I wish to protest the current ugliness. I see it as a continuing trend, “the uglification of everything.” It is coming out of our culture with picked-up speed, and from many media silos, and I don’t like it.
You remember the 1999 movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” from the Patricia Highsmith novel. It was fabulous—mysteries, murders, a sociopath scheming his way among high-class expats on the Italian Riviera. The laid-back glamour of Jude Law, the Grace Kelly-ness of Gwyneth Paltrow, who looks like a Vogue magazine cover decided to take a stroll through the streets of 1950s Venice, the truly brilliant acting of Matt Damon, who is so well-liked by audiences I’m not sure we notice anymore what a great actor he is. The director, Anthony Minghella, deliberately showed you pretty shiny things while taking you on a journey to a heart of darkness.
There’s a new version, a streaming series from Netflix, called “Ripley.” I turned to it eagerly and watched with puzzlement. It is unrelievedly ugly. Grimy, gloomy, grim. Tom Ripley is now charmless, a pale and watchful slug slithering through ancient rooms. He isn’t bright, eager, endearing, only predatory. No one would want to know him! Which makes the story make no sense. Again, Ripley is a sociopath, but few could tell because he seemed so sweet and easy. In the original movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman has an unforgettable turn as a jazz-loving, prep-schooled, in-crowd snob. In this version that character is mirthless, genderless, hidden. No one would want to know him either. Marge, the Paltrow role in the movie, is ponderous and plain, like a lost 1970s hippie, which undercuts a small part of the tragedy: Why is the lovely woman so in love with a careless idler who loves no one?
The ugliness seemed a deliberate artistic decision, as did the air of constant menace, as if we all know life is never nice.
I go to the No. 1 program on Netflix this week, “Baby Reindeer.” People speak highly of it. It’s about a stalker and is based on a true story, but she’s stalking a comic so this might be fun. Oh dear, no. It is again unrelievedly bleak. Life is low, plain and homely. No one is ever nice or kind; all human conversation is opaque and halting; work colleagues are cruel and loud. Everyone is emotionally incapable and dumb. No one laughs except for the morbidly obese stalker, who cackles madly. The only attractive person is the transgender girlfriend, who has a pretty smile and smiles a lot, but cries a lot too and is vengeful.
Good drama always makes you think. I thought: Do I want to continue living?
I go to the Daily Mail website, once my guilty pleasure. High jinks of the rich and famous, randy royals, fast cars and movie stars, models and rock stars caught in the drug bust. It was great! But it seems to have taken a turn and is more about crime, grime, human sadness and degradation—child abuse, mothers drowning their babies, “Man murders family, self.” It is less a portal into life’s mindless, undeserved beauty, than a testimony to its horrors.
I go to the new “Cabaret.” Who doesn’t love “Cabaret”? It is dark, witty, painful, glamorous. The music and lyrics have stood the test of time. The story’s backdrop: The soft decadence of Weimar is being replaced by the hard decadence of Nazism.
It is Kander and Ebb’s masterpiece, revived again and again. And this revival is hideous. It is ugly, bizarre, inartistic, fundamentally stupid. Also obscene but in a purposeless way, without meaning.
I had the distinct feeling the producers take their audience to be distracted dopamine addicts with fractured attention spans and no ability to follow a story. They also seemed to have no faith in the story itself, so they went with endless pyrotechnics. This is “Cabaret” for the empty-headed. Everyone screams. The songs are slowed, because you might need a moment to take it in. Almost everyone on stage is weirdly hunched, like a gargoyle, everyone overacts, and all of it is without art.
On the way in, staffers put stickers on the cameras of your phone, “to protect our intellectual property,” as one said.
It isn’t an easy job to make the widely admired Eddie Redmayne unappealing, but by God they did it. As he’s a producer I guess he did it, too. He takes the stage as the Emcee in a purple leather skirt with a small green cone on his head and appears further on as a clown with a machine gun and a weird goth devil. It is all so childish, so plonkingly empty.
Here is something sad about modern artists: They are held back by a lack of limits.
Bob Fosse, the director of the classic 1972 movie version, got to push against society’s limits and Broadway’s and Hollywood’s prohibitions. He pushed hard against what was pushing him, which caused friction; in the heat of that came art. Directors and writers now have nothing to push against because there are no rules or cultural prohibitions, so there’s no friction, everything is left cold, and the art turns in on itself and becomes merely weird.
Fosse famously loved women. No one loves women in this show. When we meet Sally Bowles, in the kind of dress a little girl might put on a doll, with heavy leather boots and harsh, garish makeup, the character doesn’t flirt, doesn’t seduce or charm. She barks and screams, angrily.
Really it is harrowing. At one point Mr. Redmayne dances with a toilet plunger, and a loaf of Italian bread is inserted and removed from his anal cavity. I mentioned this to my friend, who asked if I saw the dancer in the corner masturbating with a copy of what appeared to be “Mein Kampf.”
That’s what I call intellectual property!
In previous iterations the Kit Kat Club was a hypocrisy-free zone, a place of no boundaries, until the bad guys came and it wasn’t. I’m sure the director and producers met in the planning stage and used words like “breakthrough” and “a ‘Cabaret’ for today,” and “we don’t hide the coming cruelty.” But they do hide it by making everything, beginning to end, lifeless and grotesque. No innocence is traduced because no innocence exists.
How could a show be so frantic and outlandish and still be so tedious? It’s almost an achievement.
And for all that there is something smug about it, as if they’re looking down from some great, unearned height.
I left thinking, as I often do now on seeing something made ugly: This is what purgatory is going to be like. And then, no, this is what hell is going to be like—the cackling stalker, the pale sociopath, Eddie Redmayne dancing with a plunger.
Why does it all bother me?
Because even though it isn’t new, uglification is rising and spreading as an artistic attitude, and it can’t be good for us. Because it speaks of self-hatred, and a society that hates itself, and hates life, won’t last. Because it gives those who are young nothing to love and feel soft about. Because we need beauty to keep our morale up.
Because life isn’t merde, in spite of what our entertainment geniuses say.
The personal wardrobe of the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, who is credited for introducing punk to fashion and further developing the style, is headed to auction in June.
Christie’s will hold the live sale in London on June 25, while some of the pieces will be available in an online auction from June 14-28, according to a news release from the auction house on Monday.
Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood’s husband and the creative director for her eponymous fashion company, selected the clothing, jewellery, and accessories for the sale, and the auction will benefit charitable organisations The Vivienne Foundation, Amnesty International, and Médecins Sans Frontières.
The more than 200 lots span four decades of Westwood’s fashion, dating to Autumn/Winter 1983-84, which was one of Westwood’s earliest collections. Titled “Witches,” the collection was inspired by witchcraft as well as Keith Haring’s “graphic code of magic symbols,” and the earliest piece being offered from it is a two-piece ensemble made of navy blue serge, according to the release.
“Vivienne Westwood’s sense of activism, art and style is embedded in each and every piece that she created,” said Adrian Hume-Sayer, the head of sale and director of Private & Iconic Collections at Christie’s.
A corset gown of taupe silk taffeta from “Dressed to Scale,” Autumn/Winter 1998-99, will also be included in the sale. The collection “referenced the fashions that were documented by the 18th century satirist James Gillray and were intended to attract as well as provoke thought and debate,” according to Christie’s.
Additionally, a dress with a blue and white striped blouse and a printed propaganda modesty panel and apron is a part of the wardrobe collection. The dress was a part of “Propaganda,” Autumn/Winter 2005-06, Westwood’s “most overtly political show” at the time. It referenced both her punk era and Aldous Huxley’s essay “Propaganda in a Democratic Society,” according to Christie’s.
The wardrobe collection will be publicly exhibited at Christie’s London from June 14-24.
“The pre-sale exhibition and auctions at Christie’s will celebrate her extraordinary vision with a selection of looks that mark significant moments not only in her career, but also in her personal life,” Hume-Sayer said. “This will be a unique opportunity for audiences to encounter both the public and the private world of the great Dame Vivienne Westwood and to raise funds for the causes in which she so ardently believed.”
Westwood died in December 2022 in London at the age of 81.
SYDNEY—Australian consumer price inflation remained strong in the latest quarter, illustrating the challenge the country’s central bank faces in bringing inflation back to target and adding uncertainty around the timing of interest-rate cuts.
The consumer-price index rose by 3.6% in the March quarter from a year earlier, meaning the annual inflation rate is now more than half of its peak at the end of 2022, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed. Still, CPI rose by 1.0% on a quarterly basis, accelerating from the 0.6% increase recorded for the three months through December.
The ABS’s monthly CPI indicator rose 3.5% in the 12 months to March.
Housing and education were again among the main drivers of inflation in the March quarter. “Rents continue to increase at their fastest rate in 15 years,” Michelle Marquardt, head of price statistics at the ABS, said on Wednesday.
Central banks around the world are finding the last mile in their battle to tame inflation to be the hardest since they began raising interest rates at an unprecedented clip in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. That challenge has led to a redrawing of expectations around when central banks will start to loosen policy and provide borrowers with relief on debt costs.
In the U.S., stubborn inflation persisted in March, derailing the case for the Federal Reserve to begin reducing interest rates in June. Higher-than-expected CPI rattled asset classes, pushing stocks down on the day that the report was released and driving up bond yields.
Many of the drivers of inflation in the U.S. also confront the Reserve Bank of Australia in its deliberations around when to pivot toward a dovish stance on rates. Global energy prices are higher on geopolitical tensions, which is significant for Australia as a large importer of crude oil.
Still, Australia also faces domestic price pressures in areas such as healthcare and housing that complicate the RBA’s efforts to get inflation back into its 2% to 3% target band by the end of next year and muddy the outlook for interest rates.
The next few months are likely to witness such events as a reasonably big rise in the minimum wage of Australian workers and the delivery of generous income tax cuts midyear. These will coincide with a federal budget that is likely to include new spending measures designed to take the pain out of rising living costs.
As a result, economists are divided over whether the RBA will be confident enough that inflation is under control to cut interest rates this year, and some think it will be the last major central bank to loosen policy.
The Australian dollar strengthened against the greenback as investors bet on the RBA staying on hold for longer in the wake of the CPI data. Australian government bonds slumped in response to the strong inflation data, with both 2- and 10-year yields rising after the release.
Westpac on Wednesday scrubbed its call that the central bank would lower interest rates in September, instead seeing a maiden cut in November.
“All told, the data reinforce our conviction that the RBA is unlikely to cut rates before 4Q,” said Abhijit Surya, Australia and New Zealand economist at Capital Economics. “If anything, the slew of upside surprise raise the risk that the bank will feel the need to hike rates further.”
A unique home on the outskirts of London within a former chapel that had a starring role in the hit TV series “Call the Midwife” is on the rental market for £39,000 (US$48,568) per month.
The four-bedroom home was carved out of St Joseph’s Missionary College, which, founded in 1871, trained young Catholic priests to work as missionaries abroad, according to listing agency Dexters.
Before its conversion to a lavish private residence, the college’s chapel had a starring role as nursing convent Nonnatus House in the first two seasons of the feel-good BBC show, which focuses on a church-funded midwifery in the 1950s and 1960s, based on the bestselling memoirs of Jennifer Worth, a former London nurse.
When the historic college was sold for redevelopment in 2013, and production of “Call The Midwife” transferred to a studio set, the chapel—along with the rest of the building—was born again.
Dexters
Still going by the apt moniker of the Chapel, the home is the centerpiece of the site, which is now a gated development known as St Joseph’s Gate, said Dexters, which brought the home to the market in late February.
The home spans almost 10,000 square feet and “blends historic architecture, soaring open plan living spaces and every possible contemporary comfort,” said Andy Christophi, director of Dexters Finchley.
The chapel’s nave is now the dramatic heart of the home, complete with a 45-foot high vaulted timber ceiling.
The vast open-plan area—which also has columns and gothic-style arches—has a handcrafted kitchen, temperature-controlled wine storage, a curved living area with Victorian windows and enough space to easily host 30 at a dinner table, the listing said.
Above, a mezzanine bedroom has been constructed to appear as though floating above the main living area below.
The home also has a gym, a spa area with a sauna and steam room, and a media room.
“Perfect for a family that loves to entertain, its use as a filming location…makes it particularly iconic, and means you’ll never run out of dinner party conversation,” Christophi said.
Lost for decades, an acoustic guitar John Lennon used at the height of the Beatles’ fame is going up for auction after being found in the attic of a home in the British countryside.
The 1965 Framus Hootenanny is arguably one of the most historically important guitars in the history of the Beatles, and was used on some of the group’s classic songs and played by Lennon in the movie Help! , released the same year.
The 12-string acoustic guitar will headline Julien’s Auctions Music Icons event on May 29 and 30 at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York, the auction house announced Tuesday morning in London.
Darren Julien, the firm’s co-founder and executive director, expects the Framus to exceed its presale estimate of between US$600,000 and US$800,000 and says it could set a new record for the highest-selling Beatles guitar, a record his auction house set nearly a decade ago.
The guitar was found earlier this year. Rupert Hitchcox/Julien’s auctions
“Julien’s sold a John Lennon [Gibson J-160E] guitar in 2015 for US$2.4 million, and because this, historically speaking, is a more significant guitar, our expectation is that this guitar—played by John Lennon and George Harrison on the Help! album and other recordings—will be in the top five most expensive guitars ever sold at auction,” Julien says. “It’s likely the last chance for someone to buy and personally own an iconic John Lennon/George Harrison guitar.”
While equating its discovery to that of a “lost Rembrandt or Picasso,” Julien believes this is the greatest find of a Beatles guitar since Paul McCartney ’s lost 1961 Höfner bass, which was returned to him in February after it had been stolen in 1972.
The rediscovered Framus was famously seen in the 1965 film Help! , and was used in recording sessions for classics such as “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” “It’s Only Love” and “I’ve Just Seen A Face.” It was also played by George Harrison on the rhythm track for “Norwegian Wood” on the 1966 album Rubber Soul .
According to the auction house, by the late-1960s the guitar was in the possession of Gordon Waller of the British pop duo Peter & Gordon, who later gave it to their road managers. The instrument was recently discovered in an attic in rural Britain where it sat forgotten and unplayed for more than 50 years. After finding the guitar in the midst of a move, the homeowners contacted Julien’s.
Along with co-founder Martin Nolan, Julien traveled to the U.K. and immediately recognised that it was the storied Help! guitar. While on the premises, they also discovered the original guitar case in the trash and rescued it. It’s an Australian-made Maton case that can be seen in photos taken of The Beatles in 1965 The sale of the guitar is accompanied by the case and a copy of the book The Beatles: Photographs From The Set of Help by Emilo Lari.
In addition to Lennon’s acoustic Gibson J-160E—which fetched three times its presale estimate—Julien’s has broken multiple Beatles records, including Ringo Starr’s Ludwig drum kit (which sold for US$2.2 million), the drumhead played on the Ed Sullivan Show (US$2.2 million), and a personal copy of the White Album , (US$790,000), all of which sold in 2015.
Julien’s also holds the record for the world’s most expensive guitar ever sold at auction: Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged 1959 Martin D-18E acoustic electric guitar, which sold in 2020 for US$6 million.
More than 1,000 pieces of music memorabilia will also be part of the auction, including items used by the likes of AC/DC, Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, Judas Priest, Heart, Queen, and Tupac Shakur.
Sartorial highlights include custom dresses worn by Tina Turner (Versace) and Amy Winehouse (Fendi), both of which are expected to sell for between US$4,000 and $6,000, and Michael Jackson’s stage-worn “Billie Jean” jacket from 1984’s Victory Tour (presale estimate: US$80,000 to $100,000).
Bidders will have the chance to buy items benefitting a pair of U.K. charities. Several collectibles from The Who and other British musicians will be sold to benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust, and an assortment of memorabilia—ranging from a Stella McCartney dress worn by Helen Mirren and an Armani jacket stage-worn by Phil Collins to artwork created and signed by Pierce Brosnan—will be offered to help fund the King’s Trust.
Rounding out the two-day auction is Randy Bachman’s collection of more than 200 museum-quality guitars. Known for his role in The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, the Canadian rock star used the instruments on hits such as “These Eyes,” “Takin’ Care of Business,” “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet,” and “American Woman.”
The public can view the Help! guitar and other auction highlights at Hard Rock Cafes in London (April 23-29) and New York City (May 22-28).
A waterfront home in the Hamptons village of Sagaponack, New York, is on the market for the very first time.
Asking $25.95 million, the gray shingle-style home was built in 2008 by the seller and has since been available as a summer rental, but it’s never been up for sale.
Designed by architect Faruk Yorgancioglu, the “waterfront home offers privacy and panoramic beauty that cannot be duplicated under today’s zoning laws,” said co-listing agent Marilyn Clark of Sotheby’s International Realty – Bridgehampton Brokerage.
Jaime Lopez for Sotheby’s International Realty
The seller bought the property, which at the time had two small structures, at auction in 2005 for approximately $2 million, according to co-listing agent Deborah Pirro of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. Mansion Global could not contact the seller.
The home hit the market Thursday, and in addition to Clark and Pirro, it is co-listed by Raquel Lopez of Sotheby’s International Realty – Bridgehampton Brokerage and Diane Anderson of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty.
Spanning 6,000 square feet, the home is filled with bright interiors, which were designed by New York-based interior designer Steven Gambrel. The open gourmet kitchen flows into a casual dining area and a living space with a fireplace, which is one of two double-sided fireplaces in the home, Pirro said.
“The placement and scale of fireplaces throughout the home is perfection,” she added.
A sunroom overlooks the water. Jaime Lopez for Sotheby’s International Realty
A separate dining room has French doors that open onto a deck, listing photos show.
There are six en-suite bedrooms, including two primary bedrooms. The larger of the two is its own private retreat, outfitted with a fireplace, a sunroom and a large balcony, offering a space to watch the sun set over Sagaponack Pond, according to Sotheby’s.
Jaime Lopez for Sotheby’s International Realty
The home sits on a little more than an acre of waterfront land, bordering Sagaponack Pond, where there’s a private dock, and looking out at the Atlantic Ocean in the distance.
“The location on the pond with the view of the ocean waves breaking is spectacular and unique,” Clark said. “You are close to beaches and the Sagaponack General Store. It is a quick paddle to the famous Sagg Main Beach.”
Other outside amenities include a gunite swimming pool and a hot tub, which are surrounded by a spacious deck, as well as a pool cabana, which has a full bathroom, changing rooms and a sauna. There’s also multiple balconies, decks and a screened porch overlooking the pool, striking a balance between indoor and outdoor living.
In late February, Nike boss John Donahoe led a virtual all-hands meeting where he delivered a message to his staff: The company wasn’t performing at its best and he held himself accountable.
Two weeks earlier, Nike had announced it would lay off more than 1,600 employees .
Now, as the CEO spoke at the meeting, critical comments started to fill the chat window on the Zoom call while more than 20,000 employees watched.
“Accountability: I do not think that word means what you think it means,” an employee wrote. “If this is cost cutting, how about a CEO salary cut?” another wrote. Soon a cascade of laughing emojis filled the screen.
Some colleagues warned others that their posts weren’t anonymous and the chat might be monitored. The attacks went on for several minutes. “I hope Phil is watching and reading this,” an employee wrote, referencing the retired Nike co-founder Phil Knight .
The virtual protest illustrated the depths of the dissatisfaction within the sneaker giant and concern for its strategy. “How did we actually get here?” wrote one product manager.
Since the pandemic, Nike has lost ground in its critical running category while it focused on pumping out old hits and preparing for an e-commerce revolution that never came. The moves, current and former employees say, have eroded a culture of innovation and edginess that made Nike one of the world’s best-known brands.
Donahoe had told The Wall Street Journal in 2020 that his No. 1 priority when taking over the company was “don’t screw it up.” Four years later, the company is unwinding key elements of the CEO’s strategy that have backfired as a growing number of upstarts nip at its heels.
Among the reversals: As Covid raged and more shopping moved online, Nike cut ties with longtime retail partners such as DSW and Urban Outfitters and tried selling more merchandise directly to consumers. It is now asking some of those stores for help clearing out its overstuffed shelves and warehouses.
“I would say we got some things right and some things wrong,” Donahoe said Thursday, in an interview at Nike’s Beaverton, Ore., headquarters.
Losing its roots
The strategic missteps have animated a debate inside the company about its identity. In its zeal to boost digital sales, some current and former employees say, Nike veered from its roots as a maker of cutting-edge footwear for serious athletes. It has opened itself to competition from newcomers such as On and Hoka, which have borrowed from the playbook that fuelled Nike’s rise—including focusing on sport over lifestyle, and taking risks on innovation.
Nike’s once torrid growth has stalled . Sales for the quarter ended Feb. 29 were flat compared with a year earlier, and shares in the company have declined 24% over the past year, compared with a 19% gain in the S&P 500.
Donahoe in the interview acknowledged the brand lost its “sharp edge” in sports and needed to boost its “disruptive innovation pipeline.” The CEO said the brand’s marketing got fragmented and that with people going back to bricks-and-mortar stores, it was clear Nike needed to invest in its retail partners.
Nike executives said in interviews that the company became too cautious after the pandemic and overly reliant on older products that were reliable sellers. They said the company has made significant changes in recent months to refocus it on putting out cutting-edge footwear.
“We were serving consumers what they know and love,” said John Hoke , Nike’s recently named chief innovation officer. “The job is to of course do that but also to show them something new, take them someplace new.”
Donahoe said Nike is going through a period of adversity and layoffs that has created uncertainty, but that the company will get through it. “Our employees have been through a lot,” he said. “Nike is actually at its best, like a great sports team, when our backs are against the wall.”
Knight, who is chairman emeritus of the board and the company’s largest shareholder, said in a statement that Donahoe has his “unwavering support.”
Donahoe said employees’ responses to the all-hands meeting reflected one of Nike’s biggest strengths: how much its staff cares about the company. “We welcome and encourage that,” Donahoe said.
Shift into digital
Donahoe took over Nike just before the pandemic, at a delicate time. Though he inherited a market leader and one of the world’s best-known brands, Nike was seeking a refresh after it dealt with complaints about its workplace culture that led to a management shake-up .
The Evanston, Ill., native had been CEO of eBay , where he doubled the e-commerce platform’s revenue during a seven-year stint that ended in 2015. After a sabbatical—during which he says he had a life-altering experience at a 10-day Buddhist silent meditation retreat—Donahoe went on to run cloud-computing company ServiceNow .
When he took the helm of Nike in early 2020, his marching orders from Mark Parker , his predecessor and current executive chairman, and Knight were clear. He was to turn the world’s biggest shoe maker into a tech company more directly connected to consumers through its own apps, which in turn collect valuable data from shoppers.
Parker said when he stepped down that Donahoe was the right candidate to lead Nike’s digital transformation.
Donahoe was just the fourth CEO in the company’s more than 50-year history. The only other outsider to get the job said he was ousted in 2006 after a short stint because he focused too much on the numbers .
Donahoe started out with a 100-day global listening tour that was cut short after a month when the pandemic hit.
Covid lockdowns fueled a surge in online shopping. Digital channels accounted for 30% of Nike’s sales in May 2020, about three years ahead of schedule.
Donahoe saw it as an acceleration of an inevitable shift and adjusted Nike’s plans accordingly. A few months in, he redoubled the company’s bet that it could make more money by selling products directly to consumers through its stores and digital channels. He said he believed digital sales would reach 50% of the business, and Nike should transform faster to define the marketplace of the future. It was time to act.
By late 2020, Nike dropped about a third of its sales partners and sold less merchandise to clients such as Foot Locker , DSW and Macy’s . There had been a plan to phase out wholesale clients since 2017, but with digital sales growing quickly, Donahoe said there was a need for urgency.
Executives were divided over whether Nike’s own stores, which include both factory outlets and specialty shops selling higher-priced new releases, could fill the sales void left by the retailers the company was cutting out.
In meetings, finance chief Matt Friend and Nike president Heidi O’Neill supported the aggressive exit from retail that Donahoe was pushing, while others favoured a slower transition, people familiar with the matter said.
Some executives felt the specialty stores in particular worked better as marketing tools and that cutting off so many retailers so fast would backfire, the people said. Donahoe and his allies prevailed.
Nike teams were tasked to come up with a new global supply-chain process. Selling directly to consumers increased the company’s liabilities, including by shifting storage and shipping costs from wholesalers to Nike. The company would also absorb the losses from discounts if the merchandise didn’t sell quickly and inventory piled up.
One of the casualties of Donahoe’s 2020 transformation was a multibillion-dollar operation dedicated to developing footwear sold for under $100. The company deprioritised more-affordable footwear that usually sold to the sales partners that Nike was leaving behind. The move left Nike skewed toward higher-priced shoes.
The first evidence of cracks in Nike’s new approach appeared early last year when Foot Locker Chief Executive Mary Dillon said during an earnings call the brand had reversed course and was sending the retailer a wider assortment of Nike products. By the summer, Macy’s and DSW were saying the same thing.
The message was clear: Nike needed help selling merchandise.
Nike veterans said cutting off wholesale clients was one of the biggest mistakes the company has ever made. After digital sales hit the 30% of the total mark early in the pandemic, they dropped back, and haven’t reached that level since—let alone the 50% target Donahoe had foreseen.
Donahoe said in the interview the goal at the time was to lean more on specific partners, such as Dick’s Sporting Goods and JD Sports , which he considers to be more aligned with Nike, rather than make a dramatic shift in strategy. Nike deprioritised making lower-priced shoes because of supply-chain disruptions during the pandemic, but it is now making more of those products, he said.
“I don’t see it as a reversal of the strategy,” Donahoe said of the return to more retail chains. “I see it as an adjustment.”
Rising competition
Competitors have been using the sneaker giant’s playbook at its expense. Smaller brands like On, Hoka and New Balance have captured significant pieces of the market for both hard-core and everyday runners—and their popularity is spreading to the mainstream.
Often quoting Knight, the Nike co-founder, former employees said the principle always was to first capture the market for hard-core athletes with innovative performance gear, and the casual consumer would follow.
In early February, Hoka owner Deckers Outdoor tapped Nike alums to take over both the parent company and the shoe brand. Hoka had $1.4 billion in sales for the year through March 2023, compared with about $352 million three years earlier.
Hoka didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“When you’re the biggest, there’s always going to be people coming after you,” Donahoe said. Competitors give Nike an incentive to try to understand what consumers want and to figure out how to come up with something bold and different, he said.
Nike still dwarfs its competition . During Donahoe’s tenure, Nike sales have grown 31% to $51 billion in 2023. That is more than double the results of Adidas, its closest competitor by far. New Balance reported sales reached $6.5 billion last year, and upstart On almost hit the $2 billion mark.
The race to hit revenue targets came at a cost for Nike. Executives turned to the brand’s lucrative franchises, including Air Jordan and Dunk, and ramped up the releases. The strategy diluted the exclusivity prized by die-hard Nike sneaker shoppers.
Donahoe said in the interview that Nike ramped up production to meet demand on its SNKRS app, which fans use to buy the latest limited releases. In early 2021, Nike was meeting less than 5% of the demand for some releases on the app and consumers were frustrated, Donahoe said, adding the goal is to meet something closer to 20% of demand for the exclusive styles.
Now, sneaker resellers say they have seen release after release of Nike’s limited-edition kicks that don’t sell out on the SNKRS app, and that in the secondary market—a space that the brand closely monitors —prices are tanking.
Nike executives in March said they would pull back on franchise releases.
Donahoe said “franchise management has always been something Nike has done.”
Nike’s digital sales, a figure that includes direct and partner e-commerce sales, declined for the quarter ended Feb. 29. Friend, the finance chief, told analysts in March that Nike expects total sales to decline at least until the end of this year.
Struggle for innovation
The pursuit of sales growth from limited-edition sneaker releases led Nike to neglect its running category, long considered the core product of the company, former employees said.
This month in Paris, Nike unveiled its new product line for the Olympics, including running shoes with a new cushioning system that uses the company’s Air technology.
In interviews at the event, executives said the company had become somewhat risk-averse during the pandemic, when working remotely stifled creativity. Martin Lotti, chief design officer, said the company had spent too much time looking to its past.
“If you drive a car just by looking in the rear view mirror, that’s not a good thing,” Lotti said. “The bigger opportunity is the windshield.”
Current and former Nike executives believe the future of the company is in its app ecosystem , like the Nike Training and Running Club or its SNKRS app, and the data it can harness from them to help design and sell products. Inside the company, leaders have long tried to draw comparisons to Apple when talking about Nike’s innovation and design culture.
The sneaker giant has been acquiring smaller data analytics startups for at least a decade. Two years ago, it also bet on the NFT craze .
One of Nike’s biggest tech investments is a multibillion-dollar process to migrate multiple software programs into one single system. The new platform, known as S/4HANA, is still not operational and is three years behind schedule. The software is designed to help day-to-day operations, such as procurement and inventory management, and speed up digital sales.
As part of its accelerated focus on digital sales, Nike hired about 3,500 people to join what the company calls its global technology group, which includes consumer insights and data analytics. Executives at the time said they were investing in “demand sensing,” “insight gathering” and a new inventory system.
Former Nike employees with knowledge of the consumer insights strategy said executives misinterpreted the data in ways that overestimated demand for retro franchises.
During February’s round of layoffs executives trimmed layers of management across the company’s insights and analytics teams. A large technology innovation team, tasked with developing software to implement Apple’s new Vision Pro augmented reality system in day-to-day design tasks, and a separate artificial intelligence team were also eliminated.
Executives at Nike say it is entering a “supercycle” of innovation and that the new Air line of products enhances athlete performance.
At the Olympics preview event this month, the company took over the historic Palais Brongniart in central Paris with a three-day event to unveil its new Air line. Guests wandered through a museum-like, conveyor-belt installation highlighting Nike’s product evolutions and research and development programs. Athletes including runners Sha’Carri Richardson and Eliud Kipchoge modeled the new gear. Retired tennis great Serena Williams narrated the company’s lavish introduction video before appearing on stage.
Outside, 30-foot orange statues of Nike-sponsored athletes including LeBron James, Kylian Mbappé and Victor Wembanyama stood guard.
Donahoe’s relationship with Knight goes back to the early 1990s, when he was a Bain consultant on Nike projects. He joined the Nike board in 2014 and is one of the directors of an entity Knight created called Swoosh LLC, which holds roughly $22 billion worth of Nike shares and controls a majority of Nike’s board seats. Donahoe calls Knight his “greatest hero in business.”
The current CEO said he meets with his predecessor, Parker, every week.
Donahoe said that he and Parker share an approach to management he calls “servant leadership” that was embodied by some of his sports heroes, including basketball coaches Phil Jackson, John Thompson, Mike Krzyzewski and Tara VanDerveer.
“It’s never been about me. It’s about your players. And are you doing everything you can to allow your players to make the adjustments to win? And when you have a win it’s about the players and when you have a loss you say it’s on me, right?,” he said. “And that’s what I’ve always tried to embody, including during this period of time.”
This week, Donahoe is facing another test: the company is notifying several hundred more workers whose jobs are being cut.
The crowd at the St. Regis hotel in Aspen, Colo., on one weekend last fall was handpicked, and if you had to ask to be invited, you wouldn’t be on the list. Guests, including Ron Howard, Karlie Kloss and Goldman Sachs Chief Executive David Solomon , were given Barbour vests, offered a walk-and-talk with Olympic running champion Allyson Felix, take a golf clinic with professional golfer Michael Block or bike with Gen. David Petraeus. The bike route climbs more than 2,000 feet starting from an 8,500-foot elevation.
One morning, a man in his 50s in a dark sweater was speaking to a group, while his security staff stood off to one side, an attendee recalled. He was Elon Musk , talking with the author of his newly released biography, Walter Isaacson , in an off-the-record conversation moderated by CBS anchor Gayle King. It was one of the hottest tickets on a packed agenda at the ultra exclusive and secretive conference known as the Weekend, co-hosted by Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and other business, tech and finance leaders.
Musk and others attending the Weekend, and gatherings like it, get to exist for a brief time in a buffered safe space where CEOs, celebrities, athletes and political leaders know that no one will tweet a photo of them working out or waiting in line for Champagne. They are invitation-only, and attendees often arrive via private jet and tinted-out SUVs. The talks are off the record. No one who goes cares what it costs.
“There aren’t that many places for these people to have these conversations,” said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff , who hosts his own intimately curated gatherings of business leaders and has attended other people’s as well. (In the parlour game of invitations, his dinners can feel like a rung up from anything called a conference.)
It has been 40-plus years since Allen & Co. put on its first so-called summer camp for the billionaire set in Sun Valley, Idaho, now an executive’s rite of passage, and more and smaller and intimate ultra-VIP conferences are exploding on the scene—from media mogul and venture investor Jeffrey Katzenberg ’s in Montecito, Calif., to restaurateur Danny Meyer’s in Tuscany. There are new ones popping up nearly every month.
Helping fuel the desire for invitations is the lore of what Sun Valley has spawned: Sam Altman connected with his most important investor, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella , at Allen & Co.’s annual July conference; Disney finance chief Christine McCarthy and CEO Bob Iger got some facetime over lunch at the same event a different year, a few months before Disney’s board ousted CEO Bob Chapek and reinstated Iger; Jeff Bezos ’ purchase of the Washington Post stems back to Sun Valley moments.
The newer events make the World Economic Forum’s Davos—with its pop-up media spaces and Getty photographers scattered about—look like a Vegas trade expo. There is a summer excursion to Stockholm for the humbly named Brilliant Minds gathering hosted by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek ’s foundation, which some attendees consider the most fun in the elite event lineup.
The Weekend in Aspen is in September, pre-ski season, but invitees to boutique bank LionTree’s conference called MediaSlopes head to Deer Valley, in Park City, Utah, in March and skiing is abundant in Davos in January. Google’s annual VIP camp has been held in Sicily at a resort with four outdoor thalassotherapy pools. The Brilliant Minds gathering included a cruise around Stockholm’s archipelago, and MediaSlopes offered high-intensity exercise classes taught by the CEO of video game company Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick , who prides himself on his physique. There is usually a concert—the Killers and John Mayer have played MediaSlopes (anyone who goes just calls it Slopes).
This account is based on interviews with people who attended the gatherings, event materials and social-media posts.
Benioff, who also owns Time, has attended the Weekend and Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley event, but says he “can’t do them all” and loves to host his own, even more exclusive events.
At Benioff’s gatherings, there is usually “a small group of somewhere between 25 and 35 people around a table,” he said, adding that he’s hired people he has met at such events. At a recent one, restaurateur Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin prepared the food and briefly spoke with attendees. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld performed and so has Japanese rock star and fashion designer Yoshiki. The gatherings have taken place in New York, Japan, Australia, France and the U.K .
Always a celebrity chef, he said. “We actually end up with a regular set of celebrities and entertainment who are our favourites, and there’s just people we feel very connected to,” Benioff said. “There’s the right level of quality.”
Who’s invited, and where?
At last year’s Slopes, which attendees call the cool Sun Valley, Margot Robbie swapped her Barbie pink for black to be jointly interviewed with Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz by LionTree Chairman and CEO Aryeh Bourkoff. Bourkoff has been one of the most prolific dealmakers in media, including as a lead banker in AT&T ’s 2022 $43 billion spinoff of Warner Media to Discovery. This year, Lionel Richie performed.
The competitive juices flow, too. Univision CEO Wade Davis has won annual slalom races. And there is a game-show style quiz focused on trends in tech, telecom and media. This year included the question: Who is the biggest streamer? (Answer: YouTube)
The Verdura resort, with “230 hectares of sun-kissed Mediterranean coastline” in southern Sicily, has been home base for what’s known as Google camp in recent years—the tech giant’s annual, invite-only retreat.
Google camp’s theme for 2024, according to a bare-bones website, is artificial intelligence’s role in scientific breakthroughs and addressing global challenges. The site doesn’t say if this summer’s camp will also be in Sicily.
Alicia Keys performed one year on a stage set against ancient ruins. YouTube star Lilly Singh snapped a photo amid the ruins with actress Charlize Theron. “We’re going to change the world. @charlizeafrica #GenEndIt #GirlLove ,” @Lilly posted on Instagram. Google owns YouTube.
Google said the majority of guests are customers and partners of Google and discussion sessions make up most of camp. It wouldn’t confirm names.
Jolie Hunt , who advises CEOs among others as founder of marketing and communications firm Hunt & Gather, said she increasingly fields calls from executives and powerful people about which VIP conferences are worth their time, alongside how to get a Birkin bag and book the best driver for Davos.
Part of building the allure of the events is the selective invite lists, with nobody there to pitch their agenda out of turn, some attendees said. Organisers manage the guest list, looking for buzz and mix, and asking for an invite isn’t a good look.
Midnight sun in Sweden
If Sicily didn’t make the calendar, summer’s lineup also includes Stockholm’s Brilliant Minds gathering—the brainchild of Spotify CEO Ek and Swedish entrepreneur Ash Pournouri, who hosted the first one in 2015 before establishing a foundation by the same name three years later.
Actor Jared Leto, Reddit co-founder and startup investor Alexis Ohanian and VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk were among 2022 attendees who boarded a boat for a tour around Stockholm’s archipelago that included a stop on one of the islands for dinner. Their cocktails were garnished with slices of fresh watermelon, and they took in a private concert by Florence & the Machine.
The intention is to bring together creative and influential figures with a goal of creating an impact, a representative for the organisation said. Brilliant Minds’ theme this year is “Discovery,” and so far, Harvard Business School’s Debora Spar , self-help personality Jay Shetty and Stockholm School of Economics Wellbeing, Welfare and Happiness professor Micael Dahlen are expected to present. Past attendees include former President Obama, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, Snap’s Evan Spiegel , NBA All-Star Draymond Green and Malala Yousafzai.
Anu Duggal, founding partner of the Female Founders Fund who has attended Brilliant Minds and interviewed Trevor Noah and Yousafzai there, said the formal programming runs from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., adding that the gathering emphasises bringing people together through fun experiences. “They take advantage of the natural beauty of Sweden,” noting the late sunsets at that time of year. Her firm invested in a startup that took part in a pitch competition where she served as a judge.
Stagecraft opportunities
Sometimes attending Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley conference is about making a very public statement from a very secluded place. Bill Gates used the gathering in 2021 as a soft launch for his return to public after the announcement of his divorce from longtime wife Melinda French Gates . Gates was spotted walking and chatting with Evan Greenberg , CEO of insurance giant Chubb . Gates wore khakis and a navy sweater, and both business leaders had white name tags.
In the summer of 2021, as reports emerged of a deteriorating partnership between Facebook ’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and then-Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg , the two appeared in photos strolling together along the lush grounds. Sandberg, in a T-shirt with the words “just love” scrawled in cursive, smiled as Zuckerberg, in a navy hoodie, looked at her, also smiling.
Marc Ganis, founder and president of the sports-industry consulting firm Sportscorp, said he has been attending more invite-only retreats or gatherings than ever before, estimating he attends three or four a year in addition to industry-specific events.
“This is where the ideas for business can be developed,” said Ganis. “What makes one better than the other is who actually attends.”
A relative newcomer is an invite-only conference for sports executives put on by Bruin Capital and Penske Media’s Sportico held on Kiawah Island in South Carolina. Bruin CEO George Pyne and Penske Media CEO Jay Penske bring together about 150 attendees including billionaires, commissioners, team owners and investors to play golf and talk about more than sports. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the former prime ministers of New Zealand and Finland, Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin , spoke this year—the event’s third year—as did former Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian .
The world’s biggest advertising agency, WPP, calls Stream, its invite-only event for about 300 invitees, an “unconference.” Attendees, this year in Santa Barbara, Calif., determine discussion topics, which have included “Should we teach robots how to lie?” Its website describes “two days of off-record debate alongside dancing robots; slam poetry; drone races; a space launch” and more.
WPP CEO Mark Read says the event is unique for its lack of PowerPoint slides and that the idea is to foster chance meetings among people in the business. In 2023, Linda Yaccarino spoke after Musk at Stream—a few days before she resigned from NBCUniversal and Musk announced her as X’s new CEO. Also last year, Paris Hilton ran a breakout group, said Read. “We had one famous music executive who turned up and couldn’t deal with the lack of structure and left,” he said.
The surge in exclusive events comes as the World Economic Forum’s conference, held in January in Davos, Switzerland, has ballooned over the past several years. In 2024, more than 800 CEOs and chairs attended Davos, in addition to government leaders and others, according to a WEF spokesperson.
Musk has knocked Davos, tweeting in December 2022 : “My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because I thought they were engaged in diabolical scheming, but because it sounded boring af lol.” Organisers for the World Economic Forum later said Musk was not among the invited.
But at the Weekend in 2022 Musk got personal. During a conversation with Carlyle Co-Chairman David Rubenstein as Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was pending, Musk said he lost 25 pounds, attendees recounted. He said—in a self-deprecating way—that topless photos of him on a yacht from the summer that circulated around the internet motivated him to lose weight, which he said he did through intermittent fasting.
“It’s craziest when you’re around people like this—there’s always another Champagne room, always another VIP level,” one attendee said, and quipped: “Even the CEO of Goldman Sachs isn’t treated like a VIP. That’s a third-tier guest.”
The 1950s spawned society’s view of kitchens as the heart of the home, a hub for gathering, cooking, eating and socialising. Thus, it makes perfect sense that the same decade could inspire today’s luxury kitchens.
“The deliberate playfulness and genius of the era’s designers have enabled the mid-century style to remain a classic design and one that still sparks joy,” said James Yarosh, an interior designer and gallerist in New Jersey.
That playful style spotlights details like coloured cabinets, checkerboard and mosaic tile patterns, vintage lighting, and SMEG appliances—all of which are a conspicuous rejection of the sterile, monochrome kitchens that have defined luxury home design for years. One of the hottest brands to incorporate into retro-style kitchens, SMEG is turning up more these days. But the question is: How do you infuse a colourful refrigerator and other elements from this nostalgic era without creating a kitschy room?
“The key to a modern, fresh look in your kitchen is to reference, not imitate, signature looks of the 1950s,” said New York-based designer Andrew Suvalsky, who often laces retro style throughout the rooms he designs. He said using the period as inspiration will steer you away from imagining a garish space.
“When it comes to incorporating that retro-esque look, it’s a fine dance between looking beautiful and looking kitschy,” added Lisa Gilmore, a designer in Tampa, Florida. Gilmore suggested balancing contemporary pieces with vintage touches. That balance forges a functional yet attractive design that’s easy to live with while evoking a homey atmosphere––and ultimately, a room everyone wants to be in.
Color Reigns Supreme
Suvalsky said one way to avoid a kitschy appearance is to mingle woods and colours, such as lacquered base cabinets and walnut wall cabinets, as he did in his Montclair, New Jersey, kitchen.
“Mixing colours into your kitchen is most effective when it’s done by colour-blocking––using a single colour across large areas of a space––in this case, zones of cabinetry,” he explained. He tends to lean toward “Easter egg colours,” such as baby chick yellow and pale tangerine. These soft pastels can suggest a starting point for the design while lending that retro vibe. But other hues can spark a vintage feel as well.
A mid-century-inspired kitchen by Blythe Interiors. Natalia Robert
“Shades of green and blue are a timeless base foundation that work for a 1950s vintage look,” said designer Jennifer Verruto of Blythe Interiors in San Diego. But wood isn’t off the table for her, either. “To embrace the character of a mid-century home, we like a Kodiak stain to enhance the gorgeous walnut grain,” she said. “This mid-tone wood is perfect for contrasting other lighter finishes in the kitchen for a Mid-Century Modern feel.”
Since colour is subjective, a kitchen lined with white cabinetry can assume a retro aesthetic through accoutrements and other materials, emanating that ’50s vibe.
“The fun of retro designs is that you can embrace colour and create something that feels individual to the house and its homeowner, reflecting their tastes and personality,” Yaosh said. He recommended wallpaper as an option to transform a kitchen but suggested marrying the pattern with the bones of the house. “Wallpaper can create a mid-century or retro look with colours and hand-blocked craftsmanship,” he said. “Mauny wallpapers at Zuber are a particular favourite of mine.”
Suvalsky suggested Scalamandre wallpapers, for their 1950s patterns, and grass cloth, a textile that was often used during that decade. He also likes House of Hackney, a brand that “does a great job reinventing vintage prints in luscious colours,” he noted. “Many of their colourways invert the typical relationship between light and dark, with botanical prints in dark jewel tones set over light, more playful colours.”
Materials Matter
Beyond wall covering, flooring, countertops and backsplashes can all contribute to the 1950s theme. Manufactured laminate countertops, specifically Formica, were all the rage during the decade. But today’s high-end kitchens call for more luxurious materials and finishes.
“That’s a situation where going the quartz route is appropriate,” Gilmore said. “There are quartzes that are a through-body colour and simple if someone is doing coloured cabinetry. A simplified white without veining will go a long way.” She also recommended Pompei quartz Sunny Pearl, which has a speckled appearance.
A kitchen designed by James Yarosh that incorporates pops of yellow. Patricia Burke
But for those who welcome vibrant colour schemes, countertops can make a bold statement in a vintage kitchen. Gilmore said solid surface materials from the era were often a colour, and quartz can replicate the look.
“Some brands have coloured quartz, like red,” she said. But keeping countertops neutral allows you to get creative with the backsplash. “I‘d pull in a terrazzo backsplash or a bold colour like a subway tile in a beautiful shade of green or blush,” Gilmore said. “Make the backsplash a piece of art.”
Suvalsky also leans toward bright and daring––such as checkerboards––for the backsplash. But depending on the kitchen’s design, he’ll go quieter with a double white herringbone [tile] pattern. “Either version works, but it must complement other choices, bold or simple, in the design,” he explained.
Neutral countertops with a bold backsplash, designed by Lisa Gilmore. Native House Photography
Likewise, his flooring choice almost always draws attention. “My tendency is more toward very bold, such as a heavily veined marble or a pattern with highly contrasting tones,” he noted. Yarosh suggested slate and terrazzo as flooring, as these materials can make an excellent backdrop for layering.
Forge a Statement With Vintage Appliances
As consequential as a kitchen’s foundation is, so are the appliances and accoutrements. While stainless steel complements contemporary kitchens, homeowners can push the design envelope with companies like SMEG when making appliance selections for a retro-style kitchen. Although Suvalsky has yet to specify a SMEG fridge, he is looking forward to the project when he can.
“I think they work best when the selected colour is referenced in other parts of the kitchen, which helps to integrate these otherwise ‘look at me’ pieces into the broader design,” he noted. “They are like sculptures unto themselves.”
“For our mid-century-inspired projects, we’ve opted for Big Chill and the GE Cafe Series to bring a vintage look,” Verruto added. Similar to SMEG, Big Chill and GE offer a vintage vibe in a wide selection of colours and finishes, alongside 21st-century performance.
Can’t commit to a full-size appliance? Sometimes, a splash is enough. Gilmore tends to dust her retro kitchens with a coloured kettle or toaster since her clients are likelier to add a tinge with a countertop appliance or two. “Mint green accessories make it pop, and if in five years they are over it, it’s not a commitment,” she said. “It’s a great way to infuse fun and colour without taking a major risk.”
Deck out the Breakfast Nook
Kitchen dining areas present the opportunity to introduce retro lighting, furniture, and accessories to complete the look. Flea markets and antique markets are excellent places to hunt for accompaniments.
“Dome pendants and Sputnik chandeliers are iconic styles that will infuse vintage charm into your kitchen while also easily complementing a variety of other styles,” Verruto said.
A retro breakfast nook designed by Andrew Suvalsky. DLux Editions
Suspend a vintage light fixture over the classic Saarinen table, and you can’t go wrong.
“Saarinen Tulip Tables are almost always guaranteed to deliver a home run in nearly any interior, especially a 1950s-themed kitchen,” Suvalsky said. “The simplicity of its form, especially in white, makes it nearly impossible to clash with.”
To really channel the vibe of this era, Verruto suggested local vintage stores and brands such as Drexel Heritage and Lexington. Dressing the windows counts, too. “Cafe curtains in a chintz pattern will make for a fabulous finishing touch,” she said.
Meanwhile, Yarosh delights in selecting tabletop items, including novelty stemware and other trappings ubiquitous in the 1950s. “Mid-century kitchens also need to have pedestal cake plates and maybe a cloche to keep a cake,” he mused. “I love the opportunity to curate these details down to the correct fork and serving pieces.”
For nearly a decade, workers in a warehouse in Seattle’s Denny Triangle neighbourhood have shipped boxes of shoes, beach chairs, Marvel T-shirts and other items to online retail customers across the U.S.
The operation, called Big River Services International, sells around $1 million a year of goods through e-commerce marketplaces including eBay , Shopify , Walmart and Amazon .com under brand names such as Rapid Cascade and Svea Bliss. “We are entrepreneurs, thinkers, marketers and creators,” Big River says on its website. “We have a passion for customers and aren’t afraid to experiment.”
What the website doesn’t say is that Big River is an arm of Amazon that surreptitiously gathers intelligence on the tech giant’s competitors.
Born out of a 2015 plan code named “Project Curiosity,” Big River uses its sales across multiple countries to obtain pricing data, logistics information and other details about rival e-commerce marketplaces, logistics operations and payments services, according to people familiar with Big River and corporate documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The team then shared that information with Amazon to incorporate into decisions about its own business.
Amazon is the largest U.S. e-commerce company , accounting for nearly 40% of all online goods sold in the U.S., according to research firm eMarketer. It often says that it pays little attention to competitors , instead focusing all its energies on being “customer obsessed.” It is currently battling antitrust charges brought last year by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 17 states, which accused Amazon of a range of behaviour that harms sellers on its marketplace, including using anti-discounting measures that punished merchants for offering lower prices elsewhere.
Workers filled orders at an Amazon fulfillment center in Garner, N.C., in 2021. PHOTO: JEREMY M. LANGE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The story of Big River offers new insight into Amazon’s elaborate efforts to stay ahead of rivals . Team members attended their rivals’ seller conferences and met with competitors identifying themselves only as employees of Big River Services, instead of disclosing that they worked for Amazon.
They were given non-Amazon email addresses to use externally—in emails with people at Amazon, they used Amazon email addresses—and took other extraordinary measures to keep the project secret. They disseminated their reports to Amazon executives using printed, numbered copies rather than email. Those who worked on the project weren’t even supposed to discuss the relationship internally with most teams at Amazon.
An internal crisis-management paper gave advice on what to say if discovered. The response to questions should be: “We make a variety of products available to customers through a number of subsidiaries and online channels.” In conversations, in the event of a leak they were told to focus on the group being formed to improve the seller experience on Amazon, and say that such research is normal, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Senior Amazon executives, including Doug Herrington , Amazon’s current CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, were regularly briefed on the Project Curiosity team’s work, according to one of the people familiar with Big River.
Some aspects were more Maxwell Smart than James Bond. The Big River website contains a glaring typo, and a so-called Japanese streetwear brand that the team concocted lists a Seattle address on its contacts page. Big River’s team members list Amazon as their employer on LinkedIn—potentially blowing their cover.
The LinkedIn page of Max Kless, a former eBay executive who led Big River in Germany before moving to a senior role on the team in the U.S., says that he “developed and led a research subsidiary for Amazon in Germany that prototyped and researched new experiences for Small Business sellers and developers.” Kless didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“Benchmarking is a common practice in business. Amazon, like many other retailers, has benchmarking and customer experience teams that conduct research into the experiences of customers, including our selling partners, in order to improve their experiences working with us,” an Amazon spokeswoman said. Amazon believes its rivals also carry out research on Amazon by selling on Amazon’s site, she said.
Focus on Walmart
Virtually all companies research their competitors, reading public documents for information, buying their products or shopping their stores. Lawyers say there is a difference between such corporate intelligence gathering of publicly available information, and what is known as corporate or industrial espionage.
Companies can get into legal trouble for actions such as hiring a rival’s former employee to obtain trade secrets or hacking a rival. Misrepresenting themselves to competitors to gain proprietary information can lead to suits on trade secret misappropriation, said Elizabeth Rowe, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who specialises in trade secret law.
Amazon for years has had what it calls a benchmarking team that sizes up rivals to ensure the best experience for people who shop on its site. The team has placed orders on websites such as Walmart.com for delivery around the U.S. to test things such as how long it takes competitors to ship. Other companies also have teams to compare themselves to rivals.
In late 2015, Amazon’s benchmarking team proposed a different sort of project. The business of hosting other merchants to sell their products on Amazon’s platform was becoming increasingly important. So-called third-party sellers on Amazon’s Marketplace, which the company started in 2000, surpassed half of the company’s total merchandise sales that year, and rival retailers had started similar marketplaces.
Amazon wanted to better understand and improve the experiences of those outside vendors. The team decided to create some brands to sell on Amazon to see what the pain points were for sellers—and to sell items on rival marketplaces to compare the experiences, according to the people familiar with the effort.
The benchmarking team pitched “Project Curiosity” to senior management and got the approval to buy inventory, use a shell company and find warehouses in the U.S., Germany, England, India and Japan so they could pose as sellers on competitors’ websites.
The benchmarking team reported into the chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky , for years, but this year changed to report to Herrington, the consumer chief. Olsavsky and Herrington didn’t respond to requests for comment made through Amazon.
Once launched, the focus of the project quickly started shifting to gathering information about rivals, the people said.
In the U.S., the Big River team started by scooping up merchandise from Seattle retailers holding “going out of business” sales. Some of its first products were Saucony sneakers from a local retailer that was closing. The company registered for a licensing agreement with the popular Marvel superhero franchise to sell Marvel-branded items, and bought items including Tommy Bahama beach chairs from Costco to resell.
In the pitch, Project Curiosity leaders identified online marketplaces that they wanted to sell on, including Best Buy and Overstock.
The top goal was Walmart, Amazon’s biggest rival. But Walmart had a high bar for sellers on its marketplace, accepting only vendors who sold large volumes on other marketplaces first. Big River initially couldn’t qualify to be a Walmart Marketplace seller, but it did sell on Jet.com, which Walmart acquired in 2016 and later closed in 2020. And in India, it sold on Flipkart, the giant Indian e-commerce marketplace in which Walmart owned a majority stake.
In order to meet Walmart’s revenue threshold, the Big River team focused on pumping products through Amazon.com to bolster its overall revenue, some of the people said. Big River’s goal wasn’t to do massive amounts of volume on the competing platforms, but to simply get on them and gain access, they said.
The Amazon spokeswoman said that in 2023, 69% of Big River revenue worldwide was on Amazon.com.
In 2019, Big River finally got onto Walmart’s website. This month, Big River had around 15 products listed on Walmart.com under the seller name Atlantic Lot, including Tommy Bahama beach chairs, cooking woks and industrial-size food containers. In 2023, Big River had more than $125,000 in revenue on Walmart.com alone, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Walmart wasn’t aware that Amazon ran the seller accounts on the Walmart and Flipkart sites before the Journal told it, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Rivals’ logistics services
Atlantic Lot is listed as a “Pro Seller”—a distinction Walmart says is for “top-performing Walmart Marketplace sellers.” Listings show that Walmart Logistics, another Amazon rival, handles storage and shipping for it.
Amazon at the time also was building up its logistics business to store and ship items for sellers for a fee to compete with FedEx and United Parcel Service . The business has boomed over the past decade. Amazon’s total revenue from what it calls third-party seller services has grown nearly twelvefold since 2014 to $140 billion last year, accounting for nearly a quarter of Amazon’s total.
To get information about rival logistics services, the Big River team stored inventory with companies including FedEx. Other targets, according to an internal document, included UPS, DHL, Deliverr and German logistics company Linther Spedition.
FedEx in 2017 launched FedEx Fulfillment, a competitor to Fulfillment by Amazon, for offering logistics to sellers. Big River was accepted into the FedEx Fulfillment program as an early customer, and the team received early details about pricing, rate cards and other terms as a result of the partnership, according to the people. FedEx had several phone calls and email exchanges with Big River team members who represented themselves as Big River employees and didn’t disclose their employment at Amazon, according to some of the people.
The team presented its findings from being part of the FedEx program to senior Amazon logistics leaders. They used the code name “OnTime Inc.” to refer to FedEx. Amazon made changes to its Fulfillment by Amazon service to make it more competitive with FedEx’s new product as a result of the information it learned from the partnership, according to one of the people.
For such meetings, the team avoided distributing presentations electronically to Amazon executives. Instead, they printed the presentations and numbered the documents. Executives could look at the reports and take notes, but at the end of the meeting, team members collected the papers to ensure that they had all copies, the people said.
Big River became a customer of FedEx’s fulfillment program, a competitor to Fulfillment by Amazon. Above, a FedEx facility in Queens, New York. PHOTO: GABBY JONES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Amazon took other measures to hide the connection with Big River. Staffers were instructed to use their second, non-Amazon email address—which had the domain @bigriverintl.com—when emailing other platforms to avoid outing their Amazon employment.
“We were encouraged to work off the grid as much as possible,” said one of the former team members, about using the outside email.
Amazon’s internal lawyers reminded Big River team members not to disclose their connection to Amazon in their conversations with FedEx, according to an email viewed by the Journal.
Staffers, who worked in private areas of Amazon offices, were told not to discuss their work with other Amazon employees who weren’t cleared to know about the project. In the early days, some Big River team members had to take time away from their Amazon desk jobs to go to the warehouses to fulfil orders and pack them in boxes to send out.
When gaining access to rival seller systems, Big River members were instructed to take screenshots of competitor pricing, ad systems, cataloging and listing pages, according to the people. They weren’t allowed to email the screenshots to Amazon employees, but instead showed the screenshots to the Amazon employees on the Marketplace side of the business in person so they didn’t create a paper trail, some of the people said. Amazon then made changes it believed improved the seller experience on its site based on the information.
The Amazon spokeswoman said the team was secretive so that it wouldn’t get any special treatment as a seller on Amazon.com.
Still, there were telltales. Registration documents filed with the Washington Office of the Secretary of State for Big River Services, while not mentioning Amazon, list a management team made up of current and former Amazon employees, including lawyers. The management team lists its address as 410 Terry Ave. in Seattle, which is Amazon’s headquarters.
Corporate filings for Big River in the United Kingdom and other foreign countries also named officials who are senior Amazon employees and lawyers. In one U.K. disclosure, Amazon is named as owning more than 75% of the company.
Amazon officials felt confident that competitors wouldn’t look up filings to see who was behind the company, some of the people said.
A Las Vegas conference
Some team members were uncomfortable with the work they were doing, according to some of the people.
Among the anxiety-inducing activities was representing themselves as employees of Big River in person while attending conferences thrown by rivals. For instance, team members attended eBay’s Las Vegas conference for sellers, according to some of the people. EBay describes the event as a way for sellers to meet with eBay management and learn of planned big changes coming for sellers and “exclusive information.”
Benchmarking-team leadership ordered up what Amazon calls a PRFAQ that would outline what to do if competitors or the press discovered the project. In the event of a leak, leadership was to say that the group was formed to improve the seller experience on Amazon.com, and that Amazon pays attention to competition but doesn’t “obsess” over it. They were also told to act like this was normal business behavior in the event of a leak, according to one of the people.
In 2017, Amazon formally changed the name of Project Curiosity to the Small Business Insights team to make it sound less cryptic, some of the people said.
The Big River team invented its own brands to sell on the competing sites, including “Torque Challenge” and “Crimson Knot.”
Teams often changed the brand name once they sold out its inventory, creating new brands when they received new products.
In India, Amazon gained access to e-commerce giant Flipkart in March 2018 with the Crimson Knot brand, around the time rumors of a Walmart acquisition swirled in local media. Walmart bought a majority stake in Flipkart in May of that year.
Crimson Knot makes wooden home goods, with its website’s “About Us” page saying: “Based in a small wood workshop in Bangalore, our dedicated team of 8 skilled craftsmen work consistently to handcraft each piece from scratch, transforming them into stunning showstoppers.”
Crimson Knot still lists products on Flipkart and stores them with Flipkart’s logistics services.
The endeavor wasn’t designed to make money. In 2019, for instance, the Indian Big River team projected revenue of $165,000 while it expected costs of $463,000, according to an internal company document.
Each of the five countries operated a little differently to better test different programs. Globally, in total, Big River gained access to rival marketplaces including Alibaba, Etsy, Real.de, Wish and Rakuten, among many other platforms. In 2019, the team set a goal to get onto 13 additional new marketplaces, according to an internal company document.
The Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on the number of rival websites Big River operates on.
The Japanese team went so far as to create a streetwear brand with its own website and custom-designed products. They called it Not So Ape, saying it was founded in Tokyo in 2017 and “inspired by the street style we see everyday.”
Not So Ape—which isn’t related to an upscale Japanese streetwear brand called A Bathing Ape—says on its website: “Our name stems from our belief that creative expression is what truly separates us from primates.” Not So Ape has Instagram and TikTok accounts, and its site continues to offer products such as $50 knit beanies and $95 hoodies.
Not So Ape is sold on Yahoo Japan’s marketplace, Zozotown, and uses rival payment services from Shopify, Google and Meta platforms. Its U.S. website is hosted by Shopify—which was the target of a previous effort by Amazon, code named “Project Santos,” to replicate parts of its business model, the Journal has reported.
Not So Ape’s English-language site’s terms of service says it is operated by Big River and lists a Seattle contact address of “2300 7th Ave, Ste B100, Back Entrance”—a building adjacent to a main Amazon campus.
