- 3 months ago
To mark the opening of VivaTech's 10th edition, Maurice Lévy and Bernard Arnault take the stage to reflect on a decade of technological transformation and the opportunities that lie ahead. Combining film, live remarks, and a look back at the vision that gave birth to VivaTech, this opening ceremony sets the stage for four days of innovation, entrepreneurship, and global dialogue.
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00:06Bonjour, good morning, I'm not coming from the ISS, I'm just coming from backstage and I would like to welcome
00:19you all to the 10th edition of VivaTech.
00:23Thanks to you, VivaTech is today on the map and playing a very important role.
00:33Ten years ago when we launched VivaTech, some people thought that we were being a little bit too ambitious.
00:40Guess what? A European gathering that would bring together startups, global companies, leading platforms, investors, scientists, the most advanced innovation
00:56and innovators from around the world.
01:01Here, in Paris, with technologies that in many cases didn't even exist yet.
01:11And with la crème de la crème of the stars of tech.
01:17True.
01:19True.
01:19No one really believed it.
01:22And well, here we are.
01:25Ten years later, VivaTech has become a place where ideas meet reality, where innovations find scale and where people meet
01:38the future.
01:38Over the past decade, we have witnessed extraordinary transformation, innovation, changes, artificial intelligence moved from laboratories to everyday life, climate
01:54technology has become a necessity, quantum computing, biotechs, robotics moved from science fiction to reality.
02:05But one thing has not changed.
02:08Entrepreneurs still believe they can change the world.
02:13That spirit is a true engine of VivaTech.
02:19You have seen a short film of the last ten years.
02:23It says too little about what has been achieved.
02:28But if I had the idea, if Les Echos and his then CEO Francis Morel bought it, the one who
02:41made it possible is one of the most extraordinary, successful entrepreneurs.
02:50Bernard Arnault.
02:52Bernard Arnault.
02:53The entrepreneur who transformed a pretty nice LVMH into the global leader in luxury, in the fantastic goods and fashion
03:07it is today.
03:08So, I'm asking you to give a very warm welcome and a rose of applause to Bernard Arnault.
03:19Martial Arnault.
03:192, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 13, 14, 19, 21, 21, 21,
03:3221, 21, 22, 22, 24.
03:49Bernard, first of all, it's very strange because you have two Frenchmen and we are speaking
03:57with our broken English and our terrible accent in English because of you.
04:07Bernard, first of all, a big thank you for your support.
04:12When the project was presented to you, I had been told that there was no plan, that there
04:19was no budget, that there was, in fact, nothing, just an idea, a very unusual way of presenting
04:27a project to LVMH and particularly to Monsieur Arnaud, as they call you.
04:33Can you tell us what drove you to support and to believe in VivaTech?
04:40First of all, Maurice, I would like to congratulate you because you are the son of this event and
04:48thanks to you, it's now a worldwide success.
04:51So, the reason why, when you asked me through Francis if I would agree on sponsoring and
04:59be a shareholder, a founding shareholder of this, I said yes.
05:06I said yes because you told me through Francis that it was really an event for start-ups.
05:17And maybe you don't know that, but I think I told to some of your people, at the time as
05:25today, I run a start-up.
05:28I consider my group as a start-up and we are a conglomerate of start-ups.
05:38Each of my brands was at one point a start-up.
05:42They started, they started, they started, they started, they started with one guy who started
05:53his business.
05:54But you know the goal of a start-up is not to stay as a start-up all the time.
06:00But the goal is to grow and become a real big company, which many of them did.
06:08But you must keep the spirit and the spirit is still there.
06:14And I think the reason why, as you very, very nicely said, we are quite successful.
06:22It's interesting because I consider also that Publicis is a start-up because when Marcel
06:29Bluestain Blanchet opened Publicis, it was in a two-bedroom apartment, and he was alone.
06:38For the French, he was saying that he started with a secretary Constellé de Faute d'Orthographe.
06:51As I said, Vivatec would not have been what it is without you.
06:57And I will not add more.
06:59But when you see and you go through Vivatec and you do it every year, how do you feel?
07:09I feel the energy, the energy in this room with everybody more or less working in the tech,
07:21in start-ups.
07:22And, you know, to be involved in this makes us keep the spirit.
07:28Because in a group like us, which has a worldwide size, it's very important to get away from bureaucracy.
07:39You know, bureaucracy, it's a word that is too much present in Europe, as you know.
07:45And we try, with an event like this, to meet a lot of young entrepreneurs and also, thanks to the
07:56many innovations that happened since we started.
08:00Because when we started, 10 years ago, nobody was talking about AI.
08:07It was not even a word.
08:10But now, thanks to AI, we are able to kill part of the bureaucracy.
08:17That's one aspect.
08:20But there are many others that we are using.
08:23So, I am always interested to mix these innovations with what we do in the group.
08:30And by the way, we also support a lot of start-ups.
08:35We have invested for maybe more than 20 years in a lot of start-ups.
08:43LVMH is a global company.
08:46But the heart of LVMH is in Paris.
08:49And we are both French entrepreneurs.
08:54And we believe in France.
08:56And we believe in the possibility for France to become a place where business is possible.
09:04We have been able, thanks to your support, to have here,
09:11Max Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Jack Ma, Elon Musk, Jensen Wang.
09:17And in a few minutes, we will have Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin.
09:23I think that it is very important that they see how France has evolved, thanks to you and thanks to
09:32President Macron,
09:34who did a lot of efforts to build this ecosystem.
09:39How do you feel about your Frenchness?
09:46The person that used that name loves France.
09:51All of them.
09:53Even their president, who is going to have dinner tonight in Versailles.
09:58France, the simple word, exists an attraction all over the world.
10:04And in my function, I feel very often like a French ambassador in the world.
10:10Because we have boutiques everywhere.
10:13And it's key to continue to work with a spirit energetic, energized by meeting like the one today, and looking
10:28forward.
10:29The most important, I think, in the startup, in the success of the startup, is not that much the idea,
10:38which is at the beginning.
10:39And all the person that you name had fantastic ideas, but at the time they got the ideas, many others
10:47had also almost the same ideas.
10:49For instance, Facebook, at the beginning of Facebook, there was ten other Facebook's equivalent, but only one succeeds.
11:00And the reason is execution.
11:04You need to really cultivate the sense of execution in a startup when it grows.
11:13What do you like most at Vivatec?
11:18I like, as I said, to meet a lot of young startupers, to see the interaction between our brands and
11:33what they invent, what they think.
11:36For instance, today we are going to give a price, a very much price, to one of them, which is
11:41linked to what my son Antoine is doing very well in the group, which is sustainability.
11:50And finding a way to link our beautiful products to sustainability.
11:57And he does it very well, and I will not explain now what this startup is doing, but it's very,
12:06very efficient for us.
12:08So we find ideas, and then we try to make them in function.
12:15And I must say, since we participate, I think we are working with more than 200 startups that we found
12:21here.
12:23Yes, you have supported a lot of startups, and I think they are all extremely grateful for that.
12:29I understand that you continue to do some mathematics exercises, and that you have immersed yourself on AI.
12:37And it is quite strange to see that LVMH, which is a company of design, fashion, champagne, jewelry, etc.
12:48What the hell tech has to do with LVMH?
12:53I will give you an example of what I do every week, because I like it.
12:59You know, I like design. I have a lot of designers working for the group, but I am not always
13:06satisfied.
13:08I should not say that.
13:09It is terrible. I think when you are working at LVMH, it must be a terrible CEO, looking at all
13:17the details.
13:18With some people I see here in the first row, every week we have a designing session with AI, with
13:27a young guy who is making the program work, myself, and we design products.
13:34And then we make them reality. And maybe one of them would be a big success. I don't know, but
13:39it's fun.
13:40So, you are having fun. That's great. That is a great lesson. Bernard, stay with me. Thank you again.
13:48And we will see a very short film thanking our founding partners, because they really believed in us from day
13:58one.
14:00A small film.
14:21A small film.
14:24A small film.
14:24One was, one was violated, while staying true to who we are.
14:25For Orange, Vivatech is more than an event. It's a place to showcase innovation, create meaningful connections,
14:32and contribute to the major debate around technology and society.
14:36For us, Vivatech is a showcase and a platform for action.
14:40AWS and Vivatech, we've been on the same journey. We have the same DNA.
14:44Vivatech has helped position Europe as a major hub for tech start ups.
14:51where the best ideas find their best place banking with 90% of the french tech next 40
14:58and 80% of the french tech 120 10 years in vivatech has been a real accelerator for us
15:04we identified startups and today we see innovation embedded at every step of our value chain and it's
15:12also an opportunity to demonstrate our technological and industrial expertise in a tangible way being a
15:20founding partner means being proud of how far vivatech has come but also of the role we have
15:27played in helping make that original vision a reality vivatech is also one of the best places
15:32to meet europe's emerging talent a meaningful ai ambitious technologically and environmentally
15:41i would like ai to make real improvement to health and safety at work ai could become a
15:48collective protection layer discreetly helping societies absorb shocks i would love to see
15:54that the latest tools are being created by people who reflect the society it serves that is why we
16:01make sure that ai works for more people solves real problems creates positive change to lower the
16:07barriers that still divide access to knowledge opportunity and progress vivatech is 10 years of asking the
16:14right questions let's hope we keep doing that happy birthday vivatech
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