Paternalistic Covenant With the Valley

""Essentially, the agreements with the workers are written in marble tablets: I give you everything, you give me everything," explains Camuffo, who has collected in a book the considerations of Del Vecchio about his entrepreneurial style."

"He creates a team, takes on a group of very young boys and girls, kids who grow up with him, identify with the company, and he even puts them in competition with each other to always achieve the maximum. "We were four country boys, we were sixteen years old each," they tell me and still argue over why one of them did not go to the other's wedding in 1964. Del Vecchio demands a lot but he is also grateful, he never misses a payday, he never forgets an important occasion."

"Another eight hours in the car with a ticket in his pocket that's worth gold. And yet at the Banca del Friuli in Agordo it's not enough; they don't trust the outsider and "they refused to reopen my account. So I rushed to the Cassa di Risparmio in Belluno, which gave me credit and trust. I was able to pay the workers' wages that way." The salary also arrives that time. "Never missed even half a payment, since then," his guys say."

"⁠With Del Vecchio it's hard for everyone, but he knows how to be grateful and immediately looks into forms of early corporate welfare: he never misses a wedding and always shows up with a gift, organizes company trips, even thinks of building houses for the workers in Taibon, a project that he will abandon due to too many bureaucratic constraints.⁠"