I had the chance to spend some time with an old friend, Rick Belluzzo. Rick has been at the forefront of some of the tech development for the last 35 years. A Silicon Valley native, he moved from the most junior position at HP to being president of one of the most profitable unit of HP (printers), to become later on President at Microsoft during the Bill Gates / Ballmer transition. Lately, looking back at his roots, he became a partner at one of Italy major VCs, Innogest. We end up with some great insights to young entrepreneurs  from someone that has seen it (almost) all…

TIMELINE:

1:10 Grandfather (first gen Italian) founder of a Garbage company in SF

1:41 Worse than average student in high school

6:08 HP times: from most junior position to President of printer business

7:48 HP: culture of Spin-offs to go against big corporate

9:35: Microsoft time: Hired by Steve Ballmer to become COO and President

11:05 Difficulties of working alongside Ballmer 

15:50 How to buy Innovation (through M&A)

18:40 Importance of the Ability to FAIL at HP 

23:10 Having to Apologize to suppliers in Japan

25:05 Microsoft: How difficult to maintain culture of RISK 

27:01 Moving to Investment 

28:18 How to have fun in Italy and how hard is doing business there

30:02 Why next couple years in Italy will be key for VC world (Innogest included)

36:04 Why focusing in Revenue early stage can be misleading in Italy

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