Growth, but not at all costs

European tech once relentlessly chased growth at all costs, investors then swung hard toward profitability and discipline, until AI made rapid growth cheap to achieve again. How do we define sustainable growth in our current landscape and what does it take to achieve it?

• How has European tech’s relationship with the cost of growth evolved over the past few market cycles?
• Does the source of your capital dictate how disciplined your growth can really be?
• As AI agents start doing the work of multiple employees, the way we’ve measured growth stands to become redundant. What do the growth metrics of the future look like?
• With AI making fast growth spendable again, are token and compute costs becoming this cycle's new version of the excess that burned founders and investors before?