00:01:22 · Luca Ferrari, David Senra
[00:01:22] S1: I've always been kind of polarized in my in my interests. I I either choose to do something and then I'll try to match that out, try to be the best or part of the best team, or I will try not to do it at all. Or if it really has to be done, then I'll literally try to kind of just check the boxes for, you know, minimum commitment. All sorts of rewards, emotional and material are at extremes. I think I have a close to 10 out of 10 relationship with my wife. I think to me that's worth that's worth 100 times more than having an addict relationship with my wife. Same with my job and my colleagues, trying to build best company there ever was. And we understand that's aspirational and likely nearly impossible. But I think if we get close to that accomplishment, the rewards, the fulfillment, the satisfaction, the learning along the way, financial rewards will be just exponentially greater than just doing well enough. And so I think you have limited time and energy. You want to find one or very few pursuits or to try to go all out and everything else keep it, you know, eliminated if you can or keep it at a bare minimum. [00:02:43] S0: So you just said you're trying to build the best company there ever was?
00:02:43 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[00:02:43] S0: So you just said you're trying to build the best company there ever was? [00:02:47] S1: Yeah. Just, again, aspirationally. Don't take it... It's not it's not meant to be arrogant. I I know we have a very slim chance, but just, you know, the waking up in the morning and thinking we're not building a nice church or trying to build the greatest cathedral that anybody has ever built. That's a lot more exciting to me. Gets you further. It's more fun, energizing. Better people will wanna work with you. And I think one of the big ways in which life is interesting is surrounding yourself with amazing people, better people than than you are, if possible. [00:03:14] S0: Do your co founders feel the [00:03:15] S1: same way? You'd have to ask them. I think we probably, for the most part, I'd say. [00:03:20] S0: But is this something that you guys repeat to each other throughout the company? You're trying to build the best company ever?
00:03:20 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[00:03:20] S0: But is this something that you guys repeat to each other throughout the company? You're trying to build the best company ever? [00:03:25] S1: We're not big on founders. I know this is maybe ironic to say, you know, given your your your podcast, but we we try to eliminate the idea of founder from this company as much as possible. We we think it distracts people from from the company. The company is a center. And and whether you're a founder or you joined a little bit later, all that matters is your contribution, your trajectory. The people at at the company, those at least I know the best and with whom I work the closest, regardless of whether they're founders, I think broadly they share this ambition. So... Yes. But it's not necessarily a founder thing. It's more of a Venue Spoons thing. [00:04:01] S0: The way I've been describing you to other founders is, like, almost like Luca is like the Galapagos Island of, like, entrepreneurship. Right? Because if I'm not mistaken, when we were talking, you're like, well, I don't really listen to, like, podcasts. I didn't read books. I didn't study other entrepreneurs. You've kind of evolved the way you build your company, like, completely independent of anything going on around you.
00:04:22 · Luca Ferrari
[00:04:22] S1: Yeah, I think part of that is, I don't know how much the audience knows about Bending Spoons, but we started in Copenhagen, Denmark quickly thereafter moved it to Milan, Italy. These are not exactly, especially Milan, exactly and certainly not at the time over a decade ago, a center of entrepreneurial pursuit and an ecosystem where you've, you know, you turn left and right and you have all these other start up start ups or or advisers and whatnot. So... Of and course, were absolute nobodies. So it's not that we could pick up the phone and call Jeff Bezos. Right? So we just had to figure things out on our own. We were trying to build, as perishional speaking, the best company in the world. If you emulate what most people are doing, you're pretty much guaranteed to, you know, at best be mediocre, mediocre plus, maybe you execute a little bit better. But if you want to try to be the best of the best, you need to take some risks and rethink things. And so we figured, okay, let's try to experiment, invent, think from first principles, and we will make more mistakes. It will take longer than if we copied some of the tried and tested approaches, but we should be able to find at least a few insights, few new ways that will set us apart. And I think being more isolated geographically has probably played to our advantage in that regard so that we weren't under the influence of of the mantras that everybody, you know, the big startup hubs over time was was preaching. Let's give a little
00:05:47 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[00:05:47] S0: bit of background of Bending Spoons. You had a startup before Bending Spoons that failed, right? Yeah. Okay. What did you learn from that failure? And then what lessons did you learn from that that helped you start Bending Spoons then? [00:05:59] S1: Yeah. So that was called EverTail. We were... It went on from 2010 to 2013. We were using AI to write diaries automatically. So you would install an app and collect data and figure out what what you'd done, where you had gone and whatnot. It was actually pretty cool, but never managed to make it scale. Commercial failure. Some of the most crucial lessons were one, the importance of of talent. So we had a very small team at peak, maybe 12 people. But we saw that the contribution of the the best person we had on the team relative to, like, the, say, the medium person, forget about the the, you know, the bottom, but was easily 10 times as great, literally worlds apart. So that taught us, okay, range of productivity, at least in our field in digital technology is massive. So the value of having on board that sort of individual is gigantic. And also, that person who was performing at the peak in that group was actually one of the least experienced people. And so that showed us, okay, maybe experience, certainly valuable, but not as critical as people sometimes tell you it is. If you have someone who's really smart and really cares, often they'll be able to deliver as much value, if not a lot more value than someone with a lot more experience.
00:07:22 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[00:07:22] S0: Let's give a concrete So I'm just gonna pull up the notes. When we were having lunch, I was like, oh, this is too good. And I started just texting on WhatsApp. I'm like... And I think at the bottom, I say, like, these are notes for when you do the show, even though this was, like, eight months ago or whenever it was. And you you mentioned that. You're like, hey. You said something interesting. You're like, I'd rather hire young graduates. Let's talk about the Evernote story in one second. So you said most executives are overvalued or overrated in your opinion. I'd rather hire young graduates graduates. Find someone good and then saturate their capacity. Can you give examples of how you've done this? [00:07:54] S1: Why talent, let's say over experience? I think there are a few reasons for that. Number one, most of the things we do, and I mean broadly, in most industries probably, certainly in the technology industry, are not rocket science. They do not require immense amounts of notional knowledge and repeated, you know, extensive track records. They require actually a good brain and a desire to do well, to achieve first and foremost. And also our field technologically, but also in terms of customer expectations evolves very quickly. Experience gets tail relatively fast. Wait, before you go [00:08:39] S0: on, sorry, I'm going interrupt you. Explain more about customer expectations evolve rapidly in your field.