BigTime #15 - Dentro e fuori l'Italian Tech Week

Hi, I'm Ale, I'm Ale, I'm Ale! Hi, I'm Ale, this is Big Time, the podcast reminds you that in 2030 it will be only 5 years, while in 2025 it will be 20 years ago, there was no iPhone, there was no app store, there were not a lot of things that today instead dominate our world, which goes at an extraordinary speed. Vertical, I'd say, dedicated almost entirely to Talianta Quick, which was here this week, always very nice, always very interesting. Well done, D'Ala, great job together with your team, for what you did. On behalf of those who thought it was good to go in and out of the screen and the adjustments of Talianta Quick could be useful for the cause of gas, I have to say that I will never understand how this thing can ever happen. It can be useful to erase other things to help a distant cause. But ok, it happened, but it also happened that a number of entrepreneurs, founders of the various start-ups, represented each other in the OGR, they cleaned everything up, they put things in order, so everything was solved. There was a lot of tension, it was a bit of a shame, the last day was a bit messy, because in Bezzo, Underline, etc. it was very difficult to get in, but ok, I'm all equipped with the Merch also by Talianta Quick. There's also a hat that says "I picked in 2021", which is pretty true. But let's go on, let's get into our topic. Palato Jeff Bezos said several interesting things, that you probably have a useful handball, if you have to spit it out, because it is considered an industrial ball, but I was interested in one more thing, that is, Jeff Bezos, we need Mavericks, we need these impomatic, these crazy horses, difficult to manage, but they do things in a different way than the others, and he says that big organizations don't need them. They don't need big companies, nor do I need political organizations like the institutions. When we say that we need to carry out the change, that we need to make a challenge of the status quo, that we need to challenge the incentives of a short period to go towards a long period, that's exactly it. On the other hand, we have never had so many levels between an host and a CEO, and therefore doing the Maverick is very complicated. If you are a junior, you have to do the Mavericks, but to do the Mavericks, you have to know what you are talking about, you have the courage to challenge the status quo, to do the 200 meetings in which maybe everyone holds you in place, and maybe you will also lose the opportunity of your boss, because he considers you a ball break, because he will be afraid of you, and if you are in a leadership position, you have to enable these Mavericks, that is, to have crazy horses, to try crazy horses, to tell them to do crazy horses within your organizations. The rule, at least as far as I am concerned, is that if you want to do the Maverick, you have to hold that position, you have to know how to hold it, you have to know what you are talking about, otherwise you are the only one who plays out of the rules. Mavericks, we need you. Mavericks, get out of the way. I also talked about this weekend at Bayram of Sebastian Caputo in Rome, I hope to have the entire video of my interview soon, because I want to put it in the sharing, I think it can be a point for some conversations, all together. I also talked about Ursula von der Leyen in Italian Tech Week, a defense attitude, that is, good that Italian Tech Week has been able to host Ursula von der Leyen, good that it has been presented, what did he say? He said a set of things, and surely the thing I noticed the most was that it was easy to take points during his interview, because with respect to Italian politicians he said three things, those three things he said, everything was a bullet point, so it's easy to follow and take points. But the most iconic moment, as Ursula said, was when we wanted to make a European Union, A.I. First, and we waited for the applause, the applause that did not arrive, he said, "if you give us a good applause, and if people don't applaud what you say, it's because they didn't understand it, or they want to know more." And unfortunately I think that this is exemplary, because if the European Union arrives from a story, or never, of so much regulation, and little, in fact, the ability to incite, it's a public made of engineers, of funders, of people who build things, you want to say, "Tell me more about what you mean as A.I. First." He tried Ursula, too much in defense, on the one hand I understand the need to make a set of speeches, more and more, because maybe Europe is not so bad, to convince ourselves that this thing is true, it will naturally help us to believe, to realize positive things, on the other hand, we also have to take the conscience of what we are doing, and we are losing ground. So we have to recover, we have to put ourselves in the test. Finding the right balance for these things is not easy, a good thing can be delivery, delivery, delivery. Ursula Wonderline's simplification plan says 8 billion a year of simplification in bureaucracy, well, a good start, on half a billion, but of people, however, it's not that much, on 30 million companies that exist. It's not that much, but still, it's something, let's do it. Let's start, maybe courage, deliver, because doing what we said we had to do is the most important thing, it is certainly the thing on which to build many boxes, and I hope it will happen as soon as possible. This is certainly the most important thing that I see, in this week of "Tonight at the Quick", many have said, look what's good, look what's going on, Europe is not so bad, we can be attractive, maybe, but perhaps it's like that, too much English, this point, someone will cut my legs, but in short, we really have to deliver, also because others are going at another speed, in terms of investments, and also in terms of the specifics of what it costs. We recorded a video on the Gazza bridge, before we had, let's say, the tour of the Israeli forces, the arrest of the activists, and then their compatriots, I had more or less predicted what had happened, then I decided not to publish it, also on Fede's advice of our team, because maybe it wasn't the most intelligent, the right thing to do, the most correct in the position, I was wondering why I would have to do it, what role, I said, what kind of things, I think is the most important thing, to be more careful at this point, is that the fleet is what has happened to them, let's say, continues to be able to generate attention on Gazza and not on the activists, and how Greta Thunberg was treated, meanwhile, the peace plan has arrived, Trump has essentially accepted, from all sides, with the support of various Arab countries, this is certainly very important, and to show the fact that not always one who says many things wrong, then makes them all wrong, for example, this could also be very interesting, Trump's plan, but they are just a series of bullet points, you have to implement it, you have to enlarge it, you have to negotiate each of these points that are indicated, and it is completely trivial, it is completely done, let's say, especially because there is an Israeli right who does not want this plan to be realized, and who then will do everything to stop it, so it is totally, let's say, far from the end of the question, indeed, but certainly a great passion. Special thanks to Big Time, because during TechWeek we had the possibility to do a little more than 4 clicks, which would be about 20 minutes with Markus Rheinisch, who is the VP of Meta for Public Policy in Europe and the Middle East, so he made a nice chat about many topics, anticipating what he then said in his interview also to Italian TechWeek, if you don't mind, so you can recover some of the topics, and above all, we also made a great lunch with a dozen entrepreneurs, Italian founders and Markus, so we can talk about how the big Big Tech companies and the world of startups, Italian startups, can talk more and more to create a real culture of innovation, innovation, even policy side, in relation to institutions. This is fundamental, Big Tech can't just leave the big industrial partnerships, can't just leave more or less economic advantages for this or that company, they also have to leave a cultural change, they have to leave more, in my opinion, in terms of team, as I've always said, the various countries have to compete to have cutting skills, among the few teams of the big Tech companies, because then there's the Spillover Effect, who was doing the Meta engineer, he goes and goes to his startup, so he brings knowledge, the way to do, etc, etc, etc, which is very useful. If in Italy there's only a team, policy, marketing, communication, sales, etc, there's little to do. We've talked about many topics, also with Markus, enjoy the chat. You guys at Meta do a huge partnership with Luxottica, you do great things. Is it really true then, that things are not that bad in Europe? What's your take on that? Well, I mean, starting with the partnership with Luxottica, Luxottica is one of the most fascinating companies, not just in Europe, but in general. It's one of the best partnerships we could wish for, and this is a company that definitely lives in the future, has a vision of the future, and that was making us so attracted to work with them, so I think it's definitely true that you can have proof points of something that is extraordinary as moving forward, but I also think two things can be true at the same time. So I do believe that we still have a big problem in Europe, and as we had discussions here about attitudes towards technology, about wanting to live in the future, but just purely objectively, we are really lagging behind in Europe if you compare us to the United States, if you compare us to China, and this is today, and if you look into investments that go into the future, AI investments, R&D, the difference becomes even starker, so if you think it's bad now, it looks like that that gap is accelerating ever further. I think what currently the gap is, is that there's 20 times more private investment going into AI in America than it goes in Europe, so you can assess that we are just getting accelerating towards an even less attractive place where we want to be. Also, what's very surprising for me is not just that we are not investing in it, that we are not building technology, but we also don't seem to use technology, which is very strange. We have actually a very low uptake rate of AI, for example. Only 14% of European companies use AI, whereas America and China is north of 40%. So that feels there's something, not just in the investment environment, but for my point about the attitude. Why is it that we not just build fast enough? Why is it also that we actually don't even use it when it is there? So we are not in a great place, but there are some fantastic examples that completely disprove what I just said. Luxortica, I would say, is at the very top of that, but if you look around here, all these amazing companies, Italian entrepreneurs, and not just from Italy, but especially from Italy, I mean, you have to have hope that with the right attitude, with the right energy, with the right creativity, we can turn things around. But it will be super hard work. Yeah, I totally agree, and I see this between the balance of, on one side, being honest with ourselves, we are lagging behind, we are losing the pace, let's say. On the other side, I feel like we should also be a little bit more encouraging to ourselves. There's bright side, there's partnership with Luxortica, there's a lot of startups. This is a bubble, probably, but it's a nice bubble to be in, and it's something that we can start on and build something bigger. So, I think it's good, no? We keep on telling ourselves that Europe innovates, that China replicates, and Europe regulates. American innovates. It's not enough, though, in my opinion, to say that we have too much regulation. So, we need to be more proactive and say, what should it look like, a good regulation? And for example, Mario Draghi recently, talking one year after his report, has been criticized for saying, we should probably pose some aspects of the AIA. What's your take on that? What do you think? Yeah, so, I actually think we do need to talk about the fact that we have too much regulation. And don't listen to me, listen to Mario Draghi, listen to a wide range of heads of states of Europe. I think Friedrich Merz this week only said, we just have to stop with this regulation idiocy. So, people feel it, industry feel it, the consumer feels it, the voter feels it, that there's something not right. So, I think we still need to make that point very, very clearly. And the AI Act is a fantastic example. Sort of the pinnacle of European regulation, where we celebrated ourselves last year as the first ones, if that would count for anything to be the first one, that nobody else thought necessary to regulate to that degree. So, it's an odd thing, and therefore, the opposition to it is very important, because it's not that it's affecting us. Sure, it's affecting us, but look, we are a US company. We can train, we can build wherever we want to build outside of Europe. It's a problem for the European companies. And I'm not talking here about Mistral or Aleph Alpha or whoever builds AI. It's actually a problem for European companies that want to use AI. And that might actually explain, to some extent, why the adoption is only 14%. Because there's so much uncertainty about the use of one of the most powerful, productive products that we have ever seen, that will go through all layers. Aleph Bezos was speaking about this, about AI that is permeating everything. It's not just one layer. And it's also not just productivity enhancing. If you look again, coming back to the Luxotica example, when you look at it, Luxotica is not just a brilliant company doing eyewear. It's not just potentially the next iPhone moment that we're having here. So, building the future computing platform. But what it actually does is, it uses the excellence in what they are right now, being the leading glasses manufacturer, adding on AI, which they haven't necessarily developed, and build something completely new. And then on that new, there will be an ecosystem, there will be other European companies that build applications and other things on that one. So, this is something that you just can't escape. And the question that you ask me is, what can we do? What can we do to actually, than just complaining? The one thing is maybe a bit philosophical. I think as you used to term honesty before, that we have to be honest, I think we have to be honest, that the regulatory experiment did not work. And what I mean with this is, where Europe said, we just struggle to compete with the rest economically on technology. Let's set the standards for the rest of the world. It did not work. You know, I travel the world, I speak to regulators, they want to talk to me, they want to learn about European regulation, to know what not to do. That's what we have. So, there is nobody following the European regime, the only people who have to comply with European regulation, is the European companies, that are struggling itself already. So, let's just be honest. It was an idea, it didn't work out. Let's move on. The second one, I think we need to start to be much more rigorous in measuring the impact of regulation. Absolutely. And I talk about the impact, where we go beyond protecting European citizens, which we obviously have to do. Every regulator, we have a responsibility to do this, but there is so much regulation that doesn't do that. And has to some extent, I would say, narrow economic interests of some small groups within the country, but it's not really helping the white economy, the citizens of Europe. So, do an impact assessment, because then you come automatically to the third thing is, you just have to stop some of the regulation, you just see it makes no sense. We have a pipeline of new digital acts coming left, right and centre, after we've just gone through the biggest regulatory package that we have ever seen in Europe. It just has to stop on the AI. You know, you don't hear it from me the first time. We just have to pause it. Everybody says that. The European industry says that. Politicians, heads of state say it. You even hear voices within Europe with institutions. It just is the biggest self-defeating act that we have done to the technology future of Europe. Yeah. And I think that we are, in a sense, how can I say, guilty as well as citizens, because we are not allowing politicians to make some mistakes. I mean, you tried. Okay, it didn't work. It's much worse to keep the regulation as is, because you are not feeling yourself as a politician, you know, ready to admit that it didn't go as planned, rather than change it. And so we should enable politicians to make mistakes and say, okay, you know what, this didn't work out. Instead, we are fighting a new political battle to actually get to the point where they can say, yes, this didn't turn out as planned. Right? So we can contribute in creating a culture of change, in a sense, which the cultural change, in my opinion, is also the basic driven for change, for new productivity, for new competitiveness of Europe, which again speaks to my heart and was the basic of the Draghi report. One year in, less than 10% of the policies in that report being implemented, and we're losing ground. My fear is that we're going to see those policies implemented, where the time is out and the word has changed once again, we should have other stuff. What's your take? Why are we taking so much time to implement those policies, which are so well written, so clear, and we should just enable them in most cases? I'm not sure they're also well written and clear. And again, the AI Act is unbelievably badly written. It was a political project. It was just pushed through in the last minute. Nobody understands what needs to be done there, really. It's an interesting question why this is not happening. I mean, we have a lot of regulation. I think the first problem is that you say, you can make a mistake, which I can't really understand, because mistakes are quite often the source of creativity, and I think policymakers should have equal rights to make mistakes. Facing something so new. My only problem is, do they actually know that they make a mistake, and do they actually feel that they make a mistake? And I do think, and I want to maybe be a little bit facetious here, but if you sit in Brussels, if you earn tax-free money, if you have your children in a private school, in Woldewey Solon Bay, and the European taxpayer pays for this, you might actually not feel what entrepreneurs feel. We've just met with entrepreneurs here, and they really feel what's going on. What actually national European politicians feel sometimes, because they hear it as well. They see what is happening to the economy, and what it does to the welfare of people. What it does is actually the ability to defend our borders sometimes. So I think the further out in the periphery you go, the more people feel it. And I also feel that the closer you get to the border to Ukraine and Russia, the more people get nervous and get also angry sometimes on how it goes. So there is a bit of understanding something is not right. We might have mistakes, but not everybody feels the same pressure. And I think there is an effect of an insulation of this group, and these unfortunate decision makers that decide about European citizens, that they decide about the prosperity of businesses. And whether we catch up with the US, whether we catch up with China, that sits really with that group of people. So making mistakes, that's part of it. But knowing that you make a mistake, that's I think the problem that we have. That goes back to your point of measuring, and so keeping people accountable for their policies. But keeping people accountable. You represent a very, very, very big company. Big techs have changed so much in the last 10, 15 years. The intro of this podcast is that we are living in 2025. It's only five years to 2030, and 20 years from 2005, which seems ages ago if you look at it technologically, right? And 2030 was the deadline for the most utopian project that we had. And still, it's a very, very close date. How, more than what, how can a big tech company like Meta can contribute to the ecosystem? We just had a very interesting lunch with a dozen of entrepreneurs. How can you actually contribute? Luxautica partnership is a big one, industrial one, like, you know, people building stuff, but also digital competencies, teams, spillover of, you know, what's your opinion on that? So there's a couple of things, you know, and some of them are specific to Meta, but some are generic to other tech companies. So I would say number one is maybe not as future looking, but super important. Just our platform, our advertisement platform itself, creates enormous value for new companies because they can present themselves, they can advertise, they can find customers or new customers that actually really kickstart their business. So that is something that is very important because with relatively little expense, you can find the people who are interested in your product. You don't have to have a national, you know, television campaign or newspaper campaigns, so especially for small startup companies, the current service that we have is actually a fantastic thing and many, many companies, we have 30, roughly 30 million companies in Europe. Many of those only exist. 30 million. So there's 30 million companies in Europe, about 98% of them are on our platform. Okay, yeah. So, but many of them only exist because they had an ability to find their client base on a social media platform. Before it's one of them, so thank you. So we sometimes forget this. They're much more important and much more exciting things that we do, but I just want to mention this as well. The second one, I think, we're really, for now, the biggest contribution lies of Meta and of many other companies as well, is our investment in artificial intelligence, in building the engine room of artificial intelligence. So Meta in 2025 will invest $72 billion, euros, similar, into just AI infrastructure. And that is an astonishing amount. I think it's half a trillion of investment in IND, of the top seven tech companies, and that goes mainly in AI. That is about the same as all of Europe invests in R&T. And again, all of Europe, 30 million companies, seven versus 30 million companies, similar amount. So that is a contribution. In our case, it's a specific contribution because our AI models are open source models. That means a lot of things, but the most important thing is it's for free. So this is a 72 billion subsidy to every developer, to every government, to every academic organization that wants to build their own success story. So that is a tremendous contribution, I think, that we're making and we're seeing already many, many success stories around that, again, just exist because they had access to that model. And then lastly, specifically to Italy, you mentioned already the partnership with Luxottica, which is wonderful, really, really wonderful. Do not underestimate it. So number one, it is, we are at the moment with our latest model that we just announced that we connect a couple of weeks ago, where we have for the first time, high definition lenses in the glasses. We combine this with the wristband and you don't need a lot of imagination now to see where the future is going, what the future operating display will be and it will sit on your nose. That's very obvious. And it's not just good for Luxottica that we have this partnership. It is that we're building a whole ecosystem, a whole ecosystem where Europe is not just catching up or is not just playing at the same level, where we're actually leading the world market in AI-enabled devices. And that is fantastic. And I think that we are contributing here, not again, not by ourselves. Luxottica does fantastic things as well, but that is an enormous contribution where we can have again well leadership in one layer of the tech stack. And remember, not that long ago, sort of 20 years ago, the area of 3G, we had Nokia, we had Ericsson in Europe, that had leadership. So we have, it's not even a generation ago, and I think we should get used to this again and we should have the confidence that we can lead again and not always complain that there's not much we can do because if that's the case, then we revert to regulation and trying to eke out a benefit by holding the ones that innovate and really invest back until we have built our own European Google or Meta, which would be wonderful if you have that, but we can't wait that long until that happens. I was about to ask you other 30,000 questions probably because it goes to very philosophical concept of abundance. It's a new idea of saying focus on the supply and creating new opportunities rather than subsidizing demand in a sense, and what you're just saying is exactly this, like we could, we have the opportunity to create thousands of new opportunities, millions of new opportunities on AI if we really grasp on this opportunity and we should not surrender on the idea that we are just followers as Europe, I mean. We lead on this stuff, we can lead in certain sectors and we can do it, so let's be optimistic sometimes. That's fantastic, just one last one. I think we obviously should be proud of our leadership, but I think the mistake is that if we only think we have succeeded, if we have replicated exactly what others have started 10 or 15 years ago with completely different funding opportunities or energy or a market opportunities, so let's concentrate on what we're good. Let's strengthen our strength, not strengthen weaknesses before we can actually move to the next step. That is my hope for Europe because we can do it. Super, well done. Thank you, thank you so much. Super, thank you.