Episode Details

In this episode, I welcome Ambassador Stacey Feinberg, U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg, for a discussion on what draws American companies and capital to Luxembourg, from funds and space to the way founders pitch on both sides of the Atlantic.

We talked about:

• Why Luxembourg: a financial hub with $9 trillion in funds, a third of them from the United States, that she says runs like a startup, and the conversation in which, she recalls, President Donald Trump told her he had 18 highly qualified men who wanted the position.
• How she negotiates: never one and done, building relationships and trust so that people want to work with her again, and her conviction that diplomacy is all about trust.
• The move of American companies to Luxembourg: listed companies opening an EU office to passport throughout Europe, SES making an expensive and slow industry fast and far cheaper with startups like Apex, Blue Origin's European headquarters and HawkEye 360's European hub.
• Where security starts to limit openness: doing business with China, keeping the dialogue open, being prepared for a country that is not a democracy and not transparent, and sharing information with friends in other countries, for example on a company registered as a European company that is not.
• The nonstop flight between Luxembourg and New York, every day of the week on United, which she names as what she is proudest of after one year, and the business plan she presented to get it: board meetings do not arrange their schedules around Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• The funding gap for women founders and 33 Capital, which she started with her own money: the odds she accepts, with eight out of ten startups that don't make it and one 20x that pays for all the others, and Cooler Heads, a first check for a portable device that freezes the head during chemotherapy, now in 165 chemotherapy centers in the United States.
• Why European founders are not ready for the United States: public speaking taught at seven years old, risk-taking and failing fast against a failure that is, in her words, like a death sentence in Europe, and her advice to let someone else give the pitch if English is a struggle.

A direct conversation with a businesswoman turned diplomat on what makes Luxembourg attractive to American companies and on what separates American and European founders.

Ambassador's recommendation:

All-In podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@allin

Useful links

Stacey Feinberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacey-feinberg-497643141/

Website: https://lu.usembassy.gov/

Finscale is also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@finscale.

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