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June 4, 2008
The CEO, the journalist and the Prime Minister
No it's not the title of a fairy tale :-)
But the matter of the fact is that, last week, Bertrand (Talend's CEO and co-founder) was invited to a round table with Francois Fillon, France's Prime Minister, and his Minister for Digital Economy, Eric Besson (the journalist in the title is Luc Fayard who moderated the panel). Bertrand actually blogged about it on Talend's corporate blog but still, I thought I would add a few comments.
Unfortunately I couldn't attend - which might be as well, given that the room was crowded with journalists, and staffers from the government members. But I watched carefully the videos, and was impressed by the quality of the debate and the involvement of the two Ministers. Clearly, these guys get it and this is a cool example of bi-partisanship (Besson is a Socialist), as I wished there was more in French politics.
But getting it is not enough. Will they be able to do anything? The problems the economy is facing in France are so deeply rooted in the society, its corporatism, its ideology... President Sarkozy's approval ratings are tanking, as he is torn between these who think he is changing too much (the ones who want to preserve their "avantages acquis", and these who think he is not doing enough, and not fast enough.
As one of the panelists expressed it, being an entrepreneur in France is poorly regarded: a capitalist exploiting the working masses. Bertrand raised a good point about French universities (the kingdom of corporatism by excellence) that do not train their students to be entrepreneurs. I liked Bertrand's mention of Sand Hill Road, next to Stanford University, which is lined with VC firms... (for sure he knows the area, that's where he lives... and I am sure he knows many of these VCs professionally as well). When you poll French students, 7 out of 10 want to become government employees, work 35 hours weeks, and retire early. Yikes. Try the same poll at Stanford or Harvard or MIT. Yet, not all the French are like this but the ones who are not have to deal with these who are... when not everyone is rowing on a boat, it's much more difficult to beat the inertia.
I am not an entrepreneur myself - in the sense that I never created a company - and I am not sure I have what it takes. But I have almost always worked in startups and because of this I have worked very closely with several of them: Bertrand and Fabrice of course, Serge Levy (the founder of SDP, which he sold to Sybase in 1996), Anand Sundaram, Ray Wach and Yury Rapoport, the three co-founders of RSW where I worked in Boston for 3 years, Alain Dumas who founded Sunopsis... and I have a lot of respect for them. They were not all perfect, but they all managed to take a technology idea turn it into a great business.
BTW, here are links to the videos of the round table (in French):
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Posted by Yves de Montcheuil at June 4, 2008 6:45 AM
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