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When this sweet young man was born, about 32 years ago, I sold my first fancy diamond.
Since then, I was always going against the stream.
When everybody ran right, I went left.
About 15 years ago, after traveling around the world, 100 times around and around,
I decided we have to have a new way of marketing diamonds.
So I started the fancy diamonds internet site.
Fancy color diamonds were at that time a tiny little segment in the industry,
and nobody really even considered to make a website and sell diamonds through the website.
And we sold our first diamond for $80,000 on the website.
I didn't believe it myself.
It took me half an hour to comprehend that it was $80,000 from a client,
from a stone which he never saw - just a picture on the web.
The whole business is a family undertaking and everybody is in it
my five children, my wife, and myself.
The operation is not a family business, but a business for everything.
It's run like a public company, and not like a yiddische laden.
The diamond business is a complicated undertaking.
Only people with a global reach and the ability to produce added value can survive.
There's no more place for brokers.
We buy diamonds worldwide: from India, from Antwerp, from Africa.
We polish, we re-polish, and at the end of the day, we also make jewelry in our own factory.
Only in that way can we reach with a website the final customers, the dealers,
the traders in the best and the cheapest possible way.
The diamond industry is a sentimental business.
It's based on illusion, on mood. The industry is similar to chameleon diamonds.
When the stone is heated it turns orange.
When the situation calms down, it will be a beautiful strong deep green.
We like green pastures. That is our business, green and friendly.