DuJour Gamechangers 2015

SPECIAL ISSUE

GAMECHANGERS

Derek Jeter Katie Couric Faraday Future The Fat Jew Brian Chesky

SPECIAL ISSUE

GAMECHANGERS

Derek Jeter Katie Couric Faraday Future The Fat Jew Brian Chesky

SPECIAL ISSUE

GAMECHANGERS

Derek Jeter Katie Couric Faraday Future The Fat Jew Brian Chesky

SPECIAL ISSUE

GAMECHANGERS

Derek Jeter Katie Couric Faraday Future The Fat Jew Brian Chesky

SPECIAL ISSUE

GAMECHANGERS

Derek Jeter Katie Couric Faraday Future The Fat Jew Brian Chesky

Ships’ registry: Bahamas. ©2015 Seabourn.

Delight in never having to ask.

The art of delight is knowing what you want before you do.

seabourn.com

GAMECHANGERS Thoughts DuJour

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m On the covers Clockwise from top: The Fat Jew wears coat by COACH and sweatshirt by SOL ANGELES from Bloomingdales; Katie Couric wears dress

by SPORTMAX; Airbnb founder Brian Chesky; the Faraday Future team; Derek Jeter wears jacket by RAG & BONE and T-shirt

by T BY ALEXANDER WANG. Photographed by Andreas Laszlo Konrath; styled by Kate Sebbah.

agazine editors like to think that everything we cover is game-changing, groundbreaking, headline-making, and the goal for each and every issue of DuJour is to alter our readers’ perspectives in at least some small way. But while we can get good at predicting certain trends—what you’ll be watching/eating/ wearing/talking about in the months to come— there’s still an element of risk involved. We’re not fortune-tellers. We’re not always right.

Neither are most big thinkers. But, as we learned in the course of putting together this issue, when they’re right, they’re really right. The idea behind our first-ever Gamechangers issue was to acknowledge and celebrate the forward-thinkers of our time whose big ideas and major successes have altered our lives, or will soon. From Derek Jeter to Katie Couric and all the newer-to-you names in between, the innovators we chose to honor here know all about risk and reward—they live for it, actually. Best of all, they’re sharing the benefits with the rest of us.

Consider Airbnb founder Brian Chesky, who has changed the way we travel, and Amber Venz Box, who has transformed the way we shop online—making mini-moguls out of hundreds of fashion bloggers in the process. In the very near future, as you’ll read here, we’ll be taken to lunch in driverless cars, build skyscrapers out of wood and vacation in Iran. In a DuJour exclusive, the team behind just-launched electric car brand Faraday Future convinces us we’ll all be driving electric within the decade. If you’re one of those people who never thought getting behind the wheel of a plug-in could be satisfying, you’ll be thinking twice after hearing what these innovators have to say. But then, I bet you never thought a guy named the Fat Jew could be richer than you?

Nicole Vecchiarelli NV@DuJour.com • Instagram: editor_nv

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GAMECHANGERS

FLIGHT

WHEELS

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Ghost in the Machine LONG THE STUFF OF SCIENCE FICTION, autonomous cars are a fast-approaching reality. Apple, Google and nearly every auto manufacturer has been hard at work ironing out the technology at closed facilities in California and Michigan, and we’ll likely see production models on public streets in as little as five years. But while the driverless future may be promising, judging by the looks of current test vehicles, it’s also pretty bland.

The F 015 concept car from Mercedes-Benz, however, is a glorious exception to the rule, offering a glimpse at what our software-chauffeured society might look like in the luxury sector.

A driverless chariot for the leisure class, the F 015 is an amalgam of the classic styling of the flagship S-Class and an interplanetary shuttle. But, as Holger Hutzenlaub of Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design puts it, there’s much more to it than the look. “Time and space will become the luxury of the future,” says Hutzenlaub.

“The car will be growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space— a perfect symbiosis of the virtual and the real world.”

In Mercedes-Benz’s reimagined salon on wheels, passenger seats rotate to face each other, and as you glide stressfree with your party down the freeway, a digital particle stream is displayed on interior screens, gently visualizing the movement happening outside. After it drops you at your destination, it parks itself, and when you need it again, you simply summon it with your smartphone. Like a private room on the Orient Express, the F 015 imagines travel as time gained rather than lost, a tranquil respite from the calamity of the real world. It can’t get here soon enough. —PAUL BIEDRZYCKI

HOT SEAT

Consider the first-class arms race officially over. Etihad’s new First Apartment cabins—available on select A380 routes—promise flyers unparalleled comfort at 30,000 feet. The next-level private living spaces feature furniture upholstered with Poltrona Frau leather, including an ottoman that transforms into an 81-inch lay-flat bed. There’s also a vanity for primping, a 24-inch flat screen television and ample room for entertaining, should you decide to host your neighbors.

Flying commercial has never been more appealing.

GAMECHANGERS AVIATION

Super Fly

Getting a pilot’s license isn’t the grueling chore it once was, thanks to the “sport pilot certificate,” which requires just 20 hours of training. Built for amateurs and enthusiasts alike, the Icon A5 is a slim and seductive two-seat plane with impossibly simple controls that allow even novice pilots to easily handle its triple-digit speeds. But just in case they can’t, the craft can deploy its own super-sized parachute and safely float everyone back to earth.

The $189,000 hobbyist’s dream has a 345-mile range and wings that fold up, so you can store it in your garage—no hangar necessary—and haul it anywhere with a trailer. Try that with a Cessna. And don’t worry about finding a runway: the A5 is as at home on water as it is in the air. Forget about the elusive flying car, the flying Jet Ski is here. —ADAM K. RAYMOND

DRIVE

BALANCING ACT

IN MOTION

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Part motorcycle, part car, part space-age Go-Pod, the C-1 from San Franciscobased Lit Motors combines all the efficiencies of two-wheeled transportation with the comfort and sanity of four. The self-balancing electric vehicle is light, easy to park almost anywhere and takes up little of the road, while providing a climate-controlled environment and perfect stability, courtesy of ever-whirling gyros that keep everything level.

High-torque motors are located in the wheel hubs, allowing for a spacious one-man cab with room for a very close buddy.

Speed Freaks

Over the last few decades, as the world has exploded with faster technology, the commercial airliner has actually slowed down. But the pace of travel is about to hıt hyperdrive

ALL IMAGES COURTESY

FAST

CRAZY FAST

INSANELY FAST

NYgLA: 3.5 hours

NYgLA: 1 hour, 46 mins

NYgLA: 43 mins

With Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk’s track record for groundbreaking transportation design is unmatched. Now his ambitious Hyperloop concept, a network of pneumatic electromagnetic tubes that shoot people across the earth at speeds of 760mph, looks closer to becoming a reality— and rendering high-speed rail obsolete. Musk gave the engineering plans to the public, and now SpaceX is planning to have a mile-long test track operational by next year, just to prove it works.

Imagine a flight from New York to London that’s over before you finish reading this magazine. That’s what the makers of the Spike S-512 Supersonic Jet are promising. The 18-passenger plane will reach a max speed of Mach 1.8, or nearly 1,400mph, doubling the top speed of highend business jets from Cessna and Gulfstream.

Inside the cabin, speed-reducing windows are replaced by digital screens fed with real-time video from cameras on the fuselage.

Nearly 50 years after the Concorde introduced the world to supersonic flight, Airbus is planning to take things hypersonic. The French manufacturer recently patented an aircraft that can cruise at Mach 4.5, or about 3,400mph. Five engines will be required to take the jet to 4.5 times the speed of sound, including a rocket that sets the aircraft on a vertical trajectory toward the edge of space, and aerodynamics that reduce the sonic boom that plagued the Concorde.

GAMECHANGERS

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he eco-friendly future of urban construction is here, and it looks a whole lot like an epic game of Jenga. In the last five years, 17 wood high-rises of seven stories or taller have been erected around the world, with at least a dozen even loftier projects currently in the works.

This summer, a 10-story residential building called The Cube was completed in London— just besting the city’s other wooden tower and former record holder, the nine-story Stadthaus, and inching out Melbourne’s 10-story Forté apartments. Not to be outdone, this December in Bergen, Norway, residents will begin moving into Treet tower, which at 14-stories is now the world’s tallest wooden building—for the time being.

An 18-story high-rise has the green light in Vancouver; construction on a 24-story skyscraper is set to commence in Vienna next year; and a 34-story colossus will rise in Stockholm in 2023. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just awarded funds to the first tall timber developments stateside: residential buildings in Manhattan and Portland, Oregon—10 and 12 stories respectively.

The innovation that’s enabled these soaring heights is a relatively new wood product known as Cross Laminated Timber, or CLT, which is composed of individual layers glued together at 90-degree angles to form panels as thick as 20 inches and as long as 98 feet.

CLT has the comparable strength of reinforced concrete slabs but is significantly lighter, which cuts costs by up to 50 percent due in part to highly expedited construction times and less expensive foundation work.

Beyond the financial benefits, the chief attraction of going vertical with wood is environmental.

In the U.S., the construction industry is responsible for 47 percent of all CO2 emissions, compared to the 20 percent contributed by cars and trucks. By 2050, more than 70 percent of the world’s population is expected to be living in cities, but steel and concrete—the primary construction materials for urban buildings—account for 8 percent of all global carbon emissions. Wood, on the other hand, retains its carbon. Next year’s skyscraper in Vienna will save 2,800 metric tons in carbon emissions— the equivalent of taking 1,080 cars off the road for a year.

Moreover, a greater demand for wood creates an economic incentive for planting more trees in deforested regions that

Clockwise from top: The Cube in London

by Hawkins Brown; the Wood Innovation and Design Centre

by MGA in British Columbia; CF Møller’s planned wood skyscraper in Stockholm; the newly completed Treet tower in Bergen, Norway, by Artec.

Lumbering Giants Concrete jungles around the world are about ARCHITECTURE

to get a whole lot greener. Thanks to Cross Laminated Timber, wood skyscrapers are not only possible, they’re flourishing Written by Frances Dodds

GAMECHANGERS would otherwise be charted for commercial agriculture.

And responsible forestry certifications are increasingly pervasive—especially in North America, where studies have shown the continent’s forests grow enough wood for a 20-story building every eight to 10 minutes.

Of course, when it comes to 20-story buildings made of wood, the first concern is fire. But extensive studies have shown that CLT acts more like concrete than any logs you’d light at a campfire—at times even outperforming steel. If not coated properly with protective materials, steel melts when exposed to fire, whereas the density of CLT panels allows their outer layers to char slowly, insulating the wood within from damage. According to Vancouver-based architect Michael Green, false assumptions about flammability are one of the last things holding the wood revolution back.

ENVIRONMENT

Do-Goodies

From solar-charged furniture to sneakers made of garbage, great minds are at work designing a more sustainable way to live Written by Kaitlyn Frey The Nebia Shower Backed by Tim Cook and Eric Schmidt, the revolutionary showerhead reduces water usage by 70 percent with a unique technology that atomizes H2O into millions of tiny droplets, creating a shower experience unlike any other. nebia.com RePlast Bricks Made from recycled plastic waste, the LEEDcertified construction brick from ByFusion is the sustainable alternative to the cinder block. byfusion.com

ALL IMAGES COURTESY

“People just think, ‘That’s going to burn,’” says Green, who became the movement’s unofficial spokesperson after a popular TED Talk he gave on the subject in 2013.

“But we have to make these buildings perform to such a high standard—actually, the exact same standard as steel and concrete buildings—that the risk of fire is actually extremely low.”

While computerized engineering has enabled largescale dramatics never before thought possible in architecture, there is currently something of a disconnect between the industry’s commitment to sustainability and its celebration of bold-faced names like Frank Gehry, Santiago Calatrava and Jean Nouvel, whose designs demand extravagant funds and resources. Green argues that the outlandish angles and curves of contemporary architecture, which often require double the steel and concrete, can never be truly modern because of their disregard for the planet. “These buildings by the icons are pretty forms—if you were building a sculpture that sat on your desk,” he says. “But the global impact on the environment is horrendous. Truthfully, it’s like driving a Hummer; it’s the garbage of our industry. I think this is the beginning of the climate era of architecture, where we’ll have a different set of rules that define what modern should be.” ■

Current Table The glass surface of designer Marjan van Aubel’s table harvests energy from solar cells to power appliances like computers and lamps, without requiring direct sunlight. marjanvanaubel.com

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Adidas Garbage Shoes The sneaker giant teamed up with an environmental group to design the firstever shoe made from recycled ocean waste.

Clothing made from sea trash is coming soon. adidas.com

CryoUSA was one of the first companies to provide whole body cryotherapy treatments to athletes, including the 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks.

The Big Chill Athletes and celebrities are warming up

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BODY

to cryotherapy, the sub-zero wellness trend that mıght just be a miracle on ice Written by Lindsay Silberman

o

n the corner of West 57th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, amid a cluster of expensive restaurants and luxury hotels, you’ll find a nondescript corporate office building where ladies who lunch go to freeze themselves alive. The radical treatment, known as whole body cryotherapy—WBC for short—involves spending three excruciating minutes inside a nitrogen-filled chamber cooled to minus 264 degrees Fahrenheit.

Endure the torture and practitioners say you’ll be handsomely rewarded in the form of cellulite reduction, osteoporosis prevention, boosted metabolism, enhanced energy and endorphin release, among other health and beauty benefits.

Over the last five years, the trend has spread to more than 30 U.S. cities, with hundreds of chambers now located in cryotherapy spas, athletic training facilities, five-star resorts and physical-therapy offices across the country. Experts say the cryo boom can be traced back to 2011, when the Dallas Mavericks, fresh off an NBA title win, praised the treatment as the team’s “secret weapon.” Florida-based physical therapist Ron Yacoub, who treats high-profile athletes, says the players swore by it. “They said that going into cryotherapy units after games and practice enabled them to recover from their injuries quicker,” he recalls. “That lit the fire for the entire professional sports industry. Everyone was looking to have a cryotherapy chamber in their facility.”

New York City’s only cryotherapy-specific center,

KryoLife, opened in late 2012 and has since developed a cult of loyal devotees, including life coach Tony Robbins and ballet dancer Misty Copeland. Its founder, Joanna Fryben, was inspired to bring the concept stateside from her native Poland after witnessing the treatment’s effects firsthand. “I was very intrigued by the technology. Athletes were using it at Olympic centers in Poland, and people who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis were raving about it,” says Fryben, whose mother turned to cryotherapy following knee-replacement surgery.

“My mom was in love. She felt 20 years younger.”

The treatment, she explains, triggers a fight-or-flight response in the body, sending a rush of blood to the vital organs. It can be used as a postoperative recovery tool or simply to enhance overall well-being, and the effects—which vary for each individual—typically last for six to eight hours.

A three-minute session costs $90, and Fryben sees around 80 clients per day—though that number could grow exponentially once KryoLife opens its flagship in the Flatiron District early next year and eventually expands to Greenwich, Connecticut, NYC’s Battery Park City and Florida. She also imports the chambers from Poland and sells them on an individual basis for $50,000 each.

KryoLife’s chamber looks strikingly similar to a standup tanning booth, except rather than enveloping your body in a warm cocoon of ultraviolet radiation, it blasts you with freezing nitrogen gas for 180 painfully long seconds. The chill begins first at your toes, before trickling up to your thighs and around your waist. By the time it hits your arms, you may start involuntarily clenching every muscle in your body and rubbing your hands together in hopes of staying warm. And then, before you know it, the whole thing will be over. Imagine briefly losing control of your car during a snowstorm—the adrenaline rush, followed by a euphoric sense of calm.

After my session at KryoLife, I waited patiently for the jolt of energy Fryben and so many others have touted, in which the body’s ability to detoxify and rejuvenate is allegedly enhanced. (“Some people just stop in during their lunch hour,” Fryben told me. “They don’t need that afternoon cup of coffee.”) Initially, at least, I didn’t feel energized or detoxified or rejuvenated—I just felt normal.

That wouldn’t surprise cryotherapy’s critics, who question the treatment’s various health claims. “It is an unproven technique that is advertised as being more effective than the evidence can support,” says Ian Harris, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at Australia’s Whitlam Orthopaedic Research Centre. And to be sure, though a number of European studies have confirmed the anti-inflammatory benefits of whole body cryotherapy, there simply isn’t enough research to draw conclusions about further claims.

“I think these clinics have as much support as any other wellness, beauty, stem cell, oxygen—insert gimmick here— clinic,” says Harris. “This is being done to sell a product.”

While I’m no scientist, I can tell you that several hours after my treatment, I got a second wind out of nowhere.

It was five o’clock—normally a dreadful, sluggish time of day for me—and though I had every reason to be exhausted from a multicourse dinner and not enough sleep the night before, I was suddenly wide-eyed and alert, ticking boxes off my to-do list like an over-caffeinated intern.

The high lasted for several hours, and when it ended, I was well aware that I might have just been sipping the cryo-Kool-Aid. Still, placebo or not, I plan on going back— at least a few times—to find out for sure. ■

COURTESY

GAMECHANGERS

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GAMECHANGERS

Going Rogue As relations with the West begin  TRAVEL

to thaw, Iran is poised to become the destination of choice for jet-setting travelers with a taste for the unexpected Written by Audrey Scott Clockwise from top left: The eastern entrance of the Gates of All Nations; the Pink Mosque’s stained-glass interior; vaulted ceilings inside the mirrored mausoleum Aramgah-e Shah-e Cheragh; women gather at the Vakil Bazaar to buy ornate fabrics.

Opposite page: Sour orange trees fill the gardens of the Narenjestan Palace.

GAMECHANGERS SHIRAZ: MILES FROM ORDINARY

The city of gardens in southwestern Iran is one of the oldest centers of ancient Persia—and teems with local flavor

SHIRAZ HOTEL

OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: AUDREY SCOTT; DANIEL NOLL (2); AUDREY SCOTT. THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY

the founder of Iran Luxury Travel, a North Carolina– based company that plans bespoke trips for international clientele. “That’s the single biggest surprise for people. I’ve never been to a place where Americans are that popular.” Because American tourists are a rarity—European travelers from France, Germany and Italy are far more common—visitors from the States are treated like celebrities. “As you walk down the street, you’ll see locals having picnics anywhere they can find a piece of grass. They’ll invite you to drink tea and eat with them. It’s very heart-warming,” says Kutay. Even the late Christopher Hitchens, who had no love for the regime, was smitten with the hospitality of its people. “Visiting today’s Iran,” he wrote, “I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn’t particularly take to it themselves.”

There is, of course, an understandable fear that comes with traveling to a country that has semiregularly declared the U.S. to be the Great Satan. But the reality—at least among those who’ve been—is quite different from the perception. “When people ask me if it’s dangerous, I tell them it isn’t nearly as dangerous as going to New Orleans, or Washington, or a lot of other big cities,” explains Kutay. “Statistically, there’s almost no crime there. There have been a few cases, but by and large, it’s very safe.”

Traveling to Iran isn’t nearly as complicated as one might imagine. Americans are required to book through a tour group or arrange an individual authorized guide, but those regulations are poised to loosen in the coming months. So now’s the time to plan your trip—before everyone else catches on. ■

SERAY-E MEHR This traditional teahouse hidden inside the Vakil Bazaar is an idyllic escape from the bustling market.

While you’re there, order a fragrant cup of saffron tea and a bowl of dizi. The hearty Iranian soup, made with chickpeas, lamb and local spices, is stewed in a ceramic pot for several hours.

IRAN CARPET HOUSE Thousands of hand-knotted Persian carpets are stacked along the perimeter of this ancient market, from the traditional fine silk of Isfahan to the rough wool of nomadic tribes.

Ask the shop owner to share the meaning behind each design— every carpet tells a unique story.

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h

ailing Iran as the next big thing in luxury travel might sound like a Saturday Night Live bit—but just hear us out for a second. Beyond its exotic appeal, the country, which is rapidly strengthening relations with the U.S., has all the trappings of a richly satisfying vacation experience: sprawling ski resorts in Tehran, spectacular shopping in Shiraz and thousands of years of majestic architectural history, from ancient Zoroastrian holy sites to 14th- and 15th-century splendors of the post-Islamic era. With more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other Arab state by far, the cradle of civilization promises to incite immediate Instagram envy.

Still skeptical? Speak to any American who’s visited. They’ll likely describe the unparalleled beauty of the mosques and mausoleums—how, in Shiraz for instance, watching day break through the stained-glass windows of Nasir al-Mulk is an experience unlike any other. Or they might rave about the Vakil Bazaar, a 900-year-old market filled with hand-knotted carpets and orderly cones of fragrant spices—the kind of place that will inspire you to take up cooking and redecorate with rich Persian rugs.

Then there’s the stunning coral coast of Kish Island in the turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf, considered one of the most beautiful islands in the world, and the beach resorts of Ramsar on the Caspian sea, otherwise known as the Iranian Riviera.

Beyond the exquisite history and natural beauty, you’ll find something even more unexpected: a culture that rejoices at the sight of American visitors. “The Iranian people love Americans,” explains Steve Kutay,

With international luxury hotel brands eyeing Iran as the next untapped market, Shiraz’s newest five-star hotel is a taste of things to come.

Request a balconied room in the back of the property, where jaw-dropping views of the Zagros Mountains juxtapose with Shiraz’s big city vibe.

GAMECHANGERS

Reboot Camp California’s legendary Golden Door WELLNESS

retreat has been restored to its former glory—which is exactly how you’ll feel when you leave Written by Nicole Vecchiarelli

The newly expanded spa offers dozens of serene gardens, 20 miles of hiking trails and 40 private rooms modeled on the traditional Japanese principles of the ryokan.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY

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he short version of the story—how I came to be at Golden Door, the storied, ultra-luxe retreat sometimes referred to as the “Mrs. Astor of spas”—is that I have two children under the age of 5 and a demanding job that requires fair amounts of both sitting and socializing. I needed to lose a little weight, sure.

Mostly, I was desperate to be alone for a few days.

Set on 600 acres of California grove land two hours south of L.A., Golden Door launched in 1958 as the country’s first destination spa and for decades was also its most preeminent. Movie studios sent actresses here for guided deprivation among the avocado trees; Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand and Elizabeth Taylor were regulars, not to mention, more recently, Oprah and Martha. But Golden Door also pioneered the idea that maybe regular folks deserved these sorts of time-outs, too: life-changing “me time” trips that included daily massages, gourmet meals, lectures on mindfulness and the promise of no interruptions.

These days, the genre is more crowded than ever, with wellness retreats the industry’s fastest growing category.

But Golden Door and its offshoots—Canyon Ranch, Rancho La Puerta, Miraval—prove that new isn’t necessarily better, as long as you adapt with the times.

In the late ’90s, corporate ownership and careless franchising began to dilute the Golden Door brand, while the flagship fell into disrepair.

But in 2013, Joanne Conway, wife of billionaire philanthropist Bill Conway, bought the property and the name, and set out to return both to their former glory. She dismantled the franchises, hired a vibrant new CEO and enlisted famed interior designer Victoria Hagan to oversee a $15 million renovation. Then she started buying up neighboring Escondido property with an eye toward expansion.

The newly restored Golden Door respects its rich history, offering a modern take on the original Japanese country inn concept with plenty of vintage touches. It is at once highly refined and comfortingly familiar, creating a feeling that you’ve been here before, even if you haven’t.

From the moment I walked in, everyone on staff made it clear that the week ahead was about me and me only. A wellness concierge helped plan a customized itinerary, which included a morning hike, fitness classes led by personal trainers and daily beauty treatments. Chef Greg Frey Jr. works with the head nutritionist to prepare personalized meals sourced from local farms and fishermen, as well as the spa’s own garden, with portions based on your goals. After-dinner activities include cooking classes and meditation. But I’ll tell you what’s game changing: daily mandatory massages from your own dedicated massage therapist. Eventually, the demands I faced in normal life faded from memory. These are people highly skilled in the art of healthy self-indulgence.

While the experience is certainly lush, it’s the emphasis on simplicity that stuck with me most. Nights were early and so were mornings. Camaraderie was high and competitiveness was low. The talk was about giving—to others, but also to yourself. (Golden Door donates 100 percent of its net profits to charity, which in itself is groundbreaking.) It isn’t exactly real life, which of course is the point. But it helps you realize there’s no reason real life can’t be a little more like Golden Door. Especially if it includes a daily massage. ■

I N T RO D U C I N G

SARAH JESSICA PARKER FOR THE JORDACHE LOOK

SHOP NOW on the new

JORDACHE .com

GAMECHANGERS FROM SHAKESPEARE TO SINATRA, the moon has found itself playing the unwitting foil in all kinds of human dramas, but next year, it will be getting a much more literal delivery of our emotional baggage. To help fund the first privately financed mission to the moon, Pittsburgh-based logistics company Astrobotic is selling payload space aboard its lander to the highest bidders. Items slated for the journey thus far range from the sentimental (wedding rings, family photographs, a memory chip full of poems and artwork from Oklahoma schoolchildren) to the macabre (pet hair, cremated human remains). The hodgepodge will be accompanied by a pair of Japanese-designed rovers hoping to win Google’s $30 million Lunar XPrize, awarded to the first privately funded robot to land on the moon. And in yet another first, riding shotgun will be a pair of Mexican astronauts, whose fares are being paid by the fledgling Mexican Space Agency.

Astrobotic CEO John Thornton says that with government superpowers out of the game, space travel will be open to anyone willing to foot the bill. “Think of us like a UPS or FedEx to the moon, taking packages from around the globe,” he explains. “Our goal is to make the moon accessible to the world, and that involves intentionally leaving it open for what the world will want to do with the moon.”

That apparently also includes shameless publicity stunts. The world’s first moonvertiser will be Pocari Sweat, a Japanese energy drink that’s taking product placement into the stratosphere with a scheme to dump a can of its sports beverage on the lunar surface for all eternity.

According to a spokesperson, the container’s titanium cap will be engraved with the dreams of 80,000 children, each of whom will receive a “dream key” that fits a keyhole on the lid—so that when they grow up and become astronauts they can unlock the long-sealed can, mix up the powder inside with some moon water and quench the thirst of their ambitions. (Of course, in space, no one can hear you scream.)

Thornton insists that Astrobotic’s main objectives are about exploration and eventual human settlement. “But along the way,” he says, “there will also be the advertising and marketing opportunities. We are not out to just put a billboard up there; we want to make meaningful experiences for people.”

As one might expect, meaningful experiences 238,900 miles from earth don’t come cheap. To have your trinkets ferried into space in a 1" x 2" capsule, Astrobotic asks for $25,800, with bigger loads priced at $1.2 million per kilo.

Pocari Sweat’s fee remains undisclosed, but considering that a one-minute Super Bowl ad costs $9 million, they may have gotten the publicity steal of the century (case in point: we just mentioned their brand twice).

The prospect of a moon littered with branded mouse pads concerns many, but there’s not a whole lot they can do about it at the moment; the laws of the lunar province are nascent.

“It’s very much like the Wild West,” Thornton says.

“There’s an international Moon Treaty that basically says you can’t militarize it. There are guidelines that say don’t land on Apollo hardware or mess up existing assets up there. But otherwise, it’s wide open.” ■

Buy Me to the Moon In one giant leap for buzz marketing, next year’s

privately funded lunar landing will defray costs by making a Japanese energy drink the first official sponsor of the moon Written by Frances Dodds

APPS

DREAM CATCHER

Shadow is an alarm clock app for your phone that gently wakes you up and asks you to describe your dreams. Using speech-totext technology, the software then catalogs the places, people and things you’ve dreamt about and adds them to its database. Think of it like a Fitbit for your subconscious, tracking the steps you take through the darkest corners of your mind. The endgame, according to Shadow creator Hunter Lee Soik, is to build a data set that will do for our collective psyche what Google Maps has done for terra firma. “It’s something that people often don’t even look at themselves,” says Soik. “We’re interested in turning the quantified self towards the understood self.”

MOON: NASA/LIAISON/GETTY IMAGES; SHADOW: COURTESY

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SPACE

GAMECHANGERS OMA Ironic

Cast from the same hypoeutectic iron used to create silicon chips, the 400pound behemoth filters sound through a cluster of studiograde quadratic diffusers. $95,000 per pair

OMA Mini

Devialet Phantom

The brainchild of 40 engineers and scientists, the single-unit, room-filling Phantom receives music via WiFi and uses revolutionary new acoustic architecture, including what it calls “Heart Bass Implosion,” to generate the kind of dense, distortion-free audio you’d expect from speakers 20 times the size. $1,990

Perfect Hearing A new crop of

LISTEN

ALL IMAGES COURTESY

Bang & Olufsen Beolit 15

The mobile speaker’s omnidirectional sound field is enhanced by elements typically found in much larger, multi-unit systems—a full-range driver, three tweeters for heightened clarity, large bass radiators and separate amplifiers. $599

speakers combines groundbreaking acoustic technology with singular design, leaving audiophiles and aesthetes spoiled for choice

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This two-way speaker’s compact profile—just 14" x 14" x 57"—can be deceptive: the highly efficient setup produces rich, powerful playback with its proprietary conical horn and neodymium compression driver. $28,750 per pair

GAMECHANGERS When La Mer’s sea kelp is harvested in the spring and fall, it’s shipped directly to the lab on ice.

Because only the top fronds are used, the plant remains unharmed.

The Secrets Behind Crème de la Mer

As the groundbreaking skin-care brand turns 50, we explain the delicate science behind its signature Crème’s enduring appeal—and price tag Driven to find a treatment for his own burn scars, it took aerospace physicist Dr. Max Huber 12 years and 6,000 experiments with ingredients and time-intensive biofermentation to develop the formula for Crème de la Mer. Today, at $170 per ounce, the rarefied mixture has never been more popular.

To speed up the fermentation process, the Miracle Broth is exposed to pulsating sound waves and light energy from specialized equipment, which intensifies potency.

To maintain the integrity of every batch, a small portion of Broth from the previous is added to the next.

2

TEA PARTY

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Known officially as the Miracle Broth, La Mer’s secret sauce is a powerful blend of sea kelp, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, lecithin and vitamins C, E and B12, along with oils of citrus, eucalyptus, wheat germ, alfalfa and sunflower. Fresh limes are hand peeled to maximize the living benefits of the rind, then added as Lime Tea Extract. —NATASHA WOLFF

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From rooibos to java, medicinal and detoxifying plants have found their way from the bottom of your cup into the season’s hottest beauty offerings

5 1. Bio-Performance

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Supreme Serum, $235, GOLDFADEN MD, goldfadenmd.com 7. Silk Crème Moisturizing Photo Edition Foundation, $48, LAURA MERCIER, lauramercier.com

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Each jar of Crème de la Mer is hand-filled within eight hours of the formula’s completion, with the room’s temperature tightly controlled.

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Rock City Renaissance

Michigan Central Station, closed since 1988, with newly installed windows.

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With an influx of fresh talent and smart investments, Detroit is rebuilding its brand, piece by piece Written by Paul Biedrzycki Photographed by Adrian Gaut

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Left: Brush Park, with downtown Detroit in the distance.

Right: The view of a revitalized downtown from Bedrock’s headquarters.

a

t the end of the last century, Detroit was left for dead, a rustridden festering wasteland of a bygone era. Its decline didn’t happen overnight; the city that was once the mecca of American manufacturing, home to companies like General Motors, whose output in the mid-1950s rivaled the GDP of many first-world nations, had been on a steady decline. In just over 60 years, the population plummeted from 1.8 million in 1950 to less than 700,000 by 2014. The rampant blight—abandoned, burned out buildings, piles of uncollected trash and unchecked crime—had come to define a bankrupt, hopeless city that was beyond repair.

About a decade ago, however, a few key figures identified opportunity amidst the rubble, and the seeds they planted are lately starting to take root, as more young and creative businesses make Detroit their home.

With Motor City now looking to define itself into the coming century, the revitalization is guided by an enduring, collaborative, hard-work ethos that has been at the town’s core since its beginnings.

Detroit native Dan Gilbert, the billionaire founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and his company Bedrock Real Estate Services are rightly credited with much of what’s happened downtown in the past few years. Even the staunchest critic, skeptical of what could seem from the outside to be an opportunistic land grab, can’t refute the profound change he’s catalyzed.

Bedrock, by the numbers, has infused $1.8 billion of capital into the area, purchasing more than 80 properties

equating to 13 million square feet, most of which is now rebuilt and re-occupied, and has created 8,000 jobs in the process. Gilbert doubled down on his hometown, stepping in when seemingly no one else with his resources would, and put the fallen colossus on life support.

Francis Grunow, an urbanist and activist who has been involved with a number of revitalization initiatives such as Preservation Detroit and the Corridors Alliance, thinks Gilbert understands the city in a way that his forbearers did not. “I feel positive about him having as much free reign as he does because he values urban space,” says Grunow, who’s also quick to point out how unrealistic it is in the long term for any single person or company to rebuild and sustain an entire city. “It would be great to have five or 10 of them—at this point, there’s space for a hundred of them.”

While the city was in dire need of the capital Bedrock provided, the company’s real long-term contribution will be, as Dan Mullen, executive vice president of Bedrock describes it, “in building a community,” drawing people and businesses back to downtown through a commitment to diversity. “It’s not about bringing in just higher-end retail, it’s about bringing in everyone,” Mullen says.

“We’re definitely not the only ones making it happen, we’re just helping create the conduit.”

Mullen points to one particular project, a parking garage known as “The Z,” as one of their proudest programming achievements. By commissioning 27 artists to create murals throughout the 10-story structure, they’ve found a way for it to serve two purposes. “I was telling somebody to park at the Z, and she called and said, ‘I don’t know where the parking structure is. I keep driving around an art museum.’ And that’s when I knew that we hit a home run,” he says.

“I’VE YET TO MEET ANYONE WHO’S SAID, ‘OH, WOW I WAS WRONG’ AND IMMEDIATELY PACK UP,” SAYS ARCHITECT PATRICK THOMPSON. “INSTEAD, THEY’RE FINDING THIS IS A TOWN WHERE PEOPLE CHEERLEAD AND WILL REALLY HELP.”

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Left: The lobby of the Aloft Detroit hotel in the David Whitney Building.

Right: Minoru Yamasaki’s One Woodward Avenue.

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or as much as Bedrock has done in laying groundwork, the lifestyle brand Shinola has been instrumental in getting the word out beyond city limits. Started in 2011 by Fossil founder Tom Kartsotis, who bought the name from a dormant Rochester, New York, shoe polish manufacturer, the company trades heavily on a nostalgic celebration of Detroit’s rich manufacturing history.

Like Gilbert, Kartsotis found value in what others seemed perfectly willing to cast aside.

From their downtown factory, the former site where General Motors engineers created the first artificial heart machine in 1952, Shinola employs 500 people, manufacturing high quality watches, bicycles and luxury leather goods sold around the world. Its assembly line includes many workers who are refugees from the auto industry, now handling miniscule watch pieces with tweezers in a dust-free, clinical environment. On a recent visit, employees wearing sterile Tyvek coveralls paused to say good morning as Janet Jackson’s “The Pleasure Principle” played on the sound system. It seemed less like a historical reenactment of the city’s manufacturing heyday than an affirmation of its new pulse. Though some

might see Shinola as a carpetbagger, the company has become one of the preeminent ambassadors for the brand of Detroit, helping to draw more resources, people and energy back to a city that needs all the help it can get.

While there are plenty of signs of life, there is still a long road to recovery ahead. Matthew Naimi, the owner of a metal-scrap yard on the site of the first Lincoln Motors plant, reminds me that with over 140 square miles in the city’s confines, what’s happening downtown hasn’t fully pushed out to its edges. “Downtown is an island of prosperity that’s still surrounded by a moat of despair,” he says. There remains a point in the atrophied outskirts where the street lights simply stop. And though the lights have come back on in some areas, the city is officially broke, its school system is abysmal and the slumbering giant Michigan Central Station still sits empty.

As much as it provided the foundation for a culture of collaboration and innovation, Grunow explains that the city’s relationship with the automobile has been a double-edged sword. As the industry boomed, so did Detroit, but, as he says, it was “a relatively small group of people with an entrepreneurial spark that the city filled in around.” And when they left for the suburbs,

DUJOU R .COM 25

they took the city with them. Now there is a dire need to leave the one-industry-town mentality behind, toward a city capable of bearing a large degree of diversity and complexity. This makes Detroit 2.0 an urban planner and architect’s dream, a nearly blank slate for the future city. “At this point, it’s almost so far behind it’s ahead,” says Grunow.

One of those architects is Patrick Thompson, originally from Detroit, who worked in Chicago for a brief stint before returning nine years ago to set up his own firm. “As cliché as it sounds, I really believed I could make an impact in people’s lives here,” says Thompson, whose current projects include several residences and the Trumbull & Porter Hotel, opening this spring. Asked about new arrivals lured to Detroit by stories of derelict auto-barons’ mansions going for pennies on the dollar, he’s all for it. In fact, he says, the outsiders pouring in are accelerating the maturation of a new Detroit and seem vested in its future, while bringing expectations of good design from their previous cities. “I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s said, ‘Oh, wow I was wrong’ and immediately pack up,” he says. “Instead, they’re finding this is a town where people cheerlead and will really help them do it.”

After experiencing such lows for so long, perhaps the only way to look is up. It’s clear there is something special happening here, not only with Bedrock and Shinola, but the many startups filling in downtown and along the Midtown corridor. Projects like Wayne State’s newly opened Integrative Biosciences Center, a striking $93 million state-of-the-art biomedical facility on Woodward Avenue, have turned an area long considered a no-man’s land into a hotbed of technology and culture, anchored by the renovated Detroit Institute of Arts museum. And contributing to that creative energy, this fall also brought the opening of the Wasserman Projects in the nearby Eastern Market district, a 9,000-square-foot abandoned firehouse converted into a contemporary arts center.

There is a palpable and even infectious optimism in Detroit, one that Grunow confesses he didn’t expect to see in his lifetime. A city with such an illustrious history of making things can undoubtedly remake itself. “It’s an exciting time to be here. There’s so much going on, and let’s hope it is a blueprint for other cities who may be in a similar state to say, ‘OK, those guys got it right,’” says Bridget Russo, CMO of Shinola and a recent transplant herself. “All eyes are on Detroit.” ■

From left: The sun shines on a street corner downtown; a worker at the Shinola factory assembles leather goods; kids play along the Detroit River; Paramita Sound, a 19th-century houseturned-vinyl shop.

Left: A once-grand residence in the historic Brush Park neighborhood comes back to life.

Right: The People’s House a.k.a. “Dotty Wotty,” part of the Heidelberg Project, an oudoor art community.

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Switch Hitter

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After avoiding the press for 23 years, Derek Jeter retired from baseball to become the world’s least likely media mogul Written by Lindsay Sılberman Portfolio photographed by Andreas Laszlo Konrath

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f you can’t seem to remember the last time you read something juicy, or scandalous, or even remotely revealing about Derek Jeter, that’s because you haven’t. Of all the skills that the future Hall of Famer mastered throughout his celebrated baseball career, it was perhaps his deft handling of the media that made him a true sports-world anomaly.

Jeter spent more than two decades perfecting the delicate art of “I’d rather not say” during interviews, dodging intrusive questions with a militaristic selfdiscipline that would make any political handler swoon.

So when it was announced in October of last year— just days after his retirement from professional baseball— that the traditionally press-averse athlete would be launching, of all things, a media company, the news raised some serious eyebrows. In Jeter’s mind, it was a nobrainer. He’d felt, for a long time, that athletes needed an outlet where they could share their stories openly, without worrying that their words would be manipulated to boost traffic or newsstand sales.

That vision eventually became The Players’ Tribune, a media platform that features first-person essays and opinion pieces from boldface sports personalities like NFL quarterback Russell Wilson, race-car driver Danica Patrick and top-ranked tennis player Caroline Wozniacki.

Jeter himself penned the first story on the site, offering insight into his thought process. “I realize I’ve been guarded,” he wrote. “I do think fans deserve more than ‘no comments’ or ‘I don’t knows.’ Those simple answers have always stemmed from a genuine concern that any statement, any opinion or detail, might be distorted.”

What The Players’ Tribune ultimately seeks to do is position itself as the unfiltered lens through which sports figures communicate publicly, negating the traditional

sports-media formula. “We’re disrupting the way information is shared between athletes and fans,” Jeter says, taking in the Hudson River view from his company’s Chelsea loft headquarters. “We want athletes to set the agenda. We want them to take control of their voices.”

In the year since it launched, The Players’ Tribune has published more than 600 stories from 350 athletes, partnered with brands like Powerade and Dove and raised an additional $9.5 million in funding. The company now employs a staff of 30. “He’s involved in all the day-to-day aspects of the business—from strategic partnerships, to financing, to brainstorming editorial ideas,” says Jaymee Messler, the president of The Players’ Tribune. “Anything Derek does, he puts 110% into it.”

Between his flourishing media brand, a publishing imprint with Simon & Schuster (called Jeter Publishing, of course), which has already released autobiographies of athletes like Rob Gronkowski and Derrick Coleman Jr., and investments in a slew of other tech companies (including Blue Jeans Network, a video conferencing start-up), the 41-year-old admits that post-retirement life isn’t exactly how he’d imagined it. “At least before, on any date throughout the course of the year I could tell you where I was going to be and what I was going to be doing. Now it seems like everything is a little more hectic,” he says. “I’m supposed to be retired.”

Not that he’s complaining. Jeter has made it his mission to prove he’s not just a superhuman sportsbot who hates the press. “When I was playing, people would always criticize me for giving the same answers in every interview. My response to that? ‘You keep asking the same questions,’ ” he says with his famous grin. “Everyone thinks that athletes are one-dimensional. But there’s a lot more to know about us—we have a lot of things to say.” ■

Stream Queen

the chance to join the flagging Internet onomatopoeia as the face of its growing news operation.

As Couric tells it, she saw a serious need for networkquality video journalism that wasn’t being served online.

In an endless sea of “cats playing the piano and dogs surfing,” she says, “there was a great opportunity and a market to do more thoughtful journalism.” Looking at the limitless digital landscape, she thought, “There’s a future here. How can I be a part of it, and how can I hopefully improve some of the things available on that platform?”

In just under two years, she has made Yahoo’s videonews division into a valuable and prolific source for not only breaking stories but also insightful profiles and in-depth interviews. “Yahoo is primarily a tech company, not a media company,” she says. “So there were a lot of building blocks that we had to assemble. And we’re adding more blocks every day.” To date, her videos have attracted some 250 million streams, with her spotlights on transgender teen Jazz Jennings, Instagram phenomenon the Fat Jew (see page 34) and plus-size model Ashley ’ve never been a complacent person,” says Katie Graham topping three million views apiece.

Couric, reflecting on a long and varied career that Among the many ways Couric has been experimenting has most recently landed her at Yahoo as its first global news anchor. “I hope people see me as a risk with the new platform is through World 3.0, one of taker and someone who’s not afraid of challenges.” Yahoo’s most popular and widely discussed digital series.

In interviews with leading innovators from the worlds of Few would accuse Couric, 58, of simply tech, science, business and philanthropy, she’s attempted going through the motions. Since joining the tech to shed light on the future by asking questions on the behemoth in 2014, she’s taken on the daunting theme “What if?” Recent subjects have included inventor mission of reinventing its digital newsroom, bringing the Dean Kamen, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Lyft’s John credibility and quality of broadcast journalism to the Zimmer. “I think that hopefully people see me and say, web—and is enjoying every minute of it.

‘Look, she’s trying this,’ ” Couric says of the work.

“I used to have to be in my seat ready to go when the “Or, ‘Wow, she’s going there.’ ” clock struck a certain number,” she says of her networkEngaging with and relating to a whole new generation anchor days. “With Yahoo, I have a lot more flexibility. of digital viewers has been a critical component of No two days are alike, I can travel, and I have this Couric’s success. She maintains an active presence on smorgasbord of interesting projects I’m working on, Twitter, with some 1.37 million followers, and on which is really stimulating and exciting.”

Instagram, where she peppers her feed with celebrity Post-analog Couric is running 30 minutes late to an selfies and personal candids of herself walking the dog or 8 a.m. breakfast meeting in downtown Manhattan, and getting a haircut. “It’s a way to be completely unvaren route, it becomes clear just how much the new role nished,” she says. “I’m able to be my authentic self and demands of her time. “I think I need to be cloned,” she let people know the things I care about.” jokes. But then, Couric hasn’t really slowed down since In what free time she has, Couric devotes herself to the day she took over as co-anchor of the Today show projects she cares deeply about. That includes Fed Up, a in 1991, already radiating the trademark warmth and 2014 documentary on childhood obesity she co-produced confidence that would endear her to millions. “I guess this and narrated, which she’s attempting to distribute to means you’re stuck with me,” she quipped to co-host Bryant Gumbel. “Or maybe I’m stuck with you.” She held elementary classrooms nationwide, and a new documentary that takes aim at U.S. gun-control laws and the NRA. the position for 15 years, during which the NBC flagship won the weekly network ratings war for an unprecedented But her biggest priority is Stand Up to Cancer, a charity she helped found which has raised almost $300 million for decade straight. Then, in 2006, she made history when oncological research. Couric says it was her late husband she jumped to rival CBS to become the first solo female Jay Monahan’s losing battle with colon cancer in 1998 that anchor of an evening newscast.

“I think that helped normalize the presence of a woman imbued her with a sense of purpose. “That tragic event has given me such a focus and really guided me in my doing a job like that,” she says. “Although I think it’s philanthropic work,” she says. And when Couric pitches in still way too male dominated.” With a $15 million annual on a cause, she usually gets results. Following her on-air salary at the Tiffany Network, Couric also became one colonoscopy, there was a documented 20 percent increase of the highest paid journalists in the world. When she decamped to ABC five years later to host her own daytime in the number of colonoscopies performed across the country. Researchers dubbed it The Katie Couric Effect. talk show, Katie, she made headlines again with a record Asked what motivates her to take so many risks, Couric $40 million three-year contract. thinks for a moment. “The joy is in the process of doing it, At around the same time, Couric says she began to see significant changes on the media horizon and felt there was whatever happens,” she says. “That’s how you continue to grow as a person—to put yourself in challenging situations an opportunity to do more. So when freshly minted Yahoo and new environments. Otherwise, you just atrophy.” ■ president and CEO Marissa Mayer called, she welcomed

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At Yahoo, Katie Couric is building the digital newsroom of the future, one click at a time Written by David Foxley

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GAMECHANGERS

The Faraday Effect

In Faraday’s headquarters, millions of dollars worth of machinery still sits wrapped in plastic, and there’s a constant ruckus—not from building cars, but from framing walls. Kim’s handpicked team—Page Beermann (head of exterior design), Pontus Fontaeus (head of interior design) and Sue Neuhauser (head of color, material and finish design)—have just returned from the Frankfurt Auto Show, and they remark that there are at least 10 new faces in the hallways since they left last week. In the midst of the bustle, several tantalizing, car-shaped forms sit draped in black cloth emblazened with the “FF” logo.

For most manufacturers, the time from initial sketch to cars rolling off the line can be up to seven years. FF is cutting that development cycle in half with plans for their first launch in 2017. And despite the schedule, the group is teeming with enthusiasm. “This is the job I’ve been training for my whole life,” says Fontaeus, who apart from an extensive background designing interiors for Volvo, Ferrari and Land Rover, has also recently redesigned Singapore Airline’s Business Class interior. “There are some designers who need a brief, a foothold. And then there are designers like these who have a pioneer spirit and don’t need a safety net. We’re actually better when araday Future, known simply as “FF,” isn’t just we can create from nothing.”

The rest of the team agrees that what excites them most another electric-vehicle manufacturer named about the project is the blank canvas. “The automobile after a 19th-century scientist. Its founders intend to usher in a whole new era of automo- has gone through a hundred years of iterative design.

It’s become baroque, very frilly and overstated,” says biles. For now, however, the company that started just over a year ago remains cloaked in Beermann, former creative director at BMW design. “We secrecy. They’ve yet to name a CEO or reveal want to back off from that to simplify things and really who’s footing the bill, though they describe their funding look at what the pure experience is.” Fontaeus raises the as “ample.” They’ve also yet to divulge anything more bar even higher. “We want this to be the first car where you concrete than vague hints about the cars they plan actually feel better after sitting in traffic for two hours.” to build, confirming only that they’ll be electric and part At their previous employers, this ground-up approach of a full line of products, not just one model. simply wasn’t possible, and the designers felt relegated to While it’s not much to go on, the collective resume the role of embellishers, beholden to a brand legacy and a of the team they’ve assembled has fueled wild specularigid corporate chain of command. FF’s “co-development” tion. The roster of hires reads like an automotive greatest strategy was the main attraction in taking a leap of faith. hits of the past decade, with talent responsible for the “We’re not doing styling, we’re doing design here,” says engineering, manufacturing and interior design of Neuhauser, the former senior automative designer of color the Tesla Model S, design of the BMW i3 and i8, interior and trim at Tesla. “We’re working side-by-side with the design for Ferrari and power-train development for the engineers to solve problems.”

Chevy Volt, to name a few. If one thing is clear, it’s that Although short on details, what they will concede is this isn’t some fly-by-night upstart kludging together a that the frame of reference informing their process goes venture capitalist’s napkin sketch. well beyond cars—even toward reevaluating the very And they’re moving quickly. Nick Sampson, former nature of ownership itself. Companies like Uber have director of vehicle and chassis engineering at Tesla and made owning a car less of a given for Millenials than it one of FF’s founding members, started working out of has been for past generations. A subscription model, like his home office in May 2014. By the end of the summer, those used by cellphone carriers, is being closely examthe company had grown to 20 employees and acquired ined as an alternative to the conventional ways for cars to a former Nissan R&D facility in Gardena, California. reach the consumer. “When you buy a phone you get the A year later, the company now has over 400 employees hardware for free, you can use it for whatever you want, and is adding 50 more per month. FF’s head of design, and it can kind of do everything,” Beermann says. “So Richard Kim, an industry veteran previously of BMW what if you had access to a range of products, where you i Design, remembers his first days after signing on this buy one car but you’re actually accessing five different past March. “I was here by myself, and I was kind of kinds of cars?” like ‘Oh, my gosh, what did I do? This is crazy,’ ” he Auto manufacturers are facing a range of open-ended says. “When you work for an established manufacturer, questions like this, from autonomous cars to zero-emissions everything’s in place—its tradition, its heritage. I and beyond. Now the industry is holding its breath that imagined this is what it must have been like when the Faraday’s team, given the green light to work untethered, big companies got their start a hundred years ago.” may just start coming up with the answers. ■

With an all-star team of former Tesla employees, the mysterious new car company Faraday Future is setting out to transform the auto industry Written by Paul Biedrzycki

Clockwise from top left: Sue Neuhauser, Richard Kim, Pontus Fontaeus and Page Beermann. Hair and make up: Erin Moffett using Kate Somerville at Jed Root.

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f

Large and in Charge

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The Fat Jew has managed to turn Instagram yuks into a thriving personal brand— and piss a lot of people off in the process. But he’s laughing all the way to the bank Written by Lindsay Silberman

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can’t even explain to my dad what I do for a living,” says Josh Ostrovsky, the rotund raconteur better known on social media as The Fat Jew. “He calls me an ‘adult entertainer.’ ” Ostrovsky is drenched in sweat, because—as he will gladly tell you—he is fat, and fat guys perspire heavily on humid Manhattan afternoons. He’s just arrived at the photo studio, and his frizzy Brillo clump of hair is fluttering in the wake of an air-conditioning unit.

“I’m imagining myself in Italy, eating orzo with some hot Italian guy, trying to explain my job,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut to envision the scenario. “His skin is leathery—the same tone as Zoe Saldana’s—and he’s gorgeous! I guess I would tell him that I’m like, a Z-list celebrity. That’s probably what I would say.”

What it is, exactly, that Ostrovsky does is a topic of much debate, but you might call him a social-media savant. With 6.1 million followers on Instagram, he uses his account, @TheFatJewish, to curate and create the kind of content that attracts millennials like catnip.

Ostrovsky’s comedic posts are an amalgamation of screenshots and memes—culled from the dark corners of the Internet—that riff on subjects the digital generation can’t stop gabbing about, like ruthless hangovers, poor dieting habits and the hilarity of tech-illiterate parents.

A typical Fat Jew Instagram post might read something like, “I hate it when I’m on the treadmill and accidentally hit the stop button and go to Chipotle and eat a burrito.”

Though he started out on Instagram in 2009, Ostrovsky didn’t crack the pop-culture zeitgeist until 2013, when his video, “SoulCycle for Homeless People,” went viral in late June. The 76-second clip features the porky jokester in a crop top, teaching a spin class to a handful of hobos sitting on a row of docked Citi Bikes. The video has since been viewed more than a million times.

The native New Yorker’s knack for winning the elusive attention of an overstimulated demographic has made him an unconventional yet desirable partner for brands like Bud Light, Virgin Mobile and Burger King.

On any given day, the Fat Jew gets more eyeballs than Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert on their broadcasts.

“The brands obviously know that I have a trusted voice and that, relatively speaking, I know what’s cool—or at least what’s going to get a conversation started—so they kind of let me do the things I want to do,” says Ostrovsky, who once tattooed a logo of Burger King’s Chicken Fries on his chest and shared it on social media.

In short order, Ostrovsky has parlayed his digital reach into a portfolio of lucrative brand tentacles, like a radio show with Apple Music, a forthcoming book entitled Money Pizza Respect and a wine label, White Girl Rosé, which launched in July and has sold more than 150,000 bottles. But his seemingly unstoppable rise to the ranks of crossover superstardom came to a screeching halt this past August, after news broke that he’d signed with talent agency CAA and inked a TV deal with Comedy Central. Respected comedians and media outlets decided that enough was enough and took Ostrovsky to task for appropriating jokes, tweets and memes in his feed without crediting the original sources. The tempest burned hot for about a week—he was called everything from a fraud, a plagiarist and a leech to a human virus and a blatant thief—and within a few days, it was announced he had lost his TV deal. (Comedy Central later clarified that the project fell through months beforehand, but the media narrative stuck.)

While the severity of stealing content isn’t lost on him, Ostrovsky doesn’t appear to be wallowing in a pint of Häagen-Dazs. “It definitely sucked,” he says of the backlash. “At the same time, I think there was something to be learned for all of us. I am going back and attributing all of the stuff, and other people are now, too. As quickly as awesome stuff happens, stuff can happen that is not quite as desirable. I am 100 percent prepared for that. The Internet is a giant fucking rave filled with people screaming at each other over loud music.”

One could argue that the controversy was stirred up by a small but vocal group who took issue with his style of content sharing. Ostrovsky’s fans, for their part, don’t seem to care much—and he’s gained almost half a million more of them since. When the 33-year-old debuted his “Dad Fashion” runway show at New York Fashion Week in September, it drew an impressive crowd of mainstream influencers. The publicity stunt—starring middle-aged models scouted from Craigslist wearing stained graphic T-shirts and cargo shorts—was covered in Vogue and The New York Times. The secret sauce, he says, is simple. “I think you need to touch some lives, which I’ve been doing all the time. I’m like Gandhi, but fatter. So much fatter.”

These days, with the controversy seemingly behind him, Ostrovsky is busy thinking about the bigger picture for his brand. “I’d like to get famous to the point where I lose sight of what’s important and start alienating people who really care about me. Make terrible decisions; spiral out of control. Develop a horrendous drug addiction and lose all of my money. Basically, watch everything I love evaporate. Go to rehab, and slowly realize all the terrible decisions I made. Then make amends with the people who actually love me and find my life again,” he says.

“That’s the dream.” ■

Hostel Takeover

rent in more than 190 countries. And to Chesky, whose net worth now exceeds $3.3 billion, one of the most rewarding aspects of the business is that it gives regular individuals a chance to become micro-entrepreneurs just by putting their home, or part of it, on the site. A recent study estimates that those who lease out space through Airbnb increase their annual income by about 14 percent. “This means they have more financial freedom, extra money to pay the rent, fund a vacation or even start a new business,” he says.

The model also gives users, or “guests,” a richer—and typically more economical—way to see the world. “When you travel to a new place, you usually feel like an outsider,” Chesky explains. “You go to a city, see the landmarks and tourist traps, but you don’t meet any locals, or experience the way people actually live. With Airbnb, you’re an insider.”

Chesky believes that nurturing a strong, trusting culture at the company, which adds hundreds of new employees each month, is critical to maintaining its success and, as he puts it, positioning them to “take the next moonshot.” He conducts extensive research on the corporate culture of companies like Zappos, Disney, Nike and Apple, often personally interviewing their lot of people start with a vision, but give employees to get at the heart of what works. up because it’s too big,” says Airbnb CEO One of those moonshots will be Airbnb’s push into Brian Chesky. “Or they edit their vision, so it’s more attainable. But as Walt Disney once China, whose citizens took around 109 million trips in 2014 and have been the world’s top spenders in internasaid, ‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’ ” tional tourism since 2012. In the past year, Airbnb The dream that became Airbnb began bookings by Chinese travelers going abroad shot up 700 as a quick-cash boondoggle in the fall of percent—the company’s fastest growing market. Chesky 2007, after Chesky, a 27-year-old graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, decided to move to San Francisco is also working to bolster Airbnb’s business-travel program, which already has over 1,000 companies signed following a brief stint at a design firm in LA. “After a up for corporate accounts. And he’s looking at new ways while I started to feel unfulfilled designing products that to provide users with a better trip from start to finish. would eventually end up in a landfill,” he says of the job.

To that end, Chesky has an insatiable appetite for new “I wanted to build something that would last.” ideas. “If we could get any home in the world on Airbnb, Auspiciously, his friend Joe Gebbia, a fellow RISD which would it be?” he recently asked on Twitter. He even alum, had room for him to stay at his place. “Everyone approached President Obama, with whom he had worked has one or two moments when they make a decision on encouraging entrepreneurship in Cuba, to inquire in and it changes their life forever,” says Chesky, now 34. earnest if he’d consider making the Lincoln Bedroom “Almost every decision I’ve made is a chain reaction available on the site. (The president’s response: “I need from that moment I decided to move to San Francisco.” to check with Michelle.”)

Having packed all of his possessions into the back So far, the most exceptional Airbnb property Chesky of a Honda Civic, Chesky arrived with everything but has stayed in is in Australia, a house suspended 130 feet enough money to make his first month’s rent. A major over a beach. When he books through the exchange, design conference was coming to town, and the city’s he tries to keep his job title hidden from the hosts, with hotels were at capacity. So he and Gebbia came up with the hope of having an authentic experience, but he says a plan, inflated three air mattresses in their living room and registered a website, airbedandbreakfast.com. Within they usually find out. “I do get a lot of ideas from my hosts,” he adds, “which I always bring back to the team.” a week, they had three strangers paying to sleep on their Chesky frequently credits his parents, both social floor—and the sharing economy was born. Well, almost.

“No one wanted to invest in us,” Chesky admits of the workers from upstate New York, for giving him the tools that allowed him to build Airbnb into the culture-shifting, company’s infancy. He remembers one meeting with an investor who got up and left the room midway through the industry-defining powerhouse it is today. “We make pitch without saying goodbye. “I thought he was going to decisions that aren’t just right for our business, but are feed the parking meter, but I’ve never seen him again,” he right for our community and the places that we serve,” he says. Deep in debt and living off credit cards, Chesky and explains. “We reinforce empathy for our guests and hosts, and believe that people are fundamentally good. I think Gebbia became so desperate they started selling collectible cereals inspired by the 2008 presidential election. The all these principles were instilled in me from an early age.”

Without regard for limitations, Chesky seems to be $30,000 they made from Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s having a blast pushing boundaries and conceiving new was enough to sustain them until the start-up incubator realities. “Our mission is to create a world where you Y Combinator took a chance on their pitch in 2009. can belong anywhere,” he says, before conceding that it’s Since then, in a little over six years, Chesky and Gebbia’s homegrown scheme has exploded into a $25.5 bil- an audacious aim. Still, as Walt Disney also once said, lion juggernaut, with some two million homes available to “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” ■

With Airbnb, Brian Chesky launched the sharing economy, minted millions of micro-entrepreneurs and forever changed the way people travel Written by Davıd Foxley

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a

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INDUSTRY

Soft Power Cashmere titan Brunello

Cucinelli has built an empire on the principles of loyalty, dignity and respect Written by Paul Biedrzycki Photographed

by Benjamın McMahon

Cucinelli in the library of the Neo-Humanist Academy, a local arts institution he founded with his wife, Federica.

i

n the 1960s, Umberto Cucinelli would return home each night from his shift in a cement factory, tired and broken, and ask the same question: “What have I done wrong to God that I should be suffering such humiliation?” That’s how his son Brunello remembers it—and the recurring scene has had a lasting impact. “He was basically working like a slave, and I decided that’s not what I wanted from life,” says Cucinelli, now 62, looking out over the manicured lawns and burbling fountains of his company’s idyllic headquarters in Solomeo, Italy. “I said to myself then, ‘Whatever I do, I want to work for human dignity.’ ” Fifty years later, after turning a $550 loan into a $1.3 billion fashion empire, Cucinelli appears to have stayed true to that promise. Since taking the company public in 2012, the exquisitely casual luxury brand has nearly doubled in value and, with more than $400 million in total sales last year, is more popular than ever. But the success is probably more impressive for the way it’s been achieved. Cucinelli champions a concept he calls “humanist capitalism.”

“I am a capitalist, mind you, and I want to make profit,” he explains, sitting in his office among stacks of dog-eared books, photos of his heroes (Gandhi,

CULTURA TRAVEL/PHILIP LEE HARVEY/GETTY IMAGES

Over the years, Cucinelli has transformed the Umbrian village of Solomeo into a utopian corporate campus unlike any other, converting centuries-old castles and convents into work spaces while preserving and restoring the local architecture.

The overarching vision is on full display in the careful preservation and stewardship of Solomeo. Cucinelli funnels 20 percent of company profits into the Brunello and Federica Cucinelli Foundation, which has shaped the medieval village into a cultural center over the last decade through its “A Project for Beauty” initiative. In addition to a theater, library and philosopher’s garden, Cucinelli also constructed the School of Craftsmanship, which trains the next generation of garment makers, keeping the region’s tradition alive while producing a steady stream of talent.

It was in the same custodial spirit that he took the company public three years ago. “I wanted this company to survive for 200 years,” he says, motioning to the employees diligently working outside his office. “It will be up to them at that point.” Throughout the transition, he’s taken steps to ensure the company’s guiding principles won’t be compromised. “I tell my investors, if you want a factory that works respecting human dignity, then you should join us,” he says. “But if you think I make over-the-top profit by compromising or exploiting, you should not invest in me.” The same goes for being pressured into a growth rate of 25 percent. “If you grow by 10 percent a year, then everything goes along with grace,” he says.

The IPO has granted Cucinelli a certain type of immortality, propelling his personal net worth north of $1 billion.

Yet, for a man so accomplished, he seems to keep things in perspective. “We are all just “THERE ARE guardians,” he says. “We are here temporarily.”

NO E-MAILS At a dinner held in the village square later that evening, Cucinelli is enveloped by family, COMING TO friends and, of course, cashmere. (He also YOU AFTER has a sweater for me, “in case it gets chilly.”)

FIVE—I WOULD After a feast of brick-oven pizzas, he looks as a villager raises his glass. “Long live BE STEALING up the king!” the man shouts, with just enough YOUR SOUL BY sarcasm. The rest join in, and the good cheer DOING THIS.” reverberates off the ancient square.

“It’s a new world now,” Cucinelli remarks to me, swirling his wine. “If we can work in a better manner, respecting the human being at the same time, we can be more creative.” He looks over at his granddaughter.

“And maybe then at the end of my life, if someone were to say about me, ‘A decent man just died,’ I would be happy with this.” ■

DUJOU R .COM 39

Roberto Benigni, Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs) and rows of vibrantly colored thread. “The only thing is, I would like to make this profit without harming people.”

To do so, Cucinelli has for years gone against increasingly common garment-industry practices that overlook low-cost labor and poor working conditions in the name of hand-over-fist revenues. His employees are paid well over scale, and he has gone to great lengths to shepherd a culture in Solomeo that prioritizes tradition and family over around-the-clock productivity. “At least in Italy, it has become fashionable to work 15 hours a day, all the time,” he says. “Our work is strict and focused, but then you need time for family and you must look after your mind.” Employees go home to eat with their families during the company-wide 90-minute lunch break. Alternatively, they can dine family-style at the steeply subsidized company trattoria, with fare that puts most Manhattan restaurants to shame. Touring the facilities, there is a general sense of pride and tranquility—staffers smile and seem happy to be at work.

Solomeo has been likened to the cushy corporate campuses of Silicon Valley, but Cucinelli points to a fundamental difference between the two. The elliptical machines and smoothie stations at your typical techplex are a ruse, he says, a trap to keep workers on-site and on-call. Rather, his headquarters are comparatively austere; besides the tools needed to complete the day’s work, there’s not a whole lot of excess beyond the beauty of the surroundings. Cucinelli advocates a healthy compartmentalization—don’t take your work home with you and don’t try to make a home out of your workplace.

“In this company, it is forbidden to work past 5 p.m.,” he says. “There are no e-mails coming to you at half past five, it does not happen. The idea that you could work from home and that you are connected 24/7—I would be stealing your soul by doing this.”

As much a dreamer as he is a businessman—he can quote you Marcus Aurelius or Immanuel Kant with alarming ease—Cucinelli theorizes that without his utopian workplace in Solomeo, there would be no global luxury brand. He’s able to do such a brisk business selling $2,000 sweaters and $1,000 sweatpants not just because of the quality of materials and craftsmanship, but because the goods embody the lifestyle he and his employees actually lead. Without that, he says, it’s all just empty marketing. Cucinelli points to the company’s now iconic 2014 advertising campaign, which features employees seated at a seemingly infinite table that cuts through the Umbrian countryside. “It was taken at a real company dinner,” he says proudly. “Without Photoshop!”

“You should really be able to perceive the mood and atmosphere of the place where something is created,” he continues. “Dignity should come through in the product. People should know that in manufacturing it, there comes respect.”

Michael Silverstein, a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, which advises more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500, devoted an entire chapter of his recent book, Rocket: Eight Lessons to Secure Infinite Growth, to Cucinelli’s approach. “Brunello has set such a high standard,” Silverstein says. “He treats every associate, every supplier with kindness. It’s part of the company’s credo.

What’s particularly unique is that this combination also delivers sales growth, high profit and a better workplace.”

Ruler of Engagement SOCIAL MEDIA

BUSINESS

Gary Friedman For the visionary behind

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America’s leading purveyor of tasteful decor, failure is never an option “WHAT’S SUCCESSFUL TODAY is not necessarily successful tomorrow,” says Gary Friedman, the chairman and CEO of RH. “So it’s more in the journey than it is where we land.”

Given the hockey-stick growth trajectory of the home-furnishings company formerly known as Restoration Hardware, whose new-antique aesthetic is adored by everyone from baristas to billionaires, Friedman could easily coast. But the 58-year-old California native, who made his way from community college and a stock-room job at the Gap to the helm of a corporation valued at over $2 billion, is incapable of resting on his laurels.

Friedman, instantly recognizable for his salt-and-pepper mane and pearly whites, constantly challenges himself, even when brushing his teeth. Above his bathroom sink, a small metal plate reads, “What would you attempt to do today if you knew you could not fail?”

One way he’s answered that question is with the launch of RH Modern this fall. The offshoot’s product line, “Where less is more and minimal is magnified,” includes pieces created by an impressive roster of international designers. While department stores around the country are closing their doors, victims of the shift toward online consumption, Friedman is running in the other direction, adding brick-and-mortar outposts at a breakneck pace. In its inaugural year, RH Modern will cut the ribbon on 120,000 square feet of new retail space—in addition to introducing its own 300-page catalogue and a dedicated website.

“We’re taught from the time we’re born not only to conform, but also not to take risks,” says Friedman. “Everything worth doing has some level of risk and some level of adventure. And I think I’m just in the early innings of learning to use my brain.”

—DAVID FOXLEY AND NATASHA WOLFF

With an army of 4.4 million followers and a growing list of clients, Instagram guru Jeremy Jauncey is quickly becoming the Don Draper of the digital age Written by Jerry Portwood Photographed by Geoffrey Knott

j

eremy Jauncey isn’t your average hoodie-toting tech dude. With an enviable tan, chiseled frame and charming British accent, he seems—at least physically speaking—more like a man-abouttown than a guy who geeks out over data science.

While you might not be familiar with his name, you’ve no doubt stumbled upon his Instagram account, @BeautifulDestinations, which has 4.4 million followers—including celebrities like Kendall Jenner—and is, as he calls it, the “largest travel influencer on Instagram.” The feed is a collection of

ERWICH: MEH AKPANUDOSEN/GETTY IMAGES; SARANDOS: GILBERT CARRASQUILLO/FILMMAGIC; DANIELS: MICHAEL BUCKNER/GETTY IMAGES; LEWIS: ALBERT L. ORTEGA/GETTY IMAGES; ALL OTHER IMAGES COURTESY

ENTERTAINMENT

THE NEW KINGS OF CONTENT

As TV fans increasingly tune in to their favorite shows online, it’s newcomers, not networks, setting the standard for award-winning and money-making original programing. These are the development executives behind the golden age of streaming Written by Adam Rathe

CRAIG ERWICH

ANNA ROBERTSON

JOE LEWIS

SUSANNE DANIELS

TED SARANDOS

The Job

The Job

The Job

The Job

The Job

The Shows

The Shows

Senior Vice President, Head of Content The Shows

Difficult People, Battleground, the upcoming Stephen King and J.J. Abrams-produced 11/22/63 Potential Eyeballs

More than nine million subscribers

Vice President, Head of Yahoo Video The Shows

Sin City Saints, documentary series Viewfinder, Yahoo News Live with Katie Couric Potential Eyeballs

A reported 198 million U.S. viewers

Head of Original Programming

Vice President of Originals

The Shows

Transparent, Mozart in the Jungle, Hand of God, Red Oaks, The Man in the High Castle and an upcoming Woody Allen series

Forthcoming series include a comedy from viral video creators Benny and Rafi Fine and a prank show from web stars Jesse Wellens and Jeana Smith

Potential Eyeballs

Potential Eyeballs

An estimated 40 million Amazon Prime members

More than one billion users

Chief Content Officer House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Narcos, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and a 2016 talk show from Chelsea Handler Potential Eyeballs

69 million members worldwide

DUJOU R .COM 41

awe-inspiring images from around the world: hot-air Jauncey also hired a staff. But rather than scooping up balloons descending over craggy rocks in Cappadocia; Instagram power users, he assembled an eclectic team of sprawling lakefront castles in Ireland; miles of scenic people who specialize in what he calls “visual analytics.” coastline in Cape Town.

That group includes computational music theorists, theoJauncey launched the @BeautifulDestinations handle retical physicists and statisticians, all working to predict as a passion project while he was working on a healthcare what kind of content makes ‘grammers tick. The inforstart-up in the UK. The idea, he says, was to “showcase mation has proven to be extremely compelling for major the most beautiful places in the world through the lens of companies—media brands, airlines, tourism boards, fasheveryday travelers, rather than traion labels and hotels have hired @BeautifulDestinations ditional, corporate photography.” As to help grow their accounts, amplify user engagement, “WHETHER IT’S the account grew, Jauncey realized he test potential ad campaigns and foster partnerships with FOOD THEY WANT could collect data about which posts Instagram influencers. He now counts The Bellagio in TO EAT OR PLACES garnered the most engagement from Las Vegas, Travel + Leisure and Fodor’s among his budfollowers, drilling down on criteria ding list of clients. “We tell brands who’ve spent all this THEY WANT TO like preferred color schemes, propor- money on print campaigns, ‘It’s not working on social VISIT, PEOPLE tions and even the word choice used because it’s not social-first content,’” he says. “It defiin captions. @BeautifulDestinations nitely flies in the face of how things have been done: it’s ARE TURNING TO eventually drew the attention of the my job to tell you what looks, and works, the best.”

INSTAGRAM TO Dubai tourism board, and Jauncey Pursuing a career as an entrepreneur wasn’t initially BE INSPIRED.” was hired to create social-media buzz in the cards for the 31-year-old Jauncey, who started out around the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel. on a path to be a professional rugbyman. He played for He invited a few influential Instagrammers to chronicle several years in Scotland, where he was raised (his father a five-day stay at the property, and following their visit, is Scottish, his mother from Colombia), before moving to the @BurjAlArab Instagram account jumped from 6,000 New Zealand and discovering his affinity for technology. followers to 65,000. It also translated into big bucks: Through @BeautifulDestinations, Jauncey has also found the hotel saw a 38 perfect increase in bookings online. another purpose. “It’s about inspiring people to travel Before long, @BeautifulDestinations was a fulland see the world,” he says. “Whether it’s the food they fledged business, expanding its scope to include food, want to eat, the places they want to visit or the clothes fashion and other luxury goods through spin-off accounts they want to wear, people are turning to Instagram to be like @BeautifulCuisines and @BeautifulMenswear. inspired. It’s powerful.” ■

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f you’ve ever bought anything online based on the recommendations of, say, Vogue, The Coveteur or, let’s all be honest here, the Kardashians, you’ve been shopping through an invisible commissions platform called rewardStyle.

Its referral links allow content creators, from iconic magazines to influential style bloggers and celebrities, to get a piece of the action whenever readers purchase products featured in their posts. Over the last four years, the company has quietly become a force in the fashion world— and turned more than a few parttime bloggers into six-figure earners.

Though it has its competitors, rewardStyle is the gold standard in the luxury space—anything else is considered off-label—and its success is owed almost entirely to the tenacity of its founder, Amber Venz Box. The 28-year-old redhead launched rewardStyle in 2011 with her thenboyfriend, now husband, Baxter Box, in their hometown of Dallas, after realizing how strange it was that she was making commissions from sales at her retail job but not from the recommendations she made on her personal blog. As Venz Box saw it, a sale was a sale. After raising money from family and friends, the pair opened a small office and hired three employees. “The next year we grew to 12, then 24, and this year I think we’re at 117,” she says. “The growth has been incredible.”

In an era of inscrutable start-ups with impossibly high valuations, what makes rewardStyle so remarkable is the rock-solid simplicity of its business model. “Our goal as a company is to make our publishers

the most revenue possible, in line with their influence,” Venz Box says. “If they are driving tons of sales, they are able to be rewarded for that influence.”

The publishers in this case include premier style blogs like the Man Repeller and Bag Snob, socialites Hannah Bronfman and Olivia Palermo, glossies from Glamour to Elle and celebrities like Pretty Little Liars’ Shay Mitchell.

All told, rewardStyle has partnerships with more than 9,000 content creators in 80 countries. When one of them chooses to feature a product sold by one of the company’s 4,000-plus retailers—heavyweights like Chanel, Nordstrom, Nike and Net-a-Porter, to name a few—they simply link to it through rewardStyle and let the cash roll in. On any given item, the average blogger’s share of the profits ranges from 10 to 15 percent, which can add up fast. For example, one Isabel Marant Aggy Knitted Fur Jacket, which retails for $2,229, nets a commission for publishers of about $234. A blogger who convinces 100 of her 500,000 readers to purchase that coat stands to make $23,400—simply for suggesting a product she loves.

Though rewardStyle is reluctant to confirm numbers, its star bloggers reportedly make as much as $20,000 to $30,000 per month, with some pulling in more than $1 million annually. Venz Box not only turns online tastemakers into mini-moguls, she also offers retailers a constant flow of referrals. In 2014 alone, rewardStyle drove more than $280 million in sales.

Thanks in large part to Venz Box, affiliate linking is now ubiquitous

on the web—though many on the content side were initially wary to take the leap. “At first, I really wanted to have an ad-free blog, and then I realized that whether I use these tools or not, people are still going to come to my site,” says Marie Claire contributing editor Nicolette Mason, founder of nicolettemason.com. “It really doesn’t change the type of work that I’m doing and the type of content I’m producing, it just makes it more financially viable for me to keep doing what’s true to me.”

Though there are very few publishers left who don’t employ an affiliate-linking service of some kind, there’s still an underlying reluctance among partners to discuss the practice publicly. Online shoppers are rarely the wiser, and most publishers prefer to keep it that way.

“I think it’s on the part of the publisher, or the blogger, to be fully transparent about the way that they’re using affiliate links or sponsored content,” says Mason. “At the end of the day, it’s a tool, and it’s at the publisher’s discretion how they use that tool.”

Former Bachelorette Jillian Harris was able to hire two employees to manage the day-to-day operations of her style blog from the money she’s made through rewardStyle, but she insists she’s been careful not to sell out. “We’ve had offers to write about or promote brands or products that I probably wouldn’t wear every day, and sometimes there’s a lot of money behind those offers, but it’s really important that our readers continue to trust us and continue to feel that our content is authentic and genuine,” says Harris. “So we have ultimately turned down those offers.”

STYLE

The Commissioner By offering style bloggers and magazines a cut

of the sales their content generates, Amber Venz Box has revolutionized the way fashion is bought and sold online Written by Eden Univer Photographed by Christopher Leaman

Dress, $1,460, KAELEN, kaelennyc.com. Nudist sandals, $398, STUART WEITZMAN, stuartweitzman.com. Make up: Rachel Wood.

Just like commissions-based sales associates who suggest products for customers in stores, rewardStyle publishers only make money if they drive their readers to actually make purchases. Publishers are vetted before they’re accepted by rewardStyle, and once they’re in, they have to produce a return on investment or face being cut from the roster. Only the strongest—and most stylish— survive. Blogger Kat Tanita started

her site, With Love From Kat, as a hobby years ago but says she was able to quit her full-time job to focus solely on her blog because of rewardStyle.

“It’s a win-win for everyone involved because when I refer one of my readers to Nordstrom.com, the store is happy and wants to work with me again,” she says. “And the reader thinks, ‘Wow, I just got free advice from Kat.’ ” In addition to offering publishers

valuable analytics and a personal advisor, rewardStyle hosts regular conferences to school its content producers on best practices. It’s also constantly expanding its reach, creating new ways for publishers to increase—and monetize—engagement.

One of the most recent innovations is LIKEtoKNOW.it, a platform that allows people to shop directly from Instagram, a social channel that previously offered users very few opportunities to monetize by linking out. When a publisher posts a picture of her favorite fall outfit on Instagram, viewers who have

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signed up for LIKEtoKNOW.it can “like” that post, which automatically sends an e-mail to their inbox with links to purchase the products. To date, the company has sent over 60 million of those e-mails—another runaway success.

“We’ve seen this kind of urban sprawl in digital publishing,” says Venz Box. “It started with blogs, then went to Facebook and Twitter, then Pinterest and Instagram, and now we’re on Snapchat. We create tools so our partners can extend their businesses onto these platforms, and it’s required a lot of resources.

We process more data now in a single day than we did in all of 2012.”

Perhaps more important than any technology, however, is the sense of community Venz Box fosters among members. “With these other programs, it feels very transactional,” says Tanita. “What Amber has done is build amazing relationships. She and her team have a true interest in the growth of our brands, and that’s meant a lot.”

“Amber is genuinely a sweet and kind person,” Marie Claire’s Mason agrees. “She remembers people—she remembers what you do and who the important people in your life are. It’s something that absolutely sets people apart in business, especially in the fashion industry.” ■

Big Fish

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EMPIRE

Global Entrepreneurship, which brought him to Kenya this summer for a summit with small-business owners—an experience he found incredibly humbling.

“Here I was thinking I was going out there to inspire them, but those people are always thinking like entrepreneurs—not only to gain financial independence, but to save lives,” he says. “They inspired me.”

As a branding expert, John knows it also can’t hurt to be photographed rolling around in the presidential motorcade. In a sunlit conference room in his Empire State Building offices, he gestures to the walls around us, where a rainbow of Etonic sneakers are on display—spoils from a recent acquisition—and lays out the secret to staying relevant in the age of digital media. To win over the 78 percent of Millennials who prefer to pay for experiences over things, you have to sell them everything but the product.

“Take this running shoe here,” he says. “If I’m trying to sell it on social media, then I should talk about the best places to run, the best doctors to go to for your feet, hydration tips, what causes shocks to your knees— things this specific shoe has nothing to do with, but ways to be a part of that life.”

John believes the increasing capacity of online entrepreneurs to convert their social followings into sales—and cut out the middleman—is a thrilling development Mama Said Knock You Out, and John that’s “giving the power back to badgered him until he agreed to take the people.” In the same spirit as a picture in one of his creations. He FUBU, many of his latest projects snuck the photo into a trade show in Vegas and walked away with $300,000 are about empowerment, including his Shark Tank investment Bombas in pre-orders, his first step on the socks, which gives a pair of socks road to building the $6 billion FUBU empire that would establish him as the to a homeless shelter for every pair it sells, and a company featured in “Godfather of Urban Fashion.” the upcoming season that employs These days, when he’s not women to make goods in regions starring as a shrewd business hawk recovering from war. John is also in on ABC’s hit angel-investing series the process of launching a smallShark Tank and its spinoff, Beyond business incubator, with plans to prothe Tank, he’s managing his own vide an entrepreneurial curriculum company, Shark Branding—which and office space to worthy startups. handles strategy, licensing, design, “We’re all born thinking like events, media, endorsements and entrepreneurs,” he says, “but whether marketing for clients across the it’s out of love or fear, other people spectrum from AT&T, Forbes and bust that dream. They say, ‘You need Google Plus to Miller Lite, Pitbull security.’ But this is an amazing and Lil Jon. He’s also busy performtime to start a company—you can ing his duties as President Obama’s empower yourself with such ease.” ■ newly minted Ambassador for

From late shifts at Red Lobster to primetime on Shark Tank, streetwear magnate Daymond John always floats to the top Written by Frances Dodds Photographed by Geoffrey Knott

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aymond John knows something about selling a lifestyle.

Back in Queens in 1990, before anyone could imagine an urban streetwear industry worth more than $70 billion, John was in his early twenties working at a Red Lobster.

The hip-hop community was making millions for fashion labels it had incorporated into its uniform, but reaping none of the rewards—brands didn’t want to be affiliated with rappers. Timberland went so far as to release a statement: “We don’t sell our boots to drug dealers.”

It was in this climate that John created FUBU, or For Us, By Us, with a few hats and t-shirts he made on his mom’s sewing machine. He had grown up on the same street as LL Cool J, who had already released four platinum albums, including

SHOPPING

José Neves

STRIVING TO LIVE UP to his company’s name, José Neves, the founder and CEO of Farfetch, talks about his business like a concierge at Claridge’s—no request is too extreme. Case in point: Farfetch’s new yacht-delivery service. “Let’s say you order a fantastic swimsuit from a store in Miami, and ask for it to be delivered in Mykonos to your yacht,” he says. “We can do that” Launched in 2007, the fashion website has grown into a dominant retail platform with a network of more than 300 shops in over 30 countries. And the endeavor has won Neves a slate of business awards and honors from the likes of Vogue, Britain’s Walpole and Ernst & Young.

Neves, who began his career in computer programming at the age of 19 and went on to found the shoe brand Swear in 1996, has carved out a niche in the online luxury marketplace. Technology is the most critical component of his business, whose unique back-room digital infrastructure keeps precise tabs on inventory for retail enterprises. “Let’s say I need to know that a certain pair of shoes exists in five shops around the world and is available in certain specific sizes in real time,” says the Portugal native. “We’ve built a solution, and that’s really the secret sauce behind Farfetch.”

Aside from adding to his own net worth—the enterprise’s valuation exceeds $1 billion—Farfetch is a powerful tool for independent businesses around the globe, connecting high-end merchants with discerning buyers through a commissionbased model. Headquartered in London with over 600 employees, the company, whose major investors include Condé Nast International and several top venture capital firms, is highly localized, facilitating bespoke websites in nine languages.

“The traditional e-commerce model is where you have these huge warehouses with robots and conveyer belts and hundreds of people working. And we are the opposite,” says Neves. “We have hundreds of tiny little warehouses where we stock products—all around the world in the most beautiful places.” —DAVID FOXLEY AND NATASHA WOLFF

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ALL OTHER IMAGES COURTESY

A software-savvy executive with fashion cred is redefining luxury retail online

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s an MIT graduate student with a background in electrical engineering, Ayah Bdeir found herself increasingly concerned that her field had become inaccessible to the average person. “For so long,” she says, “we’ve been hiding the complexity of technology in beautiful closed cases, making it niche when it actually affects all of our lives every day.” Her solution was littleBits, the modular electronic building blocks that launched in 2011 and have fast become the Tinkertoys of the tech era.

Sold in sets, the Lego-like circuits snap together with magnets and can be mixed, matched and combined to create an infinite variety of inventions that do things like whir and spin with motors or light up with a buzz. The bits range in function from basic switches and buttons to an ever-expanding library of

TOY STORY

Linked In Meet the 33-year-old entrepreneur

whose high-tech gizmos are spawning a new generation of do-it-yourself Edisons Written by Frances Dodds

more advanced widgets, including light sensors, sound triggers and temperature monitors. The popular Smart Home Kit, for example, gives aspiring Rube Goldbergs the tools to turn everyday objects into Wi-Fi-enabled devices. (You could, say, hard-wire your washing machine so that it sends you a text message when your laundry is done.)

Bdeir says her intention is to allow “everyone to unleash their inner inventor—without having to be an engineer.” In a few short years, she’s watched as the littleBits “Maker” community has grown exponentially. “Everyday I’m amazed by the projects posted,” she says. “Most recently, I saw someone create a remote-controlled dusting robot. I’ve seen everything from wearable electronic instruments to a vending machine backpack invented by a 14-year-old.”

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“ IN THE 21ST CENTURY,” BDEIR PREDICTS, “UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY WILL BE A FORM OF LITERACY.”

Sensory Overload GASTRONOMY

Kits are offered in a range of skill-levels that appeal to everyone from elementary school children to professional product designers brainstorming their next hit. But Bdeir’s biggest inroads have been in the education sector. With her littleBits now in more than 2,200 schools in 100 countries, helping teach subjects like physics, programming, and even grammar and music, it’s easy to see them becoming as integral to future classrooms as flashcards or Play-Doh. “In the 21st century,” Bdeir predicts, “understanding technology will be a form of literacy.” And Wall Street seems willing to back that bet. This summer, in addition to opening its first retail store in New York’s SoHo, the company raised $44.2 million in capital. ■

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avid Edwards, professor of engineering at Harvard, is perched on a wavy green velvet banquette inside Café ArtScience, the experimental restaurant he co-owns in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Here, cocktails are garnished with flavored vapors, university classes are taught in a pod-like private dining room and the foie gras terrine just happens to be the city’s finest. In his hands,

BDEIR AND PRODUCT IMAGES COURTESY

The Willy Wonka of food science wants you to inhale your meals, smell your texts and eat your water bottles Written by Leah Mennies Photographed by Adam DeTour

From top: The dining room at Café ArtScience; the aromatic vaporizer, Le Whaf; balls of pureed fruit and ice cream in edible packaging that can be rinsed like a piece of fruit.

Called WikiWater, the product is one of the many projects in the pipeline for Edwards, whose signature course at Harvard is titled “How to Create Things & Have Them Matter.” After making his fortune in the late nineties by developing the technology to create inhalable insulin, he turned his attention to more creative pursuits, eventually landing on food as his primary focus. First came his line of inhalable products, including Le Whaf, a contraption that turns liquids into cloud-like vapors, and the AeroLife, which allows you to breathe in powdered vitamins and supplements through a ChapSticksize tube. Next was WikiFoods (which includes WikiWater), his umbrella term for a genre of edible packaging that’s somewhat similar to the spherification popularized in molecular gastronomy, but stronger, more complex and fortified with supplements. Those, now, are being developed in tandem with the oPhone, a cartridge-based iPhone accessory that allows users to tag photos with scent notes, then “text” those odors to someone else with the same device. (Imagine opening a picture of a garden and smelling flowers and freshly cut grass.)

It all sounds a bit heady and out-there—and it is. For Edwards, what the products are now is less important than what they have the potential to become. “Meeting two of the key problems facing the planet today—maintaining a sustainable environment and achieving equitable and effective healthcare—will mean eating differently,” he says. “As a creator, I find food the most empowering place to work today.”

For now, customers can try Edwards’ Incredible Perfectly Free, a selection of allergen-free, coconutbased frozen dessert balls that hit grocery stores this fall. In winter, they’ll be joined by Incredible Fruit, a line of shelf-stable orbs of fruit encased in a vitamin-fortified skin— imagine the flavor and nutritional profile of a pineapple compressed into the exact shape, size and texture of a grape. Also coming soon, in tandem with the oPhone, is the oCase, a device that enables you to add scents

to a menu to entice diners into a meal (or, hypothetically, it could help sommeliers demonstrate the nose of a wine without having to open the bottle). And then there’s the oBook, geared towards kids. Launching with Goldilocks and the Three Bears: The Smelly Version, the oBook may be Edwards’ most remarkable achievement yet: masterminding the scratchn-sniff of the digital generation. ■

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PHOTO CREDITS TEEKAY

Edwards is cradling what resembles a plastic coconut the size of a tennis ball: an “edible” water bottle.

“This bottle is room-temperature stable,” says Edwards, who opened the eatery last year as a place to showcase and test-run his developments in engineering, design and food, next door to his exhibition space, Le Laboratoire. “It’s actually been sitting on a shelf behind the bar for a few weeks.” The hard shell, made from a biodegradable cornderived protein called zein, can be cracked open like a coconut shell, and inside, water is contained within a nutrient-infused gel-like “skin.”

Right now it may look like a lumpy orb, but Edwards has far-reaching hopes that it may someday provide drought prone third-world nations with a steady, mobile water supply that doesn’t rely on plastic.

THE oPHONE ALLOWS USERS TO TAG PHOTOS WITH SCENT NOTES, THEN “TEXT” THOSE ODORS TO SOMEONE ELSE.

Gamechangers That Weren’t

Sometimes the next big thing is not so much

“Tim Tebow is the NFL’s next great quarterback.”

—Bleacher Report, 2009

“The best idea I ever had.”

“Google Glass will change the world.”

—The Sydney Morning Herald, 2014

“The floating airship will revolutionize the entire future of long-distance air travel.” —Boy’s Boy’s Life Life, 1929 “The waterbed is well on its way toward becoming a permanent fixture.”

—Time, 1971

“The Segway will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy.”

—Dean Kamen, inventor, 2001

TEBOW: EZRA SHAW/GETTY IMAGES; AIRSHIP: HENRY GUTTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; ALL OTHER IMAGES COURTESY

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—Yum Brands Chairman David C. Novak, 2007

Aspire. Apply. Achieve.

IvyWise is the world’s premier global educational consultancy supporting students in over 40 countries since 1998. Dr. Kat Cohen, IvyWise’s founder and CEO, and her team of expert counselors have over 125 combined years of experience in admissions at the country’s most selective schools. In 2015, 92% of

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ALT1-C CLASSIC

TH E BR EMONT ALT 1- C WILL L AST YOU A LIFETIME. POSSIBLY LONGER .

The Bremont ALT1-C is a mechanical aviation chronometer that’s 99.998% accurate. It’s painstakingly built by hand at our workshops in Henley-on-Thames. But if the inside of the ALT1-C is delicate, the outside is anything but. The case is made from steel that’s seven times harder than you’ll find in ordinary watches. (We bombard it with electrons to toughen it up.) The crystal is sapphire and scratch-resistant. (We know, we’ve tried.) And the whole thing is water resistant to 100 metres. We hope you enjoy the ALT1-C. After all, you’ll be together a long time.