4 ms·

News aside (whether true or not), this guy is definitely more evil than Jeff and Zuck combined.

sligor 6y ago
can you explain why ?
henearkr 6y ago
Not sure he did anything wrong. By the way, the article title is misleading, in that he did not hack Mitterand as a spy, but the reverse: he hacked for fun (to prove it was possible), and then was spotted for his skills and thus became a spy for the French police/military (Directorate of Territorial Surveillance). So that's rather white.
- GrumpyNl 6y ago
  In those days, anybody could hack a french analogue board with a answering machine.
  - henearkr 6y ago
    But, Xavier Niel says "They told us it was impossible.", implying there was some form of mitigation, and he was skilled enough to get around it. At least that's what he says. Anyway I guess he did something more than other guys if he managed to get spotted.
    - philipov 6y ago
      Does "We told them it was impossible" count as mitigation?
    - henearkr 6y ago
      > Does "We told them it was impossible" count as mitigation? He said he "got around" something, so that goes in the same direction. I cannot be sure of anything, but that would be pretty dumb (and discredit them) from the French President's comms techs to just say "that's impossible" while anybody could hack it. So, the working hypothesis is that, yes, there seem to have been mitigation in place.
speedgoose 6y ago
Please pray to Xavier Niel : https://imgur.com/a/J8d74VT https://imgur.com/a/J8d74VT
- karambahh 6y ago
  Context: it was hanging in one of the rooms of the former HQ of Scaleway (an Illiad/Xavier Niel subsidiary) avenue d'Iena. Among several others, I think there was Steve Jobs. When the company moved out, to settle in its current buidling, the portraits stayed behind
ritz_labringue 6y ago
disclaimer: he was an investor in my startup He spends a lot of his money on giving back: 42, a free programming bootcamp (https://www.42.fr/ https://www.42.fr/), Station F, a huge co-working space in Paris which hosts entrepreneurs for free (https://stationf.co/ https://stationf.co/) He also has a very active VC/Business Angel fund (he funds 2 early stage startups every week out of his own pocket). His telecom company (free) helped divide by 2 the average price of mobile plans in France. All in all, his impact seems very positive, I'd love to understand why you think he is evil
realusername 6y ago
I still respect him because it's one of the few US-style entrepreneur in France who successfully built his tech empire from almost nothing and also give back to the community with the 42 school & startup funds. Most of the other french billionaires are more like oligarchs and aristocrats, they are not from the same world as Xavier Niel.
hadrien01 6y ago
Why would you say he's 'definitely more evil than Jeff and Zuck combined'? He has revolutionized the telecom industry in France (most people now pay less than 40 USD for phone/internet/TV) with Free (which doesn't have a monopoly), he has a participation in the biggest newspaper in France (Le Monde), but doesn't have any influence in the reporting, and he created the free computer programming school 42 (which has arguable results, but is not evil).
- dnpp123 6y ago
  https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9puscule_(pamphlet) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9puscule_(pamphlet)
  - pjc50 6y ago
    .. would you care to explain this, yourself, in English of at least a few sentences, s'il vous plait?
    - chmike 6y ago
      The only reference to Xavier Niel in this page is that he may have advised and eventually financially helped the french president Macron in his campaign. It is complete none sense that this would support the claim that Xavier Niel is evil.
      - namdnay 6y ago
        In addition it's a pamphlet written by Juan Branco of all people, a nutcase conspiracy theorist who is more interested in self-promotion than any real social justice
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
      - one of the biggest and earliest support of Emmanuel Macron, helped him become president (offering to do his PR, made him met the right persons -- especially Mimi Marchand, who can make and break celebrities, lawfully or not, helped set up Macron's political party with other billionaires, etc) - control the #1 French newspaper, "Le Monde" (extremely poplar on the Web, too), is buying up other media (Nice-Matin, most recently), is/was also influential in opposition media (e.g Mediapart) - his spouse is the first daughter of Bernard Arnault, the 3rd richest man in the world, and together they form the most powerful couple in the country
orwin 6y ago
He is indeed rumored to be close to criminals, probably because of his investments in porn. But he is mostly a white hat, accessible, and you can accidentally meet in if you trail in the catacombs (not the legal ones).
- chmike 6y ago
  He did not invest in porn, and that would not make him a criminal anyway. He did own a "Minitel Rose" company which offered erotic chatting services over Minitel, the french precursor of Internet. After getting rich with it, he sold it and started a new company named Free, a company offering a free internet access services. This has nothing to do with criminal activity. Running an erotic chatting service was a perfectly legal activity in France at the time. It was latter refrained and maybe the reason Xavier Niel changed his business activity.
namdnay 6y ago
The guy who did more for the purchasing power of every French family than any politician could? Whatever else he does, and whatever his motivations, his legacy is that every French phone or internet subscriber pays about 10 euros a month less than they would have without him.
eloisant 6y ago
I don't think so. Most of his success with Free Telecom is by putting the customer first, which led to fair pricing for both broadband and mobile and no-bullshit mobile plans that are impossible to understand. His plans were "a single, affordable, all unlimited plan". Now, he's said to be pretty ruthless in a business setting, but it's because he's basically the only self-made billionaire in France (all the others have inherited) and he couldn't play by the rules because the rules were stacked against him. Thanks to this guy I pay less than 40 euros/month for 1Gbps unlimited fiber at home, with a fixed ipv4. I pay 16 euros a month for my mobile plan, with unlimited everything, including while roaming in Europe or North America. He didn't do that by exploiting his employees like Jeff, he did it by not taking part of the telecom oligopoly who used to milk customers (surprisingly they had no problem to align with his prices to keep their business). He didn't do it by selling out his users data to third party, on the contrary he provided adblocking tech right in the broadband router you get with your subscription. I'm not saying he's a saint, you can't become a billionaire without screwing a bunch of people, but he's clearly better than most billionaires especially the ones you cited.
- maeln 6y ago
  I would still argue that Free use to have the best of the best customer service. I remember in the early 2010', when you were calling them, you usually had somebody that spoke perfectly and was very technically savy. Now, their customer service, while not awful, is no better than the other operator, which is a shame. Their fight with Google for the Youtube bandwidth was really not putting their customer first also. Their problem was maybe justified, but being a Free customer, you were paying the price for it with Youtube being sometimes barely usable. Same happened, and still happen sometime with Twitch and Netflix. Their 4g coverage is still garbage in a lot of place also and definitely worse than any other operator. Overall these days, they are not so much better than the other big telco. But I have to agree that they really shook up the market and that was really beneficial. And they are still pushing and innovating, arguably less than before, which keep the competition going.
- rakoo 6y ago
  What you say is totally true and if not for him we'd all be paying somwhere twice as much for the same bandwidth and possibly with a data cap, but I feel it's more objective that Free Telecom started as "the challenger against the system" but today it definitely is part of the system. It's still teasing its competitors on their extremities, but nothing fundamentally as big as its two uppercuts when it entered the game (I absolutely don't blame them for settling in, I just feel it's fair to paint a proper snapshot of what the situation is today)
espadrine 6y ago
You may be confusing him with someone else. At the very least, to be considered more evil than either of your examples, you need to have the word “controversy” on your Wikipedia page. Xavier Niel has a history of pro-consumerism, democratization of technology, and streamlining of venture investments.

can you explain why ?

Not sure he did anything wrong. By the way, the article title is misleading, in that he did not hack Mitterand as a spy, but the reverse: he hacked for fun (to prove it was possible), and then was spotted for his skills and thus became a spy for the French police/military (Directorate of Territorial Surveillance). So that's rather white.

GrumpyNl 6y ago
In those days, anybody could hack a french analogue board with a answering machine.
- henearkr 6y ago
  But, Xavier Niel says "They told us it was impossible.", implying there was some form of mitigation, and he was skilled enough to get around it. At least that's what he says. Anyway I guess he did something more than other guys if he managed to get spotted.
  - philipov 6y ago
    Does "We told them it was impossible" count as mitigation?
  - henearkr 6y ago
    > Does "We told them it was impossible" count as mitigation? He said he "got around" something, so that goes in the same direction. I cannot be sure of anything, but that would be pretty dumb (and discredit them) from the French President's comms techs to just say "that's impossible" while anybody could hack it. So, the working hypothesis is that, yes, there seem to have been mitigation in place.

speedgoose 6y ago

Please pray to Xavier Niel : https://imgur.com/a/J8d74VT https://imgur.com/a/J8d74VT

karambahh 6y ago
Context: it was hanging in one of the rooms of the former HQ of Scaleway (an Illiad/Xavier Niel subsidiary) avenue d'Iena. Among several others, I think there was Steve Jobs. When the company moved out, to settle in its current buidling, the portraits stayed behind

ritz_labringue 6y ago

disclaimer: he was an investor in my startup He spends a lot of his money on giving back: 42, a free programming bootcamp (https://www.42.fr/ https://www.42.fr/), Station F, a huge co-working space in Paris which hosts entrepreneurs for free (https://stationf.co/ https://stationf.co/) He also has a very active VC/Business Angel fund (he funds 2 early stage startups every week out of his own pocket). His telecom company (free) helped divide by 2 the average price of mobile plans in France. All in all, his impact seems very positive, I'd love to understand why you think he is evil

realusername 6y ago

I still respect him because it's one of the few US-style entrepreneur in France who successfully built his tech empire from almost nothing and also give back to the community with the 42 school & startup funds. Most of the other french billionaires are more like oligarchs and aristocrats, they are not from the same world as Xavier Niel.

hadrien01 6y ago

Why would you say he's 'definitely more evil than Jeff and Zuck combined'? He has revolutionized the telecom industry in France (most people now pay less than 40 USD for phone/internet/TV) with Free (which doesn't have a monopoly), he has a participation in the biggest newspaper in France (Le Monde), but doesn't have any influence in the reporting, and he created the free computer programming school 42 (which has arguable results, but is not evil).

dnpp123 6y ago
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9puscule_(pamphlet) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9puscule_(pamphlet)
- pjc50 6y ago
  .. would you care to explain this, yourself, in English of at least a few sentences, s'il vous plait?
  - chmike 6y ago
    The only reference to Xavier Niel in this page is that he may have advised and eventually financially helped the french president Macron in his campaign. It is complete none sense that this would support the claim that Xavier Niel is evil.
    - namdnay 6y ago
      In addition it's a pamphlet written by Juan Branco of all people, a nutcase conspiracy theorist who is more interested in self-promotion than any real social justice
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
    - one of the biggest and earliest support of Emmanuel Macron, helped him become president (offering to do his PR, made him met the right persons -- especially Mimi Marchand, who can make and break celebrities, lawfully or not, helped set up Macron's political party with other billionaires, etc) - control the #1 French newspaper, "Le Monde" (extremely poplar on the Web, too), is buying up other media (Nice-Matin, most recently), is/was also influential in opposition media (e.g Mediapart) - his spouse is the first daughter of Bernard Arnault, the 3rd richest man in the world, and together they form the most powerful couple in the country

orwin 6y ago

He is indeed rumored to be close to criminals, probably because of his investments in porn. But he is mostly a white hat, accessible, and you can accidentally meet in if you trail in the catacombs (not the legal ones).

chmike 6y ago
He did not invest in porn, and that would not make him a criminal anyway. He did own a "Minitel Rose" company which offered erotic chatting services over Minitel, the french precursor of Internet. After getting rich with it, he sold it and started a new company named Free, a company offering a free internet access services. This has nothing to do with criminal activity. Running an erotic chatting service was a perfectly legal activity in France at the time. It was latter refrained and maybe the reason Xavier Niel changed his business activity.

namdnay 6y ago

The guy who did more for the purchasing power of every French family than any politician could? Whatever else he does, and whatever his motivations, his legacy is that every French phone or internet subscriber pays about 10 euros a month less than they would have without him.

eloisant 6y ago

I don't think so. Most of his success with Free Telecom is by putting the customer first, which led to fair pricing for both broadband and mobile and no-bullshit mobile plans that are impossible to understand. His plans were "a single, affordable, all unlimited plan". Now, he's said to be pretty ruthless in a business setting, but it's because he's basically the only self-made billionaire in France (all the others have inherited) and he couldn't play by the rules because the rules were stacked against him. Thanks to this guy I pay less than 40 euros/month for 1Gbps unlimited fiber at home, with a fixed ipv4. I pay 16 euros a month for my mobile plan, with unlimited everything, including while roaming in Europe or North America. He didn't do that by exploiting his employees like Jeff, he did it by not taking part of the telecom oligopoly who used to milk customers (surprisingly they had no problem to align with his prices to keep their business). He didn't do it by selling out his users data to third party, on the contrary he provided adblocking tech right in the broadband router you get with your subscription. I'm not saying he's a saint, you can't become a billionaire without screwing a bunch of people, but he's clearly better than most billionaires especially the ones you cited.

maeln 6y ago
I would still argue that Free use to have the best of the best customer service. I remember in the early 2010', when you were calling them, you usually had somebody that spoke perfectly and was very technically savy. Now, their customer service, while not awful, is no better than the other operator, which is a shame. Their fight with Google for the Youtube bandwidth was really not putting their customer first also. Their problem was maybe justified, but being a Free customer, you were paying the price for it with Youtube being sometimes barely usable. Same happened, and still happen sometime with Twitch and Netflix. Their 4g coverage is still garbage in a lot of place also and definitely worse than any other operator. Overall these days, they are not so much better than the other big telco. But I have to agree that they really shook up the market and that was really beneficial. And they are still pushing and innovating, arguably less than before, which keep the competition going.
rakoo 6y ago
What you say is totally true and if not for him we'd all be paying somwhere twice as much for the same bandwidth and possibly with a data cap, but I feel it's more objective that Free Telecom started as "the challenger against the system" but today it definitely is part of the system. It's still teasing its competitors on their extremities, but nothing fundamentally as big as its two uppercuts when it entered the game (I absolutely don't blame them for settling in, I just feel it's fair to paint a proper snapshot of what the situation is today)

espadrine 6y ago

You may be confusing him with someone else. At the very least, to be considered more evil than either of your examples, you need to have the word “controversy” on your Wikipedia page. Xavier Niel has a history of pro-consumerism, democratization of technology, and streamlining of venture investments.