Beyond Big Tech asks one question: can you really build a business on European and open-source tech without sacrificing quality, cost, or reliability? Hosts Tom and Wojtek — two founders testing it in real time — talk to entrepreneur Tracy Stewart, who switched to sovereign tools and ended up protecting her clients' privacy and cutting her monthly bill in half. She's written up the full move on LinkedIn — linked below.

📄 Tracy's article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-moved-my-entire-business-off-big-tech-heres-exactly-tracy-stewart-kj4oe/

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Can you actually build — or rebuild — a business on European and open-source tech, without giving up quality, cost, or reliability?

That's the question at the heart of Beyond Big Tech. Each episode, hosts Tom Breza and Wojtek Kołodziejczak put it to the test from opposite directions. Tom has spent 30 years in tech and is migrating his IT and cybersecurity business off US Big Tech, one layer at a time. Wojtek is an AI governance expert building a new company designed to be sovereign from day one. One rebuilding, one starting fresh — same question, same stakes.

This week, they sit down with entrepreneur Tracy Stewart, a France-based book coach and ghostwriter. Tracy was trusting mainstream tools with sensitive client work — until she realised how exposed that data really was. So she made the switch to sovereign alternatives.

The payoff was bigger than she expected: her clients' privacy properly protected, and about €145 off her bill every month — roughly half.

Every tool on this show gets held to three questions: is it as good, is it worth the money, can you actually rely on it? No free passes for being European, no penalty for being American. Tracy's answers might just change how you look at your own stack.

How Big Tech Tracks You (And Why It Matters More Than You Think)

Every time you open an app, browse a website, or even leave your phone in a drawer, someone's watching — and building a profile of you. In this episode, Wojtek and Tom pull back the curtain on how big tech tracks your every move, from device fingerprinting to browser tracking, and explain why "anonymous" data almost never stays anonymous.

They break down:

• How apps track you passively — without ever asking permission
• Why cookie pop-ups are designed to push you toward "accept all"
• How browser fingerprinting identifies you even without logging in
• Why the EU just quietly weakened privacy protections via the Digital Omnibus
• The hidden risk of "shadow AI" in business — and a real case of a £14 million fine for a data breach
• What you can actually do to take back some control

Whether you're a curious individual or a business owner navigating AI and compliance, this episode will change how you think about every "accept" button you click.

🎙️ Beyond Big Tech: A Founder's Journey to Digital Sovereignty

Should your business ditch Windows for Linux? Governments across Europe already are — 2.5 million workstations in France alone. But is it actually the right move for a small or medium business, or just another Munich-style migration disaster waiting to happen?

Wojtek puts the question straight to Tom, an IT and cybersecurity expert who's made the switch himself more than once in 30 years. What follows is an honest, no-BS answer — including one very unglamorous feature that's kept him from ever going back.

🎧 New episode of Beyond Big Tech is out now.