Xavier Niel Quotes

#1. I once said, 'Steve Jobs is the American Xavier Niel,' but that was humour.

Xavier Niel

#2. Nobody believed in the success of the Internet.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#4. 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.

Xavier Niel

#5. I don't like clothes. I don't especially like cars. I have a very nice house. I get sick on a boat.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#10. 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.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#12. Countries like France should not be naive. We don't have a French YouTube or Amazon or Netflix.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#15. YouTube is a problem. It has very big traffic, but it refuses to contribute to the weight of that traffic.

Xavier Niel

#16. 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.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#18. Giving only 50% of your fortune is not enough.

Xavier Niel

#19. Telecoms is a national business. There isn't a European market. There's no Telecom Italia in France.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#22. 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.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#25. 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.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#29. I don't think Steve Jobs had much desire to share his fortune.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#31. I know one business, and that's how to make software.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#33. I made a lot of money, and I want to give something back to my country.

Xavier Niel

#34. 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.

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

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

Xavier Niel

#37. 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.

Xavier Niel

#38. The question for France and all countries is, 'Do you favour foreign Internet operators that do not pay, or do you favour national operators who pay?'

Xavier Niel