Actor & Entrepreneur Miles Fisher¶
Published on Mon, 24 Aug 2020 10:00:17 +0000
The man of many talents dives deep into his latest horological obsessions.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Stephen Pulvirent interviews Miles Fisher, a multi-talented entrepreneur, actor, musician, and podcast host. Miles co-hosts "Coffee with the Greats" on the Blamo Media network with his father, a show featuring intimate, multi-generational conversations with living legends from various fields. The discussion begins with their shared love of podcasts and the unique intimacy of the medium, which Miles credits with introducing him to the world of watches during the pandemic.
Miles shares his journey from being a professional actor and YouTube creator to founding Bixby Roasting, a direct-to-consumer coffee company built on the principle of freshness—roasting and shipping coffee the same day it's ordered. He discusses his philosophy of content creation and community building, drawing parallels between his coffee business and the watch industry. The conversation reveals how Miles spent sleepless nights during the early pandemic consuming watch content, starting with Nick Foulkes' podcasts about Omega and Rolex history, which led him down a deep horological rabbit hole.
The second half focuses on Miles's emerging watch collection and passion. He describes his journey from wearing a Timex Ironman as a child to receiving a vintage Cartier Tank as a wedding gift from his wife, and his daily wear Rolex Explorer. His recent acquisition of a Grand Seiko SBGY003 represents his deep dive into serious watch collecting, and he discusses his quest for a golf watch that led him to a JLC Polaris with an internal rotating bezel. Miles and Stephen explore the storytelling power of watches, the authenticity of brands like Omega and Breguet, and Miles's desire to acquire the new Omega Speedmaster 321. Throughout, Miles demonstrates the enthusiasm of a new collector combined with thoughtful insights about craftsmanship, heritage, and the emotional connections objects can create.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Miles Fisher | I try to make my life simple. And particularly this time during the pandemic, I spent a lot of time over the weekends just lying on my tummy on the floor, looking into my eight months-old eyes. And when you do that, you know, my priorities become very clear. It's family, business, and then everything else gets put in a hobbies category. But for me, the value of watches, even though I'm wearing sweatpants and athleisure for weeks on end, really holds up |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Pulverant and this is Hodinky Radio. We're back. It's a new season. This is episode 101, and we have so much fun stuff to bring you over the next couple of weeks and months. Uh and we're gonna start with a bang. This week's guest is Miles Fisher, and if that name sounds familiar, it could be from any number of things. Uh Miles is an actor, uh, he was in a number of films, he had a uh cameo on Mad Men, uh, he was a YouTube star, he's a coffee entrepreneur, he's a golf enthusiast, and most recently he's become a podcast host, uh, launching his show Coffee with the Greats, uh co-hosted with his dad, uh on Blamo Media. Uh, it's a fantastic show, you should check it out. We talk a little bit about that in the episode. Uh, but one of the things you're gonna love most about Miles is that he's a diehard watch guy, and I mean seriously diehard. This guy is in deep. Uh we get into how he jumped headfirst into this hobby just a few months ago, how his personal collection's developing, and what he still hopes to discover along his horological journey. The second half of the episode is devoted almost entirely to us chatting about watches, but before we get there, Miles and I also talk about our mutual love of podcasts, how he ended up in the coffee business, and where he finds inspiration on a daily basis. So with that in mind, let's do this. This week's episode is presented by Accutron. Relaunched this year, the new generation of Accutron watches are the world's first to be powered by electrostatic energy, continuing the brand's tradition of innovative timekeeping. Stay tuned later in the show to learn more or visit AcutronWatch.com |
| Miles Fisher | As I was as I was saying I have stuck in my head. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | It's great. It's good that this is royalty free or uh I'd I'd be sending you a bill right now. It's uh luck luck lucky we're in that boat. But uh yeah, it's always it's always good to have another podcaster on the show, somebody who like we set this up and the microphones are on and like you know what to do. It makes makes my life much, much easier. It is incredible uh |
| Miles Fisher | now just how how easy it is to uh to do this. Uh but I will say I tried to get a new mic and from Amazon and specific stores, a target, and then I found an electronic shop out of North Dakota that had one of these little mics in stock. I mean the the the world is is now buying these microphones for all the right reasons. So it is h high high demand for the equip |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ment. I guess that's a good problem for us all to have. More more shows to listen to, more people involved. It's I mean, podcasting is still, I guess, relatively young, although it feels pretty, pretty mature at this point. But I mean, years and years ago, it was it was like you told somebody you'd listen to podcasts and people kinda looked at you funny. It was like being the kid who like goes to the comic shop every Wednesday or whatever. All the comic people are gonna yell at me about like getting new comic day wrong or something. But uh I feel like podcasts have like got the I I don't know. I know you're a big podcast junkie, but like do you you were you listening in the days when like it was weird to be listening to podcasts? Uh I was. I |
| Miles Fisher | was, I was. I mean if I if I really think back on podcasts, I remember around 2007 or 2008, some big schools announced that they were gonna record all the lectures and give you know old fashioned iPods to the students for free. I think Duke announced it or something. And I thought, oh man, you never have to show up to the lecture and you can just listen to it and boy, these these young bucks have it easy. Um and then of course it you know, podcast on an actual where you had to plug in and download episodes and it was just too early until it was all you know synced through the cloud. And so I think 10 years ago I became a big junkie of um NPR's Planet Money and the slate cultural gab fest. And so one was kind of financial reporting made accessible, and then the other was a three-person conversation. And, you know, I think only now we're at this new paradigm of podcast where all of these documentaries and the specific and then just long form interviews, you know, there's just so much noise right now, but there's uh there's not as much listening and the internet just cuts context and nuance right out. And so uh I I I love these long form kind of interviews. I think they're the highest nutrition count of most media |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. No, I love that. I I I I mean we talked before getting on mic, uh, that you're you're a one and a half speed listener. Uh I'm typically a one and a quarter speed listener. Uh one is too slow. One and a half for some of the stuff I listen to is a little too fast for me, but uh yeah, there's this really it's it's kind of amazing that there's so much there's so much stuff out there and there's so much stuff going on, and finding time to consume it all and stay up on it all is is impossible at this point. I mean like I look at like my queue of like amazing golden age TV shows to watch that I I you know missed a year ago or whatever. And like I'll never get to the bottom of it. And and there's something kind of freeing about that of knowing that like with podcasting there are so many good shows out there I could listen all day every day and not even scratch the surface uh and so it's freeing for me like I don't feel like I have to listen to everything but I also know that if I have 30 minutes and I'm walking to the grocery store or if I'm on my commute back when we commuted places, um, like I could make good use of that time. And it's it's really liberating and also enriching in that way? |
| Miles Fisher | Well, it and it's it's very much kind of the story of uh me becoming obsessed with watches uh because of this extraordinary content all during uh you know the the pandemic in shelter in place. And I'll I'll talk about that in a minute. But you know, philosophically if you just pull back on time, we say it a lot, but the truth is it it's really the only finite resource in life. There's only twenty four hours in a day. And one of the great advantages of of podcasts um is that it unlocks a twenty fifth and a twenty sixth hour. Like you said, you're doing it while you're doing something else. And and then it's also i incredibly intimate. I I really think we're pre-wired. I mean for a hundred thousand years our species has communicated uh storytelling and just through audio. And you know, visually it's just been a rapid acceleration over the last hundred years, which you know is a blip of an eye. But going back to 1.5 speed and 1.2 speed. I find if it's a podcast conversation, 1.5 speed is right. But if it's kind of books on tape where someone's reading off a script, you gotta slow it down a little bit because the cadence is a little quicker |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Agreed. Yeah. I I think the intimacy thing is is really fascinating to me. Like, you know, as as people in the media world, like you and I both know some of the people I'm sure who who record the shows we listen to. And like I know a lot of the podcast hosts whose shows I listen to, our friend Jeremy, for example, you know, is is uh was a good friend of mine long before he started Blammo. And there's something sort of strange actually about like listening to his voice not having a conversation with him. Yeah. Uh but on the flip side, there are shows I've been listening to forever. I mean, like 99% Invisible, Roman Mars's show, um, is a show like I think it was episode like 12 or 13 when I started listening to They're in the hundreds now. They have a book coming out. I've never met Roman. I I think we have some mutual friends, but like we are not connected in any way. And yet like he is a his he and his voice are like a very powerful force in my life and it feels like I know them. And I think in in this world where there's so much media to consume and so much of it is is honestly anonymous online, whether it's through Instagram or whatever, like you there's just so much and there's so much distance between you and what's happening. Having that those moments where like you can you can shrink that distance to as small as you can possibly get it is is a really powerful thing. |
| Miles Fisher | I agree with all that, and I would just add that uh I don't think we're aware how subconsciously we make micro judgments visually within a split second, for example, you know, you you you watch any sort of interview on TV and you just immediately we might I might write off someone, uh I I don't I don't like the way they're clicking on their teeth. Or I what what they're wearing, uh I',ve kind of written this person off, which is so unfair. And you don't even realize you're doing it. Whereas with audio, i immediately the you're on that person's team. You're just listening to them. It it makes you um I think it wipes away a a a layer of BS, to be honest. And then the other great thing about a lot of the formats of podcasts is the content is evergreen. You know, uh Hodinki interviews that you did three years ago are just as relevant to me today as they were when they first launched. And so that's exciting to kind of have this this backlog. In fact, I I I re I went down a deep uh watch podcast rabbit hole through through I I wasn't able to sleep one night, you know, er early in the whole with COVID. And I think now we're, you know, five odd months in, but at the beginning it was just it was so crazy and time was warped and kind of shrunk and every day was just one long run on sentence. And I couldn't sleep and it you know, our our home is very near uh and our office where a lot of the uh riots were in LA. And it was i it was just an overwhelming time and we have two young children under three years old and I've put everything into this business for years with my partner. I couldn't sleep. And someone gave me a book by uh Nick Falkes on kind of the history of time. And I started reading it late one night and I actually slept like a baby. And it was just it was wonderful. And I thought I woke up the next day and thought, hmm, that's kind of interesting. And so I started down that and I I looked, I typed in Nick Foulk's into podcasts. And you know, there was there was an episode that he did, I think, with Brian Duffy, the CEO of Watches of Switzerland. And he just talked for an hour and a half. It was this magnificent fireside chat just on the history of Omega. And I couldn't devour it quick enough. And then the next one was, you know, John James Dowling talking about the history of Rolex. And they were talking about these brands in terms of: imagine you're a 25-fivear ye old young entrepreneur. You're not a watchmaker, but you're a merchant and you have to market these ideas. And I just thought this is the most fascinating thing. And um, you know, it's a very it's a very, very deep well, of course, uh led by first amongst equals uh the the Hodinki Empire |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Ver very kind of you to say. Uh I'm I'm glad you're you're like foothold into this was Nick. Uh Nick is is one hell of a storyteller. He's got kind of a perfect voice for doing something like this. Uh and he Nick was actually one of my first bosses in in the journalism world back when I was an intern in in college. But uh Nick, Nick is a force of nature. I'm I'm very glad to hear that that was your your sort of toehold into to getting into this. Nick Nick |
| Miles Fisher | is is is truly uh one of the greats in the field. Um and I've always had a fascination with him from a young age. We uh my my father subscribed to the Financial Times. And so when I was in high school reading that, you know, the pink newspaper on the weekend sections, and then when I was in college, uh my my job, I basically earned beer money working at this old men's haberdashery called the Andover shop in uh in Boston, Massachusetts. Okay. And got really oh yeah, so so have kind of followed sartorially. And so his books from on cigars and even on Beretta guns, and you know, of course, he's Mr. Sartorially inclined and just has this extraordinary vocabulary. But I had a secret crush, not crush, but awe of Nick Fawkes because he went to the same college that my father did at Oxford. It was Hartford College. And I I just thought, you know, here's a man with immaculate taste who uh can can articulate the nuances and so yeah, hearing him for an hour and a half on a podcast uh is like I said, it's it's good high nutrition content for watch nerds. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | That's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. Uh I I want to make sure we'll we'll get back to watches, but I want to make sure we we talk a little bit about your new show uh right right off the top, um, which is how we got connected. Um so your your new show is Coffee with the Greats and, it's on the Blamo podcast network. Uh, Blamo, Blamo with an exclamation mark. So Blamo! Blamo with an exclamation mark. Uh and Blamo is run by our friend Jeremy Kirkland, who's a former Hodinky radio guest, longtime friend. Um and when the new show came out, he and I were chatting and and wanted to get you on as as soon as I found out you were interested in watches. So um yeah, I mean can you I could I could sum it up, but I'd rather hear your sort of elevator pitch. How how would you describe Coffee with the Greats to people who who aren't listening yet |
| Miles Fisher | ? Well the the elevator pitch is it a multi-generational conversation? It's my father and I talking to kind of living legends, not just in the business kind of corporate sweep world. U todhay's episode, for example, was with Roger Stahlbach, who, you know, took the Cowboys to the Super Bowl five times, but frankly is a is more impressive uh in what he did afterwards in building his real estate business and also just a very decent, extraordinary guy. Um and uh and so that really this all started as a personal project, um, if I'm to be totally honest. I in my early 30s, um my wife and I got married, my parents separated after over 40 years of marriage, and I'm the only one in my family who's in uh in Los Angeles. And so I wanted to do a just a project with each of my parents. And with my dad, my dad's kind of got this incredible story that I've always been uh a little in awe of to be honest. And basically his father was abandoned on a doorstep in Australia in 1904, grew up homeless. Actually grew up escaping out of orphanages. And um my father was born in California, but grew up in Mexico City. You know, he he was conversational in Spanish before English, and grew up very, very humbly. And he went to a tough military prep school and then, you know, got a scholarship to Harvard and then went to Oxford and then Stanford Business and and then served the government. And it it really was kind of the traditional American dream story from homeless to Harvard in a single generation. And um uh as he kind of built his career, he uh had these extraordinary contacts and I just thought you know dad it would be really fun to actually sit down and have a conversation with some of these people just to kind of preserve wisdom for posterity. And it was as simple as that. It's the tone was the same conversation as you and I are having now, but with these some of these larger than life figures. And um we we sat on it for a while and kind of around the time of quarantine, um, I thought, hey, I think we really have something here. And of course, you know, the the world has now gone to Zoom. And so asking for say the the head of JP Morgan's time, where we would meet him at the office, it created such bottlenecks as far as scheduling. But now that we can do it via Zoom, I thought, hey, we we may really have something here. And so um I reached out to Jeremy Kirkland, whom I've listened to for a hundred hours, whom I've never met face to face. And I feel like he's a he's a very really good friend. Yeah, to this day. And it's wild. We FaceTimed a lot. I mean, you know, I think he and and my wife Lucy are probably on a separate text thread making fun of me sometimes. But he's he's just a great guy. And of course, uh you get a sense of someone when you hear them talk for a long, long time. And I sent him a couple of these recordings and and he agreed there was something here and so we're we're kind of onboarding this in in real time and um and it's been it's it's it's really been incredibly satisfying. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah I mean you you said that you talked to larger than life characters, but in a really casual way. And that that was the thing that from episode one struck me immediately. And the first episode is with Jamie Diamond, who runs JP Morgan. And you know, I used I used to work at Bloomberg, uh, I was a reporter there for for a couple years. Um and so, you know, I've seen probably hundreds of interview clips with with Jamie Diamond, and I've I've never seen him in the way that you hear him in the first five minutes of this interview. Like it's it's apparent immediately that this is is a different side of him than the side you usually get. But then like that sort of like alpha dominant Jamie Diamond thing like comes through sure periodically and you're like you're reminded that like oh oh shit this is Jamie Diamond, like this isn't just some guy who Miles and his dad are friends with. Like this is this is a big, big, serious dude but the the way that you balance those two sides of people is is really interesting and and really compelling to me |
| Miles Fisher | . I appreciate that and you know it starts one at one of the podcasts I used to listen to for years was kind of a long form interview that the Hollywood Reporter did. And the very first question that they always asked was, you know, to begin, uh, where were you born and what did your parents do for a living? And I kind of ask a variation of that just to start. And if you get someone assuming they had a fairly good relationship growing up, and even if they didn't, when you do sincerely start, not by asking someone about themselves but uh tell me about your parents it it the BS immediately disappears and uh a sincerity and then usually once they you know, talk about their parents for a little bit, I will then skip them and say, uh tell tell me a little bit about your kids. And and again, the the sincerity level is up. But also I have no problem, you know, poking fun at my dad and kind of calling BS on him. And so that tone I think is appreciated by the guest. Uh and and the whole idea is look, we don't want to talk about politics, we don't want to talk about anything topical. Tell us your life story, and on that journey, what wisdom is important for your grandchildren to know? And I just think that's a fun, a fun format because not on television, not in print media uh can I think of any um multi-generational interview. And so uh here's here's hoping we can continue with uh with guests like I I |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I think you'll I think you'll be able to do it mostly because from the tone of the interviews, they they sound like rigorous might be a weird word to use, but they're they're rigorous but safe. And I think that's a really important thing. I mean, like the CEO of MasterCard doesn't want to go sit in a room with somebody who might ask him something that's gonna then like put him or his company or his people in a in a compromised state. But if they if they know they can engage in like a real substantive conversation so it's worth their time, but also they know that they're gonna be treated with respect and they know they're in a a place where like they can kind of be free to be open. I think most people like having those kinds of conversations, whether you're the CEO of a giant company or just like some guy who goes to the office every day or you know, the woman who works down the hall or whatever. Like it doesn't it doesn't matter. Like you can be any kind of person. And I think that that type of sincerity really tracks with people and is attractive to people. |
| Miles Fisher | And I also think that uh these guests of this caliber want to talk about these substantive personal issues. You know, one of one of the questions I love to ask is um you know um tell me tell me what your tomorrow looked like when you were 35 years old. Who who were you and and what did what did your week look like? And you can just immediately see in their eyes, just going back, what was the landscape of their business professionally? Had they met their partner or not at that time? Were they? And you know what I found is the the difference between really good and truly exceptional is it's it's not unlike fine watches. It's the parts that no one sees. It's it's the hundredth turn of the screw that makes you know a piece not just last 20 years, but last 200 years. And um those are very personal stories. And so, you know, to get in and say, we can take as long as you want, it's just a conversation, not hey, this is three minutes, get you know, get your sound bite in and hopefully this will help stock prices |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah, right, exactly. With the kind of people you're interviewing is is often what they're asked to do, right? Like their PR departments call and say, hey, can you this might juice things a little bit? Like we need you to roll out on this set. But you know, I listened the other day to the the one with Randall Stevenson, and he's somebody who I was I was aware of, but I didn't know a lot about. Um I don't know if you know this. I'm also from Texas. Um I'm from Austin. Oh great. But uh was aware of Randall Stevenson. I mean he's obviously like kind of kind of legendary in that part of the country. He had these little insights that really, really stuck with me, and I think are interesting also because I want I want to talk to you about your business and and the business uh you're you're currently sitting in right now as we as we record this uh Bixby Roasting. Um he talked about the idea of risk and the fact that you can't you can't be truly successful until you failed at something because until you've experienced failure, you don't have a good barometer for risk. And and I think that dovetails nicely with something else he talked about, which is that successful people love to talk about the idea of balance and striking balance, but that like ultimately successful people tend not to be balanced people. Like you have to be able to kind of go all in on something. So I I wonder, you know, as as an entrepreneur, how you think about those things and and maybe some of the other lessons you've learned from from your guests as well |
| Miles Fisher | it's a it's a great uh question and theme. You know, for fifteen years of my life I was a professional actor. It would take a hundred auditions for me to land one role. And I've landed lots and lots of roles. And even those roles that I've landed, we've shot it, and kind of like your story early with the first episodes of Hodinky Radio, you know, none of them will ever see the light of day. And by one definition, that's failure after failure after failure after failure after failure. But that the experience has been an extraordinary education in in so many regards. You can read as many books as you want about success and about balance. I think everybody can eventually realize that talk is cheap. Everybody has good ideas. A lot of people most people are very, very smart. Coming up with a good idea is one thing, but the real value is just in showing up every single day. And if you can if you can make it work for yourself where you can just continue to show up, then you put yourself in a position to one day win. Um, I mean, in so many quote unquote success stories, uh it's it's never one it's never the thing you think it's gonna be. Uh it it just it just kind of rises to the surface, but you have to you just have to be be present. All of our guests have kind of said that in one regard to another. And you know, that famous Steve Jobs commencement address, I think um that he gave it he gave at Stanford, where he says to in an essence, you know, it's only looking in the rearview mirror that we can link A to B to C. In real time, we had no idea how these things would line up. Um, and so yeah, I I I always just try to put myself in a in a position to um continue to show up every day. And for me, uh every venture that I've had that has had traction has been with a teammate, um in in one regard for another. That's what's so hard about I think acting uh and being an entertainer is it's you know, usually you're acting Han Solo and it's a a long lonely road sometimes. I assume it's acting that brought you out to LA. Uh it was. It was, it was. So um I I graduated college in two thousand six and um music has been a really big part of my life. When I was really young, when I was in fourth grade, I sang in our school choir. And it just so happened to be this incredible program where every summer we would kind of have residency at the great cathedrals in Europe. So when I was ten years old, I was performing at Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame and Mont Saint-Michel and it w it it was really a kind of a professional singing experience. And so in college I lost a bet to my freshman year roommate. And my end of the losing bet was I had to be That's how all good stories start. I don't know. It would have been nice to have won have won that bet. But uh alas I did not and my punishment as it were was to uh embarrassingly try out for the fanciest a cappella group. And so I thought, no problem, that would be one day, and and uh I I did it and they kept on calling me back. Now this is this is in two thousand and three. I'm 19 years old. Shout out to the Harvard Crocodillos, Harvard University's oldest a cappella singing group, founded in 1946 at the historic HC Pudding Club. And you know, black tie chat. Are you contractually obligated to say that? No, but I I've done over 600 shows when I was in college. And so it kind of comes out. Well, so here was the thing. Wow. This was this was before the show Glee was created on TV. This was back when a cappella was A, super nerdy, didn't have the cool quotient. And B, um, I kept on going to the callbacks because I found out every summer they went on a 25-country six Connor World tour. This is 12 guys. And um it was the trip of a lifetime. And so I was like, well, that that would be really, really cool. And I was lucky enough to make the group. And by the time I had graduated, um, you know, I'd been to nearly fifty countries around the world singing, singing all over. And and we it was it was intense because sounds ridiculous saying this. We rehearsed every single day for two hours, no offseason, um, and no substitutes, you know, on a sports team if you get injured, somebody else takes your spot. This is just 12 guys, 12 nerdy guys, but very talented, musical, um savants really. And it was a lot of performing. And so when I had graduated, I thought about, you know, uh, I had some options with record labels and all of that, but the state of the industry at that time, as it is today, it's all touring. And that's where your money was made. And I had toured enough to know what I was giving up. And so I wanted to start making videos. And um, you know, f one of one of my classmates freshman year was Mark Zuckerberg. And so uh I was just very fluent in this new phenomenon of social media. Um and back in 2007, Google had just acquired YouTube. Brands were taking 30-second TV spots and just slapping it on the internet, thinking, oh, this is this what this means now. And I said, no, it's a different type of engagement. And so I started signing, I basically created a little digital ad agency. It's called Milestone Media. And I started making music videos because music videos were kind of a big genre early on in YouTube. And they were these very cinematic music videos that I, you know, would basically sell to brands like Physio or Range Rover or K Swiss. And they started getting millions of views back when that was big time. And I was short stuffed. So I was the guy who was acting in them, but also like performing, but also trying to sign clients and work in the back. I didn't know what I was doing, big picture. I was young in my twenties, but I was energetic. And as these videos began to pop off, I started getting cast in shows. And I thought, okay, this is fun. And it wasn't until I got cast in this movie Final Destination, which is a is a huge global franchise. I mean, I I think the movie the the film that I was in which was shot in three D and all that was the number one movie in Russia for three months. The entire country of Russia and and Brazil. Um interesting. But major co I know. So a lot of my Instagram followers, you know, are are speaking Portuguese and Russian and they're very into I mean, I think I died like four times in that movie. These final destination movies are nuts. But it was good fun. And then I had a part in Mad Men and you know, I I got to do some scenes with DiCaprio in directed by Clenn Eastwood and I thought, this is cool. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | This is really cool. I mean, that is cool. That's that is unquestionably awesome. Yeah. However, um |
| Miles Fisher | I started getting cast in pilots uh for TV shows and I got cast as the lead of seven pilots and not a single one of them got picked up. And the way it works for television is when you get cast as the lead of a pilot, they basically contract you out for three months so you're not allowed to do anything else. Because once they shoot the pilot and then they cut it and then they test it and you know the suits figure out if they're going to air it or not they can't risk you doing some other project. So they kind of buy you out for four months. And that happened seven years in a row and took me off the market and I was never it just didn't it didn't happen. And so it was very bittersweet for me because you know my my enthusiasm really started to fatigue and uh it just didn't fill me up as much as creating these projects all on my own. And so um that's where I really started to think about okay, what is what is a uh a passion of mine? And there are for me, my my passions are for some reason they're all C's. They're coffee, clocks and clothes, and then clubs, which golf clubs, I suppose. I I love golf. Um and you know the the the original idea was um the brands of the last hundred years were built on shelves. And I just think the brands of tomorrow all have to be built in the phone, in the palm screen. And so if I can if I have this talent of making captivating content for the palm screen, um, you know, let's let's try to have a a a coffee brand that sells direct to consumer. And the value proposition of coffee uh that I identified was freshness. You know, words like best or finest or um any sort of superlative, it's it's all subjective, it's all taste. But if we could basically print on-demand coffee where we roast and ship the day you order, then inherently it'll be fresher than anything you ever buy off of a shelf. And if we can price it the same as, say, your local Albertsons or Kroger's, then we might have a real business here |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. It's pretty g I mean it's funny. I I think in some ways people might think like, oh, you're you're a musician, you're an actor, and now you're running a coffee company. But I think the fact that you do it direct with your consumers is is actually really telling, right? Like you're creating a product and then you have a direct relationship with the people consuming that product and it's a product that in theory is meant to be enjoyed daily and meant to like bring some joy and value to people's lives. It so in in some ways it feels kind of of a kind to me |
| Miles Fisher | . I was listening to uh Mark Cuban talk the other day on a podcast and he was talking about someone had pressed him on, you know, what what is the core product you're selling in the NBA as a as a Mavericks owner? And he said it's it's all an emotional experience. He said it's all it's all the entertainment value. When you go to a basketball game, think of you know the favorite basketball you've gone to game, you don't remember the score, maybe you remember someone else, but you remember who you were with, the the fun that you had with that person, and the the the moment. And as you said that I just thought, boy, that sure is coffee. Coffee, if you really want to be cynical about it, Stephen, coffee is brown caffeine water. But it's so much more. It's a it's a it's a ritual, it's a clarity at the beginning of the day, it's a conversation with a loved one, it's a very personal behavior, and it just brings people joy. And so, you know, it just so happened for for years now, we have been building up slowly this infrastructure of direct to your doorstep. And we do all fulfillment here on site. Um, and we are true to our value proposition of the freshest coffee you've ever had. We always knew our core product was recession proof. You know, AI is not gonna ruin the demand for coffee. But we had no idea that we were pandemic proof. And, you know, coffee, coffee delivered right to your home is a stronger value proposition today than it has ever been. And the home is also now the home office, more people in the house are drinking coffee. I love coffee shops. I think everybody loves coffee. Coffee shops have been a civic pillar since antiquity. And but not only LA and not only New York, but everywhere in America, there's great coffee shops. Um, but the the brands on the grocery store shelf, which is ninety-five percent of coffee drinking America, those are virtually the same brands since World War II. And it, you know, it's not as sexy, but nobody's really focusing on that. And so that's what that's what we've tried to do with Bixby. And, you know, just step, step by step. We've got a long way to go, but um coffee with the greats for example, of being sincere, you know, I never meant I haven't mentioned Bixby in our podcast. It is a conversation over coffee. But I'm trying to think, okay, as a consumer, what is a way that I can justify frankly subscribing to our business? The core business model for us is the lifetime value. If you subscribe to our coffee, you'll never run out. And we want to make that easy. But five months into our relationship, it's on me to provide you content to justify you sticking with us. So maybe it's a great conversation while you drink your coffee on a commute, etc. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | And now a word from this week's sponsor. Sixty years after the original Acatron watches changed the course of horological history, the brand has been reborn, continuing its mission of introducing innovative timekeepers with unique style. The latest generation of Accutron watches are the first watches in the world to be powered by electrostatic energy, utilizing totally new movements built from the ground up and shown off through a series of special open work dials. These watches fall broadly into two collections. The first is the Spaceview 2020, taking its name from the original open dial Acatron that inspired a generation of watch lovers to think differently about what a fine timepiece could be. Signature green accents and the visible movement components call back to that original space view while also emphasizing the groundbreaking new caliber and its high accuracy capabilities. The second collection is the Accutron DNA, which reinterprets the classic Accutron for the new Millennium. The unique case design has a bit of a sci-fi vibe, but the skeletonized movement and open dial make it clear that this is still an Accutron through and through. There are four versions available to start, each with a unique combination of case metal and dial color. You can go casual and classic with steel and green or sleek and minimal with black and blue. For more, visit AcatronWatch.com and follow at AcatronWatch on Instagram. Alright, let's get back to the show. It's interesting that you're thinking about even the coffee business, which is like a hard product consumer good business, it's a grocery business in in a lot of ways, as also being a content business. It's a it's a li |
| Miles Fisher | festyle. The the product is anything to anybody. Um so we need the product to be fresh and high quality first and foremost. But I I also get such a trip out of you know, coffee's about as global a commodity as it gets. I mean, coffee and oil. And it has been uh harvested truly around the world for millennia. And so, you know, all of these young next generation companies who are disrupting and I don't say that cynically at all, but how do we innovate on coffee? And I think you can overcomplicate things. I think instead, it's get get out of the way and just make it easy for the for the consumer. I have |
| Stephen Pulvirent | um I ha are you uh do you have pets? Uh we we had a dog. Sadly, uh we lost him a couple months ago, but big, big dog person. I'm I'm sorry to hear that. I've I've got a huge |
| Miles Fisher | heart for for dogs and and all animals. But yeah, same. You know, we I've got a Labrador and he's my buddy. And the worst thing that can happen is it's Sunday evening, you know, you're winding down and you go into the cupboard to get his dog food and you're out. And the poor fella's got to eat. And now you're thinking, gosh, can I go to the grocery store? Is he going to have to go hungry? Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but if you're a regular daily coffee drinker like I am, coffee's my dog food. If I I I need I need coffee. And so, you know, it's Tuesday morning, I I'm ready to go, I've gotten out of the shower, I open up my cupboard. If I'm out of coffee, my day just went from groggy to god awful. I haven't even left the house yet. And so you know, let's let's let's just solve that problem first. Uh with and and and try to our whole ethos has been specialty coffee without the specialty attitude. Again, I have nothing against in fact I frankly I geek out about I don't know, all the technicality and even the lifestyle around leather aprons and, you know, hats that look good on bicyclists in the nineteen thirties and mustache wax and all the barista culture and that's truly I dig it. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | But I just need a good cup of coffee reliably every morning at the house to get things started. I think there's a connection between that sort of attitude and the attitude that I have and it seems like you have about about watches and that I think a lot of our listeners have, which is like, yes, you can enjoy geeking out about the technical details, but at the end of the day, it's it's a part of someone's lifestyle and it's a part of what makes you like have a smile on your face throughout the day. And I think that's something we try to do and have tried to do as long as I've been involved with Hodinky is, you know, yes, like like you said, there's there's a certain baseline. Like, yes, we need to be technically accurate, we need to be thorough, we need to provide quality information, quality images but like more than that is we we need to make you you know say okay I took 20 minutes out of my day to read a story about a mechanical timekeeping instrument and like I feel good about that time investment. Like I'm it's it's exciting, it makes me feel good, it makes me feel connected to a community. And I think you know, whatever people are passionate about today, I think like that's really what sort of like being a hobbyist or being an enthusiast looks like in 2020. I think you're you're sp |
| Miles Fisher | ot on, and I think that's the future um of of I think your industry and my industry. It's it is fostering a community in in a very sincere way. I mean so I I have spent let me just say as a consumer and again I'm not trying to butter you up the the content that you have offered that Houdinki has offered it's gotten me through the pandemic. I mean, true truly has has just calmed my mind. It's kind of the only reprieve of of the day. Uh yes, the very polished high-end print. By the way, thanks for the reissue on number one. It was the only episode missing. You're most welcome. But you know, even the current lo-fi my watch stories that you know uh are kind of user generated is is so cool. I mean I think if I'm not mistaken you know a lot of the the super high-end big watch uh brands didn't even have e-commerce going into the pandemic. And so if I mean forgive me if this is a hot take, but I I think it's interesting because I live in LA and you know this the over the last several months, this whole time I'm I'm I'm deep in this rabbit hole of watch content. Again, Houdinki did it first, Houdinki does it best, but there's a lot of people out there. And I am right down the street from Rodeo Drive, which is where all of these brands have their North American flagship boutique. I've been into all of them and they all feel behind. Not in a, I don't want to say soulless way, um, but there is a a lack of oxygen there, you know. It i i I I feel like if somebody in twenty twenty wants to check out a watch, my bet is they they first look up a long form proper review on Hodinki, they check out a Tim Masso video review, you know, they look it up on Chrono 24 before further stumbling down the rabbit hole. And it just occurs to me that, you know, most online content worth consuming about watches is produced by this quote unquote secondary market, which doesn't just mean used watches. It's it's you know, you guys have built this kingdom by increasing production value. And we just know that abundance of relevant, high quality educational content pays dividends. So, you know, I think the brands and the authorized dealers think they're safe because, quote, the secondary market is different. But the truth is, consumers don't care who gives them what they want as long as someone gives it to them. And if you can build a community alongside that, boy, that's awfully powerful. Humans are loyal to conven |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ience. Yeah, no, I think that's that's that's a really good point. I I think you know for for years, not to get too into the weeds here, but for for years and years, those watch boutiques were people's only resource for community for knowledge, right? Like that was the hub. Um and I think I think you're right that we sort of were very fortunate to be able to to leapfrog that old system and now it's everybody's playing catch up and trying to find parody and and trying to figure it out. And I think the pandemic ultimately, while it's it's gonna impact sales and you know I'm I'm in no way trying to make light of the the human and economic toll here but I think a swift kick in the pants whether it was from the pandemic or something else uh was a good thing for the watch industry. I think it's it's an inherently conservative industry. It's an industry that tremendously val places tremendous value on the past. Um and this really motivated everybody to look forward and I think you, know f,ive years from now, I think the industry is gonna be in a much better spot. I think there's gonna be a lot more people interested in watches, um, you know, which selfishly I think is is a great thing. Um but I think I think you're right. I think people people are loyal to convenience and it's important that the people they're getting their information and their products from catch up and give them that convenience instead of expecting them to adapt to the to the businesses. I |
| Miles Fisher | also think, you know it',s it's been been tested and for me the value of watches in a world where I'm I'm wearing sweatpants and athleisure for weeks on end really holds up. You know, I worry a lot about fashion retail and just the consumer demand. But for watches, even though I'm somewhat confined, the joy it brings just on my wrist in a personal way. I'm looking at this um by the way, I don't I don't think we've done a wrist check. What what what are you rocking today, Steven? |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I am wearing uh a ten sixteen. I'm wearing a vintage explorer beauty. It's little hard to see on my uh Zoom call there for you, but uh how about you |
| Miles Fisher | ? Uh I'm I'm rocking a Grand Seiko uh SBGY003. Um That is a very cool watch. It it is something special. And actually I recently I put new shoes on it with this strap. Um I not to get political, but you know, what's happening in Hong Kong right now uh is rather extraordinary. And when this first happened, I thought I I want to check in on the the armory and see, you know, and Mark Cho by the way, who's been making videos uh every day, which I think is so cool. Yeah. But I wanted to support them and and they had this beautiful strap that they did with a Drake's uh made out of old Drake's ties. It's it's quite quite handsome. I I I just I love this one. It's it's the first watch that really, really seduced me. So what what is your personal watch taste like? It's a great question. Well, let me let me kind of back up a little bit and just tell you kind of the watches in my life prior to the pandemic. Um when I was both with music and also a lot of my life has been shaped by travel. I've been lucky to travel around the world a lot. When I was five years old, my family lived in Japan for a little over a year. And so cool. You I know, remember Cassios uh abundant, but I think when you're five years old, plus you know, Cassio G Shocks in general, you know, everything is just huge. It just doesn't fit on you. It was really, really big. And so the first watch I really had that I loved was just a classic Timex Iron Man. I think uh I think Indigo was brought to market in 92, if I'm correct. Which so I th I was just obsessed with the Indigo. And actually, uh here's a here's a story. I thought it was the coolest watch of the world because few people would remember now, but uh my father was uh ran for Senate in 1994 uh from Texas. And um I was very young and I I don't remember it much, but I do remember that um Bill Clinton came down, flew down to an event uh to you know support my dad. And so I got to have a photo with him and he put his hands on on my on my shoulder and he was rocking a Timex an Iron Man and I just thought whoa the president's wearing the same watch I have this is super cool and just you know I it just it never left my wrist and then um when I was in high school, I went on this very intense semester abroad program. We lived in, we moved to Washington, D.C. starting freshman year high school, and I had a hard time with that transition. And so I went to this thing called the Island School, which was a semester on a small island in the Bahamas. It's it's not as glamorous as it sounds, run by a former Navy SEAL who um made everybody we we it was it was all focused around marine biology. So this is very, very intense. It was kind of 30 students from around the country, and uh every day started at 5 30 in the morning you had to run three miles and all of the food you made yourself and you prepared yourself. It's kind of like an outward bound type thing. But um the science was really heavy. And so we uh we did scuba diving every single day. And like night dives and stuff like that, it was super intense. And so the rule was you had to come with a dive watch that was uh rated over 10 ATM. And so um that was the first real watch that I depended on. And you know, it was the it was the Luminox Navy SEAL watch. This is back in 1999, and it was um I really counted on that thing and uh and I I wore that for a long time and then um you know in in college we went on this world tour and it was black tie and so I thought hey you know this is before everybody had a cell phone. And when you're coordinating with 12 uh collegiate guys to meet at this point in the city at this time, everybody needed to watch. And I thought, hey, let's really be smart about this. So, you know, I went to a Nordstrom's and I bought, I think just a a Tissot, you know, blue, the equivalent of like today's like gentleman, and then like a Hamilton, a Hamilton that looked like a Cala Trava. So kind of for the price of one, I got two, you know, little uh dress watch and then a sports watch. And I wore those for um for a long time. And then I I I basically thanks to my wedding my my wife gave me the most extraordinary watch the day we were married. Um about an hour before we all went to the you know the the church somebody just knocked on the door and one of my groomsmen said hey this is from uh from Lucy and it was a beautiful vintage uh Cartier tank with a personal engraving on the back, and it matched the engraving on my ring. And um so I just treasured that watch. But we had a very large wedding, and uh people were very, very nice to you know give to the registry. And you know, you and I are the same age. At a certain point, you just you don't need stuff. You don't need physical stuff. Yeah. And things like China and all I mean it's just it's a different world now. And so I remember we were, it's a beautiful store in Beverly Hills, it's named Geary's. And yeah, I was like, sweetheart, I don't think we really need any of this. And the person who was helping us was like, oh, well, you should just change it in for credit. And I was like, excuse me. And they said, yeah, you don't just because somebody gave you this I I really shouldn't be saying this out loud on a podcast because these people were so gracious to give us, you know, these these very delicate items. But we had a little bit left over, and um, there's one watch that I had always appreciated, which was just the the explorer, the Rolex Explorer. It was it was discrete, it was the right size, of course the story of it, everything. And uh they had one and I asked uh Lucy, are you okay with that? And she said, Yeah, but it's still, you know, a wedding gift from me. And so those two why I mean the the two one four two seven oh I've I've I've worn that every single day except for special occasions I wear the tank until the pandemic. And um that's where uh again it it just helped quiet my mind. And of all of the can can I just give a quick shout out just as as a public thanks to some of the people around the world who helped kind of attorney. Of course. Of course, I'd love that. Okay, so Hudinky the greatest. Whoever the guy is that does the reads on Watchfinder.co.uk, you're a legend. Adrian from Bark and Jack in Australia. ID guy from South Africa. Holy smokes. ID guy once went through an hour and a half detour on old French flintlock engravings from the 1700s and brought it back to like briguet, like gelot styles. Incredible. Um, Jenny L in Germany, what's up? You got an amazing attitude. Mark Cho, Tim Masso is just a whole another legend. Obviously Chris Jo and Christian Theo and Harris, um so many more. I mean hell, even Archie Luxury. Like there's so much going on. And then in podcasts, uh and then books. I mean, Stephen, your your book is one of the first books I bought. Um which can I ask you about that? Like can you share do tell me a little bit about the process of of writing a book? Because I'm surprised that there aren't more of them. And um Yeah. You you provided a really great I mean, I pull that book off the sh |
| Stephen Pulvirent | elf once a week. Like t tell me a little bit about that. Very kind of you to say. Uh yeah, funnily enough, uh uh the story' actuallys kind of a mirror of your story, which is that when I started at Hodinky, uh I knew very little about watches. Uh I I mostly wrote about men's fashion, you know, classic style kind of stuff. Uh and I asked Ben, I said, yo, I I need to get up to speed here. What do I read? And he said, Oh, you gotta go buy Gene Stone's book, The Watch. And I said, Okay, perfect. So I went out, I bought the book, I read a cover-to-cover over a weekend, opened it properly two, three times a week minimum, you know, uh for years and years. And then through a mutual friend, uh got connected to Gene. I'd met him once or twice over the years and he said, you know, the the publisher wants us to do a new edition. The book's still selling, but it feels kind of out of date. Um I need a partner on the project. You want to do it with me? And I said, of of course. Like this this book is how I learned about watches. Right. The chance to go in and like redo it, and in some ways, like it felt like kind of like paying it forward uh to to other people. Cool. Um and it was it was amazing. I mean, Gene is is an incredible author, he's written literally dozens of books about a variety of subjects. Um to learn how to do a project like this from someone like him um was was a tremendous uh learning opportunity, um the chance to kind of like check all of my own knowledge. Like I had to fact check everything. So it's things that I assumed I knew off the top of my head I had to go back and and verify. Um Um trying to like make judgment calls about which brands get in, which brands don't. Like it really forced me to question a lot of what I thought I knew. Um so selfishly I found it really rewarding. And then yeah I I mean obviously do this because I I love it like this is a thing I care deeply about and to be able to to do that in a forum where like somebody can take the book off their shelf or give it as a gift to someone else is is a really special thing. It's it's really a privilege. |
| Miles Fisher | It uh it is. It is it is paying it forward. And it's just nice to hold something to know that hey this will be around in 30, 40 years |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Agreed. Agreed. And like, you know, anyone who's written a book and tells you anything other than that they love being able to give it to people is completely lying to you. Uh you know, there there is something so nice about like, you know, when when the book came out, I bought like cases of them uh from my publisher um and was just giving them to everyone I knew. And like, you know, we there's something so like deeply satisfying about being able to hand something to somebody, be like, I made this thing, you know, which like whether it's a book or in your case, like, you know, shipping coffee to people, like being able to say, like, here's a physical thing that is going to exist in your life and like I made this or me and my team made this or a group of people I work with made this uh is a really powerful thing. And I say that as somebody who spends most of my time making things on the internet that people read on their phones or hear through their headphones, but like there's something about a physical object that is still special and kind of inherent to what makes watches special |
| Miles Fisher | . So all that being said, uh you uh you noodling on an idea for a second book |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? Uh thinking about it. A little little busy right now, but uh definitely definitely thinking about it. Um I mean we didn't I think when I agreed to take that project on, I don't think we have launched the Hodinky magazine yet, uh, which sufficiently eats up my time and scratches that itch to make something uh physical. But yeah, I mean the the the book we produced at Hodinky uh and the magazine that we produce twice a year is is very much in the same vein. Like it's we we wanna make things that last, we wanna make things that you can hand to a friend, we you know the magazine is distributed in all kinds of places that are not full of just watch people. Like you can get it in an Amex lounge or in a hotel room when you know those things open back up. But um |
| Miles Fisher | Can I you know they suggest or just throw out an idea of something if you guys made? I would do. Okay. Here's what I'm looking for. Give me some flashcards. Either so so that's been one of my secrets my whole life. Um, not just academically when I was, you know, young as a student, but even recently, you know, I had to try you guys used to sell and they went out. You can still buy them um from uh watchprint.com, but the trivial pursuit uh edition of fun watchmaking. Yeah, yeah. So I've got my cards in the other room, but you know, I just keep I keep 'em in my backpack and I'll just flip through just to, you know, stay good on on trivia. Um but if it were like a deck of playing cards and on each card was you know tr like just information about the house or the brand or history. Boy. Love it. I'd buy a lot of those |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Love it. That is a good idea. I will be passing that along to the Hodinky shop team. Uh we'll we'll put that on their plate, but I I love that. That's a great idea. Um what what in terms of watches what is ki you mentioned that you had basically the explorer and the tank until the pandemic hit and you obviously have this Grand Seiko. What what was it that drove you to Grand Seiko? I mean that is not like anyone who's wearing a Grand Seiko is someone who's like into it. Um however vague that term is. Um what what kind of brought you to Grand Seiko |
| Miles Fisher | ? So I there's two there's two parts. One, I'll be very honest with you. I had an incoming email totally out of the blue that was from a cable company in Australia. I think the only cable company in all of Australia. I had made uh a video about a year ago, me as Tom Cruise announcing I'm running for president. And uh I can tell you that story. It was really fun. But the video went viral. It got millions of views and uh and it was great. And I was just gonna leave it at that. And I got this uh note from Foxtel in Australia, and they just said, hey, we think this is really cool. We've licensed Tom Cruise movies as our summer of Tom Cruise event. Can we use this as a commercial? And I was like, yeah, sure. But you're going to have to pay me. And uh yeah. And so we worked that out. And uh out of nowhere, I got a check. Just totally out of nowhere, just a one-time only. Hey, how's it going? And um I had also just celebrated a birthday and we hit a big milestone and I just thought, gosh, I I'd like to get a watch. And like I said, I when I was very young, I spent over a year in Japan and it's always occupied um a a special place in my imagination and my heart. Uh just Japan. Have you have you spent a bit of time in in Japan |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? I know you have an office there. Yeah, I uh I went for the first time last year and I went twice in the span of about six weeks uh and had to cancel a trip about two weeks before quarantine started. Oh no um which was was a bummer but yes, I am I am I think I think I'm in the same boat as you there |
| Miles Fisher | . Well, I would imagine that m m most people listening know all about the nuance of Grand Seiko. But as I discovered, um as I as I discovered, I knew all about Seiko. But what Grand Seiko's real ethos was um particularly with spring drive and then you know even just this this one that I have it's uh uh limited I think there's only seven seven hundred of them ever made um I just wanted something that was absolutely pure and clean and I was just I was just s seduced by it by this watch and was actually able to track one down uh new old stock uh out of Canada. And um, you know, it just it just made my heart sing to be honest. I know that sounds kind of ridiculous, but it's it's it's extraordinary. And it also allows me, uh I'm a big believer in the power of storytelling. And so even just explaining this watch to someone else, just of the the you know, the liquid sweep of the second hands and what spring drive means and um it's it's great. And so uh I also I believe in you know that we used to say in menswear the most expensive suit you ever buy is the one you never wear. So I I anything that I bought that is nice, I've always done a price per use calculation. And you know, I still wear sports coats that I had fifteen years ago. Well those have already paid themselves off. And so I find it the same same with watches. And so my explorer was my beater. I don't say that sacrilegiously, I know it's really nice, but that was just my everyday watch. And my tank was kind of emotional. I'll never get another watch on my wedding. But with Grand Seiko, it was something completely unique that also was a different sensibility out of Swiss made. And so I tried to kind of assemble a little modest collection based off of my needs. And so, you know, there was one piece that was missing, which to me was a, you know, my I try to make my life simple. And particularly this time during the pandemic, I've spent a lot of time over the weekends just lying on my tummy on the floor looking into my eight months-old eyes. And when you do that, you know, my priorities become very clear. It's family, business, and then everything else gets put in a hobbies category. And in hobbies, you know, it it's watches and and golf. And so I I wanted a a golf watch and I did a lot of research. Did you know that there is a Cartier Pasha made specifically for golf and |
| Stephen Pulvirent | it is out. I did this watch is insane. We'll find a photo of this watch and uh Gray will we'll link this up in the show notes. This watch is bananas. It's bananas. I think Genta designed it |
| Miles Fisher | or like kind of co-signed off of it. I think so. I think you're right. I mean the idea that anybody would actually wear this playing golf is is is absurd, but you could keep if you were playing with four people in uh foursoms or four ball, it would keep score individually on on four different dials. It's totally nuts. The truth is if you want a real sp you know golf watch, you get a a Garmin. Or even now perhaps a new tag hoyer that may be pretty overpriced. But um what I wanted was a watch that could just keep my score uh relevant to par. So I wanted it had to be a bi rotational bezel. And I really like the idea of an internal rotational bezel. So I went down this long track for the MemoVox. I love the MemoVox, I love everything that it was about. Of course, you know, I'm a big fan of JLC. And I thought, okay, well let's really get into branding now. You know, JLC, obviously you ask anybody, GG de Coutre, and they'll say the reverso and the watchmaker of watchmakers, but as far as their other lines in the catalog, few people know. The the Polaris is a great watch, but they've branded it as for the man in movement. And so I thought, okay, all right, if I can wear this while playing golf and I can just rotate the bezel, um, that could really work. So that is my sports watch |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . That's super cool. I have never heard of somebody using an internal rotating bezel to track their golf score. That's pretty awesome. It's it's great. It's it really, really wor |
| Miles Fisher | ks. Um it's a little it's it's a little big, to be honest, the the watch, but I'm gonna throw it on the the rubber strap and you know, again, back back to my I used to think the the best way to wear clothes was to, you know, uh pick it out with care and then wear it as though you had just thrown it, picked it up off the back of a chair with nonchalance. Yeah. And so it's nice to have a nice watch, but then you know, just wear it and forget of it and if somebody you know not to insist upon it is is a nice way to do it and and so um I I love I love the the JLC. Yeah I'm trying to think I'm not a huge car guy I appreciate cars, but obviously the overlapping Venn diagram between watch and and car guys is strong. Uh the corner I want to pick is um the watch and golf guys. So I know your boy Climber, myself, Eric Wind, maybe Eric W |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ynne's son. Yeah. You know? Eric Wynne's son for sure. Eric Wynne Sun is gonna smoke everybody uh at some point. But he already he already is. And |
| Miles Fisher | I've got by the way, I've got a great working title for the concept. Uh it's called Red red par. Just the red park. And it's just guys who want to play golf, but also who are guy watch nerds. We'll see. Who knows? May |
| Stephen Pulvirent | be maybe when we're done with this pandemic. Do do you have any watches that are kind of like the next thing on your radar? Anything that you're you're waiting to come in or that you're you're kind of thinking about pulling the trigger on? Yes. Uh yes, yes I do. And |
| Miles Fisher | I'm so excited. As any good watch guy does. So excited about it. So I'll back into this by saying I have um I I have a few dream guests for my podcast. If if if we ever are able to get them um would be extraordinary. But my my ultimate uh dream. I went to high school at a school called St. Albans in Washington, DC, which uh is a very small little private school, right at the National Cathedral. Um but it's a wonderful school, and we have um some distinguished alumni, many in the in the world of politics for obvious reasons, uh, and foreign diplomats, children. But the coolest alum we ever had, when you walk into the main hall, um the first thing you see is an American flag that was flown on the moon. And Michael Collins, who um was with Buzz Aldrin and and um I I guess was was is is kind of the forgotten man with Neil Armstrong. He went to St. Albans and he's he's an alum and I just I think that's the coolest thing in the world. And I think the the moon watch is just so extraordinary. And um I don't know. I don't I I you know I don't have a chronometer and I'm just not a huge format guy and I've I've been looking at various speedies the whole time and so you know with this new 321 and the whole history of Lemonia and bringing it back together and the size of 39.7 and all of it. So um I, you know, but how do you get a deposit? I mean they're not even North America. And do you do you have any sort of a opinion on this watch, the new Speedmaster 321 coming soon? I I think it's incredible. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I think it's an incredible watch. I think it's it's Omega is making the watch that all the enthusiasts have wanted for years and years and years. And I think it's something that Omega's done a really amazing job at in general, and not to like log roll for them too much here, but like so few watch brands actually like really pay attention to the collector space. They're paying attention to what customers are buying at large and at at scale. But to make this watch, which like in the grand scheme of things, like they can probably make a lot more money selling basic James Bond style Seamasters all day. They're way easier to make. Uh I'm sure the margin is higher. They can crank them out at much larger volumes. But like to do a project like this and to re-engineer this movement purely for the nerds is is I think a really great message for Omega to send to the to the community. So I like the watch itself. The watch is incredible. I'd love to own one, but I think the message that the watch sends is maybe even even more powerful. |
| Miles Fisher | Totally agree. And I really think it's cool how you know it'll it'll stay in the catalog, but they've kind of again says a guy who's not a major car guy, done the Mercedes AMG treatment to it, that it's one person who assembles the watch uh in its entirety. Uh to me, I think that's really cool. I mean the movement, uh talk about the ultimate sapphire sandwich. Holy smokes, that that that movement just makes my my heart skip a beat. Um and with the size, I also I think that bracelet looks pretty swish |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I do too. Yeah, I do too. So I I've only seen the watch very briefly, uh but I'm hop hoping to get some more time with one soon. Yeah, I mean uh r you |
| Miles Fisher | know uh peep peep uh Robert Jean from Fratello's Instagram, and he uh he certainly dangles his a lot, but so now my question is if that so I guess that watch is ten ATM. The only thing in the back of my head is just the waterproofing and from a guy who actually scuba dived, scuba dove, past tense of scuba dived? |
| Stephen Pulvirent | What is it? Uh was a scuba diving. |
| Miles Fisher | Um you know, I I I'm ne I'm never doing more than than holding my breath for thirty seconds in a in a swimming pool. But I would reckon that anything without screwdown crowns uh just stay clear of the water, right? I mean even so can I just ask you, like with my polaris, that's rated to ten ATMs, but there's nothing screwed down. I just think, really, is this is this safe |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? It depends who you ask. I mean, like, it's probably safe. Um also like what's the ROI is what I always ask myself. It's like do I really need to jump in a pool with something without a screwdown crown? Probably not. I can just wear a different watch. Like I'm I'm in a very fortunate position where I have I have enough options. Um yeah, I mean with the Speedmaster I I'd be more worried about accidentally hitting one of the pushers on something uh which is where you'd really have a problem because you'd essentially be like forcing water into the case. Um it's still probably not likely, but like it's a case where I'd say like unless you really need to wear it in the pool, unless that's like really gonna make you happy, uh, it's probably not worth it. Yeah. I mean it'd be covered under warranty in theory, but then you have months without your watch while it's getting fixed and like I just steer |
| Miles Fisher | clear. Yeah. I mean going going to the moon's cool enough. I don't need to go to the bottom of the swimming pool as well. Yeah, exactly. Right. Um but I I will say, man, Omega, I mean I think too, the new James Bond 300 Seamaster, just and that Milanese titanium bracelet, Omega's Omega's doing things right. I'm also fascinated too, just with the if you're a golf person, you know, they just slam dunked this last weekend with Colin Morikau. And um, you know, going back into the history of of just watches, today, of course we think brands you know teeming with influencers and all that but the genuine influencers back in the day being the woman who swam the English Channel and the the mountain explorers and the scuba divers who really were authentic and who actually use these things. I think it's I think it's so cool. And uh boy, Omega seems to be doing doing something right, even though um you know, in their physical retail. Again, I live right down the street of Rodeo Drive and the Omega experience is pretty underwhelming, I'm afraid to say. I don't know that I've been to their Rodeo boutique. I've been to most of them. I'm not sure. Well they don't they don't have it. It's in a it's in a watch time or it's why you know it's kind of the the duty free at the nice international airport style uh type deal. That's why. That explains |
| Stephen Pulvirent | it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I I agree with you. I mean, I think overall Omega's doing really, really great stuff. And I think, you know, we're living in an age where I mean, just to circle back to something we talked about really early on here is like I think Omega and a handful of other brands are starting to realize that like they need to offer their customers more than just a great product. Like a great product is is a great thing, but that product needs to be emotionally good. It can't just be like objectively good uh and it needs to be sold and marketed in a way that's relatable and there needs to be you know opportunities for meetups and opportunities to uh you know omega does a lot of stuff where like they'll have astronauts at their events. And like you know, I'm I'm extremely spoiled in that like I get to do this and interview people for a living, but like if you're not a person in the media, like a chance to go have a cocktail and talk to an astronaut for five minutes is is a once in a lifetime opportunity. That's incredible. And I think they're they're really smart about how they do those things and about how they they deploy those sort of like how they deploy their cachet in that way. So if |
| Miles Fisher | if I were to interview one of the CEOs of one of the the you know great companies just on this podcast, if I ever had a chance, um personally, who would you be most interested to hear the coffee of the greats? So just to jog just to jog your memory, because I've done a little homework. Um Catherine Rainier at JLC, who strikes me as very impressive woman, Jean Fredrick Dufour at Rolex, Terry Stern at Patek, uh Louis Furla at Vacheron, Marc Hayek at Brigitte, Christopher Granger Hare, IWC, uh Francois Henry at AP, or do you just go you big time it and just get you know Johan Rupert just to talk about the whole Richmond spread |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? I mean, Rupert would be a really interesting interview. I've I have never interviewed him. Uh Joe, who I work with, has has I think interviewed him on a few occasions. Um, that could be interesting. Um, Jean-Claude Beaver, who's not technically, you know, running the company right now, like he's incredible. Uh any chance you have to talk to him is amazing. Um talking to to Mr. Dufour from Rolex would be incredible, but uh they don't do executive interviews. That is that is fully off the table, I'm sure. Got it. Um but uh yeah I I have to say the the there's sort of a new generation of executives who have come in in the last, you know, I've been involved in this industry in a serious way for for about eight years, eight, nine years. And over the last like four or five, um, there seem to be a new generation of CEOs in Switzerland, not the sort of uh US subsidiary CEOs, but the CEOs in Switzerland are becoming much more interesting, if that's if that's a fair thing to say. And I I mean that with no no offense to anyone who's been there longer than that, but You you you mean someone like Edward at at Moser? Yeah, someone like like Edward, someone like uh Chris at IWC, someone like Katherine at JLC, like it's not um it's not the same people just being recycled through the system and like you run one watch brand, then you run a different one, then you run another one, then maybe you go work for a chocolate company for a year, and then you go back to a watch brand, then maybe you go work in an investment bank, then you go back to a watch brand. Like it's not this same like cycle of the same like 20 Swiss men running the same thing over and over. Yeah. Um, and I think that is a good thing for the industry. I think it brings new people in, it brings in new ideas. Um, and so I think like in a funny way, if you would ask meed, maybe five years ago, like who to interview, I might have been able to give you like two or three options that would have been interesting. I think now, like, probably m at least like 50% of the CEOs of the big brands are like at least worth having a conversation with. They're they're interesting, they have real ideas, uh, and they're trying to put their own stamp on things, which I think is is really interesting. It's it's people are out of just pure maintenance mode and they want to like do something and leave an imprint which I always find exciting. I've got another question for you. Yeah, whatever. I never get to talk marches with anybody in some of the things I'm always happy to have other other uh other folks who want to ask questions. It's great. So from from your perspective, uh |
| Miles Fisher | what is the deal with briguet? It it briguet strikes me as having all the goods, right? Since 1775. The most extraordin first off, an entire design language that is based off of their numerals, industry-wide, that every single piece is individually serialized, the Gillow styles. And yet, and it must be just around the price point, like there's just not a lot of buzz around brigade. I wanna like 'em, I wanna like everything about them, but like uh it it doesn't doesn't get me that psyched. Why is that? Is |
| Stephen Pulvirent | that the marketing department? Yeah, I think I mean the short answer I think is that like making great watches and marketing watches are two separate jobs and if you know they're not always done in sync with one another. Um I think Brigade has, you know, both the advantage and disadvantage of being a part of the swatch group. So you know, Omega is kind of the the crown jewel there. Um and and I think sometimes you know Brigade and some of the other like Blancpon, which makes incredible watches, like end up in some ways in in Omega's Shadow in a certain way. Um, but I visited the manufacturer I guess a little over a year ago, maybe like fifteen, sixteen months ago. Uh Joe and I actually went together uh and spent a day at Brigade and I had never been before. Um and it blew my mind. I mean, like I I have always liked the quality of the watches and liked the design of the watches. Um I was blown away by how much is done by hand uh in that in that factory. Yeah. Uh to call it a factory even feels a little weird. Um it really is like a little workshop in a tiny town in the middle of Switzerland. Uh and it's it's pretty special. Um and I think you know, this is slightly related, slightly tangential, but like vintage brigade, uh like mid-20th century brigade, um is maybe one of the most sort of like uh under underappreciated uh you know marks in in vintage watchmaking. Um everything was made in super small quantities. Everything was really made by hand. Like if you put a mid-century burger next to a mid-century paddock, like the level of watchmaking is a hundred percent as good. It's a different style, but it is it is exceptional, exceptional top-tier watchmaking. Uh and these watches are just beautiful and and cool and different. Um and when you talk to collectors who have been like been through it all, who have owned everything. You'll find a lot of them have a really special, you know, either 1920s or 30s brigade or 1950s brigade tucked away somewhere. Um, because it's it's something different and something interesting and something that they can kind of like treasure for themselves, even if it's not gonna maybe like impress other people the same way that a more well-known name name might. Absolutely. They're they're |
| Miles Fisher | really they're really sublime. And you can't you you can't you can't just buy heritage. I mean with with design language that authentically goes back to the 1700s. I mean that's just like, oh this, is this is the cutting edge that Napoleon was using at the time. And it still exists. It's not a good one |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Exactly. Yeah, there's there's so many wild stories about things like that when you start getting into like interior central Switzerland, you find these workshops and you start talking to the people there, and you realize that like even you know, we're all so steeped in incredible watches. Like there's so many images out there, so many people posting on Instagram. But like you realize that like you're never gonna know it all. And there's always gonna be things to discover and there's always gonna be new things you can learn about production and about sourcing and about supplying and about craft and even about the marketing side of things. And like there's it's one of the things that, you know, when I first tell people, like, oh, when people say, oh, what do you do? And I say, oh, I work for this company. We, you know, we're a publishing and a commerce company in the world of wristwatches. And they're like, Wait, there's there's enough going on in wristwatches to keep you busy every day. And like trying to explain to people that not only is there enough to keep me busy, but like we have a team of fifty something people who have more work than we could ever possibly do in a lifetime. Sure. In this tiny little niche. Uh it's exciting. Like it's exciting that it's a never ending uh quest. It |
| Miles Fisher | yes. And but I also it's also amazing that you know it's always it's always easier to show people what works rather than tell them what can work. I mean if you had said the exact same thing of yeah, I I we kind of cater to the world around digital gaming, like esports. Five years ago, people be like, what? Maybe even a year ago. People like what? There's enough like video game stuff that you can have an entire like lifestyle content shore and original manufacturer against. And it's like, oh yeah, there is. And it continues to kind of evolve. And um again, the brands for the last hundred years were all built on shelves. They had to be. And and now it's uh emotional storytelling through you know the the smartphone, which is installed in on on on most humans' bodies. Uh yeah. Which is the other thing I love about about Watch because I if I one th one of my favorite features on my phone is airplane mode and just kind of turn it off and turn it upside down on the table and leave it in the other room. Um so I I I I'd I love just just rocking the |
| Stephen Pulvirent | time on on the wrist. It's a good thing. There's something liberating about it. You know, it's it's it's so nice to feel it ticking away on your wrist and know that like it's not going to give you a notification, it's not going to try to get you to answer an email, it's just there to keep the time and it's doing it physically in a way that is like instantly relatable. And |
| Miles Fisher | it and what does time mean, the whole aspect of time, particularly in this current moment where truly time is warped. It it takes you down these these very personal pathways. For me, for example, you're very good, Stephen. I I you know can't believe I'm saying these things out loud on a public podcast, but I uh you know, I was just thinking the other day, it's like, I don't know if we're gonna have more children. And I mentioned that because we have two girls and my older brother has two girls, which means that and again, you know, these things don't matter these days anymore, but my family name goes away. The Fisher name won't be perpetuated. Uh per perhaps whatever my my daughters want to do one day. But I have always, particularly with men's clothing, you know, for much of my life, if I ever had money to spend, it would go towards um, I don't know, commissioning a piece of clothes because I've been lucky to know some of the great tailors all over the world. And I love that. But I'd always thought in the back of my head. W,ell I will pass this to my son one day. I still think the Patek Philly print ads are it's one of the most powerful. It it worked for a guy like me. You never own it, you pass it on totally agree with you. And I've just I totally agree with you. Love that. But I was looking at my watch the other day and it just kind of clicked. It's oh I probably won't be giving this to a son. And then I thought, hmm, well what does that say about my taste? Do I am I freed up from ever having to get something that would be appropriate for a son or a daughter, or is that even matter right now? And again, extremely personal thoughts triggered by an extremely personal ob |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ject. Yeah Yeah. No, I think that's I think that's perfect. I think that's that's when when we talk to people outside the watch world, and I and I say we, I mean myself, my colleagues, you know, there's always that moment of shock at the idea that somebody could be dedicating most of their lives to to a watch. And then you start talking to people, you give them a little bit more information, and and people pretty quickly pick up on it and realize how personal it is and how much story is packed into this tiny little object. And, you know, that was that was the whole impetus behind launching this show was that I spend so much of my life talking to people about watches, not just talking about watches, but talking about stories, talking about why people love their watches, whether they're passing them down or not, whether they bought something on a trip that means something to them, like the the deeply human things about these mechanical objects. And we wanted a platform for it. And luckily this this has been a pretty good place to tell those stories because I I love watches, but the people who I've encountered through this world are are incredible and have so many good stories to tell and I always thought it was such a shame that we didn't have a way to share those and and luckily we've got it here and we're lucky that that folks like you are willing to talk to us honestly and openly and and share those things. Because at the end of the day, whether it's clothing or watches or cars or golf clubs or whatever, like it's stuff. But it can be so much more than that when we enjoy it with with people who matter to us and when we can find community through these things. It's it's it's it |
| Miles Fisher | 's wonderful. If you're a watch person, introduce me to somebody else who's into watches and we can talk we can talk about about anything. It really brings people together. And particularly on podcasts, I mean, you know, I feel like I know the guys down under in Australia on the OT podcast, or like the Scottish watch guys. What a bunch of nuts. I but I crack up listening to, you know, these knuckleheads who I and I say that lovingly, but it's just hilarious. But, you know, I as a Texan you might appreciate a an old Texan who I always held in high regard said, you know, God gave us two ears and one mouth. Use them in proportion. And as a newbie to the watch world, I just want to pull up a table, sit at the the you know, the cool I'm just a freshman. I want to sit at the seniors lunch table and just |
| Stephen Pulvirent | shut up and listen. That's awesome. I love that. Well, you're you're at the table now and talking. People should drop, go to the site, if you're listening to this. Go to the site, drop comments in follow-up questions, whatever, and we can keep the keep the conversation rolling there. I mean, luckily we we''ve gotve got the tools to do it. So even though we're talk you and I are talking via Zoom and I think it's gonna be a little while before we can do you know meetups at bars again. Uh luckily the community is as active as ever and the conversations can uh can keep rolling. Thanks again for having |
| Miles Fisher | me. Thanks for for all you guys do for the community. And uh heck, here's to here's to episode two hundred, three hundred, four hundred. I can't I can't wait. Um, but uh enjoy enjoy the rest of the week, buddy. Thanks so much. Thanks, man. Really appreciate it. |