Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. You said, I like the thirty five hour
Speaker 1: work week so much that I do it twice a week. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I leave everything with intensity, and that is the secret.
Speaker 1: Intensity is probably the right worm if you want to
Speaker 1: leave fully. I'm Bob Pittman. I've had a lot of
Speaker 1: jobs over the years, and I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 1: be at the center of some major cultural and media revolutions.
Speaker 1: The cable revolution in the eighties as the co founder
Speaker 1: of MTV, the Internet revolution in the nineties as the
Speaker 1: CEO of America Online a o l in the pre
Speaker 1: Google and Facebook days, and now the audio revolution as
Speaker 1: the chairman and CEO of I Heart Media, America's number
Speaker 1: one audio company. And that's only part of my story.
Speaker 1: I started out in a little town in the Ssissippi,
Speaker 1: son of a minister, got my real first job at
Speaker 1: a radio station in my teens. It's where my roots are,
Speaker 1: music voices, hearing people's stories, and one of the things
Speaker 1: I've always loved is trying to decode how big ideas
Speaker 1: find their way into the world. This new show, Math
Speaker 1: and Magic is about those stories. It's about the stories
Speaker 1: from the frontiers of marketing. Each show I sit down
Speaker 1: with visionaries to hear how they've used data and creativity
Speaker 1: to bring incredible ideas to life. On this episode, we
Speaker 1: have with us a living legend of advertising, marketing and communications,
Speaker 1: Maurice Levy, the former and legendary chairman and CEO of
Speaker 1: Public's Group. And just to give you an idea of
Speaker 1: his impact as CEO, the company increased its value some
Speaker 1: hundredfold during his tenure at the top. Maurice also has
Speaker 1: an unusual perspective. He was just a second CEO of
Speaker 1: the company, and he joined the company back in nineteen one.
Speaker 1: Is it's rector of I t Yeah, he was a
Speaker 1: data guy a full thirty to forty years before it
Speaker 1: became the thing. He was one of the pioneers of
Speaker 1: globalization too, and even has a legendary story about literally
Speaker 1: saving the company from a fire. But before we get
Speaker 1: to all that and a lot more, Welcome Maurice. Glad
Speaker 1: to have you here, and by the way, congratulations on
Speaker 1: your induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame. Quite an honor, Messy,
Speaker 1: It's great. I feel I was sort of surprised you
Speaker 1: weren't already in there. But but that's another debate. We
Speaker 1: always start our episodes with a feature. We called you
Speaker 1: in sixty seconds. Do you prefer cats or dogs? None?
Speaker 1: Chess or checkers? Chess, Paris or New York City? Difficult
Speaker 1: to choose. I love both skiing or snowboarding, skiing, jazz
Speaker 1: or classical jazz. Do you have a secret talent? No,
Speaker 1: I have a secret source, and the secret sauce is
Speaker 1: a secret sources live at the maximum of speed. Childhood hero,
Speaker 1: probably the most important Victoria, what's your favorite word? Messy
Speaker 1: your least favorite word? Because I had to wake up?
Speaker 1: And any foods you will never eat? Book. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: jump into the defining moment in your professional life. You
Speaker 1: joined bublicity director of I T in ninety one, and
Speaker 1: for those of you who are not around back then,
Speaker 1: in one most people didn't know what I T was
Speaker 1: or even data. It was a very forward thinking job
Speaker 1: for that time. A year and your job of fire
Speaker 1: breaks out in the office. You are the hero of
Speaker 1: the story. Grabbed a fireman's jacket and helmet, rushed into
Speaker 1: the building by the way, breaking every rule and probably
Speaker 1: every law to do that to save the magnetic tapes
Speaker 1: containing the company's computer files, and I heard you actually
Speaker 1: threw the tapes and disc out the window to colleagues
Speaker 1: standing outside. And this act of business bravery and personal
Speaker 1: risk meant the company was able to invoice clients on time,
Speaker 1: carry on the business more or less as normal, not
Speaker 1: run out of money, despite the destruction of the offices. Sorry,
Speaker 1: we were the eighth of September, so people were waiting
Speaker 1: for thirty years of September to get the sorry page. Now,
Speaker 1: how did you hear about the fire? What led up
Speaker 1: to this? The story start. I had to den with friends,
Speaker 1: and then I took a car with my friends and
Speaker 1: we weren't and I saw the sky read and they said,
Speaker 1: Purvis is burning. Says stop bringing everything to you. It's
Speaker 1: not perviousis was burning. It's probably the bank nearby. The
Speaker 1: more I got closer to to the office, the more
Speaker 1: I showed that it was pou. So he left the
Speaker 1: car and they rush. What led me to enter was twofold. First.
Speaker 1: It has been enormous, enormous work to get everything done
Speaker 1: on time for the new system. We have been working
Speaker 1: for some twelve months day night, we can back still day.
Speaker 1: You can imagine in France, basti days like in the
Speaker 1: fourth of July. We are working Christmas pizza, whatever day
Speaker 1: it was. We were working hard, and suddenly to see
Speaker 1: all these disappear in ashes was impossible to me, and
Speaker 1: I wanted also, and more importantly, to be sure that
Speaker 1: there was no one inside. I tried to get in.
Speaker 1: It was impossible. I had physics fight with a fireman.
Speaker 1: I waited a little bit. Things calm down, and they
Speaker 1: went the backstreet, and as you said, I broke every
Speaker 1: single room. When I get in there was still some
Speaker 1: burning US bank and everything was dark. I was walking
Speaker 1: in the water, and to be honest, I was completely
Speaker 1: unconscious of the risk. But since then I must say
Speaker 1: that this unconsciousness of risk has been part of my character.
Speaker 1: Ef He did you say, the greater the risk, the
Speaker 1: greater the reward. It's just the same lesson. I was
Speaker 1: not thinking about any reward. No, I was not thinking
Speaker 1: at all about any world war now. As a result,
Speaker 1: but not the reason you did it certainly is the
Speaker 1: founder and CEO took notice of you. He did took
Speaker 1: notice the very first day when I met him in March.
Speaker 1: Second one that was supposed to spend ten fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: the classic ten fifteen minutes with the chairman CEO. We
Speaker 1: were calling him the Pope of advertising in France, and
Speaker 1: we stayed one hour together and he ended up the
Speaker 1: meeting by giving me his book. Handling the book to
Speaker 1: me said young man, one day you will run the company.
Speaker 1: I was thrilled. I went home and they said, my wife,
Speaker 1: you know, this is what he told me, and she
Speaker 1: said to me, calm down. He's probably saying this to
Speaker 1: every new Cooma. So did he. I discovered many years
Speaker 1: after that he did not, and I was the very
Speaker 1: first he did it. Obviously after the fire he got
Speaker 1: even bigger notice of me. Master Blanche, the founder he
Speaker 1: built the agency when he was at the age of twenty,
Speaker 1: joined Generald Goal during the war. It destroyed everything before
Speaker 1: going to London in order to make sure that he
Speaker 1: is not going in the hand of the German. He
Speaker 1: came back from London after I formidable War and the
Speaker 1: formidable resistance and he started all over again and he
Speaker 1: created the most creative agency of continental Europe. It was
Speaker 1: a magnet for talent, for people, for clients. You know
Speaker 1: what publicis was in those days in France. It was
Speaker 1: a monument. It was like Notre dame for the advertising world,
Speaker 1: and um to imagine that an eighty guy, one of
Speaker 1: this math man in the world of mad men, could
Speaker 1: one day run the agency was crazy. It was not
Speaker 1: in my plan, it was not in my wildest dreams.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking that one day we leave public
Speaker 1: system that will run a more classic company. And in fact,
Speaker 1: two years after he forered me to be the CEO
Speaker 1: of the agency and they refused, and they said, why
Speaker 1: did you refuse? I said, you want me because you
Speaker 1: believe that they have the skills to manage the crisis,
Speaker 1: which I have. But you don't want me to run
Speaker 1: the company because you don't believe I have the creative skills.
Speaker 1: So I prefer to do not disappoint you by being
Speaker 1: fake CEO. So what I will do is to fix
Speaker 1: the issues and then I will go back to my
Speaker 1: original job. He said, it's the first time that somebody
Speaker 1: is refusing a promotion. I said, but what you can
Speaker 1: do is to give me the race, which he goes
Speaker 1: with the promotion. Don't give me the title, give me
Speaker 1: the race, which he did, and I did the work.
Speaker 1: Roughly a year after. He called me and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm not asking you, I'm telling you the press release
Speaker 1: which is going out tomorrow, and you are the next CEO.
Speaker 1: Always started. Here's this wildly creator guy, the admin of
Speaker 1: all time, that just knew the right campaign you, how
Speaker 1: to get the client involved. You would start a n T.
Speaker 1: How did you make this switch from the math man
Speaker 1: to the batman. In fact, when I graduated from engineer,
Speaker 1: I was looking for a job and I have been
Speaker 1: hired by, or at least retained by a few industrial companies.
Speaker 1: This was in sixty or six. All this operation you
Speaker 1: had this big computer room and big programmer analysts room
Speaker 1: with four or five people in white blues is working
Speaker 1: on that desk. And I said, crising, I made the
Speaker 1: biggest mistake of my life. I would spend my time
Speaker 1: with these people. This is just crazy. I had already
Speaker 1: a contract in hand, and I was sharing this view
Speaker 1: with a friend at the dinner and he said, but
Speaker 1: you know there is this advertising agency which was not
Speaker 1: yet publicist, was looking for its I T manager said, common,
Speaker 1: I'm just getting out of school and you want me
Speaker 1: to manage Go. These are admin, they don't know anything
Speaker 1: about computer. You go, you get the job. I am went,
Speaker 1: and I said, wow. It was a fantastic building, full
Speaker 1: of light like in your office. All the people were
Speaker 1: in jeans and long hair, and I was wearing jeans
Speaker 1: and having long hair, as curious as it could be.
Speaker 1: And I spent twenty minutes with the CEO and he
Speaker 1: gave me the job pretty quickly. I was doing my
Speaker 1: job in the morning and I was spending my time
Speaker 1: in the afternoon either with the department or with the
Speaker 1: media department. I did the very first algorithm of media
Speaker 1: optimization in France, and this was fun because as nobody
Speaker 1: knew about using operational research and algorithm for optimization of
Speaker 1: media investment. So I did that. It was a great success.
Speaker 1: I was twenty five and people were taking me for
Speaker 1: new business. I was a kind of mascot and every
Speaker 1: time I was going with them, we are winning. And
Speaker 1: I was spending time with the creative people. So when
Speaker 1: I got the offer from previous is in the deep
Speaker 1: of my heart, I was a bit disappointed that I
Speaker 1: was going back to it, which I had abandoned. I
Speaker 1: was already having so much fun with the creative work.
Speaker 1: When I explained this to myself, said he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you cannot be both. So you're an it guy. He
Speaker 1: criticized me quite off, saying, Moist, you should not do
Speaker 1: so many things. You should just do adds and take
Speaker 1: care of the clients. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: that I was doing everything which was making me having fun.
Speaker 1: You're hitting on the topic of this podcast, which is
Speaker 1: math and magic. There are very few people we talked
Speaker 1: to that have both the math mind and the creative mind,
Speaker 1: and you clearly do. Where did it come from and
Speaker 1: were you always that way as a kid? The French
Speaker 1: system of education at the point in time you have
Speaker 1: to choose if you go science and math or if
Speaker 1: you go literature. I have chosen to do both. You
Speaker 1: broke the system once again. You have an aptitude for both.
Speaker 1: The math aspect has been required, the literature philosophy aspect
Speaker 1: had The grandfather was telling me a lot of stories
Speaker 1: either the bib because stories. It was explaining to me
Speaker 1: spinos on if you're there, and it was a fantastic storyteller.
Speaker 1: Your dad was a philosophy professor, bought against Franco in
Speaker 1: Spain and wound up in France and then moved on
Speaker 1: to Morocco when the Nazis began their big move and
Speaker 1: the family got accepted. There didn't imprint you in any way. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't know. My father wouldn't go north because of
Speaker 1: the Nazis, who couldn't go south because of Franco, and
Speaker 1: he was condemned to death. I had no other choice
Speaker 1: than to go to Morocco. We moved back to France
Speaker 1: and my father continued to fight against Franco in the
Speaker 1: press and in many of the aspects, and my mother
Speaker 1: was taking care of us. There's a story that you
Speaker 1: actually got into I t because there was some contest.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me the story? In fact, it was
Speaker 1: the first story of my failure. When I was very young,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a curgeon, and when I started
Speaker 1: that the education, it has been a bit difficult. As
Speaker 1: soon as we were entering in a hospital, I was
Speaker 1: almost to be taken care of. I was going kind
Speaker 1: of limb. Everyone told me, okay, there is no way
Speaker 1: that you will be capable of handling the scalpel, so
Speaker 1: forget about that, and then you have to choose another direction.
Speaker 1: As I failed, I had to find something else. And
Speaker 1: there has been a contest organized by a shoemaker who
Speaker 1: left Czechoslovakia at the time of the Nazis and the
Speaker 1: Communist Party, etcetera. And you organized the contest, and they
Speaker 1: want a contest, and the price was and the price
Speaker 1: was to go to the US and to learn I
Speaker 1: t whatever I wanted. That's a pretty good story. Now
Speaker 1: it's a nice story. I want to get into how
Speaker 1: you fended off a foreign takeover, why you decided to
Speaker 1: bring the company to America, and why you left your large,
Speaker 1: beautiful office for a much smaller one on the other
Speaker 1: side of the building. The first a quick break, welcome
Speaker 1: back to math and magic. We're here with more easily
Speaker 1: be so in forty five, I think at the time
Speaker 1: you took over the CEO. At that time the business
Speaker 1: I understanding was about French business. You set about building
Speaker 1: the company internationally. I guess first European. What was it
Speaker 1: that you saw that put you on that path? Because
Speaker 1: you were really the king of France. I mean, you
Speaker 1: couldn't be much bigger in France than you were. Why
Speaker 1: did you want to expand? It was not so much
Speaker 1: the fact that we were limited in our growth in France,
Speaker 1: which was true, because we are so big that it
Speaker 1: was hard to grow much higher. We could have extended
Speaker 1: in diversified services. It was simply that the core of
Speaker 1: our business is advertising, and globalization was at outdoors. The
Speaker 1: client was starting to think global. I thought that if
Speaker 1: we want to stay alive, we will have to be global.
Speaker 1: Otherwise we will lose our business, we will lose our reasons,
Speaker 1: that we will lose everything. So I decided that we
Speaker 1: will go global. It has been a bit tough with
Speaker 1: the founder at the beginning. Every time I was suggesting
Speaker 1: that we go somewhere, he was asking me if there
Speaker 1: was something that we could bring to that country that
Speaker 1: they have not already. And I remember when we are
Speaker 1: speaking about the US, said that mois the US. What
Speaker 1: the heck are you going to do? They are the
Speaker 1: king of advertising. They are the best in the world,
Speaker 1: the largest, the biggest. What do you think you will bring?
Speaker 1: I said, I will not bring a lot, but they
Speaker 1: will bring a lot to us, and this is how
Speaker 1: we should do it. And he said that it will
Speaker 1: take a lot of time and you will have to
Speaker 1: do it yourself, et cetera. I was living on the
Speaker 1: Monday morning, I was back on the plane of the
Speaker 1: Tuesday evening, so back at work on Wednesday, and nobody
Speaker 1: noticed in Paris, that I was not there, and at
Speaker 1: the same time we were building a pretty good business here.
Speaker 1: We started to work with great brands and have them
Speaker 1: growing outside the US in Europe, and then I had
Speaker 1: to to wait a little bit for developing the network globally. Also,
Speaker 1: the time Martin Sorrel bought J Walter Thompson, yea coincidence
Speaker 1: or was there something in the air? Was there a
Speaker 1: rush to build the first big global agency? With the
Speaker 1: way the Martin story move has been analyzed, it was
Speaker 1: much more like a copycat of what he has done
Speaker 1: with the Sacchi Brothers. He was the CF of Sachi
Speaker 1: Sachi he left to build his own operation, and people
Speaker 1: were thinking not about globalization, but about the fact that, okay,
Speaker 1: it's a kind of revenge and he's going to do
Speaker 1: what he has done with Sachi Brothers and build a
Speaker 1: company like the one he has been working and building.
Speaker 1: And you wound up with Sachi and Sachi ironically, ironically,
Speaker 1: and what is the irony? Also that it was in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty I believe, I don't remember exactly. I
Speaker 1: was my office and marcellusin Blanche asked me to join
Speaker 1: him at his office and sitting in the office was Moist,
Speaker 1: Sachi and Martin. Sorry, Massel invited me to join them,
Speaker 1: and he said, the Moist these gentlemen offering us to
Speaker 1: make an acquisition together, and I would like you to
Speaker 1: go London and to see with him. He we should
Speaker 1: be doing it or not. The first attempt was to
Speaker 1: acquire us, but with Marsel there was no chance that
Speaker 1: we will be selling, and with me even less chances.
Speaker 1: I went to London. I had a wonderful day at
Speaker 1: such as actually with Mois, with Martin and Charles who
Speaker 1: came and just say oh. At the end of the meeting,
Speaker 1: Moise and Martin asked me what I will recommend to
Speaker 1: the old man. I said, I will recommend not to
Speaker 1: make the deal. And he said, but one will have.
Speaker 1: It will be a fifty fifty a position. I said, yes,
Speaker 1: but your fifty will always be bigger than ours. And
Speaker 1: that was kind of story, or maybe the beginning of
Speaker 1: a story between the fantastic friendship which unite me to Martin.
Speaker 1: You talked about enabling the future. What do you mean
Speaker 1: by that? In fact, it's coming from on to understand EPI,
Speaker 1: the writer of the Little Prints. He said that as
Speaker 1: for the future. We don't expect that you will foresee it,
Speaker 1: but we expect that you will enable it. And this
Speaker 1: sentence has worked a lot in my little head. And
Speaker 1: they said, in fact, there are very very few people
Speaker 1: who forcee the future, but there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are enabling the future. One of the people
Speaker 1: who have for seen the future is clearly Einstein, and
Speaker 1: there is no many Einstein, but there are a lot
Speaker 1: of engineers who have enabled it. I don't believe that
Speaker 1: they can be part of the people who can foresee
Speaker 1: the future and invent what the future will be. But
Speaker 1: where I can have an action is to enable it
Speaker 1: and to enable our client to at least adapt themselves
Speaker 1: to the future and to be ready for the future,
Speaker 1: to help our agency to be ready for the future.
Speaker 1: And that the reason for the many acquisitions I have
Speaker 1: made in the digital field, particularly digit as at the
Speaker 1: time where bubble Burst was not yet finished and everyone
Speaker 1: was still in a terrible situation, or razor Fish, which
Speaker 1: are acquiring twenty or nine or Sapient and now Epsilon.
Speaker 1: Because this is part of the future. What you have
Speaker 1: to do is to do two things. One is to
Speaker 1: level barricade in order that it's more difficult for them
Speaker 1: to come that the defense strategy, and the second is
Speaker 1: an offense strategy to go in their field and to
Speaker 1: eat in their plate. And the one with the longest
Speaker 1: fork to eat in the other plate is the one
Speaker 1: we're winning. And this is what we did with Digitas
Speaker 1: resor Fish and Sapient and this has helped us a
Speaker 1: great deal. And now which abstinence, we can help our
Speaker 1: clients to do what you do so well. You have
Speaker 1: been also. I know it's not about you, but sorry
Speaker 1: to say that you have transform I heard media an
Speaker 1: incredible way and you have foreseen and enabled the future
Speaker 1: of radio because you have seen what digital could be
Speaker 1: for radio. And it was not only to have a
Speaker 1: satellite system and to use digital radio, but you have
Speaker 1: done much more. You were one of the first people
Speaker 1: to talk about getting rid of silos, and today everyone's
Speaker 1: talking about getting rid of silos. How do you make
Speaker 1: that happen? It's difficult. For years, it has been positive
Speaker 1: for the client, but at the moment everyone was trying
Speaker 1: to sell is on turf without thinking about how how
Speaker 1: the heck I coordinate all this in order to make
Speaker 1: sure that every single touch point is helping the client
Speaker 1: and the only way to do that because of people
Speaker 1: were sitting in their fifdoms, were has two eliminuted the walls.
Speaker 1: They created an internal slogan which is no silo, no solo,
Speaker 1: no boso. And bozos very often are the ones who
Speaker 1: are getting in the way and defending the silo approach.
Speaker 1: And this conservatism is working against the interest of the client.
Speaker 1: So we have to fight against that conservatism. And you
Speaker 1: find the biggest obstacle other people in the silos, the
Speaker 1: biggest obstacle other people. How do you conlearn some of
Speaker 1: the come out of the silo that life will be
Speaker 1: better for them, As you have to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time explaining, explaining, explaining, you have no choice. You
Speaker 1: cannot find an easy way to break silo because you
Speaker 1: are changing the way people were. Many kind is made
Speaker 1: of habits and it's staff. Some cannot change and that,
Speaker 1: as painful as it can be, if you want the
Speaker 1: good of the company, you have to accept that they
Speaker 1: leave the company. And some are discovering that you were
Speaker 1: and excited and and enjoying everything, every piece of it,
Speaker 1: every bit of it, and is fantastic. Two thousand seventeen,
Speaker 1: you step down the CEO. How long had you and
Speaker 1: Arthur have been working on that? From the outside, it
Speaker 1: has looked like one of the smoothest and most seamless
Speaker 1: transitions I've ever seen. One was really and to what
Speaker 1: was the process of doing that? It's not easy. Let's
Speaker 1: fish it a clear cut was what I thought would
Speaker 1: be the best. I decided that I will not accept
Speaker 1: the job of chairman and I will leave the company.
Speaker 1: The daughter of the founder was that time. The chairwoman
Speaker 1: of the supervisory board insisted. The board insisted. Arthur himself insisted,
Speaker 1: and he said, I'm not going to accept the job
Speaker 1: if you live, except that there will be outside and
Speaker 1: that will help you. So don't no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: I want you inside and they want you to be
Speaker 1: a chairman. So I finally accepted, and I thought that
Speaker 1: it will be a failure. To the surprise of many people,
Speaker 1: including myself, we found a formidable way of working together. First,
Speaker 1: when you are in that position, you have to accept
Speaker 1: that somebody else is doing the job and you should
Speaker 1: not interfere. I'm letting out doing his job. I'm here.
Speaker 1: We are speaking every day, we are meeting very often.
Speaker 1: The weak we are in deep connection. I'm never never
Speaker 1: telling him what he has to do. I'm always helping
Speaker 1: him making his own decision. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: is you have two decisions, that the good that the
Speaker 1: bad one. Now I'm analyzing. I'm saying, okay, when you
Speaker 1: look at those decisions, you have to look at that aspect,
Speaker 1: that aspect, that aspects and if you go for that decision,
Speaker 1: these are the course of a quants. If you go
Speaker 1: for that decision, these are the consequences. And he is
Speaker 1: making his decision and when necessary is asking me for
Speaker 1: advice where I can help him. Also is my my
Speaker 1: relationship with clients. When you are running company for thirty years,
Speaker 1: the heart of the company since the end of the seventies,
Speaker 1: so you have built a bit of relationships in the business.
Speaker 1: The second aspect where I have an impact is an acquisition.
Speaker 1: It's not a secret that on Epsilon I have been
Speaker 1: at the forefront since the beginning, and that The third
Speaker 1: aspect is I don't like the word mentoring because this
Speaker 1: is a little bit patronizing, but in helping and one
Speaker 1: day told him I would like to be your best assistant.
Speaker 1: You have to have the humility that you are no
Speaker 1: longer the CEO that somebody else is doing the job
Speaker 1: and you have to look through the window. How hard
Speaker 1: is that? It's not that hard. I thought it will
Speaker 1: be much harder. The first move I did was to
Speaker 1: force him to take my office and they said, symbolically,
Speaker 1: people have to see that you're the boss, and they
Speaker 1: went back the almost first office that they had in
Speaker 1: the new building. Let's jump a minute. You launched France's
Speaker 1: answer to see us the v Tech conference. What was
Speaker 1: the genesis of the idea? You know, it was not
Speaker 1: to compete against CS and I think he has it's
Speaker 1: quite unique and it's fantastic. I thought that if French
Speaker 1: wanted to be seen for the ambition that President mccon had,
Speaker 1: we needed to have a kind of lighthouse, something which
Speaker 1: is a reflection of the heartbeat of French attack. Last
Speaker 1: year was the third year we have had more than
Speaker 1: one thousand visitors. We had nine thousand startups. This year
Speaker 1: we are expecting to be even more than one under
Speaker 1: thousand visitors. We expect to be more than ten thousand startups,
Speaker 1: and we expect to have more than two thousand journalists
Speaker 1: we had last year, once aus nine hundred and we
Speaker 1: expect also to have more than two thousands investors. Extremely
Speaker 1: by Brunt and one of the results that it has
Speaker 1: energized the French tack. It started out with probably a
Speaker 1: heavy dose of French tech folks. The last time I
Speaker 1: was there it looked like it had gone to the
Speaker 1: whole worldwide. Is that the mix now you've Yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of Americans I know there, and this
Speaker 1: year you will see a lot of Chinese. Interesting. So
Speaker 1: let's go to a quote. You have this great quote.
Speaker 1: I hope it's really a real quote, because it's just
Speaker 1: too good. You said, I like the thirty five hour
Speaker 1: work week so much that they do it's a week.
Speaker 1: I do it twice a week, absolutely. So what's your
Speaker 1: view of your work life balance? What does that say
Speaker 1: about how you live your life? You know, I have
Speaker 1: a life which is absolutely full in many aspects. I
Speaker 1: leave everything with intensity, and that is probably the secret.
Speaker 1: When I'm with my family, my wife, my sons, their wife,
Speaker 1: my grandchildren, I live that moment with intensity. It is
Speaker 1: so intense that even if it is short, it is fulfilling.
Speaker 1: Intensity is probably the right word if you want to
Speaker 1: leave fully, and that's what I'm trying to do this
Speaker 1: has been great. We love having you on a podcast.
Speaker 1: This podcast is about I go back to Mathew Magic.
Speaker 1: But we always ended on one thing, and I want
Speaker 1: you to think for a second about who is the
Speaker 1: most analytical marketer you've met. Who's the best mathematician on
Speaker 1: that side of the spectrum. I'm not sure I have
Speaker 1: yet met him. I have seen a lot of very
Speaker 1: good in our world. We have stars, creative stars, and
Speaker 1: there are many at the next generation. You have a
Speaker 1: few of those stars coming from the maths side of
Speaker 1: the world. So let's go to the easier question. Who's
Speaker 1: the greatest magician, who's the most creative? Who's in your
Speaker 1: hall of fame? Okay, if I'm going back, you can
Speaker 1: go back as far as you want to go back.
Speaker 1: I will have to choose between three people. It's difficult,
Speaker 1: So will you give the three names. We'll give it
Speaker 1: a tie. I will give Master Present Bronchare obviously, but
Speaker 1: not because he has been my boss or he has
Speaker 1: been my mentor. I will give David Ogilvin and that
Speaker 1: Bill barn Back, and they can add Liu Bernett. These
Speaker 1: are the greatest names today. If I have to put
Speaker 1: a few names. I will probably add Dan Whyden. I
Speaker 1: think that is terrific that he has done a fantastic,
Speaker 1: fantastic job, and there are plenty of great people in now.
Speaker 1: In this way, the beauty in own destroy is that
Speaker 1: you have personality. Geez. These people are extremely demanding, they
Speaker 1: are never satisfied, they are never complacent, and they are
Speaker 1: looking for the very best. It's a good way to end, Maurice,
Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you both. That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. The show is hosted by
Speaker 1: Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and
Speaker 1: wrangling are wonderful talent, which is no small feat Nikki
Speaker 1: Etre for pulling research bill plaques, and Michael Asar for
Speaker 1: their recording help, our editor Ryan Murdoch, and of course
Speaker 1: Gail Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and everyone who helped
Speaker 1: bring this show to your ears. Until next time,