Everybody is talking about world-building, nobody is doing it

30:30Oh, absolutely not. I don't think that's the case. But there needs to be clarity of the product. If you start from product as the universe builder, like Hermes has, you need to have an icon. Hermes has Birkin, has Kelly. And their universe is made around craftsmanship. So an aspect of production of their products, which is made in France, truly made in France. I don't know what the percentage is, but bigger than in other luxury brands. When they have artisanal workshops and when they train artisans. So production is their center of gravity. Right. So, but in terms of like a product world, you're saying that the product world can be a process.

31:21Like in the Hermes example, it's the craft, it's the atelier where things are made. It's the coded language of the leather and the making. Correct. It can be ingredients. For everyone, the luxury grocer, it's the ingredients in their smoothies that is the core of that universe. Otherwise, anyone can make a fancy-looking bakery or whatever, fancy-looking supermarket. It's not the point. The point is they're like, oh, you have a little spirulina, you have this, you have that. everything is locally made and it's possible only in California and you know what I mean and it is possible in California because of their soil and their practices of farming and so on so it can be ingredients it can be production it can be that craftsmanship artisanship or it can literally be product innovation because before 50s Lego was a toy making company they made all sorts of toys in the 50s they're like they stumbled upon a brick probably in the middle No, I'm kidding.

32:20And so anyway, there is a British company who made those like self-clutching bricks. And the owner and his son, they were like, hey, do you mind if we use this? And the British company was like, yeah, good luck. And when it gets like 100 years later, they're like still beating themselves for not trademarking that stuff. So that is that product innovation that made that brick so versatile. But then it was the sets that are mutually compatible and then you're kind of extending that in the new markets, you use scenarios and new age groups. Yeah. So like I'm just thinking of like another kind of product world.

33:04So I think of like Crocs, for example. Would you say Crocs has a product world? Birkenstock does. Okay. But Crocs as well because that's recognizable. shape. I don't know that much about Crocs in terms of their production, but I know a lot about Birkenstocks and how it sort of came to be in terms of the layering and that specific material and what the outline of the foot and, you know, how it all, what was the product innovation there. The same as Doc Martens, that was the product innovation. Doc Martens was a German soldier who had a hurt foot and then he made an extra sole and like extra cushioning and, you know, and Doc Martens were worn by women, British women who are gardening because they were until punks discovered and, you know, like became like associated with subculture.

33:59So I never knew that. So Doc Martens was like a British suburban gardener's shoe before it was punk music? Totally. Ah, wow. For decades. Yeah. They were like, oh, they're very comfortable. I can, you know, garden in them for hours. That's funny. I mean, because that's almost like the exact thing, the trajectory that Crocs went on. I mean, it was meant to be a non-slip. I don't know. It meant to be a non-slip boating shoe. And they started selling them at, like, events and stuff and sold out all of them. But everybody was wearing it because they were just so comfortable. So you had, like, nurses wearing it and line cooks wearing it and stuff like that.

34:33It was obviously not that attractive of a shoe. and it was joked around as like it's for people who've given up type of thing because like, oh, you don't care about how you look. You just want to be comfortable type of thing. And then all of a sudden, you know, it's an$850 shoe on the runway for Balenciaga and stuff. Yeah. But, and it's – Yeah, Levi's is also an example of product innovation. Yeah. They did that copper rivulet that made the jeans incredibly durable. And because they were so durable, they were preferred workwear. and because they were so durable, they were worn for so long that became associated with subcultures and where became the story.

35:13And now you can go on eBay and found Levi's from like 50s and 60s for tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah. Because again, that's like that product innovation, those like literary bullets that enabled them to be so durable was something that differentiated the product and that entire, the 501s allowed the entire company to be spun out of the single product. The same is with Nike waffle shoes. Like those are the first ones that Nick Knight created. And for runners, because they're lighter, they're like Japanese ones. You know, the waffle one that had that like sole, that like waffle or like moon shoe.

35:52And out of that, the entire company spun out. And that was actually the undoing of Nike because they stopped being a sports company. They were obsessed with athletes. They were a running company. They were incredibly obsessed with runners. And while they were doing that, they were number one. So let's go back to the Lego thing because I do think, and I totally agree with you, that Lego is like one of the best world-building brands out there. I mean, you listened to before, they have theme parks, which I've taken my kids to a ton, and they love it. I have to admit, it's a much smaller scale than a Disney, but they do a really good job with it.

36:30They have clothing lines. They have adult lines. They have their own IP movies. Yeah, the movies are fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Like the Batman movie is honestly one of the best Batman movies in the whole Batman universe. It's just so well done. So unpack a little bit more of the structure behind how Lego has successfully built a product world. In the past, you've talked about archives and you've talked about lore. You've talked about rituals and sub-storylines and stuff as being core to brand worlds. Where do you see that with Lego? It's literally all of that. When you look at the cultural products that are at disposal, because Lego does have archive on the site.

37:17And you can literally go and you can say, hey, in 1985, my first Lego set was XYZ. you can find that edition in their archives. It's not just that. It's doing all of that in a synchronized manner. So for me, it's, but for me, that these are executions and they're going to evolve. So I'm not saying they are not interesting or relevant. What is more for why Lego was interesting to me to bring it up here in the first place was that center of gravity, was how basically you can build a world that's not going to be very durable, which they try to do before they realize that their center of gravity is the brick.

38:04You know what I mean? They were like, oh, but we're Lego. We're going to slap Lego logo on a transformer, on a Barbie-like figurine. You know, like we talked in the last episode on White Lotus, how you do CB2 collaboration and you do, you know, just like aesthetically, that you don't change operating system, you change the aesthetic. So that is the mechanism of the Lego was like, we are a specialty companies. We make bricks. Those bricks fit together. Those bricks may make a gazillion possible combinations. Thanks to those gazillion possible combinations, we are going to target kids and we are going to target adults.

38:40And let's see what else we can do. We have a campus in this tiny village of 7 ,000 people that are all employed by Lego. So it's very uncomfortable conversation when the market is tough. You get laid off and you're like, well, wow. My dad needs to fire your dad or vice versa, you know. So, you know, and they're like, for me, that's that unwavering focus. What is the need and what my company does well to meet that need? And I think that a lot, and that's what Disney is amazing at, what people forget. Disney now can go and collaborate with coach and collaborate with beauty brands. They can do whatever.

39:22That's execution. That's a tactic almost. Merch, collaborations, archived issues, events, theme parks, experiences. These are all executions, but without that center of gravity, which is escapism that people want, the family escapism. Disney is never going to make something that's not for family. that magic, that escapism, and entertainment that meets that escapism. These are those two pillars. What the world needs, what do we provide? I remember, and I thought this was such like a really interesting insight into the culture of the Lego product world, which is there was this Dallas Mavericks basketball player named Miles Turner who was being interviewed after a game or whatever.

40:11and he's well known for being a big fan of Legos, having lots of Legos at his house, big collection. And a sports reporter in the pool asked him something about, Miles, are you going to go home and celebrate this win by playing with Legos? And Miles leaned into the microphone like this and with the seriousness of someone who had just looked like he's been told that his mother was fat, he goes, I don't play with Legos. I build Legos. Like, and I was like, yeah, I get exactly what he means. But I think that's, but I think to the ethos and the sort of canonical ideas of that culture, Lego for so long used to be about play because it was all about kids.

40:57And you look at like the old ads from the 70s and stuff, which were fantastic ads. But they were like, these are kids are playing with Legos and they're exploring and they're being creative and stuff. but they've been able to shift because they needed to move up market and appeal to adults so they could keep lifetime value going longer to the concept of building. So there's not enough kids to buy levels anymore. Exactly. So they're like, yeah. But I think that's like a core ethos. It's not about play. It's about building. And whether you're building literally a Lego set, whether you're building a new skill, whether you're building character, whether you're building whatever.

41:37Lego continually goes back to that idea again and again because it is something that spans both kids and adults, whereas play can just keep the brand kind of trapped with a kid segment. And I just thought that was a really insightful part to the brand world DNA. It is. I wouldn't be so purist about play because, like, I know that what he meant, and I know this is amazing segue that you made. And I do think that the durability of Lego and then plasticity over generations and elasticity in terms of use scenarios is that imagination and that the building potential that you can build whatever you kind of imagine to be.

42:19It's kind of literal world building that each individual participates in that. But I do think that adults, like especially in the past decade, like why do they meet and play board games you know that's a way of socializing and interacting so i you know i i understand again why it's like oh i don't play it's a serious game you know and and also like games are not like games are serious things they're not they're not child's play you know but i do think that again i think it's that modality that allows because it's the ingredients is ingredient is so simple it allows it to belong to many different worlds and iterations that is that that sort of simplicity and that is the key in figuring out how that one single-minded thing single-minded idea single-minded aesthetic single-minded merchandising approach or location as our next example is going to show is that common thread because people tend to be very literal in world building.

43:25And I don't want people to go that, oh, Lego is for builders, so that's of course they have world building. That would be like, that's not the conclusion I want people to have. So should we go to the next topic now? Absolutely. So let's now go from bricks to buildings. So Brunello Cuccinelli, I mean, everyone who has heard of Brunello has heard of Solomeo. He never stops talking about it. Solomeo is a village where he and his family are from. So, where most brands invent fictional worlds through advertising, Brunello Cuccinelli built a real one, which sold. Solomeo, the medieval village the brand restored Umbria, is more than a bedrock.

44:08It's a factory, a cultural center, and a spiritual anchor, where every garment is made and every brand value is made visible. craftsmanship, dignity, timelessness, and harmony. For decades, Cuccinelli practiced what he calls humanistic capitalism, where profit, beauty, and respect for others coexist. The company pays artisans far above industry average, funds theaters and libraries, and quotes Marcus Ariely's in Erling's calls. It's working. The company revenue had 10.8 % increase in the first nine months of this year to$1.17 billion. And that all emits continued global luxury slowdown. The clothes, soft, neutral, almost monastic, aren't designed to chase trends, but to live outside of time.

44:58That's the point. A cashmere knit is like a book. It is something to save and go back time after time. It is the feeling of an embrace, claims Brunello. Cuccinelli isn't just a luxury brand. It's an urban and philosophical project. Its cardigans don't cost$5 ,000 because they're cashmere. They cost$5 ,000 because when you buy them, you're not just buying a product. You're funding a library, a youth center, and a village. And it's a timely conversation because in Rome, my Instagram is like flooded with images of the premiere. In Rome, there's been a premiere of Brunello, the gracious visionary, the movie.

45:40and I mean the gracious egomaniac. No, I'm kidding. He is a sweet, sweet guy. I mean, ultimate power flex. He speaks English. But when I was at an event, he came in, he spoke in Italian to an entire room full of international people, although he can't speak English because, he said, he could not express his heart in any other language than Italian. I mean, I want to get that level of power to be like, I'm going to speak Serbian and you guys forget it out. He had a translator right there, but it was just like, I mean, the guy is a master brand builder. So I love saying, oh, he literally said that.

46:32You're not paying$5 ,000 for a cashmere sweater. You're funding a library. And I'm like, wonderful. I mean, when you put it like that, it's almost like a charitable donation. What is$5 ,000 for a youth center in Solomeo, you know? So back to humanistic capitalism. That is his philosophy. And again, I just think he's a genius, a brand builder and his genius of branding, because he flies like tech executives from whatever, Seattle and San Francisco to try his nona's pasta. He branded entire region. He branded the village. He did restore. He does treat his workers well until a whistleblower proves otherwise.

47:20Everyone sits around the communal table and eats lunch. There is a two-hour break. He sends them home at five. You know, he plays soccer with his buddies like three or four times a week. You know, the entire family still lives there. Now it's the next generation. So all of that sounds like very idyllic. But for brand building, you need that. If you are going to charge luxury prices, you do need to project a luxury lifestyle. And that luxury lifestyle keyword here is not opulence. keyword here, what does the luxury lifestyle mean in 2026 and beyond? It is those humanistic values. It is having time to sit down and have lunch and connect with others.

48:05It is having time to read a book and have a library and play soccer with your friends. So in that sense, that entire the village, the stone, those houses and philosophy that it literally embodies in stone is the philosophy is a brand philosophy. So when you read Brunello you're kind of like, I'm a humanistic capitalist. I literally just like funded Solomel. I can't do Brunello yet. Does he do hospitality there? I'm assuming you can go and stay at a hotel and get the whole experience. Well, Mr. Lee, I do not know. I would be surprised if the answer was no, but I do not know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, The Gracious Visionary, he must have thought of that.

48:57The Gracious Visionary. It sounds like it's a movie just for people who love him, because it sounds like there's no tension or drama in it. It's like, I don't want to watch two hours of a love letter to somebody. I need some tension in it. As great as a guy might be. The celebrities came together and they're all like dressed in, and you know, like he's a lovely guy. Everyone, you know, I guess loves him until we discover it's all made in Bangladesh. No, it's not. It's made in Solomel. Yeah. The location thing is really interesting because like, you know, there's there's a lot of brands who not a lot, but there are many brands that one could think of where you try to connect yourself to the land, to a specific place of origin to say you embody these places.

49:44So oftentimes, like cultural institutions do this a lot, whether you're a symphony from San Francisco or the New York Ballet and things like that, you're sort of pulled into dramatizing a specific location. What's and I mean, I have thoughts on this, but I want to kind of pull them out of you first. What's the kind of like approach to kind of say this? We need to take a location approach where because like everybody's every business is from somewhere. Right. And so at what point does the location be the center of the brand world versus a product versus an aesthetic? Well, location is very often made in Italy.

50:25Like Provence is now a brand. Or you have like when Louis Vuitton release or no, when Chanel releases perfume, they're like now rose fields. I don't know. in a region in France, there is entire like story and like land is brand, you know? So yes, that is definitely, it's a branding strategy when you say, oh, Hermes, Paris, or, you know, like, again, made in Italy has a different meaning than made in other countries. But that's not world building. What is, when you have that, when you have Solomeo as the world-building center of gravity, it's the philosophy in that space. And you see it's an urban project.

51:15It's almost urban. It's not urban. It's like village utopia. And that utopia is like my approach to life. He saw his father being disrespected, his work being disrespected, and he was like, I'll show you. I mean, it was kind of like, it can be capitalism, but things need to change. It can be capitalism with respect. And things cost as much because we are doing them respectfully. Because if we respect the work of human hands and human time and what makes us human, then it's a different price point than you work in factories and so on. So that was the entire philosophy that is then made material.

52:02So the same way that values, you mentioned brutalism at the beginning of this episode, there is a particular set of values that is designed into brutalist architecture. there is a set of humanist capitalist values and philosophy that is designed into the village of solomé so you know without being taken literally i would say that's the hub of that philosophy and the world as a location just having a location as a branding tool it's a tool it's one of the set of tools that brands use hermes says oh we have artisanal workshops but guess what we have hero products as well guess what we have also a brand ambassadors guess what we have horse as our symbol so it's not just craftsmanship and those and and those artisanal workshops that they have and locations it's the entire kind of system of other cultural products that's different from from location as the center of gravity yeah no i totally get that i mean i guess i'm just thinking of like, I think in terms of when somebody's thinking of taking a brand intergenerational brand building approach to their business.

53:13Yes. In terms of saying, are we going to build a product? Are we going to build a location-based? Are we going to build an aesthetic-based world? I think it comes down to a conversation of where is the densest, where is the density of the philosophy set? So for Lego, it was the brick, right? That brick set everything about the company and what it believed. for Brunello it's Solomeo and for whatever his logic might be he might say like I learned this there I'm choosing this wool because of this I like this color palette because it all reminds me of my home and stuff like that so that ends up becoming the densest spiritual.

53:50Because you live where you produce you basically can work and live and produce in the same sustainable sort of location and a system he doesn't live in Rome or Milan and has distant factories on a completely different continent. He is one with the people who work with him and for him. Yeah. But I think this is like the important thing of like, the idea of world building is there has to be a center. Yes. For instance, for a sentence, like in any religion, there is a center of the religion, no matter how far out you go, no matter how many factions within that culture or within that religious culture, there is a center.

54:35And so you have to find that center. And the center, and very much in the way of like a religion, is the densest, most potent source of meaning, the wellspring that you can draw upon again and again and again. Sometimes it's a brick. Sometimes it's a medieval city. Sometimes it's an aesthetic. And I think that's the point here with the Brunello and the location one. Because like even like I'm thinking, you know, there's something about Italians and world building because Como 1907, the soccer team there, which is which used to be basically like a semi pro soccer team. It's since moved up from like series D to series A because they had new owners and they got like new players that come in and they're actually doing really well.

55:15But they actually took a whole world building approach to that brand where they said, look, because when the buyers bought it, I think it was like 54 million when they bought it. And now the most recent thing that I read is it's five times that amount right now. But they basically said, we're going to build a boutique luxury brand. Como is not a huge city, right? But it's beautiful. It has legacy. It is where the aristocracy of Rome would come for a long time. It is a favorite, you know, George Clooney has a home there. It's where stars love to go. So let's build something that is like a boutique luxury lifestyle brand that happens to have one expression as the soccer stadium.

55:57In fact, when you see the pitch and everything, it's framed by the lake and the Alps. It's like it's not a big stadium, but it's a beautiful setting. And you see people like sail their boats up to it and watch the game and stuff. But they've lived into that in between, you know, better management and coaching and players and, you know, higher quality brand they've built around it. They've built a whole world that's now five times more than what the soccer club was originally. But they are drawing upon the specific history, lineage, lore, visual codes and cues of Como and specifically Lake Como to imbue that, refresh that in familiar yet surprising ways into the team.

56:40And so they're very conscious about that. And frankly, I love the whole approach that they're taking, but it's not that different in terms of mechanics and overall intent to the Brunello one because they are trying to blend that whole Como 1907 ecosystem in with the city, that there is no separation between the city and the team. right so you can go down there and stay at a hotel you can go to a game you can buy a new kit that they just launched with i don't know whoever like brioni i they did a they did a whole thing with brioni to create like a luxe line and stuff like what soccer team does that but it's very much in that space of deeply connecting it to a physical location with as the whole spiritual center of the brand world.

57:31I agree. And I think that like sports is a great example because some cultural industries are more territorial than others. I mean, a lot of them really are because at the end of the day, you can see Hollywood. Hollywood is like branding of a place at the end of the day, because that is sort of, it's that culture industry where the film industries where the stars are where the entire planet hollywood you can say hollywood people are immediately going to know what it is it's a neighborhood in la but it has it has a brand different brand meaning specific brand meaning and so i think that soccer clubs are especially like that because when you say tottenham and you said chelsea you're referring to neighbor you're referring to cities but you actually are referring not just to a specific set of players at that specific time, but the entire mythology of Chelsea Soccer Club.

58:30I mean, when you say Chelsea Soccer Club, like, just try saying that to any Brit. They're going to have, like, how emotional reaction is going to be stronger. So I do think that certain creative industries lend that more than others to occasion. Yeah, and I think a lot of it is about, you know, I think a lot of traditional sports team owners would approach that as, well, we need to do community engagement. It's about reflecting the community and stuff. And that's certainly true, but it's really about finding the aspirational, compelling values that that community, that location embody, and then inviting the rest of the world into identifying with that as well.

59:12So for instance, I was having a conversation with this board of directors of this very famous theater group in LA. And one of the board of directors says like, well, we'd like to really be seen as the theater for LA artists. And I said, great, I get that. But if your proposition is effectively, we only put on people from the local LA area, that's kind of a very limited scope of what's possible and also cuts you off from a lot of things that might actually be very relevant to your programming. And I said, what you should do is you should actually think about, we stand for the LA mindset as an LA set of values, a way of thinking.

59:55And we find those people all over the world and we bring them to LA to do the programming with us because LA is more than just a location. And so like - It's a philosophy, it's an interview, it's a specific aesthetics, it's a specific way of being in the world. It's a specific taste, if you will. So I think with, yeah, go ahead, sorry. What I was just going to say, and like, just the perfect example of like, this is like the LA Raiders in the 80s. They had, as a team, they were from LA, but they had such a swagger and a renegade bad boys type of style to them that like everyone outside of LA wanted to wear an LA Raiders gear and colors and hat because of the ideas it stood for, not because they were from L.A.

1:00:41and grew up being L.A. Raider fans. And like that's the trick with this location stuff is how do you take the values that have been grown in the land and the people and the history of a location and make it something, make it a cultural export that other people want to identify with and see with and live in their part of the world, wherever that might be. Yes. And that's why we talked last time about heroin or maybe we didn't. how heroin now delivers through uber and postmates in new york in a new vicinity one mile vicinity of the west village kids private club and if you're not in heroin in la in beverly hills when you can see all those celebrities and when there is actually the healthy living and wellness and celebrity culture intermixed with those amazing ingredients those ingredients still work hard I mean, it is product built, you know, galaxy, but are you enjoying it as much?

1:01:40Yeah. Are you enjoying that world as much as you would if you were actually sitting there and looking at, I don't know, Bad Bunny and, you know, like Orlando Bloom or like other supermodels like Kendall Jenner, like doing the same, you know? Yeah, totally. So, yes, you can by association. That's the strength of the product, really, as a center of that galaxy. But it's the actual location that enriches and forces that. Like, it's the way playing Lego by yourself without the entire rest of the world is not that fun either. Well, that's why people fill entire rooms with Legos that they've built, because they love to be like immersed in the universe.

1:02:26Yeah, and then take photos and invite others in the share. Like honestly, like there's so many podcasts like on Lego and groups that like, yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, builders. All right. Speaking of immersive world gardens, it would not be a brand building podcast unless we talked about Apple and what they've done. And so Apple is a great example of an aesthetic world. Apple, as everyone knows, is the case study that everyone goes to to want to tell any idea that they have in brand building or marketing or technology. Because it has created such gravity that it pulls all sorts of ideas and industries towards it.

1:03:09In fact, the aesthetic that it has been able to define has become the category aesthetic. It is so finely tuned in and calibrated to the idea of technology that you really cannot express a technology brand anymore without effectively using the codes that Apple had codified over many years. And that's a big problem for competitors, but obviously a big advantage for Apple. And the thing that I find so fascinating about this is everything that Apple does is deeply encoded in a spiritual Christian metaphor. And the reason I go back to this is because if one knows anything about – Wasn't Steve Jobs a Buddhist?

1:03:56He was a Buddhist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just everywhere. So if one goes and kind of looks at the relationship between technology and the Christian church, it goes all the way back to the monasteries and the invention of the clock. So monasteries fell in love with the invention of the clock. There's a lot to say there, but we don't have time to get into it. But effectively, monasteries installed clocks to support the monks in their vespers, which is the seven prayers during the day and being on time for that. And it was a piece of technology that helped them separate themselves from the material world and be more focused on God.

1:04:40That was very much the attitude towards a clock at the time. And in fact, the metronome aspect of a clock, the way it divided up the day, allowed monks to not follow the sun, but to follow this mechanical, consistent, reliable invention in terms of how they structured their work during the day. And the monasteries ended up becoming the most productive operations in medieval Europe in terms of economic production. This was like completely random innovation that they stumbled upon. Yeah, but. But. Yeah, OK. But where all this goes is that because of the economic production created by their alignment to the clock, a piece of technology, cities noticed this and wanted to install clocks at the heart of the city to create pattern of cadence, pattern of work within the cities.

1:05:41And then it's a very short bridge to creating factories that are based on the clock and a whole conversation around efficiency, production, throughput, and so on. But ultimately, what technology did was is it separated the human from the experience of a sinful material world to follow something that was abstracted from the world. And in many ways, that's what Christianity is about doing is about separating you from the good and evil war that's happening on earth to a pure expression of knowledge, a.k.a. light, that is God. And so what is so fascinating to me and I is how much Marxism separating you from your labor.

1:06:28Well, in many ways, the whole Christian mindset was about how labor was actually a path to God. So there wasn't actually a separation of that. It's very handy if you are a capitalist. No, but this is what people talked about over and over and over again. I know. During the factory era of the 17 and 1800s, this is what ministers talked about. They preached about the moral value of factory work. Anyway, moving forward, there's a whole lot to say about all of this type of stuff. That is Gramsci right there. and I'll take care. It's kind of that superstructure that is kind of like, go to factory for 23 hours, sleep for a while.

1:07:12I know, I know. But this is truly how people talk about it. Anyway, but the reason that this matters to Apple is because I don't in any way, shape or form think Apple talked about it this way at all. But they, through their own kind of idea of clarity, precision, minimalism, distilling something down to its pure essence, these are religious ideas, whatever you want to tack it to, but it is about the ascent of the spirit from the material body to perfection, right? And so technology particularly takes hold in the Western world because of that lineage of the relationship, the positive circular virtuous a cycle between religion and spirituality and economic uplift.

1:08:01And so this idea that Apple tapped into of epic minimalism, of this aesthetic of light, this aesthetic of purity of expression is deep, speaks to a deep kind of spiritual core of people and the history of technology and its relationship with particularly Christianity. And what is so amazing is how much that comes through in everything that they do. So I even remember when the first iPhone came out, the ad was actually a dark ad with a hand holding up an iPod, which was emitting light and a hand reaching up to it like Michelangelo's the human touching God. It was literally that exact same thing.

1:08:45The idea of an iconic religious figure around Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs has been sort of like built up as this messiah who brought us a religion, a.k.a. the Apple philosophy, the Apple way. There is a whole lesson that they do when you join Apple of taking you through very famously Picasso's bull drawing exercises. It's sort of like the Kandinsky idea of finding the minimal amount of gesture to express the essence of the bull. Picasso did it. Kandinsky did it with dancers and so on. But all of this is a religious practice. All of this is a expression of pure spirituality through the form of technology.

1:09:29And because Apple just found that way into this kind of categorical truth about technology, it has fused the brand to the category aesthetic that no one else can claim. Even when Samsung recognizes this and just tries to straight up copy Apple. That's yes. And they don't do it as they don't do it as well. But they're also occurring brand equity to Apple and seen as an also ran compared to to to Apple. But this is the power of aesthetics. But even you and I talked about this, like the stores are cathedrals. They are built that way. You walk in and the products are presented as like a religious iconography.

1:10:08Yeah. Within that space. Even the people who work there are called geniuses, which in of itself is a spiritual concept of a geni, a demigod who has knowledge beyond what a typical human does. Like all of this is deeply has lineage. Now we are all addicted to those iPhones and our brain rotted. And then the whole idea of a world garden, of all of these products that are plug and play, you want to live in the Apple luxury universe. It is – everything is taken care of. There is no friction. It is removed. You could call it Eden. You could call it heaven. But that is a spiritual promise. You don't need to leave as long as you don't buy the Apple.

1:10:51Get it? Yeah. And even – and this is – some people might know this. when they were designing the Apple logo, like Steve Jobs just wanted straight up Apple. The problem was when they were designing it, it looked like a tomato. And so they had to do something to it that made it look like an apple. So they put a bite out of it. That was the practical reason that they did it. But the reason that it also potentially felt right is because it looked like the bite from the apple of the Garden of Eden, where it was the knowledge and hence the whole creative rebellion idea and so on. Again and again, these are religious.

1:11:27iconographic ideas that they go back to to kind of build out this thing. Now, I do in no way, shape or form believe that Apple has these conversations internally or ever has. But part of my whole - I think he wakes up at six in the morning and likes - He's flipping through his Bible to figure out and which of, you know, his St. Thomas Aquinas to figure out which part he wants to interpret into the company. So anyway, so why don't we wrap this up? But that, it's just, I just love it as an example of how powerful aesthetics can be as a world building. And you said it so well. And I mean, I wish we could like go on for another half an hour about this.

1:12:04Basically for me, the true line is the Rome has not built in a day. So a world is not built in a marketing pitch. It takes a considered generation, generations, and very clear understanding of what the center of gravity of that galaxy is. Yep. No, I agree with all that. I love that idea of the intergenerational thing because I think it totally separates itself from just a marketing tactic or a seasonal thing that one does. It's a commitment to a business strategy of cultural production and competing at that level and lifting the material product up to something to be perceived as more value because it's cultural or symbolic value.

1:12:44Absolutely. So next time we are going to talk about how do you grow and accumulate this cultural, social, symbolic value in the world full of niches in the fragmented cultural world. So stay tuned. Thank you, Lee. All right. See you then, Anna. Okay. Bye. Bye.