Rolex, every mention
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The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 18:28 Ben Gilbert What was the Rolex watch?
Ferrari: What happens when you staple a luxury brand to a sports team? (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 3:20 Ben Gilbert And there are 70 times more Rolexes made each year.
- ▶ 15:27 Ben Gilbert Yeah, it reminds me of our Rolex episode where the movement makers were totally different than the case makers, which were totally different than the jewelry stores that sold them, not the sort of integrated way that we know it today of…
- ▶ 1:57:53 Ben Gilbert The three 55, I would put it in the category of like a Rolex Submariner, of this thing that is a signature of the brand, is perfect product market fit, is priced perfectly, and just deeply understands why the customer is buying it.
- ▶ 2:03:29 David Rosenthal If we were talking about Louis Vuitton or Hermes or Patek Philippe or Rolex, this would be all bad.
- ▶ 2:07:29 David Rosenthal Yes, it really reminds me of Rolex in this regard.
- ▶ 2:16:05 David Rosenthal It's almost like Rolex and Tudor.
- ▶ 2:16:07 David Rosenthal A Tudor is never going to be a Rolex, but you can have a great use case for a Tudor.
- ▶ 2:56:14 Ben Gilbert When we did our Rolex episode, you, you heard us talk about the Submariner from, I don't know, 1965, and the Submariner from today.
- ▶ 2:56:14 Ben Gilbert When we did our Rolex episode, you, you heard us talk about the Submariner from, I don't know, 1965, and the Submariner from today.
- ▶ 3:15:29 Ben Gilbert Like I ask people all the time because after the Rolex episode, I'm just infinitely fascinated by what's on your wrist.
- ▶ 3:33:37 David Rosenthal How does this compare to how you felt about watches at the end of the Rolex episode?
- ▶ 3:34:08 Ben Gilbert Porsche is Rolex.
- ▶ 3:34:12 Ben Gilbert Rolex is a million a year, and Porsche, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's 303 120,000 or so a year.
- ▶ 3:34:22 David Rosenthal Just like Rolex is an incredible brand.
- ▶ 3:34:50 Ben Gilbert If you're gonna make the analogy, the crude one, that Porsche is Rolex, I think you can make the analogy that Ferrari is Patek Philippe.
- ▶ 3:44:05 Ben Gilbert And the one thing I will add to that, back on our Rolex episode, we threw out the idea of a, uh, functional alibi, a reason you could claim that you need such a watch.
- ▶ 3:58:12 Ben Gilbert If you liked this episode, go check out our episodes on Porsche, Rolex, Hermes, and LVMH.
Formula 1: Fast cars, celebrities, and B2B software (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 31:57 Ben Gilbert It's like calling someone else's puzzle-dial Rolex a used watch, you know, it's not really used.
- ▶ 2:08:27 David Rosenthal He says that younger audiences are not a priority because they, quote, don't buy Rolexes.
10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
- ▶ 54:08 David Rosenthal Whereas if you look at our, um, Costco episode, which is now two and a half years old, or, um, LVMH, Hermes, Rolex, like they just, they just keep going.
- ▶ 1:05:00 Ben Gilbert This is in some ways irrelevant to the business success of Rolex, but I, it will, it will make my year to explain on air how a mechanical watch works and how an escapement is a thing.
- ▶ 1:30:59 Ben Gilbert Meta, Rolex, Trader Joe's.
- ▶ 2:39:29 David Rosenthal Rolex.
Coca-Cola: The Complete History & Strategy (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 14:11 David Rosenthal So this sounds utterly ridiculous today, but let me read you the list of public endorsers of Vin Mariani, the like testimonies in the Rolex parlance.
- ▶ 50:55 Ben Gilbert The thing that it made me think of was, uh, it's kind of like our Rolex episode where Rolex
- ▶ 51:04 Ben Gilbert The training's hard, but you do want the control over the retail experience and Rolex managed to have their cake and eat it too.
- ▶ 51:10 Ben Gilbert Like we talked about that on that episode where they can kind of say, Hey, it's a privilege to be able to sell our watches.
- ▶ 1:13:17 David Rosenthal This is everything that we talked about in the Rolex episode, but that was much later when Rolex did that in the fifties and sixties.
- ▶ 3:52:13 Ben Gilbert If you liked this episode, go check out our episodes on Berkshire Hathaway, Standard Oil, Rolex, or Trader Joe's.
Trader Joe’s: Hawaiian shirts and counter positioning (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 57:07 Ben Gilbert Thanks on the Rolex episode.
- ▶ 3:15:18 Ben Gilbert Because on our Rolex episode, we said it's really important that they're owned by a foundation.
- ▶ 3:16:18 Ben Gilbert Like, in the Rolex scenario, I think they wouldn't have been able to buy the many years of probably bad financial returns that they had amidst the quartz crisis if they were publicly traded.
The Jamie Dimon Interview: How JP Morgan Became an $800 Billion Bank · Acquired
- ▶ 1:04:52 Ben Gilbert If you like this episode, go check out other recent episodes, like the start of our Google series, which is off to a screamin' start, our Rolex episode, which is another one of our biggest ever, and then our interviews, Steve Ballmer, Mark…
Indian Premier League Cricket (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 5:32 Ben Gilbert And we actually had quite a few little ones from all the Rolex enthusiasts.
- ▶ 5:35 Ben Gilbert So thank you to the deluge of people who wrote in with little corrections to particular reference numbers about the Rolex episode.
- ▶ 13:16 David Rosenthal Amazing crossover with our Rolex episode, the same IMG.
- ▶ 13:21 David Rosenthal IMG, of course, helped Rolex design the testimony program that brought in Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, and then ultimately Roger Federer and all of the athletes who partnered with Rolex over the years.
- ▶ 1:08:15 David Rosenthal And I believe, in fact, that when they were talking about this in the locker room, he might have first offered a Rolex, and then the players were like, no, that's not enough for doing, like, I need a Porsche.
- ▶ 2:26:16 Ben Gilbert The Rolex Daytona flop at first.
Rolex (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 0:02 David Rosenthal Well, currently on the wrist is my stainless white-faced Daytona that my dad gave me.
- ▶ 0:16 Ben Gilbert I'm actually also wearing a Daytona that I am borrowing from a good friend of the show.
- ▶ 0:32 David Rosenthal Yes, and in front of me here, now, in my hand, but not on my wrist, is my other Rolex that my dad gave me a long time ago, my Rolesor Digest.
- ▶ 1:42 Ben Gilbert Today, listeners, we tell you the story that we can't believe we have an already told on acquired Rolex.
- ▶ 1:50 Ben Gilbert Rolex is a cascade of paradoxes.
- ▶ 1:59 Ben Gilbert They're privately held by a charitable foundation, the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, so they don't have to disclose anything.
- ▶ 2:05 Ben Gilbert And really, they never do.
- ▶ 2:08 Ben Gilbert They're one of the most secretive companies that we have ever studied, and David, check me on this.
- ▶ 2:20 Ben Gilbert They operate like an intelligence agency over there.
- ▶ 2:28 Ben Gilbert Listeners, they make watches that everyone wants to buy, but nobody seems to be able to get with famously long and opaque lists at retailers, except, of course, over a million people a year actually do buy one, and for an average price of…
- ▶ 2:53 David Rosenthal To your point about paradoxes of Rolex, this is one of the greatest ones.
- ▶ 3:02 David Rosenthal And yet they also sell a lot of units.
- ▶ 3:07 Ben Gilbert There's probably 10 times more Rolexes sold than Birkins sold, or at least on that order.
- ▶ 3:44 Ben Gilbert They make a watch that can't tell the time, as good as my Apple Watch, or even a 10 dollar Casio, for that matter.
- ▶ 3:52 Ben Gilbert How did Rolex become Rolex?
- ▶ 7:48 David Rosenthal He sort of floats between the seams of Europe, which Rolex itself is going to do as we shall see in a very big way.
- ▶ 8:58 David Rosenthal These brands, I mean, much less so Rolex, but Hermes, LVMH are so steeped in this European history and the tradition of the nobility, but it's actually these orphaned outsiders that founded them.
- ▶ 9:12 Ben Gilbert Rolex doesn't share that heritage at all.
- ▶ 9:23 David Rosenthal When you buy a Submariner or a Daytona or even a Datejust, you are not buying Swiss history here.
- ▶ 9:23 David Rosenthal When you buy a Submariner or a Daytona or even a Datejust, you are not buying Swiss history here.
- ▶ 9:57 David Rosenthal It's the first volume of a four book set that the company published
- ▶ 10:02 David Rosenthal In 1945 for the company's 40th anniversary, the Ruby Jubilee, Hans writes, our uncles were not indifferent to our fate.
- ▶ 12:46 David Rosenthal It was not wristwatches because basically Hans and Rolex hadn't invented that yet.
- ▶ 13:45 David Rosenthal So, the job that young Hans gets here at Kuno turns out to be pretty pivotal for him and the future of Rolex.
- ▶ 14:54 David Rosenthal Going on to ultimately found Rolex.
- ▶ 16:07 Ben Gilbert Yes, 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.
- ▶ 20:46 David Rosenthal However, Wilsdorf and Davis Limited is Rolex.
- ▶ 25:21 David Rosenthal Well, that brings us to the other half of the Rolex equation, one Jean Aigler, based in Bien, Switzerland, which is in the mountains of the north of the country.
- ▶ 27:02 David Rosenthal This carries through this relationship for the next 99 years until Rolex
- ▶ 27:11 David Rosenthal Finally buys Egler in 2004, where Egler is making the movements for Rolex watches, and I don't think there's ever any real formal arrangement here.
- ▶ 27:30 David Rosenthal All of Rolex, everything it becomes, this is the basis of it.
- ▶ 35:22 David Rosenthal It was one morning, when I was sitting on the upper level of a double-decker bus, powered at that time by horses, driving alongside Cheapside in London, that a good genie whispered in my ear, Rolex.
- ▶ 35:43 David Rosenthal And a few days after this fruitful journey, the Rolex brand was filed and then officially registered in Switzerland by Wilsdorf and Davis.
- ▶ 35:56 David Rosenthal It's Rolex by Wilsdorf and Davis.
- ▶ 36:02 Ben Gilbert And you know, it's short, it's easily pronounceable, it's memorable, it's the same in every language, but there is this one other characteristic that makes it really perfect, which is, when you hear Rolex, you can kind of think about…
- ▶ 36:35 Ben Gilbert A Rolex feels like maybe you're turning the crown until it hits the end, or something like that.
- ▶ 36:41 Ben Gilbert You can intuit the type of product that would be called Rolex.
- ▶ 40:52 David Rosenthal Rolex, because it's the best thing that ever happened to the company and the industry.
- ▶ 42:17 David Rosenthal But this is the birth of the company Rolex.
- ▶ 42:22 David Rosenthal So in 1915, they renamed the whole company after the brand name Rolex, and the Rolex Watch Company Limited is founded.
- ▶ 42:46 Ben Gilbert Just like Rolex, J.P.
- ▶ 45:07 David Rosenthal How does Rolex become a Swiss watchmaking company?
- ▶ 45:15 David Rosenthal I think if that were the only factor, Rolex probably would have stayed in England.
- ▶ 45:24 Ben Gilbert The company is called Rolex now, or they're working on it.
- ▶ 45:29 David Rosenthal However, the other reason that World War II in Britain is bad for business for the new Rolex company is that Britain imposes a 33% import tax on watches early on in the war.
- ▶ 46:08 Ben Gilbert They made it impossible for Wilsdorf to build this business based out of Britain, because a lot of times he's actually exporting the watches for sale in colonies, or he's importing a movement, he's importing a case, or maybe he's taking a…
- ▶ 46:34 David Rosenthal And I assume then as now Rolex's margins in the precious metal watches are way, way, way higher than in non-precious metal watches.
- ▶ 47:18 David Rosenthal So, on the back of this, in 1916, Rolex first moves the assembly of the watches to
- ▶ 47:29 Ben Gilbert They set up a office and basically say, hey, you're making the movements next door.
- ▶ 48:31 Ben Gilbert This company becomes Rolex of Geneva, not just Rolex.
- ▶ 53:57 David Rosenthal Well, that's definitely one big reason why Hans is like, okay, we gotta move Rolex to Geneva to participate in this tradition as we're now gonna be selling to the world.
- ▶ 54:34 David Rosenthal And you just experience like, oh, Britain puts these tariffs on, and gosh, well, I didn't really have a market for Rolexes in Germany before, but if I did, I wouldn't have been able to sell in Germany, and like, I don't want that to happen…
- ▶ 55:03 Ben Gilbert So Rolex and Egler arrange for a deal where in 1919 1919 20, Hermann Egler, who's the son of the founder, Jean, buys shares in Rolex, unclear what the purchase price was, that seems to have been lost to history, and joins the board.
- ▶ 55:25 Ben Gilbert There's a second part of the deal, which is Rolex actually buys shares in Agler, too, and this one's less talked about, but there were two companies that were big purchasers of the movements.
- ▶ 55:36 Ben Gilbert It's Rolex and Gruen, and both of them were watchmakers.
- ▶ 55:47 David Rosenthal Yeah, because Rolex did not focus on the American market until after World War II.
- ▶ 56:38 David Rosenthal Rolex.
- ▶ 56:39 David Rosenthal And so, of course, they're going to buy Rolex.
- ▶ 57:03 David Rosenthal Most of it says they have no idea about Rolex.
- ▶ 57:05 David Rosenthal They're like, Rolex, whatever.
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