The surprising product that built Italy's richest family

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
Well, I got to bleep this out, but, then he's extremely multi-billionaire.

**Shaan Puri** (0:05)
Extremely multi-billionaire?

**Sam Parr** (0:07)
Extremely.

**Shaan Puri** (0:17)
Sam, I have here in front of me a letter that I need to read for you.
I open the mail and I see a invitation like this to a graduation. I think that's not my cousin, that's not my nephew. Who is this? Dear Shaan, my name is Quinton Wood. I've been listening to MFM since 2021 Over the last five years, you and Sam's podcast has made a huge impact on my life, shaping how I see the world, investing in stocks, my goals, my life. Your podcast brought me a lot of joy and helped me through long runs and study sessions. You and Sam have directed my life for the better, so thank you. I'm a high school senior this year, and because of the profound impact you've made in my life, I want to invite you to my graduation and graduation party. He lives in Colorado.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and everything you do. Keep making more episodes. Sincerely, Quinton Wood, high school senior.

**Sam Parr** (1:09)
Isn't this amazing? Baller.
Congrats, Quinton. Take a bow, Quinton.

**Shaan Puri** (1:23)
How good is that, man? I love this kid.

**Sam Parr** (1:26)
If you're under the age of 24, you should do some of these things that might sound insulting. Like we said, that's endearing, or I would never say that's cute. But like you feel like that emotion, you should 100 percent embrace doing those things because you can only get away with this for the very small time, and it's totally appropriate and totally awesome.

**Shaan Puri** (1:47)
It's like pooping your pants. You can only do it for so long.

**Sam Parr** (1:51)
Then you can do it later in life. But this type of stuff, 100 percent is awesome.

**Shaan Puri** (1:57)
By the way, a bunch of people have written letters, but just inviting to the high school graduation was so endearing, I just thought, I was like, oh, that's so wonderful. Diego was like, so we're going to go? I was like, no, hell no, we're definitely not going. But I will play him the song and give him the clap. This is great.
Okay, I want to tell you about this business story that, to me, this is a Billy of the Week. So this is a billionaire family that I found really fascinating. I've been into these like family dynasties. Last week, I think we were talking about Cargill. And this one is-

**Sam Parr** (2:31)
Wait, can I, I want to try and guess these. I like trying to guess.

**Shaan Puri** (2:34)
Let me give you a couple of clues so you know which direction you're going. The richest man in Italy.

**Sam Parr** (2:41)
Sunglasses or chocolate?

**Shaan Puri** (2:44)
Chocolate.

**Sam Parr** (2:45)
Okay. Do you know who it is? Yeah, Roche, Roche, is it called Roche something?
Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (2:55)
So, okay, well, you got that pretty quick.
It's a lot less fun when you just know the answer, huh? If I was a teacher, I would just be like, well, fine, teach yourself then. Well, that was nice. Dude, this family story is amazing. So I love, for Roche, the chocolate. I don't know if you've, like, if you're a fan. Do we have one? Oh, here. So for those who don't know, I have some here. Got this from the grocery store this morning because I was so inspired by these guys. I was like, I'm going to go support their small business.

**Sam Parr** (3:26)
Yeah, he bought local.

**Shaan Puri** (3:27)
He's worth $32 billion.
So these chocolates are kind of amazing. The packaging is amazing. If you've ever had one of these, you really feel like you're eating something special. And I got to be kind of interested in like, what's the backstory of this? Turns out this family invented Nutella. They invented Tic Tacs. They invented like a whole bunch of Kinder, the Kinder bars and Kinder eggs. They invented like several of these like really big things. And now they own a whole bunch of other businesses. So I want to tell you the story of this, the company that it's one of the most secretive family owned businesses in the world. They do like $20 billion a year in revenue. The founder, the main guy, the heir, he runs the company and is the richest man in Italy.
And the way they did it, it's really fascinating. So back in the day, this was post, right after World War II, Italy, which was like, not in great shape post World War II, it was trying to kind of bounce back. And so this guy, the grandfather of this guy, he decides, I'm going to start making chocolate. Chocolate was really expensive. It was like this luxury item. It wasn't like a little common thing you found at every store. Not everybody was eating it. And so he starts, he had the form factor wrong. He was trying to make a bar, like a spread. So it's like butter. It would be like this kind of hard chocolate, like butter stick essentially. And his idea was like, people will put this on toast and you'll have like a chocolatey toast.