I am the boss I should be here on Monday morning and I should be running the company in person lvmh had entered a new chapter of its history Bernard olol had taken power he did not realize how harsh his words sounded that was not the type of thing that he cared about for him the
stakes were all together different yesterday he had taken over busac the alen textile Empire today he was in control of lvmh a few days before his 40th birthday this youngster was at the head of the most expensive company in France as chairman of the world's leading manufacturer of luxury goods he
now owned the most prestigious French Brands Christian Dior Christian Lor Jon moette Hennessy and Louis Vuitton all acquired in less than 5 years he was the first of a new breed of capitalists Friday the 13th January 1989 was the day that he took office the 15 people invited to witness the event at lvmh's
head office were beginning to filter into the large conference room they each had played a decisive role in this affair which had all the makings of a Greek tragedy they all knew they had no choice but to go along with arnal he quickly inspected those present only one was missing HRI ramir the chairman of
Louis Vuitton this seile old fool as he had started to call him was really beginning to get on Bernard's nerves he had to get rid of him as soon as possible the noise of the door opening interrupted his thoughts ramir made an entrance this was merely the first step rakir would fight to the end against
this youngster whom he had sought out a year before in the hopes of neutralizing the insufferably pretentious Alon Chevalier this is the guy that was running Mo at Hennessy before it emerged with Lou Vuitton a mistake which had backfired on him but rakir had no intention of letting himself be pushed
around this 76-year-old was thirsting for Revenge from now on he would wake each morning vowing to topple Aral if he had one quality it was perseverance at 1130 a.m. a triumphant Bernard arnal arrived at Moet Hennessy he was anxious to personally check the text which announced his election two draft press
releases had been prepared the first and longer one paid homage to the previous management the second simply announced the appointments without any Frills Bernard chose the second he took out a pen and struck out the words of praise for the former managing director reading
through it again Bernard added elected unanimously alongside his name he attached a great deal of importance to the unanimous vote which meant there was no doubt about his position a few minutes later the news hit the financial markets Bernard onal was chairman of lvmh nothing could stop him that was an
excerpt from this unbelievably difficult book to find and the one that I'm going to talk to you about today which is the taste of luxury Bernard onal and the moette Hennessy Louis Vuitton story and it was written by two French authors I have no idea unfortunately how to pronounce their names but I will leave
their full names in the show notes and before I jump into the book I need to than my friend David Rosenthal from the excellent acquired podcast he actually found this book was first published in 1992 in French I've only found one other copy the one copy that I can find that's
for sale right now is $3,000 David paid almost $400 for this book and he gave it to me for free so I could make this episode so to prepare for this episode in addition to reading this entire book I also listened to David and Ben's excellent acquired episode It's called lvmh I will leave the link down below
where you can just search in your podcast player for Acquired and it should be easy to find their episode it's titled lvmh it's like three and a half hours long um it tells the entire history the entire history of how lvmh came to be I took notes on their episode and you should hear some of those notes
in this episode today in addition to that I also listened to the excellent episode of business breakdowns it's titled lvmh the wolf and cashmere's conglomerate and that business breakdown is about what lvmh looks like today their business models and their financial performance and I of course am
going to focus on Bernard oal the person as I always do let me go right into Bernard's early life he's born in France in 1949 and he's the son of a building contractor that he's the third gen he's going to end up being the third generation in this family business his father was successful life was
comfortable without being ostentatious sometimes Bernard would stand in the hall gazing at a portrait of his ancestor whom he apparently resembled this ancestor was a colonel in the Napoleonic guard and had served in all the emperor's campaigns if in case you miss it I just did a first of many Ser
many episodes I'm going to do on Napoleon because Napoleon just pops up again and again in these if you're reading biographies on History great entrepreneurs preor War II they're going to confer constantly reference their studying and their admiration of Napoleon that's episode 294 if you
haven't listened to it I just got a fantastic book called the mind of Napoleon printed in 1955 it arrived a few days ago so I'll do an episode on that um soon as well so in the book starts out okay we got this young studious driven I guess I should tell you this up front that I didn't
understand until I read this book and then listened to both the Acquired and the business breakdowns episodes the what pops out as my mind is like Bernard is like this uh odd combination of I would say Warren Buffett and and a Johny Rockefeller and if youve listened to my episodes on Rockefeller I think I've
done three or four at this point you'll you'll see like there's a lot of parallels in his life other than Rockefeller was poor and uh and Bernard was not but this just idea where like it's like all work no fun so we just have this young version of I think he's like 10 years old the time we have young
Bernard just looking at this picture of one of his great ancestors right so it says he was an excellent pupil uh he was in the top of his class in all other in all subjects including PE the boy would listen attentively a habit that he was never to lose that sentence reminded me
one of my favorite lines that I've heard in any of the biographies that I've read came from episode 2113 in Michael Jordan's autobiography Michael Jordan says successful people listen those that don't listen don't last long following Word War Two his grandfather savel obviously you know you know if you
listen to a bunch of these I can barely pronounce English there's no these are all French names there's just no way I'm getting this correct I sat and listened to correct pronunciations over and over again to no avail it's just better if I just spend that time reading instead uh so his grandfather starts this
engineering and building company and he does it in France after World War I because everything was destroyed in France after World War I so everything has to be rebuilt Bernard is going to work in this company that still exists when he's a young man starting with nothing they're talking about his
grandfather except his wheelbarrow uh he teamed up with another guy that his his partner who supplied the capital and began to build on the ruins at that time textiles this is crazy at that time textiles were the wealth of the north of France and Marcel busac was at his Peak Bernard's grandfather's company built a
factory for the textile King now why is that crazy buac is going to be the company that 35-year-old Bernard buys Bru saac and the reason he buys is because it's this this uh conglomerate that is now taken over by the French uh government it's losing a ton of money and one of the
assets that this conglomerate has is Christian Dior Bernard targets busac because he wants Dior that is the first in a chain of events that's going to eventually lead him to overtaking and taking over lvmh let's go back to his childhood I just got to pull some quotes
I went looking because uh he's got a fantastic quote spread over the internet and he says I'm very competitive I always want to win the way I would describe his childhood is work work work and more work he was reared on his grandmother stories this this studious young Bernard did not like play like
other children he did not like playing that is repeated in different sections of the book what Bernard liked as a child was the quiet studious life he led at his grandmother's he loved work and music while his friends from the prep from his Preparatory class were living it up Bernard worked this is one of his
great quotes or it gives you an indication like the reason um I wanted to go around collecting his quotes in this book and otherwise is because it really gives you an insight into his personality who he is and this exactly what he does you have to be specially gifted or you have to work hard he said
I was not gifted enough that's a lie I was not gifted enough I had to work so I worked he's both unbelievably gifted and unbelievably hardworking you couldn't compete with him said one of one of his closest friends it wasn't worth it he was quicker to grasp things he went at a
faster Pace you either detested him or found him Charming a lot of people were jealous of his abilities so even when he's in college this whole idea of work work work let's get this done let's get big fast let's get on with what we're trying to do in life he has this rare combination of of he's intolerant of
slowness and he has an unbelievably long-term view um I think is very has been beneficial remember this book ends wait till you get to the end of the book what he says he is 42 and what he says is ridiculous in the sense that he could think he could ever stop and we see that
you know what he's done multiple decades since then but he's in college at this point and he has to take this uh training course that was with McKenzie uh the management consultants and he did not like it he says the very idea of a training course seemed frustrating to him you watch but you don't do anything
he said and what I'm interested is in doing he was 22 and in a hurry he had never really considered anything else since his childhood I always wanted to manage a company I never wanted to do anything else this reminds me uh of a young Paul Allen and a young uh and a young Bill Gates sitting there reading I
forgot what it was like Forbes magazine or Fortune Magazine I think they're like 12 or 13 and they're thinking of oh my God one day do you think we'll be able to run a company and so this idea where he's like you know I never wanted to do anything else but manage a company I
knew this is what I was going to do what I wrote down in the margin as well there's no way that this gu guy was going to retire at 70 years old and what I found fascinating about this is you have the same description of Bernard since the time he was a really young kid when he's in like Primary School in
college now he's out of college and he's working he's just like okay this guy works unbelievably hard he's exceptionally bright that is another quote here and we also see that he has a lot in common with not only Rockefeller but a lot of history entrepreneurs at you and I study Bad Boys move in silence
nobody realized that he was married he did not wear a wedding ring and he kept his own counsil the day his daughter was born not even his own secretary knew about it he believed in extreme discretion so he's working in his dad's company and he does something that this is if you listen to the episode uh
episode 295 titled I had dinner with Charlie Munger something I got to talk personally with Charlie Munger about was this idea it's really important and something that Charlie merer did something that Ben Franklin did something Andrew Carnegie did they purposely sought out other high-
performing intelligent people and made relationships with them this is just the first example of many many times Bernard's going to do this in his career he's working uh with Pierre uh I don't know his name Pierre go I'm just GNA call him Pierre he's working with Pierre they say Pierre at this time in
in uh Bernard's uh career is his alter ego uh initially relations between Bernard and Pierre were distant and purely professional people had this is the reason this is the entire reason I'm reading the section to you people had to prove themselves before they won arnau's
confidence they had to be good and they KN and they had to know how to stand up to him when they were sure of their case and so on these Post-it notes I probably have I don't know post notes throughout this entire book I wrote down relationships relationships relationships over and over again we see
this that this is something that Bernard's going to do for the next two decades to when this book ends probably still does it to this day he's just constantly building relationship relationships with people that are very similar to him in the sense of like driven talented and can help him achieve
his goals go back to then the book goes into great detail about what I would consider like his personality and management style this is what I meant about Rockefeller he is very Rockefeller ask he had perfect manners so did Rockefeller he hates intimacy so did Rockefeller he does not have friends
only loyal followers so did Rockefeller and then Bernard's going to do exactly what Rockefeller did early in his career when he jumps into the roal industry at first at the first he's like on the fields he's learning everything about it and then he steps back and becomes this like Master Strate strategist uh Bernard
visited sites talked to the subcontractors and learned his trade as a contractor very quickly he began questioning everything so did Rockefeller demanding some he was demanding and sometimes difficult to follow and as we see he had no plans to stay in the construction and Engineering
business even though um I think it was both on the uh uh the quired episode and the business breakdown episode where they talk about that Bernard is very much like an engineer by training he had this like unique combination of an engineering mindset and an artistic mindset and there's also quotes that he
said later in his career that that give you that indication as well so his dad does something actually really smart knows his son's talented kind of willing to go along with him and yes Bernard is also this financial genius right this there's definitely a war Buffett aspect
to him that I didn't understand before I read this book or listen to those two episodes and so he's actually going to sell his dad's company and he says Gene AR's feelings for this disruptive son of his whom he often had toin in where a mixture of affection and anxiety that's hilarious he had not the slightest
intention of selling his company however he let himself be convinced by the size of the contract Bernard goes and sells this company for 40 million Franks for the small provinal business this was a great deal of money he stepped aside and gave his son cart blanch this was to be
the start of the family's fortunes Bernard then set up a development study uh subsidiary I'm not going to go into that because there's so many this the the the construction of his businesses are so difficult to understand there's multiple times where the authors find it prudent to print out flowcharts of all
of the different companies and how they interact with each other and so the reason I wanted to bring up the development subsidiary is because what happens after the fact so it says within 5 years this company become the leading French property develop developer uh for private houses success came with the
decision to sell Holiday Homes a good knowledge of building and a careful use of marketing and advertising techniques but the important part was his managing style which he still holds to this day success came through the demands made by the owner on his employees one day he was driving with one of his Executives
who complained he had too much work and could not do what was asked of him he thought he had convinced Bernard but when they arrived Bernard said to him as if the ation had not taken place you do agree to do what we talked about don't you another day Bernard had a file for a property deal on one of his employees
desk at midday at 2 p.m. two hours later he called and asked him how much he had sold to unbelievably demanding wanting to move fast wanting there's no limit to his ambition as we see you don't become the richest man in the world if you had that and we see that even he's in his
like mid 20s I think at this point and it says uh beneath this is this he says this the success that he was having so he might be let's say late 20 maybe early 30s at the most uh the success of this company was not enough for Bernard beneath his civilized appearance there lurked the spirit of an adventure he
wanted more so he decides hey France is not big enough he's going to go to the to the business Mecca in the world right he's going to go to the United States it is hilarious uh later on right he he's running I think the the biggest export of the French economy to this day um is
luxury goods and he is viewed very much by the French establishment not as a Frenchman but as is an American and so this is like the beginning of that so it says he took to look for investment opportunities elsewhere he headed for a country which he had loved the United
States so he winds up moving there and then he winds up living in this neighborhood in New York and it says while he was jogging in the mornings he would pass his next door neighbor it was quite a surprise when he learned from the front page of the Wall Street Journal that his neighbor was none other
than John clug the multi-millionaire who had made a who had just made a takeover bid for the communications conglomerate Metro media this book says multi-millionaire when I listened to the acquired episode I think John was one of the richest if not the richest people in
the world shortly after this um he want up making he was doing like these leverage buyouts and I think these like takeovers and I think they said and this book it says multi-millionaire but in the episode The acquired episode they said he made $5 billion I think on that deal but this is important because Aral
is going to use some of these techniques this is why I'm giving you this background clu embodied everything arnal admired he was a nationally successful businessman his audacity in business and his display of wealth combined with a certain simplicity private life that's why he's looking up to him he want
Bernard wanted to go far he had an iron will at a laboriously one oh my goodness this needs to be a t-shirt he wanted to go far he had an Iron Wheel at a laboriously won tennis match he once said I may lose once but I never lose twice so it's at this point he decides to go back to France and he calls Pierre
and he says it's time to go to France and buy a company find me one he chose Dior there isn't a better name in the United States the president of Dior is better known than the president of France Aral said and just as a quick aside the chapter titles in this book are excellent
because they're all descriptions of Bernard and so this one is called a burning ambition and this is the perfect timing uh because this is the 1980s in the crazy 80s there's all bunch of buyouts takeovers lbos raids this is all pre uh lvmh so busac at the time which is the the large conglomerate that I
referenced earlier that his grandfather happened to build the textile mill for a long time ago was the largest industrial Bank bankruptcy bankruptcy in Fr in French history at the time and the public authorities in France are anxious to rid themselves of a business that was
losing them 100 million Franks a month and so these are just some of the assets that are inside this giant money losing Empire I wonder if I should find a book on the founder uh it says it All Began in in 1978 with the collapse of the busac Empire the man who invented pajamas that's odd and discovered a
young fashion designer Christian Dior and who was one of the six wealthiest men in the country was unwilling to modernize his factories far less lay off any of his workers he had to sell his stud farms so I guess those are horses his Chateau and his newspapers all that remained of the depleted empire were
Assets in the declining textile industry which just like Buffett uh eventually Bernard is going to sell off and one juwel Christian Dior and so there's a bunch of other potential buyers for this there's a bunch of lessons spread across the next few pages here's the first one
something you and I have talked about over and over again in the past it's one of the greatest quotes from entreprene history ever you see it over and over again it's from Henry Kaiser problems are just opportunities in work close Bernard had become the most serious wouldbe buyer he saw problem cases as a
challenge after all companies that are in Ruins hold the greatest surprises and bring the greatest profits if they can be pulled around all you have to do is delve into them deeper than anyone else and work on them without leaving anything to chance that description delve deeper than anyone else would and
work on them without leaving anything chance that sounds like a description of Bernard the person number two uh in getting Dior he's going to go want his sights are set like this I I reference like the the Terminator esque feeling that you get when you read about Rocka filler I felt the same way when I'm
reading about a young Bernard like it's like I have my eyes set on this thing and I'm just going to do whatever I can I don't care if whatever bear you put up in front of me I'm going to figure this out one way or another and in this case his first objective is like I'm going to
get Dior one way or the other and he tries to buy it pce meal I was like I'd rather just have Dior I don't want all this other buack stuff but you said no okay that's fine I'm going to get Dior no matter what uh so says uh he put forward his proposal to take over Dior out of the question they said it must be
all or nothing no matter all it would be you are quite mad his father told him and then one of his other advisors say hey why don't you take the first plane back to United States they thought this was crazy and so the people that are telling him no you have to buy the whole thing you can't buy Dior are the ones
that actually own busac now even though they're losing a bunch of money it's this I think there's like four brothers they're called the Willets really you don't have to remember that that's not important to the story what is important to me or to the story rather is if you
are the one with cash time is your friend right these guys own this company but it's they're just getting drained constantly they have pressure from the French government French government to figure this out and so Bernard's like okay I'll just I'm just going to wait I'm going to wait you out so it says the
brothers arrogantly stuck to their guns Aral convinced that as time passed the brothers position would become increasingly untenable this is exactly so when I wrote when I got to this section this is something that uh Charlie Monger said at at the dinner he says uh we made a lot of money because
we always had a lot of cash and we could move fast and his point there is like he told some stories about this like you could have an asset that's hypothetically worth $2 billion there's some kind of either the blow up of a uh an individual company or like this large recession and suddenly you picked up
something for 450 million that's worth two billion it's if you have cash time is your friend you're going to be able to wait these people out and this is exactly what happens uh in this situation going back to the Terminator right arnal was determined he wanted busac and he was going to get it he
would apply himself to the task of obtaining the support of the public authorities who would choose the buyer so this is the first thing uh first time I wrote down what I mentioned I have on a bunch of posted notes relationships relationships relationships this is a an
attack Vector that Bernard uses over and over and over again next page I wrot in giant capital letters never underestimate it is all downside and no upside this is something else that repeats in human nature over and over again you and I have seen it in multiple stories they don't take them seriously
there there's other buyers like we don't have to worry about this guy who is he like we're going to win this and that's the problem there is I I even adopted this like to change my behavior it's like first I try to limit like like dealing doing deals outside you know with external people but if I did I
would just assume like okay that person even if they're sh showing no signs that this is true just think that that person's a secret genius that they know way more than you this idea where you're going to underestimate them like oh I'm smarter I'm going to beat them or what
case is like okay like maybe they might be hiding something the point is even if it's right it's all downside no upside what's the point just I would do the reverse right they'll never give BAC to a 36-year-old property developer living in the United States trumped this other buyer sure of himself everyone
underestimated Bernard that's exactly what's going to happen man what is the point of underestimating somebody Arn now remained inflexible he wanted control there was no question of his becoming uh the brother's Partners these are the Willets are like oh no you know we don't want to sell this there's we're
Four Brothers we just want a fifth brother that is a consistent theme throughout life of Bernard he is a dict he is going to be in control you're out of your mind if you're think you're going to partner with this guy uh going back to first they criticize you then they copy you I got a great quote about
him I'm going to read after this everyone discouraged him remember they said hey you're crazy get on a plane oh they're not going to sell it to him everyone discouraged them they're telling oh don't get involved these are all different quotes right spread over multiple Pages everyone discouraged them
don't get involved you will you will fa no better than your predecessors you won't last three years and this is how you know we're dealing with somebody unique and different listen to his reaction far from discouraging him this consensus of opinion acted as a stimulus that is a sign that you're
dealing with somebody that has put the work in necessary to trust his own judgment later in life this is what he says I remember people telling me it doesn't make sense to put together so many Brands and it was a success it was a recognized success and for the last 10 years now every competitor is trying to
imitate I think they are not successful but they'll try again first a Critic ize you then they will copy you a few pages ago I referenced this idea hey if you're the one with cash time is your friend turns out that was correct negotiations were broken off you know they're fighting they can't figure it out
however the following day the situation changed again for one essential reason the tribunal this is the French government was to announced Liquidation on November 16th the willatts had their back against the wall and on November 14th they signed the agreement and so now that Bernard has this agreement
signed with the brothers he goes and does relationships relationships relationships he goes and actually tours all of starts building relationships with all the important decision makers inside the French government to hold off liquidation so it says as soon as the agreement had been ratified arnal and
his partner went to the ministry of Justice uh the two men did the rounds uh of all the Ministries to convince them methodically that Two Men tour the ministry of Industry the Ministry of Finance the Ministry of Social Affairs tirelessly they explained and argued trying to persuade the various advisers
that they were serious and that their plan was feasible and this was not easy they had reservations about how a and industrialist he was remember he's really young at this time how solid his financial backing was here too Bernard surprised everybody this is not somebody
I just it just hit me now reading this these usually I read the highlights several times before I sit down and talk to you like this this is exactly how he gets into lvmh he's underestimated by the guy that he's fighting at the very beginning of the book Rock Air where
he's like oh we're old let's bring in let's bring in they're trying to off I'll get to this later but they're trying to avoid a hostile takeover so they want some allies that's why he's called you the wolf um and they're like we're old maybe this Bernard guy he thinks like uh about this industry like
we do uh maybe he can succeed yeah he's going to succeed you but he's going like oh that's a nice business you have there uh I'm not going to wait 5 years 10 years I'm going to actually control it now and so that's another example of somebody underestimating him this is amazing so it says uh they had
reservations about how able and industrious he was how solid his financial backing was here too Bernard surprised everyone he would gain the support of some of the biggest names in Fran in French Finance one of those is this Lazard Bank it still exists to this day it's mysterious and Powerful let's
just put it that way so that they play a huge role his mentor is actually uh very plays a very important role and works at lazard's for that but the reason the details I guess AR aren't too important it's it's this idea of like building relationships and gaining support doing like you have to be an impressive person
first right Bernard is impresses everybody that meets him and that makes it easier for him to gain support of powerful people there's a line from the tow of Charlie Monger which is what I also covered in in the last episode where Charlie can't get into to he's rejected to Harvard Law School he has a
friend that used to be like the former Dean that lives just happens to live in Nebraska he makes one call and suddenly that rejection is reversed and his takeaway Charlie's takeaway from that was that he had never forgotten the importance of having friends in high places I would say Bernard intentionally
cultivated relationships with people in high places and his career and work benefited enormously from doing so and so now Bernard is the owner of this alien giant Empire it's losing a bunch of money he's going to make quick work and turn that around I think a couple years from now
on the acquired episode they said he was within like two or three years took a failing asset and wind up producing like a hundred million in in cash flow but the one thing that he's focused on and this is really lesson I think to you and I is is like a powerful brand is Magic
if you have a powerful brand all these other things can be fixed I don't know if Bernard knew that at this point in his career but he damn sure knows it now Bernard had understood that Dior was a jewel and the crown of this group Dior was to be the starting point for his strategy it was Dior was a famous name
but they had innumerable difficulties so just poorly run business essentially what they're saying they have too many licenses not enough boutiques they're ready to wear uh collection had been a failure they had a troubled atmosphere a bad culture it was impossible to manage
the patchwork of 260 licenses worldwide all this essentially just listing all these problems that Bernard has to solve but again a powerful brand is Magic all these other things can be fixed but you can't just snap your fingers and say let me create a powerful brand he's got something that's rare and very
differentiated and valuable it was impossible to manage the patchwork of 260 licenses worldwide which distracted considerably from the image that a company like Dior should project quality was lacking and that is going to lead to Bernard realizing hey something that he continues this today he wants to own his
own distribution it's extremely important was valuable then really valuable now before I get there though something else that popped out of the book that was very interesting is are no always bets on Talent um my friend Sam Hy has this great quote he says people are really uh people really are are
power law and the best ones change everything and I think Bernard would agree with that so he finds he's introduced to this young uh designer named Christian L I actually looked that name up there's a funny uh video on I typed in how to pronounce Christian L on YouTube and it's just like two guys
sitting there just repeating it over and over again it was actually really really funny and one guy's French so he has a way better accent than I do so anyways Bernard immediately sees oh this guy's special I don't care like I I'll I'll he's so special I'll make a plan for him
so it says uh Bernard was interested in this underappreciated designer he was certain that he should not let Christian lra slip through his fingers that's exact Rockefeller would hire people check this out this is the same thing that's happening over and over again it's crazy how similar these two are
Rockefeller meets somebody he thinks they're valuable he would hire them just as as meeting them and worry about what to do with them later he just knew that Talent was everything uh so it says they're going to wind up launching this business together uh they launch a great
fashion house and he invested 70 million I Franks down initially and then they agreed to invest another 200 or 250 million Franks over the next 5 years large Point here just remember he always bets on Talent so let's go back to what I just mentioned that he wants to own his own distribution he is a learning
machine he's like this doesn't make any sense what Dior is doing we're going to change that learning from what he saw at Dior or n made another choice this strategy the strategy of exclusive shops along the lines of what Chanel or ma or ma is doing a network of shops is not
not built overnight this took a long time to construct this is what I mean if you hear him talk he says like stu um let me find the actual quote here it is he says in business I think the most important thing is to position yourself for long term and not and not be too impatient which I am by nature and I
have to control myself so he's willing to invest on the long term even it goes against his nature that speaks to his discipline they talk about you know Terminator let's go back to that idea of you have Bernard Terminator or not or not however you say his name uh network
of shops is not built overnight it took a long time to construct well he's still in the bus that's good that's the investment those Investments reap and compound over a long time doesn't make sense if you're going to get into a business jump around like most most entrepreneur do but Bernard's like oh
I'm doing this forever like I'm going to stay in here and I'm going to build this thing and we'll see how far I can go and he did something smart he did not I always say like worst thing you could do is usually when people have success they let their foot off the gas or they get comfortable and the line that I the
maximum that's in my own mind to avoid that is if you go to sleep on a win you're going to wake up with a loss he did not go to sleep on a win he's not going to wake up with a loss Aral did not stray from his path relentlessly he pursued his ascent and seized every passing opportunity the note I left
myself on that page is like Jeff Bezos arnal is Relentless of course we know Bezos owns relentless.com to this day he almost named Amazon relentless.com which is one of the things I love about Jeff and this chapter ends with just one sentence bernardo's upward Mobility was gaining momentum so in the background
the environment that allows him to end up getting control eventually getting control one of the the the things that helped him get control of lvmh is this fact that there is the deregulation of the market in 1984 uh in the Paris that the Paris Stock Exchange experienced a new
Awakening is the line in the book this is what I mentioned earlier about the crazy 80s anybody study this period knows it's just absolutely insane buyouts takeovers raids starts buying into uh lvmh I think in 1987 and has complete control by 1989 I think let's go back to the beginning of the book to
make sure I'm right yeah Friday January 13th January uh 1989 okay and we're also going to see that Bernard like most of his cre entrepreneurs they use these economic downturns to expand most humans just run away they're in bad financial positions they cower and the people that
uh actually go against human nature wind up making usually if they're picking good assets usually make Leaps and Bounds in just a few years so this is going to Happ that's the the the crash in October 1987 which I'll get to in a minute but I need to give you he he participated in corporate rating the
benefit of reading this book after David did is that I get to see his notes so he wrote that on that page thank you very much for the the alleyoop there so he has a friend uh I'm just going to call him his French friend I have no idea how to say his name so his French friend became a specialist in a technique
called Green mail this consisted of buying a package of shares in a company vulnerable to take over with which he renegotiated the buying back of the Securities at a genuinely higher price uh sometimes Bernard accompanied his friends in he in these rates and this is an incredible description of a young
Bernard in contrast to those of his peers his Ambitions were not limited to getting rich quick cap above all had to serve his plans which were beginning to crystallize he had such an appetite for victory and such a capacity for work that he was bound to succeed I I underlined that that line twice he had
such an appetite for victory and such a capacity for work that he was bound to succeed his determined character attracted the attention of the biggest names in finance this goes back to relationships relationships relationships and he's doing exactly what Ben Franklin Andrew Carnegie and
Charlie mongal did they sought out high quality people Bernard had the caliber of a great Captain of industry remember he's in his mid-30s early 30s when this is happening he was a skillful negotiator he surprised his Partners in discussion with his self assurance and
knowledge remember when he was 10 years old all he wanted to do is study and work see he's still working like that all the more impressive in one so young he had earned his Spurs as far as the banking establishment was concerned the day he bought all the shares from the will up Brothers uh that that episode
was very revealing and so I do not want to overwhelm you with detail here but I do think this is important because again this goes back to something that he just loves going to control as much of his business as possible so he was raising money to buy out these brothers and now
he's like all right now I got to figure out way to get rid of these guys uh so he said he sought to establish his power definitively in busac he had to ensure almost total control of the group and to break away from the grip of the banking Consortium which had helped him at the start if he did not he would never have
his hands free and would and would remain at the beck and call of the bankers and as we seen as his life plays out during and after this book Bernard's not going to be at the back and call of anyone in fact I found this great quote of him online talks about the difference he's like he was he really likes power
he likes power and he thinks that business people actually have uh like longer term power than politicians people think of politicians having true power but that's less and less true after all they are often constrained of being edged into a corner by a whole series of contingencies I'm lucky in
that I say I want my group to be in such and such position in 10 or 20 years time and then I formulate a plan to make that happen he this is what I mean he he's seeking out you know very like high quality people that can help his career there's a list of these but really I think the
most important one is Antoine bernh I'm going to call him Antoine it says Antoine is the true architect of Bernard's meteoric career anine had made Bernard his Protege and a favorite of the Lazard stable this is what I meant about this like Financial to mysterious and Powerful organization the banker was
undoubtedly the one who fascinated the chairman of Dior the most this is the interesting thing and maybe just because because the the book was translated from French but so many times throughout the book it gets confusing because instead of using his name they'll use the
position he happens to hold at that time but it always changes it's like just say who he was the banker who undoubtedly was the one who fascinated Bernard the whole time and so we see that Bernard's getting this very valuable form of Education because this Banker Antoine is revealing to arnal the workings of the
financial World which he mastered with mellian perfection of Bernard so now you have the banker Antoine describing his Protege of Bernard he said simply believe me he is very good what did Antoine teach him a perfect Mastery of financial techniques it's this Russian doll ownership structure that Bernard
uses in fact the way to think about it I think Ben from acquired gave a a great summary of this page you can generate a ton of cash by selling minority pieces of each Russian doll this generates huge leverage for Bernard so says what did anwan teach him instead of having having the majority that is 51% of your money
of capital in company a it is better better to have 51% in a purely Financial Company B which itself then holds 51% of company a one therefore also has control of company a by dividing the initial Capital outlay this reasoning can be continued infinitely that sounds confusing they
give you a great a great metaphor here to understand it the basic concept of techniques is called Cascades Russian dolls or even stovepipe hats and it as old as the world itself why is this important because it allows targets to be attacked which are much bigger while avoiding the initiation of a costly
takeover bid a method tailor made for the French Market at this point in history that's important to point out for the French market and for the appetite of Bernard ool so it says the the magic formula did exist it was the stock exchange the next time instead of counting on the financial support of
investors which is what Bernard did to get control of busac he would take take the capital of his various companies to the stock market each call on the market would provide him with his initial Capital outlay the best way of orchestrating takeovers was with other people's money the small shareholders
who he's now bringing in would thus replace the bankers who he's trying to get rid of of his earlier operations here's the the main punchline this compartmentalized structure turned out to be a veritable Treasure Chest each time that he needed money Bernard put one of his subsidiaries on the Stark
Market Stark Market without losing overall control so then a few pages later I'm reading about Bernard and this is what popped my mind as I get to the section he is a financial genius and a dictator who's obsessed with efficiency Bernard was one of the best financi of
his time he loved buying restructuring buying again in order to restructure again behind his angelic appearance there looked an authoritarian proprietor his managerial Credo became American style management that's what mentioned earlier uh how the French establishment views him very much as an American uh he
was not worried about Charisma What mattered with him was efficiency this new type of businessman was going against received practice that's an important note another way of saying that I trust my own judgment the fact that he's he felt very comfortable going against received practice his immediate
priority was to find a Target which was worthy of his Ambitions he did not hesitate to examine several companies a week in minute detail there goes back to his his obsession with detail his obsession with studying so much so that he's he has a soundproof office which is hilarious because I record these uh
podcast in a soundproof booth looks like a phone booth that's soundproof she got a giant soundproof office now that uh and library now that Bernard has it so he says he hesitated to examine several companies uh a week in minute detail the stock market crisis of October 1987
attracted his attention to a share which was plummeting in value lvmh was now quoted at only 1,200 Franks it was down 50% so he goes to his mentor the guy lazard's and he's like let's launch a raid and Antoine gives him excellent advice he says anwan calmed him down wait until they come looking for
you okay so at this point we need to introduce two characters that are really important to this story they're going to be the two co-founders of lvmh I had no idea that they they were their partnership only lasted a few months before Bernard comes in so you have Henry ramir uh he's one of the
co-founders of lvmh uh because he's going to merge Louis Vuitton with Mo at Hennessy he he is the one that turned Louis Vuitton into an international brand which was really fascinating because this book talks about the early history like Louis Vuitton is you know this monster of this business today 1977
they have two stores and so there's some ideas that he used to build Louis Vuitton I think you and I should should be aware of in case we can use it the second co-founder and these two are going to hate each other by the way or is Alon Chevalier he is the one that ran moette Hennessy uh he merged moette uh
with Hennessy he owned he also owned the license for the Christian Dior perfume so at this point Bernard because he got busac owns Christian Dior but he doesn't own the Christian Dior perfumes they're two separate businesses perfumes are probably if I'm not mistaken the more
valuable like the more not the more valuable the more profitable of the two lines so these two guys come together which I'll read to to you in a minute because they're worried about a takeover and they're both essentially okay if we combine ourselves we're less likely to be taken over and then they wind up
having a there's like a there just just Clash they have hilarious quotes in the book about like marrying a fish or something I'll read to in a minute their discontent opens the door to bring in Bernard and then not realizing that he just left let a wolf in the hen house and So eventually Bernard is not going
to like either of these two men that is not the case at the beginning in fact it says uh Chevalier fascinated him Bernard admired his high-profile his cache with the establishment and his International standing he was dazzled by the Elegance of the chairman of moette so that's an
important thing where it says oh his profile his cash with the establishment Bernard is very much an outsider he is you know in the north of France he is in like the the industrial region he is not in this luxury world at all in fact this part of the story reminds me of so I
I've watched and read all the Game of Throne books and just finished rewatching the series again and I always take notes I love these maxims uh these like prompts for thinking and I came across this fantastic line a few months ago and I think it describes exactly what's happening in this B this book
right now he says those on the margins are often come to control the center those on the margins often come to control the center and the line I saved underneath that one is also a description of Bernard the world is built by Killers both of these men have since passed away but if they were alive
and we can ask them I bet you they would say that Bernard o n was a killer and to use the line from Doug Leone on the his episode that he just did with on invest like the best a killer to get the job done that was Doug describing him and his partner Mike who scaled seoa from $150 million company to I think $85
billion of assets Center management we were Killers Killers to get the job done but what was fascinating one of the most fascinating parts of this business because I always think I like what is a real valuable industry right now that no one takes seriously because that happens
over and over again I was just rereading my highlights from um the early one of the I read like 13 books on the early automobile 13 biographies on early automobile American Automobile Founders and what's fascinating is like they when they start doing their experiments there's a line in the book where they're
like for every one car on the road when they started their experiments there was 3600 horses in America and so it looked like oh nice little toy you have there oh isn't that cute that you're running this experiment not realizing that that industry that they're creating right in
front of their eyes is going to be one of the most valuable Industries ever created and the luxury industry like the the industry where lvmh is right now one of the biggest companies in the world Bernard and his family are the you know he's the richest person his family is one of the richest families in the world
30 40 years ago they didn't even think it was a real industry and I wrote after I'll tell you what I wrote after this says in the 1980s the talk of luxury items was not welcome the term luxury still had connotations of the Craftsman it had nothing to do with real industry Aral changes that so let's go back to
this idea of the importance of relationships so in 1987 moette entered a period of great anxiety3 billion American dollars were looking for a French Ally to attack MO unknown hands were amassing large numbers of shares on the stock market the founder families of Moet Hennessy now only controlled 22% of
the capital the Moet management was unable to identify the Raider it soon became clear that the Acquisitions were being carried out via this other company whose chairman was the French friend that I couldn't pronounce earlier that was that green male guy I mentioned earlier who was a friend of Bernardo n
so moette goes for protection who did they go for protection they go to Lazard the second in command of the bank of Lazard right is an Juan which is also Bernard's Mentor so because moette was trying to avoid getting raided this is where they push into this merger right
which is going to to create the company that now Bernard controls and built all of his family's wealth lvmh and so then it gives us some background on how Henry ra I'm reading my own notes how Henry ramir ran Louis Vuitton expand control distribution do the opposite of lowquality competitors
so it says he had a double strategy uh he he wanted to make Bhutan a high Prestige brand name symbolizing luxury distant voyages and great adventures by means of of a sophisticated advertising policy but also he wanted to sell throughout his products throughout the world and control and own his own
distribution and this is what I meant earlier this shocked me 1978 there was only two vuon company owned shops one in Paris uh and one in nce and so what he noticed what people were doing is that they would own distribution other companies would own distribution in high-end areas and yet they would
Outsource uh the creation of the product to like lower cost areas of the world what the book calls the Far East and so ramir had his good ideas like what if we reverse that to supply the shops he decided to do the opposite of their competitors Manufacturing in France to guarantee exceptional quality and then
selling in the Far East and this strategy works well there's like a period of about what what is that like 8 years eight years goes by they own a bunch of Ops and they're making 200 million year in profit and so the chapter that's describing like HRI rakim's uh career it ends with this
fantastic line that is like a precursor to where the story is about to turn and where to much to Bernard's own benefit Rock Air's Ambitions knew no bounds alliance with the greatest of the great did not hold any fears for him this was to be a great mistake why because he's going to merge with moad h Hennessy and
then he's going to bring in the wolf in Kashmir which causes him to be kicked out of the company in about a year and a half from here and so you have two Founders merging together now realizing that they both want to run the show this is going to end disastrously the two co-founders
of lvmh lose the war for control to Bernard on alt and so first of all they didn't understand like they're incapable of working with each other they're too much alike as a matter of fact uh so this is the background before Bernard gets introduced the two groups so this is now Louis Vuitton and then Mo at
Hennessy which is about to merge the two groups had everything in common the same aim the same background of family control a tradition going back more than a century and of course their culture the merger of the two companies could could only result in the birth of one of
the greatest French institutions well on that part you're right it is going to create a great French institution it's not it's just not going to be run by you and wait till we get into the pettiness between these two co-founders which again the fact that they couldn't get wrong the fact that they picked the
wrong partner was their death Neil I had a hilarious thought when I got to this part of the book that I wrote down on myself I don't have any tattoos but if I did uh this is what I said I should get two tattoos one on each forearm one on one one forarm says watch your costs and on the other Forum it says control and
so my favorite book out of you know the almost 300 books I've read for the podcast so far the one I keep talking about over and over again and in fact it's going to be episode 300 I just decided it was going to last time I reread it it was episode 200 so I had the idea I like oh every 100 episodes I
should just read Dyson's autobiography the first one that he wrote not the second one he wrote another great one that's Episode 205 when he was 70 but the one he wrote when he was like 45 after just going through 14 years of hell is just absolutely fantastic and so
this idea of like having a tattoo that just says control right and like somewhere on like C every day is a line from Dyson's autobiography uh where he says difference for the sake of it in everything because it must be better from the moment the idea strikes to the running of the business difference and
retention of Total Control difference and retention of Total Control is the entire message that Dyson is trying to get into the future generations of entrepreneurs brains by reading that book and that was all I was thinking about while I was reading this ridiculous like merger and then fight
and then they try to reverse merger that which Bernard is not going to allow at that point because he had too much control it was just Absolut like why are you doing this the biggest mistake is to relinquish your control if you maintain the control you'll get the money anyways and so let's go into why was thinking
about that friction between the two most powerful men in lvmh surface immediately each one wanted to be preeminent and it's funny cuz uh Chevalier has this quote that happened before I think the agreement um he says groupings which do not follow any kind of industrial logic
end up badly he said it's like a marriage between a carp and a rabbit so a fish and a rabbit naturally enough such unions usually end in divorce he did not know how right he was so the merger happens and this is what happens next they stepped up both their surface affability and their concealed deceit
and so what does that mean they immediately start fighting over okay where's the new headquarters of lvmh this is I wrote down here never underestimate human pettiness they pick a location but ramir says nope he's not even going to bother to visit it why because the address did not suit him it
was too close to Too Close to moette so the search began again the ideal solution were for premises that were equal distance away from their two headquarters think about that the new proposed headquarters is too close to the former Moet one and not close enough to Louis Vuitton I will not go there you
have to find that is equal distance between the two existing headquarters that is ridiculous once they've solved that problem though now they have an office they start fight fighting over the interior design of the office co-founders that fight over everything especially the unimportant is the note I
left on my on the page here the problem of office was settled and then the two men turned their attention to decoration each one wanted his own decorator the co-chairman took a malicious pleasure in provoking each other so I'm going to fight over the location office now we're
fighting over the recation office now we're going to go we're going we're going to step up our level of pettiness we're going to fight over the new company letterhead but let's not stop there when we do promotions for our new company that we both want to succeed let's take something that should take
two minutes and let's take let's make it take hours the photo sessions for the Fortune Magazine which devoted its first addition to the alliance of the two great companies was also turbulent it took three hours to obtain a few photos of the two co-founders side by side The Architects of lvmh could not agree on
the brand of champagne that would appear in the photo and this wraps up this section this is why the inab inability of the lvmh co-founders to work well together is so important to understand personal differences made the whole structure more fragile personal differences made the whole structure
more fragile this dissension at the top of lvmh opened up a breach for a potential Intruder Bernard Terminator oral is coming guys the dissension at the top of lvmh opened up a breach for a potential Intruder this was to be Bernard or's opportunity he was already waiting in the wings and so when he sees that stock
drop during the the crash of 1987 remember remember it goes back to what Charlie merer said waren Buffett says we're not rich because of intelligence we're rich because of temperament we go in we rush in when everybody else is running out in fact Buffett has one of the greatest lines about this ever it is
in his shareholder letters and he says we are equipped both financially and emotionally to play offense While others Scramble for survival Buffett has a very positive affable public Persona that is coldblooded we play offense While others Scramble for survival Bernard is doing the exact same
thing at this point in his life so let's go into that secretly Bernard acquired his first shares he was moving forward slowly until such time as his finances were in a healthy position he began by turning to private Finance in less than a month he had managed to raise the
equivalent of 1.5 billion Franks in the form of various credits I had to go look into the footnotes to be like okay well who's giving them the money one institution is credit Leona the other is JP Morgan and then they also manage JP Morgan and a group of eight International Banks and then he does
something that he wouldn't do later in his career he laid his cards on the table in an interview he declared in the current economic climate the stock exchange is at its lowest there will be opportunities to seize both in luxury goods and distribution the key is to make the right choice and skillfully to
apply rational methods he could say all this more easily as he had battle funds of around 6 billion Franks when there was a talk of a possible takeover bid for the group this is lvmh right uh there was talks of a possible takeover bid for the for the group lvmh but nobody then imagined that
Bernardo could have been a been a possible Predator especially HRI ramir who went and sought him out in hopes of ousting his partner Alan chevair arnal had come to rakim's notice it appeared or no had the same approach to the world of luxury luxury goods Bernard's young age check this out Bernard's young age
was a decisive factor in Rak amir's decision he could not become a rival he thought why did he think he couldn't become a rival because I'm a 76-year-old unbelievably successful person this is 35 Bernard's 35 yeah he's sharp maybe we can get him to succeed in like five and
he can run the company like 5 10 years and this where Bernard's like nope I'm coming for everything and then let's go back to this main theme Bad Boys move in silence these meetings that are happening between rakir and arol are taking place in great secrecy guess what are not's also going to have secret
meetings with rakim's partner that he hates that he's trying to get out too so the book goes into great detail about this I'm just going to give you the punch lines here because it's so it's like almost too much detail especially with Bernard's here berard's doing very skillfully he's playing everyone else
off of each other he knows that they hate each other they both of them now he's had meetings with both of them they both think they're his Ally and so he says rakir was still counting on Bernard to overcome Chevalier Chevalier was convinced that he had found that in Bernard he had found himself the support
necessary to neutralize rakir see this like this goes back to like why I said it was so important to understand the discontent between the two co-founders of lvmh and how it opened the door for Bernard this was a skillful setup everyone believed that they owed him something no yet suspected the true
designs of this young man and so these events that I'm describing this is July 1988 remember he doesn't get control until the next year he does not have full control yet as of July 29th 1988 he owns about 27% he needs more money to continue his advance so what does he do when he needs more money he goes back to
that setup that Russian doll Cascade setup that Antoine taught him to follow up on his attack he needed money he therefore reorganized part of his Empire according to a well-tried technique in order to raise capital a partial sale of the Dior company until then Dior Couture
was held 100% through bozac immediately he transformed Dior cortor into a holding company allocated its stake in lvmh and offered the capital to the holding company and and offered the capital of the holding company to private investors why did he do that because this brought Bernard 3.3 billion
Franks money he's going to use to buy more shares of lvmh and So eventually rakir realizes oh no he switched sides and he realizes oh like this part I thought I had a partner and now actually he's my predator and so this is when it gets unbelievably complex I could read this section 10
times and I probably still wouldn't understand it completely the main idea that jumped out and the one that I want to remember is the fact that Bernard remember he he he he gets in when there's this huge crash that's his first uh when he starts first accumulating shares now there's so much buying and
that's having in secret he's raising so much money to buy stock that the the stock price is soaring and this is the main part that that jumped out to me Bernard believed in his plans so much that he kept buying even at record prices and what's crazy is his his adversaries see the jump up in price and
they sell and they sell because it's a record price and so what I thought I was like okay well what are those shares worth today what at the time like how crazy is this at the time it looked expensive what looked expensive was actually unbelievably cheap and no one saw it but Aral so it says at 1 p.m. uh
arnal attacked the shares soared to 4,720 Franks remember he he bought in started buying in what like 1250 it said this was a record level faced with this explosion in the price ramir a good financier lightened his portfolio of lvmh shares 80,000 shares were sold who
do you think bought it arnol continued buying in two sessions on January 5th and 6 he managed to buy up 800,000 shares 8% of the of the existing lvmh shares by Friday January 6 at 6m it was clear an lvmh board meeting was called in the corridor Chevalier met Bernard oral a good sport he told him I played I
lost I'm resigning there's the line I mentioned earlier only Killers survive Bernardo n had won 6 months had been enough for him to reach the Helm of the most expensive company in France the following day he would be sworn in as the chairman of lvmh that is the last line in a chapter called Conquest the
next chapter is called the terror remember he is 40 he is 40 years old and now it picks up where we started the book at I am the boss I shall be here on Monday morning and I should be running the company in person there will be no power vacuum now he had to deal with the aftermath and
let it known this is about the dictator right now he had to deal with the aftermath and let it be known that the group was managed by a single person and what's remarkable about reading these old books older books right and you see a snapshot in time he calls his shot he is 40 when he says this and over the
next 30 something years he this is exactly what he does arnal said he wanted to make lvmh the biggest luxury goods group in the world he said that at 40 and so even though Bernard is unanimous chairman right he's got to fight for like another year and a half something like that because ramir
is refusing to give up he's believed in perseverance he says if he had to fight he would fight to the end he would not let this youngster how many they've used that word descri like three times in the book TIG he would not let this youngster whom he had imprudently introduced into
the group take from him his company his wife company and that of his in-laws a company it had taken 10 years to rebuild the aggressiveness of this young man surprised him he had been wrong about Bernard this is very fascinating he when they closed the first deal they did he had a premonition that maybe he was
wrong and this is he wind up being proven right you know six or nine months later he had been wrong about Bernard he said that he had a premonition when I signed the alliance packs PCT with him in June 1988 I held out my hand it was like holding a limp rag I felt a gut reaction telling me that I had been
wrong but the die was cast afterwards I rationalized it when I got to that section it made me think of one of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs he said intuition Steve said this towards the end of his career intuition is a very powerful thing more powerful than intellect in my opinion that's had a big
impact on my work and now if you do not mind I'd like to make one more comparison to Rockefeller Rockefeller did not was not particularly enthusiastic about the oil the burgeoning oil industry right he just saw that as his best opportunity to make a lot of money he wanted to make a
ton of money because he thought like God gave he's giving him his power his job is to make as much money as possible and give it away and he also saw an industry that was growing and he could kind of like impose his will on I think that's how Bernard saw the luxury industry
although it's a lot more glamorous than like refining oil like uh was you know in the 1800s but listen to how he talks friends were Amazed by this person who presided over the destiny of so many luxury Brands the only area in which French products could not be competed with for Bernard had understood before
anyone else that it was a true industry that sounds exactly like Rockefeller for Bernard had understood before anyone else that it was a true industry to his friends who said he was in love with the luxury good industry Bernard replied not at all you cannot explain love my
relationship to luxury goods is really very rational it is the only area in which it is possible to make luxury profit margins he's still having this fight with ramir I just want to point out this is exactly what Rockefeller was called as well ramir starts insulting Bernard in the in the Press so at one of their
meetings he approaches ramir in the hallway and he says you made a lialis Attack On Me by calling me a bandit and a gangster that's how Rockefeller was described in his day that Ro Rock Air's response here was actually kind of funny I made no attack I just made an objective statement and so even though
he made a bunch of uh errors like first merging with uh Mo Hennessy and then inviting uh Bernard in he you got to like this old guy like here's uh here's an example like he just refuses to give up like until he's forced to give up so they're both realizing that both is more powerful
than the other one thought this Old Gentleman never gave in where still he gave the impression of backing down so as to Counterattack better he liked to fight and in return rakir perfectly identified now he you know he over underestimated his opponent didn't really understand who he was now dealing
with him he goes oh uh Bernard wants to take power everywhere and immediately that's a great quote Bernard wants to take power everywhere and immediately and so then I need to pull out something that was fascinating so in the business breakdown episodes talks about like they're talking about Bernard
now right and through like his track record he's got 30 years of track record that that is not in this book and he says that one thing that Bernard did back then and still does to this day which is very valuable that he targets Timeless brands that have proven themselves in different economic cycles
and through changes in consumer preferences even though lvmh may be 30 40 years old whatever it is some of their brands are hundreds of years old so it's this idea of like let's target the and you see that he did this I'm I'm I'm taking the the quote from the business breakdown episode and tying it
to where we are in the book The Young Bernard knew that he was going to do this so he's got to Target Timeless brands that are proving themselves in different economic cycles and through changes in consumer preferences why because they are durable and how do we know that because time is the best
filter let's go to a young 40-year-old Bernard saying no no no I know what I own is rare and it will increase in value over time my 10-year objective is that lvmh's leading position in the world will be further strengthened in the luxury goods sector I believe that
there will be fewer and fewer brand names capable of retaining a worldwide presence and that those of our group will be among them my plan for the next six months this is 10 year objective my plan for the next six months is to see all the group managers of the businesses and increase their motivation that's a
nice way of saying he's going to be on their ass right my plan for the next six months is to see all the group managers and increase their Motivation by sharing my highly ambitious objectives with them back to another idea that we've seen over and over again Bernard alal is
intolerant of slowness his relative youth emphasized his impatience his goal was to still make his Mark in the business World fast reaching the age of 40 encouraged him in this direction and So eventually Bernard wins he gets ramir out of there and then this is a great description of a young
Bernard by a journalist he makes the cover of a French magazine no one has any Illusions left about this ambitious young financier who has shown no compunction in removing the man who had introduced him into the lvmh fold those who were naive enough to see Bernard rise as a succession of Lucky accidents
had understood nothing of the man or his technique the text was illustrated by a cartoon a man with a wolf's head and another another comparison with Rockefeller talks about finally he has complete control says he devoted himself to running the world's leading luxury good company his Investments had been
costly 11 billion Franks he had to get out of debt and most importantly build up his War chest again if you studied the early history or the early career of Rockefeller he had no compunction about going deep into debt and using the money raised to monopolize his industry and have complete control over not only
Standard Oil but the entire oil refining market and so the book ends with Bernard in complete control and the author is wondering what is next but will he be content with having achieved what he set out to achieve he is after all only 42 by the time I'm 70 I retired long since
he says was he to be believed we know from our Vantage Point hell no right he he had worked from the time he was a child and he had never stopped working his father had never had to tell him to study that was all that he had ever done at all events he had determination and he never gave up the willpower forged by
the strict upbringing he had received meant that he lived a lonely life setting him apart from other members of his generation he was not like other people even at the age of 19 he was different just like Rockefeller in May 1968 when all of his fellow students had taken to the streets and were on protest
March marches he his single concern was that his lectures would be cancelled he thought only about one thing passing his exams this Solitude was to be his constant companion he was never holy to trust anyone apart from his father he kept his Joys and his Sorrows to himself
Rockefeller he was impassive whatever the circumstances what did he think of other people it was exceedingly difficult to tell he showed nothing of his feelings he did not care much for fancy social events which he felt were a waste of time the parties that he threw to celebrate dior's 40th anniversary for
example were extremely lavish Affairs this was not entation it was work you had to make people like you but how his strength lay elsewhere his success was founded on what could almost be called a Napoleonic strategy select the right target attack the Enemy at the right time and in his weakest spot and leave
nothing to chance in the ensuing battle ramir is an iron fist in a velvet glove arnol is an iron fist in an iron glove if arnal has a religion it is efficiency so much so that people no longer dare invite him to lunch for fear of meeting with the have we anything left to say to
each other line that he has passed into Legend each moment counts he does not compromise he overturns everything in his path it is totally foreign to his nature to compromise his beliefs he relies on no one but himself and does not want to be in anyone's debt above all he has to be in control of events it
is not surprising that the only man who truly fascinates him is Giovani and janelli the chairman of Fiat embodies both the supremely successful industrialist and unequal power that in ourn all's eyes is what it is all about politics is ephemeral companies have a durability which guarantee the only real
power worth having and Bernard olal has a taste for power and luxury they knew all this about Bernard oal when he was 42 is it a surprise that 30 years later he built one of the most successful businesses in the world that is 296 books down 1,000 AO and I'll talk to you again soon