"Good evening Olympia! What's up? Are you excited?" The walls of the famous Olympia concert hall in the center of Paris had heard these phrases thousands of times, but never from a businessman. On Wednesday, September 18, Xavier Niel, founder of French telecom company Free (and a Le Monde shareholder), took to this legendary stage in his own way, as an entrepreneurial rock star. This year, according to Challenges magazine, he became France's ninth richest man, with over €22 billion.
In front of an enthusiastic audience – tickets sold out in 48 hours – and a lineup of notable guests like entrepreneurs Jacques-Antoine Granjon (e-commerce company Veepee) and Jacques Veyrat (manufacturing company Impala), banker Matthieu Pigasse (a member of Le Monde Group's supervisory board) and politicians Thierry Solère and Olivier Véran – Niel spent an hour on stage with a microphone and a teleprompter, to share the secrets of how he made his fortune.
"Make mistakes. I'm the king of crashing, and that's why I don't do so badly!" "Trust others; it's diversity that makes success." "Entrepreneurship is the best way to unlock the social elevator." These were among some of Niel's nuggets of wisdom. While the substance of his talk echoed management school teachings, his style was far less conventional. His first piece of advice was titled "Go to prison," in a nod to his 2004 stint in Paris's Santé prison for misuse of company assets and aggravated procuring.
The event served to promote the release of Niel's new book of interviews, Une sacrée envie de foutre le bordel ("A hell of a desire to make a mess"), co-written with Jean-Louis Missika, and set to be out on September 25. The title references Free's arrival on the mobile market in 2012. "We broke the system! We gave you back tens of billions of euros in purchasing power. That's my pride and joy. Seriously, it's not the politicians who change your life, those who can change your life, it's you, it's us!" Niel said, met with cheers from the audience. He wrapped up with a "thank you Olympia, thank you France!," to the tune of Frank Sinatra's My Way.
Determined to become an entrepreneur, Lancelot, 29, didn't learn much but appreciated that Niel took the stage: "It breaks the great silence of billionaires who prefer to hide." Also in the audience, Gilles Balbastre, director of Nouveaux Chiens de garde ("The New Watchdogs"), a 2012 documentary on the media and its ties to power, saw the event as more of a reflection of the growing influence of corporate executives: "For my next film, which will describe the implications of the digital revolution and its promoters on society, this is bread and butter." Expected before 2026, this documentary will be entitled Ceux qui tiennent la laisse ("Those who hold the leash").