Welcome to Beyond Big Tech: A Founder's Journey to Digital Sovereignty — a new monthly podcast from Tom Breza and Wojtek Kołodziejczak asking one question: can you actually build or rebuild a business on European and open-source tech, without sacrificing quality, cost, or reliability?

Tom brings 30 years in tech and is currently moving his IT and cybersecurity business, Operum.tech, away from US Big Tech infrastructure, one layer at a time. Wojtek — a former lawyer and business developer turned AI governance expert — is on the opposite path, learning the technical side as he goes while building a brand-new company designed to be sovereign from day one. Two founders, two starting points, the same stakes.

In this first episode, Tom opens up his journey: how he's going through every corner of his personal and business life to identify exactly where Big Tech is embedded, then testing replacements from European providers and other non–Big Tech options — starting with a more sovereign phone. Every tool gets held to the same three questions the whole show is built on: Is it as good? Is it worth the money? Can I actually rely on it? Nothing gets a pass just because it's European, and nothing gets ruled out just because it's American — if it doesn't measure up, they'll say so.

Tom sets the stakes for the next 12 months: how far can he actually get from Big Tech before it costs him quality, time, or money — and is real independence even possible?

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Next episode: Tom shares his early findings and a full list of the Big Tech touchpoints he's uncovered — the map for everything that follows.

New episodes weekly. For CTOs, CIOs, and founders thinking about vendor lock-in, data sovereignty, and what Europe's tech alternatives actually look like in practice.