What does it take to turn a bold idea into a billion-dollar brand? Julie Wainwright, founder of The RealReal, joins us to share how she did just that—after enduring some pretty public failures (hello, Pets.com). She talks about navigating the startup world, tackling ageism head-on, and why your past doesn’t define your future.
Julie’s story is packed with wisdom on risk-taking, confidence, and what it really means to build something new when everyone else is telling you no. From the boardroom to the resale boutique, she takes us through the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship—plus a few secrets on why luxury goods are more than just a pretty label.
Also in the basement:
- We unpack Jason Zweig’s latest Wall Street Journal column on diversification and why it still matters (yes, even in this market).
- OG learns a Father’s Day lesson on the golf course (spoiler: not all swings are created equal).
- Doug manages to work in Margot Robbie. Again.
Whether you’re plotting your own business empire or just wondering how someone not only recovers from flaming sock puppet-level failure, but who THRIVES afterward, this episode delivers honest insight with a side of style.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Wednesday Mentor: Julie Wainwright
Big thanks to Julie Wainwright for joining us today. Grab yourself a copy of the book Time to Get Real: How I Built a Billion-Dollar Business That Rocked the Fashion Industry
Our Headline
- Yes, You Have Too Much Money in That One Hot Stock (Wall Street Journal)
Doug’s Trivia
- What company is Richard Dickenson the CEO of now?
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Other Mentions
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Tune in on Friday when we’re talking about “starting a money revolution.”
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Is the 4% Rule In Play? (SB1702)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] bit: Hello there. Peabody here, and this is the way back machine. We’re traveling through time and this is my boy she [00:00:08] bit: speak [00:00:08] bit: Chairman. [00:00:08] bit: Hello. Good boy. [00:00:15] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. Gets the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:30] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor. Duggan, how do you take a good idea and turn it into a billion dollar business? We’ll tell you how, because we’ll ask today’s guest, the founder of the Real, real Julie Wainwright Plus in our headline. Do you have too much in that one stock? You sure do, and so does some people way smarter than you. [00:00:50] Doug: Although, I mean, I mean, don’t get me wrong, we still think you’re really, really smart and don’t worry, we’ll help you find a way out and don’t even ask. Yes, it’s already on the menu. You’re about to win a helping of my incredible trivia. And now two guys who believe your financial future is brighter than your phone screen at 2:00 AM. [00:01:09] Doug: Seriously, turn it off. It’s Joe and oh, Jojo, jojo G [00:01:16] Joe: Hey, their stackers. Super happy. You’re here with us today. Sit back and relax because you are in for some Wednesday goodness, or whatever day you happen to be listening, because if you’ve ever had an idea, you wanna make sure that that idea becomes much, much, much, much bigger than you ever imagined. [00:01:36] Joe: Well, as Doug so eloquently said, Julie Wainwright joining us today. Mr. Og, how are you? You’re joining us today, as usual. Yes, I am [00:01:46] OG: contractually obligated to join you today, but I wanna be here. I’m, I’m here ’cause I wanna be here. Also because of the contract. [00:01:53] Joe: Have you ever had one of those million dollar ideas where you’re like, man, I could’ve done that. [00:01:58] Joe: I’ve had [00:01:58] OG: so many soap on a rope, the internet adding guacamole. So [00:02:05] Joe: many ideas. So, so, so little time. Julie Wayne Wright is gonna talk about that and all the frustration she had, uh, all the roadblocks that are in her way and how she got through those. So a fantastic episode, if you like, kind of the how I built this stuff. [00:02:22] Joe: The Real, real, if you’re not familiar with the Real, real, it’s a, uh, luxury Goods consignment store. Not only did she found a fantastic business, she’s been featured in Forbes, CNBC, entrepreneur, fast Company, business of Faction. She’s been recognized on Forbes 50, over 50 lists alongside people like Shonda Rhimes. [00:02:41] Joe: Shonda Rhimes, by the way, that woman creates just shows and more shows and more shows. [00:02:47] aftershow: Mm-hmm. [00:02:47] Joe: Uh, she’s a disruptor in luxury tech and sustainability. She’s here coming down to mom’s basement. Sweet. Super excited that we get to talk to her. But to have great people like Julie, we need to keep on keeping on. [00:03:00] Joe: And that means we got a couple sponsors that make sure that you don’t pay a dime for our wonderful Wednesday mentors like Julie. So sit back here for a couple seconds. We’re gonna hear from them. And then we have Julie Wainwright [00:03:13] Doug: coming down to the basement. Listen to these, listen to them. Don’t fast forward, don’t take your finger off that fast forward button, [00:03:28] Joe: and we’re super happy to have her at the card table. Julie Wayne writes here, how are you? [00:03:32] Julie: Oh, I’m super. This is fun. This is a good Friday. Let’s do it. [00:03:37] Joe: It is. It is a fantastic day, although you’re letting people in on this because it’s Wednesday. Julie, you gotta remember, it’s Wednesday. It’s Wednesday, it’s [00:03:45] Julie: Wednesday. [00:03:46] Joe: Sorry. The miracle of podcasting. Yeah. Hey, how old were you when you created the RealReal? [00:03:51] Julie: Uh, well the press got it wrong. They said 53. I was 52. Oh, exactly. So much younger. I know. [00:04:00] Joe: I don’t wanna be dated like that. Come on. I know. But there’s this myth that it’s young people, people in their twenties that are creating companies. [00:04:07] Joe: Julie, and it’s funny because I see a bunch of entrepreneurs that are in their forties and fifties. Were you afraid, though, to start a company at 52 years old? [00:04:16] Julie: No, not at all. It was easier than anything before. You know, I think in technology I, well, I know for a fact in tech because the Real, real was a technology based company. [00:04:26] Julie: Sure. It’s very surprising for someone put biotech aside, ’cause older entrepreneurs do start biotech companies. But in the tech world and even the consumer tech world, I mean, you’re usually, you’re not over 30. So it was unusual when I met with people when I was pitching for money because most of the people I met with could have been like, if I had kids, could have been my son or almost my son, you know, it’s all men, almost. [00:04:53] Julie: My son, and they all wanted to talk about pets.com. And then I would have to do the math and realize they were probably in grade school when pets.com was happening. [00:05:02] Joe: Not even old enough to know what could have happened with pets.com. [00:05:05] Julie: Well, I mean, look, that was the beginning of the internet. Sure. It was one of the first after Amazon, one of the first e-commerce companies ever. [00:05:13] Julie: So they. It’s not something that was in their psyche, they were too young. [00:05:18] Joe: I wanna get into pets.com in a minute. And it’s funny because that was during my career. I remember getting fired in early 2000 by a client because I think, I think their returns, and this is back when I was a financial planner, their returns in their accounts across the board were only like 52%. [00:05:37] Joe: Oh my gosh. And they fired me because 52 was so, but you remember those days. I do. Those are pretty heady days. [00:05:43] Julie: And then they were minus 50 for a few weeks. [00:05:45] Joe: It was so funny. After they fired me in 2002, you know, the, the bottom of the bottom, I wanted to call them up and do the doctor. Phil, how’s that working for you? [00:05:54] Joe: Not being diversified, but let’s go back. Where did you grow up? [00:05:57] Julie: I grew up in. South Bend and then Mishawaka, Indiana. But before [00:06:02] Joe: that you were in Kalamazoo, right? [00:06:04] Julie: I was born in Kalamazoo. [00:06:06] Joe: I’m from Kalamazoo. Wow. From my parents. I don’t know how well you know Kalamazoo. My grandparents had a fruit farm on the west end of Long Lake. [00:06:14] Julie: We rented a house on Long Lake that, you know, if you read the book, when I opened the story of me walking off the dock, that was Long Lake. [00:06:22] Joe: That was Long Lake, yeah. So can you, can you tell that story because you’re three years old? [00:06:27] Julie: Well, first of all, I didn’t remember it. I was three years old. My dad told me this story. [00:06:32] Julie: So he used to work for Shakespeare, rod and Reel when he first got out of art school. ’cause they couldn’t get a job as an artist and he was running their pr. But he’d come home from work and he would get in somebody’s ski boat ’cause we didn’t have it. But he’d wear his suit. And go around the dude on a, he had trick ski, so he’d go around the lake doing stunts, you know, in a tie, in a tie and a shirt. [00:06:56] Julie: And, you know, he was probably rolled up, tied down, but, you know, barefoot with his pant legs. Well, but he was in a suit and he saw me walking off, literally walking off the dock. And my mother wasn’t around at that time. I was the only child I had every doll I ever owned. And he saw those dolls float away. [00:07:17] Julie: And by the time he got back to the dock, he was convinced I was drowned and dead. And he looked under and I had pulled myself up and was like, looking at him. So I don’t even know, you know, obviously I, I don’t remember it, but. You know, he basically wanted to say, look, you saved yourself at three. I think you’ve got everything you need inside of yourself and when if you have to save yourself again. [00:07:41] Julie: But what a story, huh? [00:07:43] Joe: Well, it’s a dramatic story, and it’s funny that your dad’s in a suit and tie. I mean, a guy who knows I. Marketing very well. Uh, you write that you came by marketing kind of honestly because of all the lessons you got training, right? Yeah. All the training ahead of time. You grew up riding motorcycles. [00:08:00] Joe: Your dad liked to ski with a suit and tie. It feels like to some degree, Julie, like taking risk was a part of your life. And yet when I talk to some entrepreneurs, they’re like, the reason I like being an entrepreneur is because I don’t really love risk. I wanna be in charge because I don’t wanna risk somebody else making the wrong call. [00:08:18] Julie: Oh, that’s a control issue, isn’t it? That’s all about control. That’s not a bad reason either. [00:08:23] Joe: Well, that’s what I was gonna ask is, which is it? Do you like risk? Is that why you, you’re an entrepreneur or is it because you don’t like risk? [00:08:30] Julie: I don’t know if that was it. Look, I do think at some point betting on yourself is easier than cleaning up somebody else’s mess. [00:08:37] Julie: How’s that? Um, especially if you have a good idea. But you know, we. Always viewed those things as having fun. You know, we had motorcycles. We had go-karts, we water skied. When we were at, we left Long Lake in Kalamazoo, but we’d go on fishing vacations. We were water skiing, snow skiing, and I mean, I didn’t even know how odd it was till I pulled up on my motorcycle. [00:09:00] Julie: It was a little one. They were like, because he liked dirt bikes, so we would race dirt bikes, but he also wanted them to be licensable. So it was like a one 20 Kawasaki, one 20. Where was most? I had [00:09:11] Joe: one of those. [00:09:12] Julie: You did? [00:09:13] Joe: I did. So [00:09:13] Julie: they’re fast. They’re fast and they’re easy. And for a kid, you know, they’re not hard to maneuver. [00:09:19] Julie: That was the other thing, not so he wanted something. But I remember pulling up at my girlfriend’s place, this is in Oceola, Indiana, about things. We went to high school together. Her dad had a funeral home. Their dad walked out and he said, I want you to tell your dad, these are my best customers. Come on these bikes. [00:09:40] Julie: So, you know, and then I’m like, that’s [00:09:41] Joe: not the happy thing that you initially think. Right? [00:09:44] Julie: Can you imagine? I’m like, well, all right. And then the other thing I thought was funny, my father in particular is very social. So we always took vacations with other families and there was one family in particular, ’cause they had a son my brother’s age, a daughter my sister’s age, and my parents loved him. [00:10:01] Julie: And no one for me or the youngest, but. They said their mom wouldn’t let them come over when my dad was just home because he was too crazy with the motorcycles and the, and so these kids grew up sort of afraid of everything and we grew up not afraid of those things. [00:10:17] Joe: As you’re talking, it just kinda reminds me of when I first learned to ride road bicycles and I had this friend that was teaching me like how to attack the hills and how to kind of stay outta the way of traffic. [00:10:28] Joe: And I asked this guy, Robert, I said, Robert, what if you get hit by a car? And he said it’s not if it’s when and what’s kind of horrible is a few years later he did get hit by a car. He was in the hospital for about a week. It was, it wasn’t great. But what strikes me is I feel like that about entrepreneurship as I read your words, like I think entrepreneurs are gonna get quote, hit by the car at some point. [00:10:51] Joe: It isn’t if, oh, it’s never, [00:10:52] Julie: it’s not. You know what if you’re doing something, I mean, when I was creating the real, real, I was creating something no one had ever seen before. Sure. And was clearly a threat to the existing luxury brands and still is. There were a lot of obstacles. There were also obstacles because it was a business to consumer business that was disrupting eBay. [00:11:12] Julie: And most of every, almost every venture capital firm has an ex eBay exec in there that thinks eBay doesn’t need to be unsettled or disrupted. And, you know, raising money as a female is hard. In fact, this woman said, you know, it’s really bad. I was. She asked questions, I was giving a lecture and she said, well look, it’s really hard. [00:11:33] Julie: Women get less than 2% capital. And she went on and on and on. And I’m like, and when I was raising money, we got 2.1%, it doesn’t matter. And I said, I also was 52 years old. I raise money every six months for the next 11 years and at least the first round I had pets.com, which was considered a big failure, hovering on my shoulder. [00:11:57] Julie: So I was a female with a big failure who was old. And if I can do it, you can do it if you have a good idea. Well, although it is hard right now ’cause. There haven’t been a lot of outcomes. So VCs are under a lot of pressure. [00:12:12] Joe: Yeah. Let’s go back to early in your career. You finish it Purdue and the Purdue story by itself is a, is is a whole, whole story that I’ll let people find out on their own. [00:12:23] Julie: Oh, come on. No, come on. We have to talk a little bit about it. No one talks about it. I dropped out and riveted Monte Carlo rear bumpers in a auto in a UAW plant. [00:12:33] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. You drop outta college and then you end up going back later. [00:12:37] Julie: Yeah. I missed a semester and luckily for me, the manager, the GM of the plant was the, I was gonna get married and the guy, it was his father, so I learned so much. [00:12:48] Julie: ’cause the plant was under, um, pretty innovative, um, well actually complete renewal. So they were reconfiguring everything with technology and it wasn’t going well. So I learned a lot about, I. Troubleshooting and problem solving on the spot. And yet, you know, they still, to ship those cars, they still to get those bumpers. [00:13:07] Julie: At that time this plant was only a bumper plant and then they were shipped off to a place that would go into assembly. [00:13:14] Joe: Yeah, I would imagine a lot too, because a lot of the people I’m sure that you worked around didn’t have that process management experience like you had [00:13:22] Julie: which life no one on the line had it. [00:13:24] Julie: And then later on when I went back to Purdue, I had the next summer job I had was working at John Deere as a farm out buyer. So again, I was, you know, Midwest, you’re back in the manufacturing world and that was great. They’re great experiences and you know, you learn so much understanding process and, and how technology impacts process. [00:13:45] Julie: Even then because shop floor systems were evolving, technology was evolving, there was less. Accidents in the plants due to safety measures and new technology, even though it was so long ago, it was pretty incredible. [00:13:59] Joe: You have to have been though thrilled when you get the job outta college working for a big company like Clorox. [00:14:03] Julie: I was over the moon. Yeah. And I’ll tell you two reasons. One is my consumer psychology professor called and said, I’ve got this wonder kid here that you guys have to meet. And then, well, there’s three reasons. And then the, at the time the CEO had graduated from Purdue undergraduate, so he is like, oh, uh, Purdue Wonder Kid and consumer psychology. [00:14:27] Julie: So he wanted to meet me. And then secondly, they had hired one undergraduate and that guy’s name was Steve. And Steve was doing phenomenally well, um, because I was the second undergraduate they ever hired. So he was a big success and they didn’t have to pay him as much. As opposed to an MBA student. So if he wouldn’t have worked out, it wouldn’t have mattered that one call from the professor wouldn’t have mattered the forget [00:14:53] aftershow: it. [00:14:53] Julie: Right. So, luckily he did really well, which opened the door for a few more of us to come in. [00:14:59] Joe: But still, I feel like when I got to the part of your story where you leave Clorox, a lot of our stackers, you know, they’re in good jobs, jobs that they tolerate, but not that they love. And they might be thinking about entrepreneurship or thinking about the next thing. [00:15:14] Joe: It felt to me, reading your words, I wanna know what you felt when you decided to leave Clorox to go explore a much, much smaller company. It’s like going from this mothership that’s not gonna go anywhere to, you know, maybe this new company you go to works. Maybe it doesn’t. [00:15:31] Julie: Well, all right. It was the beginning of the personal computer software industry and I, I. [00:15:37] Julie: I didn’t know if I was joining a good company. And I mean, it was good for, oh, I had a good run and it was really well run. But I did know that going into an experience when I really thought that was the future personal computer software, I had never used. I, that’s not true. At Purdue, you had to learn how to program. [00:15:58] Julie: So I was down there with the punch cards, which just, it’s just, oh gosh. Just something you had to do. And then we worked on terminals too, you know, like I always called them dumb terminals, but when I graduated you had to take computer science and that meant writing code and down there and you didn’t wanna drop those damn cards. [00:16:17] Julie: Oh yeah. [00:16:18] Joe: Then you’ve got a programming mess. Yeah. [00:16:19] Julie: And then also the people that were down there all the time. Even back then didn’t shower a lot, you know, and I came down in my little skirts and high heels. It [00:16:28] Joe: smells like the computer department. [00:16:29] Julie: I just remember it being cold and dark down there. ’cause it really was in the basement at Purdue. [00:16:34] Julie: I even remember the building. So I had had experience and we were using, I. Terminals to access data at Clorox and running all kinds of analysis off of that. But it was crude. It was like a tertile analysis or a quintile analysis by market, looking at shelf movement data. So you know, we had to learn how to use data and run those, but that really wasn’t transforming things. [00:16:58] Julie: And then when this guy from the finance department smuggled in this Apple two computer and showed me how I could stop hand calculating p and ls and doing what ifs by hand and set up the program, I’m like, this is the future. So I get a call to join a company that was probably 4 million in revenue. But remember I was young, I was 25. [00:17:20] Julie: And here’s the thing I think is interesting. I remember this so well. I was making $50,000 a year at Clorox at 25, and I thought I’m making too much money for my age. And I didn’t see any women above me in brand management at all. ’cause when they got to a certain level, they went into hr. [00:17:39] Joe: Julie, I’d just like to put this into context for everybody ’cause I did a little bit of the, you know, the rule of 72, that’s like today making around $300,000. [00:17:49] Julie: Oh, it felt like a lot. It was a lot of money. Yeah. But I thought I could get used to this money and I’m 25 and I don’t wanna be the people I see above me. And then a personal computer technology company interviews me and offers me a job. And I’m like, this is, I don’t know, but they could pay me 20 5K. So, and I thought, I don’t know what this is going to do, but I know this is the future and I wanna be part of it. [00:18:19] Julie: There was no way to evaluate if that company was gonna win, because at that time there were three or four personal computer software companies. There just weren’t that many. It was an opportunity of a lifetime to join the personal computer software industry. [00:18:34] Joe: Just what a huge move for your entire career. [00:18:36] Joe: And to have that kind of, I don’t know, to have the resilience to be able to jump off and make that. But don’t you think [00:18:44] Julie: that’s youth? That is youth. That’s where you think you’re invincible. And if you mess up, you can always figure it out later. [00:18:50] Joe: Yeah. But you did it again at 52 though. Well, [00:18:52] Julie: I didn’t have any choice ’cause no one was gonna hire me. [00:18:56] Julie: I was on a path of figure out, start my own company, or look I’m, this is a perfectly honorable thing. I’m gonna say my, my plan B, which to me was bad. And I’ll tell you why. It had more emotional negativity. My plan B was go to Arizona, become a real estate agent, and Dodges rattlesnakes. And I actually love parts of Arizona, but I hate the heat. [00:19:22] Julie: You know that intense heat and they have snakes and I really hate snakes. [00:19:26] Joe: Arizona, send your hate mail to Julie. Not to me. [00:19:29] Julie: No. No. I love Sedona. I think it’s a beautiful state. I love Sedona. I love the gorgeous, but it’s beautiful. Tucson, it’s one of my favorite. It’s beautiful. But I didn’t want to be in Phoenix selling real estate and then going for hikes where you run into rattlesnakes. [00:19:43] Julie: I just thought, this is my future. It was either make this company work or you know, it wasn’t gonna be good. And I gave myself a couple years, so my back was against the wall the second time. [00:19:56] Joe: I like this idea mentally of leveraging yourself by saying, it’s gonna suck if I don’t do this. You know, if I don’t do this, my life is gonna be hell. [00:20:03] Joe: So you, you’re talking yourself into it. I feel. [00:20:06] Julie: Yes, I was, but it was also, you know, at 52, you’ve got less years in front of you than you, you know? And. I don’t know. I just felt like it was time and I also took stock. I knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted to get into e-commerce. I knew I could do it better than anyone, you know, maybe not Jeff Bezos, but I knew I would do a great job and I just had to come up with an idea. [00:20:31] Julie: So I would say it was a calculated risk that paid off, but the downside was not good. I mean, the downside for me was not good. [00:20:41] Joe: Yeah. You were at Berkeley Systems. [00:20:43] Julie: I was the CEO. I was promoted to the CEO there. [00:20:47] Joe: So were you the person that said, let’s make, you don’t know Jack? One of my favorite games of all time. [00:20:52] Joe: God, [00:20:52] Julie: that was so much fun. I would say that was a combination of me first getting them focused because they were trying to do too much in too many categories. So working with the founder, whose name is Wes Boyd, to get the development team focused because when I walked in they were doing still screensavers and they were doing edutainment and they were doing this, but their real core strength was entertainment. [00:21:17] Julie: So pairing down. Getting them focused on one category and then opening our minds up to, there are many ways to get this type of product built. And this young guy and Broderbund had done this, um, way back when they had an affiliate program and we were talking about a hybrid program. What if someone came to us with a great game idea? [00:21:38] Julie: We combined that great game idea with great technology, marketing and distribution. So another company came to us with the game, it was called Jellyvision, but they had it in a hyper stack. It seemed fresh and alive, and it felt like something we could get behind. I knew I could market it. So I, I would say my role there was keeping the company financially solvent, keeping them focused, and then. [00:22:02] Julie: I do take responsibility for launching that superbly, even though I was the CEO and really making it a huge hit. But tech is a collaborative world. If the founder, who was incredibly talented as an engineer and had a lot of foresight, if he would’ve said, no, I hate this, we wouldn’t have done it. You have to respect people’s point of view and their talent. [00:22:25] Julie: So he was really talented and he was also the founder of the company. I was really the gun to hire to make sure that we could pay the bills and keep it going. [00:22:33] Joe: But for you guys to recognize just how different that game was, how the, the writing was so fresh, the, uh, so much [00:22:39] Julie: fun. [00:22:39] Joe: Hilarious Cookie Masterson, my goodness, that’s a character that I. [00:22:43] Joe: Just, you know, you feel like he’s your best buddy ’cause he’s so quirky and weird. But [00:22:47] Julie: it wasn’t, wait, I did, this is really a good lesson. You know, it wasn’t graphic intensive, right? It was audio good. Yeah, it was audio intensive and it was a little smarmy. A little smarmy, [00:22:58] Joe: a little [00:22:59] Julie: all right. A lot. But it was also fresh. [00:23:02] Julie: And so I kept thinking, how am I gonna get this sold? How am I gonna introduce this game? Because you’re not running television advertising. And we had brick and mortar distribution. Then there was a big chain, an important chain called Comp USA. And I went to them and I said, what I’d like to do, if you’ll let me do it, is set up in your key cities. [00:23:26] Julie: A demo. We had this really fun demo that would run with speakers on a pile of games where the game is basically the announcer. It was an announcer driven game, which invited you to, you know, take and so bought speakers and then turned that off and got every, all the gamers that came in to play the game. [00:23:50] Julie: People were laughing through all this excitement and that was solving a problem because no one had seen a game like that at that time. It won game of the year. At that time you had a press discs. We were also, we had restructured the company. We didn’t have a lot of cash, so we got a hundred thousand out, sold out before Christmas and it just went and went and went and became a, I think, I don’t know, about 30 or $40 million game overnight. [00:24:16] Julie: But you know, you have to, whenever you introduce a new concept, you’ve gotta figure out. How do you change people’s perceptions? No one would see a game like this and it wouldn’t translate. At that time people were reading reviews of games. [00:24:30] Joe: Yeah. Right. And this [00:24:30] Julie: would not translate because it was something people hadn’t seen before. [00:24:34] Joe: Yeah. You’re doing a trivia thing where instead it’s this quirky, to your point, smarmy, you feel like you’re a game show contestant, and it’s the weirdness that hits you no matter how the, the noise it makes when you press the button for people haven’t played, you don’t know Jack. You gotta go. You gotta go find that. [00:24:51] Joe: Well, let’s get to you. Go from there. What [email protected]? You know, for our younger stackers, you describe pets.com is chewy but better. And you said you might be biased, but you were doing what Chewy does then, but even better. But what [email protected]? [00:25:06] Julie: Well, all right. When pets.com got funded, it was funded by a company called UM Hummer. [00:25:11] Julie: We blat a venture capital group and Amazon. All right. Those were the two big funders and other people came in. When we made the announcement of getting funded, the thinking was, well if Amazon’s behind this, ’cause they had also put money in another company called drugstore.com, which went belly up. But if Amazon is behind it, along with a, you know, reputable VC firm, no other pets companies are gonna get funded. [00:25:36] Julie: Well, seven more got funded after that. So that’s number one that just shows you how frothy the market was. Then we just ran like hell to execute raised, I’m gonna say a hundred million dollars and went public early. You could argue too early, but we were the last company to go public and the reason we were the last company to go public is Amazon in 1999 had lost almost a billion dollars in Q4 and they announced their earnings, which shocked the financial world in Q1 when we were on the road show. [00:26:14] Julie: And all of a sudden our financing meetings started evaporating. The bankers would tell you, uh, tell us and told me no one’s gonna buy that you’ll ever get to profitability if Amazon is getting bigger. But losing this amount of money every single quarter, it literally wiped out every company, no business to consumer company could get fine. [00:26:39] Julie: It was the beginning of the collapse. So you couldn’t even get a meeting? No, no. We got meetings, we got out, but it wasn’t with enthusiasm. You know, we got out, we were not oversubscribed, so we got out, we did raise money. The financial strategy at the time was, um, go public if you can, and then do a secondary follow on. [00:26:59] Julie: Within nine months, that wasn’t gonna happen for the company. So I cut costs, right? We raise all this money, I go back, I cut costs, I have layoffs, and we try to figure out how we can. Get to profitability faster, which you can’t because these businesses are businesses of scale. And at that point you had to build every piece of software. [00:27:21] Julie: We had our own ops centers and then I ended up shutting the company down and giving money back to shareholders. Even though we had a net positive worth, we didn’t take it to bankruptcy, which by the way was a mistake. Big mistake. And the reason I did shut it down was I didn’t think we were gonna get out of this financing drought, but I could have been wrong. [00:27:44] Julie: Turns out I was right, but it was, I could have been wrong. And there were other companies going through that financing drought. One of ’em that’s pretty famous right now called Netflix. [00:27:53] Joe: Never heard of it. No idea. What is that company? [00:27:56] Julie: So it was just, you know, it was in it too. But they navigated through it. [00:28:00] Julie: They had had a, a few more years behind them ’cause they started. When real.com was going, real.com was the other company I ran at came in as the CEO, not the founder. And that sites, uh, sold movies, didn’t rent sold movies when people bought movies and DVDs or cassettes before that. And that sold to Hollywood Video with, with their antenna shutting, slowing down the internet, which is pretty funny. [00:28:26] Julie: So anyways, he navigated, you know, the question is, could I have navigated the brand and done, you know, I don’t know. I didn’t try, I was trying to be so fiscally responsible that I’m not sure that was the right decision. Now, my current investors would not have supported. Us going forward. So they weren’t up for more money. [00:28:47] Julie: They were seeing other companies go through some pretty bad times. But yes. So I had to shut pets. I chose to shut pets down. Not sure it was the right decision right after that web van shut down, which lost a billion, like 1.1 or 1.2. Right. Lost [00:29:02] Joe: a ton more money than pets.com lost. I [00:29:04] Julie: know. But you know, that was also the precursor to DoorDash or Instacart. [00:29:10] Julie: So there was all these building blocks being laid, the foundation was being laid. And if, but you need for those businesses to succeed, you need capital. Just like, you know. And Amazon went through a hard time where after 1999 where it could have fallen, but they, you know, they thread the needle. [00:29:28] Joe: One of my favorite lines comes from this period of heartbreak that you have. [00:29:33] Joe: In fact, you write that your husband left the day you were shutting the company down. Talk about a gut punch, but one of my favorite lines, Julie, is this line. I let it define me until I didn’t. What does that mean? [00:29:47] Julie: Exactly what it says? I took on this cloak of failure until I realized it wasn’t my cloak. [00:29:57] Julie: It was public perception. It wasn’t mine to wear. And so I lived in this state where I was beating myself up, second guessing myself, considering what I would do next, how I’d navigate. I mean, I had, it wasn’t just shutting the company down, people. I had weird things happen at my house. I had odd things happening at social events that were really horrific to me personally, but they were all about me. [00:30:24] Julie: Running pets.com. At some point you just say, F you, this is my life. I need to stop this and stop wearing other people’s expectations. ’cause I am losing my life and I need to move forward. So yes, that’s what that means. And once I got there, it was no going back. I mean, it was like, okay, we’re done with that. [00:30:47] Julie: We’re done. [00:30:49] Joe: Well look at now because I, you know, I talk to people about the fact that I’m gonna be talking to you and you’re known as the queen of the Real, real. And pets.com is way back there. And the real, real is this cool thing, this, the whole genre defining thing that you created, which is incredible. [00:31:06] Joe: Let’s talk about the Real, real, which is really, there’s, so we, we could talk for 15 hours about the Real, real, and so many business lessons, but, you know, stereotypical consignment store, right? Smelly, dark, like, uh, sketchy. I love You. Talk about walking into a pawn shop that supposedly deals in luxury goods and Oh, and it just felt so slimy. [00:31:29] Julie: It was so gross. Even bringing that up, it’s like, I relive it. It was so and demeaning, you know, just like, oh, this Cartier watch is outta style. And it was like five years old. Yes. [00:31:41] Joe: But how do you redefine that genre with the real, real, like you did. [00:31:45] Julie: Look, it was calculated and I would say there’s multiple things. [00:31:48] Julie: We had to change people’s perception of wearing pre-owned things. And my point of view on doing that was don’t break the romance of the brand. These brands are beautiful. They need to be shown even as a secondary market in their beauty, not on the back of a closet door. So you need to show that they’re relevant and showing them relevant means, showing that they’re still cool, they’re beautiful, putting them on models that are out mixing previously owned with new. [00:32:18] Julie: So putting out in front of people this idea that it doesn’t matter if it’s pre-owned because it’s still beautiful, it’s high integrity, high quality. And that was done visually and, and we did do home parties too at the beginning, but it really comes down to visually changing the way. The product is shown both on the site, but also doing editorial to focus on that. [00:32:41] Julie: That was intentional. We had to change perceptions. You know, you think about if you’re going to get anything evaluated for, let’s just talk about the jewelry or fine watches. You don’t want, you want to know what you want transparency. You want a beautiful environment. You don’t want pressure to consign. [00:33:01] Julie: So putting a gemologist front and center that evaluates things in front of you in a beautiful office and then gives you a written document says, will stick with this for six months. Not maybe the price will go down tomorrow, which is what? And that’s honoring, in that case, you’re also honoring the consignor and the fact that parting with jewelry can be, sometimes it’s a bigger decision than maybe a dress in most cases. [00:33:29] Julie: And there are also beautiful items. So it should be in a beautiful place. So I would say just. Thinking about it, not as a secondary market, but as a consumer experience and changing perceptions. And I knew it. I knew it had to happen, and I knew what it wanted to feel like, and certainly everything I did. [00:33:48] Julie: Testing out the competition reinforced it would, I hate to say it would be so easy to compete with these people because they weren’t people that engendered confidence. [00:33:59] Joe: Well, and by showing it in a confident light, I mean a luxury good. You need to be the confidence is the good. The fact that I have a real Rolex and not I want to cheap knockoff Rolex is all about confidence. [00:34:10] Joe: I feel like, to retain the value of what you’re selling, that’s what you had to do as an entrepreneur, [00:34:15] Julie: right? Absolutely. I always say don’t break the romance of the brand and respect both the product, which is what you just said, and also the person selling it and the person buying it. These are considered purchases, but you know, it came down to changing perceptions overall. [00:34:32] Julie: I think the Rolex is a good example. I the men’s watch market for a long time has had a very vibrant. Secondary market, and they had Sotheby’s or Christie’s, the big auction houses, glamorizing that and glorifying it. So there was something to be learned there too. You know, when you affiliate with Sotheby’s and you buy a Philippe Petite or a Rolex, or you buy Steve McQueen watch, it has a history. [00:34:55] Julie: It’s beautiful, it has integrity. So bringing that into more of a mass market without losing the allure and the prestige, that was the goal. And we did pretty well. [00:35:08] Joe: I think pretty well. Julie’s an understatement, but let’s end with one last question. A lot of people think that being an entrepreneur is this solo thing, right? [00:35:16] Joe: And yet, in your book, you talk a lot about the people that you’ve to surround yourself with, making sure you’ve got the right who’s, but also partnerships we’re really important in your success. But partnering and trying to partner with some of these big department stores, some of these big brands, and you mentioned Sotheby’s. [00:35:34] Joe: Talk to me about the strategy of partnering and how that factored into the RealReal success. [00:35:41] Julie: Early on, we did a deal with Sak and with Neiman Marcus. I mean ended because Chanel put demands on us through them that it ended fairly quickly. Why is [00:35:50] Joe: Chanel so intimidated by you? [00:35:52] Julie: Well, you’d have to, I think it’s all in the court documents. [00:35:57] Julie: How about that? We’ll just say that it’s all in the court documents. [00:36:00] Joe: Fair enough. [00:36:01] Julie: They do not like a secondary market. Story, but having that initial relationship for nine months and the exposure did benefit the company because we were only about a hundred million Then. It helped people understand what we were doing. [00:36:18] Julie: And it also didn’t hurt Neiman’s or sex because people would then, it would sort of like an open to buy. They’d sell their things in the closet. They’d go, oh, I have a lot more money than I thought. Now I’m gonna buy something new. So it was reinforcing this circularity of what happens when people shop and the fact that if you buy things that are, have good quality, they do have a resale value. [00:36:41] Julie: It worked for them. It worked for us. And then, yes, it was an important relationship at the beginning. It ended prematurely, but it still benefited the company. [00:36:49] Joe: But did you go hunting for those? Like, was that, I’m imagining a whiteboard and you’re, you go, okay, we gotta go after Neiman Marcus. [00:36:55] Julie: No, there aren’t that many. [00:36:55] Julie: No, there aren’t. Well there, I mean, you know, now there’s less. But there was Barney’s, Neimans, and Sachs really sure that had that kind of luxury. Barney said they could do it themselves. And of course they couldn’t. Neiman’s was the one that was like, oh, well this is worth trying sex put, stuck their toe in the water. [00:37:13] Julie: Did [00:37:13] Joe: you call them [00:37:14] Julie: initially [00:37:14] Joe: though, Julie? [00:37:14] Julie: Oh, of course, of course. Yeah. Uh, knocking on doors. And then when we got to 500 million, I went overseas and started meeting with Karen, which has, you know, Gucci and San Laurent and then LVMH, which is Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior and Celine, et cetera, and trying to get a partnership going there. [00:37:32] Julie: And the only one that worked was Stella McCartney. But it was great. That was a great one. I, I think it’s still going on with the company. That was a great partnership. And she understands sustainability in fashion. She under, that’s her whole brand and she understands the circular economy and she likes shopping secondhand. [00:37:53] Julie: So when they said yes, I. Still a luxury brand saying yes, they wanted to work with us to promote the circular economy. It really helped elevate our company and put a couple of shock waves through the industry. [00:38:07] Joe: So much more here. Stackers hiring, when to fire people, looking at finding investors, so, so much more. [00:38:15] Joe: Julie’s book is called Time to Get Real, how I Built a Billion Dollar Business that rocked the fashion industry and it certainly did the fight with Chanel. Just man. Just, just one of those, one of those stories and it’s available everywhere. Julie? [00:38:28] Julie: Yes, I’m excited about it. Amazon just voted it as one of the best business and leadership books of the year. [00:38:34] Joe: It is a rollercoaster ride stackers. Julie, thanks so much for mentoring our stackers today. I super appreciate you and appreciate the work that you did here. [00:38:43] Julie: Oh, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. [00:38:49] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and I can’t stay long. It’s Margot Robbie’s birthday, and I’ve promised to pick her up and take her to dinner. Well, kind of, I mean, I called her publicist, and by that I mean the receptionist. But good news. The fourth time I called and pretended to be her brother, they put me through to her assistant. [00:39:08] Doug: When she said Margot’s booked, I totally flipped out. I mean, booking her was that easy. So it appears Margot is coming to Texarkana to have dinner with me. Margot, of course, lit up the screen last year as the face of Barbie, A woman who’s had some serious makeovers over the year and now is a hot property. [00:39:27] Doug: Much of this is due to the man who was president and COO of Mattel, Richard Dickinson. Richard has now gone on to run another company this time in fashion that used to dominate mall sales in the eighties and nineties, but has faded lately. What company is Richard Dickinson, CEO of Now? I’ll be back right after I figure out what Margot Robbie’s favorite band is. [00:39:49] Doug: I’m gonna see if they’ll come and play for us. Margo’s gonna love it. [00:40:03] Doug: Hey there stackers. I’m music lover and guy who didn’t know how much bands charge. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. So it turns out Beyonce charges way more than mom would loan me. So I guess we’re gonna hit up the local dive bar. Fat Jacks after dinner at the Sizzler. Marco will still love that, don’t you think? [00:40:19] Doug: In honor of Margot Robbie’s birthday. Here was today’s Barbie related trivia question. The President and COO of Mattel during Barbie’s resurgence was Richard Dickinson also of more cowbell fame, right? Who? Same guy, isn’t it? The [00:40:34] Joe: Richard Dickinson? Yes. I’m sure he walked into the new company and said, yes. [00:40:39] Joe: The Richard Dickinson. [00:40:40] Doug: Yes. He is now at the helm of one of America’s biggest fast fashion companies, a collection of brands that used to rock mall and strip mall sales. They’re still around, but not nearly as hot as they used to be. What brand has Dickinson been trying to revive? If you said Gap, which includes other brands like Old Navy and Banana Republic, you’d be correct. [00:41:02] Doug: Nice work. I’ll tell Margot how smart you are when she gets here. And now back to two guys who could be models for Ken and Ken’s nerdy banker friend Joe and Oog. I think I’d be Ken. I let you two sort it out. [00:41:18] Joe: Fight, fight, fight, fight. A great piece. A few months ago in, uh, fast Company Magazine, by the way, about Dickinson. [00:41:24] Joe: The piece writes, turning around Barbie was hard, but the issue with Barbie was. She was a lightning rod. People either loved her or they hated her. She’s like, either what woman stood for or not, what woman stood for. I remember when Autumn was playing with Barbie, Cheryl’s sister wouldn’t let her daughter play with Barbie. [00:41:43] Joe: She’s like, I don’t want any Barbie in my house. And now of course, Cheryl’s sister was the first one line for the Barbie movie starring Margot Roby and is like all about Barbie, Barbie’s. Fantastic. Dickinson and Company. There’s a great piece there. And they said the problem with the gap is different because where Barbie was still a lightning rod, people just don’t give a shit the gap anymore. [00:42:04] Joe: They, they’re just like, yeah, old Navy. It’s where I go pick up, uh, school clothes for my kid. You know, the interesting thing was I went and looked this up the last five quarters in a row, same store sales for locations open at least one year have increased five quarters in a row. So Dickinson now finding a way to turn that around, although the piece that I was reading is about how. [00:42:28] Joe: Tariffs for Gap along with a lot of retailers are problematic. But, but going back to this, OG companies find a way, right? I mean this whole piece that I’m reading about Gap in the tariffs, Richard Dickinson and everybody else going, Hey, how do we make sure that we keep this, [00:42:44] OG: all they’re doing is trying to solve that problem. [00:42:46] OG: Yeah. [00:42:46] Joe: So owning, owning the stock in the company, and we’re not saying own stock and gap, we’re saying owning stock in the companies is the way to go. Alright, let’s do a headline. [00:42:56] headlines: Hello doling. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:43:03] Joe: Our headline today comes to us from the Jason’s week. [00:43:08] Joe: We should keep track OG of which writer gets the headline spot the most. But Jason I think might be fighting for it because Jason, voice of intelligence over at the Wall Street Journal, Jason says, even sophisticated institutions sometimes fall into the trap of putting it on healthy number of investing eggs. [00:43:27] Joe: In one basket. Jason begins this piece by saying, if you need to ask whether you have too much money in that one investment, the answer [00:43:36] OG: is probably yes, [00:43:37] Joe: is yes. Just if does, do I have too much? Yes, you. Yes, you have too much. Even after the latest bout of tariff turmoil, stocks are mostly recovered their April losses at the time that we recorded this, by the way, which is a little bit early, so things might have changed in the last few days. [00:43:53] Joe: So readers, friends, and family are asking me questions like, is it a bad idea to have 85% of my portfolio in Nvidia? Should I own some stocks other than Apple? If Bitcoin’s, 90% of my assets, should I scale back for something like 99.95% of people? The answer’s yes. This is interesting OG because he goes on to talk about how Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have repeatedly said the diversification’s, the win. [00:44:19] Joe: You look at Berkshire Hathaway’s assets, the company that they managed for years and years and years together, it’s a diversified collection of companies. Like they, they practice diversification as a way to make more money or at least avoid huge, huge, huge losses all at one time. [00:44:37] OG: Is it that diversified though? [00:44:39] OG: I don’t know. [00:44:39] Joe: Insurance companies, dairy Queen, Coca-Cola, uh, real estate brokerage firms? I think it’s, it’s kind of all over the place. [00:44:48] OG: Yeah. I think his advice around diversification is a really great way not to get poor. If you look at the largest wealth creation. From stock ownership, it’s not from being diversified. [00:45:02] OG: And this is the thing that I think that’s really difficult for most people to have this juxtaposed thinking. If you look at Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Larry Ellison or any of these people, they made all of their money by being super concentrated. But those are like lightning in a bottle. Like that’s the stuff that you see that is the one out of X thousand, a hundred thousand million that were successful, right? [00:45:31] OG: So you see that one success story. You don’t see the other ones that weren’t successful. But there’s a case to be made for leaning into the thing that you’re really good at. And if you’re, for example, an entrepreneur, most of my, just personally, most of my net worth is in the value of the businesses that we have. [00:45:50] OG: It’s not in, I mean, I have ETFs and I have my 401k and I have stuff like that, but the vast majority of my net worth is in the businesses. It’s very concentrated, but I’m also operating those businesses, if that makes sense. So I’m not a passive investor in that. Sure. [00:46:05] Joe: Zweig actually talks about this even in a broader context, og. [00:46:09] Joe: He says, few stocks have performed better in recent years than Nvidia. Consider what’s happening at the Jen ung and Lori Wang Foundation, created by NVIDIA’s founder and CEO Jensen Wang and his wife as of December 31st, 2019. Its assets consisted of 378 million in Nvidia stock. Lemme go back to that. [00:46:30] Joe: December 31st, 2019. 2019, it was $378 million. [00:46:37] OG: Pretty good foundation over [00:46:38] Joe: the four years after that, right? Nvidia goes on a tear. 378 million to $3.4 billion. Yeah. Even after they’ve donated over 170 million in grants according to their tax filings. [00:46:56] OG: Yeah. [00:46:56] Joe: Nvidia did 745% over that period. [00:46:59] OG: So I think that if you’re in a position that you’re starting to accumulate wealth, so you’re coming outta school, you’ve got your first job, you’re starting your retirement plan, and you are putting money in your 401k, should you put it all in one stock or should you be putting it all into, or should you be diversifying in a bunch of ETFs? [00:47:20] OG: I think you put in a bunch of ETFs. I think that you don’t have the expertise, time, energy, any of that stuff to pick winners. And also it’s impossible to do successfully long term if you’re in a position where, and this is where I think it gets confusing if you’re in a position where you get awarded stock. [00:47:41] OG: Or you’ve been in a position where your net worth has grown because of some one particular event. You own a business that’s done really well, you have stock options in a company that has taken off, and now you look at your balance sheet and you go, well, I’ve got this great balance sheet, but it’s highly concentrated in one thing. [00:48:02] OG: I think the hard part for an investor is to look at that and say the right thing is to diversify it, even if it’s gonna cost me some pretty substantial taxes to do that, because I can’t guarantee that that over performance is gonna continue in advance. You know, if you’re an investor or if you’re a employee of Nvidia, and I think I read an article that they’ve made. [00:48:21] OG: Some five figure number of people millionaires in their company. Oh my tens of thousands of people have turned into millionaires because of RSUs and stock grants. So using NVIDIA as an example or any other company for that matter, if you look at your balance sheet and you go, yeah, I’ve got my 401k, I’m put my 10% in a max HSA Roth IRA doing the thing, but my balance sheet is 90% company stock because I got lucky. [00:48:43] OG: I happened to join the company at the right time. I helped it be successful. You know, I did my part, my company has grown so substantially that now I’ve got this $5 million net worth with 4 million of a being in company stock or you know, I’ve got a million dollars net worth, 800,000 is my company. ’cause it just went public. [00:49:01] OG: The hard part is, and this is the difficult thing for an investor in that is like they see that recent bias, they see that recent history and go, why would I wanna sell this? I mean, it’s up tenfold in five years, man. Like. Come on. I don’t wanna sell it. Well, we see something else too that Jason points out OG on that same over performance does not continue into infinity. [00:49:21] OG: It just doesn’t happen. I love his, what does Jason say about it? I love his other [00:49:24] Joe: reason. I mean, the one is, I don’t wanna sell it ’cause it’s done so good. It’s done so great. It’s the good one. And then you wait too long. He said The other problem is we all think we have superior skills when most of us don’t. [00:49:38] Joe: And when you go on a good run with a company, you don’t credit enough of that to the company, hit a great phenomenal patch. You just happen to be at the same place at the, with the company. It’s making money. Like the fact that you stumbled into it. No, it’s, you’re a freaking genius. And you know what? [00:49:56] aftershow: Yeah. [00:49:57] Joe: I wanna just keep patting myself on the back instead of realizing that I might not be as skilled as I think I am. [00:50:04] OG: Huge market forces are in play in a lot of those things too that go beyond, you know, if you’re a tech worker, your coding capabilities, I mean, hell even Zuckerberg would point out the fact that he, his, his fortune in Facebook and the movie, if you watched it, would say that he kinda stole it. [00:50:21] OG: But his fortune happened to line up with how all of this worked. Malcolm Gladwell’s book about outliers, when he talks about how the timing of all of that worked, you know, in terms of he’s talking about birthdays and you know, that sort of interesting thing. It so happens that all of the tech founders were all kind of born around the same time. [00:50:39] OG: They were born at a time where when they came of age as they were transitioning into being a young adult supercomputers at the time, regular PCs were more able to be, you know, they were able to be in rich people’s houses. They were born at a time where. 10 years earlier, they would’ve aged out of that. [00:50:57] OG: They would’ve been in college when that stuff happened. It’s about your own life, and you guys are profoundly older than I am. So this is probably, you just really just kinda land a little more for you every time. I know that you guys went to school during time when there wasn’t a profound amount of internet or email. [00:51:13] OG: Think about the transition, the difference, even just in our, and I say you’re much older, but just in the little bit of age gap that you and I have, or the three of us have in terms of what normal was. I, I remember Lisa telling me about Bluetooth. She’s like, no, no, no. I, I read about this. She was in college. [00:51:29] OG: She goes, I read about this. She’s like, you’re gonna have your device. And I had like a palm pilot, you know, ’cause it was super cool back in the late nineties, early 2000. She’s like, no, no, no. You’ll be able to take this device and like, hold it next to the, the printer and it’ll print. And I go, come on. No. [00:51:44] OG: And she goes, no, no, no. I said, yeah, like wifi. She goes, no, it’s not wifi. It’s a different thing. It only works like low, like really close. And I’m like, that doesn’t make any, who would use that? Doesn’t make any sense at all. That sounds ridiculous. And now when your AirPods don’t work, you’re freaking out. [00:51:57] OG: Why is my phone not working? You’re like, oh, sorry, I Bluetooth off. It’s like a common thing, but move that generationally by five years and you don’t have that experience. And I see that with my kids too. So to your point, and to Jason’s point, I think you’re not as good as you think you are. Some of it is, hey, you got hired in 2016 to work at this company and didn’t graduate college in 2008 when there weren’t any jobs. [00:52:21] OG: ’cause the guy and gals who graduated in 2008 worked a different career path that wasn’t this, not through any fault of their own, that was just what was going on. [00:52:31] Joe: He goes on to talk about other foundations. He talks about the Lilly Foundation, you know, once they’re, once that bound, got big people who don’t know that bound is like Ozempic. [00:52:40] Joe: Mm-hmm. And, and so a Lilly Foundation, mostly Eli Lilly stock. But other charities and these charities, by the way, are filled with really smart people running them. Right? So Ford, gates, Kresge, they all took this concentrated position and they diversified them. Once they got to a certain point, go and listen. [00:53:00] Joe: We a great run. Gates is an example of Microsoft had a great run, but now our goal is to spread this wealth out. The vast [00:53:08] OG: majority of his net [00:53:09] Joe: worth is still Microsoft stock, majority of his, but the foundation. But the foundation, the foundation has been diversifying aggressively. Yeah. As he does very well, Jason Juxtaposes what’s going on with this, uh, W Foundation, which is Nvidia and another foundation, which is the Barbie Foundation, not the same Barbie we were talking about earlier. [00:53:33] Joe: It says B-A-R-B-E-Y, which is the founder of VF Corp. They make clothing and footwear. Over the 10 years ending December 31st, 2019, VF Corp generated a stellar 21.9 annualized return every year going up to almost 22% far outpacing the s and p 513.6. I mean, that’s a big, big, big third more money every year. [00:53:57] Joe: At that point, the investment portfolio of the JE Barbie eight FBO 10 acre foundation was almost completely VF shares. The assets were 3.3 billion with 3.1 billion in VF alone. So here’s what we got. We got 3.3 billion of which 3.1 billion is in one stock. This is in December of 2019 versus that Nvidia Foundation, which had $378 million at the same time. [00:54:27] aftershow: Mm-hmm. [00:54:28] Joe: Subsequently, VF stocks unraveled losing about 78% by the year end of 2023. And now the Barbie Foundation is tiny, comparatively, while the Nvidia Foundation is huge, and to your point, the the big aha here is. Lack of diversification just creates greater standard deviation. [00:54:50] Doug: I, I mean, for me, the big aha was that’s what you get for starting out, making barbecues like Australian barbecues. [00:54:55] Doug: Is that what they make? I think that was their origins shrimp. They put shrimp on the Barbie, right? [00:55:00] Joe: Oh boy. Oh, I, I knew there was something going on there. [00:55:02] Doug: I, I don’t know any other way to do that logic puzzle. [00:55:06] Joe: And then he goes back guys and talks about the winners always rotate too. He said it was back in March 27th, 2000. [00:55:14] Joe: You know what company surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable company back in March 27th, 2000. [00:55:21] OG: GE Cisco Systems. Oh, Cisco. Yeah, [00:55:23] Joe: yeah, yeah. Ge, Cisco. Everybody who says, no, no, no. Hold it forever. That single stock, it is possible to be in the stock for too long. Great piece. We will link to this on our show notes, Jason Swig with another home run, and of course, more goodness about all these financial planning topics at our newsletter. [00:55:42] Joe: The 2 0 1 stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 gets you there. That is always free, and you get an email delivered hot and fresh from us to you in your inbox every week. Alright, Doug onto the back porch. What’s happening on the community today, [00:55:57] Doug: my friend Joe, we’ve got a fast, fantastic, fast, fantastic, fast. [00:56:01] Doug: I’ll do it as fast as I can, but this one actually is worth savoring a little bit. It’s a great review from Jay Mez Phillips. Oh, thanks, Jay. Mez Phillips. Jay Mez says, enjoy the show, but disagree. On one point from the 5 28 episode. I have been listening to your podcast for many years now and enjoy every episode as a former CFP from a prior life. [00:56:21] Doug: I find your advice spot on. I have recommended your show to many of my family and friends, and I am pretty sure my wife is sick and tired of hearing me start sentences with, I heard this thing on Stacking Benjamins today. Jam. As I gotta tell you, she’s sick and tired of a lot of stuff you’re doing. I also enjoy the comic relief. [00:56:39] Doug: That means you, Doug, and yes, the trivia is very entertaining. However, I do take exception with your recent back porch where you said children should refer to adults as Mr. And Mrs. Oh, that was in a different part of [00:56:51] Joe: the show. And by the way, so many people talking about this, yes, lots of discovery. You know what’s funny? [00:56:57] Joe: We talk about the 4% rule accumulation, international investing, food waste, and everybody wants to talk about whether you should call adults by their first name [00:57:07] Doug: or not. So get this, he tells a great story about this. He says, when I met my now in-laws at 17 years of age in 1985, they demanded that I call them by their first names. [00:57:17] Doug: No one called them Mr. Or Mrs. And we were the same way with our daughter’s friends when they came, excuse me, when they were young, five years old. They all called us James and Allison, unless they were uncomfortable doing so. Respect is shown by how you act. Not how you address someone, Joe. You can call me James og. [00:57:36] Doug: You can call me Mr. Phillips. Did he really write that? No worry. He really wrote that. [00:57:45] Doug: He says, have fun and keep making podcasts. You’re helping and entertaining people. Two great things. [00:57:50] Joe: That’s fabulous. Thank you so much for that. And uh, thanks for the kind words. Uh, that’s fantastic. Way to end our Wednesday. Thank you for referring people, because you know, if you got people in your life that are taking out the 4% and they could take out at a million dollars, $15,000 a year more, [00:58:08] OG: they can take you on vacation. [00:58:10] Doug: Yeah, I was gonna say, you get a cut of that. Like if you’re the one to tell the share with them. I heard this thing on Stacking Benjamins. I think you should get a cut of the extra 0.7. I I [00:58:18] Joe: think there’s a case to be made. There ought to be a law. They’re on. You know what they say? All of them. Well, here’s what they don’t say. [00:58:27] Joe: Doug says, Doug gives us our to-do list at the end of every show. And this is no exception. Doug, what’s our big three things we need to remember and, uh, put on our to-do list? [00:58:36] Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from Julie Wayne Wright. The only way is through, so get moving on your idea and turn it into reality. [00:58:46] Doug: Second, that one stock. Yeah, you do own too much of it, but the big lesson, big thanks to OG for explaining that Margo’s assistant saying she’s booked that night might actually have a negative connotation. So maybe I should cancel the reservation or better. Oh, better yet. Hey ma, wanna go listen to some tunes at Fat Jacks with me? [00:59:11] Doug: Thanks to Julie Wayne Wright for joining us today. You’ll find her new book, time to Get Real, how I built a billion dollar business that rocked the fashion industry. Wherever books are sold, and because I like you, I’ll have my people include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. This show is the Property of SP podcast, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. [00:59:36] Doug: Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [00:59:58] Doug: This show is for entertainment purposes only before making any financial decisions. Speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [01:01:05] aftershow: We are a little ahead [01:01:07] OG: of recording and so we haven’t had Father’s Day yet. Do you guys, when you guys think about Father’s Day, do you think like, I want to spend time with all of my family and kids? Or do you think it’s Father’s Day? I shouldn’t have to spend, I feel [01:01:18] Doug: like there’s a right answer here, but are you leading us onto something? [01:01:22] OG: Which, which one of those, because I feel like on Mother’s Day, my wife’s like, look, it’s Mother’s Day. You spend time with the kids. And then on Father’s Day she’s like, Hey, it’s Father’s Day. You should spend time with the kids. And I’m like, wait a second, [01:01:33] Joe: what’s the double standard here? What is going on? [01:01:36] OG: Where do you guys drop in on this? I mean, it’s a little bit different ’cause your kids are older. You don’t see this often. Yeah. I wanna spend [01:01:41] Doug: time with my kids. [01:01:41] OG: Yeah, you wanna I absolutely do. I do too. Actually, [01:01:44] Doug: you have to say that They listen, [01:01:46] OG: they’re in the next room. We, uh, so the boys have gotten into golf a little bit and they’re not, you know, they’re working through it. [01:01:52] OG: They have some really good shots. They have some magically awful ones. They need to work on pace of play. Like they just do a lot of like practice swings and I’m like, just hit the ball, [01:02:01] Doug: Alex and William. It’ll be like that for the next 70 years. [01:02:04] OG: Well, not pace of play. If they play, I mean, I just go and hit like, I don’t, I. [01:02:08] OG: There’s no warmup. But anyway, so this past week we were playing, we played nine holes. About halfway through they’re getting frustrated with the fact that, you know, some shots are good, some shots are bad, and you know, I’m just kind of drumming my fingers. Like, what are we, what are we doing guys? Let’s go. [01:02:22] OG: Come on, quit. Quit arguing, hit the ball. And so I decided that they should play me for dish duty as a scramble. Ah, that’s a good idea. This was, uh, just reinvigorated their golf game. ’cause they were working together on a scramble against dad. I like it. So they scrambled and got a stroke. So there were four holes to play. [01:02:40] OG: They won the first one, we tied the second and then they won the third hole. There was no way for me to, to win. And I said, well, would you like to play double or nothing? [01:02:49] Doug: Oh no, don’t you just, you completely just gut punched him, didn’t you? [01:02:54] OG: Well, they were like, wait, what does that mean? And so I explained it. [01:02:57] OG: I said, well, it means that either I do twice as Monday dishes or if I win, or even Steven, there’s nobody wins or loses. That’s the bet. I said, you guys talk about it. I’m gonna the next tee box. So they were driving together in their cart and so we get up there and I said, what do you guys wanna do? They said, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s do this. [01:03:12] OG: We get both. We you, you’ll do dishes for us both twice. I go, yeah, if you win and you get a stroke, so you just have to beat me. You have to tie my score. First one tees off, it just shanks it, right? Like, okay, no problem. I got you brother. Next one tees off. It’s a little right. Then it’s my turn and the clouds parted. [01:03:30] OG: The winds start gusting from behind me and for the first time all day, I hit a golf ball dead straight on the screws. I. With a 500 mile an hour wind off, two sprinkler heads, a bird picked it up and carried it further. [01:03:47] Joe: It rolled down the cart path for [01:03:49] OG: it. Didn’t hit the cart path, it was dead straight. It took one big hop onto the green and I washed my kids melt as they’re like, [01:03:57] aftershow: no, [01:04:00] OG: I did three putt though, sadly for a par, and they made a six. [01:04:04] OG: So that was a valuable lesson that they learned, which was take your money and run when you’re up at the casino, take the win. You have to leave. If you got the Nvidia it’s way up, sell, sell your stock. So I’m gonna do that again this Father’s day, I think, and see if I can con outta some more money. [01:04:20] Doug: It reminds me of, uh, a time I was golfing, I was solo and I got paired up with three other people. [01:04:27] Doug: They all knew him, knew each other. It was Jesus, Moses and this other guy, apparently. Oh no. They all knew each other. Moses gets up and, I mean, he crushed the drive, but it went, of course we went a really tall grass like Heather, super tall. Mm-hmm. And he hits it into the tall grass, but he just raises his arms and the grass, just parts and the ball just, just rolled forever. [01:04:51] Doug: And he gets up pretty close to the green and, and Jesus is like, great shot Moses. I see what you did there. And then Jesus gets up and he crushes one at the water. But what’s the ball do when it gets to the water? It just like bounces right across like. It was solid surface. Just walked on water and Moses is like, oh, okay. [01:05:11] Doug: All right. Yep. That was pretty good. And then the third guy gets up and he really like, he shanks one super high into the right, into the trees that were right next to the tee box. But a bird picks it up, carries it all the way over, drops it pretty close, but it didn’t, didn’t roll to the cup. But then a squirrel comes along and just like nudges it in with his nose and it goes in the cup for a hole in one. [01:05:34] Doug: And Jesus goes, nice shot dad.
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