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Dynamic Duos: 5 Brilliant Business Lessons From Warby Parker’s CEOs

Dynamic Duos: 5 Brilliant Business Lessons From Warby Parker’s CEOs

LAUNCHED IN 2010, EYEWEAR RETAILER WARBY PARKER HAS TRANSFORMED THE WAY MANY CONSUMERS THINK ABOUT GLASSES, SELLING ULTRA-STYLISH SPECS–ONLINE–FOR LESS THAN $100.

Neil Blumenthal and David Gilboa, Cofounders and CEOs

Warby Parker started with a casual conversation among friends. Four Wharton MBA students were hanging out one morning on campus, and one of them, Dave Gilboa, happened to mention how annoyed he was with the high price of eyeglasses. They talked over the problem a bit, wondering if glasses might somehow work as an online business. “I remember going home and just constantly thinking about this idea, having trouble going to sleep that night,” recalls Neil Blumenthal, who, along with Gilboa and the other two friends, founded the transformative web retailer in 2010. Three years later, Warby Parker is a major success. The online business–which has received $55 million in funding so far–combines innovations like home try-on with high-end design and a smooth user experience. And the company is now expanding to brick-and-mortar stores, an effort that should get a boost now that J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler has joined Warby Parker’s board. Co-CEOs Blumenthal and Gilboa have made plenty of smart decisions while growing the business. They recently talked to Fast Company about their approach. Read more of this post

Chanel’s Wertheimer Family Seen With $19 Billion Fortune

Chanel’s Wertheimer Family Seen With $19 Billion Fortune

Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, with his shock of white hair, black glasses and leather gloves, will be the center of attention in Paris next Tuesday when he debuts the luxury-goods company’s latest ready-to-wear collection during the city’s Fashion Week. “The Chanel show by far generates the most interest,” Dana Thomas, the author of “Deluxe,” a book on the luxury industry, said in a phone interview from the French capital. “If you only go to one show a season, Chanel’s the one you have to go to.” Lagerfeld’s billionaire patrons of 30 years, Chanel owners Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, will walk in unnoticed, according to Thomas. The brothers will sit in the fourth or fifth row and slip away afterward. The pair keep their private lives — and their finances — out of the spotlight to such an extent that their combined $19.2 billion fortune is more than double previous estimates. According to its annual report filed with Kamer van Koophandel, the Dutch chamber of commerce, Chanel International BV reported consolidated net revenue of $5.9 billion in 2011, and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $1.4 billion. Read more of this post

How do you spot a real van Gogh? Van Gogh himself was characteristically gloomy in his own assessment of his efforts: it was “well below what I’d wished to do”

The Economist explains

How do you spot a real van Gogh?

Sep 23rd 2013, 11:31 by T.W.

ON SEPTEMBER 24th a newly discovered painting by Vincent van Gogh is due to go on show in Amsterdam. “Sunset at Montmajour”, a dazzling depiction of a landscape near Arles, in southern France, was painted in 1888 but lay unloved in an attic for decades because it was believed to be a fake. But earlier this month experts at the Van Gogh Museum, where it will be on show, declared that it was the real thing after all, sending its value soaring. How do they know it is genuine? Van Gogh famously sold only one painting during his short life. “Sunset at Montmajour”, a 37-by-29-inch canvas, was bought in 1908, 18 years after his death, by a Norwegian businessman, Christian Nicolai Mustad. According to the AP news agency, Mustad had it on display until the French ambassador to Sweden told him (wrongly, it turns out) that it was a fake. The masterpiece was promptly hidden away in the attic. When Mustad died in 1970 the painting was bought by a collector. Experts at the time said they too thought that the unsigned canvas was a fake, or the work of a lesser painter. Read more of this post

Henry Blodget: Let’s Get One Thing Straight — Apple Had No Choice But To Oust Steve Jobs

Let’s Get One Thing Straight — Apple Had No Choice But To Oust Steve Jobs

HENRY BLODGET SEP. 23, 2013, 3:22 PM 4,720 14

I am finally reading Walter Isaacson’s excellent biography of Steve Jobs.

I’m about a third of the way through: Jobs has dropped out of college, founded Apple, helped grow Apple into a $1+ billion public company, and launched the Macintosh. He has also resigned from Apple in disgust after being stripped of his operating role as head of the Mac division. As I was reading through the latter episode (listening, actually — I have the audiobook version), I was struck by several things, one of which is important. In the past 15 years, the story has spread that the dumbest decision in corporate history was the Apple board’s decision to oust Steve Jobs from the company in the spring of 1985  If the board hadn’t ousted Steve Jobs, the story goes, Apple would have much more rapidly become what it later became — the most successful, valuable, and beloved technology company on earth. Read more of this post

Billionaire Richard Branson Says Personalty Is More Important Than Skill When Hiring Employees

Billionaire Richard Branson Says Personalty Is More Important Than Skill When Hiring Employees

JULIE BORT SEP. 23, 2013, 8:18 PM 2,144 4

Billionaire business mogul Richard Branson says that the single most important attribute when considering whether to hire someone is personality. This is even more important than if the person has the skills for the job. People who are “fun, friendly, caring and love helping others” are winners and the rest of the job can be taught, he wrote in an column published on LinkedIn on Monday. He explains:

“You can learn most jobs extremely quickly once you are thrown in the deep end. Within three months you can usually know the ins and outs of a role. If you are satisfied with the personality, then look at experience and expertise. Find people with transferable skills – you need team players who can pitch in and try their hand at all sorts of different jobs. While specialists are sometimes necessary, versatility should not be underestimated.”

That’s an interesting way to think about staffing up the workforce, especially in the tech industry, where startups are in bidding wars for developers and designers with certain tech skills and a good track record. He’s also not a big fan of what he calls “hiring in bulk,” where companies are so desperate to get help, that they relax their standards to fill the ranks. That would perhaps make him not so keen on the whole acqu-hire trend, unless the acquired company has a corporate culture that fits really well with the one doing the buying. He also cautions managers to be careful of jumping to judgement about personality from one interview. Interviews are stressful and introverts can get a bit quiet while extroverts can get a bit over-the-top. He advises managers to make an effort to really see a person’s personality. Yet, he says, managers shouldn’t be looking for a personality that conforms. It’s not about sameness, it’s about a well-balanced team. “Don’t be afraid of hiring mavericks. Somebody who thinks a little differently … Some of the best people we’ve ever hired didn’t seem to fit in at first, but proved to be indispensable over time.”

Lord Karan Bilimoria is the founder and chairman of Cobra Beer. He developed the beverage in 1989 to complement Indian food and started importing to the UK in 1990. Today, Cobra has a retail sales turnover of £144m in the UK

September 13, 2013 6:20 pm

Lord Bilimoria: a heady brew of beer and politics

By Natalie Graham

Lord Karan Bilimoria is the founder and chairman of Cobra Beer. He developed the beverage in 1989 to complement Indian food and started importing to the UK in 1990. Today, Cobra has a retail sales turnover of £144m in the UK and has a global joint venture with Molson Coors, one of the world’s largest brewers. Born in Hyderabad, India, to a military family, Bilimoria gained a degree in commerce before qualifying in London as a chartered accountant. In 2006 he became Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea. Read more of this post

Gandhi’s formative years: To understand a biographical subject, we must understand the people around them

September 20, 2013 7:10 pm

Gandhi’s formative years

By Ramachandra Guha

To understand a biographical subject, we must understand the people around them

Iwas given my first tutorials in the craft of biography some 20 years ago. My teacher was the great Goethe scholar Nicholas Boyle, then a colleague at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. At the time, I was working on a life of anthropologist Verrier Elwin (1902-64), an Oxford scholar and renegade priest who had made his home among the tribal people of Central India. It was my first biographical project, and I was naturally keen to seek the counsel of a master of the genre.

Read more of this post

The Friendship Bank: How and Why Even the Most Giving Friend Expects Payback; Being helpful and giving makes friendship better—as long as it is a two-way street

September 23, 2013, 6:58 p.m. ET

The Friendship Bank: How and Why Even the Most Giving Friend Expects Payback

Being helpful and giving makes friendship better—as long as it is a two-way street

ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN

For 20 years, Christina Steinorth was happy to help one of her close friends with whatever she needed—last-minute baby sitting, a drive to work when her car was in the shop, countless hours of free marriage advice (Ms. Steinorth is a licensed marriage and family therapist). She didn’t expect anything in return. When Ms. Steinorth and her husband decided to adopt a baby a few years ago, she asked her pal to write a letter of recommendation. The friend agreed enthusiastically, Ms. Steinorth says, but months went by and no letter arrived. She asked again and the friend apologized profusely, but still no letter. After several more months, Ms. Steinorth asked one more time. Her friend ignored her. “I learned a very painful lesson—that she wanted more from me than she was willing to give back,” Ms. Steinorth said. Have you ever tried to make a withdrawal from the friendship bank, only to find your balance was much lower than you thought it was? Read more of this post

“Disgustologist” digs deep into science of revulsion

“Disgustologist” digs deep into science of revulsion

2:02am EDT

By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) – Valerie Curtis is fascinated by faeces. And by vomit, pus, urine, maggots and putrid flesh. It is not the oozing, reeking substances themselves that play on her mind, but our response to them and what it can teach us. The doctor of anthropology and expert on hygiene and behaviour says disgust governs our lives – dictating what we eat, wear, buy, and even how we vote and who we desire. Read more of this post

Why Is It Hard for Some People to Swallow Pills? Mind Over Medicine: Getting Over the Fear of Taking Pills

September 23, 2013, 6:55 p.m. ET

Why Is It Hard for Some People to Swallow Pills?Mind Over Medicine: Getting Over the Fear of Taking Pills

Strategies to Make Medicine Easier to Swallow

HEIDI MITCHELL

For some healthy adults, getting sick enough to require medication is only half of the problem. The other is getting that pill to go down. Stephen Cassivi, a thoracic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who specializes in esophageal disorders, offers one explanation for why some people find it difficult to swallow pills.

—Heidi Mitchell

Fear Factor

Dr. Cassivi says the reasons some people can’t even get a baby aspirin to go down the esophagus are varied. “People who have underlying swallowing difficulties, called dysphagia, may have trouble swallowing pills, but that is generally the result of other problems, such as stroke or surgery or gastroesophageal reflux,” he says. Read more of this post