Each week a small bunch of us try and makes sense of the latest news affecting European venture.

Upside #66 - The theme this week is back to tech sovereignty, what that really means, what’s trade, what’s security - and ultimately will we all become full stack nations?

01:04 – UK exit tax: what it was and why it was dropped
The mooted UK “exit tax” (tax on unrealised gains when leaving the country), why it would be disastrous for founders, political “pitch-rolling” before budgets, and Tom Blomfield’s alternative idea of taxing gains accrued while in the UK.

08:17 – State of AI (McKinsey / QuantumBlack report)
Quick take on enterprise AI: almost every large org says it’s using AI, mostly for agentic/workflow use cases, but only ~1% report mature deployment or meaningful bottom-line impact, implying a long runway but slower-than-hyped progress.

09:54 – Nexperia & Europe’s chip vulnerability
Deep dive into Nexperia’s role in Europe’s mid-tech auto chips, EU–China tensions, how wafers are made in Europe but packaged in China, and what that reveals about the fragility of the European automotive supply chain.

13:15 – Ripping out Huawei/ZTE from 5G
Discussion of the EU’s move to give legal force to removing Chinese vendors from 5G infrastructure, the huge retrofit costs for telcos (esp. German operators), and whether this is driven by trade, security, or both.

16:18 – Einride SPAC & Palantir / Alex Karp
Einride’s US SPAC at a $1.8B valuation vs the Nikola fiasco; Palantir’s soaring stock, Alex Karp’s persona and “word salad” style, his emphasis on privacy-centric data architectures for governments, and the tension between admiration for serious infra and discomfort with founder-power.

23:06 – AI market wobble & Michael Burry’s bearish case
The recent pull-back in Mag7/AI names (esp. Nvidia), and whether it’s a blip or bubble-pop; Burry’s big short on hyperscalers and AI plays, and his history as an early Cassandra of the GFC.

23:52 – Chinese open-source models & hyperscaler accounting games
How Chinese open-source models (e.g. Kimi K2) are catching frontier labs and threatening closed-source economics, plus Burry’s argument that hyperscalers are overstating profits by stretching GPU lifetimes (4→6 years) and front-loading capex based on optimistic AI revenue expectations.

33:28 – Tech sovereignty, AI-powered cyber attacks & kill switches
Anthropic’s disclosure of LLM-assisted cyber attacks using Claude Code via social engineering; concerns over remote kill switches in Chinese-made buses in UK/Scandi fleets; broader questions about dependence on Chinese vendors and the push for “full-stack” sovereignty.

41:45 – De-globalisation & the cost of going ‘full stack’
Debate over whether every region trying to do everything domestically is sustainable; loss of cheap-labour-driven low inflation, need for critical minerals and energy at home, and how much poorer or safer societies might become under techno-sovereignty.

47:49 – Deals of the Week: BillionToOne and Gamma
BillionToOne’s ~$4.5–5B IPO (YC 2017; strong European VC participation); Pfizer’s $10B acquisition of GLP-1 player Metsera and what it signals for biotech; Gamma’s $68M Series B at a $2.1B valuation as a potential disruptor of the traditional Office/Slides stack.

106: PH Mickey Ds with Mike Lawrence | Soder Podcast | EP 104

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