Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

End of an era: At nearly 95, Warren Buffett steps back from Berkshire Hathaway. He once famously admitted to having missed Amazon and Microsoft. Fittingly, Microsoft just marked another end of an era by retiring Skype (yes, that stuff was still around). Don’t worry, new tech is coming our way: Sam Altman has launched Project World in the US - an eyeball-scanning, blockchain-based ID system. Remember the good old days of fake IDs as teenagers? Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

Vinted to launch VC arm

Fresh off its first profitable year, Lithuanian unicorn Vinted is launching a VC arm to fund the re-commerce boom it helped ignite. Vinted Ventures will back Series A–C startups with cheques ranging from €500k to €10M, targeting everything from secondhand platforms to logistics and payments tech.

Heart Aerospace to exit Europe

Sweden’s Heart Aerospace is leaving Europe to go all-in on the US, highlighting the growing split between Europe’s political aspirations and startup realities. While policymakers lament the loss of jobs, founders are chasing scale, talent, and capital - most of which still cluster somewhere else.

AI coding tool Cursor raises $900m at $9bn valuation

US-based Anysphere has raised a $900M for Cursor, its AI coding assistant, tripling its valuation from December to $9B. Thrive Capital led the round, with a16z and Accel joining in. With OpenAI reportedly seeking to buy Cursor rival Windsurf, AI dev tools are quickly becoming the hottest asset class in town.

What do you meme?

Food for thought

Neck in deep sh*t, but I can still see the stars

That’s the paradox of leadership - staring down harsh reality while holding firm to possibility. Optimism isn't about denial; it's about choosing to believe when belief is hardest. As Dave Kellog writes in this beautiful post, the best founders don’t fake confidence - they find it, and fuel others with it. How do you personally stay grounded and visionary when things fall apart?

VCs to shift away from VC model?

After General Catalyst, Thrive, a16z and Sequoia, Lightspeed is the latest firm where the line between VC, PE, and corporate strategy is fading. They are building funds to keep companies private for longer. As Bloomberg argues, VCs are transforming to stay in the game over a much longer period, competing with classic PEs. Is this the end of traditional VC?

How about Consumer Tech?

Consumer tech can be tricky. Severin Hacker of Duolingo shared his thoughts on the learnings he has made: Retention beats revenue. Mission beats money. Don’t build in education. But start building.

Can anyone build a unicorn soon?

The old startup playbook was slow, risky, and often led to silence on launch day. As Tom Bilyeu puts it, with AI, you can validate real problems, test solutions, and get market signals in a single weekend. When will we see the first one person unicorn?

Mark your calendar

As always, we added all events in Europe here:

Check it out and let us know which one is missing!

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

Materials delivered to board meetings - who knows how to do this right, what to include and how to structure it. VC firm Creandum compiled this comprehensive Board Deck Template to help you kickstart your Board interactions..

For hands-on advice on how to communicate with your Board, listen to our podcast episode with long-term investor and board member Nicole Herzog

One good read

Meet the Humans Trying to Keep Us Safe From AI

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 Associate [📍London], HR Tech, Dex [Apply, Hiring manager]
Intern to the CEO [📍Munich], SaaS, Demodesk [Apply]
CEO Office Intern [📍Remote], Data OS for e-Commerce, Klar [Apply, Hiring Manager]

Customer Success

Customer Success Manager [📍Remote, Germany], Data Analytics, Exasol [Apply]
Customer Success Manager [📍London, Amsterdam], Cybersecurity, Hadrian [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Marketing Manager [📍Frankfurt], Chemistry, Albert Invent [Apply]
Lead, Marketing [📍London], FinTech, Bitpanda [Apply]

Sales

Head of Sales [📍Remote, Germany], ClimateTech, Cozero [Apply]
Founding GTM [📍Remote], Time-series Database, QuestDB [Apply]

Strategy & Ops

First Hire [📍London], VC, Project Europe [Apply, Hiring manager]
Chief Operating Officer [📍Remote], FoodTech, Livin Farms [Apply]

Product & Tech

Full-stack SW Engineer [📍London], Healthtech, Runna [Apply, Hiring manager]
Product Manager [📍Zurich], Fashiom, Ameli Zurich [Apply, Hiring manager]
DevOps Engineer [📍Zurich] LegalTech, DeepJudge [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!