242: Money Talks with Paul Smyth | State of European Tech & VCs | Stablecoins, CBDCs & Privacy | Great Founders vs. Great Markets

Paul Smyth joins me as guest co-host this week, and he is a specialist executive recruiter and executive coach within the fintech industry.  As a founder of two startups, Paul has a unique view on the startup ecosystem.

Paul and I met back in 2017 shortly before I photo-bombed his stand at a fintech event in Dublin, and we’ve collaborated quite a bit since then.  He and his business partner and life partner Laura Smyth from Top Tier Recruitment were the original sponsors of MoneyNeverSleeps back in 2018, and since then, Paul has also launched the Possible.ie executive coaching business that counts me as one of their proud customers.  I was so happy with the outcome of Paul’s coaching of me that I asked him to coach the founders that we bring through the Techstars Web3 accelerator.  As one of the many hats he wears, Paul is a fantastic Coach-in-Residence for Techstars, helping startup founders find their way to positive outcomes.  

In this Money Talks segment, Paul and I kick things off with a look at the recent “State of European Tech 2023” report produced by Atomico, the on-traditional European Venture Capital firm.  We then get into some of the key issues at play with the proposed Digital Euro, and how Central Bank Digital Currency (or CBDC) adoption may be impacted by the context of privacy in personal financial transactions.  This leads us to a rundown on SocGen’s new stablecoin listed on Bitstamp exchange, and we finish with a big question on what matters more in startup success:  great founders or great markets.

STORIES COVERED: 

European tech funding halves to $45 billion, back to pre-Covid levels — but AI is a bright spot (CNBC, 28-Nov-23)

State of European Tech 2023

Fiery Public Hearing on Digital Euro Sees Experts Diverge on Key Issues (CoinDesk, 28-Nov-23)

France’s 3rd-largest bank, Société Générale, launches euro-pegged stablecoin (Cointelegraph, 6-Dec-23)

Reid Hoffman on the Psychology of Great Founders (The Generalist, 5-Dec-23)

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