by Tiffany Krumins, founder, Opu Probiotics

One franchise can be fun to run. Three can feel like hell—until you figure out how to navigate that treacherous stretch of growth, and build a truly thriving business.

The top 50 undergraduate and top 50 graduate schools, as ranked by entrepreneur and the princeton review.

Founders are often terrible at hiring. We have 40 years’ worth of data on how to do it right.

Want to impress an investor like Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec? You must know what he’s looking for—and it’s not what you’d expect.

ALEX KARP AND I would not seem to have much in common. I work for WIRED, which does tough reporting on Trumpworld; Karp is the CEO of Palantir, a $450 billion firm that has contracts with agencies like the CIA and ICE and worked for the Israeli military during its campaign in Gaza.

IN CASE OPENAI’S structure couldn’t get any weirder—a nonprofit in charge of a for-profit that’s become a public benefit corporation—it now has two CEOs. There’s Sam Altman, chief executive of the whole company, who manages research and compute.

For the past five years, the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and UAE (United Arab Emirates) in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, have been betting on technology to diversify their economies from the oil sector.

Zurich is carving out its place as a startup hub where academic brilliance meets entrepreneurial grit. Labs at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) spun out 37 startups in 2024 alone, many rooted in cutting-edge AI and biotech.

In March 2025, Stockholm-based batterymaker Northvolt declared bankruptcy, hailing what some saw as the downsizing of a local cleantech boom. But the city has pivoted, and become renowned for producing some of Europe’s fastest-growing AI startups, such as Lovable and Legora.

While France’s politics seems to teeter on the brink of chaos, it’s very much stable when it comes to business: Europe’s third-largest economy has long embraced a culture of entrepreneurship.

Spain’s startup scene has more than doubled in value since 2020 and now exceeds €110 billion, according to Dealroom.co, and Madrid remains at its center. VC investment reached €1.

38.7223° N, 9.1393° W LISBON Noxus cofounders João Pedro Almeida and Jorge Pessoa. In spite of Portugal’s constant political upheaval—May 18 saw the third snap general election in just three years—Portugal’s tech economy continues to punch above its weight, with the country recording one of the highest rates of unicorns per capita in the world, ahead of France, Germany, and the Netherlands. “A new generation of startups with global ambitions are scaling rapidly and proving it’s possible to

Helsinki’s startup scene is outperforming the European investment slowdown, with Finnish startups raising $1.4bn in 2024, up from $900m in 2023. US money is a big player—only $400m came from local funds.

Dublin saw a record-breaking first quarter in 2025, with €634 million raised by local startups. The city has a highly skilled workforce, but early-stage funding remains sluggish.

According to Atomico’s 2024 State of European Tech report, Berlin startups raised over $42 billion between 2015 and 2024—outpacing Paris, Stockholm, and Munich. And for yet another year, the German capital made Atomico’s list of the world’s top ten tech hubs.

Despite rising interest rates and economic uncertainty, Dutch startups are bucking Europe’s cooling investment climate. While startup funding across the continent fell by 5 percent since 2023, according to Techleap’s annual report, Dutch companies defied the downturn, raising €3.

On May 19, five years after the UK left the EU, the British government announced a wide-ranging deal with the European Commission which included a deal for British travelers that would allow them to use European e-gates at the border.

Carney will turbocharge trade in the wake of Trump tariff woes, while workers will reluctantly come back to the office—that is, if they can find jobs at all