The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
01:05:16 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[01:05:16] S1: Did he see Eight Sleep become successful? [01:05:18] S0: No. It's funny because if you go back to when my dad died, I was still a lawyer in Milan. So he wouldn't know I live in The U. S, he wouldn't know I'm in Silicon Valley, he wouldn't know I'm an entrepreneur, he wouldn't know I'm married to a Mexican woman. Like, it's funny because if you had the cutoff on that date, my life would be so different from what happened after that. I'm the same person but in two different worlds. I'm sure he'd be so proud. Yeah, yeah. Early days was hard because when I started becoming an entrepreneur, my mom didn't want, because my mom was a teacher in high school that, you know, in Italy, you make probably €1,000 something like that, dollars 1,500. And so she didn't have any means if I would fail as an entrepreneur. But I was doing well at the law firm, and so I knew that probably my boss would take me back if I would fail as an entrepreneur at Alien Ouveri. And so I took the risk. But I had the nightmares for many years after that that I had to go back to the law firm. [01:06:19] S1: What advice would you have to a young person in their career on taking risk? Was a law student too, by the way. [01:06:27] S0: Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't [01:06:28] S1: know that. Because I was told that was a secure life. We didn't have that much And money it's like, you know that you'll do okay as a lawyer. Exactly.
01:06:35 · Matteo Franceschetti
[01:06:35] S0: What would you advise them? So we talk about this with Alex, with my wife, a lot, because we... Imagine this moment where I'm working so I come from this city called Ferrara. Ferrara is a 150,000 people city in the middle of Italy with a castle in the middle, and there are the walls from 1600ish all around. And so now sometimes we joke about, you know, when she comes to Ferrara and we go see my mom, she says, How the hell did you go from this city to The U. S. And Silicon Valley, AI, and everything you do? And so we joke about, if you were meeting a kid now on the street, and he would ask you how to get where you got, what would you tell them? And the funny thing is, I thought about this a lot, but I don't have an answer. I don't know. I just kept moving things. I saw opportunity. I went for the opportunity. I fell here, but that opportunity unlocked that other opportunity on this connection. And so it's impossible to explain how you go from I didn't even speak English until when I was 24. I almost knew nothing about computers until then. And then after I graduated, I saved enough money with my first tiny startup, call it startup, in Italy, and then my dad took a loan to send me to San Diego to study English. And then with that loan, I was able, because I graduated with honor, to get into the big law firms. But even then, everything changed, and I'll tell you this story, because my mom one day brought back home. I was around 21, right? No, I was 20. It was my first year of college, and Italy was four years. And I was not a great student. I hated school. It was terrible. And so I started university with just now mid level grades. But I didn't like the idea of becoming a lawyer, just a traditional lawyer in this small town doing tiny things. I wanted something international. And she brings this magazine that was coming with this journal called Sole Venti Quattrore, which is the Italian Wall Street Journal, right? And this magazine was talking about these big law firms that they were doing these international transactions, doing IPOs and securities. So I started learning about these law firms, and I discovered that the only way you can get in are two conditions: you need to speak English, and you need to graduate with mania cum laude. And then in my typical faction, say, okay, those are the two conditions, I'll get it done.
01:08:53 · Matteo Franceschetti, Harry Stebbings
And so, in Italy, the scores, when you go to college, are from 18 to 30. I was averaging 23. From that moment on, it was 30 with mania cum laude almost every single exam. I graduated mania cum laude, we take the loan, I go to the bank with my dad, they give him the loan, I go to San Diego, learn English, and then I get into Freshfields, then Allan and Ori, and then I become [01:09:15] S1: an entrepreneur. But why? I can tell you, we used to go to Chelsea Football Club every week, and we didn't have that much money, sat in regular seats that weren't very good. This sounds really descriptive and weird. I hated the smell of beer, and it was horribly, like, aggressive in football stadiums back in 2000. You can never pee at halftime because there were too many men trying to get in, and I was five, six, seven, eight. And then one day, a friend of mine who was very rich took me to that, like, box or corporate, and it was beautiful. It didn't stink of beer. It wasn't aggressive and horrible. You could pee at half time and don't laugh. Like, my eyes were open to, like, oh my god. I hated it before, and life was so much better with money. Yeah. And it gave me drive. Yep. Where do you pin yours to? [01:10:00] S0: Well, I think I always had that drive because I was doing a lot of sports before, right? So when I was a teenager, I was playing tennis completely. [01:10:07] S1: But you've gotta change your life to go from 23 to 30 and to get Magna Cum Laude and speak English and go to San Diego. Why?
01:10:07 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[01:10:07] S1: But you've gotta change your life to go from 23 to 30 and to get Magna Cum Laude and speak English and go to San Diego. Why? [01:10:16] S0: I don't know, it just clicked. And it's funny because at least in terms of anything school related, I never had that. But then I'm the type of guy that when I have a goal, then you don't stop me. Like, I become a beast. Like, I will outwork you. Like, you can't stop me. And something clicked, and that is what happened back then. Then the why, I don't know. I just think I didn't want to work for the tiny, chewy people law firm of my dad doing things in Farada. [01:10:43] S1: Is Is that that your greatest weakness? Because I too am like you, but that's why I'm having a hip operation at 30. My shoulder is fucked, and my knee is unrepairable. I can't run anymore because I run 100 mile races so often that my body's just so broken. I'm a beast. I'm a broken beast. It's the scene. [01:11:02] S0: It's what I was telling you before. I have a scene. I can't stop. If you can put me on a boat in Sardinia, I like so much what I do, that then the downside is I don't stop, and I get bored after a few days. And so that is why we call it the scene. Can't relax, right? [01:11:18] S1: Do you ever want to? Like, one thing for me is I lie in bed at night, and actually, like, my mind races. And it's kind of sometimes very lonely, alone in my head at night.
01:11:18 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[01:11:18] S1: Do you ever want to? Like, one thing for me is I lie in bed at night, and actually, like, my mind races. And it's kind of sometimes very lonely, alone in my head at night. [01:11:27] S0: Now the people I admire the most, not outside business, not like people that you want to emulate, are really people that you might find in any place in the world, but call it in Italy because I'm Italian, that are on the beach, they're just walking. Actually, there is this guy. We were having dinner last week, my wife and I. And we see this gentleman, and he's having dinner in a pretty nice restaurant. We were in Milan for work. And he's having dinner in this nice restaurant, and he's there drinking his glass of wine. I don't drink alcohol. And he's eating, I don't remember, but a beautiful meal. And he's there, perfectly dressed, without the phone, alone just thinking. And obviously, know nothing about the guy. I know nothing. But I just say, I admire the guy so much that he was there, treating himself, without looking at the phone, just thinking and enjoying his meal. In this apparently to me peace, that is something I I admire from people because I I struggle with that. [01:12:25] S1: Mateo, listen. I I so appreciate you being so open. I love conversations. It's it's almost... It's nicer the second time because you're able to have a friendliness that you don't have the first. So thank you so much for being so amazing, and this has been awesome. [01:12:37] S0: Of course. Thank you so much.
01:12:41 · Harry Stebbings
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