Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

Workday acquired Swedish AI startup Sana for $1.1bn, making a new European unicorn and paving a shortcut into AI for the US SaaS giant. Their newly rich founder may as well buy the new Meta smart glasses. They come with a $799 price tag and were ridiculed when Mark Zuckerberg failed spectacularly in not being able to pick up an incoming phone call on them. We miss those good old Nokia days. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

US $100k visa fee jolts Silicon Valley

The US has slapped a $100k fee on new H-1B visas, potentially saddling US employers with a $14bn annual bill. The move has sparked chaos at airports and fury from tech leaders like YC’s Garry Tan, who called it a “massive gift to overseas hubs.” Legal challenges loom as companies weigh shifting hiring abroad, with Europe and Canada poised to benefit.

Nvidia pours £2bn into UK AI startups

Nvidia will invest £2bn in the UK’s AI ecosystem, teaming up with Accel, Balderton, Air Street and many more. The chip giant plans to join upcoming rounds in leading startups including Synthesia, Wayve, PolyAI, Oxa, and even fintech heavyweight Revolut. The move cements the UK as a global AI hub - and gives its hottest companies serious firepower.

Europe gets its own TBPN-style tech show

Two London founders are raising $150k at a $1m+ valuation to launch ETN, a daily live tech show modelled after Silicon Valley’s breakout hit TBPN. Backed by angels from Notion Capital and a16z’s network, ETN aims to fill the gap left by struggling European tech media.

What do you meme?

Food for thought

Chase rabbits or hunt whales?

As Grant Lee argues, a startup’s first decision is often not pricing or positioning. It is whether to go after many small customers or a few big ones. Have you worked this out for your business?

It’s not all 996

996 - working six days a week, 9am to 9pm - has recently been promoted as the new and only way to become successful in your career. Cristina Cordova offers this refreshing perspective: working hard and long is at times necessary - and even what an individual wants - but at other times outcome-related things like judgement calls are what an employers pays for, not the time spent in front of a desk….

Insights from the usage of ChatGPT

Tutoring and teaching, personal writing and editing - these are the top use cases people use ChatGPT for. Do these usage patters give insights into the next billion dollar market opportunity?

Founder quitting and regrets

When founders quit their own company, it is often due to failures in operational execution. But when things get tough, companies which lost their founders also lost their vision and ability to make radical decisions. On the flip side, 90% of B2B companies which IPO do it with their Founders still in the driver seat.

Events happening this week

We constantly update this quarter’s must-attend events for startups in Europe list.

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From us

Hiring the right people is tough, but hiring for roles you yourself don’t have a clue about is even harder. How do you hire a Head of Marketing when you don’t understand a thing about Marketing?

Paddy Lambros has this two step playbook:

1. Get smart without actually doing the job: Talk to 10-15 people who've truly excelled at the role. Book them back-to-back over the course of 2-3 days. Ask them everything

2. Calibrate your bullshit detector: Reach out to executives you have zero chance of hiring. Talk to the VP of Marketing at Stripe. The CFO at Notion. These are the people who will be brutally honest with you.

Listen to our conversation with Paddy: Startup Hiring Masterclass - Building Exceptional Teams

One good read

Life is poker, not chess

Thanks to our reader Marvin for bringing this to us!

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

AI Scientist - Paris [📍Paris], AI, Mistral [Apply]
People & Office Internship [📍Ghent, Belgium], FinTech, Silverfin [Apply]
Founder’s Associate [📍Berlin], AI, Merantix Momentum [Apply]
Software Engineer - Working Student [📍Berlin], LegalTech, Libra [Apply]
CEO Office Intern [📍Berlin], EdTech, Knowunity [Apply]
Working student [📍Ottobrunn, Germany], SpaceTech, Isar Aerospace [Apply]

Customer Success

Customer Success Manager ESG [📍Berlin], Climatech, AMCS [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Growth Associate [📍Berlin], AI voice agents, Telli [Apply]
Paid Social Manager [📍Vienna], Travel, Tourradar [Apply]
Director Brand & Media Stratety [📍Zurich], HealthTech, Oviva [Apply] - check out our conversation with their co-founder & CEO Kai Eberhardt

Ops & Legal

Commercial Counsel [📍Munich], AI, Applied Intuition [Apply]

Sales

Regional Sales Director, DACH [📍Remote, Germany], Cybersecurity, Torq [Apply]
Account Manager [📍Remote, Germany, Austria], OTC trading platform, enmacc [Apply]
Sales Developement Represenative [📍Munich], Robotics, RobCo [Apply] - check out our conversation with their co-founder and CEO Roman Hölzl

Product & Tech

Senior Product Manager [📍Remote, Germany], Voice AI, Rasa [Apply]
Head of Procut [📍Berlin], FoodTech, NeoTaste [Apply]

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!