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.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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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.

Events happening this week

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

Do you like what we do at Follow the Gradient? Help us grow this community and share a like and add a comment to our LinkedIn post that just went live:

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.

👉 See how top teams do it

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

One good read

An Existential Guide to: Making Friends

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

Founder’s Associate [📍Lucerne], AI, docpier [Apply]
Founding employee #1 [📍Stockholm], Cleantech, Lavoit [Apply, Hiring manager]
Internship Business Development [📍Berlin], Health, Sanity Group [Apply]

Customer Success

Customer Service Agent - German Speaking [📍Stockholm], FinTech, Anyfin [Apply]
Customer Care Representative [📍Milan], FinTech, Satispay [Apply]

HR & Finance

Chief of Staff to the CFO [📍Milan or London], digital products, Bending Spoon [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Interim Marketing Manager (Maternity Cover) [📍Stockholm], InsurTech, Lassie [Apply]
Marketing Associate [📍Stockholm], FinTech, Mimo [Apply]

Sales

Commercial Partnerships - DACH [📍Munich], Health Tech, Tandem Health [Apply]
Head of European Expansion [📍Cologne, remote from NRW], Energy transition, Envelio [Apply]
Key Account Manager - Collectables[📍Germany], Marketplace, catawiki [Apply]

Strategy & Ops

CRM Lead [📍Stockholm], HealthTech, Neko Health [Apply]

Product & Tech

Mobile Engineer [📍Stockholm or Remote], Pet HealthTech, FirstVet [Apply]
Head of Product - Growth [📍Berlin, Hybrid], Card Payments, Pliant [Apply]
Senior Product Manager - Data Platform [📍Munich, Hybrid], Digital Health, Temedica [Apply]
Senior Product Manager - Data Platform [📍Remote], Trading API, Alpaca [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!