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Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

Bidding wars around Warner Bros. are heating up. After Netflix proposed to buy the incumbent for $83bn, legacy business is fighting back with Paramount now offering an investment of over $100bn. Remember when Netflix was still “new”? Meanwhile, others are divesting. Mark Zuckerberg announced cuts to Reality Labs, the division responsible for building the Metaverse. With AI, he seems to have found a new pet project. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

OpenAI buys Neptune to deepen model training insights

OpenAI is acquiring EU-based AI metrics startup Neptune in a stock deal reportedly worth under $400m. Already a customer, OpenAI will now fully absorb Neptune’s tools to better monitor and debug its GPT training workflows. Neptune’s client list includes Samsung, Roche, and HP.

EU fines Musk’s X €120m in landmark digital crackdown

The EU hit Elon Musk’s X with a €120m fine for systemic violations of the Digital Services Act, citing rampant hate speech, election disinformation, and refusal to provide transparency. Next, regulators are already considering daily fines, forced operational changes, or banning X in Europe altogether.

Aleph Alpha sheds staff amid strategy shift

Germany’s top AI startup Aleph Alpha is undergoing a deep overhaul under new leadership from the Schwarz Group and ex-Accenture execs. Around 10% of staff (about 30 people) have exited, including at least 10 senior figures, sources told Handelsblatt. The company may pivot away from building large language models, sparking concern it’s abandoning its core research mission in favor of enterprise contracts.

What do you meme?

Food for thought

Series A’s are picking up again

Data from Carta shows startups having raised Seed rounds in 2024 are moving to Series A faster than their counterparts in the years before. Are the AI-native cohorts of the ChatGPT era more likely to build successful businesses?

VC case or profitability?

The competitive advantage of the Nordics

We loved the kind-of-true, if mostly ironic perspective of Santtu Koivumäki:
“The Nordic winter is an entirely free, annual 5-month training camp for the character. All the money we save on sunscreen and beach gear goes straight into bad, light-roasted coffee that fuels our innovations.”

Smart hack

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From us

Doing interviews is hard for most people, yet in times of podcasts, short form videos and Youtube they become ever more important for founders and operators alike. Harry Stebbings outlined these five tips to become better at them:

• The best guests have art and science: The art is the story. It brings the listener into your world and makes them resonate. The science is the framework. The lessons learned from this experience.

• Number your thoughts: By numbering thoughts, you provide a structure which makes it much easier for the listener to follow and remember.

• Tone is everything: You have to sound excited to be there.

• Time to value: The first 3 minutes is the most important.

• Repeat the question: Short form video drives so much content today.

One good read

Tech elites are starting their own for-profit cities

Join the entrepreneurial journey

Are you ready to take your first steps into the startup ecosystem or seeking an exciting new opportunity? Below is a curated list of startup job openings across Europe for you to explore.

Internships

Intern - Mission Analysis [📍Munich], Space Exploration, The Exploration Company [Apply]
Werkstudent - Data Science & Analytics [📍Munich], Logistics, Advastore [Apply]
Volunteer role: Investor Relations Manager [📍Switzerland], Ecosystem, Swisspreneur [Apply, Hiring manager]
Founders Associate [📍London], AI, Seamflow [Apply, Hiring manager]

Customer Success

Senior Customer Success Manager [📍Remote, Europe], AI Translation, Phrase [Apply]
VP Customer Success [📍Remote, Germany], Freight forwarding, cargo.one [Apply]
Customer Success Manager (German Speaker) [📍Zurich], LegalTech, DeepJudge [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Content Marketing Lead [📍Remote, Germany], Revenue AI Platform, Weflow [Apply]

Sales

Sales & Partnership Manager [📍Winterthur], Ecosystem, Swiss Startup Assocation [Apply, Hiring manager]
Account Director [📍Remote, Europe], B2B Event Platform, SpotMe [Apply]
Head of Business Development [📍Remote, Munich], IT Governance, Rencore [Apply]
Senior Account Executive [📍Bern] MarTech, hypt [Apply]
VP Sales [📍Remote], Sales Platform, Dealfront [Apply]

Product & Tech

Founding Engineer [📍Zurich], AI automation, Porters [Apply, Hiring manager]
AI Scientist [📍Zurich], LLMs, Mistral [Apply]
Product Lead [📍Remote], Blockchain Analytics, Dune [Apply]
Machine Intelligence Data Analyst [📍Zurich] Robotics, Forgis [Apply, Hiring Manager]

Final words — take what you need

Stay connected and spread the word! If you found this newsletter insightful, why not share it with your network? Thanks for reading, and we look forward to bringing you even more insights in the next edition!