Truth Social and Sephora Tweens
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I'm Yasmin Gagne. I'm Josh Christensen. And this is Most Innovative Companies. On today's episode, Fast Company Senior Staff Editor Max Uffberg explains what the hell is going on with Truth Social. Truth Social is basically Trump's right-wing clone of Twitter with two key differences. It has a tiny user base and it has very few advertisers.

Artemis Patrick, the new president of Sephora North America, talks about Sephora tweens. What I love most for this new generation is that Sephora and prestige beauty in general is their first entry point into the world of beauty. And as always, keeping tabs. A lot of people are into it, and this is probably my worst hot take in the world, but I just don't care about eclipses. But first, here's the download. ♪

the news you need to know this week in the world of business and innovation. Over the weekend, AT&T announced that tens of millions of their current and former customers may have had significant details about them released on the dark web. Oh no, that's not good.

My social security is definitely out there. This data breach occurred a few weeks ago in mid-March. Leaked information includes AT&T account information and social security numbers. So, not great.

The culprit is still at large. Josh, what is your social security number? It's 555. I'll just let this out. For my social security number, follow us. Slide into my DMs or look in the show notes. Microsoft announced plans to sell its app Microsoft Teams separate from Microsoft Office. The move comes in response to antitrust concerns and marks a victory for Slack. Slack's been complaining that selling the two programs together is an illegal practice.

Microsoft had already unbundled the two programs in the EU this past fall, but they're still likely facing antitrust charges in Europe. Did Slack really need a win? Yeah, Slack did not need a win. Also, Microsoft Teams, not the one. Hate to say it. Microsoft's argument should have been, but the only way people will use Teams if we give it to them free with Office. I know.

All right, next story. TikTok is facing another major blow from the U.S. government, this time from the IRS. A former employee filed a series of letters to both the IRS and the Department of Labor this month claiming that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is sabotaging workers' ability to cash in their stock options through restrictive contracts. The complaint says this is the result of unregulated corporate culture and lack of transparency.

Would that I could cash in my stocks. Yeah, if I had stocks to cash in. Yeah, count yourself like glass half full, man. At least you have stocks that can be restricted. Ozempic could cost as little as $5 a month. The operative word in that sentence?

Could a new study from researchers at Yale, King's College Hospital in London, and Doctors Without Borders found that the actual cost of production for Ozempic ranges from 89 cents to $4.73, meaning Novo Nordisk could sell the drug for as little as $5 and turn a profit. Absolutely no chance that's going to happen. For now, the average cost of a monthly supply is nearly $1,000. Wow.

And finally, Late Night with the Devil, which is a new horror film that was just released in March, was found to be using AI. Bum, bum, bum. It's the way this news story comes out. I was just trying to do a horror scream. Yeah.

This resulted in a barrage of negative reviews, but the use of AI, honestly, was extremely limited. In the film, AI images appear briefly and are used as interstitial cards, so not exactly the paradigm-shifting use that last year's strikes were mostly about. But the backlash is definitely telling. People are not into the AI use.

But the movie's supposed to be good, right? People are into it. I do want to see the movie. I think it looks really good. AI notwithstanding. Big fan of David Estalmakian, whose face is definitely not AI generated. What a great compliment to be like, hey, I love your work. Your face is terrifying. And that's the news you need to know today.

Josh. Yes. Are you familiar with the Sephora tween phenomenon? I am not really. I didn't know this was a thing. So basically every time I go to my local Sephora, which is all the time because it's on the way to Target.

They're like the two places I go when I want to like cheer myself up. It is overrun with tweens and teens. And I'm talking like... When did this start happening? He's as young as 10 years old. You know what? It really picked up over the past like I'd say six months. That's crazy. Yeah. And it's like truly overrun. And they use like all the testers. Is there like places that they vacated? Are they being like shooed from place to place like vagrants? Is this...

No. So my theory is, or and this is not my own theory, actually, my editor Amy Farley said at first, part of it comes from YouTube shorts. So like, even if your parents don't let you have access to TikTok, you could watch YouTube shorts. And because so much social content is basically user generated content about makeup and skincare, they're getting all of that really early.

And some brands, like Glow Recipe or Drunk Elephant, which are skincare brands, have really taken off among this demographic. And those brands are not cheap. I can barely afford that stuff. But however they do it, teens are buying tons of skin serums. It's kind of crazy. This is going to be followed up by stories of tweens stealing cash from cash registers and stuff like that to pay for Sephora. Oh my god, holding up banks. Yeah.

So I think the new thing about this phenomenon is really like they're going to buy skincare rather than makeup and they're hitting up Sephora. Yeah. Like which as we just said not cheap to go to Sephora. I just my wife and I just went to Sephora to replace stuff dropped like four hundred and fifty dollars and we had like coupons and gift cards and shit like that. Yeah it was a lot.

See, I'm an incremental purchaser rather than an all-in-one-go purchaser. You know what I mean? Yeah, we tried to do that, but Liz was like, I have everything's bad here. Everything's cracked. Yeah, it was rough. It's crazy. Luckily, the Sephora sale, for those that don't know, actually starts on Friday. So you made a mistake because you could have gotten a discount if you were signed up for their free loyalty program, as I am. Missed out.

Sponsor us? You know what I'm saying? Sponsor us, Sephora? Get out of Sephora. But actually, I'm excited because later on today's episode, we're talking to a couple people about the Sephora tweet phenomenon, including Sephora's new president and a surprise guest. But first, Truth Social went public last week and drama ensued.

Here to help us break down everything going on with True Social is Senior Staff Editor Max Uffberg. Hey, Max. Hey. Didn't get a friend of the pod title this time, but... No, no. Listen, this is serious business. Josh's second favorite son. You get those titles when you earn those titles. I've fallen in the Fast Company rankings, but... Okay. Still happy to chat. No, still best friend of the pod, Max Uffberg. Yeah, I think you're our most... Oh, by far has been on the most, yeah. Yeah.

I think you've been on at least like six, seven times now. We get turned down by a lot of people on staff, but you never say no. I'm the most desperate, so it makes sense.

So for those listeners fortunate enough not to know what Truth Social is, what is Truth Social? Truth Social is basically Trump's right-wing clone of Twitter with two key differences. It has a tiny user base and it has very few advertisers. Nice. So it's what X is aspiring to now, really. So it's basically just like a Trump, like Trump just posts stuff on there, right? It's basically just built around him.

Yeah, I mean, it's built around Trump. There are definitely a number of far right influencers who are active on the platform. I don't think most people have ever been on the site. It's an interesting experiment to go on because it is sort of, depending on your ideologies and your leanings, it's kind of a different world. There are a lot of QAnon folks, a lot of

conspiracies of election fraud, you know, things like that. But it's where you get most of your news, right? Yeah, no, it is my number one news source. That and War Room. So last week, we talked about the fact that the company had gone public via SPAC. Tell us what that means. So Trump Media and Technology Group, which is the Donald Trump-packed organization and parent company of Truth Social, went public via a special purpose acquisition company.

merger, right? Which is SPAC for sure. Yeah. Ooh, sounds transparent. Sounds very direct and clear. Yeah. So SPAC mergers are sort of like a back doorway for companies to list their stock on a public exchange while foregoing the traditional IPO process.

They were very popular in 2020 and 2021. They've since fallen out of favor, partly because they often don't work. There were only 31 SPAC mergers last year, and there have been just a handful so far in 2024, including Truth Social. And the SEC had promised to regulate them more, right? I was writing a lot about them in 2021, unfortunately. Right, yes. That is a big part of it. But also, they're like...

Several dozen. They just haven't worked out. Yeah. Right. In part, well, yeah. It's basically a vehicle for, not always, but for some grift, right? So the SPAC owners, the owners of the blank check company that, you know, merges with an existing company, make a lot of money just from a company going public without having to really do anything. Right, because it's sort of a hack.

in a way. Exactly. So I think people sort of realized that the incentive structure was not really aligned with a company succeeding and maybe abandoned that plan.

Not Trump. Not Trump. Not Trump. So Truth Social, or the company that, you know, Trump's media conglomerate, you just named it, I'm not going to... Just Trump Media, yeah. Trump Media disclosed its finances in an SEC filing this week and revealed that it had brought in just over $4 million in revenue while losing more than $58 million last year. Jesus Christ. I know, but can you sort of break it down for us? Yeah, I mean, sure enough, in a...

regulatory filing. Trump media said it lost, I think, as you said, 58 million, brought in 4 million, although the 4 million in revenue is an uptick over 2022 when it brought in 1.5 million. What is the primary source of their minuscule revenue? I mean, there are some ads. Okay.

Yeah, I think it's mostly advertising. God, I can only imagine what those ads are. It's probably 1.5 million from MyPillow. No, you know the Jawsercise is popular on Truth Social. Yeah, I'm sure it is. It's a big alpha man sort of thing. Gonna get my jawline there. It would be interesting to see now that Elon is, you know,

In charge of X. It'd be interesting to see if there's any overlap in the advertising. Well, because they... X's famously had problems attracting, like, legitimate advertisers. Right. So you get, like, weird alpha brain type... Yeah, the Joe Rogan. Advertisements that were once meant for podcasts and white supremacists are now on major social media platforms. You know, the stock has taken a tumble this week. And I think...

This is sort of why people were skeptical of Trump media in the beginning, especially that multi-billion dollar valuation that it started out with. And they compared it to the meme stock crates a few years ago because it's sort of trading on emotion versus logic or any kind of like

financial promise. And those emotions are fear, anger, paranoia. Yeah. Everything that accompanies QAnon. Well, I mean, it's like, it's any, you know, whatever you think of Trump, it's hype. Yeah. Like the guys in the news cycle. So it's sort of like what happened with GameStock and AMC where there's this emotion driven hype. And eventually that, that does, you know, that, that bubble bursts. The sort of financial picture that we're looking at here has ruined other companies. I'm thinking of the messenger company,

Remember that media startup? What a disaster. Shut down after making $3 million on a revenue of $38 million in losses. But Truth Social is still standing. Do you see that bubble bursting? Like, do you see this just, you know, dying? What is the future of Truth Social at this point? I mean, I can't imagine it goes gently into the night. Trump's made a lot of money on Truth Social.

We've touched on this a second ago, but Bloomberg had published an analysis last December of companies that went public via SPAC transactions, and they...

Found that at least 21 companies went bankrupt in 2023 and shareholders lost as much as like 45 or 46 billion, which is when you survey the landscape, things don't look great for Truth Social. I can't say it'll like it'll go away, but I imagine that stock price will not go up a whole lot. Right. Yeah.

There's also a conservative billionaire who owns a ton of the company. That is my fellow Pennsylvanian, Jeffrey S. Yes. Yes.

Oh, no. Commit to the bid if you're going to do it. Oh, man. It was a free yasss. Oh, those are good. Yeah, we get press releases about the yasss prize all the time, and I don't think I realized he was conservative. Who is this? I have actually never heard this name before. He is a billionaire Wall Street guy and a Republican mega donor. He's actually a major investor in ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. So this is the guy who people are saying is, you know, propping up Trump because Trump is less likely to regulate TikTok. It's like...

Yeah, a lot of people suggest as much. And when it comes to Trump, he's so he's the biggest institutional shareholder of Susquehanna International Group. Great name, by the way. Owns 2% of Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which in turn merged with Trump Media. So Yass's stake is about 605,000 shares was worth about 22 million based on Digital World's last closing share price.

So there's a lot that I've just thrown out. Yeah. When you think about it, because of his investment in ByteDance, that $22 million or whatever...

He's spent on, you know, what is clearly a worthless company. You know, he's banking on the fact that he'll continue to make massive returns on his ByteDance stock. Right. Should Trump stay in power? Spend a little to save a lot. Right. I mean, I think there's like a cynical view that would certainly suggest that he's this is almost a form of political donation. And it actually is worth mentioning. We've talked about Truth Social's user base and ad revenue being pretty minuscule.

Just in terms of like reach for the, for former president Trump, there's, it doesn't do as well as traditional platforms. There was a study published last, I think last week in the journal of information technology and politics, which found that overall media attention to Trump's comments on social media was,

took a pretty significant dip when he moved to Truth Social. So funny. I really didn't need a study to tell me that. Well, sometimes they're confirming what you know but can't prove. Yeah, study says the sky is blue. Yeah, it's quantitative, not qualitative. You know what it is? It's important in the context of yes, because it's like, okay, Trump, you know, if you look back at the last few years, he was kicked off the social platforms following the January 6th insurrection. He exclusively posts on Truth Social.

True Social doesn't do as well in terms of reach, in terms of user base, in terms of ad revenue. It now goes public via SPAC, thanks to a Republican mega donor. Trump's also in, had been in quite a bit of financial trouble. So I want to touch on that a little bit. Yeah. He was really in the hole, right? But it seems like this deal made Trump a whole lot richer.

Tell me how all this affects his wealth. Yeah, so Trump owns about 78 million shares in Trump Media. When the company went public via SPAC and the prices were higher, that translated to $6.3 billion. Damn. Now, the prices have dropped pretty significantly. That value still corresponds to like $3.5 or something, $3.8 billion. So still not a bad haul for a guy who

has a flurry of lawsuits to contend with, you know, has quite a few like bills to pay. But he can't access that money for a while, right? Right. Isn't there a six month lockup? Right. There's a lockup. So in the interim, he's still... He can just run down the clock, right? Like... Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

So I guess, you know, to wrap this whole thing up, what can we look forward to next? Where is the story going to go? Are we looking at Trump running down the clock? Are we looking at, you know, is there more about their stock performance that we're waiting on? Tell us what's what's next for Truth Social. I'd be curious to see whether he more explicitly promotes Truth Social as a sort of business entity on the campaign trail.

I mean, this is a guy who sells like, you know, gold plated sneakers or something. Bibles. And Bibles. Most recently, Bibles. Right. So the company's not doing well. He's also... But that meme stock aspect is pretty strong and like...

he has hordes of followers. So if he just kind of hawks this as a product, I'd be curious to see like what the longevity is and to what extent that can make or break a company. Is he allowed back on Twitter? Yeah, he actually has been allowed for a while. Elon welcomed him back. Truth social doesn't matter if he's, you know what I mean? Like... Right. Truth social doesn't matter. He's also, I think he is contractually obligated to post first on truth social. That's so funny. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like, and I, yes, that study suggested that Trump's media reach on true social is significantly lower than he still has no problem getting press. So like, yeah, I don't know that he really cares. We're talking about him. Exactly. Right. He made it to the MIC podcast. So I don't know that he's like really incentivized to go back on X or any of these platforms. Well, Max, this was a great explainer on an unbelievably confusing topic. Yeah.

So you'll be back later for Keeping Tabs. But first, we're going to take a quick break, followed by two interviews. So before chatting with Artemis Patrick, I wanted to hear from an actual Sephora tween.

So here's my conversation with Eleanor Woodsworth. She's the daughter of Fast Company executive editor Amy Farley, and she's also, more importantly, a Sephora fanatic. I talked to her about how she became interested in skincare, what she thinks of influencers, and what her favorite products are. So I guess to start off, I want to hear about your skincare and makeup routine. Okay, so every morning, I don't actually use that much because...

I don't know. I just don't really want to. But I usually just put on like a toner or like a day moisturizer. It's this French brand called like Voila. And then I use this Glow Recipe toner. But for a night, I usually put on like my Glow Recipe toner. I put on a few Glow Recipe moisturizers, my Drunk Elephant serum moisturizer, and then like a lip mask and some Glow Recipe spray. That's more than I do. That's impressive. Yeah.

You know, it sounds like you really love Glow Recipe. And I guess I'm curious about basically like how you discovered Sephora and how you discovered brands at Sephora. When is the first time, you know, you started hearing about it and got interested? So when I was like really young, I used to love like stealing my mom's makeup and doing like extravagant makeup looks. Two years ago, I really got introduced to skincare sort of from my friends.

and then I went and I got some more like pharmacy brands. Then I went to Sephora, and I saw all the other skincare products, and it looked really good quality. So then I started buying more of them and more. So then it sort of became like this collectible obsession type thing. When you or your friends, you know, are looking into products or brands, where are you mostly seeing them? Is it YouTube Shorts? Is it TikTok? Yeah, so it's basically a little bit.

Of both, I actually heard about Sol de Janeiro from some kids in my school. And so then I wanted to test it out. I was like, oh, this smells really good. So I went to Sephora and I bought some. And so, yeah. So now I have a ton of Sol de Janeiro stuff. From like YouTube shorts and like TikTok, we hear about these things. We see other people using them and say like, oh, this is really good.

So then we decide to buy them or. But also, I just started following some like channels that are the brand like Glow Recipe, like Bubble, like Drunk Elephant. I heard about these since the whole obsession over them. So I decided I wanted to try them because I heard they were really good. But I think other kids who are my age heard about them from like TikTok or YouTube Shorts.

When you see a post on YouTube Shorts or TikTok about skincare or makeup, what are some of the things, I mean, give me some examples that really convince you you wanted to try that product. I tried the products, some of them because my friends tried them, but others because I actually stumbled across their YouTube channel, like I told you. And I saw that they had a new product launching. And I thought that was really cool because I like that brand.

How often do you go to Sephora, the store?

Well, whenever there's a half day with my friends or whenever we're free or there's a weekend or

and we just want to hang out in the neighborhood around my school, we always go there. I mean, not always, but sometimes we just stop in, just look at everything, and then leave, or sometimes we stop in and then we buy a few things. We don't try all the testers on because, I mean, some other kids do, but all the kids that I've known that like Sephora, they don't try all the testers. A lot of these influencers that me or my friends follow are

We find them because either they're marketing a product or they have a product and they really like it. And so since we see that they're marketing a product, then we want to, we don't usually just trust whatever they're marketing, but we see, we like, like the video if they're marketing it. And then we go and research more in the project. I mean, on the product itself.

and we see if it's actually really good. - So you don't necessarily trust like a brand sponsored post? - No, because I sorta trust a brand sponsored post, but not completely because they are getting paid for sponsoring. So they probably made some of the stuff up, but if we see a brand sponsored post from a person that we trust,

then we may believe it better. But also the brand sponsored posts, usually if we watch it, then we watch other about the same products, but that aren't sponsored. How old are the influencers that you're watching? Do you see them marketing or giving advice to teens or tweens? Or is it more like, you know, they're older, but you sort of like learn from them? They sort of just market their products.

And teens and tweens, since they love and use a lot of skincare, they say, oh, there's new skincare. I want to try this out. Even if all the skincare is not good for their skin, stuff that has anti-aging stuff in it. I saw a few videos about this, but tweens and teens, some of them

think that they want to protect their skin from when they get older. I've seen a lot of videos about this. So they use like anti-aging stuff, even though they're 11. So which is pretty funny, but. Yeah, Eleanor, I'm trying to look like you right now. You don't need retinol. Thank you. Have you influenced any of your mom's choices or your dad's? Oh, okay. So a little bit of both.

So before I got Drunk Elephant, I saw that there were a few products that I really wanted to try out. But my mom, she...

I didn't have the money for them, but I. Yeah, you didn't have $60 or whatever. No. Yeah. But I sort of persuaded my mom to try one of them out. So she bought it. And now she really likes them. What is it? Is it like a face cream? Yeah, it's their bronzy drops.

It's like viral bronzy drops. And I heard about it through social media and my friends. With my dad, I also I'm trying to get him into skincare. So he hasn't bought he hasn't bought any of the skincare yet. But whenever he's reading a book to me or something, or he's just like sitting in my room, I always give him like a facial of all my Glow Recipe and Drunk Elephant things. And now he started to like, ask for me to give him the facial. And

Oh, really? Yeah. He's like, can you use that drunk elephant mist on me again? So. What about your brother? My brother, he's not interested. He just goes to his rooms like you're wasting your money on all these things like you don't need it. I'm like, well, it's self-care. So it makes me feel good. What are some of the things you look for in skincare? Do you think about whether you can recycle the packaging or

Or does that not really matter to you? Do you think about, you know, how it looks? Okay, so what makes me want to buy a product is if I know their brand well, and I know that their brand is doing really well, and a lot of people like their brand, then that makes me want to buy a skincare product. I heard about this thing also from brand channels, and I heard that

Glorespy and Drunk Elephant are doing these. It's good for the environment things where they recycle their materials.

And you can also refill your material. So when you run out of like your favorite moisturizer or yeah, it's just like your favorite moisturizer, then you can go into the store and you can buy like a refillable bottle for less. Yeah, less money. Yeah, less money. Do you ever look at Target or at any, you know, do you ever go to CVS or are you a Sephora for life girl at this point?

So, yeah, I do like going to CVS and the Walgreens to, like, buy some stuff. But I don't usually buy skincare there. I'm more, like, makeup. Because, I don't know, I think there was this one time where I bought this toner from one of those places. And I used it, and it made me break out a lot. So then I decided not to trust. That's horrible. Yeah. I decided to trust more of the well-known brands that I actually know about. But with makeup, I don't really care much.

about what brands they are. I mean, I like having higher quality brands, but like, I'm okay to have some like Walgreens or like makeup. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing wrong with CoverGirl. Yeah. What is the most popular product among your friends? Is there like one product that you're all interested in or using? That's a hard one.

So one of the toners from Glow Recipe is really popular within Teens and Tweens. And one of the moisturizers from Drunk Elephant, I forgot what it's called, but it's the one where you pump and the cream comes out. And a lot of Teens and Tweens are doing skincare smoothies and adding different things in. You mean like, is that like adding serums to creams and stuff? Yeah, yeah. Wow. So they add the, there's this one Drunk Elephant, what I was talking about, the pump cream that

And then with some of the Behaja serum and then some of the bronzy drops that my mom has. And they all mix it together and they put it on their face. But I haven't done that. So within my friends, I think the most popular thing is the pink juice moisturizer from Glow Recipe. Pink juice moisturizer. Yeah, because it's my favorite. It makes my skin feel so good. It's probably the favorite thing I have out of my whole skincare routine.

And so I started buying it for a lot of my friends for their birthdays or for Christmas and other holidays. And then they started really liking it. So they started buying it for their friends. Is that how you get most of your skincare? Like some of this is really expensive, right? Are you saving up for it a ton or, you know, asking for it for birthdays and stuff? Well, yeah, I asked for it for birthdays, a lot for Christmas. And I

I usually save up a lot of money from working hard, from some allowance. And so I buy it all because my parents, they don't really mind me getting all this skincare stuff, but they wouldn't really buy it for me unless it was Christmas or because they don't think I need it that much. Wow.

What product should I use? What do you think is like a product that you think is really amazing and that like I'm 31. So hit me.

I would say the pink juice moisturizer because it is my favorite. The pink juice moisturizer? Yeah. And I think it's just perfect for like all skin and it moisturizes and it smells really good and it's lightweight, but also creamy and heavy, but it's a really good, so. Do you buy minis near the counter? Oh yeah. I always, whenever I bought a

I'm buying my thing and I'm walking around. My friends and I always get so distracted because there's all these, like we said, our minis and all our favorite products. And we really want to buy them. So a lot of the times I have this big expensive thing that I want to buy. I'm going up to the counter and then I see all the minis. And I'm like, you know what? I can buy like...

five of these minis for one of this product. Yeah. Then I put the product away and I buy some of the minis. Are there any products you're saving up for right now? So I really want to get the new hue drops from Glow Recipe like I was telling you guys about earlier. So I went to Sephora and

A few days ago, I saved up $20, and I thought that was going to be enough, but it turns out it was $35. So now I'm going to wait a few weeks, and then I'm going to try and go back because I love Glow Recipe. It's a new product. And you want to look bronzed for summer. I get it. Well, this was great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

So as we heard from Eleanor, who's amazing, by the way, tweens and teens are obsessed with Sephora. So now let's hear directly from Artemis Patrick. She explains why that is and how the brand is connecting with that community.

I live equidistant from two Sephora's in Brooklyn. You all are opening a third one close to me, which is a disaster for my wallet. But if I go there at about 4 p.m. every day, the place is full of 12 and 13 year olds testing out every product.

I guess I'd love to hear from you where you think that came from. Yeah, for sure. Well, it is true. Gen Z and definitely now more recently, Gen A have been a huge driver for higher end beauty. What I love most for this new generation is that Sephora and Prestige Beauty in general is their first entry point into the world of beauty. But just to be clear, we

tweens and teens experimenting with makeup and skincare is not new. I was being dropped off at the mall at 13. There just wasn't a Sephora there for me to play in. I distinctly remember, you know, when I first entered Prestige Beauty, I was in my early twenties. I was living abroad. I was studying in Spain and I had a friend who was coming back to the U S to visit. And he said, well,

what can I bring back for you guys? And, you know, my friends were like, sourdough bread from San Francisco. And I was like, Verushka lipstick from MAC. He says, what? I love that. So, you know, certainly this is not new. Having said that, what is new is this interaction, certainly with skincare and really around prestige skincare. I mean, I wasn't as educated on that

when I was younger. And now I have a 13 year old who's packing up her super goop SPF in her backpack and I love it. So obviously social is a huge driver of that. There's also a feeling and sense of community

when the younger generation is shopping IRL in our stores. But that is why now more than ever, we at Sephora, as well as our brand partners, really have the responsibility to educate our consumers, our new consumers on this skincare and ingredients and all that good stuff. And the reality is, is that our beauty advisors in our stores are our superpower.

They are not on commission. They truly want to offer what is best for the individual needs of our consumers.

So we continue to invest heavily in resources on education, training around ingredients and really what's right for each age group so that our beauty advisors have the tools they need to interact with this new consumer. So we want our shoppers, no matter the age, to continue to make informed decisions when buying products that best meet their individual needs. What kind of content have you seen really convert

sort of Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids. You mentioned content. I know Sephora sort of educates some people on how to use TikTok, you know, in an effective way. Tell me about that. For sure. I mean, our brands are, you know, really great at this and the brands that are doing quite well that are, you know, on fire right now, brands like Glow Recipe and Tower 28 and

Patrick Ta and Milk Makeup, you know, these are brands that at the end of the day, regardless of the social channel, have connected with their community. And I think that that's really the standout here. Knowing who your community is and connecting with them in an authentic way is really what's driving brand success. And it's ultimately what's also driving Sephora's success. So

When we think about content, we think about, you know, again, that authentic connection. It's not super made up. It's not super filtered. It really does show the real person and the individuality of your consumer, of the brand's consumer, and then ultimately the Sephora consumer.

And we continue to invest in making sure that content gets out there, not just through TikTok, but across all social channels, as well as our own website, which has a lot of eyeballs on it. So getting user generated content, getting videos, getting real life before and afters, leveraging those reviews, that peer to peer reviews is incredibly critical to this generation. And we continue to build on that.

When I was a teen, and by the way, I love that you have a Sephora tween daughter. She probably has like, she's probably so excited that you work there. I'm not sure if she knows what I do quite yet, but she does like the product. But you know, when I was a, when I was a tween, I was obviously just going to the drugstore and buying like the worst product. I mean, like products where I would like basically remove

a layer of skin from my face and spackle it with Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse. Very 2000s, very 2000s experience. But, you know, I think about a Target, for example, as having like far richer beauty offerings than it did before. And I think they're expanding that. How do you as Sephora sort of compete or differentiate yourself as these sort of more mall brands, fashion brands? I don't really know how to describe it.

sort of up their beauty game? Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, at Sephora, we were now, you know, we're past 25 years in the U.S. We've been in Canada for 20. And I think part of the reason for our success and our longevity is that we really continue to focus on what makes us different and what differentiates us. We don't spend a lot of time focusing on the competition. We think about what are our differentiators. And the reality is that

you know, Sephora is the largest prestige beauty player in North America. And we've worked hard to get here. We've really worked on incubating our brands, telling their brand story, you know, brands that are now household names like Drunk Elephant or Fenty Beauty, you know, those started at Sephora. And we believe that that is our differentiator. And, you

It started as just sheer survival 25 years ago, 26 years ago now when Sephora came to the United States where not a lot of the big players wanted to work with us. So we started thinking, you know, where can we lean in and how are we different? And it was those brands, the Urban Decays, the Stela's, the Tarte's.

that virtually were, you know, unknown at the time and really came on this journey with us. And that has been our differentiator. So we continue to look for that. We, you know, I always say our number one job is to build the success of the brands we already have. That's why we're so thoughtful about which brands we bring in to the Sephora family, because we know this is a long game.

I want to actually talk about that and talk about product assortment because I think something that is really impressive about this for us, you're always finding new brands to bring in.

What are the elements that make a brand successful or right for Sephora? The focus is building the success of the brands that we do have. But when we think about new brands, for sure, we think about, first and foremost, a unique brand story. What differentiates this brand founder or this brand story from our existing stories? And what's unique about it? And what could we do

as a retailer through all our channels to tell those stories. So that's number one. Second, and I think it's probably pretty obvious is the product innovation, the assortment. There's a lot of great product out there. So this is not to say that when we don't launch it, it's because it's not great. There's a lot of great product, but what we're looking for is something that is unique

within our assortment and that we think our consumer is looking for. Our consumer has gotten a lot more demanding in terms of what's next, what's hot, what's the trend. And I think there's an expectation that Sephora will be that retailer to bring it to life. So in that sense, we're very thoughtful about what is that unique gap in our assortment. And then last but certainly not least,

You know, we work with brand founders from, you know, when they just have a little tiny concept to, you know, where they're a little bit more established. But ultimately, we look for brands that have a team, even if it's just a team of one to start that really know beauty. I think that's super important or at least have a hunger and an appetite to learn the beauty space because it is quite different than other retail spaces. And that's important to us.

Now, Sephora is definitely a prestige retailer, but you do sell products from the ordinary, which I would classify as like relatively cheap, through, you know, like your Augustinus botters, right? Sure. What consumer spending looks like? Do you see people buying both of those at the same time? I've seen stats about people spending more money on beauty than ever. Like, tell me about that.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, we define prestige as a way of being for the brand. It's not necessarily the price point. So you do mention ordinary. There's brands like Inkey List. You know, we have our own private labels for a collection, which does quite well for us.

it is not just about the price point. It's about how the brands show up, where they're sold and how they're distributed. That's very much how we define prestige. But having said that, yes, I mean, it goes across the gamut. You know, we see that consumer adding that plus one with the lower price point. There's a sense of

trial at Sephora that people just love to play and discover. So if they're not really sure, do they need a, you know, an eye cream with caffeine? Okay, there's this one from Inkey List for 11 bucks. Let me try it. And it's a great way to really get into prestige. We think that hopefully Sephora is a place where everyone can enjoy beauty. And so offering that wide range of price is very important to our strategy as well. Over the past...

I would say, you know, you brought in some brands that were previously just sold direct to consumer on your shelves. I'm thinking of Glossier, but more recently you've got Soft Services, I think very recently launched on your shelves. I guess just from a business perspective, do you see a future in just selling direct to consumer? Do you think like getting those brands on physical shelves is really important when you're looking at sort of the business landscape now? How do you think about that? For sure. I mean, listen,

Listen, Sephora has always been grounded in both the physical and the digital. We were one of the first BD retailers to launch an e-commerce site in the U.S. It was 1999. I distinctly remember I was actually in the e-commerce space at that time, and I thought it was just the coolest thing on earth. So we've been doing this for quite some time, and that experience around

meeting the consumer where they are, whether they want to shop digital or whether they want to shop physical or Omni. Sometimes they just want it right then and there, which is why we offer same-day delivery and buy online, pick up in store. And we have partnerships with Instacart and DoorDash for that reason. So...

We've always operated that way. I think there was definitely a time where, you know, there were several direct-to-consumer brands that popped up and that's fine and that makes sense. But for us, it's really about the combination of the physical and the digital. I don't think that this generation is going to want to stop shopping in stores anytime soon. They enjoy the journey. They enjoy the community.

So we truly believe that for a brand to be successful, ultimately it'll have to figure out how to get into that physical space. You've got them young too, so they'll be with you for life.

Something that I have noticed on social media and that I would love to get your take on is I think perfume and scent influencers have really taken off. And that one is so confusing to me, right? Makeup, I'm like, I get it. I see it on someone. I want that same look. I'll go buy it in store. But somebody spritzing around a perfume and describing it is very confusing. When you look at

how you sell things or which channels, are people buying a lot of perfume online? That really kind of exploded during the pandemic, I would say. The reality is, is that, you know, we were stuck at home and you weren't going out. And we've always said, and I'm so happy the younger consumer...

Finally was able to experience this, that scent brings joy. Scent invokes memories. So even if you started by just, you know, burning a candle at home while you're on, you know, 10 hours of Zooms, I think people, you know, started to see, wow, okay, scent does that.

bring joy. So I think our brands do a really, really good job of describing the ingredients and the scents through content, through user-generated content, through influencers. And I think that's why it exploded during the pandemic and why, frankly, it's continued to sustain. And certainly we're seeing it

In our business, there's definitely a new and exciting appreciation of fragrance. You know, big designer brands are still very popular because many of these are heritage, they're classic, they're tried and true. But the emergence of the newcomers like Kayali and Henry Rose and Rosie Jane, Fleur, they cater to a different set of attributes that makes fragrance approachable, modern, and versatile for all our shoppers. And ultimately, it brings them joy. I want to talk a little bit now about

sort of Sephora's incubation program. I mean, it's been wildly successful. Rare Beauty is everywhere. Fenty is sold not only at Sephora, but at Ulta at this point. They're just mainstream brands.

How do you create the space or go about creating the next big thing? Sure. The way that we approach incubating brands, as I mentioned, this has been in our bloodstream. It's in our DNA. A lot of people talk about building incubation programs, but that's literally how our merchants live and breathe every single day.

I have had the incredible pleasure of meeting all the merchants and working with all the merchants around the world. And I would say at Sephora, we truly have the best merchants in the industry because this idea of incubating brands, it's not some incubation program off the side. It's literally what we do, what we live and breathe every single day, because we do believe that's a unique differentiator for Sephora, that storytelling and bringing that to life.

We also, as you may know, have an accelerator, an official accelerator program. Before we officially launched this accelerator program in 2016, our teams were, you know, as I mentioned, unofficial, but unofficially incubating brands that today are some of the most recognized brands in beauty. But what happened in 2020 was we had the opportunity to be the first major retailer to take the 15% pledge.

which was started by Aurora James to challenge retailers to dedicate 15% of their shelf space to black owned brands. I wrote an article about this. Oh, you did, I know. You may know about it. I remember interviewing you for that one. That's right, that's right. And I'm so happy to continue to talk about it because unfortunately a lot of retailers sort of made commitments and then, you know, when the dust sort of settled, moved away. But that is definitely not the strategy at Sephora. So as you know, you know,

Thank you so much.

then because we're continuing to grow on that. Today through Accelerate, we've supported more than 60 brands on their growth journey through the program. When we started, we only had 3% of our assortment that was black owned. Fast forward to today where we will reach 10% by year end. We've actually reached 15% in the hair category. I'm very proud of how far we've come.

But by no means is this the end. And in fact, it's truly just the beginning. Does that increased inclusivity translate into either a bump in sales or acquiring new customers? Like what does that how does that help the overall business? Oh, certainly. I mean, we we we say, you know, diversity is good for the heart, but it's also good for the

good for business. And it kind of makes sense if you think about it, right? Like the diversity that's in our stores, we have a responsibility to all of our consumers to sell brands from founders that look like them. So, you know, I, as someone with curly coily hair, who when I was my daughter's age, couldn't find a product to save my life today, now have access to those products because people are creating those products for me that have hair like me.

It just makes good business sense. So I want to talk a little bit about consumer trends you're seeing. What are the categories that are growing, the brands that you see, you know, aside from your Drunk Elephants and your Glow recipes that are really taking off? And what do you think is like the next big thing that we're going to see?

Well, certainly, you know, as I mentioned, social has played a huge role. So our beloved brands today that are growing like Rare Beauty, Patrick Ta, Summer Fridays. But also there's, I think, a connection back to that founder, that authentic connection again.

to who is making the product. So when you think of brands like Makeup by Mario, that was created by someone who has been a makeup artist for over 20 years, whose first job was actually at Sephora, believe it or not, in New York. So, you know, I think that, you know, beyond, again, great product, great team, there is that connection back to the founder, and we're seeing that be quite successful.

Certainly I mentioned fragrance. We're also seeing incredible growth, no pun intended, in hair growth as well as scalp care, especially in Prestige Beauty where we're outpacing the market in growth in hair. It's really coming from that hair wellness, that hair treatment, that scalp care, brands like Actonacre. You mentioned direct-to-consumer brands. We recently launched Nutrafol.

That was direct-to-consumer for many years and now in physical retail. So that's trending quite well. And then I would say really the continued growth around clean brands as well as sustainable brands as well. I want to talk a little bit about your career trajectory. We don't really tend to profile people on this show, but you are someone who has been promoted from within over the course of many years and eventually became CEO. Yes.

That's really hard. We see a lot of companies finding a CEO that comes in from the outside. And I guess I want to hear your advice for people who want to sort of move up the ranks that way. For sure. Well, first of all, I'm lucky to work for a company.

and not just Sephora, but LVMH in general, that does promote quite a bit from within. I'm sure you've seen some of the succession moves in LVMH in general, and that's by design. That's definitely not by accident. So I think culturally, all the way up to LVMH, this is something that we value as a company. So very grateful for that.

As you mentioned, I have been with Sephora for a long time. I started in 2006, so I just celebrated my 18 years. I'm officially a Sephora adult, which is very exciting. And I'd like to think that I have a unique perspective going into the CEO role because

I've had so many other roles across Sephora from leading our dot-com merchandising business to GM of Sephora inside JCPenney, North America Merch, and then most recently global merchandising. Across each role, I was able to build on my knowledge of not just Sephora, but a deep understanding of our consumers across the globe.

When you asked how I sort of went through that process, for me, it's always just about curiosity. People say to me, what was your plan or what's your plan for your career in the next five years? Honestly, my plan was just to learn. When I was given the opportunity to be the GM of, say, JCPenney, up until that time, I was pretty much primarily e-commerce. I had a pure digital background for the most part.

The fact that I worked for a company that said, go run a P&L, go run 600 stores and gave me the opportunity to do that. I didn't think about, you know, where would that lead me in five years? I thought about, well, what am I going to learn? And I think that attitude, constantly being curious,

thinking about what you're going to do and not so much about the title or is that a stepping stone to something else? Are you genuinely interested? Are you genuinely curious? And the rest of the stuff will come. In terms of how you think about hiring or moving people around, I got to say, I'm in a job. I was a magazine writer for a long, I mean, I still am a magazine writer for a long time. And then I raised my hand to work on podcasts, but how do you- See, there you go.

Well, no, so I'm a proponent of this, but a lot of companies are like, if you don't have podcast experience, you're not right for this role. Like, how do you think about hiring or placing people in roles where they may not necessarily be a domain expert?

Well, first and foremost, I think about how I want to build my team. And I'm really driven by our purpose and values first, which is really about an inclusive mindset and bringing in diverse ideas into the fold. I don't want people that think like me. I want people to challenge me.

And I want people, you know, to teach me things that I don't know. I think that's first and foremost what I look for. I also just believe as a leader that, you know, I have a responsibility to just remove obstacles. So a lot of times I think people come into a new role and, you know, you might think, well, they don't have the experience, but what if I just gave them the runway? What if I remove the obstacles and just gave them the tools and the resources and the opportunity to try new things, to fail fast,

to learn and to move. I think that that's really how I think about it first and foremost versus just sort of their traditional jobs on the resume. Now we get to the fun part of the interview, the last few questions, which is what is a criminally underrated product at Sephora? What is something that you think people are sleeping on? You know, I have no favorite products.

it's just like no favorite children. This is, it's not so much a sleepy product because a lot of people have one, but not enough people have one. So I'm here to tell you, you need a Dyson hairdryer. So it has been life, it's life changing. It's an investment. Think of it as an investment. So I, for Curly's especially, I cannot live without my Dyson. I have

a US one, a Europe one, and a UK one. Wow. So that when I travel, I bring it with me. I will leave shoes behind in order to fit my Dyson air dryer.

You have red lipstick on. What are you wearing today? Today I'm wearing Say, which is one of our exclusive clean makeup brands. And I absolutely love the formulation. It's a nice red, right? Yeah, it looks really good. Yeah, and it's long wear too. It's long wear? It's a cream. It's not your traditional long wear, so it won't dry out your lips, but I don't need to reapply it throughout the day.

Because, you know, I talk a lot. So I have to make sure that I have a good lipstick on. And what is your Sephora teen obsessed with? Oh, my goodness. Okay. So I don't think there's enough time on this podcast, but I don't think there's anything that's going to be a surprise. Definitely. She loves Sol de Janeiro, every new scent that launches. She wants it. She loves Tower 28. She loves Summer Fridays, both the lip oil and the bombs. She loves the Dior lip balms.

lip oil when she wants a little splurge of course um she loves the you know all the the brands that you see trending say colasauce and in terms of skincare there are great products that she'll try for me across the board so she loves sephora collection she's been using sephora collection since she was younger they have a wonderful gentle cleanser and moisturizer for tweens but

So that's definitely her sort of basic go-to. And then, you know, lots of stuff skin fix. She also does love her drunk elephant, but I make sure she doesn't use the retinol. She loves the Lala moisturizer and the jelly cleanser. So, oh my goodness, the bathroom is not good here. My poor husband. I love your daughter. She's awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. This was great. Of course, it was so fun.

Okay, we are back with Max and it's time to wrap up the show with Keeping Tabs. This is where each one of us shares a story, trend, or piece of pop culture we're following right now. And Max, since you're our guest, what are you keeping tabs on? I am interested in this report over the weekend from Politico about Trump's VP search. Mm-hmm. Oh.

Who's in the running? Oh, man. This is like The Bachelor. Yeah, exactly. The Bachelor for Truth Social. We've got J.D. Vance, Mr. Co-Billiology himself.

We've got Tulsi Gabbard. We've got Tim Scott. Tulsi Gabbard's in the running for that? Literally anyone is in the running for this. Jesus Christ, Tulsi. Making a hard, like, just really, really went a complete opposite direction. Well, I mean, there's some interesting political alignment with her and Trump. And she also would probably help get Trump

Some element of that. I mean, I don't think she's going to be his VP pick, but... Who seems most likely? You know, they had said that Tim Scott, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis were two frontrunners. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard also is on the shortlist, they say. So we'll see. But then, you know, you've got people like

Florida rep Byron Daniels, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Of teeth infomercial fame. Laughter

It's really anyone's game at this point. That's still wild to me. Has Elise Stefanik fallen out of favor? Is this no longer... No, well, according to Politico, she's on this list. Okay. I mean, it is interesting, though, when you look at, like, you've got people spanning, like, Tulsi Gabbard to Ron DeSantis. So, like, it just suggests how strong Trump's grip is on the party, that he can take people from every sort of...

every point in the Republican continuum. You know, he can get like your classic paleo conservative. He can get, uh, the like kind of crunchy conspiracy theory conservative, you know, he can get them all. He can catch them all. And it has a hundred percent pull over people who have no scruples and will do anything for power. Yeah.

I'm looking at you, Tulsi. Josh, what are you keeping tabs on? I have an anti-keeping tabs. I'm not keeping tabs on the solar eclipse, which is happening this Monday, Monday sometime. Oh yeah, this Monday. A lot of people are into it. And this is probably my worst hot take in the world, but I just don't care about eclipses. It's not for me. I don't know why this incredible one-sin...

Actually, they seem to happen more often. I do feel like that is a conspiracy theory. I do feel like they happen more often than the news media claims. Well, there's like partial eclipses and lunar eclipses and the totality of eclipses seem to happen a lot. This is supposed to be like a very rare one. Would you be interested if the path of totality...

like somehow went over New York. Not really. Oh, that's because you live in Austin, right? Right. So I'm interested because it's just in my backyard.

That's great. That's great for you. Even if it was, you need to get special glasses or stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, they're $8 on Amazon. Yeah, I don't know. It just seems like a hassle. I don't know. I'm just not into it. I'm just going to probably watch something stupid and work instead. But that's my anti-keeping tabs.

Eclipses, overrated. I'll let you know how it goes. Yeah, let me know how it goes. I'm open to being convinced otherwise. You know what's crazy? It is kind of like you're the guy who tells your kid that Santa doesn't exist. It's just like, just let people have joy. Actually, that is something I've been thinking of. It's just like, do I have it in me to put up the farce that is Santa for a while if and when I have kids?

I don't know if I do. I think it might be that guy. Anyways, get at me in my DMs, everybody. Let me know why I'm wrong. Fuck you. I love the eclipse.

Oh, God. Anyways, after I just ruined my career. I do have something really... Want to hear the most obnoxious thing I could say back to you? Sure. The last time there was a big eclipse, I watched it from a boat in the south of France. Damn. Jesus Christ. Really? I was like... Yeah. I was a child. I actually don't really know. Don't remember it that well. That's pretty cool. I mean, you did The Lay of Overseas quite a bit, so it's not like you traveled from New York. And I'm a douchebag.

Yeah, a little bit. Anyways, what's your keeping tabs? So my keeping tabs is yesterday Beyonce accepted some award. I don't really remember what because there's a lot of fake awards in the music industry. I think it was an innovator award, which is vaguely in our realm of coverage. It was not from Bass Company. From Stevie Wonder for her new album.

Don't come for me. I didn't love her cover of Jolene, but I did find out that Stevie Wonder played the harmonica on it, which I think is very cool. That is cool. Because I'm a big Stevie Wonder fan. The Beehive is going to come for you. Is the album good? No. Yeah, you can't say. Well, honestly, I thought the album overall was good. Yeah, I'm just not a big country fan in general. My thing is, like, I listened to it, and I was like, I like some of these songs. And I was like, I don't know.

It immediately left my mind. You know what I mean? I think if you're into country, you will really like this album. If you're not a big country music fan, because it's a very down-the-middle country album. I like Texas Hold'em, though. Oh, that's a bop. Yeah, that's a great song. That's the reason why it's a single, that one out there. But it's just a fairly low-key album overall. It's

This is weird because you can't say this about any other Beyonce music. It's like, it's good background music. Wow. We're going to get trolled. The eclipse. I mean, I do feel like, you know what? I'm not going to publicly air this take. Do it. Do it. Do it. I like Beyonce. You know what? I'm not even going to get into this. Why am I waiting in? I have no opinions here. You famously

don't like Beyonce. I remember being like crazy and love the great song and you were like, I actually don't like Beyonce. Okay, I would argue we're in like the era of poptivism, right? And it's just I found it really hard to get what seemed to me to be like genuine critical perspectives on these albums.

Yeah, because it feels like a big, like, psy-op. Yeah, exactly. What? It feels like a big psy-op. Find me on true social. I mean, listen, there's an element of anything within pop culture that is, like, is something truly, like, good and mass appealing, or are we being told this is good and should be mass appealing? Because you can't possibly, as an individual, consume everything.

We're just getting it. I think Beyonce is like, I think unequivocally, if you talk to anyone who's like deep into music is unequivocally like a talented artist. I don't think that's really like debatable in any sense. Same thing with Taylor Swift, but like with anything else, like what happens if, you know, the music industry and pop culture writ large, are these artists inevitable because they're talented or are they inevitable because

Because they're everywhere. They're everywhere. All the time. The marketing element of this can't be understated in terms of building this stardom. That's fair. I'll buy it. It's her and the Foo Fighters, baby. Josh is like, do not come for me.

But Taylor Swift sucks. Get out of here. That will get me canceled. Do you actually think so? I don't think she sucks. I just don't get it. I just don't get it. I don't get any of these. I feel the same way about both of them. I'm like, I like some of their songs. Okay. Yeah, I get the superstardom of Beyonce. I do not quite get the superstardom of Taylor Swift. It just will never quite compute for me.

Anyway, that's a good way for us to end. That's it for Most Innovative Companies. Max, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Our show is produced by Avery Miles and Blake Odom, mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres, and our executive producer is Josh Christensen. Remember again to subscribe, rate, and review, and we will see you next week.