Performative optimism versus realism

What happens when Europe stops cheering itself on and starts taking responsibility for the outcome?

In this episode of Follow the Gradient, we sit down with Judith Dada, Partner at Visionaries Club, to unpack one of the most uncomfortable conversations in European tech right now. Drawing on her work as an investor, writer, and ecosystem builder, Judith brings a rare mix of conviction and realism to questions many founders quietly avoid.

This conversation is not about tactics or trend-chasing. It is about agency, moral responsibility, and what it really means to build companies in Europe at a moment when technology, geopolitics, and personal choices are colliding.

We talk about:

• Why performative Euro-optimism can be just as damaging as constant pessimism

• The hidden risk of Europe settling for the application layer while conceding models and infrastructure

• How statistics about Europe obscure the difference between averages and outliers founders could still become

• What founders miss when they treat Europe like a marketplace instead of something they help build

• Why AI’s impact feels invisible to most organizations while accelerating at the frontier

• The personal cost of ambition, from childcare trade-offs to deciding when silence becomes complicity

This episode offers a lens, not a manual. It explores how founders make decisions when the stakes are unclear, the odds are uneven, and opting out feels easier than staying in the fight.

Our biggest takeaways, including Judith’s view on what founders fundamentally misjudge about responsibility and long-term impact:

https://followthegradient.io/p/judith-dada-podcast 

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Where to find Judith Dada:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/judith-dada/ 

Visionaries Club: https://visionaries.vc/ 

Opensource Nanny: https://opensourcenanny.com/ 

Relativity Collective: https://relativitycollective.com/ 

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🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane.

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00:00 Introduction

02:30 Why European tech sovereignty suddenly feels urgent

05:39 Why realism and agency must coexist

08:58 Where Europe is too optimistic about AI layers

10:01 Why statistics don’t define Europe’s future

12:22 AI as a civilizational rather than technical shift

15:05 The widening gap between AI frontier and reality

20:12 Choosing hard problems despite low odds

25:29 Realizing no one else is driving the bus

27:56 From leaving Europe to fixing its foundations

30:21 Speaking up when silence feels safer

35:31 Parenting ambitious careers without pretending it’s easy

45:14 Building peer environments that raise ambition

48:37 Rapid fire questions