36 | FORBES ASIA MAY 2018has decided to base a European startup studio out of
Station F: “here’s something in the culture that bub-
bles up really exceptional individuals.”
AS THE SOUNDS OF SNAPPING cameras and chat-
tering crowds echoed through Station F on the day it
launched, Emmanuel Macron, dressed in a dark suit,
asked Antoine Martin, one of France’s newest and most
successful entrepreneurs, how he’d built location-track-
er Zenly, which he’d just sold to Snap for $213 million.
It wasn’t easy, Martin explained in French. At one point
he had to pivot the entire business.
“Pivot?” interrupted the president.
Niel, who was nearby, quickly clariied, since “pivot”
in French strictly connotes physical movement, not a
shit in business strategy. Half an hour later, when Ma-
cron went in front of the hundreds of startup founders
and sotware engineers who populate Station F, their
phones held alot, he told a story about promising his
wife three years ago that he would become an entrepre-
neur. But things had changed.
“Je pivote le business model,” he said, prompting
laughter and cheers.
Macron is clearly a quick study. And he really does
know how to pivot, which gives him a chance to do
what his predecessors couldn’t. he son of two doctors
and the product of universities that churn out France’s
ruling elite, he has the kind of establishment credibili-
ty Niel never did. Early in his career, he served as an as-
sistant to Paul Ricoeur, a French philosopher whose
life work was inding balance between extreme oppos-
ing views. Putting that to use, he worked as a bank-
er at Rothschild, where at 34 he earned more than $3 million ad-
vising Swiss consumer-goods giant Nestlé on its $11.8 billion bid
for Pizer’s baby-formula business, even wrestling it away from
France’s Danone. He then joined the leadership team of a socialist
government, led by François Hollande.
At irst he was a deputy chief of staf, but then in August 2014
he was named economic minister, charged with pushing early
versions of the reforms he’s now seeing through. Between those
stints, he began to develop ideas for an education startup. “I think
I understand entrepreneurs and risk-takers quite well,” says the
president.
Macron used his brief government stint efectively. “He was
asking about what makes Silicon Valley successful,” says Cham-
bers, recalling a dinner he hosted for Macron and other French
startup founders in Palo Alto. hey talked about why Boston’s
Route 128 lost the tech-hub crown to the Bay Area. “He was just
learning it. He was absorbing.”
Macron started the political party En Marche to solve the
“blockages” that have held France back. He quickly found himself
with an incredibly fortuitous hand. His centrist platform breaks
some of the let-right political paralysis, allowing him to, say,
push labor market reform at the same time he moves to subsidize
the vulnerable. Crucially, since both he and his legislative major-
ity are locked in until 2022, he can make the long-term decisions
the way president-for-life types like China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin
tend to, but with the democratic, free-market ideals of a western
capitalist.
he latter trait, as widely noted during his recent state visit to
Washington, gives him a natural rapport with President Trump.
“I understand very easily this kind of person,” Macron says.
“When you see him as a dealmaker, as he has always been, it’s
very consistent. hat’s why I like him.... hat’s where my busi-
ness background helped me a lot.”
But those business backgrounds are also quite diferent.
Trump’s real estate dealmaking always had an I-win-you-lose
ethos to it, whereas Macron the banker needed to foster coali-
tions. “We have a diference in terms of philosophy and concepts
regarding the current globalization,” Macron says. And he’s using
that to his advantage. Ater Trump began turning his back on re-
newables last year, Macron publicly pounced, imploring green-
tech entrepreneurs and academics to come to France and, tongue
irmly in cheek, “Make Our Planet Great Again.” Two thirds of
the ensuing 1,822 applications for grants came from the United
States. “If you are in a country where the strategy is not clear re-
garding climate change, that’s a big issue for many startups,” says
Macron, who has been similarly efusive about luring British i-
nancial irms. In these areas, France intends to play ofense. VINCENT ISORE/IP3/GETTY IMAGESFORBES ASIA
MACRON’S GAMBIT