So I’m sure yesterday, many of you saw the footage. The Notre-Dame, an 856-year-old cathedral in downtown Paris, went up in flames. The fire did significant damage to one of Paris’ gems. One French tech billionaire is doing something about it. A French techie helps rebuild Notre-Dame.
So the IT support leader’s name is Francois-Henri Pinault. He’s pledging over 100 million Euros if his own money to rebuild the Notre-Dame. Pinault will use his investments, like Artemis, to fund this mission. He’s also using his voice to raise awareness and funding for this cause. In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron calls for international funding to get this cathedral back together again.
So who is Francois-Henri Pinault? In European circles, they know him as a fashion luxury guru. But he’s more than that. During his interview with TechCrunch, he talked about his love for and contribution to IT service and computer technology. One time, he served as a software developer at Hewlett Packard. That led to the founding of Soft Computing. In the 1980s, he helped found it in Paris. It became a powerhouse in the French and European tech community. In fact, last year, Soft Computing merged with a tech ad company Publicis. Pinault even helped funded a smart headphone company in LA.
So this is how this French techie helps rebuild Notre-Dame. So often, we talk about tech leaders doing negative things. Maybe we do this too much. It brings me joy to talk about how tech billionaires are doing positive things. This is one example. Thankfully, there were no deaths or severe injuries. But there is speculation. Yes, they told us it wasn’t terrorism, or any other crime. However, some people aren’t buying it. But does it matter now? Maybe we should follow Pinault’s example and instead of pointing fingers, maybe we should do something else. Maybe we should ask: What are we going to do about it?