00:30:16 · Carles Reina
[00:30:16] S0: Yeah. Like, and look at the, like, the foundational models. Right? Like, literally, like, what are we producing? We have Mistral. We have, like, Black Forest Labs. We have ElevenLabs. We have some of the newer labs. Some of them are French. Some of them are, like, UK based and so on. But we don't produce as much core foundational model like technology. And when you even look like there might be a bubble or not in the, like, data center space and we could spend, like, hours talking about this. Right? But, like, I was looking at some of the stats, like, this weekend, for instance, and I was talking to my brother and we were saying like, oh, it's great, like in Spain, like we are starting to push like towards like data center, although it might be a bubble. Like, well, are we? Right? Like, the Spanish government has committed to spending like €720,000,000 on a crazy, like, one gigabyte of, like, data center power. I was like, €700,000,000? That is laughable. Like, it's not gonna give you anything. Right? Like, at how much is it actually gonna cost to build a single gigabyte or, of a data center. That's gonna be, like, in the tens of billions of dollars, like around like $20,000,000,000. Right? Like, literally, like The US is spending it. A lot of investors are actually spending it. Like here, we're not that serious. Right? Like European Commission should be saying like, hey, like, there you go, like $400,000,000,000 to actually create all of this technology from scratch. And by the way, we're gonna be building, like, models, and we'll give, like, another $2,000,000,000 to Mistral, and another billion dollars to ElevenLabs, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna do that, all of that stuff. So you build the ground up from the four core infrastructure. We're just not doing it. We're not serious enough. China has been very serious. US has been very serious. Of course, they're actually a front... Like, at forefront of everything right now.
00:31:55 · Guillaume Moubeche
[00:31:55] S1: And what's your view on Europe, like, position regarding, like, AI and and what's coming? Because I agree with you, like, whenever people read in the press, like, yeah, Europe is spending 750,000,000 or, 2,000,000,000 to open x y z, you just have to look at, you know, like, entropic last round, not even, like, the total amount of money is ever... It's just the last round of one company, and you realize that it's just a joke. So is your view, like, saying that Europe will never be able to, like, actually spend enough money to do so? Or do you think, like, eventually there's gonna be a change or... I think the problem, like,
00:32:32 · Carles Reina
[00:32:32] S0: of Europe is, like, we have so many countries that are competing for, the same thing, like, with the single boys. If we cannot even get all aligned about this in... European... EU ink, that it should be in English, but it... No. It should be like in German or it should be in French or it should be like in all of the languages. If we cannot even agree on the... How are we gonna agree on like a package of like half... Like $400,000,000,000 or like $200,000,000,000? There is no way we're gonna agree on everything. Right? And I think that's the downside. Now, that's what I think, like, the core technology from an AI perspective and robotics, we have some of the most amazing robotics companies in Europe right now. And some of the best, like, universities look at Zurich right now. Right? Or like Switzerland. It's just really, really amazing. Now the downside is like, if we don't produce the core infrastructure, then we need to be really good on the application layer. And on the application layer, we're also like very good. But also we need to have like a lot more founders that are willing to actually win globally. Do we actually need to move to The US? In some cases, you need to move to The US if you wanna win at a global scale. Right? So if we give up on that infrastructure, which I'm not willing to give up today, because I do believe that, like, we can come up and build it together and invest and dedicate the resources and time to make it work as a single region, then I think then the extra is like, hey, let's apply it on the application layer, and let's be the best one building applications. Right? And monetizing them and creating the buzz and and the marketing and all of that stuff. But I think we can. What what do you think?
00:34:01 · Guillaume Moubeche
[00:34:01] S1: Yeah. I I agree with you. I think we have the talent. I mean, to be honest, having worked with US companies and European companies and different founders, etcetera, like, I think in The US they are extremely good in marketing, I think they have a lot more like self confidence than most European founders, etcetera, but I also don't think that they are smarter, Like, I just feel like they have the confidence, often they have the language, so it's easier for them to articulate how they feel, what they think, etcetera. Their market is much bigger, but at the same time, like, I just feel for Europe, it's very complex because if you take Hugging Face, I think it's a good example. Like, they got acquired by NVIDIA at, like, 13,000,000,000, roughly. It's a French company. No French investors actually invested. Like, no single fucking VC in French. Like, I mean, I'm French, and to be honest, this is the perfect illustration of the French ecosystem. It's like so weak. Like, you don't actually have proper investors. I mean, I'm not saying that it was obvious that we were gonna do a successful company with lemlist, but for me it was the same, like I got rejected by 30, 40 investors, and then I said like, fuck it, I'm gonna bootstrap, and eventually that was the path I chose. But again, you know, like I don't think there is this VC mindset of, you know what, like we need to spend if eventually we want something to happen, And the sad part is like the biggest success a French company can have is to go in The US and be listed, you know, on the Nasdaq. So eventually, like the money always comes back to the same people, which are either US companies or people investing in The US. So I think this is the trick. The only thing that could kind of break the circle is typically if the three French guys that are now becoming like Clement, Tom, etcetera, like becoming like billionaires now, if they decide to go back and invest like massively again, like, start to... And for me, this is how you break the cycle, but otherwise, I think it's quite tough.
00:35:57 · Carles Reina
[00:35:57] S0: It is. But it's like a combination of things, like, the ecosystem investing in the ecosystem, ecosystem. That's for sure. And I think like we will end up fitting it over the long term. But the other thing is like the will and the power to actually do it needs to come from like the top, the authorities. Right? Like, let's be honest. Like, we live in a fantastic welfare state. In some countries, better. In some other ones, it's like much worse. Right? It doesn't really matter which one it is, better or worse. But we live in Europe in a fantastic welfare state. How are we gonna sustain that if we're not investing in the industries that are gonna be dominating the future? I mean, clearly, it's not gonna be the automotive industry, unfortunately. Clearly, it's not gonna be the metal industry. I mean, it's just not gonna happen. So unless we build today the industries that are gonna be maintaining our welfare state, at some point, the welfare state is not gonna be successful. Just because, like, we're not gonna have companies that pay, like, the relevant tax, and we're not gonna have people that are on tax. So it becomes like a kind of a snowball effect. So that's why for me, it's like, it kinda be... It becomes two things. I like the fact, like, from the wave of AI that we're having today, people are making real money. Like, founders are making real money. Like, employees, there's plenty of secondary rounds that are actually happening these days. And it's becoming much more of a norm. So like employees are able to actually cash out. Even if you're able to cash out like a 100 k, like some of it you will dedicate it to like investing in the ecosystem. And you will write like, I don't know, like five tickets of like $2,000 each or €2,000 each. That's absolutely fine. It does not have how much money you write. It is more about, like, you investing in the ecosystem because you're also gonna be investing your time in there. Right? So that is like the wheel is starting to turn. We just need to actually push it even deeper in all of these things.
00:37:36 · Guillaume Moubeche, Carles Reina
[00:37:36] S1: So whenever you started your fund, what was the reasoning behind it? Because I think, like, you wanted the fund to be... You didn't know how much you were gonna raise, and eventually you had to, like, stop it because you raised, like, too quickly. So to be honest, I think it's the first time I heard that story. Like, I know a lot of, like, solo GP that have been trying to raise for, like, twenty months already, and their fund is not ready yet. So can you like walk us through like how you you managed to do it and what you... What investment you've done so far? I mean, it's it's been great. I mean, I... Before like raising my own fund, I [00:38:09] S0: had done about like 60 something angel tickets. First ever company that I invested in a com... Is in a company called Revolut. Was one of the first round for Revolut that helped on the fundraising side of the fund. [00:38:22] S1: Thank you, Nick, for being such a great founder.