Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

Tesla shareholders handed Elon Musk a potential $1tn pay package. He must’ve had a better week than arch rival Sam Altman who got subpoenaed live on stage, or Sequoia’s Roelof Botha who was forced out as CEO. They should ask the Louvre museum directors for advice on publicity crisis. Court documents exposed one of their security passwords: LOUVRE. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

Doctolib sanctioned in landmark antitrust case

France’s competition watchdog fined Doctolib €4.7m for abusing its dominant market position, notably via its 2018 acquisition of rival MonDocteur. The decision of an event so long in the past rattled the French tech scene, as it redefines legal risk around scale-ups and M&A. France Digitale called the move a "scandal" that stifles industrial ambition.

EU softens AI law enforcement under Big Tech pressure

The EU plans to delay parts of its AI Act, offering a one-year grace period for high-risk and generative AI firms, and postponing fines until 2027. The move follows lobbying from Big Tech and warnings from the Trump administration. Critics say it undermines the EU’s digital sovereignty push, while officials frame it as a bid to stay globally competitive.

What do you meme?

The day of a tech founder

Food for thought

No extraordinary outcomes with extraordinary work

The working culture of 996 has been making waves in startupland for a while. With a lot of critics and proponents on both sides, Paddy Lambros posted this dry, but realistic opinion on working hours in startups:
Building a company simply requires grit and sacrifices, including long working hours. Is this just the way it is?

US startups get revenue faster

VC firm a16z presents Stripe data showing that US startups have been obtaining revenue much faster than European or UK peers. What are the reasons? Less regulation in the US, a larger market, more technological adoption?

The most valuable team members self-educate

We loved this post of Steven Bartlett on how a key trait of valuable team members is their proactiveness to educate themselves on new topics and tasks. More importantly: Is the ability to remain a student your entire life the key trait for anyone in the age of AI?

Events happening this week

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

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Smart hack

From our Partners

Benchmark Your Voice AI

Deepgram surveyed 400 senior leaders on voice AI to map adoption, budgets, and use cases. Compare your voice AI roadmap to $100M+ enterprises and learn where to invest next - human-like agents for customer service, task automation, and order capture - plus benchmarks to guide your 2026 plan.

See the Findings

From us

Grant Lee scaled Gamma to $50m in under two years. We loved the broad rundown in this post of his most important growth learnings. In short:

• Go broad with influencer marketing, then focus on what works

• Invest in brand before performance marketing

• Get users to test prototypes before you ship

• Use your own product daily

One good read

The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation

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

Creative Content Intern [📍Remote Germany], Fashion, Alemi [Apply]
Analyst Program 2026 [📍London], VC, Hummingbird [Apply, Hiring manager]
Working Student Accounting (AR) [📍Berlin], Healthtech, AMBOSS [Apply]
Founder’s Associate [📍Berlin] Food, FREDA [Apply, Hiring manager]
Robotics Intern [📍Zurich] Robotics, mimic [Apply] - if you haven’t yet: check out our conversation with one of their founders: Elvis Nava

Customer Success

Head of Customer Success [📍Remote, Berlin], Gaming, PlaytestCloud [Apply]
Customer Success Manager [📍Remote, Europe], Network Intelligence Platform, Kentik [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Marketing Lead [📍Berlin], IT Operating System, Deeploi [Apply]
Writer [📍London], Ecosystem, Tech Funding News [Apply, Hiring manager]
Content & Social Creator [📍London] VC, Visionaries Club [Hiring manager]
Social Video Editor [📍London] Media, Flight Studio [Apply, Hiring manager]

Strategy & Ops & Finance

Head of Operations & Finance [📍London], HR Tech, Dex [Apply, Hiring manager] - check out our conversation with Dex’s founder and CEO Paddy Lambros
Business Controller Junior [📍Barcelona], Construction, 011hame [Apply]

Product & Tech

Founding Product Engineer [📍Berlin], Audit, Cortea [Apply]
Senior Product Manager - Database Core [📍Remote, Germany], Data Analytics, Exasol [Apply]
Software Engineer [📍London] Robotics, Paddington Robotics [Apply, Hiring manager]
Engineering Manager [📍Zurich] Data, Ledgy [Apply, Hiring manager]
VP of Platform Engineering [📍Helsinki] Data platform, Aiven [Apply, Hiring manager]

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!