LHC year 2: where do we stand?

While big discoveries start appearing only now at the horizon, the LHC experiments have already delivered a most impressive collection of measurements, exploring the dynamics of high-energy collisions in a wholly new domain. On one side these measurements have by and large successfully validated the theoretical predictions for the modeling of the complex processes produced at the LHC; on the other, the experimental precision is beginning to challenge the theoretical accuracy. This talk will review what I consider as the most interesting lessons learned and open issues, and outline the main directions for future progress.