 |
|
|
|||||
I grew up in the Netherlands, so I know the upsides of living in Europe. I also know how hard it is to build a company here. The rules change across borders, funding is limited, and things move slower than they should. When we started Remote, we knew we had to think globally but also anchor in the U.S. Its the biggest tech market, and succeeding there gives you the best chance to scale everywhere else. That choice wasnt unique to us. More and more European founders are making the same call.Whats changed is the timing of the move. Expanding to the U.S. used to happen once companies were well-established in Europe. Now theyre showing up earlier and moving faster. Index Ventures found that 64% of startups expand to the U.S. at preseed or seed stage now, an increase from the 2015-2019 rate of 33%. WHY IT MATTERS This shift matters for American businesses. European startups are arriving with funding and moving in as both competitors and potential partners. That changes how U.S. companies compete for capital, customers, and talent. Spotify did this early. They started in Sweden in 2006 and quickly expanded into the U.S. They opened offices, built partnerships, and kept much of their engineering base in Europe. U.S. investment anchored them in the American market. It gave them credibility with local customers, visibility with partners, and the resources to scale fast. By the time they raised their $1 billion Series F, led by a U.S. VC, they were ready to take on Apple. Today, they lead the streaming market. So why is this happening now? On paper, Europe is a huge market. In reality, its fragmented. Tax, labor, and compliance rules differ from one country to the next. Expanding from France into Germany can be as complex as expanding from Europe into Asia. Late-stage capital is harder to find, which slows growth, and enterprise customers are slower to move on smaller deals. Thats why European startups are looking to the U.S. earlier. American buyers move faster, spend more, and make decisions quickly. The U.S. is still the market that signals credibility, and winning there carries weight abroad. Enterprise buyers in other regions often want proof a product works there before they commit. These moves benefit more than just the startups. They raise the bar for everyone by pushing U.S. companies to get leaner, scale faster, and think globally. 4 TAKEAWAYS So what should U.S. founders take away from all this? 1. Dont slow down European founders are showing up with clear goals and aggressive timelines. If youre in a crowded market, theyll be chasing the same deals, talent, and capital. Use that pressure to improve your product and move faster. 2. Build with discipline European founders often scale with fewer resources and smaller teams. They build distributed companies early, with strong culture and tight alignment. Instead of debating office models, they figure out how to work across borders and time zones. That discipline can give U.S. companies an edge on speed and cost. 3. Think global from day one European startups dont have a big home market. They build for multiple markets early, which means products that work across languages, currencies, and regulations. U.S. companies that do the same are better positioned to scale fast and win abroad. 4. Work with them, not against them Working with these companies can give you access to new markets, talent, and expertise. Investors who back them get exposure to broader networks and operating models. Treat partnership as a growth strategy. My advice to American founders: Dont ignore this wave. The best European startups are already here. Competing with them or working alongside them will make your company better. Dont see it as a threat. Learn from it. Job van der Voort is CEO and cofounder of Remote.
Category:
E-Commerce
I recently had an unsettling rideshare experience. Let me paint a visual picture. You have a Tesla doing its self-driving thing, a guy just sitting in the drivers seat supervising, and a terrified human (me) in the backseat looking on in horror. Finally, I said, Please keep your hands on the wheel when youre driving me, OK? Teslas autonomous functionality might be safe, but I dont have enough trust yet to allow a Tesla to get me from Point A to Point B without a human steering it. Theres a parallel between self-driving cars and the current perceptions of AI and agents. You might be comfortable letting one of these automobiles make a simple right-hand turn, but turning left to cross through busy traffic? Probably not so much. Were in the early days of agentic transformation, which describes the shift from traditional software to a more autonomous enterprise that relies on software that can act independently. Businesses are eager to embed agents in processes to make operations more efficient. Yet were in a remarkably similar place to autonomous vehicles with our level of trust, or lack thereof. Implementing simple agentic pilot use cases are one thing. But yielding control of critical workflows is another. WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US This trust gap isnt just a hunch on my part. Its backed by respected research. In a recent KPMG International study of more than 48,000 people in 47 countries, 66% said that while they use artificial intelligence, 54% were unwilling to trust it. A McKinsey & Company report cited something similar, calling it the GenAI paradox. It found that almost eight in 10 companies use generative AI, but the same number has not seen any significant bottom-line impact. This is why the biggest AI challenge isnt technical, the report stated. Instead, It will be human: earning trust, driving adoption, and establishing the right governance to manage agent autonomy and prevent uncontrolled sprawl. AI adoption is happening, but its not happening with great confidence. Every business leader should also think about a Pew Research Center study that found a vast chasm between the views of AI experts and the general public. The public is far less optimistic and enthusiastic about the technology. Bridging this skepticism divide will be the difference between success and failure for businesses as they agentify their operations. So, we still dont fully trust AI to make meaningful decisions for us. Weve all heard the stories of AI hallucinations and businesses rolling out initiatives that, in hindsight, werent ready for prime time. Caution is not the same thing as moving slowly. That said, the companies that figure out how to adeptly use agents in their businesses sooner will be the ones that move faster, execute smarter, and operate leaner. Building trust is the key that unlocks it all. WHY TRUST IS THE HARD PART Of course, the trust in technology issue predates AIs arrival. Ive worked in software for three decades. For a significant portion of that time, the focus has been on digital transformation to make businesses more efficient through digitizing processes. One of the biggest obstacles companies have long faced is a deep distrust of their data. Incomplete, inaccessible, or inaccurate data can fundamentally paralyze organizations. Businesses dont know what to trust. When facing critical decisions that can impact their companies trajectory, some of the most intense leadership team discussions are whether they believe what the data tells them. Ive been part of those conversations. Now, as we shift into agentic transformation, if you dont get the data right, AI can make the problem 10 times worse. Thats because AI models and agents use the data available as fuel to make decisions and generate outputs based on probabilities and likelihoods in a black box environment that can lack transparency. Because AI responses and actions are based on those probabilities, it will never be 100% accurate. (Much like humans, by the way.) But AI can be made as trustworthy as possible. Its all predicated on: Accurate data. Access to information. Without setting a strong foundation for managing data and fully connecting systems so that information moves where needed, the conviction required to support your AI initiatives will be lacking. Youll understandably have doubts about the actions that agents are taking within your organization and externally on behalf of your business. WHAT EVERY LEADER SHOULD CONSIDER Change only happens at the speed of trust. If we believe in something, well use it. Building confidence in AI models and agents requires control and governance. It starts with the foundation I mentioned: well-managed data and well-integrated systems. Solving the age-old garbage in, garbage out problem of poor data is a crucial first step. It will give AI what it needs to make more accurate and responsible decisions. Then there are the agents themselves. Weve reached a point where every organization can build agents, and every vendor is making them part of their products. But something else is more essentialmanaging them. You need to know about every agent in your operations. Youll need visibility into what theyre doing and how theyre performing their assigned tasks. If theyre not acting as expected, you must be able to fix the issue quickly. These guardrails are the backbone upon which trust is nurtured as this new agentic world evolves and matures. For leaders, this requires striking the right balance between championing speed and responsible innovation in ways that enable AI to enhance efficiency while amplifying human capability. Thats because human interactionshelping customers, managing employees, and so onwill always be those more challenging left-hand turns where we want people to make decisions requiring empathy and judgment. Just as were moving toward a self-driving car that inspires unequivocal trust, were also on a path to metaphorically creating the self-driving enterprise with agents. For now, though, most of us arent yet willing to take our hands off our businesss steering wheel. Agents have to earn that kind of trust through governance. Steve Lucas is chairman and CEO of Boomi.
Category:
E-Commerce
Too many jobs today have a PR problem, limiting opportunities for our young people and our economy. The jobs that now exist and the training needed for them have changed dramatically over the past half-century, but our perceptions havent kept up. Consider the manufacturing industry. A sector once synonymous with grimy factory floors, repetitive labor, and aggressive offshoring is now a hub for advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and big data analytics. Yet Deloitte found that only 4 in 10 Americans would likely encourage their children to pursue a manufacturing career. While working in Kentucky several years ago, I heard from many parents who were hesitant for their kids to go into manufacturing because they had lost manufacturing jobs due to economic factors. But the manufacturing floor and global dynamics have evolved, and their generations experiences may bear little resemblance to modern manufacturing work. PERCEPTION VERSUS REALITY Today, reshoring has gained political popularity. Advanced technologies do much of the heavy lifting, and the most in-demand skills are AI, big data, cybersecurity, and creative thinking. Still, the World Economic Forum predicts that nearly half of the 3.8 million new U.S. manufacturing jobs expected by 2033 may go unfilled. Parents may not know that many of these are quality jobs that dont require a bachelors degree yet provide high wages, great benefits, and opportunities for postsecondary education and career advancement, and the employer may cover the costs. While the manufacturing industry is just one example, it comprises a wide range of occupations, from semiconductor manufacturing in clean rooms to advanced manufacturing of reinforced composite materials used for clean energy sources. This gap between perception and reality is more than a branding problemit’s a barrier to opportunity. And this isnt a criticism of parents. Its an acknowledgement that the professionals helping students and their families explore options after high school need moreand more compellinginformation on whats available. If we want to prepare the next generation for a thriving future, we need to do a better job communicating the full range of high-quality education, training, and career pathways. COLLEGE FOR ALL? If the education and workforce space has branded one thing well in the past 30 years, it may be the college for all movement. The notion catalyzed classroom changes, like plastering pennants on the wall, that put college awareness front and center as early as kindergarten. It led to local investments in pioneering college promise programs (the Kalamazoo Promise is celebrating 20 years) to make college financially accessible to more students. The branding was arguably too good. What started as an initiative to ensure any child, regardless of background, could go to college (such as by increasing awareness and removing barriers) turned into an assumption that every child should attend college. Conversely, many assumed that anyone who did not go to college had somehow failed. ALTERNATE PATHWAYS If only other paths to careers had similarly effective slogans. The Voices of Gen Z Study, released recently by Gallup, Jobs for the Future, and the Walton Family Foundation, found that most parents of high schoolers say they know a great deal about only two postsecondary pathways for their child: earning a bachelors degree or working at a paid job. Meanwhile, only about 1 in 10 say they know a great deal about other options like completing an internship or apprenticeship, earning a short-term certificate, starting a business, or enlisting in the military. As career paths have changed, the need to better define the skills for success in a fast-changing economyand develop an effective PR strategy for the many quality jobs still seen as dirty or less thanhas perhaps never been greater. Too often, we in the education community have oversimplified a complex space by defining things by what theyre not, or by their relationships to other things (usually, a four-year degree). Great careers in occupations that require more education than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree are often called middle-skill jobs. This reflects the type of education and training the roles require, not the skill level or capabilities needed for those fields. Similarly, industry-relevant certificates or certifications that can offer a pathway to secure, well-paying jobs are called non-degree credentials. While both terms aim to highlight areas of the economy that deserve more attention, they might reinforce the idea that a college degree is the only path to success. They overlook the reality that having a degree doesnt always mean youll land one of those jobs. And they reinforce the artificial either-or between college and non-college pathways into the workforce. APPRENTICESHIPS One area of particular PR failure is apprenticeships. The idea of learning while earning has attracted growing interest among businesses and policymakers alike, but apprenticeships are still struggling to break out of their historic association with the trades. President Trumps Executive Order on apprenticeships, for instance, focuses predominantly on skilled trades, despite the growing number of apprenticeships that are a path to occupations such as teaching, firefighting, and advanced manufacturing. Today, over half of apprenticeships are outside of the trades. All of these programs are powerful tools for financial resilience and economic mobility, but only if people know about them. If we want to solve this PR problem, we need a PR overhaul across the education and workforce sectors. We need compelling narratives about quality jobs, shared terminology that isnt centered on college as a default, and storytelling that reflects the realities of todays opportunities. We also need to provide better career guidance at earlier ages so that young peopleand their parentsunderstand all of the options available, see the steps required to move forward, and overcome outdated perceptions. Just as the college for all movement sparked a shift in thinking, a similar campaign for skills-baed, multiple-pathway approaches to career development could do the same. Lets move toward a world where the new rallying cry is about the right path for each person, not the same path. Where internships, apprenticeships, certifications, service programs, and entrepreneurship are seen not as fallback options, but as strategic choices tailored to individuals strengths and aspirations. Where a bachelors degree is one of many validand valuedpaths, not the only one. Maria Flynn is president and CEO of Jobs for the Future.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||