In this episode of My First Million, host Sam Parr and guest discuss French billionaire Xavier Niel, highlighting his unconventional, "no‑fucks‑given" approach to business. They trace Niel’s early ventures, starting at 19 with the Minitel sex‑hotline, a stake in WorldNet sold for $50 million, and the creation of the disruptive mobile carrier Free, which undercut French telecom prices and grew his net worth to $6.6 billion. The conversation then moves to Niel’s radical bets on education and ecosystem building: the teacher‑less coding school 42, funded with $150 million in France and $100 million in California, and the massive startup campus Station F, likened to a NASA‑size coworking hub. They note his management style—hiring trusted operators, using concise email‑like communications, and maintaining a hands‑off approach while still investing in many small companies. The hosts also touch on Niel’s controversies, including a 2004 indictment for misuse of company assets, his ownership of the rights to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” and his control of a major French newspaper. Throughout, Parr and the guest admire Niel’s willingness to defy conventional playbooks, drawing parallels to Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and fellow entrepreneur Andrew Wilkinson, and they discuss how such non‑traditional founders manage a portfolio of projects.
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Okay.
Yes.
All right. So Xavier Niel— I'm sorry, I feel like I've been talking most of this.
That's okay. It's really interesting.
So Xavier Niel is my new favorite billionaire. So this is my second section. This is my segment of the show called My New Favorite Rich Guy. So this guy is essentially like an Elon Musk type of dude in France. But instead of trying to send rockets to Mars, this guy just operates in his own style, but he's got the same kind of what I call like no fucks given attitude, like a Branson or an Elon Musk. And I'd never heard of this guy. So I'll tell you how I discovered him. So I discovered him because he created this thing called 42. Have you ever heard of the school called 42?
No. So wait, so he's in France?
He's in France. He— so I'll tell you his kind of like life story. So Age 19, he creates this business called Minitel. Minitel is essentially a sex hotline, a phone service, you know, you call, it's called like sort of a sex line. And at 19, he creates this thing and it goes gangbusters. And so he's doing really well, makes a few million bucks off this. Then he either creates or invests in, buys a stake in something called WorldNet, sold a few years later for $50 million, right before the dot-com crash. And then his big thing that he did was he created this thing called Free. And Free was like a T-Mobile, it's like a mobile carrier. And at the time in France, all like SMS phone plans are all very expensive. So he created— he undercut everybody. He created the like lowest cost way to have, you know, a cellular, cellular service. And so Free became this, um, huge company. And so his, his net worth ballooned to like $6.6 billion.
I'm looking him up now. This guy's my Favorite person ever.
Yeah, and he's very legit, and so he was like, alright, look, what do I wanna do now? I wanna do more baller shit. And so he was like, okay, I'm gonna create this thing called 42. So he was like, I'm gonna create a computer science school with no teachers and no staff. So all he did was create this dope facility with a bunch of computers, and if you get into 42, you just come and the computer is your lesson plan. So it's like a video game, there's like a challenge. It's like, hey, you need to make a website that can do X, Y, and Z. And you're like, okay, and it's like, you have the internet and you have some people next to you and like, you guys need to figure out how to get past this level. And so you start doing the program. And so it's self-serve, you do it, you do a bunch of like projects to level up, plus you create your own, you know, like projects or ideas. So somebody created, I don't know, like somebody could create like a coronavirus tracker right now because that's a timely little website you could—
Yeah, I'm looking it up now. They have 2,500 students.
Yeah, and it's actually closed right now because the physical facility closed here, but it was a wild idea. I don't even know how successful it's been. I don't think it's been a wild success, but I love his bet. So he was like, yeah, I'm gonna put $150 million into this. So he built one in France, and he built one here in Fremont for $100 million in California. And it was just like, so what a radical idea, what a way to bet your money and try to like change the world over and over and over again. And then he did this thing in France. He's like, okay, how do I build the startup ecosystem here? So he created this thing called Station F. And if you look at this thing, it's like the fucking NASA facility. It's like this huge, huge, like, I don't know how many football fields long office or hangar, coworking space. And he's like, all right, I'm gonna make the dopest place for any investor to come when they're in Europe. Here, here's some space to go hang out. Entrepreneurs, you're starting companies, come over here. And build your company, here's some office space. Restaurants, come here at the bottom, fill this place up. Gym, whatever. So he created his own little oasis, kinda like Tony Hsieh did in Vegas, this guy did in France.
This guy's amazing.
Station F. I just love this guy's style.
So first of all, I've looked it up now, he's not perfect. 2004, he was indicted and detained for a month for misuse of company assets, which occurred in several of his sex shops that he was a shareholder in. And he ended up getting a 2-year suspended prison sentence for misuse of company assets. So he's certainly not perfect. I don't know, I'm just reading off this one thing though. In addition to all this, he owns the rights to the song My Way by Frank Sinatra, which I love. He owns one of the largest newspapers in France. Super interesting guy. What I'm curious about people like this, and Andrew Wilkinson is going to be on the pod. Is he going to be on this Tuesday?
Yeah, next, the next episode basically.
So Andrew kind of, Andrew, not exactly, but kind of does it in the same way as well. And so we have to ask him about this. What I want to know is how do these people manage so many freaking projects?
Right.
Because like, I can't even manage what I have on my plate and like, right.
So, you know, they hire people to run their shit, right? So like I worked with a guy, Michael Birch, who's kind of like this, like billionaire type of dude. He created this incubator with this totally different model where everybody owns all the equity in all the projects. And, you know, he picked me to run the show for him. So he trusted me. He's pretty hands-off. We checked in, but like, he let me run the show. So I was looking at this guy Xavier Niel, and he's got somebody, this woman from Google who runs Station F, the big facility. He's got somebody who runs his investment fund. And the guy, that guy was telling the story. He goes, you know, we don't have board meetings. But I was like, Xavier, don't you want to know what I'm doing with your fund? And he's like, yeah, yeah, for sure, tell me. And he's like, he goes, I told him, I said, hey, we invest in all these companies. I think we should double down on these winners and make less small investments and do more on the winning companies.
And what did he say?
Okay. He goes, I'm not doing this to make more money. I'm doing this to make more companies, invest in more companies. And I was like, what? He's like, you could double down, but don't stop investing in new, in like new small small companies. And then the other thing that they talked about in his thing, kinda like what you're saying, how do you manage this? They're showing like, the guy showed his email inbox, all the emails from this guy. And I've noticed this, a lot of wealthy, busy people, their emails look like text messages. So like this guy will write him a long email about like, hey, we're thinking about this plan, here's what we could do, here's the price.
And their reply is like, okay, cool, or like.
Literally it's, up to you, all good. It's like up the number 2, the letter U, and then all good.
Where do I see this screenshot?
Uh, there was a story, I think it was like a Forbes or Bloomberg story or something about this guy, um, and they, they put that in there. But I think this is a pretty common thing amongst the people who do a lot of stuff.
I guess it's kind of like if I buy like, uh, like I've talked about how I'm gonna buy like just a toy car, like a fun car. I guess it'd be like the equivalent of me buying like a $10,000 car and like letting someone use it, and it's like Dude, I don't care. Just make sure it comes back in one piece.
Right. So, you know, the thing, I guess the thing I want to clarify, because when Andrew's coming on on Tuesday, I like Andrew for the same reason I like this guy, and they're totally different, right? Andrew's not gone to jail and didn't start a sex hotline and is not a billionaire.
Well, we don't know that for sure.
Yeah, exactly.
This guy has about 20 years on Andrew, so give him time.
But I guess like the thing, the thing that stands out to me is I respect Above all else, people who do shit their own way. People who have their own, they are original thinkers and decide to live life on their own terms. That's kind of what I got out of this guy is I think, I feel like this guy, Branson, Elon Musk, the thing I like about them, and they definitely have lots of flaws and lots of messed up things that they do, but I just respect that they don't just follow a normal societal playbook. They live life on their own terms. They basically, you know, march the beat on a drum or whatever. That's what I like about them. That's what I like about Andrew. He's done it completely his way, which is very non-traditional.
Do you think this guy speaks good English?
The French guy?
Yeah, let's, uh, I bet he's all right. Let's fucking email him.
