Gery_P

Investing in Europe’s most ambitious teams at Series A | Founder turned VC (Blocktorch, acq. by thirdweb) | @developer_dao #2621 - shipping on weekends

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@zeeg Would love to join if it takes place, happy to invite some other Vienna based engineers from Supabase, Vercel, GitLab and others if you like

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

Beginning of this week Christian Neumann and I finally brought an idea to life we have been discussing for a bit: Vienna Builders Dinner — a small, curated table for technical founders, CTOs, and engineers building AI-native companies.

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

What stood out was the depth of talent in the room — builders from GitLab, Supabase, OpenAI, fal, Dynatrace, and a strong lineup of early-stage technical founders, all based in Vienna. Sharp perspectives, real talk, and a reminder that Vienna's technical scene is very serious.

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@kerryxwang This is a great amount of wisdom and reflection! I am not at the 12 month mark yet but can relate to every word you wrote

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

ne generation can close a 100-year gap. Let's give them the room to do it.
#VentureCapital #EuropeanTech #Startups

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

🇪🇺 Europe's largest companies were, on average, founded in 1920.
🇺🇸 America's: 1995.
🇨🇳 China's: 2000.

A stat shared yesterday by @christianmiele
His conclusion: it only takes one generation to build leading companies. The US proved it. China proved it. Europe has not — yet.

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

What we have been missing is the cultural conviction that building beats inheriting. I believe that is finally changing. A new generation of European founders — in deep-tech, defense, AI, manufacturing, Robotics — is no longer waiting for permission.

[a16z crypto @a16zcrypto]

Notes from our Crypto Fund 5 conversation:

1. Successful founders in this next era will tend to be product-focused, go-to-market-focused, and pragmatic rather than ideological.

2. The goal: get a billion people onchain through stocks, bonds, stablecoins, and remittances. Once they're onboarded to the infrastructure, adjacent services can follow naturally.

3. We don't have a global financial network. We have a patchwork of small networks glued together by humans and legacy processes. Stablecoins are global from day one: the WhatsApp moment for money.

4. Stablecoins are leading crypto's mainstream traction. ~$300B issued, transaction volume approaching major payment network levels, and growth uncorrelated with trading.

5. The Genius Act gave stablecoins a regulatory framework, and unlocked builder energy overnight. The Clarity Act (or SEC/CFTC rulemaking) could do the same for the rest of crypto.

6. Crypto is winning the revolution, now it's time to govern. That means working with the system, not overthrowing it.

7, A growing share of transactions (potentially the majority) will be done by AI agents, not humans. If you tell one to save you money on your monthly spending, it will use whatever software does that, and it won't care what gets disintermediated.

8, You cannot vibe code USDC or Hyperliquid. Network-effects businesses are the one thing the model companies can't easily replicate.

9. Privacy may be the most durable moat in crypto. Once an application's state is encrypted, it can't be trivially forked to another chain. Switching costs return.

10. If every human on earth gains access to a dollar-denominated, stablecoin-powered account, that alone would be a generational upgrade to the global financial system.

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@ray_m0ndy @dadiomov So instead of having one wallet with programmatic capabilities you would prefer creating a portfolio of virtual cards? Could actually one agent spin up virtual cards for subagents programmatically or would a human have to create virtual cards?

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@mitsuhiko This essay gives a pretty interesting answer to this: https://t.co/97OEYFc00y

Core idea: managers emerged because information/comms bandwidth was limited. But every management layer also slightly distorts priorities, while actual execution power sits with ICs

[Bercan @bercankilic]

https://t.co/mVr4WoQEWO

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@bercankilic Fantastic essay. The “authority at the top, control at the IC layer” asymmetry is such a sharp observation. Probably one of the more interesting organizational theories I’ve read in a while.

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@b_johannsen @SensmoreAI Congrats!!
Will come to Berlin 11+12 of may, want to grab a coffee and catch up? 🙌☕️

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@_clemens__ @base @virtuals_io If you do let me know when I’ll come too 🙌

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@b_johannsen @PointNineCap 🔥🔥🔥

[Gery_P @GeryPollak]

@benedictk__ hope I get admitted to the next codex hackathon in vienna 😄😄