Book notes: Entretiens XN ✂️ #

A big :blob-yes:!!

Highlights #

I recommend Entretiens XN if you are thinking about how to sharpen your future in tech. Xavier Niel shares an infectious optimism about what young builders can accomplish, and he makes a convincing case that the ideal moment to experiment is when energy, time, and ambition are at their peak. He is careful not to romanticize reckless risk-taking—he even says he would prefer stability for his own children—but he insists that if you feel the pull to try something bold, youth is the window when the upside is worth it.

Where the book falls short is in its polish. At times it reads like image management rather than a candid biography, and I finished it wishing for more friction and more vulnerable stories.

The sections on artificial intelligence are the most thought-provoking. Niel highlights two priorities:

• Avoid repeating the mistakes made in earlier waves of innovation in France.
• Build open science and open-source ecosystems so that research can compound globally.

His broader stance on entrepreneurship is equally energetic:

• Give young talent complete freedom; constraints kill creativity.
• Channel the appetite of people who are still hungry to “eat the world.”
• Move fast without letting legal bureaucracy choke the work—an agility he argues Big Tech cannot match.

The book also underscores a practical point: documentation, tutorials, and research papers on AI are within reach, but using them well still demands a solid technical foundation. Technology can make learning easier only if we teach people how to evaluate sources and apply the tools. If today’s students seem less informed, it might be because we have not yet shown them how to learn with these new instruments.

There are of course passages on school 42, but nothing really new compared to Wikipedia. :amongus: