Winning in AI

The text came through on a Sunday morning: “Hey, want to join us for a BBQ at the house? Nothing fancy, just a few founders hanging out.” Two hours later, I found myself in the backyard of a mansion in South Bay where tech executives and AI builders frequently host talks and hackathons, grilling burgers alongside researchers from big labs and founders who’d just raised their Series A.

The conversation flowed from the latest OpenAI release to the current YC batch. By the end of the afternoon, I had three new product feedback sessions scheduled, a potential integration partnership mapped out, and direct intros to two enterprise customers actively looking for exactly what we were building.

This was a casual hang out on a Sunday afternoon, bearing in mind I had just landed in San Francisco 48 hours ago… Just one part of a whole summer of encounters like this in SF that change our trajectory as a business. Within a few weeks in the Bay Area, our outlook had accelerated in new and wonderful ways.

I’ve come to an uncomfortable conclusion: if you’re serious about building a category-defining company, especially in AI, Europe isn’t the best place to do it. It’s not a question of talent or capital; Europe has both in abundance. The difference lies in mindset. America embraces risk with a fearlessness that amplifies ambition. In San Francisco, that spirit is taken to another level. The city has become the undeniable center of gravity for AI, compounding its lead at a pace Europe simply cannot match.

San Francisco rewires your expectations for what a chance encounter can be. In London, I might meet one standout AI founder each month, usually through carefully orchestrated introductions. In SF, I met a 21-year-old who’d just won 21 hackathons at a random coffee shop in the Financial District. They weren’t trying to impress anyone; just debugging their MVP with a college friend fresh off a flight from the Middle East. We ended up trading advice for an hour, and it was some of the best free consulting I’ve ever had. When the world’s top AI talent is compressed into such a small space, the probability of meaningful encounters doesn’t just increase. It compounds.

But it’s not just about density. It’s about velocity. What began as a casual catch-up with a founder from the early 2010s batch quickly escalated: for 45 minutes, my co-founder and I were defending our technical approach, outlining our go-to-market strategy, and fielding increasingly sophisticated questions about our moat. By the end, we received an investment offer. No deck, no pitch, no drawn-out courtship – just raw conviction meeting prepared opportunity.

Acceleration here isn’t limited to funding, but also visibility. The very next day, I was grabbing coffee with one of Anthropic’s lead engineers discussing alignment challenges two blocks away from our Airbnb. The conversation didn’t come from a carefully managed intro, but simply because a researcher at Meta mentioned what we were building to his peers. That’s what happens when you stop building in the shadows but “in public”.

European restraint is a liability in AI’s current moment. Traits that make founders successful – ambition and conviction – are celebrated in San Francisco while they’re met with skepticism that is dressed up as “thoughtful deliberation” in a European setting. It’s not that we are less capable in Europe; our cultural operating system just isn’t optimized for the speed and intensity that winning in this space demands. What I’ve come to discover as well is that while the average builder quality might actually be lower than London, the top percentile here is operating at a different level entirely. These founders work six days a week, twelve-hour days, not because they’re grinding mindlessly but because they’re surrounded by others doing the same – in the middle of the month of August. That energy is contagious and self-reinforcing.

“Be yourself, play to your strengths, and the city is yours,” a hacker house founder told me over lunch. They were right. During my stint there, I stopped trying to give the ‘expected’ answers and started speaking with unfiltered, raw passion about what we’re building. And the response was overwhelming. In San Francisco, authenticity and openness attract energy back to you, where you’re rewarded for authenticity over polish; substance over presentation.

The compound effects have become impossible to ignore. Our users are here, testing new tools and actively prospecting for the next exciting ‘vibe coding’ solution. Our potential enterprise and platform partners are here, making decisions locally. Potential acquirers are evaluating the competitive landscape from one coffee shop to another. That proximity collapse creates opportunities that are simply hard to replicate.

When the top percentiles of researchers, builders, and investors converge in one place, outcomes hinge as much on serendipity as on strategy and execution. San Francisco offers the best recipe for the daring to get lucky.

None of this means Europe is hopeless for building. Generational companies can be built from anywhere, and Europe’s access to private capital has never been stronger. But while Europe has experienced a renaissance, SF has surged ahead – its gravitational pull on AI talent and capital has become unmatched.

Being where the action is concentrated makes the difference between having a chance to play and playing to win.

For me, I’d hate for us to lose simply because we’re not physically there.

We’re moving to San Francisco.