This research monograph provides a comprehensive study of a conjecture initially proposed by the second author at the 1998 International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM). This conjecture asserts the equivalence, for a Fano variety, between the semisimplicity condition of its quantum cohomology and the existence of full exceptional collections in its derived category of coherent sheaves. Additionally, in its quantitative form, the conjecture specifies an explicit relation between the monodr...