Wearing a grey jacket from Alexander McQueen, pale grey cashmere sweater and button-down shirt, his baby birdlike features exaggerated by black-rimmed spectacles, Federico Marchetti meets me in a small parking lot on the shores of Lake Como, Italy. It’s a steely grey day and the clouds hang mistily over the surrounding hills. As he greets me, the scene has a whisper of John le Carré about it — like two operatives meeting to share secrets.

在意大利科莫湖(Lake Como)边的一个小停车场内，我见到了费代里科氠尔凯蒂(Federico Marchetti)，当时他身着Alexander McQueen牌的灰色夹克、搭配浅灰色羊绒衫和纽扣领衬衫，佩戴的黑框眼镜进一步凸显出他精明的五官。天色阴沉，云雾缭绕着附近的山上。当他问候我时，整个场景有点约翰勒卡雷(John le Carré)的味道——我们俩就像是两名特工在接头交换情报。

The truth is rather more prosaic. The 46-year-old tech entrepreneur and founder of Yoox, the vast e-commerce retailer of luxury goods now poised on the brink of a merger with Net-a-Porter, is about to give me a tour of his hood.

而事实远没有那么戏剧性。这位46岁的科技企业家、大型奢侈品电子商务零售商Yoox（即将与Net-a-Porter合并）的创始人，正准备带我在他的地盘四处看看。

Marchetti settled in Como permanently a year ago, at the insistence of his partner, Kerry Olsen, a writer and journalist, who wanted to raise their daughter, Margherita, three, in a house with a garden. “I moved for her,” he says, explaining the daily commute to his office in Milan. Although Como has no shortage of starry inhabitants — Richard Branson is a few minutes along the lakeside, George Clooney owns a villa — the neighbourhood has, says Marchetti, the same sleepy provincial feel of his childhood home in Ravenna, the Byzantine capital in Italy’s northeast.

在其伴侣克丽攠尔森(Kerry Olsen)的坚持下，马尔凯蒂1年前在科莫定居了下来。奥尔森是一名作家兼记者，她希望让他们的女儿——3岁的玛格丽塔(Margherita)在有花园的房子里长大。“我是为了她才搬家的，”他在解释自己为什么每日往返于位于米兰的办公室和这里时说。尽管科莫不乏星光熠熠的居民——理查德布兰森(Richard Branson)的住处就在湖边，距离马尔凯蒂家仅有几分钟的路程，乔治克鲁尼(George Clooney)在这里也有一栋别墅。马尔凯蒂称，这个社区寂静的乡村感就像他童年时在拉文纳（位于意大利东北部，过去曾是拜占庭在意大利的首府）的家一样。

Walking towards the restaurant, we pass a palazzo belonging to a Russian billionaire that is being renovated for his daughter, and a dilapidated silk factory. The former mill is Marchetti’s, a two-year building project that will ultimately become the family home. With its industrial windows and factory roof, it is the antithesis of the splendid building next door. “I didn’t want a great ostentatious house,” he says. It will, however, fulfil his lifetime ambition of having a swimming pool: a 20m lap pool in the basement. “I never wanted a Ferrari. But I always wanted a pool.”

在去往餐厅的路上，我们路过了一栋属于一位俄罗斯亿万富翁的豪宅（现在他正在为女儿翻修这栋宅子）和一座破败的丝绸厂。该厂现在归马尔凯蒂所有，正在装修（工期两年），最终将成为马尔凯蒂的家。这座有着工厂式窗户和房顶的建筑与隔壁富丽堂皇的豪宅形成鲜明的对比。“我不想要一栋特别浮夸的房子，”他说。然而，这栋房子将会实现他毕生的愿望：拥有一个位于地下室的长20米的小型游泳池。“我从不想要法拉利，但是我一直想要一个游泳池。”

As we enter the restaurant, 40 pairs of eyeballs turn towards us. The diners are all local tradesmen, burly men on their lunch break. We were going to sit inside, as rain seems imminent, but the sight of so many young men, eating in silence, is a little overwhelming. “Shall we go back outside?” asks Marchetti, with a sympathetic grin. We take a corner table under a tree in the courtyard. “It has been family-run for over 100 years,” he says of the bar with its tabacchi desk by the till. “It’s our second home and the food is very good. I asked you to come here because I wanted to show you how I live. Rather than bring you to a Milanese super-duper restaurant, the luxury guy is bringing you to a little bar.”

当我们走进餐厅时，40双眼睛立刻转向我们。用餐者都是身材健硕的本地人，正在享受午休时光。因为感觉快下雨了，我们本来准备坐到餐厅里面，但是这么多沉默用餐的年轻人盯着我们的目光，让人有点招架不住。“要不我们回外面吧？”马尔凯蒂问道，脸上带着同情的笑容。我们在院子角落一颗树下的桌子旁坐定。“这里是家族经营的，已经开了100多年了，”他说起这个吸烟桌紧挨着收银机的酒吧，“这里是我的第二个家，食物非常赞。我让你来这儿，是因为我想让你看看我是怎么生活的。这个奢侈的家伙没带你去米兰的高级餐厅，而是带你来一个小酒吧。”

Today, though, the luxury guy has a sore tummy and is on “a strict diet” of fish and steamed vegetables — “no rice, or potatoes,” he insists, while ordering a shoal of lake fish that will be variously deep-fried, roasted, smoked and smothered in green sauce. I eat some bread while Marchetti demonstrates parsimonious restraint; he is, however, persuaded to take a thimble of white wine.

不过，这个奢侈的家伙今天肚子痛，而且还正处于“严格节食”中，只能吃鱼和蒸煮的蔬菜。他坚持“不要米饭，不要土豆”，然后点了各种炸、烤、熏、青酱拌的湖鱼。在马尔凯蒂展现自己过于严苛的自制力时，我吃了些面包；而他在我的劝说下抿了几口白葡萄酒。

The younger son of a “white-collar” family — his father was a warehouse manager at Fiat and his mother worked at a call-centre (in “e-commerce”, he jokes) — Marchetti launched Yoox in 2000 with next to no experience of the fashion industry but the conviction he could persuade luxury brands to sell him end-of-season stock to sell online, at a time when luxury accounted for “zero per cent” of the e-commerce market.

马尔凯蒂来自“白领家庭”，是家里的次子，他父亲是菲亚特(Fiat)一家货仓的经理，母亲在电话呼叫中心（他开玩笑说，也算是“电子商务”）工作。2000年创办Yoox时，他几乎没有任何时尚业从业经验，但却坚信能够说服奢侈品牌把季末尾货卖给他、让他在网上销售，而当时奢侈品在电子商务市场上的份额为“0%”。

Since then, Yoox has grown into a multinational “lifestyle” company with revenues of 524m and a net profit of ㄠ3.8m last year. It entered the US in 2003, Japan in 2004 and, in 2006, signed a deal with Marni to provide tech support and a website for the Italian fashion house. Yoox now powers the web infrastructure for 38 luxury brands (“mono brands”), including Armani, Valentino and those owned by the Kering group. In 2009 the company was listed on the Milan stock exchange. And on March 31 this year, Marchetti announced plans for a merger with Net-a-Porter, the luxury fashion site founded, also in 2000, by Natalie Massenet.

从那时起，Yoox逐渐发展为一家跨国“时尚”公司，去年收入达到5.24亿欧元、净利润1380万欧元。2003年进入美国，2004年进入日本，2006年与意大利时尚品牌玛尼(Marni)签订协议，为后者提供技术支持并建一家网站。Yoox如今为38家奢侈品牌打理它们的在线商店（“单一品牌专卖”），其中包括阿玛尼(Armani)、华伦天奴(Valentino)以及开云集团(Kering)旗下的几个品牌。2009年，该公司在米兰证交所挂牌。今年3月31日，马尔凯蒂宣布了与Net-a-Porter的合并计划，后者是纳塔莉氠斯内(Natalie Massenet)于2000年创办的奢侈品时尚网站。

In September, Marchetti will become chief executive of the newly created Yoox Net-a-Porter Group (Massenet will be executive chairman) and will oversee the operations of the world’s largest online luxury retailer. When the merger was announced, the implied valuation for the combined group was 3.4bn, with annual sales of ㄠ.3bn, shipping to 180 countries worldwide, and with a combined total of 24m unique users.

今年9月，马尔凯蒂将成为新成立的Yoox Net-a-Porter集团的首席执行官（马斯内将担任执行董事长），负责这家全球最大的奢侈品在线零售商的运营。在合并消息宣布时，合并后集团的潜在估值为34亿欧元，年销售额13亿欧元，产品销往180个国家，总共拥有2400万不同用户。

Not bad for someone who, even after 15 years in the industry, still describes himself as an outsider. “I’ve always been ambitious,” says Marchetti, as he gently separates some fish from its spine. He attributes his drive to no one. “My parents didn’t encourage me in any way. I wasn’t guided. But I was extremely, extremely, extremely good at school.” Neither was there an inspirational teacher to push him into further education — first economics in Milan, then an MBA from Columbia University. “I did it my own way,” he says. “I’ve been alone most years. I started Yoox by myself.”

对于已在时尚行业干了15年却仍然称自己为局外人的他来说，这是个不错的成绩。“我总是野心勃勃，”马尔凯蒂一边剔鱼骨一边说。他并不把自己的进取心归功于任何人。“我父母从没有以任何方式鼓励我这样。也没人引导过我。但是我就是非常、非常擅长念书。”他也不是因为哪个老师的鼓励而继续深造——先是在米兰学习了经济学，之后在哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)拿到MBA。“我就是按照自己的方式做的，”他称，“大多数时间我都是自己一个人。我也是自己创办了Yoox。”

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The merger is another step towards a long-imagined “dream” of Marchetti — the specifics of which he is vague about. “We started talking about a merger in 2009 but it was too early. It hasn’t been done to please investors, or for stock price; it’s a merger based on substance. And the substance is two companies that started at exactly the same time, with exactly the same vision, but which took completely different approaches. We started with end-of-season, they started full price. Then they started end-of-season [with The Outnet], we started full price [with The Corner]. Then we launched the mono brands, because we were strong at the back-end with logistics, and they launched the editorial content, because they were strong at the front end with the marketing. It’s incredible, like sliding doors — like it was almost planned. I don’t think any merger in history has been so perfect on paper. ”

两家公司合并是马尔凯蒂向着其长期憧憬的“梦想”迈进的又一步（具体细节他不愿多谈）。“我们2009年便开始讨论合并，但那时还太早。合并并不是为了取悦股东或者推高股价，而是一次基于实际情况的合并。现实就是两家公司几乎同时创办，拥有完全相同的梦想，但是选择的道路却截然不同。我们从季末尾货做起，他们从全价商品做起。之后他们（创立The Outnet）进入季末尾货市场，而我们（创立The Corner)进入全价商品领域。再之后我们推出了单一品牌专卖，原因是我们在后端物流方面很强，而他们推出了编辑内容板块，因为他们在前端营销方面很强。我们就像两扇滑动门一样相互契合，简直不可思议，几乎像是设计好的。我不认为公司合并史上有过如此完美合拍的案例。”

Nevertheless, as he quickly points out, this is not a marriage of equals. Marchetti is still a solo operator and he’s very clear that the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group has only one boss. He raises a hand: “And that’s me.”

尽管如此，正如他很快指出的那样，这并非一次平等的联姻。马尔凯蒂仍然是唯一的掌门人，他非常清楚地表明Yoox Net-a-Porter集团只有一个老板。他举了举手说：“那就是我。”

While their business models have followed opposite but complementary paths, Marchetti and Massenet’s managerial styles might be harder to fuse. At Net-a-Porter, the glamorous, California-born Massenet has built her empire on foundations of sororal cheerleading — lots of positive affirmations, #incrediblewomen and whooping about team achievements. Marchetti, on the other hand, is notable for his relative anonymity. “They don’t like me,” he says of his relationship with his staff. Really? “No, they don’t like me,” he continues. “There is no love.” He stops. “I think they feel inspired. But they don’t need to love me.”

尽管两家公司的商业模式选择了截然相反却又相互补充的发展道路，但马尔凯蒂和马斯内的管理风格也许没那么容易调和。在Net-a-Porter，生于加州的魅力女性马斯内以姐妹拉拉队为基础建立了她的帝国，这里充满了正面肯定、对女性的歌颂、对团队成绩大张旗鼓的宣扬。而马尔凯蒂是出了名的低调。“他们不喜欢我，”他说起自己和员工的关系时这样说。真的吗？“是的，他们确实不喜欢我，”他接着说，“没有爱，”他顿了一下，“我觉得他们会感觉受到鼓舞。但是他们不需要爱我。”

Will there not, then, be a conflict of cultures in the new world order? “We’re different,” says Marchetti. “But it’s not bad. I don’t need love. I need results.”

那么，在新公司中不会出现文化冲突吗？“我们截然不同，”马尔凯蒂称，“但是这不是坏事。我不需要员工的爱。我要的是业绩。”

On paper, Marchetti’s attitude may seem arrogant but, in person, his gnomic self-analysis is drily amusing: when I suggest our lunchtime rendezvous is an elaborately staged attempt at humility and that no one in the bar knows who the hell he is, he starts laughing. “Today everything low-key. And then when you leave the helicopter arrives with my dinner...”栠攀 jokes.

理论上，马尔凯蒂的态度可能看起来很傲慢，但是与他本人接触时，他精辟的自我剖析颇有些冷幽默：当我暗示我们的午餐地点是为了彰显其谦虚的精心安排、且餐厅里没人知道他到底是谁时，他笑了起来。“今天一切都很低调。等你走了以后，直升机会给我送晚餐过来……”他开玩笑说。

In fact, his braggadocio sounds more like incredulity: as if he’s still a little mystified by his success. “Starting a company like Yoox in a country like Italy, it’s quite a miracle. It was a cultural innovation: internet, venture capitalist, stock options...It was an American story in Italy, so it was quite brave. But, at the same time, I had huge advantages: the proximity to the designers, speaking the same languages to the brands, understanding their needs.”

事实上，他的自夸听起来更像是质疑：仿佛他对自己的成功仍然有点困惑。“在意大利这样的国家创办一家Yoox这样的公司，是个不小的奇迹。这是一种文化革新：互联网、风投资本家、股票期权……这是一个发生在意大利的美国故事，所以这相当勇敢。但是，与此同时，我也拥有巨大的优势：与设计师近在咫尺、与品牌厂家说着同样的语言、理解他们的需求。

It was brave, possibly foolhardy, to launch a company selling discounted luxury goods in 2000. At the time, Marchetti was working as a merchant banker — and miserable with it. “I was leaving the office around 8pm and at night writing my business plan. Around Christmas 1999 I said, ‘I think I need to do it.’ I’m 30, I had to take a risk. So I quit my job. And in 40 days I convinced the venture capitalist to give me ㄠ.5m for 33 per cent of my idea,” he says. “And this was Italy, where there were two venture capitalists, not Silicon Valley, where there are hundreds.

在2000年创办一家卖打折奢侈品的公司的确很勇敢，可能还有些鲁莽。当时，马尔凯蒂是一名商业银行的员工——过得很痛苦。“晚上8点左右我才离开公司，夜里还要写商业计划。1999年圣诞节前后，我说，‘我觉得我必需做这件事。’当时我30岁，不得不冒一次险。于是我辞掉工作。在40天内说服风投给我150万欧元，来买我这个想法的33%的所有权，”他称，“这发生在当时只有两个风投资本家的意大利，而不是在如今有着数百名风投资本家的硅谷(Silicon Valley)。”

“I took a big risk, and the risk was essential. I cannot say I love risks. I’m not a cowboy. I suffer, internally. But it’s a fine line between luck and risk and I’ve been very lucky. We started in the same month as Net-a-Porter, in June 2000. Boo.com [the LVMH-backed e-commerce site] collapsed in May 2000, and then luxury collapsed. Had I [tried to get] the investment a month later, I would have got nothing.”

“我冒了很大风险，而这种风险是有必要的。我不能说自己喜欢冒险。我并非莽撞之人。我内心很受煎熬。但是，幸运和风险仅有一线之隔，而我非常幸运。Yoox和Net-a-Porter在同一个月创办，都创办于2000年6月。Boo.com（路威酩轩集团(LVMH)出资的电商网站）于2000年5月关停，随后奢侈品业也垮了。如果我再晚一个月去争取投资，我可能筹不到一分钱。”

He may not be a cowboy but there must have been a certain swagger about the 30-year-old nobody. “I didn’t even have a website,” he says. “And I was not the son of any one. I was just selling the dream of an online service. And I was very good at selling the dream. Because I believed in that dream.”

他也许不是莽撞之人，但是当时那个30岁的无名小卒身上必然带着某种狂妄。“我连个网站都没有，”他说，“我也没有爹可以拼。我当时只是在推销自己关于在线服务的梦想。我很擅长推销梦想。因为我相信自己的梦想。”

Marchetti made fashion his focus because it was a native luxury, because he had the home advantage and because there was no competition. “You cannot be great at everything,” he argues, when I suggest the big fashion brands have been rather cowardly about e-commerce. “You need to be a specialist. The internet is a different set of skills. Unless, like Burberry, you have a leader and designer that is an internet native and it’s part of the strategy.”

马尔凯蒂把重心放在时尚方面，因为它是天然的奢侈品，还因为他有本土优势，而且还没有竞争。当我表示大型时尚品牌一直对电子商务相当畏惧的时候，他反驳道，“你不可能什么事都精通。你需要成为一个专家。互联网是一套不同的技能。除非像巴宝莉(Burberry)一样，你有一个出生于互联网时代的领导者兼设计师，并且互联网是你战略的一部分。”

Marchetti’s specialism is in logistics and, to that end, his greatest asset is a warehouse in Bologna. A 102,000 sq m distribution centre through which 8,000 orders are processed every day, it is the mother ship for the group’s operations. It is here that every one of the 5.5m items currently stocked are unpacked, checked for damage, photographed, tagged, stored and repackaged on their passage to a final destination. A marvel of technology, it is patrolled by robots that pick out items from container-loads of goods while 55 studios capture between 9,000 and 15,000 images every day. It’s also a very human enterprise; human hands unpack the incoming product, dress the mannequins and pack the merchandise away when it is sold: they might also wrap them in tissue paper or tie them with a ribbon depending on the particulars of the mono-brand packaging. “It’s an amazing operation,” says Marchetti. “You wouldn’t expect so much perfection from an Italian company — about 0.001 per cent of mistakes. Why? Because we cannot send Armani.com a Saint Laurent product. We need it to be right, otherwise it’s a loss of credibility.”

马尔凯蒂的特长在于物流，在这方面，他最宝贵的资产就是位于博洛尼亚的仓库。这个面积达10.2万平米的配送中心，每天处理的订单数达到8000个，是该集团运营的大后方。就在这里，550万件现有库存商品逐一被拆包、检查、拍照、打上标签、存放好、然后在发给最终顾客前重新包装好。这是科技的奇迹，机器人将商品从成集装箱的货物中拣出，55间摄影室每天拍摄9000-15000张照片。这也是一家非常需要人力劳动的企业；入库商品拆包、给模特穿上服装、商品售出时打包好发走，靠的都是人工；有些商品还需要人工用薄纸包好或是用丝带打结（取决于不同的个别品牌的具体包装要求）。“这是一项神奇的业务，”马尔凯蒂称，“你想不到一家意大利公司能如此完美——错误率约为0.001%。为什么呢？因为我们不会给Armani.com送一件圣罗兰(Saint Laurent)的商品。我们需要它准确，否则我们会失去信誉。”

Neither does the stock hang around. “We have a huge inventory in our logistics, so it’s a huge commitment,” he says. “Boo.com collapsed because of the inventory.” So what do you do? Discount it to death? “Yes,” says Marchetti. “And everything goes.”

他们也不会让库存停留太久。“我们物流中的库存量很大，因此这是巨大的投入，”他称，“Boo.com就是因为库存积压严重倒闭的。”那你怎么办？打折到卖出去？“是的，”马尔凯蒂说，“所有东西都会清掉。”

His other great advantage is a vast bank of data. With nearly 15 years and millions of transactions to pick over, he has become a font of retail information and it’s a joy to quiz him about the world’s shopping habits. Who are the serial returners? “The Germans,” he says. “They’re the worst.” And the least likely to shop during office hours? “The Japanese are the most ethical guys. They only ever shop after midnight. They don’t sleep.” (The Brits tend to shop late afternoon and evening and, though he won’t speak ill of his countrymen, it’s pretty clear from his facial expression that Italians like to do it at their desks.) The Spanish prefer red while the Italians love purple. Men are more loyal to brands and 65 per cent of transactions are undertaken by women, except in China, where the reverse is true.

他另外一个巨大的优势是拥有海量数据库。坐拥近15年、数百万笔交易的信息，他成了零售业信息的百科全书。考他世界各地的购物习惯是件很有趣的事。哪国人最爱退货？“德国人，”他称，“他们最爱退货。”哪国人最不可能在上班时间购物？“日本人是最有职业道德的。他们只在半夜购物。他们压根不睡觉。”（英国人往往在傍晚和夜里购物，尽管他不想说同胞的坏话，但从他的面部表情上可以清楚看出，意大利人喜欢在办公室网购。）西班牙人对红色青睐有加，而意大利人最爱紫色。男性的品牌忠诚度更高，而65%的交易是女性完成的，不过中国是个例外，那里的情况是相反的。

It’s a game I could play all day. “It’s a sociological dream,” he agrees. It’s also valuable. For example: “We found out that when women buy shoes, in two-thirds of cases they only buy shoes, they don’t mix the cart with anything else. It’s a very focused category. Which means that, after analysing 8m orders with shoes, we launched a website for shoes only [shoescribe.com], because we knew what women want. The power of information is huge.”

这个小游戏我能玩上一整天。“这是社会学梦寐以求的信息，”他也赞同。这些信息也很有价值。比如：“我们发现，当女性买鞋时，2/3的情况下她们只买鞋，她们不会在购物车里加入其它商品。这是一个非常专注的种类。这意味着，在对800万个鞋履订单进行分析后，我们推出了一个只卖鞋的网站（shoescribe.com），因为我们知道女性购物者想要什么。信息的力量太大了。”

If I were a luxury CEO, I would insist Marchetti be at every meeting. But, he says, luxury has been fairly reluctant to harness the power of his data. “Historically, it’s an industry that drops down from creativity to the customer — data have not been so essential. But I do my bit and I’m sure that they will come.”

如果我是一个奢侈品CEO，我会坚持让马尔凯蒂参加所有会议。但是，他说，奢侈品牌一直挺不愿意利用其数据的力量。“从历史角度来说，这是个从创意沦落到迎合消费者的行业——数据一直没那么重要。但是我会做好分内之事，我敢肯定他们会来找我的。”

Perhaps it’s just as well. If all we were being offered were things based on web sales, our wardrobes would probably be directed by housewives in Texas. Besides, while Marchetti knows what sells, he still doesn’t know why.

也许这也是公平的。如果市面上售卖的所有服装都是基于互联网销售情况决定的，那么我们的衣柜很可能会由德克萨斯州的主妇说了算。此外，尽管马尔凯蒂知道哪些商品卖得好，但他仍然不知道这是为什么。

“There’s a very common risk with data that you can become lost in it. At Yoox we still use a good part of commercial instinct for the buy. It’s a mix. Using data is a piece of information but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are led by it. It’s the sociological point of view that I’m missing. Why do women buy only shoes when they buy online? I don’t know. I just know that they do.”

“运用数据有一个非常普遍的危险，那就是你可能会迷失其中。在Yoox，我们仍然很大程度上利用商业直觉决定进哪些货。两者要结合起来。利用数据是获得一种信息，但是未必意味着我会被它左右。我不知道的是社会学上的观点。为什么女人在网上购物时只买鞋？我不知道。我只知道她们就是这样。”

In a commercial world dominated by chatter about Applebot and Silicon Valley evangelists, Marchetti is an exception. He’s not especially tech-obsessed: he couldn’t care less about the Apple Watch, and he’s less dogmatic about the omnipotence of the tech age than one might assume. He doesn’t believe, for example, that the internet will kill print media, nor the fashion show. “I’m a hybrid type of guy,” he says. “I’m not a fanatic who thinks the world will only go online, or that there will be no more fashion shows, or e-commerce will be 100 per cent of sales...I really think the fashion shows are a very efficient way to make business.”

在这个由关于Applebot（苹果(Apple)的网络爬虫——译者注）的议论和硅谷(Silicon Valley)狂热者主导的商业世界里，马尔凯蒂是个异类。他并不是特别沉迷于科技：他一点都不关注Apple Watch，对科技时代的无所不能也没有人们所认为的那样武断。例如，他不相信互联网会干掉纸媒和时装秀。“我是那种比较兼容并包的人，”他称，“我不是那种认为整个世界只会日益转移到线上的狂热者，也不认为不会再有时装秀或者销售将100%通过电子商务完成……我真的认为时装秀是一种非常有效的做生意的方式。

We walk together up the hill towards his temporary home until the mill is complete. It’s an unassuming house, albeit one with a tower in the garden and extra houses for two housekeepers. Otherwise, it’s full of the normal jumble of a family home. Nothing fancy. Neither is his new boat, an old wooden knockabout called La Dolce Vita he picked up because he thought it would be nice “to bring my ladies out”. He suddenly looks a bit doleful. “The next three years won’t be la dolce vita, that’s for sure,” he says suddenly, as he considers the implications of his “perfect merger”.

我们一起向山上走向他在工厂改装完成前的临时住所。这是一栋朴实无华的房子，尽管花园里有一座高塔，还有额外的房子给两名管家住，不过除此之外就像普通人家的房子一样，一点儿都不浮夸。他新买的船也很朴实，是一艘名为“甜蜜生活”(La Dolce Vita)的旧木船，他买它的理由是觉得用它“载着我的美女们出航”会很美妙。突然间他看起来有点沮丧，“接下来的3年不会是甜蜜的生活，这是可以肯定的。”说话间他在琢磨“完美合并”带来的影响。

In spite of this, he’s very happy. “I’m a bit Calvinist, I think, in a country that is very Catholic,” he explains. “Even when I took the company public I was distant. I just came home and ate a bowl of minestrone. No champagne. No holiday. Nothing. I think it’s a problem — I always then think what’s next? I’m never satisfied. But when I did the merger I was very, very, happy.”

尽管如此，他还是很开心。“我觉得，在一个天主教影响很大的国家，我有点像个加尔文教徒，”他解释说，“即使是在我的公司上市的时候，我也是很淡然的。我只是回家吃了一碗意大利蔬菜浓汤。没有开香槟。没有去度假。什么都没有。我觉得我有这毛病——总是会想接下来怎么办？永不满足。但是当我完成合并时，我非常非常开心。”

No minestrone then? “No, no,” he laughs. “No minestrone that night...”

那天晚上没吃意大利蔬菜浓汤吗？“没有，没有，”他笑道，“那天晚上没吃……”