Luca Ferrari

cultivating the little garden.

There is no shortcut to it.

So I think it's just not a model that when people see it, a lot of people have known about it for years as I've talked to investors and I've seen nobody try because they just understand it's just too painful.

When I was a little kid, I was almost pathologically shy to the point that I was, let's say, diagnosed with autism.

I think the diagnosis was not necessarily particularly scientific, but that's to say I was so introverted and shy.

I spent years in elementary school talking to nobody pretty much.

So I go to middle school in Italy, middle school between the age of 10 and 13, I think.

The first school year goes by and I've talked to essentially nobody in my class, literally.

And we're late in the year, I think it's probably May.

We're on a school trip in the hills, just taking a stroll with our teacher and probably seeing some ruins or some Roman thing.

Pretty common thing to do in Italy.

Plenty of ruins.

And all of a sudden, two classmates of mine come over, just hug me, and they were the two outgoing, popular guys in the class.

They just talked to me, and on the bus, they just dragged me with them in the back, and we started singing.

And I'm terrified and happy at the same time, because I did want to socialize.

I just didn't know how.

And I keep investing in this relationship for a long time, and it worked.

10 or 11, so little kids, until months later, I felt confident in myself and I had turned into a reasonably effective social person.

Not the most social, not the most outgoing, but you wouldn't tell that I had been almost pathologically shy to the point that my mom brought me to a doctor.

And I owed it to those two.