The Geek of Chic: An American Dream, Italian Style

An inspiring story full of successes, mistakes, honesty, and what it takes to start from zero, with the purpose to give courage to anyone who wants to change the world.

Federico Marchetti took a few million dollar investment from Benchmark, a venture capital firm, in early 2000 and turned it into YOOX Net-a-Porter Group. This was later sold to Cartier’s parent company, Richemont, in a $6 billion transaction value. Marchetti found his own recipe for success by combining Silicon Valley hard skills with Italian creativity and humanism. His approach to business harkens back to this Italian DNA, and yet Marchetti helped bring fashion into the 21st century by building Italy’s first unicorn—in a country lacking digital infrastructure and tech culture.

Marchetti’s story unfolds against a backdrop of European vistas—Milan, Lake Como, Venice, and England’s Royal Palaces. His journey starts with a challenging Italian childhood, and hits on many of the most significant moments in international business over the past decades—from working in the Twin Towers to studying at Columbia Business School and launching a start-up right before the dotcom bubble. Along the way he meets the who’s who of technology from Jeff Bezos to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

Marchetti sits on the Armani board of directors as the only non-family member, attends the catwalk shows, and co-invests in the movies of Luca Guadagnino. From the glamorous party thrown with Anna Wintour to the dazzling coronation of King Charles III—where he sits on another type of front row as the only Italian invited alongside the President of the Republic of Italy—The Geek of Chic is as inspiring as it is entertaining, filled with doses of style, surreal situations, unexpected happenings, and ‘sliding door’ moments.