Johannes Schildt

Tonight we're hosting Sommarminglet for the fourth time. 400 decision-makers from tech, politics, business, culture and sport. One question: what's actually holding Europe's AI shift back. We asked them ahead of tonight. Three answers came back. 59% pointed to EU rules. Not that they exist. Nobody can tell what they mean. AI Act, GDPR and ePrivacy overlap and create uncertainty instead of protection. The result is paralysis. And the cost falls hardest on the companies least able to carry it. 28% pointed to growth capital. The Nordic pension system manages trillions. Almost none of it reaches the companies meant to build the next generation of growth. The money is here. The rules to move it aren't. 23% said the real brake is inside the companies themselves. We test, we evaluate, and we let someone else go first. Having the best tools in the world doesn't help if we won't actually use them. Wrote about all three with @jschildt in DI today. Link in comments.

Sweden just put $46m/year behind its national AI strategy. That's a Series A. For one startup Me, @antonosika, @jschildt & @joelhellermark wrote about it in @SiftedEU and @dagensindustri 1/ – at Stockholm, Sweden

We’re on a boat Charles de Gaulle’s is huge!

Discussed “Nordic founder DNA” at Techarena with @sophiabendz, @jschildt & @villums. We agreed. There is no single Nordic founder DNA. Swedes, Danes, Finns and Norwegians are meaningfully different. Right now, Sweden is the strongest ecosystem to build in. Capital depth. Talent density. Repeat founders. Institutional support. Regulation that does not punish ambition. Norway, on the other hand, is actively pushing builders away. Taxes matter. Culture matters. But if we zoom out, there are shared traits. You go international from day one. The home market is too small to think small. You care about product, design, and aesthetics. It shows. The welfare model creates air cover. You can take risk without existential downside. High digitization creates technical fluency. The baseline is high. Near native English removes friction globally. So no, there is no single Nordic founder DNA. But there is a structural advantage. Small markets. Global mindset. High trust societies. That combination compounds. – at Stockholm, Sweden

At @Techarenan in 87 minutes to talk about what makes the Nordics special it is cold, dark, we don't smile that much, but make great music and tech companies w @sophiabendz @jschildt @villums

The future isn’t inherited. It’s built. Today’s startups are tomorrow’s giants. But if we want to lead the next wave of innovation, we need to act now. Together with founders and leaders from Klarna, Kry, Sana, Amazon, Lovable, EU parliament, EQT, Accel, Nasdaq and more, we just published an open letter in @dagensindustri with one message: The Nordics can lead. But not without serious change. We call out three moves that cannot wait: Cut the red tape - Innovation dies in complexity. Europe has the scale. Now we need speed. Let founders build instead of filling out forms. Back the talent - Great companies are built by great people. We need to equip students, workers and researchers with real tools like AI and quantum. And build a culture where learning never stops. Unleash capital and technology - We have built global companies before. We can do it again. But only if we make Norden the best place to start and scale. That means easier access to capital, to deep tech, and to partnerships across sectors. The next platform shift is already happening. The question is whether we build the future here, or watch it happen somewhere else. We choose to build. Because the future isn’t inherited. It’s built. Written and signed by me and: @jschildt, @klarnaseb, @antonosika, @joelhellermark, @ArbaKokalari, @Kitty_Mayo_, @mattjackrob, @johanbrenner, @wanderingvc, @ElisHodzic02, @sandraemalmberg , @AdamKostyal and @LudvigBarthold1 Full article (in Swedish + English translation) in comments.