There are days when I would love to be a fly on the wall – or at least a quiet observer in a room, as two respected heads of industry exchange thoughts amidst conversation.
Stanford University in San Francisco would probably count as just one of those occasions, when Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemelo met with Apple CEO Tim Cook for a two-hour face to face chat a few days ago.
Di Montezemelo was one of a number of feature speakers at a conference entitled ‘View from the Top’, in front of the heads of Google, Apple and approximately 600 students at the world famous private research university. The Ferrari boss declared that he was
“…not here to sell cars, but to communicate a dream…”
Prior to his private meeting with Cook, the 64-year-old also urged the attendant students to:
”Be creative, follow your goals, use technology, dominate innovation, but don’t become dependent on machines, you have to be in the driver’s seat of your lives. Never lose the curiosity for what is around you.”
“Intelligence and innovative ideas can contribute to change and shape the future. Passion and attention for the smallest details are what makes our cars, those who create them and those who drive them so special, living continuous excitement.”
Like many, I am certain the conversation may have an interesting spectacle, if possibly rather dry. Cook, however, was apparently quite impressed with the fiery Italian:
“We’re building cars, they build computers. But Apple and Ferrari are connected by the same passion, the same love for the product, maniacal attention to technology, but also to design.”
Stanford University boasts impressive alumni, including seventeen Nobel Prize honoraries and four Pulitzer Prize winners, plus numerous holders of various accolades.
