Rolex is a series of paradoxes. They sell obsolete and objectively inferior mechanical devices for 10-1000x the price of their superior digital successors… and demand is stronger than ever in history! Their products are comparable to a Hermès Birkin bag in price, luxury status and waitlist times… yet they produce over 1m units / year (roughly 10x annual Birkin production). They make the most universally recognized and desired Swiss watches… yet their founder wasn’t Swiss and didn’t start the company in Switzerland! If Rolex were publicly traded, they’d almost certainly be among the top 50 market cap companies in the world… yet they’re 100% owned by a charitable foundation in Geneva that (among other things) literally just gives away money to local people in the city.Tune in for one of the most fascinating and admirable companies we’ve ever covered on Acquired. We had an absolute blast making the episode, and hope you enjoy it as much as we did!Sponsors:Many thanks to our fantastic Spring ‘25 Season partners:J.P. Morgan PaymentsServiceNowFundriseHuntressLinks:The Renaissance of the Swiss Watch Industry - Marc BridgeHODINKEE - Inside All Four Rolex Manufacturing Facilities“If you were…” campaignWorldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Rolex StudyEpisode sourcesCarve Outs:BlueyAcquired on Armchair ExpertEleven ReaderMore Acquired:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
Chapter 1: What makes Rolex unique in the watch industry?
All right, David, what's on your wrist? Well, currently on the wrist is my stainless whiteface Daytona that my dad gave me. I think it was still quite popular when he gave it to me probably close to 15 years ago, but...
Not like it is today. A strong choice. I'm actually also wearing a Daytona that I am borrowing from a good friend of the show. Love it. Well, fun fact for our listeners, the watch that David is wearing is the one that I was wearing during the Morris Chang interview when we wanted to foreshadow that this was our next episode.
Yes, and in front of me here now in my hand, but not on my wrist, is my other Rolex that my dad gave me a long time ago, my Rolesor Datejust.
Dude, you got to go one on each wrist.
Great.
All right.
Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? is
Welcome to the spring 2025 season of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. I'm David Rosenthal. And we are your hosts. All you need for timekeeping is something that happens at a constant rate and some way to count it. It could be sand in an hourglass.
It could be a weight being pulled down by gravity on a grandfather clock, slowly turning the hands, moderated by the tick-tock of a pendulum. Or it could be a mechanical watch on your wrist, driven by a complex and beautiful array of hundreds of gears and springs. Today, listeners, we tell you the story that we can't believe we haven't already told on Acquired, Rolex. Ooh.
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Chapter 2: How did Rolex transition from a British to a Swiss company?
This is still featured prominently on the Rolex website today.
Mercedes's photo is everywhere, but it doesn't matter. I mean, at the end of the day, who cares if it was on her wrist or not?
Yeah. She also doesn't actually make it, but that doesn't matter either.
That's the other crazy thing. I think it was an especially cold day or especially choppy or something. She makes it 10 of the 15 hours. So the design of the test is a little bit arbitrary. This is a watch. Well, it wasn't on the wrist and it didn't make it all the way from England to France.
It was still in the water for a long time.
For 10 hours.
Yeah. Pretty good product testimonial, shall we say. For a testimony. So Hans, after this event happens the next day, he buys the front page of the Daily Mail newspaper, which is a nationally syndicated newspaper in Britain at the time. I didn't realize you could do this back in the day. You could actually buy the front page as an advertisement. Yeah.
I think it was common. I think it was a while before the front page was actually dedicated to editorial. And early on, it was very common for it to be a full page ad.
Yeah. So Hans does this and proclaims the success and announcement of the world's first waterproof wristwatch, fully enclosed in its own case without a second hermetic seal around it, and the triumphant launch of the Rolex Oyster.
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