Who turns over 200 billion dollars a year?
You’ll find the answer on Google... and the answer on Google and the answer is… Google.
Let us tell you how the search engine giant was born. It is a journey dedicated to technology and organization. Brilliant intuition alternates with very practical choices. We will analyse the visions of those who had the ideas, revealing the secret of their global success. And we will try to understand why a simple white screen with a logo has become the oracle of our times.

The bulletin board, the “like” button, the shares, the tags: Facebook seems to have always been there and yet that is not the case. So how did we all end up on there?
So how did we all end up on it?
To answer this question, let’s step back a few years, until we find ourselves in the room of a college student: Mark Zuckerberg. That’s where everything, or almost everything, started. It is a story of personal successes and battles, moments of glory and blunders, of surprising planning and absurd strokes of luck. Offers involving exorbitant, dizzying figures will float by. And we, together with Mark, will turn them down. Because Facebook is not just a company, it’s a mission.

Give up? Never!
Jeff Bezos, creator of Amazon, the creator of Amazon, forges ahead through criticism and grow difficulties. His vision was to offer the customer the best solution at the lowest possible price. But to get to the largest online store on Earth, we will have to retrace our steps along a truly winding path. Miles of scotch tape, doors used as desks, mountains of dollars gone up in smoke... Amazon had to fight tooth and nail before it triumphed. Guided by Bezos' unwavering will, we will see how Amazon can bring everything you desire straight to your home. And it can be done today.

An airbed. That was enough to start a millionaire business.
We are talking about Airbnb, the portal that allows us to find accommodation anywhere. It doesn't seem so original, does it? How did Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk manage to transform a room with a few airbeds into such a successful venture? It took a very keen eye to enable us to sleep peacefully anywhere from Brazil to Norway. This is a tale of failures, success against the odds and new ways of thinking about travel. It is thanks to these that we will find ourselves, suitcases in hand, on the threshold of an Airbnb.

A failed restorer, passionate about photography who is struck by the imperfection of a plastic camera: how much farther will Kevin Systrom have to go to conceive and develop his project? "The lesson I learned - he says - is that you have to make sure you always cut out what doesn't work, remove what’s unpopular and focus on the continuous improvement of your product because too often start-ups are technologies looking for a problem. Successful businesses have a fundamental question at their heart. And the question is: what do people really need?".

Does Netflix sell movies or series? No: it connects people to stories and places where they have never been and have always wanted to go, without realising it, until a TV series revealed it to them. Netflix continues to grow because it has accepted the most difficult challenges in the world: seduce, to create intrigue and to conquer. But for how long can it continue to surprise us? This is the problem of lovers all over the planet, for eternity and, unlike his algorithm, Reed Hastings knows that no one has guessed the formula yet. He is doomed to satisfy us forever. But will he succeed?

Two guys looking for innovative ways to deal with old problems, old problems that are common to us all. Because, as usual, the success of an idea is directly proportional to the number of times it is resolved with the word "Finally!". Success at the exit of a labyrinth involving emigration, economic and family tragedies, professional frustrations, technological insights and tenacity to sell. Success born from the desire to cut costs and distances, to connect friends and relatives that "will not stop until anyone, anywhere, can have this opportunity";.

"Man is by nature a social being, and he who lives outside the community must be either a beast or a god": this is Reid Hoffman's guide. Who is this god who will accompany him in building his success? A Guru who will help him to understand the key to opening the doors of the world, including the working world: the need for a network of relationships. Starting from antiquity and passing through SocialNet, Paypal and Star Wars, we will arrive at the desk of a man who wanted to become a public intellectual and instead changed the world of professional relationships.

With the debts incurred making Alice in Wonderland, the unexpected loss of rights to Oswald the Rabbit and the disappointing revenues from Fantasia, Disney’s passage is a bumpy one made of successes and failures. It is during the premiere of Snow White however, that Walt Disney understands for the first time what will turn out to be the true key to his success. He observes people in the audience crying when Snow White appears to die even though they know she is only sleeping. For the very first time, cartoons, which until now had only made people laugh, are able to evoke emotion in the hearts of their audiences for evermore.

"Fail faster and try again!" Jimmy Wales suggests tackling our projects with a small dose of humor. According to him, strategies are unpredictable and even though they may all be sound in theory, you have to try them out to understand which of them will work. And thus, beginning with a food-delivery service conceived way ahead of its time, followed by an unsuccessful adults-only website, Wales eventually invented Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with no borders, free and accessible to all. He managed to make his dreams come true, and for this, he says, he gives thanks for "a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. This is what we do”.

How long did it take for Elvis Presley to become known to a billion people? Twenty years? And how long did it take Lady Gaga? A few weeks after she releases a new single, the entire world can memorize it. Astonishing, isn't it? And even more surprising is that Spotify was able to conquer the world starting from just one single country, Sweden, with its 10 million inhabitants. Daniel Ek never considered himself an inventor, just a man who put his efforts into improving the things he thought weren't working, because "the value of a company is nothing more than the sum of the problems that an entrepreneur manages to solve".

TJ Watson Sr.'s "Think", TJ Watson Jr.'s "Basic Beliefs", Lou Gerstner's "Bear Hug" and finally Palmisano with the "Values Jam". Why has a large technology company like IBM regularly invested in a seemingly trivial theme such as values? More than a hundred years have passed since TJ Watson Sr. took up the challenge of turning a small group of companies into a profitable and long-lasting project and perhaps, among the things he said it is possible to find the key to interpreting the world, both of that time and probably also of today: "What every company needs is more people who think".

It was in 1924 that Godtfred and his brother Karl Georg set fire to the woodwork. The two little brothers know that punishment will be just around the corner but instead their dad Ole gives them a long, serious look and, when the fire is out, says: "Remember that creativity is born from difficulty, and no one is condemned until they stop fighting to achieve their dreams". What? No punishment? Judgment day has been postponed to a date yet to be determined. No harsh words but instead an important teaching moment from a father who inspired his boys for the rest of his life. Lego's bumpy journey seems to suggest that every obstacle or company crisis has been wisely used to reposition its product as the desires of children change and grow.

Two guys inspired by a magazine, a daring series of lucky events and a central figure who has come to control a space on desks around the world with his own software. A conqueror or a saviour? Certainly, he’s a leader, able to explain to us the need to reduce the noise of our hectic working days, but he is also a man with a great personality, someone with determination to spare, who doesn't get distracted by the bewitching song of success. Because, as Bill himself warns, “Success is a bad teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't fail".

It seems very strange to look back and see that this idea started from a "divorce" and a "funeral" but it is the same idea that, just a few years later, will be the one that will become a turning point for the entire automotive sector. It will also happen thanks to the intuitive idea of making software central to the project and by taking inspiration from the exciting designs of the fashion world. Since 2003, when the idea of building a seductive, electric car still seemed like madness, Tesla has done nothing but add more pieces to its puzzle, making the neurodiversity of its CEO a strength and managing to conceive many innovative and desirable products.

The love of a son for his mother and the regular sound of a loom. This is where the story of Sakichi Toyoda begins and who, together with his son Kiichiro, trawled heavily into the culture of their country to lay the foundations not only for an ambitious project, but also for a strong company philosophy. This is a path of innovation together with tradition that along the way takes a careful look beyond their borders, where they will find the inspiration for the "just in time" management strategy by observing…a supermarket! The heroes of this story are not the cars themselves, but the virtues of humility, tenacity, and improvement. It’s a story that encourages us to set aside all excuses because, as Sakichi reminds us, "There is nothing that cannot be done. If you can't do something, it's because you haven't tried hard enough".

Coming soon

It’s 1869: Lieutenant Pemberton, who is also a chemist and pharmacist, has three problems to resolve: he is a veteran, a morphine addict and penniless. The solution to his troubles will become one of the most iconic products of the 20th century and the basis of Coca-Cola's success is not merely a successful secret recipe and great marketing strategies. Yes of course the inimitable "Contours" have colonised the planet but in the ascent of this product there is not one single hero but many different characters who have contributed to the creation of a widespread and complex organisation. Robert Woodruff, who became president of Coca-Cola in 1923 and led the company for sixty years had different ideas to today’s stars of the business world, saying "there is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't care who gets the credit". For him, either you win as a group, or you don't win at all.

Coming soon

What is the point of trying to make sense of our crazy, busy lives? This constant alienation from fun and enjoyment stimulated the imagination of an entrepreneur from Piedmont who decided to seize the opportunity to creep into our consciousness in small steps, with sweetness certainly, but above all with kindness, inserting delight into our daily routine. He tells us to stop and feel joy; to catch our breath and to understand when it's time to give ourselves a treat, to be kind to ourselves; small pleasures that tell of love and respect for work, customers, and employees.

It took just three guys in a Brooklyn diner to show that citizens of the web, as compared to those of the rest of the world, are more forward-looking, more generous and more open than we could ever have imagined. They have shown us that millions of people are ready; ready to put their hands in their pockets to make small and not-so-small contributions to creativity in the world, even if there is no economic return. From the tables of a Brooklyn diner to $6 billion in funds raised, this is the story of three guys who, while developing a crowdfunding idea, actually invented a new model of doing business.

"It's always day one!" says Jeff Bezos, "Don't be evil!" say Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Joe Gebbia, who together with Brian Chesky, explain to us the success of “Design for Trust”. But are we sure that a syndrome that has its roots in Ivrea, Italy in the early twentieth century, has not spread to the brightest minds of the Silicon Valley?