Xavier Niel
Xavier Niel
Xavier Nielis a French entrepreneur and businessman, active in the telecommunications and technology industry and best known as founder and majority shareholder of the French Internet service provider and Mobile operator Iliad trading under the Free brand. He is also co-owner of the newspaper Le Monde, and co-owner of the rights of the song "My Way" and owner of Monaco Telecom. He currently acts as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors & Chief Strategy Officer for Iliad...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth25 August 1967
CountryFrance
I always follow the same idea: Start small and disrupt to create something big.
France has the least social mobility of any developed country. The social elevator no longer works. It's broken.
Any country that wants to lower its mobile phone rates, all they need to do is bring in an aggressive player.
Mark Zuckerberg did his own software for Facebook, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin made their own for Google.
France has a specificity - the market players who provide Internet access are the telecom operators, and all of the players are French. They had a habit of, let's say, getting along with each other, and the prices traditionally were very high.
I'd rather people talked about the 1,000 most successful French Internet companies instead of the 5 or 10 faces we already know - including mine.
You can spend your money on art works and sit down and look at them. Or you can use your money to help people.
The real force of Silicon Valley is the mentality, the spirit. There's no reason at all that can't be replicated in Paris.
In life, you need a house and a car. After that, you have a choice.
If you are worried about the risk to your reputation, you don't launch a telecoms firm in an aggressive way.