Giulio Michelon is smart.
I realized this the moment he first contacted me after I wrote the initial version of “Iva Funesta” a popular essay I first published in 2013 (later with Wired Italia in 2015 and UTET in 2018). He reached out in the most unassuming way, coming across as a young, curious guy eager to learn.
Fast forward to 2024, and he has become not only a brilliant entrepreneur leading his company, Belka (and founding the video game production company Strelka as well), but also one of the most recognizable voices of his generation. His communication skills shine, whether through his mastery of memes or in more serious contexts.
Giulio resembles the ideal “bad cop” business partner you’d want in your company—the one with a knack for asking the tough questions you’d rather avoid. I intended for this interview to focus on his technical expertise, particularly in UX/Design systems/Onboarding, but we ended up discussing broader concepts, which was a refreshing departure from the usual “small talk” kind of conversations that abound around.
Watch the full interview
The interview is lenghty and in Italian, but here’s a valuable excerpt for non-italian readers.
Fulvio Romanin
I am a fan of the Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han. I bought his first booklet at the train station in Milan because it caught my attention; it was colorful and said some very interesting things. For example, it mentioned that the purpose of a politician in life is not to be a building manager but to be a dreamer. From this perspective, I believe that you and Luca can identify with the political realm in which you operate. “My dream is that in a certain number of years, something happens,” and you do something to make it happen. Let me explain: just as we are currently moving heavily towards Shopify and that world because we like the idea of being very, very focused on this thing, I believe this was one of the points where you envisioned a similar future, and it’s a future that we must understand every day. There is a beautiful Yiddish proverb that says, “Man plans, and God laughs.” Some time ago, dear Biden signed the Privacy Shield Act, which, for example, allows us to transfer data to and from the United States with all the services we have in a transparent manner. If tomorrow this were to fall through because someone wakes up one morning and it no longer works, I, for example, could no longer propose Shopify to my clients with the same ease I do now. It’s difficult to imagine a future where the technological world can change so drastically and disruptively.
Giulio Michelon:
Yes, it’s a difficult question. I don’t think I have any fresh perspectives or different views from things I’ve already read, which seemed very right to me. One of the viewpoints I like the most is often attributed to Jeff Bezos: “It’s not so much about what changes, but much more relevant to understand what will still be true in ten years.” We are putting a strong focus on results and metrics to understand how the product fits into the entire life of the company. Because often, in the past, I have seen great enthusiasm, even from our side – we ended up making digital products because I like them – but if you ask me: does an onboarding service work? How many apps are installed? I try these things, dismantle them, understand them, and look at the various reports.
“When did you start seeing things as entrepreneurs?” you ask. From when we started doing a very simple thing: downloading the company profiles and understanding how the financials are set, how they are performing in terms of revenue, profit, number of employees, revenue per employee, etc. This, beyond being a healthy way of questioning oneself as an entrepreneur, helps to understand at a results level, what I am really moving. In the end, money is more a consequence than the cause of things; it represents the effectiveness of the solution.
Fulvio Romanin:
My joke always says that money is like calories in diets – just an easy way to count things but not necessarily the reality. […] Revenue means very little. The fact that you conduct such a precise examination of what a company does means you are not just looking at the facade of the house but also at what’s behind it, and if it is truly a giant standing by the grace of God, continuing by “gravity,” or indeed a company that is growing. Because clearly, even you, having hours to invest, focus on those who might actually be big tomorrow.
Giulio Michelon:
You’ve hit the point […] The performance aspects of these players, who for years were our key clients, were not always very solid, not always able to stand up, not always capable of delivering results in a useful way but instead burning cash linearly. There’s a company, maybe even highly renowned, where you see the revenue line and the loss scaling linearly. So, in the first year, one million in revenue, half a million loss; second year, two million in revenue, one million loss. And so, they are scaling their losses linearly. And there, I start to ask myself: can these people stay afloat? Do these people want to stay afloat, or do they have the ability to do so? And then you start to see maybe large layoffs, acquisitions for one euro, which are practically acquihires, or even people just jumping ship. And so, linking back to what I was saying before: what will still be true in ten years? In ten years, companies will still need to deliver results; I don’t think that will change. It’s not possible that in ten years, companies that don’t deliver results will continue to do well. This, I think, helps to put things back in line with the often very inflated, very muscular, very explosive narrative.
Full interview on Spotify