Pod Insights Masters in Business Lange & Sohne CEO Wilhelm Schmid's Take on the Watch Market and Luxury Timepiece Design About this episode Barry sits down with A. Lange & Sohne CEO Wilhelm Schmid at the Audrain Newport Concours & Motor Week for a special edition of Masters in Business. Barry and Wilhelm compare watch and car design. They also discuss A. Lange & Sohne's philosophy on watchmaking. In addition, they cover innovations in watch mechanics and watch collecting. A. Lange & Sohne makes watches by hand, and Wilhelm discusses the production process. He and Barry also discuss the release of the new Saxonia Thin Onyx.
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0:00 Speaker 00 At Brookfield, we believe you can own wealth that's measured in generations. Because true ownership looks beyond today and beyond cycles. For 125 years, we've built long-term wealth through expertise, discipline, and a clear vision for the future. Providing investors access to alternative strategies built for what's next. Brookfield. Own what's next. Learn more at Brookfield.com/own. This is not an offer to sell or investment advice. Investing involves risks, including loss of capital. Past performance is not indicative nor a guarantee of future results. Please review performance and offering materials before investing.
0:38 Speaker 01 This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Business Week's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting and hiring practices.
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2:37 Speaker 03 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg Radio.
2:55 Barry Ritholtz? This week on an extra special live edition of Masters in Business, I'm at the Audreyne Newport Concourse d'Elegance, and my conversation is with Wilhelm Schmidt. He is the CEO of Alangenzona, one of the finest watch companies in the world. They're located in Glasschuda, Germany. Our conversation talked about everything from collectible timepieces to collectible cars. I found it fascinating, and I think you will also. With no further ado, my discussion with Alangenzona's Wilhelm Schmidt. Wilhelm Schmidt, welcome to Bloomberg.
3:33 Speaker 05 Thank you so much, Barry.
3:35 Barry Ritholtz? Thank you so much for hosting this event and participating in our conversation. I have so many things to talk to you about, but I have to start with this prestigious concourse in this spectacular setting on what could be the nicest day of the year. What is the connection between classic cars and fine mechanical timepieces?
3:59 Speaker 05 Yeah, some people say me because I like cars and watches and watches and cars, but I think it's, of course, more than that.
4:08 Speaker 05 You know, watchmaking is, that's what we emphasize. And ninety percent of our energy will go into watchmaking. That's, that's, that's our home turf. But I believe as a global brand, you also need to find a world that is focused on something else, but where you have sort of a common ground that you can walk on.
4:29 Speaker 05 And about fourteen years ago, we were looking for a platform where we can show the brand and where we can bring customers to entertain. And if you look at these cars, let's start with the cars, and, and look at the word concourse of elegance. So we're not in vintage cars or racing. It's about concourse of elegance. You know, it's about beauty, it's about heritage, it's about craftsmanship, it's about design. And if you look onto the pillars on which our brand rests, it is exactly, it's, it's history, heritage, it's design, and it's of course the craftsmanship. And trust me, these cars that you see here,
5:13 Speaker 05 as they were built, they were built by proper craftsmen. And even today, without proper craftsmen, you will not keep them on the road.
5:21 Barry Ritholtz? And I know that you studied as an engineer and mechanic before eventually moving over to, to watches. Obviously, the design ethos of some of these cars,
5:33 Speaker 05 Yeah.
5:33 Barry Ritholtz? they're just so phenomenal and spectacular. What sort of inspiration do you, running a, a fine watchmaker, take from the designs of these cars?
5:45 Speaker 05 I, you know, it's, it's, I don't think you can immediately take something from that world into our world. But if you look at these cars, well, the first thing that comes to mind is some of them are fifty, sixty, eighty, a hundred years old. And we look at them today and they still fascinate us. So obviously that design survived all the different fashion, change of taste, odds of time. They are here today and they are as attractive as they were probably back then when they were brand new. Um, if you look at specifically the purpose-built car, you know, the race cars. They were built for only one purpose and that's what they were perfect in.
6:30 Speaker 05 And I think in watches, you also have to identify what is it that you emphasize on? And then don't compromise too much on it. Because if you start making big compromises, you end up with something which is, you know, a little bit of everything, but nothing particularly really good. So I think that's what you can take from cars into watches, identify the purpose. And then everything should direct to achieve that, if I call it the North Star. You know, that purpose and for watches is exactly the same.
7:03 Barry Ritholtz? So there's a lovely white Mercedes Gullwing out there with the red interior. And I once heard someone ask you to compare a Lange to a car. And you thought about it and said the Gullwing because the design was purposeful from start to finish. Tell us what you mean by purposeful in either watch or car design.
7:23 Speaker 05 Well, you know, if you, if you go back and think about the mid 50s in Germany. Um, I mean, I wasn't born there, I'm not that old, but um, you know, I can, I see, I saw pictures, I saw pictures of the autobahn. I saw the cars on the road back then. And then think about very suddenly something like the Gullwing appears. I mean, an alien could have landed and caused the same result.
7:52 Barry Ritholtz? Tubular frame, racing.
7:55 Speaker 05 210 horsepower, you know, 235 kilometers an hour, high speed. Um, you know what they did to doors?
8:05 Barry Ritholtz? Cause you couldn't have a door over that frame for the body.
8:09 Speaker 05 The seals were too wide.
8:10 Barry Ritholtz? Right.
8:11 Speaker 05 So they just came up with the doors. And you know what they did at Le Mans, they wanted to permit that because in the book. It it it didn't say explicitly it's not allowed, but you know. No, but we got the.
8:22 Barry Ritholtz? And they did very well.
8:23 Speaker 05 Negotiated, well, absolutely, they did, absolutely, they did. No, but I think the car was made for one purpose.
8:31 Speaker 05 And it was winning races in the first place. Um, and and and paving the way for Mercedes internationally to be back. Where they wanted to be, and that is very high up. Don't forget the price of these cars. I mean, you could probably bought streets for the same price, not houses, streets.
8:51 Barry Ritholtz? Mm hmm.
8:51 Speaker 05 In in in the mid fifties.
8:53 Barry Ritholtz? Ar arguably the first supercar uh ever made. So you're a connoisseur of vintage cars. I know you have a couple of Porsches. Tell us what else you like in in classic automobiles.
9:06 Speaker 05 I do like the, what I call the oddballs. Uh, the Porsches that I have are actually the exceptions because everybody knows what a nine eleven is.
9:14 Barry Ritholtz? Mm hmm.
9:14 Speaker 05 And probably many people know what a three, five, six is. So that's um.
9:21 Speaker 05 I don't say utility, but these cars are, you know, the the the three, five, six is my Swiss pocket knife.
9:27 Barry Ritholtz? Right.
9:27 Speaker 05 Because, you know, you can go on a tour with it, which I take that car a lot. And if the weather is nice, you just open the roof and it takes you thirty seconds. And if the rain comes, it takes you thirty seconds to bring the roof back on. It is not as watertight as you think it is, I have to say. There's still a lot of water coming through, but at least you're roughly protected against the environment. And the nine eleven is the car that I never wanted and I will never sell. It's just a fantastic driving car. Um, but you know, the other cars that I have are more for people that really know about cars. Um, you know, if I share somebody, I have a Fraser Nash, most people.
10:06 Barry Ritholtz? Right.
10:06 Speaker 05 Wouldn't even know what that is. And that's not a surprise because I think they build about six hundred cars pre-war and then about eighty-three post-war. So the likelihood that you know it, if you're not into the hobby, is very high.
10:20 Barry Ritholtz? So I keep meeting people here chatting about cars, chatting about watches. When I was doing a little research on you, it turns out that you really know the firm's clients, both customers and collectors. What do you do in an event like this? How much time do you spend with some of the Lange collectors and people who are so enthusiastic about the brand?
10:45 Speaker 05 I would say 90%, you know, if I'm not in interviews with you, then I'm out there and talking to our customers. You know, that's the most important for us because at the end, we mustn't forget, all that is not paid by Lange & Zune, this is paid by our customers.
11:00 Barry Ritholtz? So there's a quote of yours I really enjoyed. "We want to surprise, inspire, and enchant our clients with an unprecedented imagination and ingenuity." How do you go from those lofty goals to turning it into a mechanical timepiece?
11:19 Speaker 05 Yeah, well, first of all, it takes strict discipline. The moment you do things that are not in line with who you are, you may surprise people, but probably not positively and for sure eventually will dilute your brand equity. So the first thing is you have to apply discipline. That's why we have six different watch families and we have sort of a horizon of seven years and we want to play each watch family at least once, let's say, within 24 months rolling. So that's, you know, sort of the engineering structure, all attempts. That doesn't answer your question, I know.
12:05 Speaker 05 Staying traditional but thinking out of the box, because our value set is very traditional, but our thinking is often very much out of the box. I'll give you a good example. The tourbillon has been invented by Brigitte, I think about 280 years back or so, something like this. It was there to enhance the accuracy of a watch. By, you know, eliminating the mistake that happened through gravity, basically.
12:31 Barry Ritholtz? And mostly pocket watches, which were always facing downwards.
12:34 Speaker 05 And, and of course, it's a very delicate mechanism. Um, it, it does do the job because think about you put your watch on desk next to your bed. So at least for ten hours, it is exposed to gravity without moving. Anyhow, I want to argue the necessity of a tourbillon. What we found very interesting is that it was there to enhance the accuracy, but it was impossible to set time correctly. Because if you do that with a running second, it is pure luck that you hit exactly the point. So we were the first in two thousand and nine to come up with a mechanism that makes the tourbillon stop. So the second hand comes to a stop and you can adjust the time properly.
13:16 Barry Ritholtz? Mm hmm.
13:17 Speaker 05 We then went one step further with the eighteen fifteen tourbillon, where you not only stop the moment you pull the crown, that second hand goes to zero, which is the best way to adjust your watch properly. Now, that sounds easy, but if you take into consideration that the tourbillon has about eighty-five little parts.
13:38 Barry Ritholtz? Mm hmm.
13:39 Speaker 05 The total weight is about oh point seven five gram.
13:42 Barry Ritholtz? Wow.
13:42 Speaker 05 You, you know, any impact and the mechanism will be destroyed. So you have to be very careful in what you do. That is just one example where we think out of the box. A chronograph with sort of a, a running minute, which most of them do. You know, the second hand goes and it's catching the, the minute counter. And then as, as the second hand goes on, the minute counter slowly moves, which makes it quite difficult. Is it now two minutes or three minutes or four minutes? So hours in most cases have the jumping. So it's the second hand crosses the twelve, it jumps by one minute. So you're absolutely clear it's one minute, two minutes, three minutes or four minutes, not is it two and a half or is it three?
14:25 Speaker 05 Just little things that don't mean a lot for people that are not into fine watches. But they mean the world for our customers.
14:33 Barry Ritholtz? I I want to talk about the Odysseus in a little bit. And that particular chronograph, which is fairly unique. But we're we're not quite there yet. I want to stay with the fact that Langa is famously a German watchmaker. What advantages are there or disadvantages? For being a German maker in an industry dominated by giant Swiss brands?
14:54 Speaker 05 Look, it I think it's more an advantage than a disadvantage. Um, first of all, I always say there is no Swiss watchmaking and there is no German watchmaking. Because think about it, I mean, you can find Swiss made watches for a hundred euro and then you find the same for a few million. How how can how can be there any common denominator? That covers the Swiss made from there to there. So same for Germany, you know, we have watches that are very inexpensive. And then you have us with sometimes watches up to two million. Obviously, at the at the top end, it's like a package. It's like a box of chocolate. You know, and our chocolate is craftsmanship, history and design, and we stay very strict to it.
15:38 Barry Ritholtz? So some of the bigger brands put out watches in the millions of units. Um, Rolex famously two to three million. Patek is known to do about seventy five thousand watches. Langa does a small fraction. Every piece is made by hand, assembled twice.
15:59 Speaker 05 Um. And not because we can't get it right first time, just to make that.
16:04 Barry Ritholtz? Assembled first and then the pieces are taken apart and hand engraved and decorated.
16:09 Speaker 05 Well, it's it's, you know, because we use the original sources. Um, we believe that anything, um, that nothing is much better than than German silver. You know, that's the perfect material. It's been it's been good for the last hundred and fifty years. So we believe in this and we don't want to coat it. Which means over time it will develop a very nice patina, you know, the silver will get that little golden glue, which is beautiful. Problem is, you breathe on it or you touch it. It will look very ugly very soon and you cannot even clean it. You have to machine it. So that means. To maintain a statistical and technical perfection,
16:52 Speaker 05 you first have to make sure your movement is absolutely up to scratch. All tolerances are there. Everything is adjusted. Everything works. You go through the test. And if you have assurance, you know, that movement is like it has to be. It goes back to the watchmaker. He or she will disassemble it, clean it, put in the final decoration because now you know, you don't have to adjust anymore because that's done. You clean it, you oil it. You put the final decoration in case that it goes again through the test. And only then it ends up in a happy wrist.
17:29 Barry Ritholtz? So inherently, the way you build watches, you're going to be somewhat limited in production. How does that affect the decision making process of what sort of watches you make? And I know there are a number of Lange watches that are limited editions of a hundred or fifty or even twenty five. What's the thinking behind that?
17:50 Speaker 05 Very easy. You know, sometimes let's take the minute repeater perpetual calendar that we launched this year in April. We know it's going to take us three to four years to build the fifty watches.
18:05 Barry Ritholtz? Meaning from start to finish, you'll do a couple of watches every?
18:10 Speaker 05 Year.
18:11 Barry Ritholtz? Wow.
18:11 Speaker 05 You know, so and we know that. So in today's world, to come up now with this sort of capacity and say we produce a hundred means the last one will get to watch in eight years.
18:21 Barry Ritholtz? Right, that's a long time.
18:22 Speaker 05 That doesn't make any sense. So what that's, you know, capacity balanced by what we think we can expect from a customer to wait. That usually gives an idea about the limitation.
18:35 Barry Ritholtz? I was looking at the Lange perpetual in black.
18:38 Speaker 05 Yes.
18:39 Barry Ritholtz? And I stopped by the boutique and they said, figure somewhere between twelve and fifteen months before yours is ready.
18:45 Speaker 05 Yeah.
18:45 Barry Ritholtz? So when someone orders a watch.
18:47 Speaker 05 Yeah.
18:48 Barry Ritholtz? That goes into the system and my watch is moving.
18:51 Speaker 05 Yeah.
18:51 Barry Ritholtz? Like it's literally that specific. Coming up, we continue our conversation with a Langen's owner's CEO, Wilhelm Schmidt. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
19:25 Speaker 00 At Brookfield, we believe you can own wealth that's measured in generations. Because true ownership looks beyond today and beyond cycles. For 125 years, we've built long-term wealth through expertise, discipline, and a clear vision for the future. Providing investors access to alternative strategies built for what's next. Brookfield. Own what's next. Learn more at Brookfield.com/own. This is not an offer to sell or investment advice. Investing involves risks, including loss of capital. Past performance is not indicative nor a guarantee of future results. Please review performance and offering materials before investing.
20:04 Speaker 01 This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. I'm Carol Muster. Getting hired at SpaceX requires exceptional ability and may include having Elon Musk review a candidate's resume. So writes Bloomberg Businessweek's Lauren Grush. She reports that the company culture is defined by Musk and job candidates must understand that a commitment to SpaceX means adhering to this culture and exhibiting loyalty to Elon Musk. To get hired, candidates must demonstrate their achievements from past jobs and hands-on experience matters more to recruiters than advanced degrees, with the company looking for people with raw innate intelligence. A spokesperson for SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment on its recruiting and hiring practices.
20:47 Speaker 01 But according to recruiters, advisors, and those who've interviewed for jobs there, it's the space exploration dream that draws people to the company and Musk invokes that dream regularly to remind workers why they're there. Prospective hires are told that the job will require stamina, including in job ads that candidates, quote, "must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed." One major perk for all that hard work? Employees' access to equity, either the right to buy shares or payment in the form of restricted stock units that vest over time. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Get started at ChatGPT.com.
21:29 Barry Ritholtz? I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Let's continue our conversation with Wilhelm Schmidt, CEO of watchmaker Alangan Zona. So the Odysseus came out, very unique looking sports watch, then a lightweight titanium version.
21:48 Speaker 05 No, first the white gold.
21:50 Barry Ritholtz? White gold.
21:50 Speaker 05 So it was 24th of October 19 stainless steel in April 2020, white gold, then titanium.
22:01 Barry Ritholtz? Then the honey gold?
22:02 Speaker 05 Then the honey gold. No, then the Odysseus chronograph.
22:05 Barry Ritholtz? Ah, the chronograph.
22:06 Speaker 05 And then the honey gold.
22:07 Barry Ritholtz? So let's talk about the chronograph. Most people are familiar with chronos because they typically have two or three subdials. Not with the Odysseus.
22:18 Speaker 05 That wouldn't work because of the design of the dial, you know.
22:20 Barry Ritholtz? Because of the big day and date.
22:22 Speaker 05 If you take the dial off and you look at the movement, the upside of the movement, you will see it's almost all blocked. So there is no way that you come through. And of course, we also didn't want to increase the size by much, you know, we want to have a wearable watch. So the only way was to utilize the center even more than we usually do. And that's why the chronograph, the second and the minute hand comes out of the center.
22:49 Barry Ritholtz? And when you reset the chronograph, it does a little bit of a dance.
22:54 Speaker 05 Yeah.
22:54 Barry Ritholtz? That's kind of unusual. I've spoken to a lot of people about this. Nobody has been able to explain that to me. You're my last hope. Tell us about that.
23:05 Speaker 05 It's very easy because they are geared together. So if you reset it, the minute hand will do as many turns as the second because it's linked.
23:17 Barry Ritholtz? Right.
23:18 Speaker 05 And it is so quick that you can't see it. I probably would take a good camera and then you slow it down to see it. But basically, if you have stopped 17 minutes and let's say 30 seconds, what works like this is actually seven times going around to come to zero.
23:38 Barry Ritholtz? Why does it, why does it do that?
23:40 Speaker 05 Because it's geared together. You know, because it comes out of the center.
23:44 Barry Ritholtz? Strictly because of its center hand.
23:46 Speaker 05 That's exactly the point.
23:48 Barry Ritholtz? That's really, that's really fascinating. So, a watch like the Zeetwork or the Odysseus, how long is that process when someone first conceives of this? Take us through how long it is from idea till the finished product in the boutique.
24:03 Speaker 05 Very different. You know, Odysseus, as I said, took us 25 years, basically. I think that the real process where we identified that's the face, you know, that looks different to anything else on the market. That will not cannibalize anything within our own range.
24:25 Speaker 05 To, to, to, to launch the watch at the 24th of October in, in, in 2019, always good seven years.
24:32 Barry Ritholtz? Seven years from start to finish. That's, that's amazing. So, so yesterday at the event, two new Longas dropped, the Saxonia Thin.
24:42 Speaker 05 Yes.
24:42 Barry Ritholtz? In, um, black onyx and platinum, is that right?
24:45 Speaker 05 Yes, true. Onyx, honey gold and platinum.
24:47 Barry Ritholtz? Um, really striking dress watches. The Saxonia are sort of, I don't want to call it entry level, but they're less pricey than some of the other watches.
24:58 Speaker 05 They are more simple. That's how I saw it. You know, for us, it's all about the amount of parts, the years it takes to develop, the, the hours it takes to assemble. That at the end will define whether it's a complicated watch or I would say a more simple watch. And two hands, I think we don't go more simple than two hands.
25:19 Barry Ritholtz? And my first nice dress watch was a, um, rose gold Saxonia Mood Phase.
25:26 Speaker 05 You see.
25:26 Barry Ritholtz? Over black.
25:27 Speaker 05 Yes.
25:27 Barry Ritholtz? And one of the things that people are genuinely surprised is the same level of detail and finishing. What, what you describe as simple, a lot of people think of in terms of price point, there seems to be no difference.
25:42 Speaker 05 No, no, no. It's, you know, if you look at our, our process and the manufacturing, we can, you know, the people that work on finish, they sometimes have no idea where that part will end up. So they will not say, oh, that goes into grand complication, we do it a little better, or that goes into thin, how we do it a little.
26:01 Barry Ritholtz? The same thing regardless, million dollars or entry level.
26:05 Speaker 05 We do not distinguish in quality at all. It's all the same emphasis on loft to detail, craftsmanship, hand polishing, decoration, hand engraving, there is no difference. Double assembly, it's one process, it doesn't matter whether the watch would cost 25,000 euro or 2 million.
26:26 Barry Ritholtz? And when people say to me, I'm looking for an elegant dress watch, but something that's not too pricey, my answer is always the Saxonia. It's just timeless and so elegant and continues to just, the design gets better over time.
26:42 Speaker 05 And, and it's, it's, it's, you know, people, you look at it and you see it's an Alanger und Söhne watch. If you have something complicated like this, you have a lot of hands to work with, you have the subdials, you know, you have the push button, you can do a lot. But I think one of the biggest challenge for designers is you have two hands to work with and not a lot on the dial. Make it an Alanger und Söhne.
27:07 Barry Ritholtz? So the Datograph has been called one of the best chronographs ever designed. What's the core of that watch's appeal? What makes that so special?
27:18 Speaker 05 I think it's, uh, it's, it's, it's more than just a watch. Um, you know, I, I'm a watch collector for a long, long time. I can remember when I opened a newspaper in, in, in, in 20, in, in, um, 94 and I saw the ad with the four Langer watches. Um, 99, where most companies around the world were still using somebody else's movement and often the same supplier.
27:56 Speaker 05 Here comes a chronograph, which is one of the crown things in watchmaking, from Germany, in a very unique design with an outsized date. I think it was a wake-up call. And, and, and we must not underestimate what that watch started in the watch industry. Because before that, chronograph didn't play a role. There were two supplier and that was it, basically. After that, and if you then go and, and, and analyze what happened from then to the following five, six, seven years, a lot of chronograph movements came out. So that's why this watch is so important for us.
28:38 Speaker 05 Because that was the first real complication, other than the tobion polymerite that we worked on. And I think that was a wake-up call and it, it, it just gave us a reputation as a solid, uh, watchmaker that it's the next level up.
29:00 Barry Ritholtz? For sure, absolutely the next level up. So you get to spend a lot of time with, with clients, with customers, with collectors. How are you seeing the, um, their expectations and desires changing? What does the client base look for from Lange over the next decade?
29:17 Speaker 05 I think it does, it never changed.
29:19 Barry Ritholtz? Never changed?
29:20 Speaker 05 No. Um, you know, first of all, do you have any idea what you will like in three years from now on?
29:29 Barry Ritholtz? Who does?
29:29 Speaker 05 Exactly. So when people say, oh, you come with a small watch because you follow trend. I say, look, I mean, I wish we had known seven years ago when we started developing the movement. Uh, we're not in the fashion industry business, you know? Our processes and the time it takes to come to market is so long that you maybe can anticipate, but maybe you have to stay true to yourself. And I think the one thing which our customers expect from us is authenticity. It has to be in our Lange und Söhne. And if you had followed the discussion after we launched the Odysseus, because, you know, we always said we're only precious metal and here can we steal?
30:12 Barry Ritholtz? Mm-hmm.
30:12 Speaker 05 And later on with titanium. So of course there was a heated debate, of course there was. And we were aware of it because that is a tension that on purpose, we wanted.
30:25 Speaker 05 There were a lot of people that said, "Ah, it's not for me. I see Lange as dress watch only."
30:34 Speaker 05 There were luckily a lot more people that say, "I want that watch desperately, where we can produce." Fine. However, it just opened up a new chapter in our design language. Because now we have a playground to try out things that we would never do with our classical watch families.
30:59 Barry Ritholtz? And every car enthusiast knows, when the Porsche 911 came out, the 356 purists were upset. "What are you giving us such a big car? Who needs six cylinders?"
31:10 Speaker 05 Absolutely. That's why they built a 912, put the four cylinder in, you know, that's exactly what they did. Yeah, that's funny sometimes.
31:20 Barry Ritholtz? I love this quote of yours, and I'm wondering if it still applies. You said, "Part of Lange's success is that we're a secret."
31:28 Speaker 05 Yeah.
31:29 Barry Ritholtz? So, question number one is, what makes that an asset? And question number two is, look at this event. How much longer is this a secret?
31:37 Speaker 05 Oh, it is, it is, it is. In the wide world, we are still absolutely unknown, and I think that's a good place to be.
31:46 Speaker 05 There are three reasons to it. The one is, what we do
31:54 Speaker 05 is very difficult to understand, specifically at the price point that we request for people that are not into fine watchmaking. Why would you spend so much money on a watch when your iPhone gives you the time more precisely? You know, the general thinking.
32:11 Barry Ritholtz? For sure.
32:12 Speaker 05 The second is, in today's world, you don't want to show off too much.
32:19 Barry Ritholtz? These are very much under the radar, and I am always shocked at people who haven't the slightest idea. When I'm wearing this as opposed to the better-known brands.
32:29 Speaker 05 Isn't that nice? I mean, that gives you a certain confidence and a certain... It's, you know, you don't need to shout. And on the other hand, and I'm sure you can agree on it, if you see somebody that is also having a Lange & Söhne... It's not difficult to get a communication started, isn't it?
32:47 Barry Ritholtz? Immediately you have something to chat about. If you know, you know.
32:51 Speaker 05 You know, and that's why I believe it is so important to remain a secret. I also admit the real challenges to secret, to share a secret with in the right crowd of people because at the end, you know, I mean, I'm fine, but whenever we take the new apprenticeship trainees in, in August, I feel the duty on my shoulders because now they start a career as watchmaker and they're in for the next forty years. So we need to make sure that the next generation knows what we do and we stay relevant for this.
33:26 Barry Ritholtz? So I only have you for a few more minutes. I want to get to my last couple of questions. Speaking of the next generation.
33:33 Speaker 05 Yeah.
33:34 Barry Ritholtz? How do you appeal to younger buyers and what sort of approach um do you have as all these tastes seem to shift amongst the twenty and thirty something crowd?
33:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, gladly. We don't have a real issue here. Um we have a surprisingly young uh customer base.
33:53 Barry Ritholtz? Mm hmm.
33:54 Speaker 05 Um I always say that, and I never understood it. I mean, if you're young and you're interested, what speaks against quality, longevity, classless and timeless design, robustness, uh value creation. Um yeah, I mean, it doesn't matter whether you are a hundred years old or ten. Um if you're into that, you're gonna like it.
34:16 Barry Ritholtz? Mm hmm.
34:16 Speaker 05 Um the way we connect with these people is different to the way let's say I was connected to the watch industry because as I grew up, it was very difficult to find even specialized magazines for for watchers. Today you have everything you can think of. I believe we live in absolute paradise times for for watching through the us because never ever in history have there been more watch brands. Um, more information, more information and easy accessible information. You know, you can do your research without leaving your room. That was impossible in times where, you know, where I started to get into the hobby.
35:00 Barry Ritholtz? Although I, I would tell people, go see the watch, go try it on, make sure.
35:05 Speaker 05 It's the only thing that matters.
35:06 Barry Ritholtz? That's right.
35:07 Speaker 05 It's the only, I just say the natural habitat of a wristwatch is.
35:11 Barry Ritholtz? Is the wrist.
35:12 Speaker 05 So to forget about looking at something and ah, I like it. That's a good start. But the moment of truth is you grab that watch, you put it around your wrist. You look at yourself and see, is it me or is it not?
35:26 Barry Ritholtz? So how do, you have access to every Lange watch there is. How do you decide what you're going to grab that day to wear?
35:33 Speaker 05 I, you know, this one because of, you know, it's chronograph. We're in a power world. Uh, it's the 1815, so that's the more classical line. I'm a huge fan of chronographs and it doesn't get any better than a chronograph rattrapant. So, you know, that's, and I admit, um, I think it works very nice with my tan color right now.
35:56 Barry Ritholtz? So our last question, tell us what's next for our Lange Enzona. What surprises are coming up down the road? What should we be looking for?
36:06 Speaker 05 I think it's always good to look for. But if I now share secrets, there's no surprise. And that's the one thing people love surprises. But, um, I can share with you as much as this is not the last surprise for this year.
36:23 Barry Ritholtz? Oh, really? So the, the Saxonia Thins, not the last surprise of 2025?
36:29 Speaker 05 That's what I said.
36:30 Barry Ritholtz? Fantastic. That was my conversation with Wilhelm Schmidt, CEO of Alangan Zona at the Newport ordering concourse d'Elegance. Uh, extra special thanks to the team that came up to Newport to help film this. Alexis Noriega is my video producer. Sebastian Escobar is my videographer. Anna Luke is my producer. Sage Baumann is the head of podcasts at Bloomberg. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
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