Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20131227

That runs through your mind when you ultimately sell your company. Do i update my resume and start looking for another job . Theyre going to want to make some cuts in some areas, right . I am jeffrey hayzlett, and i am on a journey inside the biggest brands in america. I have been a cmo, a ceo, and a boardroom cowboy. Now i am visiting the executives in charge of the most powerful companies in the world to see how they tackle the challenges of the csuite. I am in carlsbad, california, the center of some of the biggest Scientific Research in the world to visit Life Technologies, a Biotech Company providing products and services to customers doing Scientific Research and dna sequencing. These guys are selling picks and shovels in a genome gold rush. It also raises huge questions. Ethical questions. They will be able to tell you if you are going to get cancer, or if your wife will have alzheimers. Can you even do something with this information or should you . Could it be used in the wrong way . Greg lucier, their ceo, led the buyout of a few companies along the way and he built it into a multibilliondollar biotech house of brand. These kinds of numbers draw attention. They are being bought by an even bigger company, Thermo Fisher, for 13. 6 billion. As you sell a company, how do you keep your eye on the core mission to cure cancer while getting ready to hand over the keys . A sciencebased company like Life Technologies can be tricky to understand. Over 1500 scientists on staff. More than 5000 patents and licenses held. Theyve got 50,000 different products and a vision to change the way we live, but at the end of the day, this is a business with investors to please and a bottom line to grow. Im headed inside of Life Technologies to sit down with ceo greg lucier and learn what makes this business successful. Nice to see you. You have been here about 10 years now . About 10 years. In that 10 years, you have grown maybe tenfold . We have grown tenfold. You actually bought some other companies. Was that part of the initial plan . It was reall a basic idea. At a laboratory bench, someone doing Cancer Research would in the past have multiple Companies Selling them the things they needed to do research. We simply said why couldnt we be that company that did it all . Part of what we do is serve researchers doing Important Research with technology, consumables, software that allows them to interrogate how life works. You talk about a cost. You are doing something that could lead to the cure of cancer. Does that drive you differently . Each and every day, we have 12,000 employees around the world. It is fair to say that they wake up not only to do their job but to think about that purpose you were just speaking about. For me, i have no doubt in my mind that within the next decade, we will solve cancer. That is a business though, too. Not only is it doing something for a good cause, but in the end it is about the bottom line and about making money. You are about to sell the company at four times the run rate, which is a good deal in this economy. How does that fit into the strategy of merging together with the second largest company, Thermo Fisher . We will be merging with Thermo Fisher in 2014, and the combination of those two companies will create the largest Science Company in the world. I think it is the right move for customers, and the reason is simple. Our goal over the next couple of decades is to turn what is biology, a science, into engineering. 100 years from now, we will have engineered the life systems, but it is going to take big dollars, big organizations to do that job. By combining forces with Thermo Fisher, we will be able to accelerate that innovation. What the iphone did for apple, the ion proton genetic sequencer did for Life Technologies. This revolutionary piece of equipment completely changes the way dna is studied and can help accelerate the discovery of cancers cure. It is one of the big reasons that Thermo Fisher is willing to invest over 13 billion to acquire Life Technologies. Welcome to Life Technologies. Thank you. Good to see you. Pleasure. So you are going to take me around . Yes. First thing is first, you are in a working lab. You will have to wear a lab coat. I love it. So i am sitting here looking at this is a proton sequencer. A proton dna sequencer. It looks and sounds like something that would be in star wars or star trek. Exactly. This is an important part of this process of democratizing very complicated science. This machine basically reduced the cost of decoding a human genome from what currently is the cost of a house. This instrument is going to do the entire human genome for 1000. So this is preventative for folks . Is that a real goal here . I think it is the entire life. It starts at birth. You can compare the data from when they were a child to the cancerous tumor itself to try to figure out which is the appropriate drug to give that person. Will Insurance Companies be interested in this kind of data . Of course. They would be very interested in that information. Do you think somebody else like an employer might use that and say lets not hire that guy because he has that . There are significant privacy concerns. But let me just ask you if given the opportunity, do you want to know your genome . I dont know. That is a great question, and i think that is one that is going to be a soulsearching one for many, many people. You guys are really doing some interesting things with genetic sequencing. You yourself have been sequenced, is that right . I have, yep. And what did that tell you . Getting genetically sequenced was probably one of the most interesting phases in my life and the most revealing. My mother had taken a fall, she hit her head, and shortly thereafter developed symptoms of parkinsons disease. We also had recently come out with the new genetic sequencer, so i said to our team, why dont we sequence my mother and see what is actually showing up . It turns out that she had that mutation in her genome for parkinsons disease. Then somebody got the idea to say greg, lets see if you inherited them. So i had my whole genome sequence, and it turns out that i do carry those mutations as well from my mother. People ask me the question what does that mean to you . Does that mean your fate and your destiny is parkinsons disease . And the answer is no. It could be but maybe. But maybe. It is really more a story of life because now i know something, i can get engaged, i can get involved, and i can perhaps make a difference. It is not just about the discovery, it is also about hitting the bottom line. There is always great science, but we are in the business of making money. Thermo fisher is a big company. They have a huge portfolio. Do i need to update my resume and start looking for another job . Life technologies sells scientific tools used in forensics, food and water safety, Animal Health testing, and many other specialized fields. I am headed to their Stem Cell Lab to get a glimpse of what some of these products look like. Hey, how are you doing . Jeff hayzlett. Good to see you. Chris armstrong. I lead our primary stem cell business. Do you mind if i take you over to the lab . Absolutely. We will put on the jacket. Jeff, this is our Stem Cell Research center. What we do here is focus on helping customers work on the next generation of cell biology, which involves the stem cells. What does that mean to me . Stem cells are a perfect approach to understand more about human development, what happens and goes wrong with disease. How do you not just treat a disease, but how do you prevent that disease and cure it . If youre suffering from parkinsons disease, today what we could do is we could take a skin cell, we could reprogram it, and then we could encourage it through a series of reagents to become a neuron, identically a neuron in your brain. You are a scientist. I am a business guy. If i look at the companys profile, a lot of what you do here is really the bread and butter. Absolutely. These are products that customers will use day in, day out. Reagents and consumables really these drive our business model. Theres got to be a dollar amount associated with it. What is it . Is it 100,000 . Is it 1 million . Is it 10 million . It depends on the type of product. If it is an instrument platform, it is going to be multiple millions. If it is a reagent platform, it could be anything under a few hundred thousand dollars. And sometimes if product is almost ready to go, it will be significantly less and we can get it out fast. It is not about the discovery, it is also about hitting the bottom line or at least having the process to monetize. Yeah, there is always great science, but we are in the business of making money. One of life techs major customers is the u. S. Government. The fda uses a Life Technologies system that helps detect e. Coli and salmonella in the countrys food supply. And their applied bio systems human identification product line is ubiquitous in crime labs across america. All of these products are shipped from the companys Distribution Center. Here, disciplined operations are key to keep the business running smoothly. How are you doing . Jeff hayzlett. Nice to meet you. Im robert cook. Hi, robert. What do you do here . I am the senior manager for the Distribution Center here in california. Talk to me about what you are doing here. Ok. We have about 48,000 square feet. We have about 10 million of inventory. That is a lot of money on the racks. If im the ceo, i want you to move that fairly quickly. Correct. How do you guys measure yourselves on the ability to move this inventory in and out of here . Every week, we evaluate our teams within the Distribution Center. If things show up on here that are red or yellow, wind up our allseeing eye. Our allseeing eye lets us target problem areas. I love that you called this the allseeing eye. Half of our product here is required to be in certain conditions. Not just ambience. We have about 7300 square feet of refrigerated space. We stock those products into the deli doors, or what we call deli doors. We want our employees to be able to pick from the deli doors and not have to go and spend a lot of time in the refrigerated space. What is the temperature in here . 20 celsius. Minus holy crap this is cold. I hate to say this, but i would like to get out of here and go back to where its warm. This is reminding me too much of south dakota. The Thermo Fisher acquistion will affect every facet of Life Technologies. I am going to meet with brand team, and talk to the folks who are charged with keeping Life Technologies core identity alive within the structure of a bigger company. Hey, how are you . Im jeff hayzlett. Nice to see you. Robin flaum. What do we have here . Well, this is our cardio conference room. Life technologies is really committed to wellness of employees. We actually run meetings in here and as you can see, we are fully hooked up so we can be productive and get a workout. So meetings are being held as you are walking . Yes. This is normally something i would have my horse do, but it looks like something that could be fun. I will give it a shot. Ok. Sounds good. All right, so how do i this . Climb on. You have a control panel here, and if you press start, you can increase we wont be increasing the speed, we want to keep it down low. This is a first for any csuite or any meeting that i have been in with marketing. I am going to be real honest i find this concept, like, wacko. Over the top . Over the top, i think so, when you take a look at it. Does it work for this company . A couple things our mission is all around improving health care for patients and customers. For employees in general, we expect a lot out of them and Life Technologies is very committed to perks like a gym, like a cardio conference room. You look at this and now you guys are about to be bought out by another company. How are you starting to think those things through as a brand . To connect the Life Technologies brand to a company the size of Thermo Fisher that has the reach globally, i think there is a huge opportunity for the life brand as well to expand the journey that we have already been on. It will make changes to the way you go to market or the way you might even operate. I would think they might want to make some cuts in some areas, right . They absolutely will be looking for complementary areas. We have some areas that are highly complementary and some that are highly unique. Are you guys sitting down and doing some mapping of that with the teams and starting to think that through . I think we need to just plunge ahead as who we are right now until we get the decisions from Thermo Fisher. I look at it as an opportunity. They are big company with a huge portfolio. It can create an opportunity for you versus worrying about the future. We have to focus on getting the job done at the end of the day and not really worry about what could happen, what might happen. Do you think people that are watching this show think that that is a pile of crap . Seriously. I mean, i come to work every day. I have a job to do. Some people adjust to change, some people thrive on change. That is what you see here a lot because we know this company has been about change. You can have it in the back of your mind i can only speak for myself. Sure, i have it in the back of my mind. Am i worried . Not really. I think things will have a way of working out. For me, i had to make a decision when this announcement came out about do i update my resume and start looking for another job . I truly love working for this company and with this team and what we do for the world. So i just decided im going to stick it out. If you look at all the things that have occurred, a lot of changes going on here, what is the biggest thing you could look at and say wow, this team did that . We took a relatively unknown brand, Life Technologies, and we created awareness and loyalty around the brand. We made sure that customers still understood how to get their product. I believe that this team has made that brand come alive in our customers eyes. A lot of emotions run through your mind when you sell your company. I am coming to the end of my tenure here at Life Technologies. Do you ever have second thoughts about that . So, greg, where are we at . We are in san diego, california. We are about to walk into the Harvard Business school club of san diego and give a morning talk. What are some of the key insights of the csuite that you pick up from Something Like this . When you are in the csuite, it is a lonely place. But it is also a perch where you can see a lot of Different Things happening, unfolding in the world. I never look passed the benefit of that, so i am willing to share it. I want to share it. That is what i will do this morning. This is a special day for me. This weekend marks about 11 years when i took a phone call to come see this Little Company called invitrogen. A lot of mergers dont happen because perhaps the person in the csuite doesnt want to give up that csuite. I never looked at my job that way. I saw my job as the role to create a lot of value, and if even more value can be created through other means, through acquistions and mergers and perhaps if my role were to be affected by that, i was never going to stand in the way. It sounds like youre also announcing a new chapter in your life. I am coming up to the end of my tenure here at Life Technologies. It will be just about 11 years of running a publiclytraded company. The average tenure of a Public Company ceo is about 4 to 5 years, so i had double the life expectancy. There is a lot of emotions that run through your mind when you ultimately sell your company. At the most basic level, i look out in the parking lot and there are a lot of great cars here. People have done extremely well being part of this company, investing in this company, and i can feel good having run this company, that i made sure that people did well with their standard of living and for their families. When you make a decision to sell a company, do you ever have second thoughts about that . I dont have second thoughts. It was the right decision for our shareholders, for our mission, and i think it will be terrific for our employees as well. This is not about me. Greg is going to be fine, and im excited about doing the next thing in my life after life. More than 13,000 people work for Life Technologies. All of them will be affected by the merger. I am headed into the companys csuite to understand what went into this massive decision. Susan crawford, head of business transformation. Susan. Amy butler, head of global marketing. Amy. Carol cox, head of external affairs. Hi. Is this a typical gathering . Is this where you gather the c suite . This is where we meet once every other week and we meet for several hours. All the chairs would be filled, and we go through all the rigor to run a business like ours. When i look, it is a very diverse team, which is not something i always see in the c suite. You know, it is interesting, our company is over 50 women. That is why it is a very smart team. [laughter] there are changes coming in the future for Life Technologies with the merger and acquisition by Thermo Fisher. What were the conversations that go on in this room about that kind of transaction . The interesting thing, jeff, is we have been the acquirer so many times, we have been through this so many times, that now to be on the other side of it, this is Like Old School for us. What goes through your mind greg comes in, we are going to make this announcement. Some of you were involved, maybe not as involved depending on where you are at. What goes through your head, the next step . I think during a period of change you start to think through what it will look like at a future point in time, and for the most part i think most of us think about how we hope the combined entity will look in a few years time and hope that we will bring the best of Life Technologies and the best of Thermo Fisher scientific to the customer going forward. There is a lot of optimism for what the future can hold combined with a certain level of uncertainty as you work through the process. Many of us are trying to manage through this period setting forward really solid plans, but also managing the employees at Life Technologies and trying to make sure that they see that vision with us. So you have done your job here, taken care of the shareholders, delivered on your promise, but there is always the next chapter, right . Always the next chapter. And so you are a young guy. Are you going to be looking at doing Something Like this similar again . I am incredibly excited. If i could share with you how i see the world this is the century of biology. If the 20th century was about the cell phone in your pocket and physics and semi conductors, these next decades are going to be about figuring out how to harness the power of biology. There will be more interesting things done in the next years, and i want to be central to that just like i was central to it for the last decade. Through a series of careful acquisitions, ceo greg lucier turned Life Technologies into a multibilliondollar biotech powerhouse. He saw a Scientific Research market ripe with opportunity and consolidated some of the industrys most profitable assets under one brand. Now lucier and his company are on the opposite side of the transaction, just months away from a merger with Thermo Fisher. Thermo fisher will not comment on the purchase until it is fully executed. When the two companies unite, they will form the largest life Science Company in the world. The reality is companies go through different phases. They refresh, restart, and sometimes join a bigger entity. In business, you will never avoid uncertainty or the possibility of failure, but if you are made up of the right dna, if you are able to be consistent and dependable during times of change, then you are going to thrive in any situation. He is the fashion worlds reigning superpower. Whatever aspect of the business that you are in in our industry, everybody looks at ralph lauren as the model. A dreammaker who netted billions by imagining what others wished for. Every time i design clothes, i am making a movie. I do not think anybody since walt disney has been as successful in persuading millions and millions of people to buy into his fantasies. Wherever you go, Ralph Laurens brands project an aura of rarefied living. Ralphs brand stands for classic, timeless fashion. The brand represents your souvenir of this fabulous lifestyle that you want to be a part of. But his life was not as picture perfect. My sense was he thought that would be the last time he walked the runway. It wasnt, not by a long shot. We used to joke that he always has the plan to take over the world. He had taken over the world. There is no doubt about it. Ralph lauren is the most famous oneman brand on the planet, a brand that is synonymous with a superior lifestyle. Ralph always knew that he would not win if he did not take risks, and he is always pushing the envelope. He keeps himself awake at night. He is worried that he is going to fail. He is obsessed, he is brilliant, he is irascible, he is difficult. And he can also be kind and interesting and sweet. He is a huge bundle of contradictions. Lauren insists that the images he creates communicate his story and did not participate in this show. Before he was ralph lauren, he was Ralph Lifshitz, the youngest of four children who wore his brothers handmedowns. Born in 1939 to jewish immigrant, workingclass parents, he grew up in the bronx, new york. His father was a house painter and amateur artist. Living with someone for whom aesthetics mattered would affect a child in that household. Michael gross is the author of genuine authentic the real life of ralph lauren. He went of yeshiva and he wore a yarmulke and he wore all the other paraphernalia of Orthodox Jews every single day. He told me that at the very beginning when he was living in the bronx, he would go and escape to the Movie Theater and literally fall into the fantasies of the movies of that era, which was really one of the great moviegoing eras, the late 1940s and early 1950s. Warren helstein is one of laurens boyhood friends. We all, as kids, looked at the movie screens and the actors and how good they looked. I know ralph particularly liked fred astaire. And he truly did project himself into the scenes in which men like gary cooper and cary grant were playing. He sees the characters that populate his dreams and his visions. And that vision, that ability to step into a fantasy world, ralph brought to the fashion business. In one of his only two Major Television interviews ever, lauren told charlie rose back in 1993 about the enduring impact of those experiences. I was very influenced by movies. I was very influenced by a world that had a sense of dream, that had a sense of something else. And where i was influenced in these places was the good guy, the hopalong cassidy, not the corny guy, but there was the man on a white horse. My sense was i had an integrity inside me about what i believed in. I did it honestly, but i had a point of view, very strong. Warren helstein says that when they were teenagers, lauren asked helsteins father, a tailor, to make him one of his first suits. But i remember going down to my fathers place with him and it was very difficult. I just said to my father, dad, do whatever he likes. He said, i cannot please him. I said, ok. Thats it. Even though he was a perfectionist, lauren was a guys guy. He liked basketball best, i would say. He was ok. We were all good. How are you . In 2011, when Oprah Winfrey came to interview him on his colorado ranch, lauren shared his earliest ambitions. Did you always want to be a cowboy . I wanted to be a baseball player, a basketball player, i wanted to be an actor, a dancer. Actually, i wanted to be batman. That is a secret i am telling you, everyone out there. [laughs] when he was in his late teens, he and his brother jerry opted for a name change. As ralph said to me, the problem with the name lifshitz is it had the word [bleep] in it. And he endured endless teasing that continued through school, im sure, into the army. I believe that ralph suggested to me that the name lauren came from Lauren Bacall who was a great style icon as well as a great actress. Following high school, lauren worked as a salesman while taking business classes at night. He never got a degree. In 1964, after a short stint in the army, 26yearold lauren married ricky loewbeer, a receptionist he met at a doctors office. He married the girl that would look perfect in the convertible with her blond hair flowing. Ricky became his model, his backstop. Ricky was always in the back of his mind. Still looking for his place in the world, lauren set his sights on new yorks fashion industry. He became a salesman for Brooks Brothers and then a series of necktie manufacturers. I took him to his first polo match, where we were exposed to fabulous things. The silver, the leather, the horses, the tall, slinky blondes, big hats, and just high society that we really were not knowledgeable of, but certainly, it did not take us a moment to appreciate it. That fabulous world transformed laurens vision. He called me up and said he was going to open up his own business and what was my opinion about the name . And he said he had it down to players or polo. And i said, ralph, polo is totally elitist, hardly anybody knows anything about it but everybody plays something. There is no choice. It has got to be players. He said, ok, thanks a lot, bye. And then the rest is history. It was the era of plain, narrow ties when lauren offered up a radical Design Concept colorful, wide ties. Striking out on his own, one of his first stops bloomingdales. Marvin traub was the former ceo and president of bloomingdales. Shortly before he died, he spoke about the brash young designer. He showed them to the bloomingdale tie buyer who said, i like them. I will buy them, but i do not want that ralph lauren label on them. I want a bloomingdale label. Heres ralph, starting and struggling in business, about to get an order from bloomingdales. He closed his sample case and said, i will not accept the order without my name. Several months after ralph lauren walked away from an offer at bloomingdales, the renowned store called him back. I thought the ties were terrific, and if he wanted his name on it, that was fine because i felt the ties would sell. And they did. Other wellknown names in Mens Clothing also wanted in, including paul stuart and neiman marcus. Within a year, lauren sold a whopping half Million Dollars of ties. The designer had designs on something even bigger to expand his brand. He aimed to do so, he told charlie rose, by envisioning clothing the he himself would want to wear. What you thought you could buy in england, what you thought cary grant was wearing, fred astaire, you could not walk into a store and buy. When i came along, the business was not at all like the things that i made you could not buy. You could not find it. Bloomingdales saw potential and profit in laurens line. We worked closely from the ties to mens shirts to suits, sport coats, slacks, total mens collection. And then he came and said, marvin, i would like to do a womens business. I think the most important break for ralph lauren was probably getting a boutique of his own in bloomingdales. It was the moment when someone outside of ralphs fantasy existence agreed with him and brought him into the world of commerce. This was the first time that bloomingdales had given a designer his own, instore boutique. And the business grew very rapidly. Ralph, as in everything else, knew exactly what he wanted in the shop, what he wanted on the floors, what he wanted on the walls. It created really a ralph lauren environment. It is all ralphs dream. Menswear designer John Varvatos was a protege of laurens. If you back into the 1960s and 1970s, people put things on a mannequin. They never told stories. Ralph took you into a fantasy world. Ralph took you to an island, he took you to the hamptons, he took you to the west. Three years after his first ties went on sale, lauren won the oscar of the fashion industry the 1970 coty award for his menswear line. And in 1971, lauren bought the first of what would be many luxury cars. Pulitzer prize architecture and design critic Paul Goldberger has reported on Ralph Laurens famous car collection. I think it was a mercedes convertible that he could not quite afford at that point. He bought it anyway, because he understands that very aspirational reach that he is trying to sell to other people. He reached back to that earlier fantasy that polo match and introduced his signature emblem, the polo player. But despite strong sales, the Company Found itself in financial trouble. To keep it going, lauren was forced to invest most of his personal savings 100,000. He also hired a new Business Partner Retail Executive peter strom who pitched in and bought 10 of the business for 6000. I think he was very worried. They were delivering everything late. Their distribution pattern was all wrong. We solved those problems, and we got the right stores to buy the right amount of things, to display everything properly. Two years after stroms arrival and back on track, laurens brand got a boost when his mens clothes were cast in the great gatsby. His ability to create clothes that looked like costumes that looked like clothes that looked like costumes was unequaled in American Fashion. Hi, hi. But i actually think that the claim that he designed annie hall was more important. The annie hall look would inspire one of laurens earliest womens collections. And the designer himself was often the featured model in his brands ad campaigns. Commercial director jeff madoff has shot many of Ralph Laurens fashion shows. He wears this stuff, so hes become the embodiment of what he creates. Like frank perdue with his chickens, ralph and his clothes there is an authenticity to it. The Company Launched a blitz of new collections, including a wideranging home collection. Lauren also licensed his name to other products, trading a measure of control for capital. Now flush with cash, in 1986, ralph lauren went allin, spending 30 million to open a standalone, Flagship Store housed in new york citys historic rhinelander mansion. My wife and i were there opening day at 2 00 in the afternoon, and the store was packed with people. I said, ralph, how are you doing . He said, i think im doing all right. And i said, ralph, you are a retailer. You can ring off the Cash Register now. And the manager came back and said, we have 41,000 in. Ralph said, is that good . And i said, thats very good. Then i went back to my office, and the phone rings about 5 30, and its ralph. Marvin, we have 101,000 in. How is that . And i said it was terrific. This was ralph learning to be a retailer. I think it told his story to the world. Anybody who came to new york, its on the tour guide of new york, you know. You understand Ralph Laurens message very clearly when you go through there. When you walk by those windows, you get it. As the business continued to grow, lauren pushed his employees harder than ever. Theres a vast team of designers and creative executives. They do the designing, they do just about everything. But they bring it to ralph. And finally, it is ralph who decides, and there are actually this amazing thing little, tiny stickers that get put up on idea boards, and they say, r. L. Likes. And in that act, ralph lauren takes possession of those clothes, of those designs, and deserves the credit. Ralph pays more attention to detail than anybody i have ever met in my life. And when he is designing, and he is looking at the clothes, he will look and want a lapel ever so much more peaked, or ever so much narrower. Or he likes the plaid, but he wants it to be bigger. In 1986, the estimated worth of the privately held company was 600 million. And lauren, not his models, was the cover shot. It would seem that life could not get any better for lauren when he launched his next womens collection. But behind the scenes, something very alarming was shaking up the designer. We were at the top of the st. Regis hotel. And the finale of the show, ralph came out, and i saw his face unlike i had seen it before. And i saw he was fighting back tears. I started crying, because there was something going on. I did not even know what it was. It was visceral. No one but those closest to him knew that lauren had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was one of those things you just did not want to believe. It could not happen to ralph. What did it mean for the future . There was all those questions at the time. As i was riding home in the taxi, and i heard on the news reports that Designer Ralph Lauren was being admitted for emergency brain surgery. Wow. Oh, yeah. My god. Sure i worried. I felt so bad for him, you know. Fortunately, the tumor was benign. After surgery, there was a long road ahead and new priorities. I do not think he worried about what would happen to the business. I think he worried about living, about his life. Lauren shared his ordeal with charlie rose. I remember when i came home from the hospital, and i took a walk in central park, and i was very weak. And i saw some guys running in the park, running and sweating. I said to myself, i want to do that. Several weeks later, lauren returned to work. I think he came back even more aggressive than ever. But i think he was a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more laid back, and maybe was valuing every moment a little bit more. He launched a fitnesswear collection and created a top selling perfume. He spent millions promoting these lines and the product universe surrounding them. James fallon, editor of womens wear daily, calls ralph lauren a powerhouse in the magazine world. Because he is one of the biggest advertisers out there. If i launch my fragrance and i take an ad out or a series of ads, you are going to then do a profile of me. Look at the number of magazines that put him on the cover when he had his 40th anniversary, and that reflects the extent of which they appreciated his Financial Support in past years. Appreciated and also depended on it. A 200 million annual advertising budget is an 800 pound gorilla. Ralph lauren sits wherever he wants, and if that is the cover of your magazine, ralph is going to be there. Laurens dominance was also evident when Audrey Hepburn presented him with the council of American Fashion designers Lifetime Achievement award. There was one of his muses, his icons, Audrey Hepburn, the woman he watched when he was a little kid in the movies, now handing him the statue that, for him, could have been the oscar. Remember the princess . I got her. With the launch of laurens upscale purple label in 1994, the company looked great to the untrained eye. After all, sales were at an all time high. But that only told half the story. Hitha prabhakar is a Retail Business journalist. Like every retailer that has big dreams, it just grew too quickly. There was a lot of capital expended in order to make that brand where he wanted it to be. That, combined with very lackluster operations in terms of distribution, created really a perfect storm for a company that was almost on the brink of bankruptcy. Lauren needed a lifeline and found it with Goldman Sachs. The Investment Firm purchased 28 of Polo Ralph Lauren for 135 million. That was surprising to us, because we never realized that he had been that close to the back to the wall financially. And i think that is what led to the Goldman Sachs investment. They are very good about identifying where the growth is and what is going to be a company that is going to have longterm growth. And that is exactly what they saw in ralph lauren. And the infusion of cash meant exponential growth, with Polo Ralph Lauren Opening New Stores and overhauling older ones. By 1997, ralph lauren was the topselling designer in the world. Consumers spent almost 5 billion a year on his products. Goldman sachs saw greater potential and pressed lauren to go public. He was not so sure. He always had concerns that once it was a Public Company, he would have less freedom of action, that it was no longer his own brand, because he had shareholders and the board to deal with. Despite his initial reservations, ralph lauren decided to take his Company Public in june, 1997. Liz dunn, a retail analyst at macquarie capital, has been tracking laurens company for years. Part of the challenge with going public is that investors want to see growth quarter to quarter, year to year, in a very consistent, linear fashion. And so i think in the early days of the companys history as a Public Company, they struggled with that. When he first went public, we would cover his annual meetings. And he would stand in front of his shareholders going, wall street does not understand me. Our shares are just sitting there. They do not really move. I wish they would get what we do. Lauren was now working to satisfy his shareholders. The Company Began to sell in more stores, but sales growth slowed and Profit Margins declined. And 16 months after its opening day high of 33 a share, it fell below 17. I know that it tormented him. We talked about it. He talked about it. He was frustrated that wall street could not see what was abundantly clear to him and always had been since 1967 that he was it, that he was the guy. It drove him crazy. And it was into that environment that came a man named roger farah who was one of the great Retail Executives in america. Roger farah came over and restructured the unsexy parts of the business supply chain, operations. One thing he also did, too, was that he bought back those licenses. He brought those brands back in house and made sure all those brands were underneath the ralph lauren umbrella. They were going through a tremendous growth period. And i had suggested we put together something that codified the polo brand message. And we called it ralph lauren philosophy. It is a brand video that lauren commissioned. The way i do collections, what inspires me, is a story or a theme that gets to me. I know how to build this. I do not build a collection from a sleeve or from a specific fabric. I build it out of a dream. Control to him is very important. And this was a way to present a unified message where he did not have to be there, but it was like he was there. Lauren continued to expand. With an eye on international sales, he opened the Flagship Stores in milan, tokyo and even moscow. America is represented in france by mcdonalds and ralph lauren. Which one makes our culture look better . In paris, the ralph lauren store has become a symbolic american embassy. In the summer, 2012, the designer was attacked when reports revealed the team usa uniforms he designed were not made in the usa made in china. China. They should take all of the uniforms and burn them. The company said the uniforms for the winter games would be produced in the united states. Throughout his career, ralph lauren has cultivated his own image. He has homes on fifth avenue, in jamaica, long island, and bedford, new york, as well as the 17,000 acre ranch in colorado where he spends time with his wife and three grown children. He also spends time and lots of money on his pet passion. Cars are fun and toys and they offer you a different experience. To me, they are works of art. This 2010 promotional video announces a paris exhibit of some of laurens 60 vintage cars. He once told me his car collection is something he does first, beuse he loves cars and responds to them. And he does not collect art. Unlike most people in his income bracket, he says, you cannot drive a painting. And he loves the idea of being able to take any of his cars and drive it around on a sunday afternoon. Paul goldberger says that lauren changed some of the cars original colors. He looks at something and says, this is beautiful but it could be even better. I want to make it even more perfect. For 40 years, Ralph Laurens pursuit of perfection has kept him firmly in charge as ceo and chairman of the board of the company that wears his name. I think that small symbol of the polo pony is enduring and it is something that customers over a long period of time have chosen. This is probably the best, long term story in my coverage because there are these variety of Growth Opportunities that are driving a doubling or more of sales over the next several years. The former tie salesmen at age 72 is one of the worlds wealthiest people, worth 7. 5 billion. I think the last piece of Ralph Lifshitz that remains in ralph lauren is a kernel of insecurity. And it is the fuel that runs the engine that runs the person who personifies the brand. Ralph does not sit on his laurels for one minute. You can enjoy the moment, but you have to understand you have to keep things going and you cannot be a one trick pony. Speaking of ponies. [laughs] live from pier 3 in san francisco, welcome to the late edition of bloomberg west, where we cover the Global Technology and Media Companies that are reshaping our world. Im emily chang. Our focus is on innovation, technology, and the future of business. Lets get straight to the rundown. Twitter is on a tear, soaring more than 25 in just the past week and topping 75 75 a share or the first time, all of this for a company that has not yet turned a profit. And caught trying to game Google Search results. Now out in a cold with links for