There's no denying it: this time John Elkann's choice for Ferrari really surprised. A car expert? No. A man of fashion? Absolutely not. A manager appreciated by the markets? No, an absolute stranger outside the circle of electronics insiders. In short, Benedict Vigna, surprisingly since Tuesday the number one of the Reds, is only one thing: a genius. Yes, simply a genius who, in his early fifties (born in 1969), developed more than 200 patents for Stm, the Italian-French joint venture he joined in 1995 fresh from his degree in Subnuclear Physics at the University of Pisa.
Put like this, it is not surprising the coldness with which Piazza Affari has accepted the appointment of this scientist with thick glasses who has probably never seen a live Grand Prix and almost certainly has never followed a fashion show. The most benevolent comment is that it is a bridging solution, all the more urgent and necessary the longer the vacation at the top of Maranello was, after the resignation of Lou Camilleri last December. But those who have had the good fortune to meet Vigna on the occasion of the various Investors Days of Stm and to appreciate his work have a very different sensation: Vigna, which will enter Maranello next September, has all the qualities, both human and technical, to drive the Rossa into the future, projecting Ferrari into pole position in the race that pits the jewel of the Motor Valley against the Japanese, Germans and the giants of Silicon Valley. All the competitors of that Grand Prix of Mobility in which the car will have to transform itself into something more, just as the mobile phone has evolved into the smartphone, just to give an example.
An exaggeration? At this point it is worth taking a step back to talk about another genius, the scientific father of Vigna: Bruno Munari, electrical engineer from Veneto who in the early 101s began working on the design of electronic circuits in the newborn SGS in Agrate commissioned by Adriano Olivetti and Virgilio Floriani, Telettra's father. It was years of experiments, trials and errors necessary to give life to the first integrated circuits developed on the technologies of the American Fairchild, Intel's ancestor. It was in those years that Olivetti's XNUMX program was born, as were Telettra's digital radio links, technological masterpieces that the Italy of business registers as almost intolerant while the political confrontation radicalises. Our young electronic company seems doomed to failure or, at most, to a secondary role supported by Stet's money. That's where Munari's team gives life to a masterpiece, moreover low cost: why not use the characteristics of the chips to process the electronic power signals (for low consumption light bulbs) or to manage the tiny ink droplets of the printers? And so, while US and Japanese competitors compete for billions of dollars to develop ever more powerful semiconductors, master Munari's workshop churns out ink jet, the printing system based on the control of the super precise heads of the hard disks.
It's just one of the successes born in this brain shop which made possible the survival of Italian (and, to a large extent, European) electronics. The genius of the Agrate team was one of the weapons that allowed Pasquale Pistorio to lay the foundations for the alliance with Thomson's French giving life to Stm which entered the XNUMXs on the wave of the successes achieved alongside Nokia. But the story risked not having a happy ending. Indeed, the decline of Nokia itself risked compromising the fortunes of the company. But once again the Italian genius prevailed.
It is always Munari who has the light: why not use the experience in micron silicon to develop tiny vibrating organs, capable of registering displacements, accelerations, torsions? Thus it was born the accelerometer, another great scientific success, developed together with the Agrate boys, among which Vigna stands out, a physicist who turns out to be a great team man with a marked bump for business. It is he who has the idea of betting on Mems, the microdevices which made possible the development of nanotechnology: electromechanical microsystems which are nothing more than a set of devices of various kinds (mechanical, electrical and electronic) integrated in highly miniaturized form on the same semiconductor material substrate, such as silicon. What are they for? Vigna takes the briefcase and moves to Japan. Thanks to Mems applications, Nintendo churns out a video game platform innovative, capable of moving at 360 degrees, of simulating vibrations and reality effects that are common today but 10-15 years ago aroused wonder. Just like most of the effects at the basis of the iPad or iPhone, the result of the work of ever more sophisticated Mems that come out of the division headed by Vigna which, since then, has dealt with a little bit of everything, from devices for regulating the electricity consumption to applications for the automotive world, one of the strengths of the team.
What can the genius of Vigna do when applied to Ferrari? Create an entertainment lounge inside the car rather than a mobile office. Guaranteeing maximum safety at 300 km/h thanks to the use of sensors and the alliance with the Israeli Oculus, at the forefront of autonomous driving. Or many other things. Or, which is more important, to connect the sense of business and the potential of technology. With the spirit of the visionary but down to earth as befits those who have learned from the master the art of doing a lot with little, making up the gap with the brain compared to the various Apple (or Volkswagen).
This is probably the bet of John Elkann, extremely attentive to technology, as understood by his friends Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, people who are very interested in someone like Vigna.
