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To my Horses, Dragon, Tiger. |
Xavier Niel is the most respected french entrepreneur. He owes his reputation to his approachable attitude as well as the intense and singular pace of his actions. Not only he is the founder and majority shareholders (is not solde owner) of Iliad, 42, Station F and Kima Ventures, he is also an intense character who personally answers, in record time, to more than a thousand emails every single day. Although his implicit management style can be somewhat challenging for the people working with him, he gives them his trust in daring decisions for them to push the boundaries towards ambitious goals and thrive alongside him.
I am one of those lucky fellows, as part of Kima Ventures and Max, two of his Venture Capital initiatives bound to invest in the best french founders in tech, worldwide.
Back in 2014, I reached out to Xavier to ask him if he was willing to invest in Captain Train. I had supported the company since 2011 and while they were struggling to raise a new round of funding, I was convinced that Xavier would understand the opportunity.
He ended up investing in Captain Train, making a 10x return in less than two years after that. From there we started to discuss dealflow opportunities over email. And one day, he asked for a meeting, in his very own way...
We ended up meeting in March, 2015. A couple of weeks later, he asked me if I wanted to join Kima Ventures.
When I arrived on September 1st, 2015, the intensity of my agenda abruptly changed. Suddenly, I had tons of new friends asking for meetings, hundreds of opportunities to review and a couple of new deals to make every single week. The portfolio was composed of roughly 400 companies and we had to figure out a way to step-up our game as the venture capital arm of the most active business angel in the world.
I had secretly wanted this job since 2013, and now that I was there, I had to be up to the task and beyond. I didn't want to fail. But as a husband and a father of three children, I couldn't fail my family neither. I assumed that if Xavier was able to deal with his intense agenda, I had no excuse. From there I started to implement incremental improvements which pilled up with incredible compounded effects. It didn't only change my way of dealing with my organisation, it also transformed my mindset, enjoying my quest to improve my learning and execution curve week after week.
In 2017, When The Family asked me to talk about my organisational methods to future startup employees, I came up with "Human Machine", A title reflecting a way to balance the fact that I was building a strong organisation while having a joyful life, that the two were linked to each others and highly compatible.
It took me a while to write this kind-of-book, probably because I didn't want it to be similar to the others about productivity and self-development. I was looking for a format that was feeling right, less fixed or steady and more evolutive.
The importance of versioning this book is that, like each one of us, it will never be perfect, it won't fit to everyone and it must be patiently crafted over time. I hope that time will prove me right. In the meantime, don't hesitate to send your feedbacks :)