What podcasts say about Luca Ferrari
Every statement, with the speaker, the exact quote and the moment it was said.
What Luca Ferrari has said on podcasts
60 statements · 39 positive · 8 negative · 4 mixed · 9 neutral
Ferrari’s first AI startup failed to scale after raising $1 million.
“we did that for 3 years, raised $1 million and failed miserably. I couldn't make it scale.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 2:47
Developing skills and internal tools should eventually enable world-class performance.
“if we work on this skill set and other relevant skills and build our own tools, we should be able to get to world-class levels at some point.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 4:29
Bending Spoons can acquire businesses whose owners lack motivation or scaling skills.
“we should be able to find people who are maybe tired of running a business or maybe they don't have the skills to go from 1 to 10, who will, you know, will sell to us.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 4:55
Bending Spoons has primarily acquired existing businesses and improved them.
“nearly all we have done over the past 13 years was acquire existing businesses and I'd like to think make them better and more successful.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 7:28
Bending Spoons’ revenue run rate is nearly $4 billion.
“we're at a run rate in terms of revenue of almost $4 billion.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 7:48
Bending Spoons transformed its first acquired app through software, design, and monetization changes.
“we rewrote the software completely, redesigned the UI and introduced monetization.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 9:43
Bending Spoons intends to hold and operate acquired businesses indefinitely.
“we buy to hold and operate forever.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 11:52
Bending Spoons often substantially rebuilds acquired companies’ organizations.
“we rebuild the org often completely or in large part.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 12:29
Bending Spoons deeply integrates acquired businesses onto a shared platform.
“we integrate everything super deeply onto the same platform.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 13:33
Ferrari believes operationally excellent businesses expand overall economic value.
“the economic pie tends to grow larger if businesses are run at an excellent level.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 16:13
Organizational optimization accounts for roughly 30–35% of Bending Spoons’ value creation.
“maybe 30-35% has been about optimizing organizations.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 16:47
Bending Spoons says performance can improve despite headcount reductions of about 80% or more.
“what we see consistently is that magic happens despite going down in headcount maybe 80%, sometimes more demonstrably.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 18:14
Bending Spoons requires confidence in predicting acquisition performance five or six years ahead.
“we want to feel confident we can predict their performance at least 5 or 6 years out with confidence.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 21:37
Ferrari believes markets undervalued unglamorous businesses and overvalued fashionable ones.
“the market tended to undervalue the unsexy things and in our view overvalue the new and sexy”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 24:40
Ferrari evaluates AOL as a good business.
“AOL is actually a very good business.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 25:20
Berkshire Hathaway has historically acquired companies more passively than Bending Spoons.
“I think a huge difference would be that Berkshire has historically been a more passive acquirer.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 30:14
More than half of Bending Spoons’ employees are located in the United States.
“most of our people, and actually more than 50% of our team, is in the US”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 31:35
The United States generates 60% of Bending Spoons’ revenue and contains most acquired businesses.
“60% of our revenue and most of the businesses we acquired are in the US.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 31:40
Ferrari assesses European regulation as excessively burdensome for companies.
“Europe has truly incredibly high levels of oppressing regulation.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 33:55
Ferrari identifies cultural attitudes as a major cause of Europe’s entrepreneurship gap.
“another big reason is culture.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 35:26
Ferrari estimates that roughly three-quarters of top Italian graduates end up in the United States.
“probably a good 3 out of 4 end up in the US”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 37:12
Bending Spoons treats employee jobs as its most important product.
“the jobs we offer are our most important product”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 41:53
Bending Spoons evaluates hiring outcomes using colleagues’ performance ratings after twelve months.
“performance as rated by once colleagues after 12 months on the job.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 44:51
Attending a more selective university weakly predicts employee performance at Bending Spoons.
“if someone has gone to a more competitive selected university, that's a predictor too, a weak one, surprisingly.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 46:08
Ferrari believes most employees respond positively to being trusted.
“most people react really well to being trusted.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 49:34
Ferrari recommends evaluating employees by outcomes rather than work methods.
“If someone is consistently delivering, delivering quickly, high-quality work, I don't care to know really how you got it done.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 50:37
Ferrari believes AI could improve Eventbrite’s event recommendation system.
“AI, we believe, could be quite helpful in making that better.”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 52:22
An AI agent helped fix an Evernote bug by the following day.
“the bug was fixed the day after”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 54:27
Bending Spoons writes 94% of its code with AI and is an exceptionally aggressive AI user.
“we are, as far as I can tell, one of the most aggressive users of AI of any company, writing 94% of our code with AI”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 55:40
Bending Spoons’ annualized AI-related spending is $15 million.
“on a run rate annualized basis, we're spending $15 million in all AI related spend”
Open the episode · This EU Firm Made Billions Buying Up Forgotten TechListen at 55:51
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.