Loïc Le Meur (Low-eek Le Mew — more or less) has come to America, arriving in San Francisco as one of the most interesting new voices in European business (albeit a voice you probably haven't heard until now). At 35, Mr. Le Meur has carved a niche by ignoring business conventions, respecting competitors, building relationships and learning his lessons out in the open.

Iconic Le Meur Story #1

Reported in Financial Times:

In 1997, Le Meur founded Rapid Site to host corporate web sites at 1/10 what France Telecom charged at the time. Two years later, France Telecom ran an ad parroting the look and price structure of one of Rapid Site's advertisements.

"My first instinct was to sue them," Le Meur says. "The other was to get them to lunch." He decided on lunch. 15 days later Rapid Site was part of France Telecom.

Seesmic.com is Le Meur's fifth startup in 11 years. He chose San Francisco because it puts him close to the people he believes are building the global future of the internet. "The way you do partnerships here," he told Financial Times, "everyone's a block away or 20 minutes away in Palo Alto…If I were in France, there's a nine-hour time difference and it's like you don't matter."

Iconic Le Meur Story #2

Mr. Le Meur stirred up a hornet nest by insisting the LeWeb conference he launched for bloggers, entrepreneurs and angel investors be held in English without French translation. "If you don't speak English, the internet's official language, then this conference is not for you." (The conference started in 2003 with about 50 participants. The 2007 attendance is reported at 1300 from 40 nations.)

Having broken most of the business rules he was taught, Le Meur arrived in the U.S. with 10 rules of his own:

1. Do not wait for a revolutionary idea, the idea of your life will never happen, just focus on a simple exciting empty space you see and execute as fast as possible.
2. Share your idea as much as possible, the more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3. Build a community around you through blogging and social software.
4. Listen to your community, answer questions and build your product with their feedback, involve bloggers as early as possible and get their feedback, if negative, adapt your product permanently.
5. Gather a great team with a very different skill set than yours, look for people who are better than you without being afraid of it.
6. Be the first to recognize a problem or a mistake you have made. Never hide it behind the carpet. Address the issue in public, learn and correct it.
7. Do not spend time on market research, but launch as early as possible in alpha or beta versions. Keep improving the product in the open.
8. Do not focus on a large spreadsheet business plan, you are so sure it is not going to happen anyway.
9. Do not plan huge marketing, growing with your community loving the product is much more powerful.
10. Do not focus on getting rich or selling your company, focus on your users, money is a consequence of success, can't be a goal.

Whether or not his new enterprise has legs, there is an attractive fearlessness in Mr. Le Meur's story—the kind of attitude that draws attention and comparison, admiration and critique. In an age marred by stinginess, cronyism and subterfuge, what are we to make of people whose business practices are open, generous and collaborative? Are they fools? geniuses? hiding something?

Mike Vance tells a story about Walt Disney's openness—some regarded it as carelessness—about what he was working on. Vance recalls hearing Disney executives upbraiding Walt for displaying works in progress as set pieces on his Wonderful World of Color television program. "People are going to steal your ideas!" they warned him. To which Vance says Disney replied, "Don't worry about it; I can create faster than they can steal." He could. And did.

Not everyone in business has Walt Disney's (or Loïc Le Meur's) confidence in their capacity to create value. Judging from their effort to extend copyright protection for a thousand years or so, it doesn't appear that even Disney's successors learned much from Walt's example.

I hope it's not too jarring a segue to say that the same might be said for the 21st century successors of Jesus who treat some of his most pointed teaching as if it were mere hyperbole. The first century writer Luke quotes Jesus saying:

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
— Luke 6:27-38, NIV

He can't have meant that literally, right? It's interesting how often self-described Bible-believers get very nuanced in the face of such demanding notions. Give and it will be given to you? Are you kidding me? That's no way to run a business!

But what if that is exactly the way to run a business? What if Loïc Le Meur and Walt Disney—and, dare we say, Jesus—are really onto something? What if the future of business is out in the open, collaborative and unafraid? What if our biggest margins are to be made through profuse generosity toward everyone in the value chain?