Ben Gilbert: commitment

Transcript context

…He’s seeing the market prices and price action happen for all different types of watches from different makers in different parts, et cetera, but he’s also getting to know the buyers in Britain who are not individual people. These are retailers, these are the jewelers in Britain. These are the distribution points for watches. He’s getting the perfect business market, strategic background distribution relationships for going on to ultimately found Rolex. But it’s not just that he falls in love with the business of watches there. He also falls in love with the objects and watches themselves and their performance. He starts this habit of he would take home batches of pocket watches at night and he would run his own tests for accuracy on them on the product that Cuno Korten was trading in. He would set them all at the same time, let them go overnight, and then he would check them in the morning how much they were disparate from one another and check their accuracy. The legend goes that one day he gets the idea that he’s going to take three watches that he’s found to be quite accurate in this whatever this recent batch that he’s testing is, he’s going to go get them tested at the local astronomical observatory, and have them measured these watches according to the strict observatory timekeeping tests, which are also called chronometer tests. If you’ve ever heard the term chronometer, a chronometer is a timekeeping piece—could be a watch, could be a larger clock, could be all sorts of devices—that has passed these astronomical observatory tests for being accurate enough for celestial navigation. David, I’m looking down at this Daytona right now, and it says Rolex Oyster Perpetual, which all three of those words we haven’t gotten to yet. Superlative chronometer, officially certified cosmograph. A lot of words in there that we will get to, but at the moment where we are is chronometer, officially certified. Yes. Today this is like, oh cool. That’s cute. Your mechanical watch is officially certified that it keeps good time. Back then, this is critically important. Celestial navigation, if you’re involved in anything in shipping, the maritime trade, is critical. If you have a crappy timepiece……

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