Following my last post, I want to share another striking difference between Silicon Valley and the innovation ecosystem I have known in Pisa, and more broadly in Italy.
In the Bay Area, there is a very clear mindset: when someone succeeds, the whole ecosystem benefits.
That attitude changes everything.
People do not waste energy trying to slow others down. They do not look at a new initiative as a threat by default. They see progress as something that creates value for everyone.
Too often in Italy, I have experienced the opposite logic: if you are doing poorly, I have a better chance of doing well.
But that is one of the most damaging ways to think about innovation.
One episode from my time in Silicon Valley made this crystal clear.
Pisa is a particularly interesting case. It has one of the highest concentrations of researchers in Europe, spread across four or five institutions that formally collaborate, but in practice often compete with one another. The result is clear: the potential impact and exploitation of the intellectual property generated there remains far below what it could be.
When I returned to Pisa after my experience in California, I tried to approach people in the same open way I had learned in the Bay Area. I looked for conversations, exchanges, possible collaborations. But even starting a dialogue often felt difficult.
One episode from my first days at Stanford has stayed with me ever since. At the time, I was CEO of COSBI and one of my goals was to expand our business in the United States. I met the CEO of a Bay Area company that was, objectively, one of our competitors. We sat down in a well-known coffee shop in Palo Alto and started talking.
During that conversation, he pointed me toward potential clients his company could not serve at that moment because they lacked the bandwidth. I was genuinely surprised. I asked him why he would send business to a competitor. His answer was simple and unforgettable: “The growth of the field is beneficial to everybody. It is better to satisfy the customer, even if the work is done by competitors, than to let the customer think there is no solution to the problem. Cooperation always wins over competition.”
That sentence stayed with me because it captures a much bigger truth.
Healthy ecosystems do not grow because every actor tries to dominate the others.
They grow because people understand that trust, openness, and collaboration expand the space for everyone.
Competition can sharpen quality.
But cooperation is what makes a great innovation ecosystem great.