Upside is a weekly show that connects the dots behind the headlines affecting European venture, startups and investing.

The Big Boring Budget, Anthropic Goes Public & Are VCs Dangerous? Mads is back from Milan. Dan last went 30 years ago and mostly saw the industrial estate.

01:20 The Budget
Expectations were set so low that "not terrible" got a standing ovation. Founders' Relief brings back 10% CGT on up to £10m, for roughly 400 companies a year, and it's paid for by halving BADR. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. The British Business Bank gets £5bn. Small beans next to the US. Mads says we're spending like drunken sailors. Dan borrows a tax policy from Jimmy Carr. Please don't punch him on the nose.

15:20 Anthropic Files to List
The IPO we've banged on about all year is finally happening. It comes with an operating profit, a $66bn paper loss, and 900% net revenue retention. Enjoy that while it lasts. Mads backs into a $2tn valuation on an envelope. Verdict: not completely crazy.

23:00 Are Cloud Margins Holding?
Revenue up, share prices down. Markets gonna market. Plus rumours that Google is tweaking its ad auctions to squeeze the lemon, and Oracle's dream gets better while its credit rating doesn't.

29:40 Living in a Trustless World
Alibaba's Qwen tries to phone home to Beijing, once in 100,000 runs. Businesses run 10m a week. Do the maths. Portfolio company Hirundo finds Qwen writes leakier code when the client is a Western government. Charming. Anduril builds an all-American laptop, Mads reminds us Europe made PCs once (expensive, rubbish), and Mistral drops Large 4. Would Germany use a French model? Mads: we're family, stop being fussy.

39:45 Are VCs Dangerous?
Nik Storonsky says investors without operating experience are. He's since launched his own VC fund. Surprise, surprise. Mads on the power law paper: like getting cross about gravity. Dan proposes a fund where nobody wins. LPs, form an orderly queue.

46:15 Deal of the Week
Enact Intelligence, Zurich. A $30m pre-seed (yes, pre-seed) for robots that feel force, not just see. A mill doesn't buy many robots these days.

48:10 Week Ahead
Apple (Dan predicts an AI story, just not yet), the US midterms, AMD and Arm, the Bank of England, then the Anthropic roadshow. Dun dun dun.