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november 9, 2017business

Brunello Cucinelli Implores Tech
Sector to ‘Humanize the Web’
● The executive visits

Dreamforce 2017 to address
the tech industry, asking it tokeep humanism alive
through all the innovation.

beings and respecting employees‟ lives anddowntime away from work is a critical aspect ofCucinelli‟s operation.
“Dignity, maybe, comes before bread,” hesaid. “If I give dignity to you, you will be more
responsible tomorrow. You will be morecreative in turn.…Dignity engenders creativity. And you‟ll have a com-pany
that grows in a staggering manner.”
The sentiment could have seemed quaint fora jaded tech sector, except that it came from thehead of a 456 mil-lion-euro empire. The
Brunello Cucinelli brand has grown in all
markets, and the company expects double-digit
growth in revenues and profits this year.

Brunello Cucinelli
at Dreamforce 2017with Marc Benioff.

By Adriana Lee

Brunello Cucinelli came to Dreamforce
Wednesday with an imperative for the techcommunity: Humanizing the web must be apriority.
The luxury fashion designer and mogul hasoften talked about the need for elegance, dignityand kindness in today‟s increasingly mechanized
and innovation-obsessed world. This time, hebrought his message straight to the coun-try‟sleading technology hub, at one of the region‟slargest industry events.

The company went public in Milan in 2012,
but Cucinelli explained that this almost didn‟thappen. “I had some inves-tors [say] I needed
to grow my revenues 50 percent a year, and I
said, „No. I don‟t want to go public then, if
that‟s the condi-tion,‟” he explained.

With his trademark verve and thoughtprovoking insights, Cucinelli charmed theaudience at his fireside chat with Salesforce
chief executive officer Marc Benioff. But healso conveyed a seri-ous concern that seems
timely in the age of artificial intelligence,machine learning and computer vision.
With the growing number of screens inmodern life, he said, “we need to manage andgovern the web, so that these tech-nologies areused „graciously,‟ and do not deprive us and ourchildren of the soul we were given.”
The opportunity to address the Dream-force
audience came from a social event,a dinner where Benioff heard Cucinelli‟s takeon the modernized world and how to maintaina human approach to doing business today.
For instance, Brunello Cucinelli‟scompany, which donates as much as 20
percent to charitable efforts, prohibits

employees from working overtime.
“We start working at 8 a.m., and we stop at 1.
We have a pretty long lunch break; we have ourpasta,” he said onstage. “It is forbidden to work
beyond half past 5 p.m. It is forbidden to send emails on Saturdays and Sundays.” Treatingpeople as human

Of course, Cucinelli did want to grow his
business, but he wanted what he called“gracious growth” or “gracious profit” ofabout 10 percent. That would allow him to“lead a normal life.”
That life has turned out to be rather
extraordinary, and it gives him a perch toaddress technology‟s visionaries and show themthat success, creativity and innovation doesn‟thave to have a human cost. And he hopes thatthese “guardians, custodians of this new
millennium in front of us,” as he calls them,bear that in mind as they shape the future.