We believe Europe is entering a pivotal moment, with several tailwinds defining a new paradigm of what it means to found, build, and scale companies in the region.
Beneath the statistics, reports, and rankings between European ecosystems, and gloomy comparisons to the ones beyond the — shift is driven by the operators who have experienced the speed and chaos of hyper-growth and felt it on their skin.
Operators are the driving force behind a company’s daily momentum. From the product managers crafting user experiences to talent partners building vibrant cultures and go-to-market teams creating revenue pipeline — operators are the lifeblood of any company and those who translate ideas into action.
Collectively, this group forms the European Operator Layer — a tapestry of talent, whose potential has been formed through the creative alleys of Berlin and the towering skyscrapers of London, the chic cobblestone streets of Paris, and countless other European cities.
This layer builds upon the foundations set by generational companies like Revolut, Klarna, Wise, Mistral, Trade Republic, and others that have spun the talent flywheel for the new wave of European startup operators — the architects and builders shaping companies' journeys.
Pushing the boundaries of Europe's future
Distributed across multiple concentrated hubs of skills and ambition, filled with language and cultural diversity — and while fragmented — the European Operator Layer continues to move towards the continent's generational opportunity to become the place where the most ambitious talent founds, builds, and scales companies.
We believe in working on three key ingredients to seize this opportunity to make Europe the best place in the world to build:
- A connected operator community where progress is accelerated across accessible, deep and dense connections.
- A mindset of giving back where transactional relationships are overwritten by the joy of helping others succeed without expecting anything in return.
- A non-linear system where stepping off the tracked path is encouraged and celebrated.
One. A connected European operator network.
We believe that community is at the core of accelerating the next wave of Europe — a space where operators can share thoughts, struggles, and ideas to unlock thinking.
Paradoxically, as the world becomes more connected, it grows harder to build relationships with people who truly energize us — people we can laugh with, who have faced similar challenges and can guide our thinking. People to spend the next decade with; true friends.
Having gathered thousands of startup operators across Berlin, London, Stockholm, and Helsinki, we've seen how strong, deep connections can fuel ambitions. Simultaneously, building deep connections based on trust and non-transactional intentions takes time and, most importantly, it needs to be an intentional pursuit.
Two. A mindset of giving back.
We believe that the network effects of a community truly compound only when a sufficient number of people interact with genuine and sincere effort over a long enough period of time.
We continue to see these effects within reach, often just one degree away — the opportunity to elevate ambitions, to find talent, and raise funding.
This positive-sum reality is worth pursuing by bring together those who default to helping each other without expecting anything in return. As a result creating a reality where you can build and craft your journey — in parallel with others who want to open doors for each other and iterate together across all stages of growth.
A mindset where transactional relationships are replaced by the joy of helping others succeed.
Three. A non-linear system.
We believe in the opportunity of non-linearity — across education, careers, friendships — as an alternative to the strongly ingrained linear sets of societal expectations that prevent big ideas from sparking. A system where stepping off the tracked path is encouraged and celebrated.
Shifting towards a non-linear system requires us to rethink how we define success, how we act on opportunities, tolerate risk, and accept the unpredictable interdependencies where excessive planning can limit our instinct to follow spontaneous opportunities. The moonshots.
We need to cultivate non-linearity to take risks in efforts to increase the probability of serendipity and speed and size of the opportunity space expanding in front of us.
A new phase.
We set out to build Operators & Friends as a spontaneous, non-linear journey and now have spent the past 365 days creating connections between thousands of European operators who are on the journey to build, join and start the next generation of companies.
In this new phase, we're building nucleus — a collective for top European builders who support and give back to others around them — and invite you to join the build.
/ˈnjuː.kli.əs/
"The central and most important part of an object, movement, or group,
forming the basis for its activity and growth."Moving into 2025, we will continue to support the European Operator Layer to create a place where the most ambitious talent founds, builds, and scales companies - we will focus on:
- Building sessions for operators with founders and top capital allocators
- Supporting thousands of operators to find new roles, hire talent, and raise funding
- Investing in top builders as a16z scouts together with our angel and VC friends
This is only the starting point of our non-linear journey.
Dreaming big,
Alex, Michelangelo & Juhana
Thanks to Akash Bajwa, Andrea Gurnari, Lorenzo Cerchi, Zuzanna Czapinska, Vincent Ho-Tin-Noé, Ophelia C, Layla Qassim, Henry Jefferies, Ossi Tuominen, Anthony Danon, Miika Huttunen, Henri Mäkivirta, Clara Ricard, Nikita Andersson, Philipp Enzinger, Boyang Pan, Ellen Humphreys and many others for reading our early drafts.
Special thanks to Gabriel Vasquez and Angela Strange from a16z.