Wayne Gretzky said “you win by skating to where the puck is going, not where it is“.
In GCC tech, the puck is no longer capital or infrastructure. Money is abundant between sovereign funds, local VCs, and global LPs. World-class products are also plentiful. Tabby scaled from a Dubai startup into a $3.3B BNPL leader. It now serves roughly 15M users and over 40,000 merchants across the region. This growth happened in just a few years. Tabby became MENA’s most valuable fintech. A real “Tabby mafia” is still missing. Recycling operators, angel capital, and playbooks at scale are not established. That flywheel is only just starting to spin.
At the same time, AI is quietly rewriting the rules of blitzscaling.
Lovable hit unicorn status at a $1.8B valuation with around 45 employees. It reached tens of millions of projects. The company achieved more than $70M+ in ARR within months of launch. Business Insider now tracks multiple AI startups valued above $1B with 50 people or fewer. Some teams in the 20–40 range have reached multi‑billion‑dollar valuations. Midjourney and Cursor‑maker Anysphere are often cited as emblematic of this “tiny team, huge outcome” era. In this world, headcount has stopped being a useful proxy for ambition or impact.
That’s why AI founders from Stockholm, San Francisco, and beyond are filling my inbox. They are asking how to plant a flag in Riyadh or Dubai. Their constraint is no longer dollars or GPUs. It is local human capital that can scale with them. They need senior operators who have lived through hypergrowth. They also seek first‑10‑to‑50 employees who are comfortable with chaos, equity, and global ambition.
The GCC wants to be where the puck goes for the next wave of AI IPOs. It aims to eventually mint its own “Tabby mafia.” The real question is straightforward. How do Riyadh and Dubai become the most attractive places on earth for those founders and their first hires? Yes, that means visas and relocation. It also means ESOP‑friendly regulation and predictable exits. Moreover, childcare and schools make relocation a family decision rather than a solo bet. A cultural narrative celebrates early employees as much as founders.
The contrarian view is that capital alone will not close this gap. Copying Silicon Valley orthodoxy may actually slow us down. The ecosystems that win this AI wave will be the ones that treat talent like sovereign infrastructure. They will design policy around small, insanely productive teams rather than industrial‑scale campuses. They are also willing to trade short‑term headline headcount for long‑term, compounding operator density. That implies some uncomfortable moves. It involves making it dramatically easier for experienced foreign operators to get stock, secondary liquidity, and long‑term residency. This is easier than for purely financial investors. Additionally, it normalizes failure through fast, clean shutdown and bankruptcy regimes. It also rewards repeat builders who spin out of “unicorn alumni” networks even when their first bets don’t work.
Globally, we have seen dense alumni networks from PayPal, Klarna, and Spotify. These networks have compounded into waves of new companies and angels. There is no structural reason a “Tabby mafia” or “GCC AI mafia” can not emerge. Yet, it will need intentionally over-weighting talent mobility, equity literacy, and local exit paths. It will demand more than just megafunds and splashy valuations.
Now its Your Turn
If you are a founder or operator weighing your next move, consider this:
What’s the single biggest thing that would make you pick Riyadh or Dubai over London or San Francisco?
What needs to happen on day one for you to tell your best friend to follow you?
How about in year five?
“You win by skating to where the puck is going, not where it is“
Wayne Gretzky