Upside
This week's happenings in startup and investing land. Getting underneath VC, and discussing how to better support the European startup eco-system.
Every week we share what's been on our mind and get under the skin of VC, investing, startups and founder psychology.
From the team behind SuperSeed who invest in technical teams solving difficult business problems.
The network is run on LinkedIn so join me there - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danbowyer/
With full interview audio and video uploaded to all major outlets.
Love to hear from you - dan@superseed.com
Upside
AI Safety Theatre & War - What Is It Good For?
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Every week we unpack the real stories behind the headlines affecting European venture.
Hosts: Dan, Lomax and Mads - All European early stage VCs.
02:00 — Why Hormuz matters more than you think.
04:08 — Europe: affected, not influential. Europe keeps ending up front row for crises it cannot shape.
10:38 — The startup angles: energy, drones, sovereignty
13:29 — “Fast fashion” warfare. Ukraine-style low-cost interceptor drones versus million-dollar missiles. Warfare has entered its brutally efficient Zara phase.
17:29 — Anthropic vs the Pentagon. Anthropic says no to some defence use cases, Washington gets angry, OpenAI pounces, and Claude fans turn the whole thing into a consumer loyalty event.
19:54 — Mads: pick a lane. You cannot call AI the new nuclear weapon and then act shocked when governments treat it like strategic infrastructure.
24:30 — Lomax: moral stance, fine. Pentagon contracts, also fine? Anthropic can absolutely posture as the ethical lab. It just looks awkward while cashing defence-adjacent cheques.
27:49 — AI layoffs… or just layoffs with better branding? Dan calls BS on Block’s “AI-driven” cuts: more likely a classic overhiring hangover dressed up in robot costume.
32:30 — The tech is real, the memo is theatre. Mads agrees AI is delivering genuine productivity gains. That does not mean every layoff deck suddenly becomes visionary.
34:19 — $650bn of AI infra: boom or bubble? Answer from the group: yes.
35:57 — Mads: froth on top, substance underneath. Some of the market is ridiculous. But revenue growth at the top labs is so real that “it’s all a bubble” no longer survives contact with reality.
38:26 — Black Swan memo season. Lomax reviews Lux’s warning to founders: preserve runway, know your infra risk, and do not assume the money tap stays on forever.
45:23 — Real advice needs real trade-offs. Mads’ sharpest point: “raise more if it’s easy” is not advice. The real question is whether founders should spend time fundraising or building.
47:05 — Merz drops the diplomatic niceties. Germany’s chancellor says Europeans are not productive enough, boosts defence, and generally sounds like someone who has seen the spreadsheet.
51:20 — Lomax: kill FCAS. His take on the Franco-German-Spanish fighter programme: too slow, too old, too late. Back the future, not the museum.
56:07 — Defence primes vs insurgents. Should Europe protect legacy giants or let new defence players eat their lunch? The answer gets lively.
1:01:25 — Proxima Fusion: Europe swings big. A rare hopeful note: a European fusion startup is trying to build something properly enormous and properly ambitious.
1:02:12 — Stellarators, briefly. Mads explains fusion like a sane person: tokamaks are more proven but unstable; stellarators are harder to build but may work better long term.
