Notebook
The Benefit of Ambition
Why ambition is the unlock towards Europe's technological success
By Madelene Larsson
t Giant, we back founders on both sides of the Atlantic. My weeks span conversations across San Francisco, New York, the UK, the Nordics, and the rest of Europe. Different time zones. Different cultures. Very different attitudes toward ambition.
In Europe, I often meet strong founders, especially technical ones, building solid, credible companies. But when I ask them to imagine a future where anything is possible, they frequently describe a drastically different idea than the one they are working on. When I push them on why they aren’t building that idea instead I am often met with surprise followed by a defense that it would 'be too hard' or that ‘those ideas are not the ones that get funding’. And yet, most of the world's most successful founders were told at some stage that their ideas were unrealistic or insane. This should not be a reason not to build it.
One founder once told me about his research on 3D-printed batteries manufactured in space. The idea he was working on? An app to track health data from an Apple Watch. The delta between what people are capable of achieving, and what they think is possible for themselves, is huge.
In Europe, I often speak with top-tier PhDs who leave world-class research behind to become technical co-founders on someone else’s idea with incremental impact and limited scale. Europe has exceptional talent, so it’s not about capability, it’s about the default setting for ambition.
Meanwhile in the US, I regularly meet people who chose their PhD topic or first job strategically, as a stepping stone toward building something big and ambitious. They pitch vertical farming on the moon without blinking. They optimize for scale from day one.
The Compounding Effect of High Ambition
I recently listened to a podcast with Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, that stayed with me:
“If you have really high ambitions, you achieve great things even if you fail. If you have low ambitions, you achieve nothing even if you succeed."
Ambition compounds. Even failed attempts at something bold build talent, networks, and technological leverage. Incremental success at small ideas rarely does.
I was fortunate to work at Revolut where I saw first hand what audacious ambition and treating barriers as temporary looks like. Revolut was not alone in their category, but the ambition and speed of experimentation was extreme and that intensity compounds. It’s not surprising that Revolut is now Europe’s most valuable tech company, far above those early peers.
Ambition is an infectious quality that raises the bar for everyone. You move faster, you take uncomfortable bets and persist through challenges.
The Role of Early-Stage Capital
A big part of our job as VCs in the earliest stages when companies are just getting started is to make sure that people set the bar high enough and show them what’s possible.
There are many good ideas and there are many good founders. But good rarely creates outsized value and impact. As the Norges CEO also puts it:
“If you’re just like everyone else, you won’t make much money”.
In venture terms: you won’t build something that truly matters (and you won’t make money).
Europe's Ambition Gap
Europe doesn’t lack talent. But we may lack a level of cultural permission to be unreasonably ambitious. I would love to see a trend of more Europeans unlocking their inner crazy ambitions instead of optimising for what ‘makes sense’, ‘is possible at a low effort’ or what's perceived to be ‘backable’. Changing that default might be the single highest leverage opportunity for the next generation of European founders.
So how do you do that? In my opinion the first step is identifying your obsession and what brings you joy rather than chasing external markers, and embrace the discomfort. Build the thing that feels absurd, be willing to look strange to your peers and set the bar uncomfortably high. Reframe failure: it’s not an endpoint but feedback for growth, don’t fear it.
Some of the biggest tech companies were built from one founder's obscure obsession and ability to persist in a state of discomfort for longer than most. That’s where real value, and real impact, is built.
