The Olympics of Talent: France's Tech Boom

0:00There is a distinct advantage of building companies in France from dollar perspective. I think France is now on the map. We see a lot of folks who come from Europe or come from the US and decide to move to Paris and contribute to the startups in the same way that this happened with Silicon Valley 15 -20 years ago. That was the main feedback that all the entrepreneurs in the ecosystem heard for many years. You're not being ambitious enough, you're not being ambitious enough. The French founder that I've met, oftentimes the ambition isn't that. Invition isn't even the euro zone. Invition is, we're going to build the biggest company in the world.

0:39It was dirty in France to say that a few years ago. That's the one thing we need to crack. The Olympics returned to Paris this year, precisely 100 years since the city less hosted the event. Hopefully you've caught some of the highlights, like how the world's fastest man was only a fraction of a second faster than the athlete who came fourth, just shy the podium. Now every game is filled with these incredible moments, as host nations use the event to show their strength as a country, while over 180 participating nations do the same with their athletic talent. But as the games do approach their clothes, it's worth reflecting on the fact that in the 98 % of the time, when the Olympics aren't happening, countries show their strength with their talent in other fields, and increasingly in technology.

1:29So in this three -part series, we'll be exploring those dynamics across three regions, France, the UK, and Latin America. So what makes these regions distinct? And what ingredients yield thriving startup ecosystems? Is it funding, risk tolerance, regulation, or lack thereof? As people increasingly ask the question of whether Silicon Valley can be recreated elsewhere, the answers may just be across the pond. There are nuanced conversations around visa programs, successful start -up mafias, and local culture. In this episode around France, you'll get to hear from Roxanne Barza, longtime director of Station Up, the world's largest startup campus.

2:07Also, Antoine Martin, co -founder and CEO of Zenlie, which was acquired by Snap in 2017, who was now working on AMO. And Antoine was even referred to by Sifted as the quote, Godfather of France's emerging social media app scene. And finally, Brian Kim, a 16 -Z consumer partner who also happened to lead the round under recently acquired French startup Beereal. Reflecting on the very startup scene that they helped build was kick things off with Roxanne, then Brian, then Antoine. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only. Should not be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund.

2:51Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the company's discussed in this podcast. For more details including a link to our investments, please see A16Z .com slash Disclatures.

3:08My prison is very early stage founder and I've seen this evolve quite a bit over the last few years. I feel like it's become a lot more international. We're seeing a lot more people from different geographies that now want to come build companies here, join companies here. And also I think with the maturity of the ecosystem we're starting to see people who have previously been in a startup or a scale -up or even founded companies before now building new companies. So these are things that we weren't seeing as much of a few years ago. But I would say also with the AI boom and I think it's no secret for anyone that the technical talent here, especially because the math and data programs that we have here are so exceptional that if you look in, I think, any of the leading -tap companies worldwide, their tech and data teams will usually have a lot of French people in them.

3:54And when I think about the French tech ecosystem, typically have this three pronged answer. I would start with an infra level and I don't mean infra as in like bandwidth speed. It's an infra for the startups, especially early stage. And Roxanne of course runs one of the largest startup studio in the world. Then I view station F as being a critical piece of infrastructure. And there's of course, you know, the amazing school like Polytechnique that are technical and you even have schools like School 42, where the infra is really, really good for creating the next batch of starter founders. The second ingredient, I would say, that France has, that I haven't really seen elsewhere, is there's such a strong sense of community.

4:35Even the fact that there's a group of French consumer founders that all know each other, all talk to each other and are very keen on giving back to the community after having seen what they've gone through. Antoine is a perfect example of someone who sort of grew up in the French tech ecosystem and then is very determined to give back whether it's lessons, learning, angel investing, advising and that loop to me is quite rare. And the last I would also mention that there's actually a lot of, I don't know, a governmental support, but there is a lot of push for the startup ecosystem to do really well.

5:15Like there is a distinct advantage of building companies in France from dollar perspective, whether it's like BPI loans or whether it's actual GPUs. So when you combine all three, the infra, the community and the support at all governmental scale, I think that makes for a very, very unique country to build companies. Yeah, it is fascinating to see that the country last year published a national AI strategy Dedicating 500 million euros to AI clusters. So we'll get into that But Antoine, I'd love to hear your perspective, especially since it's been about seven years since your company Zenle was acquired so you've been in this ecosystem for a while Love to hear how you see it, but also how you've seen it change.

5:57I mean high level at double dawn on what looks on and BK have said, there is this obvious like underdog mentality, just because it's a smaller ecosystem, which does create the bones and the therefore folks to help each other. And so we discussed the last decade, if I go even a little further than that, Hugshan managed and in computer before station F, we had the most poor office you could have at the time. And we couldn't host even 15 people in that consumer group we were talking about BK. we needed a space to see each other at Nikes. Hogsand would land us rooms in the incubator, she managed back then.

6:35So the whole like underdogs, like givebacks, mentality is one of the things that today is day dividends. We're also seeing that can time founders, third time founders for the first time. That comment was an ambition level and access to funding. And Collins was in their initial teams that we couldn't see 10 years ago when it was the first generation. you add the openness that France is coming towards where it feels like a moral and country that was 10, 15 years ago. Yes, we had a lot of tourists, but it wasn't depicted as the place where your quality of life was great and you'd be biking around the city.

7:12That is driving a lot of international talent. And we see a lot of folks who come from Europe or come from the US and decide to move to Paris and contribute to the startups. in the same way that this happened with Silicon Valley 15, 20 years ago. The top of my example I have is DJ YoRst was one of the funding designers, early designers at Flipboard, then at mailbox, then led design at Uber. And now he's helping control, was on an IPO road track. And he moved back to France a couple of years ago, and that generation of folks is helping us get to the next stage. It's amazing. And Roxanne, you also just published the international component of station F.

7:53Yeah, for the last seven years, because we just celebrated seven years, we've always been around one -third of our community international, but we found out this year that we have actually 65 nationalities on campus. I didn't believe that. I wouldn't have never guessed that. And then when you actually look also at some of the nationalities, their countries that also aren't the most obvious ones. There's a lot of places that you would just imagine, very pro business, and maybe they have ties to France, but also you have some very small countries that you cannot imagine that these people just picked up and came here to build the company.

8:25So yeah, it's attracting people from everywhere now. And how many companies are now on campus? So we always have 1 ,000 that are based on campus. We're refreshing minimum 700 companies per year. And so we've actually worked with more than 700 new companies per year, which takes us to over 7 ,000 since the beginning. My partners Olivia and Justine, when they visit it, the word for station F and their eyes are, it's like a Disney Land for startups. I've heard that before. Or what is worse? So true, it is Disneyland. Sometimes it's too cushy, maybe for entrepreneurs. We got to give them a kick, but yes, it's definitely Disneyland for startups.

9:05I want to title. And I mean, I think when people think about the world's largest startup campus, they expect that to be in Silicon Valley. It's amazing that it's in France. Roxanne, same question posed to Antoine, seven years. What have you noticed? I mean, it's been 180 degrees shift. When we started station F, people didn't know where there are 1000 companies in France. This was very clearly the underdog ecosystem that Antoine mentioned. And it's funny because Brian, you mentioned community. I actually forget that. I think we're so used to people here just helping each other and working together, that we forget that it's not like that in all the ecosystems.

9:43But I think what we've seen really change in the last few years is maybe also the international investors that are paying attention to the ecosystem. So we talked about international talent, but seven years ago we didn't have injuries in coming out here. We didn't have sequay coming out here. And I think today it makes up over 50 % of the investment that's going into the ecosystem and helping the startup scale on international levels. So, I mean, to just put that in short form, I think France is now on the map and very high up there. Absolutely true. Roxanne, that actually reminded me of something where one of the things that I love about French startups is a lot of times when you look at other geographies or communities or ecosystem, they're building for their own ecosystem, right?

10:26They're like, oh, I'm going to build this biggest company in Germany, a biggest company in Korea. But the French founder that I've met, that oftentimes the ambition isn't that. Ambition isn't even the Eurozone. Ambition is we're gonna build the biggest company in the world. And of course, U .S. is one of the largest market. We're gonna go after it was zeal and thoughtfulness and design that actually works for those markets. And I think that attitude, confidence, and approach is actually fairly rare. Any thoughts on what makes that unique when it comes to France? I level, I think it's new to be honest, because it wasn't the case 10 years ago and I heard her say this many times to consumer founders or other founders we know in common.

11:11Hey guys, it's Frances Grede but it's 65 million people. You're not going to make an extremely successful business if you focus on that. And clearly, today it's not a topic anymore. It's actually the opposite. There was a founder yesterday at 42, which one of the earliest coding schools asked me if he should focus on the US first or France first Because he was naturally going towards the US and I was like, yeah, of course you need to succeed in the US, but maybe you need TMS with 50 folks locally just to mature your product and test it. He was so grown on the idea that the US is the only way to succeed that he was also forgetting that it also has to work locally.

11:50But that's a change that wasn't like this 10 years ago for sure. Totally agree with that. And I think it was very intentional. I mean, that was the main feedback that all the entrepreneurs in the ecosystem heard for many years. You're not being ambitious enough. You're not being ambitious enough. So, I don't know when the change happened. It was maybe like two or three years ago. It just really accelerated. And literally, I have not heard that in several years. The messaging worked. And I mean, two industries that are inherently international, at least these days, AI and consumer, right? You often don't think of like a country -based AI model, or in some cases consumer applications, but still the big ones obviously are international.

12:29So let's talk about those because France has become a leader in some ways in both. And so starting with AI, we're seeing companies like Mistral leading the charge. What do you think is yielding that kind of representation? This will be a maybe a surface level observation, but I go back into what is AI. Because ultimately it's numbers, it's math. And I think there is a little bit of difference between AI and consumer in that regard where consumer can be about culture, taste, UX, and design aesthetics. AI is a little bit more around the technical prowess. You actually understand the math underlying it.

13:08And if you think back historically, I think France has been extremely strong at producing elite mathematicians. And the schools like Polytechnique are focused also on deepening that technical prowess and and this sort of a arrival of LLM and Chachy PT, et cetera. Just coincides really with a talent and interest, which I think it's not really a surprise to me that one of the biggest fair office was in Paris, right? And that the mistral folks came out of that. In Yanlecun, of course, as well. And then, too, again, like we're talking about last seven years, but the infra, the idea, the direction towards globally expanding, that's all been set as a foundational pieces.

13:51And then now you have this wave that's happening. I think the dealer line for AI is mass and numbers where we do have strong technical doubt. The underlying for consumer today might be taste. And if you look at the city we live in, it's the epicenter of fashion, arts, a lot of crazy brands. This is what we're inspired by on a daily basis. I come out of this office and there is fashionistas industry doing exhibitions. there's an exhibition within 42's on campus where there's banksies on the wall. So we are emerged in that culture that I think leads to consumer, provokes great design talent. You add also engineering to that and the equation becomes really strong.

14:38And in the last five years, we added funding, which was the one thing that was back in the days missing. In my own case, one of the reasons why it made sense back then to join SNAP, because if you wanted to do an IPO in an architagory, you would have to raise billion, a billion and a half, the snapped interest in others had gone prior to us, and that seemed impossible with very few growth funds locally and with the level of ambition to enable that. This has changed. Thanks for having us on the spot, Gast. This is a perfect example of that. I so agree with the culture piece. I think I told a couple people, and like, what's different for French consumer founders than my theory was, well, look, like how many countries in the world export culture?

15:17And if you think of consumer product as like a cultural force, then honestly, think about how many companies can actually even export culture and is not a net importer of US Hollywood or French fashion. And I think we are left with very few countries. And again, I do think you need the funding. I think you need the technical talent, but from that standpoint, there just aren't that many countries in the world that can export culture. This is also the shift. On to when I'm sure when you guys were launching Xen, like nobody was talking about consumer and France, you guys were the only ones. So what's changed?

15:51Why are we going to consumer now? I think we've had the lack of seeing of shoe successful companies paving the way. And yeah, then he is probably one of them. We've had MWM, VWDU, we're both massive publishers. Mindy was at the origin of TikTok. The design was invented locally by art students. And so these companies have shown that it's possible and have succeeded. No one yet was an HBO, so no home run, but some of us have gone to like first base, second base. And so there is everyone wanting to compete and go further than this, which leads to today, where it's here's possible to, by generation, the generation after.

16:34And so there's more and more new, cool consumer products coming out. We're talking about 10, 10, the labs these days, and there's more coming in the same direction with former team members from all of these companies, Excel, who leads back in as a former Zenitim members and that enables the scale that was harder for Zenit back in the day. And we're also seeing a little bit of mafianess, right? Zenit mafia, stupufflix, mafia or photorume. That's right. So it's just very interesting to see the cons of a mafia. Like, there are places where that doesn't exist. Like in Korea, where I'm very familiar with, there's no cons of a mafia.

17:10There will be one day. One day. They were like a prerequisite for a lot of the founders wanting to build the next thing. Korea has produced great ones too. This is your kawaii talk. They were there's a few good examples. Absolutely. Are you guys seeing people from those mafia's go on and create consumer applications once more or if we're seeing more integration more of the crossover as founders go for round two. So we have a little over 50 % of our founders that are repeat founders at station F. It's grown considerably in the last few years. And what I've noticed is second time founders, they either go for something related to their first domain because they have better insights and experience and the connections, but I'm also seeing a lot of people really going more for impact.

17:57There'll be a lot of people that will say my first company, we built this, it was great, but now is my chance to really make a mark. And so there's a lot more of these kind of experience profiles going for climate -related projects, health -related projects, education -related projects. You know, people are quick to label, right? People think of Boston for healthcare, they think of New York for finance, but obviously every city, every country has a medley of things, and perhaps there are things that are more underground that folks who live there know, oh, actually we're not just good at consumer, we're not just good at AI, we're good at many other things.

18:31Cures, if you're seeing other things where France actually has a lot of strength, but other people may not know that quite yet. I don't think StationF represents the entire French ecosystem, particularly well, because we're obviously attracting people based on the infrastructure we have. So we don't have a ton of bio, but I think health is a space where France really shines and we're seeing a lot of, even with regards to AI, a lot of really interesting things in the health space. Obviously, AI, we've seen just all sectors, all fields, B2B historically has been a very strong superfrans. So a ton of really interesting B2B applications.

19:04We also have decided that we want to double down on two sectors where we feel France is well positioned to lead. But I would say quantum computing. We have some excellent Nobel prizes in France. I think this is an ecosystem. If you want to talk about community like that is a really tight -knit community. You can count the quantum companies probably on both hands, but they all know each other. They all work together. So we have a quantum program on campus, probably the only one in Europe. climate because I feel like the regulation in Europe is very well positioned to accelerate these businesses and we're seeing a lot of really interesting climate -related innovations, female health solutions, things that are in the FEMTEX space, more stuff in that area here.

19:45Plus one on that one I think I would add when you look at the panorama of scale ups and companies that really have a go at world domination at some point, which funders and teams that are ambitious enough to do that. In FinTech, we have a squad of repeat founders that are so driven have made significant exits the first time and started looking to do massive ones the second time or never actually exit. I think of Ivan first, I think of Memo Bank, I think of Kato in the age of insurance space. I am a journal, Iberian, Jean -Charles, and Charles from Allen, who I think have a goal at one of the biggest companies in the world, their recent game insurance through AI and this whole group is repeat founders who have succeeded ones are going at existing industries, are executing super well.

20:38Anton, you mentioned John Charles and that actually reminded me of something. One thing that I always have a question on in regards to sort of founders in France is the balance between commerciality, IE, I want to make money. I want to go public. I want to build this giant thing. Versus, oh, I want to have a great impact on the world, which is obviously noble and amazing, and it's a mission for a lot of folks. I want to build something beautiful. I want to build something that gives me joy and satisfaction when people use it. Those two are not necessarily at odds. Of course, but I tend to see a little more folks like focusing on like impact, beauty, like the sort of satisfaction, the internal sort of, oh wow, like I built something beautiful versus less -gaming money.

21:26And I do think there are few folks and when you say John Charles, that's like, oh, like he's in that account. What would you say to that? He's also in the healthcare and the founder and story behind Alan is also his first like solving house in a country where a lot of it's deficit and structural balance goes into solving house if he takes impartially solved that. So it's both noble and yeah, definitely if he wants to build a massive business, you know, he finishes his investor reports saying he wants to build the biggest company in the world. And he has the ambition and the courage to actually stay that and he's executing in that direction.

22:05So I think this is also something that changed where it was dirty in France to say that a few years ago it still is in parts. I was very well perceived by everyone until then he exited and then said to me I was a bad guy because we had made money. I think that's changing and there's more respect for the way that can also be utilized for public good. And when you look at All of these stories, the tie in between every single story which is discussed, whether it's station F -42, AI inference, then the end of the divestiny to be funded at the stage when no one else wanted to give money is one entrepreneur or one founder pushing in all directions.

22:48He was an elephant in the room that I was going to talk about at some point. So I'm glad you brought that up. But I do think on time said something that's definitely not to be ignored. There's a culture element to talking about money in France. That's not the same as in the US. And I think within the ecosystem, it's much more accepted to talk about raising money, going after money, making money. I don't think within the entrepreneurial community, it's particularly taboo. But I think outside of this community, the general public, that is very much the case, which means that when people are talking about their businesses, openly they're not going to be saying that as much.

23:28And that permeates who people's role models are, what fields they go into, whether they're willing to start businesses. But another key driver in addition to talent is, of course, the government strategy and what message is there sending as well. So maybe we can pivot to that. I mentioned a little bit earlier the country last year published a national AI strategy, but you also have private businesses, you have Microsoft, for example, announcing an additional $4 billion for data centers and other AI investment in France. But then you also have, for example, the EU reaching a deal on AI regulation that some people are debating may actually stifle that innovation.

24:03So I'd love to hear this group's perspective on how regulation is playing a role here. As an outsider, I view recent policy towards the tech ecosystem as being very encouraging. They're seeing the impact that these businesses can have. They're seeing the impact that having these businesses on your shore and representing the country to some extent What they can do to the national image of talent coming back to your country and building something creating value within your borders where we're seeing it from the top right it's almost as if somebody listens to like always time to build and the Trans -edition and so I get pretty excited about that and I've seen the concrete benefit right like I mentioned the BPI loan that I We do know that changes the calculus for initial funding for a lot of startup founders because it's a non -deluda funding and it enables them to think through the initial inflow of funds a little differently from other ecosystem.

25:00I think that's interesting. I also know that there's a real concrete economic benefit for AI companies to relocate or build in France. You know, all these things are so connected. But on the launch of Station F, we had sold them, he enjoyed Snap a couple of months prior, and Roxanne invited me to the private tour before the day of the launch with the president, which I met for the first time that day. We tell him does any story, he learns the word divot, which he uses in his speech, and our later along the way one of his cabinet members who led digital strategy for France for maybe five years afterwards, comes to me and says, was, hey, I work with the president, I'd love to understand where we can do better.

25:44We've been very lucky. We've had political momentum. We need to transform that into economic momentum and we need to deliver. These are his exact words that day. And he invited me over and a few other entrepreneurs to get feedback. And they did that continuously over the last seven, eight years. A lot of that led to reforms, led to encouragement, led to fixing a few things that made it harder to be an entrepreneur in France and elsewhere. Today, as a French founder, I don't see a reason to build a company and a team elsewhere unless 100 % of your market is in another location. But even then, the excess $2000, you have locally the local encouragement, the support, makes it a very easy equation to actually stay in France and Belgium here.

26:30I can't help but agree with everything that's been said, but I do think we have to make a distinction because we talked about also AI policy on a European level. So I think when you look at the French government specifically, I can pretty much only say positive things about what's happened. And some of the groundwork was laid pre -Mac home, but I think he really came in. I mean, this story from what Antoin said, I remember that speech that he gave me, we're like, oh my god, pivot. He heard that tenacity. But yeah, I think the thing is, he really understood, he really connected, he grasped it. But he also pushed the government to be close to the entrepreneurs.