What’s the Snark on Glossier?

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29:19So let's talk about Glossier as a company and just the early growth of it. So the word Glossier was thrown around as something we could have used when we were talking about what was the future of Into the Gloss, says Emily Weiss. The word gloss had been mentioned as a potential offshoot and Weiss liked the name glossier as rhyming and riffing off of the word dossier. One problem was the pronunciation was never clear to anyone from the outset. When I first saw the word, I assumed it was glossier, like it was more glossy than into the gloss. But what's interesting is a dossier is not a, she said that she wanted it to be like a collection of stories, but dossier is not a collection of stories.

29:52It's a document. It's documents about someone that tells you what you need to know to define that person. So like that punny word that she intended doesn't really make sense. It doesn't make any sense at all. And even people in France, she said pronounce it incorrectly, even though it's like a riff off of a French word. They used to say glossier, like they don't. Right. Like I still call it say glossier sometimes. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Right. I think in the English pronunciation, it would be glossier. But in 2014, Emily started approaching venture capitalists with ideas for expansion and including a potential Into the Gloss curated e-commerce platform.

30:27And she eventually raised$2 million in seed funding with the help of venture capitalist Kirsten Green, the founder of SF-based Forerunner Ventures. And Weiss used this initial investment to hire a small teen. And ultimately, she launched Glossier.com. And you have a really interesting statistic here. Yeah. So like around around this time and even after and maybe still only four percent of VC funding went and goes to female founders. So in terms of just odds being stacked against her, Emily had a lot. And it's no surprise that it ended up being a female VC venture. Yeah. Like that that took her on after many meetings and things.

31:09And yes, this, among other things, was a hurdle. So, I mean, it is extremely impressive that she was able to get financing as someone with no, with not much of a background in terms of creating from like a chemistry standpoint, makeup at all. Really just being a writer and a design person, kind of. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that often when you think about these SF venture capitalist firms or New York City, like VCs, you think tech company. But in reality, and we're going to talk about this, about how she, I think her downfall was trying to meld and platform herself and Glossier as a tech company, when in fact, it really just is a retail brand.

31:46It's makeup. And I think that regardless, her ability to approach VC firms that normally would, you know, invest in tech companies or new, I guess, in today's day and age, like AI models or LLM models. No, they took a chance on her and they invested heavily into a retail brand. And it's worth pointing out that she was going after venture capitalist firms that were similar to like Facebook, Amazon, Apple. And Emily Weiss took the startup model with the product being beauty. But most startups fail before anyone finds fame or fortune. And around 29 at the time, she became this confident visionary admirer of what a CEO is to be.

32:24And almost like an Elizabeth Holmes, like girly pop, pink millennial version of that. And this was around the time when Sophia Amoruso was coming up. the girl boss era, like you mentioned up top, Olivia was everything. And I think the reason Glossier was a bit different, if we think about this time again, it was around 2014 when she debuted Glossier. And this was before the clean girl aesthetic. This was before the King Kylie, heavy makeup, like cut crease, aggressive brows, heavy baking was a thing. Glossier really inspired the 2020 post clean girl aesthetic. It was, it hawked like very minimal products.

32:59It was a facial mist, a universal balm. I believe they call it balm.com, a light skin tint, which again, I feel like skin tints really didn't take off until like 2022 and a priming moisturizer. And it was packaged in this millennial pink bubble wrap pouches. And I remember these were everything. I was so excited every time I got, I love the boy brow, Glossier Boy Brow. And every time I got it shipped to my house and it came with a bubble wrap pouch, I was able to reuse that so sustainable and put like my makeup or my face products in it when I traveled, it was created this brand visibility. Like you mentioned AirPods cases and, oh, sorry, what were you going to say?

33:36No, like that. And that's like exactly what she wanted was exactly like what you did. She wanted people to reuse it and share it, trade it, sell it to other, like she was like, she's very smart in that way in terms of marketing that in how you live your every day-to-day life and can reuse this packaging, whatever it is. It's very smart. Very, very smart. Agreed. Because I think before Instagram reels and traditional influencer advertising really came up, it was the traditional advertising of like billboards and TV and radio and magazines. But I think she really focused on how can I basically reuse the marketing that I already have for my consumer when Instagram like photos are a thing?

34:18Like how can I make sure that they take pictures and they hashtag it. Like she was literally using her consumer as the advertiser. And it was like, it like repackaged replay. Everyone was able to kind of get in on the marketing because they were excited about the product. They were waiting in line and, you know, for hours in New York city and freezing temperatures, like they were excited. And on her blog, she writes that she focused on this mantra of skin first, makeup second. And I, again, I wrote in this, I was like low key glossier walks. So Haley Bieber could run the no makeup makeup look that Glossier was founded on was well before the 2016 high glam look, well before Kaylee Bieber's like, you know, just a little bit of concealer.

34:54But I feel like this kind of model of makeup only works if you have good skin. Yeah, I think that was my issue with it was I was like, okay, so this foundation, whatever it is, is literally translucent. And the reason I wear makeup is because I have acne. Like, so why would I do that? That doesn't make sense. But I get it for people that I guess are flawless already. Like you get to look shinier. That's great. I think that's where I was like, I don't get it paying this much money for Vaseline. We have that at home. Yeah. For$6.99 at Target. But again, it was the marketing. They were willing to pay for elevated Vaseline that had a cool name because it was Glossier.

35:35And from an interview with the Glossier author, Marissa Meltzer, she said, Glossier sort of combined Clinique and Supreme. The Clinique side was that it was this easy, relatively affordable, but still aspirational beauty system that could feel like it was meant for a younger generation. The products were effective, if not insanely innovative, and the packaging and aesthetics around it felt completely of the moment and cool. And Glossier would grow by releasing products deliberately and building hype around each quote unquote drop rather than launching a comprehensive collection all at once. And of course, I had to think about the one brand that I feel like introduced, not introduced drops.

36:11I'm sure there were many ahead of, ahead of its time, but Kylie Cosmetics when the lip kits came out and they would say, okay, at Thursday at 9am Pacific, Kylie Cosmetics lip kits are dropping and the entire site would crash and it would sell out within moments because they've read this feeling of scarcity. And it was like really cool and exciting if you were able to get one. And my little sister was obsessed with it. Yeah. It's, It's been so smart. It's so smart. And just, again, building that relationship and like the excitement that maybe you share with a girlfriend over like, did you get it?

36:43Did you get it? You know, it's like concert tickets. It is like concert tickets. I feel it felt like Aeros tour tickets if you got your hands on one of these Glossier boy brows or Kylie Cosmetics. And to the outside world, it was a beauty brand. But to Emily, it was a combo of beauty and tech. And this point of view kind of helped Emily get the funding that Glossier really needed at the time. So Emily was very fond of saying, people ask, is Glossier a tech company? Is it a beauty company? And I say, yes. It was a little bit trendy, a little bit sexy to be a tech company in that age. And if you are a tech company, that justifies the amount of funding you're getting and can potentially raise your valuation.

37:17And she was kind of modeling it off of retail stores like Apple. She wanted to touch and experience the product. And I couldn't help but feel like when Emily Weiss is positioning Glossier as both a retail makeup brand plus a tech company. Again, what about this is tech? It's inventory that you sell direct to consumer. There's nothing about this that is tech. And I couldn't help but think about Adam Neumann of WeWork who was selling. I mean, it was a good company until it wasn't until he outspent what they were earning. But I think that Adam Neumann too, he believes so much in his brand that he kept positioning WeWork as a tech company.

37:52And everyone kept saying, you're selling office space. You're leasing office space. What about this as a tech company? And he kept trying to push square peg round hole and say, well, we're building technology to, you know, reserve office space, hotel, desks, whatever. But at the end of the day, it is real estate. But you get these founders that want to push themselves in this box so badly because tech is the huge thing in a millennial like Gen Z world. But it's not at the end of the day. Yeah. And I think that's like her holding on to this idea is ultimately what kind of led to her downfall and stepping down.

38:28And I think it's like mentioning Elizabeth Holmes earlier. It's like this. It's more like the obsession with the idea of being a tech CEO and not it was almost like maybe was she embarrassed to be just a beauty brand? Like it's the idea that she wanted to be the Steve Jobs. Yes. And it's like you but you're simply not doing in my opinion, I feel like now you want to do the opposite. You want to step away from tech because all these tech tech is going to be replaced by AI. So you want to be something that people use in their real life. So it's interesting now how that trend was so popular. Right.

39:02Right. You're I you're so right. These founders wanted so desperately to be part of like the cool crowd, the Steve Jobs. Steve Cook is the CEO of Apple. Evan Spiegel, but when in reality, just be what you are, be an inventory retail beauty brand, that that's what you are. And by 2015 and 2016, she was still experiencing rapid growth. You know, people were giving into this kind of idea that she was this tech brand and following a huge demand post phase one, Glossier raises a series B funding for 24 million to expand even more. And this included a permanent showroom and an investment in technology, which we're going to get into in just a moment.

39:36But they introduced more products in addition to like the core for facial mist etc they introduced the boy brow which is a brow gel and it launched in 2015 and sold out upon release and i feel like this is the product again i used it for many years that really i feel like gave them again this was kind of before the anastasia beverly hills brow freeze and all these things i feel like everyone was like wow like brow gel we can swipe our brows up this is amazing they also introduced the milk jelly facial cleanser the cloud paint gel blush which by the way, hair is actually a really good blush. It kind of is pigmented in a way that is like rare beauty.

40:10So I've heard. Oh, cute. So, you know, this is a glossier if you want to sponsor us. Send us some product. Yeah. In 2018, the sales doubled where they received Series C funding, which resulted in receiving$52 million by 2018. And in 2018, their revenue also doubled. While its direct-to-consumer business crossed over$100 million in revenue, which doubled from the year before, which being in tech myself for many years, like this level of growth is true insanity, especially for a makeup brand. This is almost unprecedented. And by 2019, after a Series D rounding round of funding, Glossier was valued at$1.2 billion.

40:48And I feel like, again, this goes back to the Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos. You have these people that are valuing companies at such an insane price point that you're like, is this real? And I feel like we look back at these companies, were thinking, well, what are these investors thinking? $1.2 billion? Same with, yeah, Theranos. And I think of this company, Zenefits, back in the day. All these companies were just like unicorn companies that were going to take over the world, but ended up just being intensely, immensely overvalued. Yeah, and that's the bubble got too big. It had to pop. Exactly.

41:21In 2021, they did a series e-funding, and Glossier's final known funding round was an$80 million raise in July 2021, led by Lone Pine Capital. And let's talk more a bit. Are there anything on this, like the pages or that you want to call out? Yeah, really are just going through the funding and stuff. And that boy brow being their hero product. And just around this time, this was also when like Cara Delevingne had the big bushy brows and like that was such a huge trend. So it really also, this product came at the exact right time. And I don't know, chicken or the egg came first of that trend but having those big bush almost like a tomboy look no makeup was the thing and this it's so interesting because there's a couple years later we'll have like euphoria and kylie cosmetics we're gonna go over the top with everything only the to then revert once uh you know hayley bieber and things come come around um but yeah i don't know it's just it's just a to place ourselves in time um I I forgot about the whole like Cara Delevingne eyebrow bushy trend me too you're so right to trends just they just cycle because you're right in 2015 2014 2015 it was the kind of tomboy look we were wearing plaid remember the plaid long sleeve plaid around our waist oh my god yes like that was the trend tomboy and then it moved to super baddie with a thick you know like I said cut craze and then we go back to clean girl and I think I've said this before in an episode of snark bait when you I mean I was much too young to understand beauty trends like in uh the 90s or early 2000s like I wasn't into makeup then but when you go back during the Bobby Brown like Calvin Klein era of the 90s like that was once a clean girl aesthetic like bronze brook shields yes like brows right in an all kind of it's just like a cycle and I guarantee tea in a couple of years, we're going to go back to that King Kylie era, which I'm so excited about, but I'm kind of nervous.

43:20I don't know how to do that kind of makeup. Just dye your hair blue or something. It'll be cool. Get lip injections. So let's talk more on the marketing. From the beginning, Glossier followed a DTC direct-to-consumer model. And for the direct-to-consumer model, while Emily was at the helm at least, they hung onto this model for a little too long. And it requires a lot of money to find customers when you are direct-to-consumer. But this was well before Apple changed its privacy policy in 2021, which limited data tracking. And there's only so long that a direct-to-consumer model can work unless you're growing at the pace like Glossier was, and then it becomes basically unscalable.

43:58Products initially sold primarily through their website, but of course there were a couple flagship brick-and-mortar stores. But again, this direct-to-consumer model helped them control the customer experience and build strategy with buyers. It differentiated them from the typical beauty shopping strategy like department stores, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, and Sephora Ulta counters. But social media played probably the biggest role in the marketing for Glossier because Glossier posted pics of real customers wearing the makeup with slogans like, you look good. This is, again, with the neon signs.

44:31Like at any establishment, whether it's a restaurant, a coffee shop, glossier, you have the neon signs that say you look good, which makes it feel approachable, relatable, and real. And customers were encouraged to share their own images of the makeup that they use. And putting them on Instagram, they became brand ambassadors of their own without actually being like truly a brand ambassador. It kind of reminds me too of Brandy Melville. when people would wear Brandy Melville and you would hashtag it and you would go on Instagram, find that hashtag and look at everyone in front of like the ocean with their like cut up shorts and their backwards cap.

45:04It's like the consumers were the ads. Yeah. It's like sorority sisters wearing their letters and you're like, I want to be a part of the club. Yeah. How do I get in? You know? And I want to be featured on Glossier's Instagram. How do I like take the perfect pic so that they can repost my pic on their Instagram feed. Yeah. I feel like how reposts of reels are now, I feel like it's so saturated now. But if you got reposted by Glossier, if you did some kind of photo shoot and they picked up your photo and used it, you probably woke up with like thousands of more followers. I have a friend and I've mentioned her before, Jordan Younger of The Balanced Blonde.

45:41She's like an OG health and wellness, like vegan blogger from the early 2010s. And she talks about in her book, she talks about how when influencing was coming up in like 2011, she said that now if Lululemon were to tag you, a picture of you hiking in their athleisure, you'll wake up to like two followers of that. But back in the day, I think she got reposted by Lululemon in like 2011. And she walked up like to tens of thousands of followers. It was a big deal to be reposted by any. Yeah, it was like so different. Social media was so different. And I'm so curious what it's going to look like even in a couple of years.

46:17What's going to replace reels and videos? Is it going to be full long form content like YouTube? Like I could see us going that way. Right. Or it's also interesting to see us like reverting back to blogs now, like with a sub stack and stuff. It's like it's the same as every other trend that it's so cyclical. It's like because now it's so saturated in TikTok and Instagram that it's not special anymore. Right. And now it's like I just want to get back to traditional reading. And then maybe we'll go back to hard copies of like newspapers. Newspaper. Yeah, people will have physical subsects delivered to your doorstep.

46:46Who's to say? But I could see something like that happening. It just all comes back to like the OG. So Glossier opened its first New York City showroom in 2016 in an LA location in 2018. And the showroom was like fabulous. It was a penthouse above the Glossier offices. And she called it an adult Disneyland. Glossier also did pop-ups across the country and then across the globe. They designed it as an immersive Instagramable experience where fans could hang out, sample products, take pics in all the pink stores. And I have to be reminded of there was this weird time in SF. And I don't know if it was the same in New York City or wherever you lived in like 2018 where you would have the museum of ice cream or other various.

47:24Yes. What was with that? No, this was a whole trend. And actually Marissa goes and mentions a lot of this in her book. We had like a Van Gogh. It's all experiential museum of sex. like that's still here like all these experiential shit started to happen and I it's Marissa mentions that I think even uh Emily mentioned it of like taking note of that of like okay then how do I integrate this kind of experience with selling my product oh so she really took inspiration from that trend of the museum of ice cream museum of sex that makes literally mention exactly the museum of ice cream so it's so funny yeah I remember that that weird ball pit like no I I would, again, I don't, I can't even go into a literal store.

48:09It like, no, no, it's too much. It's just gross. It's gross. I'm sorry. Throw it, go into a ball pit, knowing how many people, God knows how many people have entered that ball pit today and even the day, it's gross. But yeah, you're right. She had to take that trend and she put it into her makeup brand, which no one else was doing at the time. So now let's kind of talk about her downfall. Mid 2020, I feel like the world was literally on fire. The COVID pandemic had just started. Black Lives Matter movement was huge. Everyone was calling people out. This was the time of people being called out.

48:41And a lot of what we're going to talk about with Emily Weiss makes me very reminiscent of Cupcakes and Cashmere. We did an episode on Emily, another Emily. Emily, why am I blanking on her last name? Because I don't know it either. I know. Emily's another white lady. Another Emily. Another white lady with a founder of a beauty brand of Cupcakes and Cashmere where she was called out in 2020 for never having hired a single non-white person, never hiring a black indigenous person of color ever in her 15 plus years of blogging. And she had to offer an apology. And I think Emily was, although it's not exactly that, faced something similar in 2020.

49:19So in 2020, former retail employees publicly accused Glossier of fostering a toxic work environment, especially for people of color and LGBTQ staff. They described that they were working in poor conditions, they suffered discriminatory treatment by customers in a dismissive response by management, and demanding workplace reform. So in the letter, they titled, To Glossier, A Call for Accountability and Necessary Change, the former retail employees alleged that the company did little to intervene when they, most of them identifying as LGBTQIA and or BIPOC, reported racially charged incidents with customers.

49:54Employees also wrote that retail staffers were treated as afterthoughts to corporate employees. And these were some examples from the letter that are a bit scathing, if you ask me. A male customer, I guess, massaged an employee without her consent. That's one. Managers permitted a woman who referred to Latinx workers as illegals. They allowed her to repeatedly enter the store, which like, what the fuck? Dark, sinister, horrible. Don't let this woman ever enter the store again. Put her on the blacklist. A group of white teens came in and applied some of the company's darkest complexion products in a gleeful blackface.

50:25Management didn't take any action against a manager who routinely confused black indigenous people of color store employees' names. While employee complaints were disregarded, customers who complained were pacified with gifts and full refunds. A woman named Lina Mohammed or Lina Mohammed, a former part-time employee, identified herself as a black hijabi Muslim. Speaking to a Business Insider reporter today, she said that her manager, quote, rolled her eyes when Lina had asked for leave to celebrate the festival of EID? EID. A second former employee of color told Business Insider in May that customers often touched her and made racist comments about her appearance and that management just tossed off her complaints like, stop making it a big deal.

51:01Managers asked staffers of color to put up their natural hair while working on the floor, claiming that they were told it looked messy or unprofessional, a request not made of their other white employees. and multiple times employees raise issues of racism they faced only to be told by management to feel empowered to walk away and if they were uncomfortable with what was happening at work just walk away it's not a big deal dark what were you what was this note that you have this is like i found this in the book last night and i was like oh my god i need to add this so i don't know if this was in the like this whole thing was in a public instagram account also so everyone is seeing this as well but i don't know if this was mentioned in there but marissa somehow got this story that at another time, Emily was in a meeting and she looked around and pointed and was like, I don't see any people of color in here.

51:50And an Asian employee raised her hand and was like, hello, really? I'm here. And she's like, and then Emily responded, really? You identify as a person of color? And she goes, yes. I was like, what? And it was just that. And I was like, where was the story from i don't know how she got it from but um oh yeah what that's so bad that is so bad it's so tone deaf and i think we could do a whole episode on the model minority being an asian like me speaking as a person of color an asian woman living in a primarily white well white and asian neighborhoods this is like a thing that we experience all the time and it could be its own episode but that makes me laugh because it's like oh my god read the read the damn room emily you're the founder and CEO, you have to have a little bit of cultural sensitivity.

52:36Even if you don't necessarily believe it in your heart, at least pretend at work. Former employees cited a lack of air conditioning in the New York showroom one summer, which was a violation of occupancy limits. They were filling the showroom to the Mth degree and no one could breathe. And they were also forced to eat lunch in a room riddled with rat waste. That's a biohazard, I feel. Yeah. It's disgusting. And unfortunately, it seems like Glossier was probably not the only retail store who was operating in this way um i actually for such little pay it feels like almost kind of like like sweatshop vibes i mean they probably were paying being paid a lot more but it's just the conditions in which you're working we're not living in like 1940s america industrial revolution america where you're forcing people to work with no wages and like prohibited spaces yeah and it's like and they were these uh they call them editors they're the retail employees were also trained to like interact so much with the customers and be like, like build that relationship from the very start so that they buy the products, blah, blah, of course.

53:37So when they, when then they are being attacked, it's like, okay, you, maybe you need to readjust how you train the employees for those circumstances. So it's, she wasn't thinking in that way. She was thinking from the perspective of just herself and not people of all different types. She seemed to be prioritizing the customer experience, which of course, like as a founder, you should. But also if the customer experience turns hostile, how do you, what's the word, prepare your employees to be able to have those difficult conversations? Like if that's becoming a thing, you need to have some training in accordance with that.

54:13Or have people at the leadership level who identify as BIPOC LGBTQIA and she didn't. Right. And I feel like that's a pretty low lift. And I feel like that's behavior that shouldn't be tolerated whatsoever. But if it's now happening, do something about it. Right. Yeah. So after this expose on Instagram came up with all these, I don't want to use the term disgruntled employees, but pissed off employees came out. Glossier had to issue a statement. And so they shared publicly to their Instagram quote in early June, several of our retail employees emailed us to share their lived experiences of racism, anti-blackness and transphobic behavior while working in our stores through many hours of zoom calls and investigation this summer.

54:50And most recently through out of the gloss, we've heard accounts, the myriad ways the system and culture we've developed failed to create the inclusive, safe environment that they deserve. This goes against the values that inspired us to build Glossier in the first place and that we strive to live by every day. This post to start is an apology and public acknowledgement of the pain and discomfort these former colleagues experienced while working to build a brand that they believed so deeply in upon arrival. We're so sorry that we didn't create a workplace in which our retail employees felt supported in the most critical ways.

55:18And Emily says that on August 14th, 2020, she spoke with more than a dozen retail team members in July and called for a plan to build a better work environment. She also said she launched an internal investigation and asked every formal retail employee for their feedback. And Glossier, as part of their apology, allocated$500 ,000 in grants for Black-owned beauty businesses and another$500 ,000 in donations. And they also launched a grant program to support entrepreneurs of color as a way to demonstrate commitment to diversity. But I feel like at this point, the damage was kind of already done.

55:49You have this beloved brand that's at this point kind of falling off. And then bad publicity, bad PR gets released and acknowledged by people on the ground. And then you're like, well, fuck this brand. Yeah, and we're all at home. We're not in the stores buying stuff. at this time anyway. So it's like, we hold on to a lot of these stories too, because they're juicy. But she did follow through on, on the grant program and like the, the beauty bit, the black owned beauty businesses that did get the grants. She did Glossier did, excuse me, highlight them and support them. And Marissa writes about great things that happened with them.

56:24But at the time, I don't know if people really knew about it because they're, you know, we like to focus on the juicy stuff. Of course. And I like that you bring up that distinction because I think with Cupcakes and Cashmere, Emily of Cupcakes and Cashmere, she did her part. I can't remember exactly if she made donations, but I remember she made a promise to her readers that we are going to focus on a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive work environment. And that includes hiring people that are not white. And I think she did exactly that, which I think is a lot more to say than a lot of other brands.

56:59And then with Emily, I think she took it even a step further and made huge, huge donations and grants toward, like you said, Black-owned beauty businesses, which is great. I think that that's really the best way to go about this, I think, is put your money where your mouth is and show that you're actively trying to change the course of the conversation, change the mindset, and change businesses. That kind of grant could change a Black-owned business's life. So we have to give her credit for that and commend her for that. After years of really not caring about my health as much as I should, one of my goals this year is to finally change that.

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1:01:42Olivia and I talked up top about how Emily tried to position herself as a tech company when it really was not that. So as we mentioned, in 2021, Glossier reached a$1.8 billion valuation. But by 2022, the venture capital firm Lone Pine, which led the series E round, which I believe was their final series of funding, they subsequently valued it at 30 % less than their original$1.8 billion valuation. So what exactly contributed to this reduction in valuation? And they said something to the effect of private funds are not necessarily sufficiently conservative with Markdowns. So it's possible that Glossier's valuation could be as low as 50 % less than$1.8 billion.

1:02:20So it's clearly no longer a unicorn company. And again, this was right before COVID started. And then when COVID happens, all this employee disgruntled shit comes up on Instagram. I feel like people were just, the reputation was getting more tarnished and tarnished. And I think it really started though, before the drama in 2020 ensued, it kind of started when they did two things. First, they launched in 2019 Glossier Play, which was a sub brand. And it was supposed to be the sister brand of the minimal clean girl aesthetic. Glossier Play was instead supposed to be this bold, colorful makeup line.

1:02:55Think glitter eyeshadows, bright lip liqueur, liquor lacquer, bright lip. We get you. We get you. Going out makeup, like Urban Decay, Euphoria-esque, all of that. Kylie Cosmetics-esque. And the development was far too chaotic, however. There were too many cooks in the kitchen. People were cycling in and out. Emily kept changing her mind a lot about the product development. There seemed to be not a strategy in sight. There was no brand alignment. and customers were also raising concerns that the glitter products that they were pushing for Glossier Play were not in conjunction with being biodegradable.

1:03:26It was clashing with increasing eco-conscious norms and the Glossier line was positioned as like a clean girl vibe but then now you're using like non-biodegradable products and it just doesn't seem like it fits with the brand that we have known to love and by 2020 this Glossier Play products were discontinued entirely. Further, along with Glossier Play, Glossier tried to make a tech platform that ended up being a huge, just like horrible investment, a huge money pit. Glossier was trying so hard to show that they were a tech brand and not just a beauty brand. Around 2018, Glossier hired some engineers and product managers to develop some kind of social shopping app.

1:04:02But no one knew the exact concept of what the hell this was. They were dropping so much money, making so much investment in hiring these huge former Instagram developers. and again, trying to put themselves square peg, round hole, push themselves into this tech space. Significant resources were pushed into this app. The tech team grew substantially. High profile tech executives were brought on board, but the app never materialized. And when Marissa Meltzer talks about in the book, she's like, when I talk with people about what exactly was this app trying to do? Can you walk me through like the mission statement?

1:04:33What exactly was the end goal? No one could really respond to that. And I feel like back in 2019, 2020, apps were still a big thing. I remember all of the Kardashian apps as well. Like everyone was trying to start an app, just like everyone is trying to start an AI brand right now. But based on your read of this book, Olivia, what do you think they were trying to do? And what were people on the ground saying about this app that were trying to develop it? And like, there were a lot of different ideas tossed around whether it was going to be some sort of communication between customers, like a Slack channel almost, which they end up having later anyway, or was it just to buy products?

1:05:10Was it, what was it exactly? And there was, like you said, no clarity on that. And if you can think of just the people working at Glossier at the time, and then suddenly they add in all these engineers from Facebook and Instagram trying to build something for them. And there's just also a lot of their styles of communication basically didn't mesh either. and their cultures did not align in how they the different things that they wanted in the language that they were speaking they were not speaking the same language whatsoever and there were also even just weird incidents happening in the office where like they would throw certain parties for a mile marker of some sort and the engineers were like what the hell's going on can we get back to work and they're like and it just like didn't mesh at all and i'm just yeah.

1:05:56So some of the stories are funny, but it was just a disaster from the start wasn't going to work. Yeah. Actually, when I'm thinking about the personalities of a beauty brand, like people working at a Sephora or a Lancome or a Clinique or Fenty Beauty is very different from people that are working in tech. I just feel like I don't see how those two, I can imagine there's probably friction too, because you have people that are trying to push beauty brands and social media and consumer relationships. And then you have this, these tech people, like these engineers, these software engineers coming from Instagram, like, what the hell are you guys doing?

1:06:30Like, let's get back to work. What do you like? I just feel like you're putting two very different businesses together and trying to make this marriage when it doesn't work at all. And very in tech is these people are very expensive because they are very good at their jobs, these engineers. And so to waste so much money on their talent is also just disappointing. The tech developers were probably so embarrassed to even have Glossier on their resume. They're like, you can just delete that from the resume. It's embarrassing because of what is the tech brand? And in addition to all this, in mid-2021, Glossier announced that it would open three new flagship stores in Seattle, LA, and London by the end of 2021 with dozens of new stores for the US and globally in the coming years.

1:07:14And this is right after COVID and its existing stores had already closed in 2020 and they had already furloughed around 200 people on their retail teams. So it makes me wonder, okay, you just closed a bunch of stores and now you want to focus on opening three stores in some of the most expensive cities in the world. Make it make sense. Why do you think they were doing this? Yeah. And this is a lot of like the beginning of the end for Emily, especially in terms of her later stepping down. But yeah, I think they thought they could just bounce right back. You know, everyone's going to want to rush to the stores because they were gone over COVID in that they she she kept telling herself that they still were this perfect company.

1:07:53She would not give up the fact or confront publicly or perhaps internally as well that there were clear issues going on. She wanted to keep up this veneer that everything was still great and people are still going to flock. We're going to redo all the stores. We're going to have little lounges for the retail salespeople. And all those things flopped so hard. And also, our shopping habits were not the same post-COVID. And she wasn't thinking in that way at all. That's so true. I mean, everything changed in COVID. Even people's habits of shopping, people's habits of working out, everything changed.

1:08:31And when you're trying to do something with this scale in mid-2021, I mean, it's just... I think it's changed even... I think it's been a little bit back to where it was pre-COVID in 2026, where we stand today. But at this point, this just seemed like a dumb decision. But I feel like when you were the founder of this brand, I'd imagine it's hard for you to see outside of anything else but just growth. You're like, no, no, no. Like, what are you talking about? We can definitely do this. And everyone around you is like, Emily, it's probably not the best idea. Shut up. And she's like, no, what are you talking about?

1:09:00We had this great – we had these great stores. Even though we had to close it, people are back. They're vaccinated. People are out and about now. Let's just open the stores. And it was not the sound decision. And I think this further proved itself in 2022, where the company laid off about 80 corporate employees, which was roughly a third of its workforce in a single swoop. And a lot of these people were in the engineering and tech department because, again, they realized very quickly that this app and this tech brand was quickly failing and they couldn't afford the resources that it was taking to keep up this tech veneer.

1:09:33Okay, let's talk about the product criticism. So in 2019, fans discovered that its popular lash slick mascara advertises vegan actually contained animal-derived beeswax, which forced the company to offer refunds and reformulate the product. Further, its complexion products like the Perfecting Skin Tint and Stretch Concealer had only 12 shades for the skin tint, which is far, far behind the 40-plus shades offered by Fenty Beauty or Rare Beauty. And I feel like that's where the celebrity beauty brands really were able to differentiate itself before the celebrity beauty brand became super saturated.

1:10:07I remember Fenty and Rare. And I think of brands like Kardashian brands as well, Skims and Good American. They're so size inclusive. They're so shade inclusive. And I feel like at this point, you don't have any, like, what's your excuse for only having 12 tints? There is none. It just makes you look tone deaf. Right. And at first, like it benefited her in a way of like, I have this one translucent skin tint, so it works for everyone. But does it really work for everyone? And like, that's how it kind of how she advertised it at first. And that's why it was successful because it was cheap just to make one shade, one product or one translucent thing.

1:10:43So true. But she, when the culture started to adapt and change and the market demanded different things, she didn't want to evolve with them. Yeah. She's like, no, our costs are just right. We don't need to add it. You're so right about the cost though, because more shades means far more costs. And I don't think she was willing to take it on because the brand was already falling. And at this point, it's hard to compete when Fenty Beauty and Rare Beauty are blowing up. And every race is like, I can get in on this brand and I have a perfect shade for me. And you have here that it was clear that they had over-invested in the Boy Brow Hero product because the Boy Brow started to become less in vogue.

1:11:20And that was clear because overall sales declined after almost a quarter after 2020. And you have to also consider the timing of like, okay, you have the flagship stores that she's wanting to build. You have the tech products. You have this bad PR with the way that you're treating your employees. But also there was this downfall of the girl boss era. And I think Sophia Amoruso of Nasty Gal, we should do an episode on her because I feel like her downfall is fascinating because she prided herself so much on being this, the she started the girl boss thing and that was starting to be re-evaluated and criticized sophia amarusu for instance was facing a discrimination lawsuit for firing pregnant employees mika agrawal of thinks was ousted for sexual assault allegations away luggage had bad workplace culture the female ceo was no longer marked you were no longer marked as safe if you worked with a female ceo and it just felt a little bit cringy and gendered and i'm gonna be honest like even working with many different employers, sometimes I do find that it is easier to report to a man because women are just, I think objectively, they are just more emotional.

1:12:25Like we have more hormones and we are a bit more of emotional creatures. And I think sometimes men are just sometimes a little bit less drama. This is my own experience. I don't want to make it make a blanket statement, but from my own corporate experience, sometimes men are easier to work with and work for. And I feel like there was just, there seems to be like a lot of, there's a lot of drama and I think she couldn't escape it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like when you, and there's also the side of it of like, because you're a girl boss, quote unquote, you're trying so hard to push a certain narrative that you almost like lose sight of just like who you actually are by trying to fit into this girl boss mold of like, I have to do this.

1:13:05I have to be this business boss bitch. And it's like, just be normal. Just be a boss. Like just be a boss. It doesn't need to be gendered. It doesn't need to be pink or in like lights or whatever. Like we can, if you want, whatever. I don't know exactly what I'm saying, but it's like there's because girl boss was a mold, then everyone was trying to fit it. And it's like, why can't we all just be like a boss that is just good and normal? And yeah. And in fact, I think the term girl boss or like a CEO or female founder, why do we need to distinguish between the two? Just be a good boss. Make sure that your employees are happy and treated well.

1:13:41that there's like a zero tolerance policy for bullying, harassment, all that good stuff, focus on good margins, hire people around you that are that can bring your company up and grow and scale like that's what it should be about. But I think you're so right. I think these female founders and to no fault of their own, really, they were under this microscope, almost like to fit into this mold. But it's like, at the end of the day, let's just not distinguish between a female CEO or a male CEO, it is just a CEO. And I think that has kind of been, that's why the whole like female founder, CEO, girl boss is just no longer in vogue.

1:14:13It's just be a good boss, period. Yeah, like Tim Cook is over there being like, hashtag boy boss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, it's a cringe. And it becomes almost, dare I say, choogy. And now it's like, yeah, it's a joke. Like the girl, girl boss, what's it? Gatekeep? Girl boss gatekeep. That's like gatekeep girl boss. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's becoming like a meme now because it's embarrassing. But we were so lean into it and i think this is why cheryl sandberg's lean in everyone's like that didn't age well that was a little odd remember no i don't oh oh this is uh she was the motion you did was beautiful lean in uh i feel like we got to do a whole episode on cheryl sandberg but some people i think she was taught i didn't read it so i don't want to say this incorrectly but i just from what i've heard from people i know that have read it they're like yeah that that book is it's it's too much now uh it didn't age well so let's talk about emily's leadership style and her stepping down as a CEO.

1:15:08So she ultimately was, right, the face and the driving force behind the company. She was always described as this mix of a branding genius, a perfectionist control freak. But as Glossier got bigger and bigger, her micromanagement style backfired. Because in the early days, there were 5, 20, 40 employees. Emily could be extremely involved. But as the company grew to 200 or so, she still wanted that level of signing off on everything. She wanted her hands in every cookie jar. But when you're hiring product developers who spent time at huge, huge brands like L 'Oreal or people who had worked in supply chain at tech companies in the Bay, you kind of have to let them do their thing, like let them do what they're good at.

1:15:44But I feel like Emily, because she was a founder, she was so protective of the brand and she wanted to make sure that she was involved in every conversation. And just as you get bigger, that is not possible, which is why, I mean, you see tech companies and I've been at enough tech companies to know the people that were CFO, CEO, COO, when the company just IPO'd is far different than the people that are in those same positions five years down the road. It's not to anyone's fault. It's just your experience may not lend itself as the company grows 2X. It's just not possible. But I think Emily wasn't able to really let that go.

1:16:18She wanted still every piece of it. And at this point, she was also like the face of the... She did a lot of press and was the face of the brand. She was a part of the brand itself, almost the Andy Cohen or something to Bravo that now it's like you can't get rid of her yeah it's she's so acquainted she right emily weiss was glossier glossier was emily weiss and i think of hailey bieber as road road is hailey bieber and it's hard to disconnect that and i feel like a large part of the success of glossy was the fact that she was the face but again that doesn't trend as well five years later yeah and emily was also known to be incredibly media savvy almost like media trained from a very young age she was very very careful about the brand's narrative and she would notably be on guard when talking about the company's challenges or personal matters, she would often steer away from convos like toward only talking about the positive.

1:17:05And even when controversies were presented and tried to be brought up, she would try and just like skirt it away. And by 2021, Emily became lumped in with other female founders who faced backlash for the company's issues like we mentioned above, Audrey Gelman of the Wing, Yael Aflalo of Reformation, and the New York Times ran a 2022 story on the end of the girl boss era and used emily's photo as the illustration symbolically making her the fall from grace in the public eye so ultimately she knew that the writing was on the wall she ultimately stepped down from her position as ceo of glossier in may of 2022 so it's been nearly four years and the same thing happened with um with her where she stepped down temporarily then she stepped back up as ceo again but emily's like i can't do this anymore i'm not scaling with the business and i bet you the board of directors were like you gotta step down this is not working anymore.

1:17:57And Kyle Leahy, who replaced Emily in May, she worked at Nike, Cole Hawn, American Express. So she has a significant, significant experience in retail operations, global marketing, scaling brands, the exact kind of skill set that Glossier needed at this time. And Emily said, quote, I will always be Glossier's founder, but a CEO is a champion a company looks to to lead it to tomorrow. The greatest companies ensure that the CEO seat is always filled with the right person to take it where it needs to go for its brightest next chapter. And Emily was also pregnant with her first child at this time, so it was a natural progression of her stepping down.

1:18:35But she still is involved as the executive chairwoman, mentoring the team, but she's not involved in the day-to-day. And now as we kind of look at Glossier in like more of today's time, or at least in 2022, a month after Kyle Leahy became CEO, she announced a partnership to sell products at Sephora, which abandoned Glossier's direct-to-consumer-only model. And by early 2023, Glossier products rolled out into 600 Sephora stores across the US and Canada. And it immediately helped Glossier's visibility and convenience because sales grew 80%. I do feel like the brand is kind of coming back up, albeit there was like a dark period for a time.

1:19:10But I do feel like going into Sephora, people are buying the products. People are into it. And the company restarted it to retail stores after the pandemic hiatus. They opened a New York flagship in Soho and then opened a couple more locations in Miami, Boston, DC, and Atlanta. But by April 2023, Glossier had 12 permanent stores in operation, and they also toned down their millennial pink colors to slightly more mature hues. Even looking at this old school Glossier store, like the baby pink, the pastel blue, it's so of the time. It's like an ultra white kitchen. You already know what decade this was built.

1:19:48It's like the bright, bright lights. Yeah. Tense. Yeah. Yeah. And now it's more of a salmon, but now it's more of a fleshy tone. It's a fleshy tone. It's a fleshy tone. They also expanded their products to include more shades, which is great. And they're trying out new products. They finally launched a bronzer and they're no longer positioning themselves as a minimal makeup line of just the essentials or the see-through, translucent, you-must-have-great-skin type makeup. And they started a more inclusive ad campaign with diverse ranges of models and influences. and Bloomberg reported that Glossier's internal projection of revenue was at$275 million for 2023, most likely due to Sephora's boost of selling it in store.

1:20:32And Emily Weiss is currently 40. She lays low as a mom. She's still a significant shareholder in Glossier, so she'll always be a wealthy girl boss and the brand will always be connected to her. And Emily Weiss is currently engaged to a Stripe executive named Will Gabrick, with whom she has a daughter, Clara. She was previously married to a photographer named Diego Duenas from 2016 to 2020. Oh, interesting. So she married a photographer. Definitely, she seems to be the breadwinner. And now she's married to a man who more is of her driving it. Not that photographers aren't driven, just like an executive CEO type guy at Stripe, a huge tech company.

1:21:09And they have not publicly shared a wedding date or confirmed if they will even have a ceremony. But that's kind of that on Emily Weiss. I mean, honestly, I think for closing thoughts, for me, she stepped down finally. And I think she probably could have done that three years prior, but I'm glad that whether it was at her own volition or at the request of the board, she made the right decision for the company that she built that she drove so hard to build. And I feel like she made the right decision for herself and the company. Yeah. I feel like part of her looking back, especially, well, obviously hindsight being knowing that there was going to be a global pandemic, et cetera.

1:21:47Like when it had that billion dollar unicorn valuation, she, everyone wanted to buy it and she could have sold it. And it would have been, I don't know, maybe she would still be this seat, a bigger part of it. I don't know. But, um, I'm sure she, part of her certainly regrets that. Um, but also I'm sure now she likes being a mom and she's still so young and she's done so much and she could like be a head of something at another tech company or probably start another business if she wanted to she's so smart and driven and still very young so i'm interested to see if she does anything next people like assumed she was going to move on to something immediately but seems like she's enjoying well she's very private so we don't know we really don't know much but yeah i um for some reason every time i'm picturing her i'm picturing uh alexandra didario i don't know why they kind of like they look so they do look very similar yeah i'm like trying to picture what emily weiss looks in my head.

1:22:42She's so stunning, like literally similar. Yeah, she is. She's stunning. She's really, really pretty. She I see why she was modeling for Ralph Lauren in high school, because she does have that model that model look. But no, I think that, you know, I just I'm thinking back to her trying to, you know, receive funding and getting millions of dollars from these huge like VC firms and being in these rooms at 2526, getting these VC firms to invest in your company. I mean, like the majority of this population, including myself, could not do that. That is a very intimidating, scary place to be in, especially being in your 20s, having really little work experience or career experience and being able to acquire this much money.

1:23:23I mean, she is incredibly, incredibly intelligent, high IQ, probably high EQ. I think there's definitely some ways in which you could have improved, but you have to give these people grace. Like I can't imagine being responsible for a company at 28 29 30 and having the weight of this company on your back and not fucking things up I mean sometimes I even like think about like obviously we have you guys as a team like I have my own team at work and I'm like sometimes like god if there was ever an expose about me I'd probably like they would probably say I'm sometimes a nightmare like I'm not a picnic all the time but I feel like if you are in a position not that I'm like anything like holding a business like Glossier but sometimes when you're so passionate about your business you want everything to go right.

1:24:03So I can imagine you do, yeah, you do get aggressive sometimes. And I think it's, you're kind of put in a hard position because as a woman, I'm not saying she doesn't have faults. I think she could have handled a lot of these discriminatory practices at work better. But I do think that there's something to be said about giving these women grace. Like you're also, you can't be perfect. And I imagine the majority of people in this position, if not anyone in this position, if you're even lucky enough to be in this position, would act any differently. Like it's hard. It's really hard. So. Right, right.

1:24:31And to be that successful, you kind of have to be kind of crazy and lack a little bit of empathy. Like that's just how capitalism kind of works, unfortunately. So it's your baby. You put your whole life into it. Of course, you're going to be a little cool. cool. Well, no, thank you so much, Olivia. I know for being here. You were like a natural on Mike. And I know the baby snarks love it when you are here. I'm trying to think if there's any housekeeping. I mean, obviously you guys, the live tour, we're going to be in LA on May 15th, New York on June 12th and Chicago on June 14th. And Olivia is going to be there every single show as is Rachel.

1:25:07So we are so excited to meet you guys in real life. You guys can get tickets at x1entertainment.com slash snarkbait, patreon.com slash at slash snarkbait pod for bonus content and ad free episodes Tuesday, Thursday, substack.com slash at snarkbait pod. All this is going to be at the link in our show notes. Olivia's Olivia Hewitt, what is your handle? Tell everyone where to find you. It's at Olive Hugh. It sounds like I love you, but it's my name. Olive O-L-I-V-E H-E-W-W W on Instagram. If you want to see just normal pics of me at weddings and stuff. Yeah. And you will tag her on Instagram at snarkbait pod.

1:25:46We love you guys so much. Any, any closing thoughts though, Olivia, like what, what else I realized I didn't give you a space to say anything I missed or. No. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think we got it and it's, I thank you for also looping in, um, you know, her journey from the Hills, uh, to, to now I rewatched some of the those episodes last night and she's so freaking cute and it's just so crazy to think of what's happened since then um and i've really enjoyed your perspective on this especially someone who is closer to uh to the product and like understanding the product because i'm kind of seeing it from i don't know from more of the outside and like looking back and being like oh yeah i guess i remember this happening yeah it's fun to talk about because it is not just about the brand it's about the time that the brand was relevant and i think that's why this type of episode is so fun for you and I because it's like a nostalgic part of our pop culture and for our lives and I'm sure for a lot of the baby snarks.

1:26:40So thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you guys tomorrow on Substack or we'll see you on Tuesday for another episode of Dark Energy Tuesday. Thank you guys so much and have a good rest of your week. Bye. Thank you. Bye.

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1:28:55Jeremy London. I definitely feel like my memory and my neurons aren't as sharp as they used to be. And function of health has taught me what's happening in your brain reflects what's happening across your entire body. Things like inflammation, blood sugar regulation, nutrient levels, sleep quality, vascular health, all influence how your brain performs today and over time. So if you're not measuring those systems, you're guessing. So stop guessing what's going on with your body and mind and start actually measuring. Start by understanding what's happening beneath the surface. Own your health for$365 a year.

1:29:25That's a dollar a day. Learn more and join Function using our link. Visit www.functionhealth.com slash snarkbait or use gift code snarkbait25 for a$25 credit toward your membership. I've become so much more of an ingredient stickler as I've gotten older. Like what exactly am I putting in my body? And now that I'm reading the ingredients, why does everything have high fructose corn syrup in it? Well, baby snarks, that's exactly why I'm newly obsessed with Thrive Market. Thrive Market is a subscription service that makes grocery shopping and making healthy swaps so easy and convenient. It comes out to just$5 a month and gives members access to weekly sales, personalized shopping, automated shipping, and saving, free gifts, and most importantly, peace of mind, knowing there's no junk in any of the products they carry.

1:30:09Buy high fructose corn syrup. Instead of paying fees on every grocery delivery order, you pay just once for the year and benefit from it every time you shop. Thrive carries healthier swaps of food I love, from Goodles back and cheese to Fish Wife canned tuna, Poppy's soda, Simple Mills snacks, The list goes on. No stress, no hidden fees, just good food, good brands, and convenient grocery shopping for a busy gal on the go like myself. Ready to make some healthy swaps and become a member? Join Thrive Market with our link thrivemarket.com slash snark for 30 % off your first order plus a free$60 gift.

1:30:42Is there any better feeling in the entire world than getting into a clean bed after an amazing relaxing night shower and turning on old roni? No. And as I've gotten older, I've realized luxury bedding is something you truly don't appreciate until you sleep in it. But like who has the money to splurge on bedding in this economy? Good news. You don't have to. And that's all thanks to quince. When it comes to quince, you'll notice the difference right away from duvet covers and quilts to sheets and a hundred percent silk pillowcases. Quince bedding is so soft, lightweight, and you can instantly feel how high quality it is.

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1:31:52Don't wait on this. Go to quince.com slash snarkbait for free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash snarkbait. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, athletic brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non-alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy bold flavors all game long no hangovers no buzz no subbing out for water in the second half stock the fridge for tip-off with a variety of non-alcoholic craft styles available at your local grocery store or online at athleticbrewing.com near beer fit for all times