YouSaid · the spoken record

Benjamin Clymer

lines on the record: 94
first: 2023-04-28
most recent: 2023-04-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Everyone's different for sure. To be clear, Rolex doesn't sell online anywhere with anybody. Not with us, not even themselves. So no Rolex knew can you buy online just to be clear. But let's use a brand that we sell because this happens every day. A brand new Omega Speedmaster, which is about a $7,000 watch, Sapphire Caseback, great manually wound, iconic thing. We sell those all day long. And if people don't like it, they can return it, right? And so like 30 days.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On just a photo. And We have a staff of authenticators. Truly. And the benefit of us being us is we have direct relationships with brands. And we can say, hey, Brightling, Grand Seiko, whoever, was this watchborn with a black dial or a blue dial. You can track the serial number to not many people on the pre-owned side can do that. And as Jeff said, I think much credit to Hamilton Powell, who's the founder of Crown and Caliber, the business that we now own. He really wanted to do stuff that is like buying a watch is one thing, but selling a watch is actually brutal. And if you've ever tried to sell a watch, which doesn't really sound like you have, it's awful. And so if you wanted to do it either go to Corona 24 and it may never sell, you go to auction, they're going to take 20%. With Chrono Caliber and now Hodinki, we're going to tell you what we're going to pay then and there. You're going to send in the watch. We're going to send you a check. That's it. You're done. So I'll tell.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rollix is really one of the, I mean, look, not every Omega, but 99% of the Omega Omega's a lot of the Americans do, shit. I mean, so does Gransecos. I mean, it is uncommon for a high-end watchmen to not show up. Today, but that was.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My guess look, I don't know it all to be clear, and I really mean that. I don't think that has anything to do with anti-counterfeit. I think it's more celebratory and they want to show off the new movement, et cetera. And to be clear, it's only in the platinum Daytona, which is not even in the unfortunate.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In 2021, we actually launched our own insurance program that myself and a few other guys with Chubb. So Chubb is the underwriter, but we conceived this product ourselves. This is a totally unique product designed for watch collectors. So it has nothing to do with homeowners, nothing to do with anything else. And you can dynamically and really retroactively assign and unassign insurance attachments to any watch. So like you're out of the house right now, you could insure that watch when you go home tonight and put it in your safe. Turn it off. Do it all on your phone. And so it's all in the Hodinky app. It's underwritten by Chub. So, you know, best in class. It's really an amazing thing that truly I can say you can critique Kodinki for anything you want, but our insurance product is better than anybody else's by far.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think the Omega that my grandfather gave me that watch changed my life. I can wear it every day when my daughter was born. I was wearing that watch. And when I asked my wife to marry me, I was wearing that watch.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're wearing them right now, so am I. So is Jeff. And these are things that these are real, almost talismans for people's lives. And so when my daughter was born in December of 2021, I gave my mother, my mother-in-law, and my wife a watch each to celebrate the birth of her. And those watches are hers. And like, you know, until the day that she dies, you know, hopefully long, far away, those watches are hers. And she'll remember that these were given the day that she was a woman.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think to some degree, everyone that's passionate about anything is a little bit crazy. Sure. But I think also, if you look at, I mean, the other thing that I'm interested in, like you, is cars. And so if you look at the running costs of a great car, let's say you buy a car and a watch, both $50,000, right? Right. Own them both for 10 years, get the injury for both for 10 years. The watch, you basically, if you want to have insurance, you can. You don't have to have it. Storage is nothing. Put it in a drawer, a safety deposit box, cars. Insurance, maintenance, parking. Cars are so much more expensive you want to maintain as a collectible asset. It's remarkable. And I do both, so I know. But watches, they can do so much more than cars. A, you're wearing...”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, they're apple watch. The Apple watch you can make whatever you want it to be. So I wear it solely when I go to the gym and when I play golf, that's it. That's the only time that I wear it. Historically, I used to, a few versions ago, I had one that was self-connected, and I would leave my phone at home when I would go driving. And I need a vintage car to kind of escape. But so I use it for two things, working out and really working out in that's it. That's it. But I do not have notifications of emails, text, et cetera. It's really for me giving input to it. How many steps did I take? What kind of calories have I burned, et cetera?”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To sell it, but it really got people to think about the wrist as real estate again, which they had not. That's interesting in a decade.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Terrified. Really? Yeah, in full transparency. Like, here we go again. Oh my God. I mean, it was the end of times. And in full transparency, I was a consultant on the Apple Watch. I helped them. And Johnny Ive was on our second cover of our magazine. I mean, we know those guys well. And so, you know, I'm a lover of Apple. I was just a design guy, the guy who's spending money on business cars when he had no money. What Apple does is just remarkable. So it was honored to work on that project. And so I was actually the only person from the watch industry to attend the launch of the original Apple. No kidding. And that story that I wrote, which was totally unbiased, like even though I helped kind of work on it, it was like what they were doing with the Apple Watch in terms of materials and in terms of the way that the bracelet snapped on and off. I mean, like, it was miles ahead of Switzerland. And these things were $400. And that really, really terrified the Swiss. And the Swiss, they can be persnickety for sure. And they really thought that anybody that was supporting the Apple Watch was an enemy, including us for a time. No kidding. Truly. And we still to this day sell Apple Watch we're proud.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The moon that had people We've done five collaborations with Swatch. I mean, Houdinki, we've collaborated with Hermes, with Leica, with Omega. I mean, really high-end brands, and we did with Swatch. And the guys that are buying our $60,000 Ashron or whatever are also buying our swatches.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A swash in the 80s was as bigger than anything today. I mean, it just cannot be kind of surmised or can really understood today here. Swatch in the 80s was everything.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably 99%. So just to be clear, Courts won. Yep. That doesn't mean that the Swiss didn't have its own little kind of pocket of influence and pocket of growth potential. But as Jeff is saying, Jean-Claude Beaver, who revived Blanc Pon and then Omega in the 90s, he was the first one to sign James Bond and Cindy Crawford to Omega. Huge deal. Mr. Hayek, who designed the swatch, right? I mean, that is a Swiss-made watch for back then was probably, what? 25 months?”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I could hop in, yeah, please. Slightly different. So Genta was early 1970s, and he was just a designer. So it's like saying, hey, design me a coffee cup. Here's your coffee cup. That's it. We're done now, you know? What AP and Petech and others did with Genta's design is really what allowed them to kind of continue to grow. But I think what Jeff is referring to is really a decade later when courts really kind of came in. And to be clear, courts won. Like if you look at how many watched 90%.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Once you break that, this is going to sound awful, but here we are. Once you break the $100,000 mark, it becomes a lot easier. Do it once and you can do it all the time.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the U.S. is 50%. Wow. It's just enormous in this country. And, you know, look, if you go to India, if you go to Asia, there are brands such as Omega, Long Jeans, et cetera, that could rival Rolex in terms of popularity. But in the US, this is Rolex country for sure. But they should be viewed separately from almost everybody else in the industry. As I said, the demand mechanism that they have is just so robust. It's like people don't even know why they want a Rolex. They just do. And almost no other brand in the luxury space and watches cars, anything really benefits from that.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He used to be able to go in and get it whenever you want. Two grand. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the world has just changed. And look, I would never take, or we should not take all the credit, but like sites like ours change the demand flow in such a way that Rolex or any brand just couldn't keep up with it. And then COVID, everything changed, you know, COVID.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I get that. And like the whole used car salesman guy where you're all that has dissipated quite a bit and now people want Rolexes. You know, when I was... Well,”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, look, I think that the average, I mean, just to get, you know, the Rolex question is one we get a lot, obviously, because every guy on the street, look, I love Rolex. I own several. But everybody knows. When you're UB?”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's so dinky. I mean, the shop was, you know, it was basically, you know, to get into brass tacks, it was a subdomain powered by Shopify. So we did shop at Hodinky.com, but it's Hodinki. It's all one company. All right.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Internal surveys where, hey, what do you want from Hodinky? The number one response every single time to this day is for Houdini to sell things because they trust us.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At all. You had it to yourself, all online, and on top of that, our audience was wrapped. I mean, our audience was obsessed with what we were doing, and they were young and they were, they might not be wealthy now, but they probably were going to be, you know? And so we had our first big advertiser was Autumn R. Pigeay. We had Patek as an advertiser. No kidding. We had Rolex as an advertiser. Frankly, in a different way than we do now even. It was really special because we weren't selling anything. We were just there to promote the industry. And what changed for me was after a few years of making a good living and I own the whole thing. So it was like a nice little living for me. I said, hey, like I'm getting these emails that person X or woman Y is buying this Pitec Philippe or Rolex, whatever, because of the content we're creating. And here's the proof. Here's an email. And I would take that to Brand X and I would say, hey, isn't this cool? Do you guys want to advertise more? And they said, oh no, we're good. But like, you want to come to Perse for dinner? And I was like, per se is lovely, but that doesn't pay for my rent. It doesn't allow me to grow this business. And I said, man, our audience is really special. And we started doing these surveys.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But yeah, so taking a step back. So we had been making money with advertising. And advertisers came quickly because we had.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As the underlines. So we were in Squarespace until probably 20. We did a super custom version of Squarespace. And just on background, I was a coder. In high school. Undergraduate, you said you were part of college and finance. So I was doing, I was banging out Coat for a good chunk of time there in college and before. I built my first website when I was 14. So it was something that I really took a lot of pride in. And then in 2013, 14, an agency that actually Jeff knows, well, called Wonder Sauce. What a great name. I know. They approached us and said, hey, we love what you're doing. Your content is unreal. Like, can we help redesign your site? And I was like, I don't have any money, but sure, you know. What year was this? Probably 2012. Okay. At that point,”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So, I mean, early on, we had advertisers. And back then, I mean, the cost of running Hudinki was my time, which was effectively free. And then hosting fees on Squarespace and elsewhere. So we'll say. What were you using for software? Was it typed or WordPress or first Tumblr for the first six months and then Squarespace? And Squarespace, and I love those guys. They were really instrumental to the growth of Hodinki. Allowed me to design my own website in 2009 until probably 2012 or 13 when we got a professional upgrade. And really without them and the interface that we put forward, and everybody was using WordPress and other really, frankly, more rudimentary at the time products in Squarespace, Squarespace was incredible. It really allowed, it was almost like Shopify in a way, like really opened up a whole new world to me to present something that was really beautiful. What were you using?”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I probably spent a third of it on business cards, truly. But this idea of presenting something that was just so much more thoughtful than anyone else out there. And yes, we were a blog. And yes, we had a silly name. And yes, we were online. But I cared in such a way that was so different than everybody else. And a lot of the journalists, and certainly not here at Bloomberg, but elsewhere in the world, a lot of journalists in the luxury space are there for the good wine The pretty girls or guys, the free travel sometimes on these junk kids, and these amazing experiences, and I get that. I'm not going to knock people that are there for that. I didn't know that existed. I wasn't there for any of that. I was there for the product and there to share the product with as many people as possible.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, I love this stuff in such a sincere way. I want to basically share what I'm learning to as many people as possible. And then people can read it or not. They can comment or not. That's okay. And I think that is really what made us different from everyone else. And we did it in a way that was stylized. And something that I've always really focused on is ensuring that the presentation of our media is really beautiful. And so the first dollars I ever spent at Houdini were to actually have double engraved business cards, which literally cost me thousands of dollars. We were pretty revenue. Exactly, you know, back in the day when business cards were that nice $9,000.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's exactly right. And I think if there's one thing that I'd say we got right early, which was this idea of taking this thing that really could be perceived as pretentious or complicated or certainly expensive, you can't deny that, and explaining it in a way that is incredibly digestible for the average guy, like a you or me or a Jeff, and also doing it online in a broadcast mechanism. There were some people discussing the finer points of High and Watch making informs, but you had to register. The comments were moderated. If you weren't part of the gang, you basically had no cloud at all. And I said, that just doesn't feel democratic at all.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quickly to put a fine point on that, just to add further context. So, Jeff is exactly right. We hadn't spent a dollar marketing and literally not a dollar on marketing until April of 2021 when we heard our first CMO. We were doing about $30 million a year in revenue at that point. So we've gotten from $0 to $30 million a year roughly, you know, give or take, without a dollar spent on acquisition costs”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. 100% That's exactly that. And so Tony Fidel, a guy named Kevin Rose, who started Dig and is now really big into NFTs, he was actually, he stepped in and invested as well and was actually our CEO for a while. Tony Conrad, who's big in True Ventures, he did Peloton and Blue Bottle, some really great Silicon Valley names that were all friends and we all kind of connected. They all kind of helped me shepherd in this new version of what Hodinki could be, which was that of a retailer and that of somebody who had this amazing influence editorially speaking. We had done limited editions where we designed them. I'm actually wearing one right now. Let's see. What do you win? This is an IWC that we did in 2017. This was a $7,000 watch. We did 500 sold out in, I think, four minutes. Wow. So, you know, it was with their help and their product that we said, hey, this could be something much bigger than, I don't want to say just an editorial platform, but we can do real content to commerce. And that was really not a model that existed anywhere.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's a legend, and he's of all the people in professional life that is a mentor, he would be the one. And actually, it was he who decided, or he who influenced me not to sell the business. I had the opportunity to sell the business in 2014. And he said, do not sell this thing. Let me help you raise money. So he actually invested as early as 2015.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure is. Come to find out, you know? And so, you know, when we closed our series B in 2020, which, as you mentioned, include LVMH in a minority share, there's no majority holder, just to be clear. TCG, Tom Brady, Tony Fidel, John Mayer. I mean, like all these kind of great things. I mean, that's a crazy.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So for me, Houdini has been my life's work, truly. I mean, I have a child now, but I kind of think of it as my firstborn. And like any child, things tend to grow up and mature. And I think if there's one thing I can say about myself, it's that I'm acutely aware of my strengths and weaknesses. And as my strengths are that I've got the vision, the idea, I think I'm a solid writer. I've got the creative mind to build something that other people wouldn't see, if I may say, where I'm not super strong, honestly, is running a business at scale. Execution.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Prominent. I mean, one of the most prominent CEOs of one of the largest Swiss luxury groups in the world told me to my face in 2010 that he thought the internet was for poor people, that nobody would ever make a buying decision based on anything published on the internet. And keep in mind, this is what I was doing for a living back then.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A little bit. And so the Swiss and the Europeans at large were really kind of reticent to get involved with watches on the internet at all. And that includes even us covering them. So when I would go to Switzerland and say, hey, Rolex, Pat Tech, whoever, Omega, smaller brands, can I photograph your watches and write about them? They say, oh, you know, we don't really want coverage on the internet. Truly. That's how it was like in the early 10th. Exactly. Very forward thinking. There's a famous line that I've told in a few other podcasts and a few other stories where a very, very...”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely, absolutely. Much to the chagrin of the Swiss. But it is the largest seller of watches on Earth. And look, I mean, it's just reality. But, I mean, forget eBay. eBay is a real publicly traded, you know, has business practices that we all hold in high regard. Well, you know, there are other sellers out there”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was called Houdinki from the start. Hodinky with a Y on it means wristwatch in check of all things. Everyone asks, I'm actually not Czech. But I was just kind of goofing around and Googling Google translating what wristwatch was in different languages. And you might remember, but so in 2008, Google was the hottest thing on Earth. Google was like really kind of on its ascent. And the double vowel kind of like stuck with me. And another site that launched around the same time had a double vowel. And it's called Goop, Gwyneth Paltro's Lifestyle site. So the double vowel, for some reason, really was popular with internet domains. Plus, you can't get...”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly right. So allowed me to take my time and write up freelancing for the likes of GQ, for the Financial Times, how to spend it. You know, great, really great publications, mostly about watches, but other men's lifestyle things, cars, you know, whatever, restaurants, ended up applying to journalism school here in the city at Columbia for a master's degree. I went to undergrad for finance and computer science, so dramatically different field. And I said, look, if I'm going to be in media and I wanted to be a true journalist, like a real Bloomberg-style journalist, I wanted to do it the right way. So I applied to Columbia, somehow got in using my blog about watches as the foundation of my application and did two years of a master's degree at Columbia while I continued to blog every day about watches.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nothing. Yeah. And look, and I was 24, I was living with my girlfriend at the time in Soho just kind of goofing around. So, I mean, like, to be able to pay my, you know, I think my share of the rent each month was around $900. So like that paid, hey.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was his daily driver. That and a gold Rolex date as well, which now my father has. And it was just something so impactful to me. And he was really my hero. I mean, he represented something that I didn't really see much of in Rochester, New York, which was A, self-made, you know, truly self-made to a material degree, was interested in the world, interested in how things are made, nice cars, nice watches, et cetera, and had very little to do with the cost of things, but really appreciated how things were made. And it was always critical that he made me understand why an omega would be $2,000 instead of $200 or Mercedes would be $60,000 instead of $6,000.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, around there. I would say He actually purchased it. He purchased it in the early 90s. It was a later speedmaster. He bought it when he was in his probably 60s or 70s. So it wasn't like something he had throughout his entire life. But still, it's what I remembered him wearing. And one day he just literally slid it off his wrist and said, I want you to have this, which is unbelievable to me, obviously.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Started for fun. So I was a kid. I was in wealth management at UBS, and this was 2008 when Lehman collapsed and the world effectively imploded, certainly for people of my age who had no authority at all. I mean, we had no cloud whatsoever in a giant company like UBS. And they said basically like, look, you're probably going to get laid off. Will you take a severance package and get out of here? And I said, you know what? Hell yeah, absolutely. And keep in mind, I had nothing. Both my parents are public school teachers. I mean, I didn't come from a world of luxury or finance or anything like this at all. I'm from Rochester, which is not anywhere near Westchester, a really dramatically different world. And I said, you know what? Like, finance this version of finance is just not for me at all. I always fancied myself a writer. My grandfather, who was kind of a mentor, not kind of, he was a mentor to me. He was still alive at the time and he was an entrepreneur. He gave me his Omega Speedmaster, which is a really nice watch when I was 16 years old as my only nice watch.”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, So I was basically the lowest of the low man on totem poles. I was 24. I was working at UBS in wealth management. And it's funny, actually, before I even get into that, coming to Bloomberg is actually my favorite place to go because it is the only location that I visited pre-Hodinki and post-Hodinky. Oh, really? So actually, when I used to visit here, your systems used to pull up the original photograph ever taken of me as a guest. And it was me at 24 years old. No beard. No beard dressed head to toe in Joseph A. Banks legitimately. I'm not dressing that anymore, thankfully. And it was just an amazing flashback anytime I come here. I've been here a few times for other shows. And so this is one of the few places really in the world that kind of unites my pre-hodinky and present day world. That's really...”
2023-04-28 · Masters in Business · Benjamin Clymer and Jeffery Fowler on Hodinkee · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source