Global lessons from a Spanish start-up

In July, the Spanish AI/quantum firm Multiverse Computing became a European unicorn. It announced it had almost closed its €500m funding round, which would value it at around €2bn post-money.

When I joined as its senior adviser in April 2022, the firm had only 30 employees and two locations: its headquarters in San Sebastian and an office in Toronto, Canada, whose first client was the Bank of Canada.

With more than 400 staff representing over 45 nationalities and operations in more than ten locations, including San Francisco and Qatar, what lessons can start-ups glean from the firm’s trajectory? 

Government support

The Basque city, best known for its culinary scene, was not an obvious place to establish a frontier technology firm. Enrique Lizaso, the co-founder and CEO told me he attributes it to the San Sebastian city council and the Basque government’s vision and political will in courting the start-up in its early days to coax it to begin its corporate journey in San Sebastian.

“They understood that the Basque Country needed a competitive new industry to be based there. They took a serious risk on small companies – they bet resources on firms that might fail,” he said.

In the ensuing years, the government’s business-friendly policies and its ability to react quickly to the demands of deep technology companies kept the firm anchored in the Basque Country.

Now, in 2026, a northern region of Spain with a population of only 2.2 million hosts a thriving quantum, AI and biotech community, its strength reflected in IBM’s decision to install its most advanced quantum computer in San Sebastian rather than in a larger city like Barcelona.

Flexibility is a must

Clad in his signature waistcoat, jacket and bowtie, Lizaso warned startups against focusing on a particular solution – flexibility is a must – and says it is key to “pay attention to what is happening around you”.

Multiverse Computing began its journey concentrating on quantum algorithms for finance. Its commercial mindset led it to ask customers what they needed – something that many start-ups led by academics fail to do – while figuring out how this would fit with the wave of AI sweeping the world.

The consequence was technology born out of quantum and AI that can compress large language models (LLMs), reducing the computing resources needed to run them.

It is a solution to one of the biggest problems facing the world: the massive energy use and cost of LLMs. Already in 2024, data centres consumed more energy than the entire annual electricity of the UK, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The institution expects that to double by 2030.

Consider contingencies

Multiverse is concentrating on the demand for energy-efficient solutions that can continue operating in military or political conflict. This means enabling AI ‘on the edge’. “No one thinks of using a mobile phone without AI, but it can’t be on the cloud [for security and cost reasons],” said Lizaso.

Companies are becoming more aware of the possibility of both Wi-Fi and access to the cloud being cut off, either by an enemy or, potentially, by an executive order from the US government. Most major cloud providers are American.

Consider complementary skills

Lizaso also advises startups to ensure their founders have different talents. Lizaso’s background is in banking and medicine, while his co-founders bring expertise in areas including quantum computing, technology, marketing and entrepreneurship.

The four founders worked together for a couple of years before starting Multiverse Computing, another important component on the human side, and “we have fun together [outside the office]”, said Lizaso.

Consider culture

That is where San Sebastian’s reputation for great food comes in. It has the highest concentration of Michelin-starred restaurants per capita in the world, plus mouth-watering local pintxos bars. All four founders share a love of good food and good wine. Yet another reason to maintain Multiverse Computing’s headquarters in the seaside city, and for quantum-AI start-ups to be open to surprising locations.

Can teaching social skills improve social mobility?

Social mobility has stalled in America and Britain. And since the COVID-19 pandemic many young people face new disadvantages hindering their educational and professional prospects. Could social skills be the key to improving their opportunities, and kickstarting social mobility? Karina Robinson looks at the arguments for businesses and governments investing in how we interact with each other.

The Cambridge Business Dictionary defines “small talk” as “polite conversation about things that are not important.” What this does not tell you is that it is a learnable skill, and the key to unlocking the door to professional advancement.

At a meeting on social mobility hosted by the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, the boss of an investment firm said about discussing art, philosophy and books that she hadn’t read, “I was smart enough to do the job but lost my voice in those conversations.”

Nicole Williams wasn’t intimidated by the legal knowledge and intelligence necessary for the high-powered job she held. She, and many others, are intimidated by the social prerequisites and what she called the ‘’unspoken rules of the City.”

It is time to put social skills front and centre in all social mobility policies. Not least because low economic growth, the COVID-19 pandemic and artificial intelligence (AI) are leading to ever worse outcomes for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Social mobility is getting worse

According to Britain’s Department for Education the latest results of GCSEs, the exams at the end of secondary schools in England and Wales, show a disadvantage gap index at 3.92. The index, which tracks the difference in educational outcomes for those from different backgrounds, is close to the highest it has been in a decade. It had previously dropped to a low of 3.66 in 2019 and 2020. The pandemic and lack of school funding then set it on an upward trend.

The freezing of social mobility extends beyond Britain. According to Opportunity Insights, 90 per cent of Americans born in 1940 earned more than their parents but children born in the mid-1980s only have a 50 per cent chance of doing so.

Opportunity Insights promotes policy changes to revive the “American dream” of social mobility, such as subsidised housing vouchers to help parents move neighbourhoods.  But while their experiment was successful, such interventions are too expensive for governments to fund on a large scale.

AI is set to exacerbate social inequality. AI-driven productivity boosts are likely to be skewed towards high-income rather than lower-wage workers, argues Sam Manning of the Brookings Institution, and AI-driven automation could increase the share of income going to capital at the expense of labour. What does this mean? That the wealthier in society will benefit from the productivity gains, while the poorer will lose out.

Additionally, large language models learn from existing data, worsening biases in models that are being used ever more widely for credit decisions and recruitment.

How social skills can improve social mobility

The British government’s Schools White Paper, published in February, aims to halve the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers over the next decade.

Speaking about the planned reforms Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, called them “a golden opportunity to cut the link between background and success”. But the reality is not so simple.

Governments and charity programmes aiming to boost social mobility do have an impact. And companies aiming to increase the social diversity of their workforce are told to create wider hiring paths, internal social mobility networks and extra training in hard skills. A report by The Inclusion Initiative at LSE, in association with bank HSBC and Progress Together, a social mobility charity, created a five-point blueprint to change management behaviour. These include making unwritten rules explicit, reviewing any biases in advancement opportunities and making a concerted effort to ensure diverse voices are heard in meetings.

But none of these interventions focus on a realistic solution to the biggest issue in social mobility at work: networking is as important as school, apprenticeship or professional qualifications.

Grace Lordan of The Inclusion Initiative notes that workers from lower socio-economic backgrounds often lack “web of contacts”, such as networks and mentors, that help others advance. She calls for companies and schools to explicitly teach these soft skills to all colleagues and students – from small talk to approaching senior colleagues – to level the playing field.

Lifelong learning at work is a necessity in our accelerated world

Businesses are generally eager for their staff to take courses ranging from AI to compliance.  It is time to add networking to the mix.

Training in social skills is not the equivalent of denying a social background. Instead, it teaches how to change the subject to an area of mutual interest, how to approach a senior figure in the workplace and how to build your network.

Jon Hammant, who ran a $6 billion business for Amazon Web Services, described a time when, during a meeting at a consulting firm, “the other managing directors were discussing their weekend grouse shooting plans. Growing up in social housing, the only shootings I’d ever heard about were of a very different kind. That cultural gap doesn’t close on its own – we need to teach people how to navigate the room, not just hope they figure it out.”

Why is teaching social skills important?

Education in social skills is not new. John D. Rockefeller claimed that the ability to deal with people is “as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee” and hugely valuable. And for hundreds of years finishing schools taught upper class girls how to behave in social situations.

But the training that I am suggesting will help others, such as pandemic-era students whose communication skills, whatever their background, are underdeveloped; the shy; and those with mild autism. Bill Gates credits his sociable mother with forcing her withdrawn, geeky son to interact with adults, a skill that proved invaluable in his interaction with powerful individuals, ultimately leading to the creation of one of the most valuable companies in the world. 

So an added benefit to the training will be transitioning from fear to finding enjoyment in social occasions that are intrinsic to a career and, just as much, to life.

Lessons for the workforce from the oldest person in the room

In a low-growth, low-productivity, low-birth rate era, with the pensions time bomb ticking away, keeping people working longer is crucial. But older workers are often overlooked for recruitment or promotion due to prejudice and ageism. Karina Robinson writes about her own experience and says that the problem risks getting worse, as more than half of today’s 5-year-olds in developed economies will live to at least 100.

One day you glance up from your iPhone and you are the oldest person in the room. Dyed hair, a deliberate exercise regime and good genes are not enough to spare you. Gravity may now be your constant companion but there is a delight to being older than the CEO, the head of sales, the head of growth and all the other titles spread like confetti. Everyone assumes a wisdom born of experience.

At a recent two-day retreat with Multiverse Computing, a company whose board I advise, colleagues in their early 30s, and even middle-aged ones, sidled up to ask for career advice or how to deal with internal political concerns. The reading glasses I now must wear may be a pain, but they are also a useful accessory to fidget with while considering the dilemmas of employees at a quantum software firm.

The liberation from ego is not fully accomplished – presumably that Buddhist goal only happens when we are dead – but what the French call ‘je m’en foutisme’, which can be loosely translated as ‘I couldn’t give a damn’, is certainly prevalent. At a London School of Economics alumni gathering, having been given the post-lunch slot for a keynote, I figured there was only one way to wake up the audience: perform a haka like the New Zealand All Blacks. All 5 feet 2 inches of me (1.6 metres) did so; only one Argentine alumnus was able to identify my wild manoeuvrings on stage; no one slept through my speech.

The absurdity of the human condition, of our petty ambitions in a vast universe, come home to roost, as mortality feels more and more like a reality, rather than a distant dream. Making a fool of yourself becomes increasingly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things – good training for a non-executive director in asking the question that no one else dares bring up, or one that may, actually, turn out to be foolish. But one stupid question does not negate a long career.

Women over 50 are the fastest growing segment of the UK workforce, while globally in 2021 this group equalled 26% of all women, up from 22% a decade earlier, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). They are often overlooked for recruitment or promotion due to prejudice and ageism. Yet the problem also extends to ageing men, and it will only become worse. In the wealthiest nations, experts predict that more than half of today’s 5-year-olds will live to at least 100.

In a low growth, low productivity, low birth rate era, with the pensions time bomb ticking away, keeping people working longer is crucial. Britt Harris, CEO of the US’s largest endowment fund, recently told the FT that ageing executives should ‘move out of the way’ for younger generations. But the leader of the University of Texas and Texas A&M endowment system is missing a trick.

What we need is more people over 60 staying in work, not least because age diversity directly benefits performance via enriched knowledge, skills and social networks. At the LSE’s The Inclusion Initiative (TII), we’ve been considering how the workplace needs to change to attract and accommodate the older worker.

Rather than thinking only about “age-specific steps”, employers need to focus on benefits that accrue to all, but may be especially relevant to older workers, such as more flexibility and more training at work. The policies aimed at those with disabilities, like wellness programmes and meeting protocols (for example, making slides available before meetings) have benefited all employees, notes TII Researcher Daniel Jolles. Age-inclusive HR policies create more inclusive policies for all workers.

The ‘Great Retirement’ of 50+-year-olds saw the UK and other developed countries lose their older workforce post pandemic. In the UK, this movement has not been reversed and is a key factor in the worker shortage holding back the economy. According to think tank Phoenix Insights, 16 per cent of 50 to 64-year-olds that have left work since 2019 blame long-term sickness or disability for being economically inactive. Here, better provision of health support for long-term conditions is crucial, albeit unrealistic given the state of the NHS in the UK and of the straining health systems of other countries.

Meanwhile, 57 per cent of those in their late 50s say they are not looking for work because they are retired or looking after family. This rises to 68 per cent among those in their early 60s. My generation is burdened with taking care of ageing parents in their 80s and 90s, as older life is extended but with its consequent mental and physical vulnerabilities, while also increasingly taking care of grandchildren due to the astronomical cost of childcare and the two-working-parent family. “Employers urgently need to get serious about offering flexible working that fits alongside other pressures and priorities in people’s lives,” notes Catherine Foot, Director of Phoenix Insights.

One way for employers to tempt older workers back is through signing up to the Centre for Ageing Better’s Age-Friendly Employer Pledge. Signing the Age Pledge signals that the unique needs of an older workforce will be catered to – even if some of them are not dissimilar to those of other groups. When a firm celebrates Pride Month in June it is sending a signal to LGBT+ employees and potential employees that their unique needs will be catered to. It is not an onerous pledge. Measures include identifying a senior sponsor for age-inclusion, ensuring age is specifically named within Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policies, encouraging career development at all ages, and hiring age-positively.

An article in the Harvard Business Review focused on how multi-generational teams “bring together people with complementary abilities, skills, information and networks.” Given that we currently have a mind-boggling five generations in the workforce, this is not without age-related misconceptions and conflict, which need to be handled. But the interaction can be a game-changer. The article gives the example of the development of the first low-cost open-source metal 3D printer by the Open Sustainability Technology Lab at Michigan Technological University. Former director Joshua Pearce credits the team’s success to members’ willingness to learn from those of other generations, including “the technical skills of Gen X faculty, the software wizardry of Millennial graduate students, and the experienced resourcefulness of Boomer researchers.”

Seventy-six-year-old Elton John hobbled onto the stage at the Glastonbury music festival in June. As the aerial cameras panned over the crowd – so large it caused a Twitter storm – every young person, as well as the middle aged, sang along to 1970 hits like ‘Candle in the Wind.’ Most appropriate though, was ‘I’m still standing’, which he played from a sitting position.