The Rolex episode of Acquired is such a good piece of business analysis and so relevant for all of u

追加: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Everybody have been suggesting to me to watch the Rolex episode of Acquired, that podcast.

[00:00:06]And I finally got around to it, and why did I wait so long? It is so good.

[00:00:11]Obviously, it goes over the history of Rolex, and that's interesting.

[00:00:15]But what it does that I didn't realize is that they analyzed Rolex with all five of these business frameworks that I learned in a seminar with Nathan Baschez, and really gives you a real view into how Rolex became what it is today, and how it has the power to sustain itself.

[00:00:37]Um these five frameworks are called jobs to be done, basis of competition, the value chain.

[00:00:46]There's the this other one that's called the law of conservation of modularity, or for shorthand, people call it the innovator's dilemma. And then finally, the seven powers. They talk about all five of those. If you don't know what those are, I wrote a Substack about what they are, um many months ago. I can try to link it here. Uh and then also, they're just around on the internet. You can read You can look up Nathan Baschez, and look up uh business analysis with Nathan Baschez, and he wrote about it on his uh Substack on every.to. So, there's lots of ways to find out what those five things are.

[00:01:24]The episode will be much richer for you if you know what those are. And if you're not a watch person, um but you're a business person, I cannot think of a more relevant episode in this age of AI than to see how Rolex approached the quartz crisis, which is when mechanical watches from Switzerland were basically being supplanted by quartz watches coming out of Japan.

[00:01:49]So, so, so, so good. Rolex Ah, I used to think Well, I mean, I still kind of do. Like all like this there's this idea that all Rolexes look the same and that everywhere you look all you see is Rolex cuz everyone copies them. And now I understand that much better and respect it more than I used to.

[00:02:10]Do I want a Rolex?

[00:02:13]Yeah. Do I want a Submariner? Not really. But man oh man, so good. Go watch that.

[00:02:20]You can't watch it. Uh listen to it while you're on a jog. Take care of your body and listen to that podcast.