Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Today’s guest is Laura Modiano, Head of Startups EMEA at OpenAI, who works directly with founders scaling AI application layer companies across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She supports startups from idea to fundraising by partnering on product, feedback loops, and go-to-market execution at scale.
🎧 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple, YouTube and share your thoughts! In the meantime: Follow the Gradient and stay tuned!
PS: Has this e-mail been forwarded to you? Sign up here.
Why you should listen
You should listen to this if you are building an tech company in Europe and feel the tension between faster tools and slower execution habits.
As the conversation progressed, it became clear that collapsing build cycles only create advantage if founders unlearn stage-specific processes before they harden at scale.
What we talk about
00:00 Introduction
02:03 Why Europe Produces Globally Competitive Founders
06:07 What Founders Miss About AI Acceleration
08:52 Building Real Companies Beyond Demo Culture
12:09 Why Technical Depth Wins In AI Startups
15:42 What Switzerland Gets Right About Ecosystems
20:01 Deciding Where To Build In Europe
23:01 What Strong Execution Looks Like Today
26:10 Discovering AI Use Cases Beyond Cost Cutting
28:55 Why Unlearning Becomes A Scaling Advantage
31:26 Maintaining Founder Intensity Without Burnout
41:40 Making High Stakes Decisions With Incomplete Data
44:57 Where Startups Should Focus As Models Advance
46:41 False Beliefs Holding European Founders Back
Our main take away’s
Europe’s advantage is execution under fragmentation, not capital parity. This is true because founders must design for multiple regulations, languages, and buyers from day one, which forces global-ready architectures earlier. At scale, this constraint compounds into faster international expansion than single-market startups.
AI has collapsed build cycles, but execution quality now breaks companies. Sprints that used to take weeks now take days, which increases the cost of unclear product intent. At 10x speed, shipping without a reason amplifies waste instead of progress.
