Ben Gilbert: evaluation

Transcript context

…Travel. They own just an insane number of brands with 75 houses today that include Dior, Louis Vuitton, Moet, Hennessy, Veuve Clicquot, Dom Perignon, Tiffany. It's not just the brands, they've expanded into distribution with retail, like Sephora and all the duty free shops that you see at airports, and they have even recently expanded into travel with Cheval Blanc resorts and other travel companies. For those of you who have been reading the headlines, this wide-sweeping Empire is owned and controlled by the now wealthiest man in the world, more than Bezos, Gates, or Elon Musk. Bernard Arnault. Fascinatingly, this richest man in the world wasn't the founder of any of these brands. This story has a dash of Buffett, a little bit of Steve Jobs, and some unbelievable deal-making stories about how Mr. Arnault turned $15 million of capital in 1985 into the over $200 billion fortune that it is today. I'm also super excited to do the analysis on this one, David, because the luxury industry is like business strategy bizarro world. You need scarcity so there are constraints on your growth. You can't lower your cost structure too much without devaluing your brand. You can't really outsource activities, even if they're not your core competencies. All the lessons that we've learned on previous episodes, it's the exact opposite of what will show up today. Everything that makes your beer taste better is ephemeral, so you need everything in-house.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.