And at a certain point
he's playing this
match for the world title,
he stops and says:
"The noise of the cameras
is annoying me
and it's deliberate
to make me lose my concentration."
- Because they've got them in Russia.
Exactly, so he goes and
stops everything, really mad.
Then you see him afterwards
when he absolutely threw
Fischer in the end. Anyway,
chess is an incredible world.
Karpov, Kasparov ...
- I played as a child,
my grandfather taught me,
I played a few times
as a child, but I never,
also because you have
to study to play chess.
- Ah, really technical.
I read a few books,
when I was 10, 11,
I read about strategy ...
- The opening gambit.
I remember there was a
strategy which I always applied,
but it was the only
one I knew, etcetera.
And it's very, very ...
- Now on Masterclass,
if you're interested, there's
a site, masterclass.com,
where Kasparov gives
a masterclass,
I tried to follow it, but
I didn't understand a thing,
because he says: now,
put E4, G8, the knight here,
and you've won, this is
easy. He goes too fast
so you have to watch in
slow motion, it's interesting.
So how did you get
into the crypto world?
Well, I ...
Because before you were
with Autogrill, you've been...
Yes, I've done a lot of
things, including CEO
of Autogrill at the end of the 1990s.
- Okay.
So I started in the
corporate world,
initially with a company in Milan,
a financial holding of an important
family of property developers,
I was a financial analyst.
- Okay.
It was deadly boring,
I loathed it ...
That's funny.
So in their portfolio
they had a stake, by chance,
in the Veneto, I'm from Padua,
so I said: "Great, can't
I go and work
in your company in the
Veneto, which incidentally
had some management problems.
- Okay.
- So I went there
in a way it was like going
home and it was a company
that made gardening equipment,
lawn mowers. Tiny, a
really tiny company,
with a very clever manager
who was from Milan.
I worked with him and I learned
how to build and
manage a company,
because this was a small
firm and we built it up,
for three years I worked with
him, we built it up
to a good level, then he
stayed with them for 20 years
and turned it into the
world leader in lawn mowers
and gardening equipment.
Incredible.
- So I had an imprinting from the start
- An excellent school.
... an excellent school. Then
I carried on from there, but
always a bit with a vocation
for being an entrepreneur
more than a manager, so
I had a second opportunity
which was going to work in an
eyewear company, also in the Veneto ...
- Luxottica.
- No, well ...
An eyewear company that
wasn't doing well, it was there
I developed my vocation
for restructuring
business organisations.
- Okay.
I also invested in it,
I changed more or less
everything, a company
in contract manufacturing,
producing for others, with no brand,
and I launched a brand,
called Killer Loop ...
Okay.
It was a sports eyewear
brand which at the time
competed with Oakley,
you get the idea.
Anyway, this company
started almost from zero,
and had some success,
then I sold it
to the Benetton group.
I worked with them
for a few years,
in their group,
then through them
I went to Autogrill
first as general manager
then as CEO, and
I developed Autogrill
around the world,
we bought the American
arm, etcetera, etcetera ...
So you built all the bridges,
the Autogrill bridges,
was that you?
- They were already there ...
-They were already there.
- I had them repainted ...
- Repainted.
- Because they looked awful ...
- Horrible.
- I had them repaired,
or at least repainted.
- Well I think, now I'll tell you
a story, some feedback, there
was a period when I travelled
a lot in Italy, as a youngster,
and stopping at an
Autogrill was a pleasure.
When you went to have a
bite to eat at the Autogrill.
I hope,  I hope
after we intervened,
because before that,
when I joined ...
- It was filthy ...
- They'd just left SME,
which was state-owned, it was filthy.
- At the beginning, it was filthy.
But then there was the period
where you went to the buffet.
I think we did a good job.
We launched the Spizzico
brand for example ...
- Ah Spizzico.
- Pizza, yes.
So it was a very important experience
because obviously we're
talking about a large company,
highly organised, then in
America we bought a huge company
from the Marriott group,
the hotel people,
which manages all the food and
beverages services inside airports.
- Wow.
- So, I don't know, Starbucks,
we were the only Starbucks
licensee in the world.
Because in the airports
we were the concession holders,
so you can imagine what
an experience it was.
- But Spizzico was yours?
- Ours, we owned it.
We were the owners.
- It wasn't under license?
- No, no no.
- Ah okay.
Then we brought Burger
King into Italy, which was
under license. And then
with America we had
licenses for all the main brands,
Pizza Hut, Starbucks,
McDonald's, Burger King,
etcetera. So for me
it was an experience
that was really important
because I met a lot of companies,
I met the CEO of Starbucks,
for instance, it was
a great experience.
- Schultz.
- Schultz. Fantastic.
Later however, I was a bit,
in the end I'd reached
in a way, I think, the top
you could imagine,
because at the age of 40
I was CEO of Autogrill,
a company with 30,000
people, etcetera,
but I was finding this role
of manager a bit restrictive
in the end, so I left
and began working
with private equity funds
- Okay.
- to restructure
companies, and I
restructured two,
one of them was
Sector, the watch company.
Sector no limits, right.
Which we restructured and
then sold to another company
in the industry. And from
there I met a partner,
in the fund with which we
did this transaction,
who wanted to launch
a private equity fund
to do just this sort of
activity, restructuring
business in Italy, because
it was also a good time.
We launched a fund,
we raised a fund,
of a fairly large size, with
which we invested in Italy
for 12 years, I'm finishing now,
you could say.
We've bought companies
of every type, from the
Limoni and La Gardenia perfumeries
to betting and gambling businesses
with SNAI. A clothes company.
A paper manufacturer, which
makes special types of paper,
very high quality, all of them firms
that for various reasons
were having problems
and we took them ...
Where do you start when
you restructure a company?
First, you have to find the
core, the solid core.
The key strength.
- The key strength.
- Okay.
Almost all companies have
a key strength, if they don't
it becomes apparent and
you don't do anything.
Once you've found it,
it's like an artichoke, you
start peeling off everything
that doesn't work,
that's not so good.
And you try to end up
with just the best,
in terms both of
business model, ideas
and products, but
also of people.
Because there are almost always
valid people in a company.
So in the end you focus
your efforts on these people
and then, if possible, you introduce
a vision that takes the company
to a new level, an
international level,
a new level in products,
in efficiency, a new level
in costs, so you work on the
things the company doesn't have
where you can bring
in competences.
If you can do that,
you transform a company
that was having problems
but that had a solid core,
into a very good company.
I have to say that
of 15 operations, we've
succeeded in almost all of them,
one may have had some
difficulties, but overall,
since they were all companies ...
- Does the key strength
always have to be a
product or could it be
a person, where you say,
this is a brilliant entrepreneur?
No. It's the product.
It's the product, which may be the
brainchild of a brilliant entrepreneur
who didn't manage to take it forward, but there has to be a product.
- Okay.
- There has to be a product,
a service, a product, a business
idea, a business model.
Which almost always is
the product of a company.
Without that, it was very unlikely
that I would have invested
in one of those companies.
And the move into the crypto world?
I began investing a
little many years ago,
before things really started moving,
I'm talking about the 1990s.
So it's a completely
different dynamic,
venture capital was
starting, there were funds
that were raising, in some
cases, huge amounts,
and investing in hundreds of firms,
except that of those
businesses, 99%
went bust. But generally
there was one that worked.
At that time, I was
working with some funds,
but I also invested
personally in some companies.
In the end, all of them ...
Were a disaster.
Because the conditions
weren't right, e-commerce
wasn't possible, you didn't have access,
no one bought online,
I began looking again
a few years ago because
a very dear childhood
friend from Padua,
who is one of the
founders of Sgame,
and also one of the
partners on this operation,
re-introduced me into
the venture capital world,
but the new generation.
- In digital ...
Right, and we set up a
company, a small holding
which has invested
in some companies
and I have to say it's going
a bit better than last time.
And when this was
happening, I met Natale ...
- Okay.
- And I have to say that
I was very intrigued.
I have known
a few entrepreneurs ...
- I imagine you've seen a lot.
Benetton, anyway people
with great ideas,
and I have to say that in him
I really saw the characteristics
of a very interesting
entrepreneur. Someone
you saw was looking
to move to a new level.
He started, not long ago,
and by the way he has
a really interesting story,
I don't know if you've
interviewed him, but it's really ...
- Always behind the scenes.
- ... an incredible story,
a story that's worth
telling. And he's had
a great success mainly through,
by seizing the moment in
an intelligent way,
in crypto currencies before
things started heating up,
he made a lot of money
but then he invested,
he invested in building
an industrial project,
in the sector and
after making some progress,
he realised that
to move to a new level
he would perhaps have
to structure his organisation
in a different way,
combining the efficiency,
the speed, the vision
of the crypto world,
of the digital world,
the blockchain world,
but with the managerial
and organisational dynamics,
the relational dynamics
of the normal world.
What would you say are the
principles of a good organisation,
an organisation that
works? You know that
in the tech world, people try out
hundreds of models, for instance,
the latest thing was
holocracy, where you say,
no more hierarchies. We
don't have titles, or roles.
I don't know, after a bit someone says: "So who decides? Everyone".
Ok, but in the end there'll be someone who signs, won't there?
What do you think
is a good model
you can follow and say,
okay, if we have to organise
we'll take this approach, we'll
start here, sort things out this way.
I think it's a fairly
traditional model
where you have to ...
- Get out the whip.
No, no no. Not that,
it's never been the way.
In my view, you have to
have a group, a first line
of people. Independently
of the hierarchy question,
you need a very, very
strong group of people,
who are skilled in
their own specific areas,
who are given strong powers,
responsibility for moving
that specific area forward.
And then you have to
make sure these people
work together in an integrated way.
With someone marking time,
who coordinates and
marks time
and pushes in the
direction in which
it's been decided to go, and
above all keeps this direction,
this vision, up to date.
So that it can be
transferred to the people in charge
of moving the projects forward in the specific areas, in an organised way,
because some entrepreneurs have
great vision but are
unable to transfer it ...
- To implement it.
- They find it difficult
to implement it on time
and in the right way.
So this entrepreneur full of ideas
talks to everyone, then
everyone shoots off to try
and implement them, but
they're not integrated,
the priorities aren't clear and
the finance to manage,
to invest ... It goes belly up.
The ability to manage development,
evolution, and the ideas and the vision.
But then implementing them
in an organised way,
with a team
of competent people
who have responsibility,
what the Americans
call 'accountability',
- Accountability.
- Which is the opposite of ...
Holocracy, it's the
complete opposite.
Because I believe the
fact remains that
people have to
have responsibility
for their project. Then you
have to organise the right tools,
the right processes.
But in the end, the fact
remains that you, inside
those processes, you have
to feel responsible, you have
to have an objective
and try and achieve it.
And all the mechanisms of
for instance, rewarding,
etcetera, must
be organised. So, nothing
remarkable. The problem
is finding the people.
You have to have people
who have something extra.
Which is the hard thing
today, finding and retaining
good people.
- And retaining people.
All my friends, all the
entrepreneurs I talk to,
if someone were starting
a business today, and they say:
"Look, I guarantee that
I'm going to find real talents
and I guarantee that
my company is the best
at retaining them", the
business would be worth a trillion
because today everyone
has this incredible problem.
Today more than ever
because people see
and have the opportunity
to see infinite worlds.
Infinite opportunities.
- Which didn't use to be the case.
- It didn't use to be.
So this is the real problem.
I have a friend who's
an entrepreneur in China,
in Shanghai, and he said:
"It's unbelievable, sometimes
when I recruit people, they
come in on Monday morning,
and on Monday afternoon
they resign".
So you say: "How can I build
a company with all these
continuous changes?"
There it's very important,
even if it's not guaranteed,
to have a leadership. Credible.
- Right.
Strong. That's why the entrepreneur, the leader, the head of the company
is important. Because
he's the one who
gives someone the
motivation to stay.
Then you create all
the mechanisms around them ...
- The tools.
- But too often
I've seen people
who've come with me,
who stayed with me
because they believed
- They believed in you.
- Yes, they believed.
I think this is very important,
all the great entrepreneurs
and the important managers
have this characteristic.
So now what will you do
to try and implement all these
characteristics, these elements
on a project that's complex,
because you'll be following Nexcess
so you're following a
decentralised exchange,
- Centralised.
- Centralised,
with all the problems, bank,
banking licence, accounts.
It's no laughing matter.
- No, no, it's a world ...
Who made you do it?
No, but do you know
what's interesting?
It's a very innovative world
in a very traditional context.
Because in practice we're
introducing innovation
into the traditional
financial world.
And this is fascinating,
partly because I'm ...
But do you have experience
in the banking field too?
Of investments, financial
operators like private equity funds
and with banks too, because
we had relations with banks
with regard to our bank borrowings,
but I don't come from banking.
But in fact that's an advantage,
because I have always
seen the bank, unfortunately,
as the least evolved
business model ...
- Right.
- ... there's ever been.
Rigid, and it's not just
the banks who are to blame,
it's also the fault of the
system that has imposed
a series of monstruous
constraints on banks.
So banks have been
frozen for decades.
So there's room to
break this mechanism.
It won't be easy because
the regulatory world
provides a sort of protection,
it obliges them not to move
but it protects them too.
But it's opening up.
So I think the real challenge for us
is to innovate successfully
inside a "regulated" world
that has to be managed.
So we'll apply for the licenses
and we'll get them, because in
the end you can't stop this process.
Because it's an innovative
process that will benefit the market,
consumers, individuals, and
you know that these things
sooner or later ...
- Arrive.
Sorry, how do you
apply for a licence?
Do you go in and say:
"Hi, I'd like a banking licence",
and they say: "Fine,
here you are".
It's just like that. No,
you go to the local authority,
in this case, we're
applying for a licence
both for the banking side, ...
and for the exchange side,
in Malta. Malta had some
problems a few years ago
with money laundering,
etcetera, now it's decided
in order to move
away from all that, to
reinvent itself as a
modern financial centre.
Ah okay.
So it's one of the financial
centres that is paying
particular attention to present itself
to the market as an
innovative financial centre
in this area. So it's very
open to meeting entrepreneurs who
want to start up projects.
You take a project to them,
you don't go and say: "Good
morning, I want a licence".
You say, I'd like a licence
to do these things.
I want to do them this
way, they ask you all about
what you want to do.
And if they decide that
you're serious, that you want to succeed, that in any case
you want to comply with
regulations, they're very open.
Because it's what they want,
they want to become
a new modern financial
centre, one of the new
modern financial centres.
Okay.
This is the first
thing we're doing.
Obviously, in the meantime,
we're preparing ...
What things do you need,
what things are needed
for this sort of project?
A licence, you have to be a bank,
you have to have a
current account, to give ...
- Credit cards.
- Credit cards,
to give a bankcode to someone.
- Right.
Okay.
Then, for the exchange,
you obviously need
the ability to generate transactions,
you need the liquidity in the exchange,
you need the credibility
that you're a secure exchange,
for example, this is an
issue in the crypto world.
So you have to be able
to sell yourself as an exchange
that is further ahead
than many others
on the question of security, or that
in any case, emphasises this,
it's important, in
order to attract
people who are already
trading somewhere else
or new consumers who may
come more from the normal
world, where they want
to risk less than people
coming from the world
let's say of pure crypto currencies, where it was all
like the Far West.
So we have to have
the characteristics of
a new generation
of exchanges, crypto,
in the modern world.
So, licence, security,
efficiency, assistance
for example. With all
the exchanges today
the consumer complains
about the assistance.
If you've got a problem,
you call and you don't know
when they'll answer.
- Incidentally,
with banks too, the
problem you often have ...
- Tell me about it.
- You call the bank and say ...
Right. We're developing
an assistance service
that should be one
of the main strengths
of our project, so
if you combine
all these pieces,
we can comfortably say that
in the end the product we'll
present will be one of a kind
on the market. Again, going
back to what we said earlier,
if you don't have a product
that's a bit unique, it's hard
to present yourself, to
market your product.
You can do what you like ...
- Sure.
- The social media help,
the world's completely
different today, but in the end
if you don't have a
product, people realise.
- You won't go far.
- You won't go far,
and since this is a
long-term project
not a short-term project,
here I have to say
that I like Natale's vision,
even though he's
someone from the world
of trading, and so
is accustomed ...
- To speed.
- To speed,
he has a long-term vision,
he's really solid from
that perspective.
How long do you think
it will take for these models
to be adopted, generally,
apart from you
for a change of mentality,
a cultural change too?
- I think ...
- 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years.
I think it's difficult
because it could take
something like 5 years
and in fact I'm sure
that certain accelerations
could completely change
the scenario. We're
not a long way off,
today I think it's
more of a
"political" problem
than a technical problem
or of consumer culture.
I think the consumer
is ready to use
these tools, of any type,
etcetera. Today there
clearly is a desire
not to accelerate this change
because otherwise you'd
have to send to the scrapheap ...
A lot of people, a lot of situations.
...millions of people,
institutions, money,
politics, power centres and
so that is what will guide
this process, when it comes
it will be managed in any case
by the old world, not the new world.
All the new world can do is ensure
that the old world can't
stop this revolution.
But the timing will be
dictated by the old world,
because it still has a fairly
good grip on the levers.
But when you talk to your friends,
given that I would say
neither of us are in
the first flush of youth, and you say:
"I'm working on a crypto
project, an exchange",
what do they say to you?
They think I'm crazy ...
- In the sense that ...
They think I'm crazy
because most people
I know thought that
after this phase
of the private equity fund, either
I would have created another one,
which was entirely possible,
or that in any case
I would have gone on
working in the world I come from.
Big corporations, situations,
boards of directors.
Our own companies,
because we also invested
in our own companies, in
parallel with the fund, etcetera.
When I tell people: "I've
thrown myself into this,
I go to Malta every week
for the banking licence,
crypto, bitcoin, I've
got a wallet, etcetera",
they say: "You're crazy".
Also because today there's
this thing, I live in England,
I find this on the question of taxation.
People think, if you go and live
in England, it's because
you pay less tax.
I don't why people in Italy
think that, and it's not true
because you pay a lot
of tax in England.
If you don't want to pay
taxes, don't go to England,
that's my suggestion,
but it's incredible how
as soon as you say:
"I've got a wallet, crypto",
people are already thinking:
"So, you've got the bitcoins
hidden away somewhere".
There's still this
completely distorted view
of what's happening.
There's a story,
I hope she doesn't see
this video. My daughter is 21,
now she works in London,
in a traditional bank,
she's getting her first year ...
- They'll fire her.
- ... of experience.
Three years ago, 3 or 4,
she told me, she came home
one day, we live in
Milan, and she said:
"Do you know, all my friends'
parents have given them
a few thousand euro,
they're investing in bitcoin,
they're making a lot of money,
they're having a great
time." And I was really
hard, I said to her:
"You're mad,
it doesn't exist, it's
pure speculation,
trading, I don't believe
in these things,
I believe in building
things, you make money
by building, etcetera".
- Through sacrifice, hard work.
When I told her:
"Now I'm working
in cryptocurrencies, she
looked at me and said:
"You're crazy, you should have
made me some money a few years ago."
- Incredible.
- It's nemesis,
she works in a normal bank
and now I work in the crypto world.
Great Enrico, thank you so much.
- It's been a great pleasure
Thank you.
