Sound about does that sound about right? The online digital marketplace for everything and Blue Origin. Who would go? Who would Blue Origin? Hands up. Who would want a seat in the capsule? No one. No hands. There we go. I'm sure Jeff will be amenable if you ask nicely. There's a few more. And the Bezos Earth Fund which I believe involved an investment of about 10 billion US dollars. So a major philanthropist as well. And everyone in Italy knows John Elkann of course, Ferrari, Stellantis. Any Juventus fans here? Yes. There we go. And Vento, the team behind this fantastic event. Congrats to the Vento team, who did not tell me that I'd have to be riffing for a couple of minutes, but security is tight and rightly so. Okay, it's going to be about an hour-long conversation we hope between John and Jeff talking about leadership, businesses into the future, innovation, and maybe collaboration between Europe and the US on some of these key technologies. Please welcome to the stage John Elkann and Jeff Bezos.
And a lot has happened since.
Yeah, for sure. So what you're seeing today, we really started in 2016 and it was very much driven by trying to see how we could in Italy and in Turin be more entrepreneurial and more attuned with technologies of today and of tomorrow. And since then, if you look over the last decade in Europe, you've had investments going from 45 billion into the tech ecosystem to 425. If you look at the programs we've been involved like Vento, which came out from that 2016 period, we've now invested in many companies with Italian founders in Italy and outside, one of which has just been acquired by Amazon. So thank you.
Thank you.
And the event that was started in 2018 with 100 people now we have 15,000, and we could have had more but we're constrained by capacity. This has been driven by Diego and all the team that made it possible to be here today.
Amazing. Amazing. Very cool.
All of this to say that there's a huge amount of optimism. The president of the European Commission would underline why it's important to be optimistic. What do you think?
Well, first of all, I get all weak-kneed around entrepreneurs. I just love entrepreneurs, especially missionary entrepreneurs who are so passionate about their mission. I think you should be very optimistic. In fact, entrepreneurs need to be optimistic almost to the point of delusion. There's the John F. Kennedy speech about going to the moon: we do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard. For entrepreneurs, it should be a little different: we do these things not because they are easy but because we thought they were going to be easy. That's a useful attitude. And you hear about Europe lacking dynamism and too many regulations, but let me assure you there are plenty of regulations everywhere. What you need is that can-do attitude, that entrepreneurial attitude that drives people to success. Europe has all the ingredients to be a dynamic, entrepreneurial success, and you can tell from the people in this room.
And of course, startup companies thrive in moments of great and rapid change. Stability favors incumbents, and rapid change favors small, dynamic, nimble startup companies. The world is so rapidly changing right now that there has never been a better moment to be an entrepreneur or a startup company.
And if you think about entrepreneurs and startup companies, Amazon is now a very large company. We are involved with very large companies, and there's this idea that you should drop out of college to start your own company. But my own experience: I did not drop out; I studied engineering and then worked for a large company, General Electric, where I learned a lot. I was wondering if you had a different path than dropping out. Are there multiple paths, and can working for big companies still be entrepreneurial?
So there's a lot packed in there. My view is that it is possible to be 18, 19, 20 and drop out of college and be a great entrepreneur, with famous examples like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. But these are the exception. I always advise young people to go work at a best practices company where you can learn fundamental things like hiring and interviewing. That increases your odds. I started Amazon when I was 30, not 20, and that extra 10 years of experience improved the odds of success. I finished college and enjoyed it, and then I worked at a great company called D. E. Shaw & Co., where I learned a tremendous amount.
And worked.
And by the way, as you mentioned, when you're inside a big company, you can be entrepreneurial. Big companies need mavericks. They need people to lift them up and make them see new things. It's up to the leadership of good companies to defend their mavericks and support them to drive change inside the company. At Amazon and Blue Origin, we are very careful to keep our mavericks. I think this is important, Jeff, because what we're trying to do here is show the future from both new companies and companies that transform and evolve. It's clear that working for our companies — Amazon, Stellantis, Blue Origin, Ferrari, CNH — is exciting.
And being clear that working for these companies is exciting, and there are gigantic opportunities inside them. You can also start companies later using that experience. I think it's important to share this experience. One similarity Jeff and I have is having very loving families and strong relationships with our grandparents. My grandfather spent a lot of time with us, stimulating curiosity by always asking what we thought, and teaching responsibility from a young age by making choices, like which movie to see. Those things stayed with me.
Yeah, and gigantic opportunities inside those companies.
And you can also, on the back of that experience, start companies you might not have imagined otherwise. Among my experiences, one personal one is the similarity of our grandfathers.
And choices could be like watching movies. He had a very short attention span, so five minutes was enough. Success was getting him halfway to the movie. So we always had to choose. Those small responsibilities grew into bigger ones, like taking care of something important or a guest. That trust and sense of responsibility stayed with me. I know you also had an incredible grandfather. What stays with you from him?
Well, you're right. This is something we have in common. My mother had me when she was just 17, still in high school in Albuquerque. They tried to kick her out for being pregnant, but my grandfather said she had to finish. So she was pregnant with me in high school and finished after I was born. Because she was so young, my grandparents took me every summer from age three or four until I was 16 to their ranch in South Texas. My grandfather was a rancher and did everything himself — veterinary work, repairs. He bought a broken D6 Caterpillar bulldozer for $5,000 and we spent a summer fixing it, even building our own crane. He had incredible resourcefulness and believed he could solve any problem. I watched him make his own needles for cattle, heating wire and pounding it flat. Some of the cattle even survived.
And I remember a very meaningful lesson he gave you when you were in the car with your grandmother, who used to smoke.
Oh yes, that was a very formative moment. I was about 10 years old, very confident. It was 1974, and there were radio commercials saying every puff on a cigarette takes two minutes off your life. My grandmother was a chain smoker. I calculated how many years she had taken off and proudly announced it. Instead of congratulations, she burst into tears. My grandfather pulled the car over, took me aside, and said, 'Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than it is to be clever.' And I think this is a very meaningful lesson because there's this idea that technology is clever but not kind. It's a choice.
Yeah.
And in some ways, there's a choice.
And technology is just a tool that one can use.
That's right. You need to be clever to make technology, but you can be kind in applying it.
And I do think that you should feel at ease not only in being clever but equally in being kind in what you do.
And the demonstration of what you've built and what Amazon is doing. In similar ways, through conversations we've had over the years, there's this idea that business is a harsh environment, but there's a very important humane side. What we do is put technology and cleverness to the service of others, and you can do that in a way that is kind and valuable.
We really put technology and cleverness to the service of others.
And you can do that in a way which is kind.
Yes. And I think long-term thinking squares these things. When you're in a business deal, if you think you'll never deal with the person again, you might come to a certain answer. But if you realize you'll deal with them for the rest of your life, you come to a different answer. Long-term thinking with customers, partners, and loved ones — what do I want this to be like five, ten, twenty years from now? In retail, I would rather lose a sale than lose a customer. Shareholders and customers are aligned if you think out 10 or 20 years.
And that is also important in moments like these, where there's a lot of uncertainty and angst. If you get devoured by now, you'll lose optimism for tomorrow. If you look long term, on decades rather than months, what matters today is important for 10 years. If you have that idea that 10 years from now things will be better and we will have made progress, it helps today and relieves angst.
It also helps you decide what to focus on. In a world of rapid change due to AI, if you think long term, you focus on what is not going to change, like customer needs. Customers like fast deliveries and low prices. Those needs are durable. If you base your strategy on customer needs, you can change details but the vision remains. Be stubborn on the vision and flexible on the details. People who are right a lot change their mind a lot; people who are wrong are stubborn on the details.
