Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

Welcome to another week in startup land, where the visions are grand and the Tech is as buggy as it is shiny. Until Saturday, OpenAI’s chatbot flexed its language skills and answered English queries in Welsh—because why not? Meanwhile, Waymo’s driverless cars in San Francisco have engaged in early morning honking battles. The future is here, are the machines taking over after all? Dilynwch y Graddiant a cadwch lygad arni (Welsh for “Follow the Gradient and stay tuned!”)

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

$45bn jackpot: Why being an Revolut employee just got sweeter

Revolut hit a $45B valuation in an employee share sale, making it Europe’s most valuable fintech. Fresh off securing a UK banking license and posting record profits, the financial superapp’s new valuation is a win for employees holding shares. With investors like Coatue and Tiger Global on board, Revolut is gearing up for a likely IPO—proving it pays to be part of this fintech giant.

Startups are going bust

What many of us were somehow feeling, is now supported by data: the rate of startups running out of cash and going bankrupt has increased significantly. The number of start-up failures in the US has jumped 60% over the past year. High-profile shutdowns have so far included Fintech Tally (valuation in 2022: $855m) and Healthtech Olive (valuation in 2021: $4bn), among others. Will the AI funding boom be able to compensate for the crunch in other sectors?

European privacy law strikes again

Elon Musk's platform X faces privacy complaints from nine European countries for using user data to train its Grok AI without consent, raising two key questions: How do you untrain an AI already trained with this data? What happens when U.S. tech giants start withholding products from Europe to avoid regulatory hurdles? Meta has already announced one month ago to withhold its upcoming multimodal AI model from the EU due to unclear regulations, following a similar move by Apple. This growing trend of U.S. companies pulling back highlights a deepening conflict between American tech giants and European regulators, as GDPR compliance becomes increasingly complex. The questions are: How will this impact AI innovation in Europe? How will Europe tap into potential productivity gains enabled by LLMs?

What do you meme?

Food for thought

A new age of materials is dawning

There have been only a handful of ages of new materials in the history of humankind—ceramics, steel, and plastics come to mind—and we are now on the cusp of the next one: composites. These advanced materials, lighter and stronger than metals, are being revolutionized by startups like Arris Composites, 9T Labs, and Orbital Composites. With new manufacturing techniques making composites more affordable and accessible, the potential for innovation in industries from aerospace to consumer electronics is vast, offering startups an unprecedented opportunity to lead this next materials revolution.

The cyberbullying cartel

This [German] documentary offers a rare glimpse into the dark world of online hate, where perpetrators, calling their victims "Masks," play cruel "Mask Games." Organized hierarchically under the name "NWO" (New World Order or "Nie wieder online"), these groups operate on platforms like Discord, hacking accounts and sharing personal, intimate data. It's a chilling look at the dark side of social media and the anonymity of tech tools.

Being pregnant while fundraising

Mark your calendar

Online

SiftedTalks: “Subscriptions 101: Boosting revenue at seed, scale and beyond”, August 21, 13:00 - 14:00 (CEST) [Register here]

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Smart hack

One good read

‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups

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 & Working student

Founder Associate / Business Development Internship [📍Zurich], Food- & ClimateTech, GoNiña [Apply]
Intern People [📍Amsterdam], Quick-Commerce, Flink [Apply]
Founder's Associate Intern (Product Development) [📍Berlin], SaaS, MarTech, Charles [Apply]
Working Student PR & Comms [📍Berlin], FinTech, TradeRepublic [Apply]
Working Student (Internal Audit) [📍Munich], FinTech, ScalableCapital [Apply]

Customer Success

Founding Customer Success Manager [📍Zurich], HR Tech, PastaHR [Apply, Hiring manager]
Customer Success Manager [📍Zurich], Robotics, Ascento [Apply, Hiring manager]
Senior Customer Success Manager - International [📍London, Barcelona or Berlin], AI, ElevenLabs [Apply]

HR & Ops

HR Generalist [📍Stockholm, Hybrid], Music B2B, Soundtrack your Brand [Apply]
People Advisor [📍London], Transportation, Bolt [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Head of Marketing [📍Munich], e-commerce, Plantura [Apply]
Digital Marketing Manager 20h/week [📍Berlin], Coffeee, NuruCoffeee [Apply]
Product Marketing Manager [📍Barcelona, Berlin, or Zagreb], Robotics, Wingtra [Apply]

Product & Strategy

Senior Growth Designer [📍Berlin], AI, DeepL [Apply]
Integrations Product Manager[📍Ghent, Belgium], Transportation, Qargo [Apply]

Not a startup but if you loved the Olympics-themed startup memes and are now all into the Olympics: The International Olympic Committee – IOC just opened a new job: Artificial Intelligence Business Manager [📍Lausanne, Switzerland] [Apply now]

Sales

Mid Market Account Executive DACH [📍Dublin], B2B SaaS, Gong [Apply]
Sales Manager [📍Cham, Switzerland], FinTech, Epos [Apply]

Talk to you next week! In the meantime, we see you on LinkedIn, X, Insta and YouTube!

🫶 Melanie & Christian

Each week, a lot of work goes into the Follow the Gradient project to help you navigate this crazy jungle called entrepreneurship. Help us grow this community and we’ll make sure that you or your project gets a shoutout in the weekly newsletter!