change and the amount of kind of trickling down that this technology needs to really show its effect is so vastly impacted by organizational change management, know, the capacity of humans to change, the capacity of humans to understand, to adopt, and so on and so forth. But this is not just something, you like even if AGI or maybe not AGI, but like AGI existed, we wouldn't like immediately feel it tomorrow because the world is, you know, this physical place with like organizations and with all these reasons for why tech... like innovation actually takes longer time to diffuse into society. There's this concept in history where any innovation actually needs complimentary innovation in order to take effect. As the example of the steam engine, you know, kind of changing to the electric motor, you actually have to change lots of things about factory floors first before you could make use of the electric motor because they were much smaller and you had to completely change your production. logic, took time for you to harness that. So I think it's the same with AI. We have this divide, we have kind of this narrow frontier, Leo Aschenbrenner called it situational awareness. You we have this narrow frontier that is feeling the AGI, that is like living in the models, that is like really feeling the exponential that we're seeing. But most of the rest of the world is still, you know, kind of stuck in the trickling down of even trying to get like all the stuff that is supposed to change. And so

Both things are true at the same time. That's the thing that's so crazy. It is absolutely true that a mid-level manager in some German insurance company is saying AI is BS because none of the stuff is working over here. And it is absolutely true that Dario Medea is putting out his essays and saying, guys, in the next couple of years, based on all the exponentials that we've now been tracking for 10 years and that continue to scale, it is highly likely that we're going to reach AGI or AI that is more powerful than most humans on Earth, both things are true and that's what makes it so crazy. And in Europe, it turns out that we're not Silicon Valley, right? We don't have, you know, kind of these not like this small elite, you know, kind of they're not here, they're over there. We tend to have a lot more of the folks that have built industries, that have built legacy, that have built things that add friction to the adoption of AI. And so we tend to feel that perspective that is also true, but only part of the story, much more than the other perspective. So my question is, How do we combine both? And how do we make people understand we're not feeling the AGI today, that even if it's not certain, there is a certain likelihood that we will live in that future, and it's going to come in the end for everyone. And what are the things that we can do to hedge, AKA prepare, even though we don't feel it today, for a future where that is actually the case and that is the reality? And I think that language, that vision. I don't see many people, if anyone, really doing justice to that. I think there's Dario, you know, who's amazing in his essays and really taking us kind of behind the curtain and really understanding his way of thinking. There's a few people who really have this incredible ability to kind of take people on this journey and make this thing that is not really graspable, kind of at least semi-graspable. But I think we need way more people in Europe to be telling these stories and to be, you know, kind of bridging this gap that we have. because just as the US, Europe will be affected by it. And this also kind of brings back the point that I was making initially about why are we so content with the application layer if there's like a significant chance that maybe value creation, not maybe, very likely value creation will also be at the model and the infra layer.

And we're going to be affected by it. Everyone in the US, not everyone, but Many people are starting to talk about UBI, universal basic income. We're like in the face of automation. And once it's trickled down into society, if people no longer have a meaningful way of contributing in society, we'll be able to pay them money that we take from redistributing from the AI companies. What are those AI companies for Europe? What is that piece of the pie in Europe? If you do the math on what a UBI actually costs, we're easily talking like 10, 20. 30 % of GDP, I mean, we can't even afford our pension systems in Germany. I'm not sure you guys in Switzerland are doing much better because you've got a smarter pension system. even in Switzerland, I would struggle to think that you could just easily redistribute 30 % of GDP, you know, to make sure that people are still able to make a living and live a good life. So there's very serious questions that are coming for all of us. And even if there's just, let's say a 10 % chance that this future is gonna be reality over the next 20 years, it's take a long time horizon. Guys, who is planning for this? That is the question that I have. And I mean, it's super interesting. And to maybe just pick up your point on what you said about the middle manager of a German insurance company. So if we imagine that I'm a founder and I want to do something in AI and I talked to this middle manager, I could take this as a signal that I need to work on the application layer, right? Because I'm basically saying the LLM stuff is already there. I just need to build a couple of layers on top, build a few integrations, talk to more people. And then I have something. On the other hand, what you also said. If I work on the application layer, maybe I'm not working on the hard problems, but we need to work on the hard problems because that's what the ecosystem needs. That's what we need as a continent in the long run. If I'm a founder and I want to work on the hard problems, I might be, let's say afraid to be, to run against a competition of the U S hyperscalers where I have the feeling, okay, I'm already losing from day one. So I'm simplifying here, obviously, but to just make that point, like what do you.

What would you want the ecosystem or individual founders to work on to really make an impact as an entire ecosystem in the long term? Yeah, I have two answers that come to this question from different sides. The first answer is I don't think any founder should just go and build a model layer company. The fact just is you need very specific skills. Not everyone has it. You also won't be able to build them overnight. The same goes for like chips and infra. If you don't have a background in this space, you know, like a SaaS founder or whatever, know, Judith, you know, I can now have all the ambition in the world. Should I start a chip company tomorrow? Probably not because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. So I think we do just need to acknowledge that these are often highly specialized talents that are required to start these companies. Now it turns out this is not at all indicative of like European or US American, because many of the best researchers at US companies are in fact European. And whether they're European or American, I don't actually care. I want the best people in the world to be starting these companies in Europe. And it's OK that it's a specialized pool of talent. The question is, how do we get that? specialized talent incentivized to think that Europe is actually the best place to be starting their company. I mean, we've seen it with the H1B visas that Trump froze. We saw it now with everything that's happening in Minneapolis and the authoritarian turn of the government. I of tend to think that this is as good a time as ever for Europe to make its case for why this is the best place on earth to start a company. But that's kind of the first piece of the story. Now, the second piece of the story I think is more interesting because I think that is really the question that then touches every founder that wants to do something in AI and it's kind of asking themselves, is this the play that I should be playing? Which is the fundamental question of, do I stand a chance of winning against a US competitor? And there, going back to the Hunger Games analogy, my question would be, have we actually truly understood how important of a game we're playing here? Because the reality is,

In history, there was many times where we fought, not because we knew we were winning, but because we knew the odds of losing would be absolutely horrific. And so it's kind of, for a second, separating us from the fact of, I just go to some local optimum where I have the most likely chances of being the biggest fish in the pond? Or do we actually truly, with every fiber in our body, understand and believe that this is the most consequential shift? that humanity will likely ever live through. And so it doesn't matter that the odds of success are small because the fact of losing is, I don't want to say death sentence, that's likely too dramatic, but is very problematic for this continent. And so if one takes seriously the downside, then competing, even if the odds of winning are small, becomes kind of pivotal. And so that is the myth, the disconnect that I'm still sensing. Everyone's kind of, not everyone, But many people are kind of going about it as if it's just business as usual and it's just another innovation. And it doesn't really matter if we're winning or not winning. I'm just going to pick wherever I can personally extract the most value. When like potentially we're even talking about a future where like whatever money we all have in the bank account today, unless it's, know, kind of like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire money, I'm not sure it's going to move the needle much for any of us. And I don't want to be too doomer because sometimes I tend to think to myself, my God, Judith, you sound like one of those AI do-mers, because I'm not. I also think there's an amazing upside. There is this more utopian world that I can believe could exist. But if I look at the state of the world right now and anything that I'm seeing about the nature of human psyche and whether or not people want to share something that they have and that they've gained or not share it, I think right now we have more reason to believe that whatever AI is going to bring People are just gonna continue the human patterns that we've seen them exhibit over the last couple of years, and that's gonna mean that Europe needs to win this for themselves. We cannot rely on other countries sharing their incredible wealth with us. And so again, it's taking that fight seriously and then asking, are we actually giving it our all in terms of even the small chance of success that we may have.

And maybe on this point, because one analogy that I heard from you and I loved it so much is that you take the analogy of a bus driver that actually it really stuck with me. So you describe how as kids, we think our parents are driving the bus, then the teachers are driving the bus, the professors, the bosses, the politicians. And at some point we realize no one is actually driving the bus. And by the time that sings in, we're already close enough to the front that pretending to be a passenger is no longer honest. And I think it is exactly what you were now just describing, that we need to take action as a founder, as a VC, as just like a human being in society. So when did that realization hit you personally that you were no longer just observing the system, but actively shaping it? And maybe also how do you see that for others who are in a similar situation realizing that we actually need to wake up and we cannot just do this short-term wins when it comes to... creating maybe at the application layer, a thing that gives some revenue and then you exit. But where do you draw the line here? Yeah, I think it was not an aha moment. It was more of a gradual realization. And it comes with the naivete that you had when you were a child, like slowly being peeled away like an orange, kind of every year that you age. And I think I'm still fairly young. I'm now 34. And I've had this incredible privilege of just being part of the most interesting circles and tables around the world, kind of from unicorn founders to some of the richest people in the world to some of the most interesting scientists and venture capital and this job, know, of oftentimes gives you that privilege. And on the one hand, it's incredibly inspiring and, you know, kind of gives you all these insights into, you know, how the most powerful circles of the world are kind of, you know, running or being run. But at the same time, it also makes you realize in Germany, we have the saying like everyone's only cooking with water. You everyone kind of has the same ingredients and, you know, our politicians don't have the answers.

Our founders often don't have the answers. And where do you apply this metaphor to tech and venture today? do you most often see founders or investors still outsourcing responsibility, even though they're already influencing outcomes at scale? So how? Because in the end, really want to, because you realize that and you are also actively and very proactive talking about it. But what does it mean for other founders in the ecosystem? Yeah, so I think overall, mean, founders are a high agency by definition, right? They're people who you know, turning something into reality that only exists in their brain. So I think in comparison to most other people in society, they're already up there with at least trying to sometimes steer the bus. I think where it became most apparent to me, where I was also disappointed and at the same time just doing a lot of soul searching was A lot of the conversation online about founders leaving Europe behind to go to the US to, you know, kind of start companies there because they feel that's a much more conducive ecosystem to achieving their dreams in the European ecosystem. And in many ways, I understand that and, kind of people leaving Europe, people leaving Germany, that's always been the case. I'm a globalist myself. I've lived, you know, all over the world. I think that's beautiful. I think we should be doing more of that. However, at least personally, it feels like more of my friends are leaving than ever. And at the same time, whenever I kind of ask, what are the reasons why you don't think you can achieve your dreams in Germany and Europe? You know, they kind of give 10 reasons that are all valid. But then I ask, but have any of us really tried to solve this? And the reality is no, know, most of us never tried to really fix the issues that we're seeing. And oftentimes it's just, know, but it's too complicated, but it doesn't work and so on and so forth. And then you see someone like Andreas Klinger with EU Inc. where, mean,

Let's face it, the guy was like moving mountains. I mean, this was not easy. This is very hard. But he was just one guy, you know, who was a bit sneaky and cheeky, you know, and he just dares to do stuff and he dares to talk up to people and stand up for himself. And turns out, you know, you can just do things. And that's just one example. And so I'm wondering, we have all this incredible talent. If like, we all give 180 % for our work. If we use 10 % of that and gave it towards Let's call it like the societal backbone that makes all of our lives work and tick. If we only did that, I think Europe could potentially be pretty amazing, right? And so it's going away from this consumption mindset of treating Europe like a supermarket and you go in and you buy your milk and then you kind of get to complain when the milk is out, maybe go buy a cow and get some milk. That's the mindset that I'm really missing, even in the founder community. But we have some really great examples now that are showing that this is totally possible. I really hope that this can inspire more action to follow. Absolutely. And on this point of action and also maybe going a little bit more macro and you mentioned it at the beginning, like there are so many shifts happening. We have a geopolitical situation that is just madness to say the least. And what I really liked in following you, like your stories, your articles that you write, also when we discussed the two of us, you have been very direct in about taking a stand even when it is uncomfortable and might even cost something because in the end, all have reputations, we all have a business, taking a stand against what we feel is wrong is like also coming with downsides. And you're very clear that having influence comes with responsibility, even when you do not have a perfect answer, as you said yourself today. So how do you personally decide when staying silent is no longer acceptable for you? And also, what do you also recommend to others who fear the cost is too high to actually speak up because

This is also an action that we all need to take in some form or shape. Yeah, I think in some ways I've always been like that. So I do think, you know, maybe there's like even a genetic, you know, like she's a loud mouth kind of piece here where it's just like, Judith won't shut up. She will just like whatever is inside her, she will need to share it with the world. But having said that, I don't know. I just, I have a really deep sense of morality and like just not being a horrible person. And honestly, that's... all it comes down to these days for me. I'm both trying to have empathy because a lot of my friends or people that don't dare to speak up, and I'm now saying this very specifically in the context of the current geopolitical situation and the Trump administration, they fear that, know, kind of we're still climbing the ladder, we're not a billionaire yet, but we want to ideally become so, so that down the line we can have all this influence and shape the world for the better because they are all really good people. have... you know, kind of the right values and the right goals for life. And so they feel that they need to sacrifice being loud and speaking up in favor of being successful. And let's face it, you know, the centers of power are shaped in a certain way and they're mostly pointing in one direction rather than the other direction. So I understand that. But the question that I would really ask everyone including myself, and I've asked myself that question, I was not born privileged. My parents did not go to university. My parents were not able to afford fancy stuff for us. We were living in a high rise project building, 70 square meters with two siblings. I know what it is like not to have money and not to come from a place that is all unicorns and dolls and kind of fluffy rainbows. And I would rather always go back to that place and have my morality intact.

and not be a horrible person and have all the billions in the world in order to suck up to whatever authoritarian regime is happening right now. And so that is the mismatch that quite honestly, like I also have a lot of, when say fights, but like very heated discussions with my friends about, because I'm really asking like, what is all this money worth if in the end we lose our humanity in the process? Is that the future that is worth living in for either of us? You know, maybe it is then. and I haven't thought this through, I'm just gonna blurt it out, but maybe this then worth being part of whatever underclass, maybe I wanna be part of the Robin Hood gang, who are kind of like at least trying to fight for the right thing, but being poor, then kind of being the king in the castle, who's like freaking horrible and exploiting everyone else, just for the sake of being comfortable. And so it really comes down to something as simple as that for me. And just that realization. gives me then a lot of courage to just say, know what, even if there's a price, I think that's a price worth paying. Yeah. And it kind of also connects a little bit into the topic that I still want to cover because on our podcast, we always come back to this kind of slogan like staying sane. So our slogan is how to scale a business from Europe while staying sane. And for me personally, that really means not just building great companies, but really, as you said yourself, staying human and connected to my values, friends and family. And very concretely, it also means being a good mom to my kids. And you have been very open about how hard it is to combine ambition and tech and venture with raising young kids. And I really respect that you do not sugar coat it because that is also not helpful to just say, yeah, it's super easy. You can have both and whatever, but you also don't just keep complaining, which is also like a trap that I feel many people go into. So instead you build open source nannies. And that was actually, I think the first time when I actually realized, there is Judith and she's doing amazing stuff.

So when you started open source Nanny, what was the moment where you realized this is not just a personal struggle, but really a systemic gap where I can also help solve this challenge in some sort of way. Yeah, I there actually know the moment when it happened, which was I was very pregnant, like nine months with my second daughter and I was planning my return to work. Lots of people were asking me, you know, like, how are you going to do it? Like, how do you want to be back? Just, you know, kind of a few months after giving birth, like you have already have a toddler and your husband has just started another company. Like how on earth are you guys planning to not go insane? And I was just retelling our childcare setup, which involves nannies, which involves grandparent support, which involves just a lot of help to be able to do it. I was just basically telling everyone exactly what we do and, you know, kind of working with a night nurse and this and that. And people found it super valuable. And, you know, lots more people started pinging me and I was just like, my God, I can't listen to myself anymore. And so I thought, why don't, you know, we just set up like a little database where. We share all this information because we have founder salary calculators, have equity calculators, like why don't we have like childcare calculators where people can see exactly what are the models, what are the pros and cons, what are the costs, just bring more transparency. And so I started just pinging in like this wild, you know, kind of like insomnia, you know, kind of night, I pinged a lot of my friends in like the ecosystem. It's just like, hey, you know, it's anonymous, do you mind sharing? And they all shared. And, you know, suddenly I had 20 stories and then We launched it and had 40 stories. Now we have over 100 stories from like all around the world from parents just very honestly and transparently sharing their childcare journey. And we have a constant stream of people who read it. We have a little newsletter and lots of founders now when I go on calls with them, they're like, oh, you're the lady from open source, Nanny. I sent it to a friend. And so I'm so grateful because it was really like not that much work to be honest. It was just this urge of, know, I think this should exist. This doesn't exist anymore. Like anywhere.

Why is that? Let's just do it. Lovable was a thing, so we could just vibe code it very quickly. It was amazing. And it's just a small thing, but I do actually think it helped a lot of people. And even if it's just for the reason that people say, this is not for me, just being able to read the lived realities of how people are making it work, see the cost also. I mean, it's shit expensive. It's like crazy. You pay an arm and a leg. One of your salaries can go directly just into childcare. And just seeing the sacrifices that lots of people need to make in order to make it work, because there is oftentimes no way to make it work otherwise, I think gives people a better sense of understanding and being able to then take the decisions for their own life. And is there anything specific that if a founder or operator is listening now and is really in the thick of it and has small kids at home, like really something that you think is a decision that more people should make earlier to before things break? mean, overall, I'd say I think, you know, I'm so disturbed by the birth rates and how they're only going into one direction, which is, you know, down, that I would just say, I think it's a tragedy that more people are having kids. And even if there's a price worth paying, I think it's a price that is just worth paying. You know, I think maybe part of the reason for why we're at this place right now is because people no longer have a stake in the future. And turns out the best way to have a stake in the future is to have kids. And so I will just say that, you know, overall. Whenever people kind of share that, you know, it's so unmanageable and it's so horrible and so on and so forth, I just, my heart breaks because my kids are the best thing that will ever happen to me. I mean, they're my everything. And is it easy? No. Is it worth it not being easy? 100%. Do I wish I was living 10 lives rather than one life and constantly having to split myself in many ways? Totally. But guess what? Grow up, you know? Oftentimes I'm just like, this is what being a parent is about. You just need to grow the fuck up, you know?

It's like, I had no understanding of what actual responsibility feels like. And I was running a business with employees and so on and so forth until I became a mother. And it turns out, I think for my character, that was nothing but positive. And I wish many more people were to go through that experience, not just to, you know, kind of bring amazing people to this world, but also for their own kind of development. I will say it's, I think it is totally worth it. Will there be a cost 100 %? Will that cost sometimes be your business? There's no question about it. The answer is yes. But are there so many more things that you're gaining in return, including things that will make you better at business? Yes. Can I give you the perfect ledger and equation of like left side, right side? Is it positive, negative? I don't know. It's individual. It depends on your situation. It's different for all the people. What we can do is bring more transparency for people to kind of make those decisions in an informed way. What type of responsibilities would you say the peers around you have, like your direct environment, like your co-founders, colleagues at work, partners, and maybe employing organizations in general to really make sure, hey, I want to make it possible that an ambitious person can live both worlds. They can stay in the game, but they can take care of their responsibilities and really have a family life. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think in my case, it's just, we're going to cut this for the podcast, but my daughter just ran in crying. I'm working from home. tried to work from home as much as I can. I also tried to travel as much as I can, which means, you know, either traveling or working from home, even though I wish I was spending lots of time in the office, I just cannot at this moment in time. And my team is very understanding of that. Right. So I basically, you know, kind of in that trade off of like time in office. time traveling to do all the things I need to do and spend time with my kids, I sacrifice time in office and I'm prioritizing the other two things. Now this equation may not work for other people, you need again, need to find your own balance, but I do think there clearly are things that we can shift, know, know, childcare, you know, maximum versus minimum, in office time, maximum versus minimum.

travel time maximum versus minimum, a role that requires full presence, intensity always versus a role that requires more strategic input and leadership and so forth. I read this great tweet the other week, which was completely unrelated to childcare where I think it was one of the core researchers of the big, really big AI lab in the US whose main goal is to come up with new ideas to push research forward, right? So model architecture, new algorithms, whatever. He basically has no meetings and all he does is go on long walks. Because the only thing that this guy can really move is like those two ideas that he has a year. It turns out he has those two ideas a year. Now would having back to back meetings and like a crazy intensity in the office make him any more productive in terms of having those two ideas? No. So there are different things that each of us can contribute. I think being a mother and like having that whole experience makes you so much more, same for fathers, makes you so much more, you know, just add stuff. Do you lose stuff? Yeah. Do you add things? Yeah. Does that rebalance maybe the overall thing? Maybe not, I don't know. But you know, kind of there's a whole bunch of things that you can kind of put on the table and kind of reassess and figure out what is the right way to be playing this. I will say the one thing that I just don't believe in is this, you can have it all. You can just have it all. You can have no childcare. You can continue being the boss. You can continue, you know, kind of outpacing everyone. It's not possible. Children are a full-time job. Your job may be a full-time job. There's other levers of flexibility that you can work with, but like just be aware of the full-time jobs that need attention and then kind of adjust accordingly. That is, think overall my advice. And then just very personally, I'm still, you this is still something that I'm experiencing and working through, but I had this fear that if I were to go back to a high intensity role with a lot of travel, would it really jeopardize the connection that I had with my daughters? And you know, lots of people who did that kind of said it's not about the quantity, it's about the quality. And I was unsure if that is actually what I believed. And it's still early and I may change my mind in a couple of years from now, but directionally, I would say at least from my own experience, they're right. You know, I do think that I have a really strong connection to my daughters, even though I'm not there all nights of the week, I'm gone very regularly, but they have a really loving setup. They have all the care in the world. And you know, I think this is what overall is the best optimization for our family.

So that is a personal experience that I've made, but it may look very different for other people. I could go on on this, but I also know that we kind of left a cliffhanger at the beginning of our conversation. And I want to really also go back to what we promised at the beginning. So at the start, I mentioned that we have been working together on something very close to our hearts that we just announced this week. It's called Relativity Collective. And the core insight behind it came straight out of our conversations together. The people you spend the most... time with really shape what you think is possible. And what feels wildly ambitious in one ecosystem might just be the baseline somewhere else. And especially now with AI and we have talked a lot today, AI changing what a small team or even a single person can build, the people you learn and think alongside early on matter more than ever. What I also find, and now before I reveal what is behind it, what I also find really special is that some of the most entrepreneurial universities across Europe are on board from day one. And together with founders from companies like Hugging Face, Silo AI, Deepchart, Black Forest Labs, or NITN, we have founders that students look really up to. So before I now make the tension even more greater. Can you explain in your own words what we thought about when we kind of started this project Relativity Collective and have been spending most of our nights and holidays working on that?

Yeah, 100%. I share the excitement so much. So I think when it comes to your own trajectory in life, whether it's a flat trajectory or whether it's an exceptional trajectory, and assuming that to reach exceptional outcomes, we need exceptional trajectories, the questions are, what are the input factors and what are the things that we can actually influence in order to tilt more trajectories into that kind of exceptional tier? And I think there's two things. On the one hand, you know, there's amazing Halo founders and, you know, kind of examples that have done it before, I think they're inspiring, right? The fact that Mark Zuckerberg has kind of built what he's built, that these founders exist, makes you understand and inspired that these paths exist. However, I think these examples do not tilt your own trajectory upwards. They just make you realize the trajectory exists. The people that actually make it tilt upward are the people that you spend the most time with. Your close and weak ties, right? The people that you're associated with, that you get your information. from that you model your behavior after. We're social creatures. We like to be part of the community. We don't like to stray far from the herd. And so if we have a friend or even a cousin or a person that went to uni with us who is doing it, that will, in my view, influence us much more than some faraway kind of founder who you never interacted with. And so that's what Relativity Collective, which is what we're starting, is all about. It's this idea that... Today, Europe is amazing in terms of having great local optima of founder excellence and talent, right? We have amazing universities, we have amazing entrepreneurship clusters, but those are still highly fragmented across Europe. And so they're kind of all stuck in their local optimum. What we want to do with what Let's Eat a Vidi Collective is build the bridge between those clusters, basically taking the best students. from those different clusters and bringing them together and exposing them as early as possible so that exposure can turn into friendship, strong ties, weak ties that compound for their life and over time tilt their trajectory upwards and thereby kind of turning what is today a fragmented ecosystem into a centrality wins and compounds over time ecosystem because excellence breeds more ambition and more ambition breeds more excellence. That is relativity collective in a nutshell. It's really targeted at students.

from any university in Europe, but we have some great partners that we're working with very closely in order to identify the best students at those university clusters. And then the goal is, we jokingly call it social engineering. We basically want to kind of put strangers together and see if we can turn them into friends and into close allies over a very short period of time, and then continuously kind of champion that community, bring them together to make sure that they can form closer and closer ties over time. So that ideally down the line, a few years from now, companies that otherwise did not exist, otherwise would not have been created, not just in terms of quantity, but especially in terms of quality, kind of come out downstream of this initiative. Yeah. And it's really also like when you first talked about, and you talked about your experience with CDTM, where you were in a very close-knit group of peers and some of them we all know now as founders in the ecosystem. And we kind of really want to bring that on a European level. And I'm so excited because it basically is also what we do here with the podcast, what we do here at university level. now seeing that like really makes me happy. But now like we have come to also. The end of our conversation. The time is up. all have still things to do. So I hand over to Christian who will finish with some rapid fire questions. Yeah. So we have this awesome section in the podcast where we do rapid fire questions. So basically I'm just going to ask you a very short question and you can answer whatever comes to your minds first. One AI assumption you think European founders are most wrong about.

We cannot play a role at the model and in for layer. one Europe narrative you wish we would retire. Europe is either entirely fucked or absolutely unquestionably destined for glory. realism, one boundary you've learned to protect to stay sane. time in the bathtub with a podcast after cuddling my kids.

One thing you hope ambitious founders with kids would stop feeling guilty about. You're single-handedly helping humanity to still exist 200 years from now. You're doing great. Judith, thank you so much for anyone listening who wants now more of your thinking. Where should they go and follow you, your work, learn more about also what you're doing at Visionaries Club and the many amazing things you've been cooking. We always host lots of events across Europe with Visionaries Club. So make sure to check out our website, visionaries.bc or follow our LinkedIn. And for me personally, feel free to follow me on any social channels for Instagram, more for like private stuff and childcare, Substack for a lot of my deep thinking shenanigans and LinkedIn, more of the kind of week to week stuff that I do in this ecosystem. But would love to connect at some point. We're going to be hosting lots of events also with ETH. So very much looking forward to that. Yeah. And thank you so much. This was great. Thank you very much. And for the students among our listeners, the call for the first Relativity Collective cohort is open until February 14th. And you find all the details at relativitycollective.com. Thank you so much for being on our show and yeah, see you soon.

Thank you. Thanks guys, bye. And this was another episode of our Follow the Gradient Podcast. And now we would love to hear from you. How did you like it? What should we improve? Do you have any suggestions, ideas or dream podcast guests? Please let us know. Thank you and see you again next week.