Myspace is planning a comeback as an antidote to algorithmic burnout. A bold pitch from the platform that lost the internet to Facebook. Meanwhile, OpenAI flew thirty influencers to a Hudson Valley farm for beekeeping and painting. Time to touch grass when humanity increasingly lives in the virtual world? Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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PPS: The podcast is back in September. The feedback survey closes on 15 August: thirty seconds, four questions.

Bending Spoons is buying Airtable for $1.2bn in cash, a tenth of its $11bn 2021 valuation. Airtable spun Hyperagent into a separate entity first, so founder Howie Liu keeps the AI second act. Elena Verna's read: it raised like a venture winner, grew into a real company, and sold like neither was enough.

Hassabis is stepping aside as Google DeepMind CEO to become chairman of DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet, sixteen years after co-founding it. CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over day to day operations, reports to Sundar Pichai, and owns Gemini. Hassabis told staff he believes AGI is close and wants to spend his time there.

Weeks after his first fund unravelled over undisclosed exclusivity conflicts, LeCun has launched 224 Ventures with AIX co-founder Shaun Johnson and Gemini co-lead Oriol Vinyals. The $100m fund writes $1m to $5m cheques into AI-native teams, and most of its 244 LPs are AI practitioners rather than institutions.

Andreas Goeldi at b2venture argues we are entering an age of individualised software so cheap that it is disposable. His examples are not demos. He asked ChatGPT Work for a custom e-learning site on space tech and had one in 30 minutes, then a cross-system task tracker he calls Opportunity Radar in 45 minutes. Will he use either forever? No, and that is the whole point.

Marin Ivezic spent a year writing about Europe's failure to commercialise its own deep tech. Now he is moving his company, Applied Quantum, from Singapore to the EU. His reasons are unromantic: the hardware suppliers are here (Bluefors, IQM, Pasqal, QuantWare, AQT, Quobly), DORA and NIS2 are manufacturing real post-quantum demand, and France's PROQCIMA and the UK's £1bn ProQure are already buying. Proximity to the supply chain beat proximity to capital.

We talked to co-CEO Jan Goetz about building quantum hardware from Europe (Youtube / Spotify / Apple)

Malte Kramer, founder of Luxury Presence, makes a sharp point: most founders do not burn out doing work they are bad at. They burn out in the Zone of Excellence, the quadrant where they are highly competent and quietly drained. It is insidious precisely because the output looks fine and everyone around them is happy. Sound familiar?

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Applying for a job right now? Katie Kirsch lists what actually speaks louder than a CV, and none of it is a better-formatted PDF:

Bending Spoons rejects 99.96% of job applicants. What does it know that most employers don't?

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.

Working Student / Intern – Office Management (all genders) [📍Berlin, Germany], Quantum Computing, Project Q [Apply]
Working Student for Battery Integration [📍Munich, Germany], Energy Storage, Stabl Energy [Apply]
HR Operations Intern [📍Lisbon, Portugal], MicroHarvest [Apply]
Design Internship [📍Zurich, Switzerland], Robotics, Gravis Robotics [Apply]
Climate Success Manager (full-time internship) [📍Munich, Germany], Climate Intelligence, Emidat [Apply]
Working Student Content Management E-Commerce (all genders) [📍Cologne, Germany], Apparel & Fashion, ARMEDANGELS [Apply]

Customer Success Manager [📍Edinburgh, United Kingdom], Legal Services, Wordsmith AI [Apply]
Customer Support Senior Associate (Dutch or German Speaking) [📍Amsterdam, Netherlands], Bloomon [Apply]
Senior Customer Support Agent [📍London, United Kingdom], FinTech, Bits [Apply]
Enterprise Account Manager [📍Paris, France], Mobility & Transportation, Infinit [Apply]
Customer Success Manager (m/f/d)- UK & Ireland [📍Berlin, Germany], Fintech & DeFi, Pliant [Apply]
Customer Success Manager (m/f/d) - Italy [📍Milan, Italy], Fintech & DeFi, Pliant [Apply]

Product Marketing Manager [📍Zurich, Switzerland], DeepJudge [Apply]
Director, Creative & Content [📍United Kingdom], ShareLaTex [Apply]
International SEO Manager (m/f/d) [📍Munich, Germany], Healthcare, Wellster Healthtech Group [Apply]
Director of Inbound Media & Growth – m/f/d [📍France], E-Commerce & Marketplace, Splendia [Apply]
Marketing Automation & Channel Optimization Specialist [📍Utrecht, Netherlands], Marketplace, bol.com [Apply]
Internal Communications & Events Specialist, London [📍London, United Kingdom], Isomorphic Labs [Apply]
Senior Growth Marketing Specialist (DACH) [📍Vienna, Austria], B2B Marketplace, Eversports [Apply]
(Senior) Campaign Marketing Manager - Paris [📍Paris, France], Shippeo [Apply]
Head of Marketing [📍Porto, Portugal], BLOQ [Apply]

Business Development Leader [📍London, United Kingdom], Nory [Apply]
Account Executive Nordics/UK - AI & Security [📍Sweden], Escape [Apply]
Sales Advisor - Covent Garden [📍London, United Kingdom], Apparel & Fashion, ANINE BING [Apply]
Sales Manager (m/w/d) - eCommerce in Kaiserslautern [📍Kaiserslautern, Germany], ALZURA AG [Apply]
Digital Sales Manager - Enterprise [📍Ghent, Belgium], Lansweeper [Apply]

Chief of Staff [📍Amsterdam, Netherlands], Plumerai [Apply]
Senior Financial Analyst (all genders) [📍Berlin, Germany], Hubject Gmbh [Apply]
Principal HR Business Partner [📍London, United Kingdom], Behavox [Apply]
Talent Acquisition Manager - Technology & Digital Product [📍London, United Kingdom], ASOS [Apply]
People Operations Specialist Southern Europe [📍Barcelona, Spain], EQS Group GmbH [Apply]

Frontend Engineer [📍Zurich, Switzerland], DeepJudge [Apply]
Systems Engineer [📍Épalinges, Switzerland], Distalmotion SA [Apply]
Data Scientist / Data Engineer [📍Berlin, Germany], Nucs AI [Apply]
Senior Designer - Topshop - Jersey [📍London, United Kingdom], ASOS [Apply]
Senior Product Designer [📍Barcelona, Spain], AirHelp [Apply]
Senior Data Engineer [📍Milan, Italy], FinTech, MoneyFarm [Apply]

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