Slush 2024: Don't stand in the way of start-ups

Last week I attended Slush, perhaps the biggest startup event in Europe, where start-up founders share their tips on how to make your product succeed, how to find the right investors, and how to give the sack to people who your AI performance review deems unworthy. There are really just two different categories of success stories:

• Release an MVP as fast as possible.
• Hone your product until it’s perfect.

Which really makes it sounds like there’s no right answer and it more often than not is a matter of luck. Also, it seems to help to know all the other millionaire founders. Great!

Anyways, this was my fourth time at Slush, and while I think most others were bitten by the AI bug, I only caught a minor flu that I’m currently recovering from. Last year’s talks were pretty much all about AI, and this year was no exception. Analyst Benedict Evans even had mostly the same slide deck from last year.

What I found almost appalling was hearing Dylan Field, the CEO of Figma, discuss how the European regulation on AI (and data protection) are holding the start-ups in the old continent back, while China and the US are racing ahead.

Now wait just a minute… Is Field saying that we should give up on our data privacy and start-ups should be allowed to break the laws (or disregard them) to be innovative?

I don’t know if I want that to happen. I’d rather advice people to call for more regulation on data protection in the US and Asia, and to switch from using services that abuse their data to services that don’t. Perhaps we should start preferring smaller, more homegrown software companies that prioritize their customers over raising millions in venture capital.