United Founders Show

United Founders Show: Season 1 Trailer | Europe's tech future, argued out loud

Europe has the talent, the science and the founders. So why does it keep renting its future from someone else?

The United Founders Show is a new video podcast about European tech sovereignty: who builds Europe's next great companies, who funds them, and what it will take to stop losing the race to the US and China. The conversations you usually only hear at closed-door dinners, now on camera.

Each episode puts founders, investors, scientists and policy fighters in one room with one hard question. They disagree, push back, and say what they usually only say off the record.

Season 1 guests:

1. Cristina Caffarra: competition economist, UCL Honorary Professor and co-founder of the EuroStack Industry Initiative. She spent 25 years fighting Big Tech in court and now says that wasn't enough.

2. Tariq Krim: founder of Netvibes and Jolicloud. A two-time founder asking whether Europe has become a digital colony.

3. Alexander Glätzle: co-founder and CEO of planqc, building quantum computers in Munich. Why Europe can't afford to lose the hardware race.

4. Clark Parsons & Maxime Paradis: Managing Partners at United Founders. One argues for European sovereignty, the other backs American tech companies. Does sovereignty rhetoric survive contact with real capital?

5. Michal Pěchouček & Stefan Drüssler: Czech Technical University in Prague and UnternehmerTUM. How Europe turns world-class research into companies, and why it so often doesn't.

6. Václav Pavlečka & Markus Raunig: Czech Founders and AustrianStartups. Two ecosystem builders, two opposite theories: does Europe need more capital, or more community?

Your host

Vít Horký is a General Partner and co-founder of United Founders, a pan-European pre-seed and seed deep tech VC built around Founders Force, a community of 150+ founders across 27 countries. He's a two-time exited founder who has lived in the US and the UK, came back to build in Europe, and believes the people who'll win this race are founders, not regulators. He's not a neutral host, and he says so in every episode.

Who it's for

Founders deciding whether to build in Europe or leave. Investors betting on European deep tech. Scientists thinking about spinning out. Policymakers who want to hear what builders actually think. And anyone tired of hearing that Europe is "too late."

Season 1 is out now, with a new episode every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

Watch and listen:

▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UnitedFounders

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/71XyROrJszyQ8kzgC0vePd

🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/cz/podcast/united-founders-show/id6826565785

🌍 All episodes: https://www.unitedfounders.vc/show

Who should we talk to next? What question do you want asked? Tell us in the comments or find Vít Horký on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vithorky/

The best suggestions get asked on camera, with your name on them.

#UnitedFoundersShow #EuropeanTech #TechSovereignty #EuroStack #DeepTech #VentureCapital #Startups #Quantum #AI #Founders

She spent 25 years inside Big Tech's biggest antitrust cases, working for Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, and against Google and Facebook. Her verdict: two decades of trying to tame Big Tech was a total waste of time. Europe's real failure wasn't regulation. It was not building its own stack.

Cristina Caffarra is an antitrust economist who spent 25 years as an expert on the biggest digital competition cases in Europe, the UK and the US, and once headed one of the leading competition consultancies. Politico called her the "high priestess of competition". Today she leads the EuroStack Foundation, which pushes Europe to build its own digital infrastructure.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. Inside Big Tech's antitrust battles

• Why were billion-euro fines only "the chocolate biscuit budget"?
• What is it like to be cross-examined for five days as Visa's expert witness?
• What did 25 years of cases actually change?

2. The power Europe didn't see

• Why was the real fight about infrastructure, not bad manners?
• What does a 1950s novel about a castle teach us about Big Tech?
• Why did Spotify's ten-year fight with Apple get it nothing?

3. AI, compute and the 280-billion question

• Why is building industrial AI on US clouds "magical thinking"?
• Why should Europe "take the Europe 2031 report and burn it"?
• How did Mistral and STACKIT use anchor customers to fund data centres?

4. Europe must find its own agency

• Why does Europe keep waiting for Brussels to fix things, and what does it cost founders?
• Why does Europe need the European Commission to run a scale-up fund at all?
• How did a 30% procurement mandate vanish from the Cloud and AI Development Act?

5. Why founders should care

• What is EuroStack, and why should founders get involved?
• Which false narratives about European tech need debunking?
• Where does European tech sovereignty stand today?

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:06 From Paris to the Antitrust Trenches

01:39 25 Years Inside Big Tech's Antitrust Cases

03:13 Fines Are the Chocolate-Biscuit Budget

04:04 Taming Big Tech Was a Total Waste of Time

06:13 From Economist to the Witness Stand

08:54 The "High Priestess of Competition"

11:16 The Real Failure: Control of Infrastructure

12:40 The Gormenghast Castle

15:55 Why It Matters to Every European

18:36 Have We Lost AI and Compute Too?

22:29 Capture the Value: 280 Billion a Year

24:07 Energy Prices and Building Compute Here

25:17 The Europe 2031 Report

29:09 Mistral, Microsoft and Europe's AI Assets

32:42 Anchor Customers: Mistral and STACKIT

35:15 EuroStack and Public Procurement

36:20 Europe Is Not a Middle Power

39:44 Europe Must Find Its Own Agency

42:47 The Cloud and AI Development Act

44:53 EU Inc. and 1,800 Amendments

46:23 Why Founders Should Join EuroStack

48:54 Rapid Fire

Follow Cristina Caffarra:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinacaffarra/

X: https://x.com/Caffar3Cristina

Follow Vít Horký:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vithorky/

Subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday.

Listen to the United Founders Show:

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/71XyROrJszyQ8kzgC0vePd

🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/cz/podcast/united-founders-show/id6826565785

🌍 All episodes: https://www.unitedfounders.vc/show

#EuroStack #TechSovereignty #BigTech #EuropeanTech #UnitedFoundersShow

He built Netvibes into a product used by 10 million people, and Google, Skype, eBay and AOL all tried to buy it. Now Tariq Krim says Europe never lost the tech war. Its leaders just believed the lie that it had.

Tariq Krim is a French tech pioneer, the founder of Netvibes, which Time magazine named one of its 50 best inventions, and the co-founder of Jolicloud. He built his first Minitel server in 1984, at age 12, has advised the French government on technology policy, and is one of Europe's most outspoken voices on digital sovereignty and the Slow Web.

In today's episode with Tariq Krim, we discuss:

1. From Minitel kid to Silicon Valley's favourite European

• How did a 12-year-old build a Minitel server in 1984?
• Why did Marc Andreessen email him on day two of Netvibes?
• What did Mark Zuckerberg show him the first time they met?

2. Competing with Google, Apple and the platforms

• Why did Google, Skype, eBay and AOL all want to buy Netvibes?
• How did Google buying up the chipsets sink Jolicloud's computers?
• Why does a 30% App Store fee make fair competition impossible?

3. How Europe gave the internet away

• Linux, MySQL, Python, the web: why didn't Europe treat them as strategic assets?
• Why did Europe's telcos miss the internet?
• Why are great engineers talents, like film directors?

4. The lie Europe believed

• Is Europe a digital colony?
• What did Tariq tell Ursula von der Leyen about who built the web?
• Why is tech a cultural fight, not a technological one?

5. Slow Web and trusting technology again

• How did the 2015 Paris attacks shape his call for a Slow Web?
• Can we trust today's AI and Big Tech players?
• Why does he still write every idea on paper?

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:49 Who Is Tariq Krim Today?

03:14 "I Want to Be That Guy"

04:02 Marc Andreessen Emailed on Day Two

04:57 Mobile, Apps and the 30% Tax

05:59 Selling Netvibes, Starting Jolicloud

06:56 Google Bought All the Chipsets

07:54 Time Magazine and Silicon Valley Fame

11:17 Zuckerberg's Netvibes Page

13:06 When Google Came Knocking

16:58 Building a Minitel Server at 12

19:58 When Tech Was Counterculture

23:28 Europe Built the Open Web, Then Gave It Away

25:09 "Give 30% Before You Even Operate?"

29:52 Who Rigged the Game?

32:40 America's Superhighway, Europe's Clean Diesel

34:54 Engineers Are Talents, Like Film Directors

37:03 Advising the French Government

41:04 The Lie That Europe Lost the Tech War

44:24 Is Europe a Digital Colony?

45:31 Tech Is a Cultural Fight

50:58 The Paris Attacks and the Slow Web

55:01 Can We Trust Big Tech?

57:40 Rapid Fire

Follow Tariq Krim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tariqkrim/ · https://x.com/tariqkrim

Follow Vít Horký: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vithorky/

Listen and subscribe to the United Founders Show:

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/71XyROrJszyQ8kzgC0vePd

🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/cz/podcast/united-founders-show/id6826565785

▶️ YouTube: @UnitedFounders

🌍 All episodes: https://www.unitedfounders.vc/show

The physicist building Europe's first 1,000-qubit quantum computer warns that the best CFO, not the best CTO, may win the quantum race.

Alexander Glätzle is the co-founder and CEO of planqc, the Munich quantum computing company spun out of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics. A theoretical physicist trained under Peter Zoller in Innsbruck, with stints at Oxford, in Singapore and in management consulting, he now leads one of Germany's largest quantum computing consortia.

In today's episode with Alexander Glätzle, we discuss:

1. From physics PhD to quantum founder

• What did a visit to Stanford teach Alex about failure that Europe still gets wrong?
• Why did leaving academia feel like failing, and why was it the right move?
• How did one dinner with his future co-founders become planqc?

2. Building deep tech out of Max Planck

• Why did planqc's first 40 employees find the company, without a euro spent on recruiting?
• What made planqc's IP deal a blueprint for Munich spin-outs?
• Why is a €5M seed round "just peanuts" for building a quantum computer?

3. Governments, grants and the €600M bet

• How is planqc building Europe's first 1,000-qubit quantum computer with the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre?
• Why did Germany stop spreading quantum money thinly and start backing champions?
• What is the one delay that can kill a startup, and how is AI changing grant writing?

4. Quantum computing, explained

• What is quantum computing, in plain words?
• Neutral atoms or superconducting qubits: which approach scales?
• Where is quantum physics already part of your everyday life?

5. Can Europe win the quantum race?

• How big will the quantum market really get?
• How does planqc compete with IQM and Google?
• Why might the best CFO beat the best CTO?
• What's the most overhyped claim in quantum right now?

Chapters

00:00 Intro

02:57 In Europe, Fail Twice and You're Finished

04:50 Leaving Academia Felt Like Failing

08:32 Why Innsbruck and Munich Lead in Quantum

11:05 "The First 40 Hires Found Us"

16:25 Nothing Prepares You to Be a CEO

19:07 "If We Can't Do It in Munich, Nobody Can"

21:30 Building Europe's First 1,000-Qubit Computer

27:48 Is Government a Startup's Best First Customer?

31:22 Can AI Kill Grant Bureaucracy?

36:04 Hitting the Milestone Ahead of Schedule

37:12 Quantum Computing, Explained Simply

42:54 Neutral Atoms vs Superconducting Qubits

47:53 Quantum Is Already All Around You

49:45 Competing With IQM and Google

53:43 Will Quantum Create Trillion-Dollar Companies?

57:05 Can Europe Win the Race?

59:02 What Keeps Alex Up at Night

60:12 Rapid Fire

Follow Alexander Glätzle and planqc: https://www.planqc.eu · https://www.linkedin.com/in/glaetzle/

Follow Vít Horký: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vithorky/

Listen and subscribe to the United Founders Show:

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/71XyROrJszyQ8kzgC0vePd

🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/cz/podcast/united-founders-show/id6826565785

▶️ YouTube: @UnitedFounders

🌍 All episodes: https://www.unitedfounders.vc/show