Why your most valuable team members self-educate
Plus: The growth learnings you wish you had
· 596 words
Melanie Gabriel & Christian Woese
November 11, 2025 • Read time: 3 minutes
Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Tesla shareholders handed Elon Musk a potential $1tn pay package. He must’ve had a better week than arch rival Sam Altman who got subpoenaed live on stage, or Sequoia’s Roelof Botha who was forced out as CEO. They should ask the Louvre museum directors for advice on publicity crisis. Court documents exposed one of their security passwords: LOUVRE. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party
Doctolib sanctioned in landmark antitrust case
France’s competition watchdog fined Doctolib €4.7m for abusing its dominant market position, notably via its 2018 acquisition of rival MonDocteur. The decision of an event so long in the past rattled the French tech scene, as it redefines legal risk around scale-ups and M&A. France Digitale called the move a "scandal" that stifles industrial ambition.
EU softens AI law enforcement under Big Tech pressure
The EU plans to delay parts of its AI Act, offering a one-year grace period for high-risk and generative AI firms, and postponing fines until 2027. The move follows lobbying from Big Tech and warnings from the Trump administration. Critics say it undermines the EU’s digital sovereignty push, while officials frame it as a bid to stay globally competitive.
What do you meme?
The day of a tech founder
Looks familiar?
Food for thought
No extraordinary outcomes with extraordinary work
The working culture of 996 has been making waves in startupland for a while. With a lot of critics and proponents on both sides, Paddy Lambros posted this dry, but realistic opinion on working hours in startups:
Building a company simply requires grit and sacrifices, including long working hours. Is this just the way it is?
US startups get revenue faster
VC firm a16z presents Stripe data showing that US startups have been obtaining revenue much faster than European or UK peers. What are the reasons? Less regulation in the US, a larger market, more technological adoption?
The most valuable team members self-educate
We loved this post of Steven Bartlett on how a key trait of valuable team members is their proactiveness to educate themselves on new topics and tasks. More importantly: Is the ability to remain a student your entire life the key trait for anyone in the age of AI?
Events happening this week
We constantly update this quarter’s must-attend events for startups in Europe list.
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From our Partners
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From us
Grant Lee scaled Gamma to $50m in under two years. We loved the broad rundown in this post of his most important growth learnings. In short:
Go broad with influencer marketing, then focus on what works
Invest in brand before performance marketing
Get users to test prototypes before you ship
Use your own product daily