The Sweet Secret to Not Ending Up in a Sad, Empty World

The reason why Giovanni Ferrero is winning and Mark Zuckerberg is losing.

The recent news that our Giovanni Ferrero has superseded Mark Zuckerberg on the list of the 500 wealthiest people on the planet, compiled by Bloomberg, is likely to trigger pride, not just envy.

Heir to that great dynasty, which began operating in 1946 when Italy was pulling itself out of the disaster of dictatorship and war, today he and his family have a fortune larger than that of the Facebook creator. Weighing on Zuckerberg's balance sheet is the difficulty Facebook experienced moving to the metaverse -— an operation that risks being a major flop, as happened with Second Life years ago.

The seductive idea of creating a parallel universe, which pushed Zuckerberg to change even the name of his company, ran up against the growing difficulties of the outside world. Today the world seems seized by fears of uncertain times, times in which investing hundreds of thousands of dollars for a virtual apartment or mansion where you can finally live the life you've always wanted -— albeit an imaginary one -— seems of limited appeal.

Meta needed to reach 500,000 active monthly users before the end of 2020. Internal documents published by The Wall Street Journal state that the number reached 280,000. However, there are now no more than 200,000 Metaverse users altogether -— and so, Zuckerberg has been forced to shave off around $80 million from his fortune. His company has lost 60% of its worth on the stock exchange from the beginning of the year: $700 billion.

Every innovative initiative in the digital world has something to do with the fundamental fabric that makes up people and emotions. If we think about everything that has occurred in our lives since the internet came into being -— that is, the birth of Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and even Amazon -— we can see that the winners have been those innovations which rewrote the rules of human relationships by altering our means of communication and knowledge. However, as The Wall Street Journal remarks, "An empty world is a sad world." And today, the Metaverse appears empty.

Ferrero, on the other hand, continues to grow by means of a product that is both traditional and innovative, sweetening the real lives of millions of people around the world. I read in the company documents that the group "closed the [2021] financial year with a consolidated turnover of 12.7 billion Euro, an increase of +3.4% compared to the previous year's turnover of 12.3 billion Euro." At the end of the 2021 financial year, the group "consolidated 107 companies and 32 manufacturing plants worldwide, selling directly and via distributors in over 170 countries ... The headcount as of August 31, 2021 amounted to 38,767 employees, compared to 37,122 as of August 31, 2020."

What does this incredible story of a group that started in the Langhe and spread to every corner of the world tell us? First of all, never to cease respecting the natural and social environment or to stop innovating and researching. And most of all, it teaches us to think of a company as a social place. There's no need to go back to Adriano Olivetti's wonderful utopia or to Gaetano Marzotto's Venetian experiments.*

Michele Ferrero, who made Ferrero great, composed rules for his own managers more than 40 years ago, which began:

1. In your interactions with your coworkers, put them at ease:
-Allow them the time that's needed and not just "a couple minutes."
-Concentrate on listening to what they have to say to you.
-Don't give them the impression that you are on edge.
-Never make them feel "small."
-Give them the most comfortable chair in your office.

2. Make clear decisions and let yourself be assisted by your coworkers; they will believe in choices which they have contributed to.

And then he followed with rules that appeared to be values:

15. Never make decisions under the influence of anger, haste, disappointment or worry, but rather postpone them to when your judgment may be clearer.

16. Remember that a good boss can make a normal man feel like a giant, but a bad boss can transform a giant into a dwarf.

17. If you don't believe in these principles, you should stop being a boss.

These rules could also work well today for political parties. But speaking of Ferrero here doesn't mean generally taking pleasure in others' wealth, which, in this case, is the result of merit and restoring work and possibilities to the community. The absolute priority of these absurd times is fight against poverty. Olof Palme, murdered for his courage, said: "We democrats are not against wealth, but against poverty. Wealth, for us, is not a sin to atone for, but a legitimate objective to pursue. However, wealth cannot but also be a responsibility to be assumed."**

In a time of crisis, it's worthwhile thinking about the capacity of this country's manufacturing base to react to the system's adverse conditions. It is not easy to undertake and create work when everything is precarious, starting with governments, when the decision-making process is cumbersome and corruption is high, when justice is slow and taxation unfair. In the end, it is the honest and courageous entrepreneurs and the workers who will support this country's economy, often working against the tide.

That enormous Nutella jar that Nanni Moretti famously ate from*** was the result of working the fields, research, commitment to the product and the process, innovation and ethical principles applied to business logic.

Translator's Notes:

*Adriano Olivetti and Gaetano Marzotto were both famous Italian entrepreneurs who believed in social and industrial utopias.

**This quote, though accurately translated, could not be sourced.

***In the 1984 film "Bianca," actor-director Nanni Moretti drowns his sorrows eating from a giant Nutella jar.