How to upgrade your sales game
Plus: Why working hard may not be the (only) solution to success
· 596 words
Melanie Gabriel & Christian Woese
October 07, 2025 • Read time: 3 minutes
Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati finally launched her new product Tinker. After raising $2bn without a public product, her big reveal now was a mere post on X. The ultimate power move? Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos calls AI the good kind of bubble - investors may lose money, startups may vanish, but society at large will win. If you think of yourself as part of society, you’re good. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party
Italy’s Domyn plans €1bn raise to challenge OpenAI
Milan-based LLM startup Domyn is seeking over €1bn to scale its AI gigafactories and models, which it claims rival OpenAI and Anthropic. Unlike its U.S. peers, Domyn is focusing on regulated industries and sovereign European data infrastructure. Its first AI gigafactory is planned to open in 2026.
Bending Spoons in talks to buy AOL for $1.4bn
Milan-based unicorn Bending Spoons is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire AOL from Yahoo’s owner Apollo Global for $1.4bn. The prolific acquirer, fresh off a $1.38bn Vimeo deal, has made over 50 purchases since 2013. CEO Luca Ferrari says the group expects $1.1bn in revenue this year, with all its businesses profitable.
What do you meme?
Food for thought
Sprint or marathon?
The bubble of startup land can create heavy pressure on working long hours, always grinding. We loved the thoughts of Semir Jahic on this: the world is not 0 or 1, not either / or. It is a series of individual decisions which can be made differently depending on the context -
“It's not grind mode vs. soft mode. It's not all-in vs. checked out. It's whatever you choose to make it.”
The ultimate growth hack?
A reorganization around AI?
Venture firm a16z has analyzed startup spending patterns of AI tools. The result is an insightful list of state-of-the-art AI tools for the workplace and a clear trend: Vibe coding and creativity with AI is reaching every role and becoming an integral part of how software companies are built from the ground up.
Tools of Choice: A helpful list of reference
Events happening this week
We constantly update this quarter’s must-attend events for startups in Europe list.
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Smart hack
From our Partners
How Canva, Perplexity and Notion turn feedback chaos into actionable customer intelligence
You’re sitting on a goldmine of feedback: tickets, surveys, reviews, but can’t mine it.
Manual tagging doesn’t scale, and insights fall through the cracks.
Enterpret’s AI unifies all feedback, auto‑tags themes, and ties them to revenue/CSAT, surfacing what matters to customers.
The result: faster decisions, clearer priorities, and stronger retention.
From us
B2B Sales is tough and can be a frustrating game to play. Yet while many sales reps focus on personal relations and the emotions of the buyer, Meredith Chandler points out how “charisma won’t win you deals”, but numbers do. Her advice - ask quantifiable questions:
Quantify the time it takes for your buyer to solve a problem
Calculate the costs incurred around this
Make this math undeniable and present your business case