We also invented the touchscreen, but someone told you to give it to them exclusively. Well, yes. And who was it? His name is Steve. Ah, Jobs.
Prof. Benvenuto. Thanks. Did you expect a hayloft? Yes, they told me. They told you? But have you ever been in a hayloft? Yes, as a child. But what occasion did you go there to play? Because we always say you go to the hayloft to play, to flirt, to talk.
Well, not to flirt, because I was too small, but to jump around and do somersaults. I remember.
We've unlocked a memory for you, anyway. How long has it been since you saw hay? Even the smell. And let's say it, we always say that this is real hay. You know, now with artificial intelligence — but we'll talk about that later — you risk making fake hay bales, lots of fake things, fake chickens.
Of course, but the desire to make a living room available — I imagine these are leather armchairs — it's the most refined setting for a meeting between the analog world that existed and the digital world that came and what will be beyond. I still have it because I have horses at home. Ah, I see. And the digital world that came and what will be beyond. Then you are the greatest representative of this world and we'll talk about it. The idea is to get to know the person from the beginning, and I'd also like you to talk about your childhood, about your dad Giuseppe, about Emma, your mom. Your father was a philosopher. I don't know how angry he got when you said you didn't want to deal with philosophy. If you tell us, tell us what this childhood was like.
Well, I was born in '41 and it was wartime. Obviously I don't remember it, but when I was a year and a half we moved to Isola Vicentina, which was the town where both my parents were born. And there I spent 6 years and returned to Vicenza when I was 7 and a half, so only dialect was spoken there. I had never heard Italian spoken until I went to school the first day and the teacher spoke in Italian and we kids looked at each other. What is this saying?
Wait, do we have something in common? Well, the same thing happened to me. Yes.
And so my dad taught at the classical high school in Vicenza, he taught philosophy and history, but dad was also a scholar of philosophy. He had written many books, he was already at that time a free lecturer, because he had already written on Schopenhauer etc. and then later he also translated Plotinus's Enneads, a work that took him a cyclopean effort, cyclopean. He made a history of philosophy for high schools that was used throughout Italy in the 80s, early 80s. And so dad was truly a person of great seriousness, but he was also very good as a teacher, because I still meet people today who tell me 'Ah, I went to school with your dad.' So they tell me, and former students tell me that dad made them think, that he was, in short, a person who didn't want rote learning, he wanted people to understand, and certainly philosophy helps.
Helps. You know that often the great managers say that rather than hiring someone with a hyper-scientific background, they hire a philosopher, right? To be a manager, to be an executive, for mental openness. Of course. And so you grew up in an environment that was absolutely humanistic, right? Totally humanistic.
Yes, yes, but I liked airplanes.
Because then you got into model aircraft building, right? When did you build the first plane?
Ah, when I was 11 years old.
And what plane did you build? Do you remember?
Well, yes, I tried to build it by trying to figure out how it could be done. Then — so you flew without flying, right? Well, yes. Well, but that's only because I lost the sight in one eye, so I decided that — the only other way to fly was to build model airplanes.
But did you keep up model aircraft building for a long time, or did you give it up?
No, no, even now I just came back from California, but in the garage I have in California I had 25 model airplanes.
But you never usually talk about this, do you? About your models, this passion you have.
Well, but it's a passion that actually really shaped me, in the sense that at 12 I already understood how a product is made, because I didn't buy the assembly kit or the finished plane — I imagined it. You built it? I drew little drawings — instead of listening to the Latin teacher I drew little drawings of how I wanted to make the plane, the plane in every way I could picture it. Then I made the plan, bought the material, made all the parts, that is, with the scroll saw I assembled. Well, not the scroll saw. Well, mostly with very sharp knives, like — like box cutters. Box cutters, yes. Or rather old, sharpened razors. I also had dad's old razors. And so I built it.
And then you did elementary and middle school and then you went to high school, if I remember correctly.
No, I went to the technical industrial school and — there it was a struggle, that's where dad and Federico clashed a bit, because I didn't want to go to high school, right? I wanted to do aeronautical technical school so that in 5 years I could then design airplanes. As if another 5 years of engineering — we'd be crazy — and so I wanted to take the shorter path.
And so what is your diploma? I mean — no, radio technician, because they had stopped doing aeronautics at the Rossi Institute in Vicenza. Well, but still part of the airplane. Yes. Well, it's always part of it, but I chose radio technology because that way I could build a radio-controlled model airplane.
And then university?
And then I went to university, but I worked — I worked at Olivetti from '60, from the end of '60, around September-October of '60. I graduated in '60 until the end of '61, and so I was 18-19, turning 20 in December.
So you stopped at a certain point, you worked?
I worked and then I decided to study physics, which I did in Padua, so from '61 to '65, and in '65 I finished my physics degree in less than 4 years, which isn't easy, and so then I built my career that way.
I mean a great gallop to greet the epic. Yes. And then you came from Isola Vicentina, right? It comes to mind that everyone spoke Venetian. Isola Vicentina has a particularity — the stele, right? Yes, they discovered the stele which is the first time, let's say, where you see the word 'Veneti' carved in stone, right? And so Isola Vicentina for us Venetians is a great reference. It's been good to you, let's say.
But what happened in '68? That you went — in '68 I ended up in the United States in Silicon Valley. Before arriving there I worked for SGS Fairchild, it was a subsidiary of Fairchild. Fairchild is the American company that invented the integrated circuit with which you make MOS. With which I make MOS, that is a technology — let's explain MOS properly, it's no small thing. Yes, MOS already existed, but it had many problems and I solved them all with a silicon gate and a new way of building it that made it possible to make all the parts of the computer so that years later you could make an entire computer on a tiny piece of silicon. Not just the microprocessor, that is the central unit, but also the memories, the input, all the analog — a brain. A brain on a tiny piece of — you've already said it twice, three times actually — silicon. Yes.
Because there's a gentleman, Bill Gates, who says a phrase I think is iconic: 'Before Federico Faggin, Silicon Valley was just Valley; Faggin arrives and it becomes Silicon Valley,' because after all you were the progenitor, the inventor of a great revolution. Then I'd like to understand from you whether you realized along the way that you were — it's like asking Einstein, when you studied the atom, did you realize what would happen? In '51 they discovered DNA, to give an idea. No, I always wonder, whoever discovered DNA, did they realize what they were doing? So then what happens is that in '71 you give us the 4004 microprocessor with FF. Yes, yes. Explain this thing properly. Well, the microprocessor was the computer's central unit, which is the most sophisticated, complicated part of the computer, because the rest is memory or input-output, right? But the CPU required a minimum of 2500-3000 transistors and there was no technology that could make it, and it required a speed that was at least five times higher than what could be done. So the existing technology didn't have the capacity to do it, except the one I had made in '68-'69 with MOS, with MOS, that MOS with the Silicon Gate, the one that later became the only technology for making integrated circuits about 15 years later, 10 years later — all integrated circuits were made with this technology, while before in '68 95% of integrated circuits used bipolar technology, which was a technology that consumed much more power, much more energy, but it was much faster, but you couldn't put many transistors in, and so this technology turned the situation around and truly created the revolution of the — it's your first revolution. I'd like to go back a moment, but what did your father say? Well, my dad didn't really realize much. I showed him a chip. No, he said — the 4004, he said 'but how big is it?' I said 'like this' and he said 'and it does all that?' But I should also have told him that there was the signature, because the particularity of the 4004 is that it's your signature, Federico Fagin, FF. Of course. I also tried to look at it enlarged. No, but where is the FF? No, it's in the corner. Ah, in the corner, in one of the four corners. In one of the four corners. Well, it's just that in the photos you find on — yes, maybe reversed because one has to — well, I probably had it reversed, but everyone guarantees that Faggin's signature is there.
And then you're not tired of all this, in '74 you start Zilog and you make the Z80, which is the chip that is still sold today after 50 years.
Yes, yes. It was the first of the third generation of microprocessors, because I made the first of the first generation, which is the 4004, the 4004, the first of the second generation, the 8008, the 8080, sorry, the 8080, and then the 8080, and then I stopped.
But I ask you as a non-expert, the Z80 is a great watershed, because what does the Z80 mean? Does it mean RAM, does it mean... can you explain it to me? Can you explain it to me?
Well, the 8080 already had characteristics that were almost those of a minicomputer, right? Minicomputers were big boxes like this that consumed a lot of energy. With the Z80 you could make a minicomputer with many more characteristics, in a much smaller volume, and above all with much lower consumption and costs. In fact, the first personal computers used the 8080, but above all the Z80. Yes, then later we moved with IBM to 16-bit, and the 8080 and the Z80 were 8-bit, and so at that moment it was the beginning of the personal computer itself, which created the infrastructure that later made it possible to make the internet, right? The internet needed millions of users to make sense, and so the internet then allowed these computers to be connected. The silicon gate technology allowed making all the chips for telecommunications, which are a mixture of analog and digital, and this technology really...
I'm looking at you and thinking there's a deity in front of me, and thinking that when I was studying at university they always told us: look, there's a revolution. I graduated in '93, they always told us: look, you are living through a revolution, right? Yes. Yes. The processor that did four operations took up an entire room. Yes. And you are the man who made it pocket-sized, this path, right? In general. Yes. Well, certainly. You made, let's say, technology usable that was exclusive to a few, because of the cost, because of the size, for everyone, essentially.
No, it's true, it's true. Anyway, anyway, it would have happened anyway, and I mean, maybe even Einstein... this stuff, if you like. Even Einstein... this stuff. Someone would have discovered it sooner or later, right?
But yes, but no, but because, I mean, it was in the air. It was in the air, the thing. Yes, but it was so much in the air that in '86 you founded Synaptics, right? Yes. And you make the touchpad and give life to what is the touchscreen. Explain this stuff too, since it was all in the air.
Well, no, in '86 I was working on neural networks, which are those that allow... let's explain properly what they are. Neural networks. They are the structures that allow creating computers that learn by themselves, so... so replicating the brain... intelligence, right? The brain is much more. No, certainly, we'll talk about it later. The basis is that... the basis, but they had already been invented, however there wasn't yet the technology to make them, and there was the possibility of making more sophisticated neural networks with a type of learning, a new learning rule that I didn't discover, and so I went in this direction because I wanted to do these things because I understood that the computer would never allow creating artificial intelligence as we know it today. In fact, only because there have been these neural networks do we have today these... quality touchscreens.
We're in 1986, 40 years ago, which is no small thing, 40 years ago, just to give a sense of scale. Then we are... we are animals, right? And so let's start saying 40 years ago there was the Berlin Wall, because it stood for another 3 years, because it fell in '89. 40 years ago there was another world. Of characters like Federico Faggin talking about this stuff. Was there one per planet? I don't know, I mean, we were few, we were few because nobody... those who were doing artificial intelligence at that time didn't believe in neural networks, so I was one of the rebels who carried the argument forward, and we made, for example, a Chinese character reader, so for handwritten characters, 3000 characters, which was used in China in the early '90s, '92-'93, and which was the beginning for China of using this technology, so we made it. But Synaptics...
Synaptics, but at that time much more powerful computers were needed, and also much more data, to get them to work, and that took much more time. So at that point I decided to change direction. I took four or five of the most creative guys we had, and I found the problem to solve, which was a pointing device for laptop personal computers, which at the time used a ball that you moved with your finger, which got dirty immediately, you had to open it, clean it, it was a pain, and together we invented... we eliminated it, it was an upside-down mouse, so... a mechanical mouse, so with... yes, no, the ball. Yes, but then you introduced the pointing device... essentially we changed the way of using it, that is, of making the pointing device, because anyway the ball had to be big enough to be useful, and so it required a thickness of the computer that was too high, I mean, it was the wrong solution. Together with these guys, I am the co-inventor, we invented it, these four or five, and then at that time we also invented the touchscreen, but at that time there was no application.
But did someone tell you to give it to them exclusively? Well, yes. And who was it? His name is... his name is... Steve. Ah, Jobs. But did you meet him? Because then when you read that Federico Faggin meets Steve Jobs and says to him 'give it to me exclusively' and Faggin answers... no, I mean, one says 'did he do well or did he do badly? Did you do well or badly?'
Of course, very well, are you kidding. They would have destroyed us because they would have ended up making their own and would have kept us out of the competitors' market, and so that was...
Of course, it would have wiped you out. I mean, it would have... Did you know Jobs well?
No, not that much, but I mean, I had already met him in '80, the first time I met him was '84, '84, so two years before starting Synaptics. Two years before starting Synaptics. And this thing here was when he had returned to Apple, so we're talking about 2000, 2003, 2004, that's when this happened. Anyway, I had understood, at least towards the end of the '90s, so '99, that the touchscreen was the ideal solution for cell phones. Nobody believed it, even my own people didn't believe it, but I had an example built of how you can use... a smartphone. It... a smartphone. No, but smartphones existed, but they had keyboards. Yes, there was... then there was... then there was the keyboard. There was... there was RIM. Yes, we had BlackBerry. BlackBerry, RIM is the company that made BlackBerry, a Canadian company, and we were showing the solution that one could also do gestures, etc. And they didn't fall in love with it, right? They said it was nonsense, all of them, but Nokia, which then had 30% of cell phones, but Motorola, which had 10% of cell phones, but practically RIM too, right? And Jobs, however, liked this stuff. Yes, but we went on for 5 years showing this stuff and nobody wanted it, right? Of course. And Apple, we knew that Apple wanted to make phones, because at that time Apple was absolutely not in telecommunications, but we showed it to everyone we could show this stuff to. Apple said it wanted it, it wanted it exclusively, and I... no, obviously we said no, because it wanted to move from the PC to the phone. Phone, so it already had it in mind. Anyway, they then made it themselves and created the market for everyone.
But tell me something. Humanly, when you saw Steve Jobs for the first time present in world premiere, the first smartphone with touch, what did you think?
The truth is... I thought, well, actually I didn't see it because I didn't... it's not like I went to Apple's meetings. No, no, no, no. They gave me a phone, an iPhone. My kids bought one immediately when it came out. I used it a bit, I said this one beats everyone. I said this is the right solution, and in fact 3-4 years later Motorola went bankrupt. Nokia went bankrupt. I mean, I mean, everyone who was there... the only one that took longer, the one that took longer was RIM because it had a lot of people who insisted that the keyboard... they were used to using it, but even they after 7 years were swept away.
And so, I mean, you've done many revolutions in your life. The first is that of not doing philosophy, I understand, but then I regretted it. The second is that of making microprocessors. The third is that of having made an important choice, of having abandoned this country and gone to the United States. About this, for example, we haven't talked. Why did you decide to go to the United States?
No, I didn't decide to go to the United States. I found myself there. I was supposed to be there for 6 months because I was working for SGS-Fairchild. There had been an exchange of engineers and so I found myself there. I was supposed to do 6 months, but it was there that I invented this technology that changed the world, and so I decided... yes, not only that, but it's the technology that... the founders of Fairchild, who were the founders of... the founders of Intel, who were also the founders of Fairchild, took the technology and took it with them. Yes, so I went from MOS Fairchild to Intel to the 4004.
and of Intel's microprocessor.
They made the Intel, and then you went through — in the end you ended up at Synaptics, Zilog, and then Synap.
Well, yes, those are the companies I created, because at that point — that is, Intel in the years, let's say '72-'73, I hadn't yet understood that the microprocessor would be the future, and it took me 9 months to convince them to let me build the 8080, which I invented.
Because they didn't believe in it.
9 months because they didn't believe it. But then I said, now that's enough, now I'm going to...
But it's a story — it's a story, let me say, reading, reading a lot, and when you read the great biographies, right? There's also Einstein's, or rather yours — the great figures of history — it turns out that all of them were misunderstood geniuses at the beginning.
In fact, they were also taken for madmen, fools, a waste of time.
I can imagine the frustrations I would have had.
But now it's even worse, because now I talk about consciousness, free will, and...
We'll talk about that later, anyway. That stuff there, that stuff there is even worse.
Well, but it's also vision. It's vision. When there's vision, there's always something good.
So what kind of relationship did you have with the young people on your teams?
Well, I've always — I've always liked being with young people, so for me the relationship with young people is a relationship, how should I put it, of mentorship, right? Of, let's say, of feeling energized by them.
Let's say that you point the way and they point it to you.
Well, certainly, but they have the energy, the enthusiasm to carry it forward, and now also the preparation, because of course...
Because now, let's say, schools teach things that I never learned, right? You had to invent them. But now you say that there has been an evolution — reading your story, it comes out. It seems to me that there's a watershed in your story, because you said before, 'I dealt with the microprocessor, with this world here, and today I talk about consciousness.' What happened in 1990?
The light. What happened is that I, despite having achieved everything that the world — everything that matched the idea I had at that time of what it means to be successful, I discovered the failure of success. That is, I discovered that I wasn't happy despite having everything I thought — checkbox, checkbox, checkbox, checkbox. I did everything, so why am I not happy?
That was a... but I realized that for years I had been pretending to be happy. That is, I didn't want to accept that I wasn't happy. Which is even worse — not accepting what we feel inside ourselves, because it doesn't add up.
Let's say we could say that your phenotype didn't match your genotype.
Well, you could say that too, but let's say that it takes honesty toward oneself, and it took me a while before I accepted that I wasn't happy. When I accepted it, since I had already learned, by being an entrepreneur, that the responsibility for what happens in a company — and therefore also in my life, because the company was my life — for what happens in a company, good or bad, I had a hand in it too.
And in my case, the problem was that I hadn't fully understood that where I had gone wrong wasn't because of what I had done, but because of what I should have done and instead did nothing — which is also a bit of the negative, right? Like, 'oh well, I didn't do anything, whatever.'
That's already a problem.
It's already a problem. You didn't do anything when you should have done something.
Of course. And so how does it change? How does that change?
I said, 'So now I created my own unhappiness, instead of blaming others — I created it,' and I want to understand.
And you entered a new dimension?
I entered the dimension in which I attracted to myself what I then experienced — that I am not a body, as I thought. I had accepted the scientistic vision, let's call it, because it's a religious vision, in the sense that it has never been proven that we are only the body, but scientism extrapolates from what science says and tells us that we are simply the body. So when, for example, we die, nothing of us remains, because we are the body. It says that consciousness is the brain, that it's what the brain produces, and in the end I believed it.
We're all adapted to this stuff today. Even those who are religious are, deep down, scientistic, because that's the way it's taught.
The rest is stuff for madmen, right? But you say something on which I'd like to build an argument. You say that matter — excuse me — that consciousness comes before matter.
Yes.
And I would start from this basis of reasoning. What does a statement like that mean to you?
Yes. No, but before that I have to explain why I can say this and why I had an extraordinary experience of consciousness that told me it's not so.
Which is the one from '90.
Which is the one from '90. Because if I hadn't had this experience, I would never even have imagined that something different could be possible. So this made me understand what consciousness is. Consciousness is the capacity we have to know through an experience, through a lived experience.
And what happened to you?
What happened to me is that I woke up one night, I was thirsty, I went to get a glass of water.
You were about fifty, '90 was...
