DHH: GDPR is a “catastrophe for Europe” after viral EU sales-outreach GDPR reply
What's the deal? David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → quote-tweeted a viral sales-outreach complaint and called GDPR “a catastrophe for Europe,” arguing the EU should scrap the regime rather than keep spending “billions of euros” on compliance theater.
Why now? On 10–11 Sep 2026, YC founder Josh Earle (@joshearle) posted “don't bother trying to sell to EU companies,” attaching a prospect reply that cites GDPR Articles 14 and 15, demands the exact data-broker/source of contact info, and asks for suppression/do-not-contact confirmation. The post drew hundreds of thousands of views. DHH amplified it the next morning:
“The GDPR has been a catastrophe for Europe. The billions of euros misspent on stupid compliance games to with loser prizes like this is tragic. A bold EU would recognize the lateness of the hour and flush it whole.” — @dhh
The CompliantVC angle: The post lands squarely in the culture war that made @compliantvc (Henrick Johansson) famous — Comp AI’s satirical “European VC” persona that mocks compliance-first investing and Europe’s regulatory overload. There is no separate Dealroom profile for CompliantVC; the real company behind the account is Comp AIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → (trycomp.ai), the SOC 2 / ISO / GDPR compliance platform that created the persona as marketing.
Sources: DHH · Josh Earle · @compliantvc
Image credit: Dooffy (Pixabay / Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
