YouSaid · the spoken record

Leonard Lauder

lines on the record: 28
first: 2021-07-21
most recent: 2021-07-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“None whatsoever. I really, I love every step along the way. I've never regretted anything. Look, you can't build your life based on what you're looking back on. You can only build your life by looking forward to it, to everything.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I exercise a lot, number one. And don't forget this, that everyone should know this. The brain is a muscle. And if you don't use it, you lose it. So that each day I'm doing something, not doing the coursery puzzles to activate my interest. We will read the newspaper in the morning and we'll discuss the matters and where it's leading to. And I'll make predictions. By the way, I'm very good about seeing the future, so I don't have my crystal ball with me, but I can lend it to you from time to time. And I can see the future and I work with that knowledge to help in all the things that I'm doing.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very important. My brother and I both created the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation. We're a pure plane. We just do drug discovery for prevention and cure. We don't do care. We don't do anything else. But the research that we're doing is amazing. And in my lifetime, we're going to have a prevention and a cure for Alzheimer's and related diseases.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I helped abort thousands of works of art for them. And I like making museums successful because when I was a kid, three afternoons out of five after school, if I wasn't doing something else, I was in a museum looking at things. And I love museums and I wanted to make them greater and greater and greater.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a promise gift, which means it goes to them upon my passing. I've already given them almost half of it already. I love the idea of creating things. Now, if I buy a postcard, it could cost me anywhere between five cents and a dollar or five or ten maybe. If I buy a Picasso painting, I can pay $50,000, $100,000 for it. So to me, I love the hunt and the search and then I love at the same time the act of putting it together for a museum and giving it away. So every time I give something away, I give them money to display it and do exhibitions.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I've given 80 or 90 percent of it to degrees of fine arts in Boston and a good portion of it to the Nori Gallery in New York City, which was started by my brother. I don't buy things to possess them. I buy things to give them away. Owning things doesn't mean anything to me.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Postguards in those days were the Snapchat of today. I have postcards that say, see at lunch today. They would mail it before 10 o'clock in the morning and it would arrive in time for lunch at where they were going. So we don't realize that this was before the phone was used all the time this way, before email before everything. And so that I love the idea of postcards because I like the idea of instant communication.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It never changed my life, but I'd rather have no one know if I have any money. I collect art and give it away. I don't need to show my wealth. I like to spread what I'm doing to make other people better off.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they weren't so famous when we bought them, but we bought a company called Mac, a company called Bobby Brown, a company called Joe Malone, a company called Creme de la Maire, et cetera. So we would buy a company that had already started itself. We kept the entrepreneur working with us. And that one hated the other and sooner or later we had a whole portfolio of grants that competed with each other as well as competing with in the marketplace.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We weren't ready yet. We really weren't. Because when you are a privately held company, you can invest a lot of money in doing what you think is right for the long term and not have to worry about it. So a few moments ago we were talking about the launch of Clinique. But we weren't public, and therefore we could simply launch it and get it started, and it happened well. Now, today it's harder to launch a brand. And since we are public, we now have to buy brands rather than launching them ourselves.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's more than that though. Remember, I just mentioned growth. If you have one department store and up and down Main Street, there are two or three or four drug stores there. If you divide the business between everyone, you will not have the growth in that one store. By giving the department store the growth at the beginning, they were so happy with what we were doing they gave us the space and location in the store so they could do more. And so the result is we basically helped the department stores grow in that era. If it wasn't for us, they wouldn't have had the same growth.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right, but that's why I said to you that the main thing we were watching for and doing was growth because every department store in the nation was built not just on the profits that they made, but on the growth percentage. And I made it a point that we would drive the business, our business, faster than any other brand of any kind in the store. So if the store had, say, a 10% increase, I wanted to have a 15% increase. If they had 20, I wanted to have 30. And I always wanted to have a bigger increase than the whole store would have. When that happened, I would get all the support in the world.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the time I start to work on a clinic, which is in the late 60s, SDLotter was very successful by the time. And our customers were saying, look, you've only grown 15% this year. We need more, we need more. I didn't want to push STLOT into a way of overpromoting the brand because I knew what I wanted to do. So I said, if I wanted to compete with Eski Loader, what would I do? And that became the clique. You know, it takes a thief to catch a thief. Remember the movie with Carrie Grant? It takes a thief. It takes a thief to catch a thief.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were much better products. They were expensive and very, very, very good for the customers. Look, at the beginning, we never advertised. What did we do? We gave out samples and gave out samples that were large enough. If you give a customer a sample of a product and they like it and they come back and buy it again and again and again, that's what Bill Sibis is. So it was years before we even started to advertise.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, my mother came home one day when I was in high school saying, Charles Repson offered me a million dollars. But I turned it down because I wanted to have the business feel. So I was very grateful for that. I knew that we were en route, we're out of the woods at the beginning of 1970. And by that time, the company was in demand and I was then able to turn around and focus on what we could do in the future.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he turned around and said, how can you do that? And then we were off and running from there. So I was able to think of the ideas necessary to make a hit and make a big splash, no matter where we were.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two things first thing she created the idea of giving gifts away at the beginning she would send out a postcard say bring this card into the such and such a store and we'll give you a free lipstick or if you're free this or free that then she built it up later on to say we'd give you if you buy something we'll give you a gift that that that was magic in those days it was really magic Now when I tried to when I became I took over the sales area. In fact as I took over everything, I remember visiting the buyer of a major department store. He wouldn't look at me. He kept his back to me cleaning his nails. And finally I said to him, I think I can do great things for you. I can make you a lot of money.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She did everything. My father did everything. But I was the one who sort of brought it together. And my vision was make her famous. Everything that I could do to make her famous was a step in the right direction. And she became world famous because of that”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would call her mom. However, I would always address her in front of other people as Mrs. Lauder, out of respect. And it worked well. Look, they had trust in me from way back. They said, oh, anything that Leonard wants to do, he can do.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I knew I could make it better. I had a vision of what the company could be and would be. And I didn't have to sell it to them because I don't think they could see the same thing that I saw.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I became the ship star officer aboard an aircraft carrier. An aircraft carrier had, we had 3,000 men aboard the carrier. And so I had to get everything that they needed and then some. So I started to buy perfume that they could send out as gifts to their girlfriends, etc. I bought wristwatches, toothpaste, everything you wanted. I had. And I made a point to have that so successful that that supported the entire ship's entertainment policy.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I went into the Navy, my father said, you know, there are no Jews in the Navy. I said, okay, I know that too. But that was good. That was a way the United States was. Jews were in the minority. Everyone was a minority then. But it was fascinating because I grew up, in my view, at the right time to grow up and learn. You don't grow up. If you grew up in prosperity, you don't understand how to fight hard. I had to fight hard.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I got turned down flat, which was a rather shock for me. However, I made lemonade out of lemons. I applied for the U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School. I was accepted there, and that was the beginning of my PhD in leadership. And it's the best thing I ever did.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wanted to be a business. I told my parents that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in the business, but my father wanted me to be a chemist. No, thank you. I didn't want to be a chemist because I wanted to do marketing.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I worked very often after school every day, except when I was on the soccer team. So when I had soccer practice, I wasn't there. But other than that, I worked every afternoon.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But she started to sell the products that her uncle had made. He was an esthetician. And then she decided she could do better. And she started making them in the kitchen. And I, as a little kid, sitting in my high chair would watch her make the creams on the kitchen stove. Then as time went on, she would invite people to the house to do makeups. And I would come home for lunch every day. I would sit in the kitchen eating my lunch and she would be next door making someone's face up. But she was a miracle worker. Anyone who came in there would undoubtedly walk away looking fantastic.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were very, very, very poor. Now remember this, that this was the depression. My father had had a very successful business importing silk. Now silk didn't do too well during the Depression. So his company had to close down. And my mother had always had ambitions to either be an actress or to make people beautiful. And I have a late friend who had been a high school classmate of hers and he said she was always combing out her girlfriend's hair and making them look pretty. She loved doing that and that became her education and vocation.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She was Josephine, Esther Lauder, and her parents, her mother was Hungarian, and they called her Esti, Est Y. And so she liked that Estie better than Josephine.”
2021-07-21 · The David Rubenstein Show · Leonard Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source