The World's Richest Fashion Billionaire, A New D2C Biz Idea, And Working With People You've Never Met

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
All right, let's do this. What topics you got today?

**Shaan Puri** (0:03)
I've got a Billy of the Week. A million dollars isn't cool, you know what's cool?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:12)
A billion dollars.

**Shaan Puri** (0:15)
All right, so I'm gonna tell you some facts about this Billy of the Week, and I want you to see if you can guess who this person is, all right?

**Sam Parr** (0:23)
Okay, I'm game.

**Shaan Puri** (0:24)
So Steve Jobs, so one time Steve Jobs approached him on advice about designing the Apple stores, and when they discussed each of their products, Steve said to this guy, I'm not sure if the iPhone is gonna be very popular in 20 years, but I'm certain that your products are definitely going to be popular. So that's one interesting thing about him.

**Sam Parr** (0:41)
Intriguing, okay.

**Shaan Puri** (0:42)
He's had multiple tennis matches with Roger Federer. He lives in 150 year old castle.
And last year, his company did 84 billion in revenue and 22 billion in operating profits. And this is my give it away. This year, his company was the fourth largest company in the world, and oftentimes he's number one on the richest person in the world.

**Sam Parr** (1:06)
The Louis Vuitton guy.

**Shaan Puri** (1:07)
The Louis Vuitton guy.

**Sam Parr** (1:17)
What's the name, René?

**Shaan Puri** (1:18)
I don't know how to say his name, because it's French. We're gonna call him Bernie, but it's Bernard Arnault. I don't know if the T is silent.
Sorry.

**Sam Parr** (1:29)
It's usually not a hard T, but we're gonna go with that.

**Shaan Puri** (1:34)
Yeah.
Is that a hard T, or is that a soft T? I don't know.

**Sam Parr** (1:38)
Bernie Arnie, you are the man. So Steve Jobs really went to this guy, huh?

**Shaan Puri** (1:43)
Dude, yeah, and a lot of people really respect this guy, so I'll give you a little bit about his background, but some facts about him. So he owns 46%, so the Louis Vuitton empire, it's called LVMH, so it's a multinational luxury goods conglomerate deal, market cap of 430 billion.
Oftentimes him, Elon and Bezos go back and forth, but he's kind of the odd man out, because he dresses really nice and he looks as someone who owns Louis Vuitton would look. He has this black turtleneck and a nice sports jacket, but he's been called, I believe it's the wolf in cashmere sweaters or something like that, because he's pretty ruthless, but he dresses nice. But yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about him. So at 21, it's kind of an interesting background.

**Sam Parr** (2:29)
They call you the Denim Fox, right?

**Shaan Puri** (2:30)
The Denim Fox, yeah. Yeah, I wish.

**Sam Parr** (2:35)
The Jorg juggernaut is what they call you.

**Shaan Puri** (2:38)
The dog in the Canadian tux, that's what I'm known for.
The Denim dog. So listen, at 21, Bernie joined his father's construction company after finishing his engineering degree. And by 25, he was the CEO of the company. The company wasn't small at all.
At the time, it was doing something like 10 million in revenue, which is the equivalent to 40 million now. And it had a thousand employees. But right when he joined, he said, let's expand. So he started investing the profits in some finance businesses and the real estate, things like that. Then in 1981, he goes to the US and he starts expanding the business.
And eventually he specializes in town homes, sells a bunch of them, makes the equivalent of $75 million now, which was 25 million back then. Or that's what he sold his company for. I don't know what he made from it. But there's an interesting thing that happens. So he's in the cab, he's in a taxi in New York, and he asked the taxi driver if he heard of the president of France. And the taxi driver was like, nope, never. But I know all about Christian Dior, who Dior is like a luxury brand.
And he started thinking, he's like, okay, so this guy who's like just a normal guy in New York doesn't know who the president of France is, but he knows all about Christian Dior, like maybe I should explore like luxury brands. And so he buys the holding company eventually of Dior. And it was like all like, he got inspired by that first taxi cab meeting. He raises a bunch of money, buys it, fires a ton of people, turns it around, sells like the other brands that Dior owns. And it's a really good success. And that's like his first big entry into luxury brands. Then in 1987, he gets the idea to buy Louis Vuitton. And he does the same thing where he raises a bunch of money and he buys it and he fires a bunch of people and definitely turns it around.