John Thornhill

London

Innovation Editor at Financial Times

Host at Tech Tonic

Innovation editor and tech columnist @FinancialTimes. Founder of @Siftedeu. Ex-deputy editor, Moscow correspondent etc

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Articles

Europe’s 'dumb luck' opportunity in agentic AI

5 days ago | sifted.eu | John Thornhill

The honest answer to the question who’s going to make the most money out of AI agents is: nobody knows. But that’s not stopping a mad scramble of AI startups, backed by trigger-happy investors, rushing to figure it out. Just under half of the startups (67 out of 144) accepted into YCombinator’s first-ever spring batch are AI agent companies of one form or another. All business processes seem up for grabs, ranging from onboarding and payments to customer service and grant applications.
Britain’s moonshot factory has a moment of opportunity

1 week ago | ft.com | John Thornhill

The biggest optimist about the UK I’ve recently met is Ilan Gur. Naturally, he’s American.
We're here to stay

1 week ago | sifted.eu | John Thornhill

When we launched Sifted in 2019, we believed there was a demand for more high-quality, independent news, analysis and business intelligence about Europe’s thriving, but largely overlooked, startup ecosystem. If it was to remain relevant in the world, Europe desperately needed to fire up its innovation engine, boost economic productivity and reassert technological sovereignty. Sifted was here to help.
Best summer books of 2025: Environment, Science and Technology

1 week ago | ft.com | Pilita Clark |Clive Cookson |John Thornhill

Environment by Pilita Clark How We Sold Our Future: The Failure to Fight Climate Change by Jens Beckert, translated by Ray Cunningham...
The world is still crazy about AI

1 week ago | sifted.eu | John Thornhill

If you’re already tired of the AI hype, you might want to turn up the volume on your earbuds. Judging by all the grand pronouncements and corridor chatter about AI at Europe’s splashiest tech events last week, we ain't heard nothing yet. Try this: “Over the next 5 to 10 years these [AI] tools will superpower people. They will be 10x or 100x more productive than they are today. “But this will be fairly mundane compared with what is coming.
Are machines smarter than venture capitalists?

2 weeks ago | ft.com | John Thornhill

One of the trickiest challenges for any honest investor is trying to work out whether they are lucky or smart.
How the UK-France rivalry can help European tech flourish

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | John Thornhill

In That Sweet Enemy, their joyous history of Britain and France, Robert and Isabelle Tombs trace several centuries of antagonism and (occasional) affection between the two countries. It is striking to read how early national stereotypes about each other were formed and how long they have lasted. Queen Victoria found the French so “fickle, corrupt, and ignorant” that it was hopeless to believe they could be sensibly governed.
We need a new deal for the Web

3 weeks ago | businesstimes.com.sg | John Thornhill

GIVEN that Google attracts more than 136 billion visits a month - as many as the next 12 most popular websites combined - it is easy to see how a US federal judge concluded last year that the company ran a monopoly in online search and had abused its market dominance. Last week, Judge Amit Mehta heard the final arguments about what remedies to impose. His conclusions are expected in August. The US justice department, which launched the antitrust lawsuit, is demanding that Google be broken up.
We need a new deal for the web

3 weeks ago | ft.com | John Thornhill

Given that Google attracts more than 136bn visits a month — as much as the next 12 most popular websites combined — it is easy to see how...
Carrots, as well as sticks, can encourage European tech investment

3 weeks ago | sifted.eu | John Thornhill

One of the tropes of our times is that legislation kills innovation. But occasionally it can enable it too. One of the best examples is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act adopted in the US by 1974. The act may sound excruciatingly dull but it is no exaggeration to say it was foundational in creating the US venture capital industry that super-charged the rise of Apple, Google, Facebook and many more.