Xavier Niel Quotes

"A free, analytical and questioning press must be helped survive."

"France has the least social mobility of any developed country. The social elevator no longer works. It's broken."

"I like being an outsider. It is better in France on the outside."

"If you are worried about the risk to your reputation, you don't launch a telecoms firm in an aggressive way."

"In life, you need a house and a car. After that, you have a choice."

"You can spend your money on art works and sit down and look at them. Or you can use your money to help people."

"The real force of Silicon Valley is the mentality, the spirit. There's no reason at all that can't be replicated in Paris."

"I'm not unusual; it's the others who are strange."

"It's funny how the smallest things I've done speak the loudest about me, but I like that."

"Stephane Richard is far more attuned to the market than Didier Lombard."

"When you love competition, you don't want the market to consolidate."

"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."

"I always follow the same idea: Start small and disrupt to create something big."

"I'm always investing. I'm constantly in talks with someone about some opportunity."

"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."

"From France, you can call anywhere in the world for free. Americans can't do that!"

"Any country that wants to lower its mobile phone rates, all they need to do is bring in an aggressive player."

"France is a fantastic country. It's between the Anglo-Saxon and Latin cultures. We have some of the Anglo-Saxon rigor, and some of the Latin quirkiness."

"I have done a lot of stupid things in my life."

"We need to create an ecosystem which will make young people want to start their own company."

"I'd rather people talked about the 1,000 most successful French Internet companies instead of the 5 or 10 faces we already know - including mine."

"We have 200,000 kids a year who drop out of the French school system and have no hope. They become a drag on society."

"The most sought-after candidates in the world today by companies like mine are people who make computer software - there's a shortage of talent."

"Nobody believed in the success of the Internet."

"Giving only 50% of your fortune is not enough."

"'Entrepreneur' is a French word."

"Mark Zuckerberg did his own software for Facebook, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin made their own for Google."

"If you know how to make software, then you can create big things."

"We have to help young people, because at the end of the day, we won't have an economy if we don't have them."

"Each week I try to have three lunches with my children, one working lunch, and one lunch with mates."