Currently based in London
It started in a leafy Surrey business park, notebook in hand, listening to Michael Birch explain how Web 2.0 would change the world. No one outside the industry cared much. But I realised there was a serious ambition in Europe to challenge Silicon Valley.
The seeds of the modern European startup scene were being planted by returning expats and ex-Skype, ex-Google, ex-Yahoo engineers who wanted to build a European version of the Valley - albeit one with different values, localised strengths, and eventually, its own identity.
Spotify and Adyen were founded around this time.
But Europe still lacked a critical mass of venture capital, serial entrepreneurs, scalable consumer platforms, and risk appetite. Many startups exited early to US buyers. This all changed with the arrival of tech incubators like Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp, and The Family, cheap cloud infrastructure (AWS and others lowered capex barriers), and successful unicorns giving birth to a new breed of operator-led VC like Atomico and Balderton. The rise of mobile and SaaS made it easier to grow with lean teams.
Cities like Lisbon, Bucharest, Tallinn, and Warsaw were starting to produce world-class companies. I wanted to get into the middle of all of that activity and chronicle it.
That's why this portfolio site exists. Here you can find a wide range of stories dating back to 2006. As you will see, though, I'm a polymath. I never limited myself to the startup scene or the executive world. I've covered everything from infosecurity to telecoms, finance, clean tech, transport, sustainable packaging, mining and nuclear engineering.
Assignments took me from Last.fm's grungy office in Shoreditch to Madrid's Alcobendas to the clinical surroundings of Lund's IDEON Science Park in Skåne, Sweden. Another meeting whisked me away to the picturesque harbour of Hellerup, north Copenhagen, which I called home for several years.
It was illuminating to meet and interview personalities like Paul Polman (Unilever), Volkmar Denner (Bosch), Sergio Marchionne (Fiat), Ed Colligan (Palm), and Torsten Müller-Ötvös (Rolls-Royce). But also the most influential angels of the day: Niklas Zennström, Morten Lund Nielsen, Alexander Straub and Martin Varsavsky.
So what keeps me writing?
My job is to keep asking questions—about what we're building, why we're building it, and whether it truly serves us. SaaS is not the only viable model, and AGI could render it obsolete within a year or two. More urgently: how much control do we really have over the technology we rely on? Is it in sync with local needs?
The machine learning (ML) revolution may yet become our worst mistake. I'll be tracking it closely, alongside other long-running projects.
If you're a commissioning editor who needs more than shallow commentary or LinkedIn-flavoured 'insights', you're in the right place. I'm available for thought leadership, industry analysis and reports, founder profiles, op-eds, long-form interviews and copywriting.
Call me or fill out the contact form to get in touch.
PRs are welcome to throw me their best pitch.
The seeds of the modern European startup scene were being planted by returning expats and ex-Skype, ex-Google, ex-Yahoo engineers who wanted to build a European version of the Valley - albeit one with different values, localised strengths, and eventually, its own identity.
Spotify and Adyen were founded around this time.
But Europe still lacked a critical mass of venture capital, serial entrepreneurs, scalable consumer platforms, and risk appetite. Many startups exited early to US buyers. This all changed with the arrival of tech incubators like Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp, and The Family, cheap cloud infrastructure (AWS and others lowered capex barriers), and successful unicorns giving birth to a new breed of operator-led VC like Atomico and Balderton. The rise of mobile and SaaS made it easier to grow with lean teams.
Cities like Lisbon, Bucharest, Tallinn, and Warsaw were starting to produce world-class companies. I wanted to get into the middle of all of that activity and chronicle it.
That's why this portfolio site exists. Here you can find a wide range of stories dating back to 2006. As you will see, though, I'm a polymath. I never limited myself to the startup scene or the executive world. I've covered everything from infosecurity to telecoms, finance, clean tech, transport, sustainable packaging, mining and nuclear engineering.
Assignments took me from Last.fm's grungy office in Shoreditch to Madrid's Alcobendas to the clinical surroundings of Lund's IDEON Science Park in Skåne, Sweden. Another meeting whisked me away to the picturesque harbour of Hellerup, north Copenhagen, which I called home for several years.
It was illuminating to meet and interview personalities like Paul Polman (Unilever), Volkmar Denner (Bosch), Sergio Marchionne (Fiat), Ed Colligan (Palm), and Torsten Müller-Ötvös (Rolls-Royce). But also the most influential angels of the day: Niklas Zennström, Morten Lund Nielsen, Alexander Straub and Martin Varsavsky.
So what keeps me writing?
My job is to keep asking questions—about what we're building, why we're building it, and whether it truly serves us. SaaS is not the only viable model, and AGI could render it obsolete within a year or two. More urgently: how much control do we really have over the technology we rely on? Is it in sync with local needs?
The machine learning (ML) revolution may yet become our worst mistake. I'll be tracking it closely, alongside other long-running projects.
If you're a commissioning editor who needs more than shallow commentary or LinkedIn-flavoured 'insights', you're in the right place. I'm available for thought leadership, industry analysis and reports, founder profiles, op-eds, long-form interviews and copywriting.
Call me or fill out the contact form to get in touch.
PRs are welcome to throw me their best pitch.