{"id":5756,"date":"2014-12-29T16:06:54","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T16:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fabricegrinda.com\/?p=5756"},"modified":"2023-08-21T12:48:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T12:48:58","slug":"fiaf-pilier-dor-acceptance-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/fiaf-pilier-dor-acceptance-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"FIAF Pilier d\u2019Or Acceptance Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"full-width alignnone wp-image-5757 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fabricegrinda.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/f222432d0c9eba0e20f9ff158f605778-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"FAIF_TDA_GALA_12_5_2014-006\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\"><\/p>\n<p>It was an honor to be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/2014-trophee-des-arts-gala-to-honor-interior-designer-jacques-grange--internet-entrepreneur-fabrice-grinda-300001785.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">awarded the Pilier d\u2019Or<\/a> by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fiaf.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FIAF<\/a> on December 5 at the Plaza. Receiving the award was the culmination of an extraordinary year. In the FIAF\u2019s words: \u201cThe Pilier d&#8217;Or recognizes a leading business figure, diplomat or philanthropist for outstanding contributions to the French-American community.\u201d I was really surprised to be given the award. It\u2019s historically been given to captains of industry. Last year\u2019s winner was Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan-Renault. I am humbled that they chose a relatively young Internet entrepreneur.<\/p>\n<p>It was a privilege to be introduced by my good friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bvp.com\/team\/jeremy-levine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeremy Levine<\/a>. Jeremy is amazing. He was in the office next to mine at McKinsey and was the lead investor and board member at OLX. Beyond being brilliant, modest and an all-around great guy, he\u2019s probably one of the most successful, if not the most successful VCs of the past 10 years.<\/p>\n<p>Giving the acceptance speech made me reminisce on what it took to get there. Reading the one line version of my biography \u201cPrinceton, McKinsey, Zingy, OLX and investor in Alibaba &amp; Brightroll\u201d might make you think it was a long string of uninterrupted success, but far from it. My first startup failed. 12 years ago, I was essentially bankrupt, living in the office off of Ramen and fresh water. Most of my angel investments failed. Worse I witnessed the failures before the successes because it takes a lot longer to build a successful company, than to fail. Even OLX took years and multiple strategic pivots to get right. This award is as much a tribute to grit, tenacity, perseverance and good fortune as anything and I am truly grateful for how things turned out!<\/p>\n<p>Watch Jeremy\u2019s introduction and my acceptance speech:<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FIAF Pilier d&#039;Or Accpetance Speech, introduced by Jeremy Levine\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/InEhG1la3Mw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was an honor to be awarded the Pilier d\u2019Or by the FIAF on December 5 at the Plaza. Receiving the award was the culmination of an extraordinary year. In &hellip; <a href=\"\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[766,763,773],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-766","category-763","category-773"],"acf":[],"contentUpdated":"FIAF Pilier d\u2019Or Acceptance Speech. Categories - \u5275\u696d, \u500b\u4eba\u6c89\u601d, \u6f14\u8b1b. Date-Posted - 2014-12-29T16:06:54 . \n It was an honor to be awarded the Pilier d\u2019Or by the FIAF on December 5 at the Plaza. Receiving the award was the culmination of an extraordinary year. In the FIAF\u2019s words: \u201cThe Pilier d&#8217;Or recognizes a leading business figure, diplomat or philanthropist for outstanding contributions to the French-American community.\u201d I was really surprised to be given the award. It\u2019s historically been given to captains of industry. Last year\u2019s winner was Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan-Renault. I am humbled that they chose a relatively young Internet entrepreneur.\n It was a privilege to be introduced by my good friend Jeremy Levine. Jeremy is amazing. He was in the office next to mine at McKinsey and was the lead investor and board member at OLX. Beyond being brilliant, modest and an all-around great guy, he\u2019s probably one of the most successful, if not the most successful VCs of the past 10 years.\n Giving the acceptance speech made me reminisce on what it took to get there. Reading the one line version of my biography \u201cPrinceton, McKinsey, Zingy, OLX and investor in Alibaba &amp; Brightroll\u201d might make you think it was a long string of uninterrupted success, but far from it. My first startup failed. 12 years ago, I was essentially bankrupt, living in the office off of Ramen and fresh water. Most of my angel investments failed. Worse I witnessed the failures before the successes because it takes a lot longer to build a successful company, than to fail. Even OLX took years and multiple strategic pivots to get right. This award is as much a tribute to grit, tenacity, perseverance and good fortune as anything and I am truly grateful for how things turned out!\n Watch Jeremy\u2019s introduction and my acceptance speech:\n ","Category":["\u5275\u696d","\u500b\u4eba\u6c89\u601d","\u6f14\u8b1b"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5756"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16927,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5756\/revisions\/16927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}