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1. Mark Zuckerberg did his own software for Facebook, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin made their own for Google.
2. I have done a lot of stupid things in my life.
3. We need to create an ecosystem which will make young people want to start their own company.
4. Nobody believed in the success of the Internet.
5. I once said, ‘Steve Jobs is the American Xavier Niel,’ but that was humour.
6. It’s funny how the smallest things I’ve done speak the loudest about me, but I like that.
7. I like being an outsider. It is better in France on the outside.
8. I always follow the same idea: Start small and disrupt to create something big.
9. Personally, I have invested in around ten U.S. companies and will continue to do so. That doesn’t give me a strong experience in the American market. But I have an understanding of the public.
10. I’m not unusual; it’s the others who are strange.
11. From France, you can call anywhere in the world for free. Americans can’t do that!
12. France has a specificity — the market players who provide Internet access are the telecom operators, and all of the players are French. They had a habit of, let’s say, getting along with each other, and the prices traditionally were very high.
13. If you know how to make software, then you can create big things.
14. I don’t think Steve Jobs had much desire to share his fortune.
15. The question for France and all countries is, ‘Do you favour foreign Internet operators that do not pay, or do you favour national operators who pay?’
16. Countries like France should not be naive. We don’t have a French YouTube or Amazon or Netflix.
17. If you are worried about the risk to your reputation, you don’t launch a telecoms firm in an aggressive way.
18. I know one business, and that’s how to make software.
19. Stephane Richard is far more attuned to the market than Didier Lombard.
20. You can spend your money on art works and sit down and look at them. Or you can use your money to help people.