On this week’s Newsroom episode, where we ask our journalists what they’re hearing as they report on Europe’s tech industry, Amy's joined by senior reporter Anne Sraders.

Anne reports on one of the continent’s most hyped sectors: defence tech, a market that is booming as governments put large sums of cash behind plans to rearm in the face of increasing Russian aggression. Meanwhile, Amy has been at Resilience, a conference full of startups, soldiers and spies who are all figuring out which new technologies will be assisting Europe’s militaries in the coming years.

They discuss why the VC herd is flocking around drone startups — and where they could be looking instead; the companies trying to future proof European supply chains; and just how likely it is that significant public money will flow into innovative startups, rather than the big primes.

This week Amy is joined by Zoe Hewitt, VP of talent at legendary Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia, where she helps its portfolio companies find and hire talent based in Europe.

That makes her one of the continent's best informed people as to what is going on with tech talent today, in a world where startups and scaleups are ripping up the hiring rulebook, as AI changes the art of company building.

Zoe knows where top talent wants to work, how to spot a future founder, what 'the office of the CEO' really means and which roles are most in-demand (and highly remunerated!)

In this episode she unpacks why management layers are thinning, how the role of CEO is changing and gives her tips for founders and tech employees wondering how to future-proof themselves in a fast-changing world of work.

Ever fancied hearing Brad Pitt speak flawless Mandarin? That’s the kind of trick Synthesia’s hyper-realistic video avatars can pull off.

The London-based unicorn, which uses generative AI to make videos for corporate training and internal comms, has been a big hit among enterprise users — its customer list includes more than 80% of the Fortune 100, and it hit $100m ARR in April this year.

It seems to be a pretty solid business model — and investors certainly like it. But where will the company take its technology next, how safe are its avatars from deepfake misuse and when might it brave an IPO?

CEO Victor Riparbelli isn’t shy about sharing his views on that front, recently declaring the London Stock Exchange a “complete disaster.”

On this week’s episode, host Amy and senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz put Synthesia’s avatars to the test, dig into its move into agentic AI and ask what, if anything, could go wrong for the AI unicorn.

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