AI Startup CEO Reveals What Really Kills AI Projects
Beyond Coding1 Loka 2025

AI Startup CEO Reveals What Really Kills AI Projects

What if the biggest obstacles to AI innovation aren't what you think? Deeploy CEO Maarten Stolk shares his controversial but effective strategies for building successful AI products and ecosystems, challenging the common wisdom around bottom-up initiatives and regulation.


In this episode, we cover:


Why bottom-up initiatives fail without strong top-down vision.

The surprising benefits of the EU's AI Act for innovation.

How to build a thriving AI ecosystem from the ground up.

The single most important metric for AI observability.

This conversation is for tech leaders, founders, and engineers who want to move beyond AI experiments and build real-world, production-ready systems.


Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:45 - Why Maarten Started a Dutch AI Hub

00:02:15 - The "Flywheel" Effect Crucial for AI Success

00:04:42 - The Hard Truth: Why the Netherlands is Lagging in AI

00:07:52 - A Controversial Take: The EU AI Act is Actually Good for Everyone

00:11:26 - The Real Bottleneck to Innovation Isn't Regulation

00:14:25 - From POC to Production: Why Top-Down Vision is Non-Negotiable

00:17:13 - A Wake-Up Call for Inexperienced Leadership Teams

00:20:30 - How Winning Companies Use AI to Dominate Their Market

00:23:44 - The Right Way to Learn From Your Competitors

00:27:30 - Maarten Outsourced Core Development to an AI Company

00:31:59 - The #1 Metric You Must Track for AI Observability

00:36:03 - Open-Source vs. Closed-Source: Which AI Model Will Win?

00:40:23 - The Inevitable Crisis That Will Force Innovation

00:42:19 - The Power of Having a Long-Term Personal Vision


#AIStrategy #TechLeadership #Innovation


Jaksot(238)

The importance of communication and teamwork at global scale with Rein Droog

The importance of communication and teamwork at global scale with Rein Droog

What really brought Rein Droog and Bugaboo together is Culture. Having that connection, the same principles and shared understanding is the foundation of their success. That doesn’t mean smooth saili...

18 Elo 202146min

Quality in Software Engineering with Dennis Doomen

Quality in Software Engineering with Dennis Doomen

What is quality? Why do we need it? How can we improve it? It's a vague term and people often mean different things with it. But we do know it's important. With over 100 million downloads on his ope...

11 Elo 202156min

Key Takeaways From working at a Startup with Jethro Sloan

Key Takeaways From working at a Startup with Jethro Sloan

Tight budget, fast communication, big impact. Have you ever thought about working at a startup? It’s an environment where you can really put your stamp on a product or solution. Driven by that, my fri...

4 Elo 202147min

Building a life sized rocket with Dennis Meelis

Building a life sized rocket with Dennis Meelis

Dennis is the only guy I know who’s actually built VR and AR software. And it’s not just small stuff… we’re talking rockets! It's a shame that a lot of what VR and AR can do is not accessible to the a...

28 Heinä 202142min

Solving problems without writing code with Evelyn van Kelle

Solving problems without writing code with Evelyn van Kelle

Even without being a kick-ass developer, Evelyn kicks ass. She truly leverages her background and passion for social science to help teams and organisations solve problems without writing code. I d...

21 Heinä 202147min

Helping organizations solve the underlying problems with Alex Thissen

Helping organizations solve the underlying problems with Alex Thissen

Why is it so hard to solve problems sometimes? Well… it takes a certain skill to be able to identify them. The more you do it, the better you get at it, and Alex Thissen is here to guide you on that p...

14 Heinä 202146min

Fixing the biggest problems in software development with Gareth Baars

Fixing the biggest problems in software development with Gareth Baars

Gareth clearly lays out the biggest problems that a lot of us in the software industry will recognise. But why do these problems exist in the first place? The common denominator he identifies is code ...

7 Heinä 20211h 4min

Domain Driven Design with Kenny Baas-Schwegler

Domain Driven Design with Kenny Baas-Schwegler

You might’ve heard of it: Domain Driven Design… But what does it mean exactly? And even if you know what it means, do you know how to apply it… or what parts to apply? Today Kenny Baas-Schwegler is h...

30 Kesä 202147min