Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo has met with senior executives from Apple and Google while in the US to present a lecture at Stanford University in California.
Speaking to 600 Stanford University Graduate School of Business students, Montezemolo said, “I’m not here to sell cars, but to communicate a dream”, despite the US being Ferrari’s biggest market.
Montezemolo was a guest speaker taking part in Stanford University’s ‘View from the top’ lecture series that the university says, “brings well-respected leaders from a variety of business, government and social sectors, and from around the world to share their personal reflections and insights on effective leadership with the Stanford Graduate School of Business community”.
“Be creative, follow your goals, use technology, dominate innovation, but don’t become dependent on machines, you have to be in the driver’s seat of your lives. Never lose the curiosity for what is around you,” Montezemolo said.
After meeting those from Google, the Ferrari chairman drove his Ferrari FF to Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, also in California, for a two-hour face-to-face discussion with Apple CEO Tim Cook. Leaving the headquarters Montezemolo said, “Apple and Ferrari are connected by the same passion, the same love for the product, obsessive attention to both technology and to design.”
The meetings could hint at future cooperatives but currently Ferrari has a relationship with Acer that sees Ferrari-branded laptops available.
Further indicating Ferrari’s interest in new technology, the Italian supercar brand has celebrated reaching eight million Facebook friends in the best way it knows how, spelling out ’8,000,000′ in burnt rubber across the steering pad at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track in a Ferrari 458 Italia.
Ferrari says its fans stretch across the globe from the US, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, India, Brazil, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Afghanistan, Libya and Iran.
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