0:00

This BBC podcast is supported by ads

0:02

outside the UK. Listen

0:31

to Against the Rules on the iHeartRadio

0:33

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

0:35

to podcasts. Welcome

0:47

to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World

0:49

Service. Each episode, we pick a billionaire and

0:51

find out how they made their money. And

0:54

then we judge them. Are they good, bad

0:56

or just another billionaire? I'm Simon Jack, the

0:58

BBC's business editor. And I'm Xing Xing, I'm

1:00

a journalist, author and podcaster. This

1:03

is a story of

1:05

a woman, a couple who found a gap

1:07

in the market, a gap in

1:09

the generations... Very good. ...and decided to

1:11

name their store after it. Yes,

1:14

her name is Doris Fisher, and

1:16

with her husband, she founded The

1:18

Gap. Doris Fisher, on her own,

1:20

today, worth $1.5 billion. At

1:23

one point, she was worth over $4 billion. And

1:25

together with her family, she's still worth over $6

1:27

billion. And if you were at

1:29

any point around in the 90s,

1:31

you will have seen that advertising.

1:34

It was everywhere. Yeah, one of

1:36

the most successful clothing brands ever. It

1:38

revolutionised the way the world's shopped and

1:40

dressed. How would you characterise it? You're

1:42

the best dressed person I know. Thank

1:44

you very much. And, well, I guess I

1:46

don't wear The Gap personally, which maybe tells

1:48

you something about the way it's perceived now.

1:51

Because it's all about all

1:53

American basics. So we're talking

1:55

about chinos, t-shirts, polos, jeans,

1:58

usually quite brightly coloured. kind of

2:00

think Ralph Lauren but less aspirational and

2:02

a lot more accessible. And yet

2:05

they started by inventing

2:07

specialty retail. The Gap started

2:09

live selling just jeans and

2:11

records. But Doris Fisher is

2:13

pretty private. Dawn, her co-founder

2:15

and husband less so, but they were equal

2:17

partners in the business which was unusual for

2:19

the 60s. Now it's actually been

2:21

tricky to find out much about Doris specifically.

2:24

Unlike Dawn, who self-published a 724

2:26

page autobiography, Mercifully

2:30

only gave out around 200 copies to family

2:32

and friends. And Dawn is a big part

2:34

of his story, but he's not the focus

2:36

because this podcast focuses on billionaires who are

2:38

still with us. But we can tell

2:40

you one thing Doris did say. I'll tell you

2:42

that I've been successful because I've worked hard. Millions

2:45

of people work hard. That's not quite good enough. That's not

2:47

going to do it, I'm afraid Doris. And

2:49

Dawn and Doris really did seem

2:51

to do everything together. And that

2:54

includes spending serious money on art.

2:56

They amassed a $1 billion art

2:58

collection, which includes over a thousand

3:00

works by 185 artists from Andy

3:02

Warhol to Roy Littenstein. But

3:04

it's been a roller coaster. This wasn't

3:06

linear, unadulterated success. Doris has described

3:08

the Gap as a store with a

3:11

heart. But the last two decades have

3:13

seen the Gap dramatically fall from favour

3:15

amid allegations of sweatshops and child labour.

3:18

So is Doris Fisher good, bad

3:20

or just another billionaire? Let's

3:26

get back to the beginning. Doris Lee Feigenbaum

3:28

was born in 1931 in San Francisco,

3:30

USA. There isn't a huge amount of

3:32

information on her early years, but what

3:35

we can gather is that she was

3:37

born into a well-to-do Jewish family because

3:39

her parents married at the Ritz-Coulton and

3:41

it was announced in the society pages

3:43

of the New York Times. And her

3:45

father was a lawyer and a Republican state

3:47

legislator for California. Doris was the middle

3:49

of three children and she said, She was diligent, she

3:51

was a Girl

4:00

Scout, she started volunteering at 12 years old.

4:02

And she pushed herself to get through school in

4:04

order to graduate with honours. She said, I put

4:07

that same energy into building the gap. She

4:09

must have been smart though, because she graduated, not

4:11

the first of our billionaires to do this, or

4:13

drop out from it, from Stanford University in the

4:15

early 1950s. One of the first

4:18

women to earn an economics degree there. Because

4:20

remember, we're not talking about the 70s or the 80s

4:23

or the 90s. This is someone who

4:25

went to university in the 50s. In

4:28

1953, straight after graduating

4:30

age 22, Doris marries Donald or

4:33

Don Fisher. Now Don was

4:35

actually a long time family friend of Doris.

4:37

He was also from a middle class Jewish

4:39

family in San Francisco. Yeah, he graduated

4:41

with a degree in business administration from

4:43

the University of California Berkeley, despite

4:46

once being caught cheating in an exam

4:48

on industrial relations. So quite a colourful

4:50

character to pair up with Doris, the hard

4:52

working girl made good. The hard working Girl Scout.

4:54

He was also six foot four, three years her

4:56

senior and had been captain of both the swimming

4:59

and water polo team. So quite the jock. Yeah.

5:01

So like many women in 1950s

5:03

America, remember that period, as soon as they got

5:06

married Doris spent the best part of the next

5:08

decade having children. Together they had three sons, Robert in

5:10

54, William in 58 and John in

5:12

1961. And

5:14

while she was raising the boys, Don

5:17

started a commercial real estate business specialising

5:19

in refurbishing old hotels. And this is

5:22

where the Gap's origin story comes in. So

5:24

Don had bought a hotel in Sacramento and

5:27

to make some extra money was leasing out

5:29

one of the ballrooms to a Levi's salesman

5:31

who had used it as a showroom. And

5:33

the 60s were really Levi's decade. Well, they

5:35

continued to be incredibly popular and iconic, but

5:37

the 60s is when they became massive. Yes.

5:40

I mean, Levi's really, I guess you could

5:42

say pioneered the gene. So, you know, sometimes

5:44

you'll see this pair of Levi's genes called

5:46

the 501s. That's actually

5:49

considered the first ever pair of genes in

5:51

history. You know, the founders of Levi's even

5:53

patented it. And the 60s,

5:55

you think back to rock and roll

5:57

stars, they were wearing James Dean. Dean,

6:00

Rebel without a cause. So jeans were really,

6:02

and I know this seems crazy now because

6:04

they are everywhere, they were very much a

6:07

new trendy thing. Yeah, they were sort of

6:09

counter-cultural in a way. They were workwear originally, and

6:11

then they became fashion wear in the 60s. And

6:14

you know, we talk now about workwear being

6:16

a huge trend. You look at brands like,

6:18

for instance, Carhartt. You can talk about people

6:20

wearing Carhartt who have never worked manually but

6:22

a day in their life. But Levi's was

6:24

really the brand that kicked it all off.

6:26

So Levi's were gaining huge popularity. Don himself, Don

6:28

Fisher bought a couple of pairs from the salesman,

6:31

but he couldn't find the right fit. So

6:33

him and Doris began doing some market

6:35

research, and even the big department stores

6:37

like Macy's didn't carry every style, size

6:39

and colour, and they often sold out

6:42

of the most popular ones. So

6:44

this was their light bulb moment, if you

6:46

like. They thought about a one-stop shop that

6:49

brought together every style, every colour, every size

6:51

that Levi Strauss had to offer. Don

6:53

said at the time, I didn't plan to go

6:56

into the clothing business. I just wanted to take

6:58

the nightmare out of shopping for Levi's and to

7:00

offer an easy, well-organized shopping experience that would appeal

7:02

to a guy like me. So he went

7:04

to Levi's with this idea, and

7:07

a guy called Bud Robinson, who was Levi's

7:09

director of advertising, was pretty impressed, and he

7:11

agreed to a novel system of

7:13

supply and inventory. Levi's would

7:15

guarantee every style, and they'd never run

7:17

out of stock by offering overnight daily

7:19

shipments from their warehouse. So in

7:22

August 1969, Don and Doris opened a

7:24

shop of their own. And

7:26

now, really unusually for the time, Doris and Don

7:28

decided to be equal partners, and she said, frankly,

7:30

I would have always assumed that women were getting

7:33

paid the same amount as men. I mean, they

7:35

were doing the same jobs, but back when we

7:37

started Gap, of course they were. That was a

7:39

time when I don't think it occurred to many

7:41

people that women could be leaders. So

7:44

Don and Doris invested $63,000. They each put in 21,000, and the other

7:46

21,000 came from a

7:50

raid on their children's bank accounts, and they promised

7:53

to pay them back one day for the rest.

7:55

And boy did they, and will they. We'll see. So

7:58

when asked why she and Don decided to do that, they said, always

10:00

sell what I was wearing. And the

10:02

Gap is credited with inventing speciality retail.

10:04

Now at the time clothes shopping mostly

10:07

happened in department stores so think of

10:09

places like Macy's which catered to the

10:11

older generation. But the Gap's

10:13

concept was new and fun. The store was

10:15

painted in bright colours, it played rock music.

10:18

They actually soon dropped selling vinyl records because

10:20

as Don said the pants were selling the

10:22

records not the other way around. That's

10:24

a smart spot. They were also

10:26

innovative at merchandising. They would display

10:28

jeans together by size rather

10:31

than by style meaning you could go in

10:33

and shop all the styles easily at once.

10:35

So you know here's my size, here's the

10:37

range available for me. Don said I

10:39

viewed things with the eye of a real estate

10:42

man not a retailer. I always looked for ways

10:44

to get the most square footage to go beyond

10:46

the floor space. I created a honeycomb of cubicles

10:48

on the walls. I'd never seen this done before

10:50

but it seemed so logical I wondered why not.

10:52

So actually when you think about it a lot

10:55

of the things we now associate with a traditional

10:57

retail experience the gap was basically at the forefront

10:59

of it. Yeah all this means the store

11:01

was gaining in popularity. It was helped by a

11:03

big marketing campaign. And according to Bud

11:05

Robinson the guy from Levi's, Don

11:08

had insisted that Levi's pay 50% of

11:10

the store's radio advertising

11:12

up front. That's really interesting. Yeah

11:14

and when you think about how few places

11:17

there were at the time to advertise to

11:19

young people actually demanding that as part

11:21

of the deal is pretty smart. And also

11:23

to this day you sometimes

11:25

see co-marketing where you see

11:28

one brand will be advertising another store. They'll be

11:30

sort of joint marketing. So I think this is

11:32

the first time probably it's ever been done. So

11:35

the radio ads would run on radio

11:37

almost every day and in Bud's words

11:39

bombard every hearing Bay Area teenager and

11:41

surely drive them to the store. And

11:44

just a year after launching they opened a

11:46

second store in San Jose a city close

11:48

to San Francisco and began selling Levi's for

11:50

women. Now by 1971 sales were

11:52

two and a half million dollars but

11:54

net profit was just one hundred and

11:57

sixteen thousand. So the next few years

11:59

they began a big. expansion plan. They opened

12:01

smaller stores to keep rent low. This meant they

12:03

could even open more sites and get their name

12:05

out there. This is the beginning of what in

12:07

retail terms used to be called the space race.

12:09

The space race, the space on the high

12:11

street. Exactly. So by its third anniversary, the

12:13

Gap had 25 stores across the US. It

12:17

was all about convenience and easy shopping. For

12:19

example, stores in New York were placed as

12:21

close as possible to bus stops and big

12:23

retailers to get as much footfall, as many

12:26

people passing as possible. And until

12:28

now, they'd just been stocking Levis.

12:30

But in 1974, they started selling

12:32

Gap-label clothing. So those wardrobe basics

12:35

like cords, chinos, casual shirts, t-shirts.

12:37

So that growth, plus the introduction of their

12:39

own branded clothing, big moment, meant that by

12:42

1975, with 50 stores,

12:44

Gap's net profit was US$4.3 million. And

12:47

as sole owners of the company, it's therefore probably

12:49

safe to say that Doris, at the age of

12:51

44 and Don, at age 47, are millionaires in

12:54

1975. Okay.

12:58

And that year, they spent US$211,000. That's around equal to

13:00

US$1.2 million today to

13:05

buy a summer home 30 miles of San Francisco

13:07

in the town of Atherton. I'm not sure you

13:09

could get the house they bought for US$1.2 million

13:11

today because real estate has also gone up massively

13:13

in the Bay Area. That wouldn't get you a

13:15

broom cupboard these days. No, you'd have to fight 20 different

13:18

programmers to get that kind of space. Now

13:21

over the next three decades, they would spend US$17.5 million to grow

13:23

it into a big eight

13:25

acre estate. And a few years ago, Doris put it on

13:27

the market for 100 million. There we

13:29

go. That's what I was talking about. Although

13:32

it eventually only sold for 50 million. Oh

13:34

dear. So they're millionaires, but how do

13:36

they get to a billion? So the next

13:38

step is taking the company public, but

13:41

it's not going to go as well for them as some

13:43

of our other billionaires. investors

16:00

would have thought. Now the

16:02

SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission,

16:04

actually investigated these complaints but they

16:06

found no criminal wrongdoing. But they

16:08

did say that GAP hadn't released

16:10

all pertinent financial information to their

16:12

investors. Now GAP eventually

16:14

settled with the SEC and subsequently

16:17

also settled the related investor lawsuits

16:19

for a total of $5.8 million.

16:21

Yeah, Mark Cohen,

16:23

Director of Retail Studies at Columbia Business School

16:25

who worked for Don in the late 1970s

16:27

said of that whole Levi's saga, it

16:30

became a big enough problem that GAP

16:32

strategically felt they had to migrate away

16:35

from Levi's. Big moment. And so in

16:37

1978, GAP launches its own in-house jeans,

16:39

although they continue to stop Levi's. But

16:41

people were starting to wonder if the

16:44

GAP was really destined for success. By

16:46

the beginning of the 1980s, they had

16:48

over 300 stores. But what had initially

16:51

been its strength, the narrow assortment of

16:53

things on offer and targeted

16:55

custom base was beginning to look like a bit

16:57

of a weakness. So the question was, would the

16:59

store age with them or would they keep targeting

17:01

young people? And by the end of the 1970s,

17:03

a cultural change was

17:06

in the air again. And over the early

17:08

80s, the GAP's fortunes started to go down.

17:10

And I remember this, I was around in

17:12

the 80s, believe it or not. Well, you

17:14

probably do believe that the casual look without.

17:17

This was the era of power dressing, Wall

17:19

Street suits, big shoulder pads, big hair,

17:21

big hair, huge hair. And on top

17:23

of that, department stores have begun to

17:25

get their act together. They offered several

17:27

specialty outlets under one roof. And Don

17:29

and Doris went both now in their

17:32

50s. So, you know, they needed to

17:34

move with the times and make some

17:36

big changes. Their first gamble is purchasing

17:38

clothing company Banana Republic in 1983. I

17:40

was a Banana Republic customer, I'm sad to

17:42

say. It sold sort of safari and travel

17:45

style clothes. It made you look like a

17:47

kind of casual Indiana Jones. Right. I would

17:49

love to see a picture of you from

17:51

this time. I'm imagining safari chinos in the

17:54

hat. Yes. That look was

17:56

popular. They began a big expansion program

17:58

of Banana Republic, opened dozens of stores.

18:00

But within a few years, unfortunately for

18:02

Simon in the 80s, the safari look

18:04

was no longer in style and Banana

18:06

Republic was starting to struggle. So they also

18:08

had a go at buying something else. They bought

18:11

a homeware business called Pottery Barn, but they sold

18:13

it within two years after absorbing $14 million in

18:15

losses. And Don said that

18:17

the failure was an important lesson. He said, I

18:19

decided I would never again get involved with a

18:21

business I didn't already know and understand, which is

18:23

quite a different attitude to some of our other

18:25

billionaires. That's true, yes. Usually they

18:28

think the rest of the world is totally wrong when they're

18:30

completely right and they'll keep going until they're proved right. So

18:33

their next move was important though, because there was a

18:35

little touch of humility, I think, which came in here

18:37

and realising they didn't know everything. But they were in

18:39

their 50s, they were in the fashion business. You could

18:41

argue this is a younger person's game, so they found

18:44

one. So they did. They hired

18:46

a man who would become known as the

18:48

Merchant Prince and the man who dressed America.

18:50

Yeah. Retail expert Mickey Drexler was a

18:53

39 year old from the Bronx where

18:55

he had to sleep in the foyer

18:57

of his family's apartment. So he doesn't

18:59

come from much, but he was known for

19:01

his take no prisoners management style and over

19:03

the years he would actually often clash with

19:05

Don and Doris. So he was given

19:07

a senior role as president of Gap stores

19:09

and he set about overhauling their entire image.

19:11

He spent $8 million to remodel 500 stores.

19:13

That sounds pretty cheap to remodel 500 stores.

19:16

He painted them all white with wood floors

19:18

polished twice a week and gave it a

19:20

fresh, clean look. That's the Gap I think

19:22

we would all recognise. He slashed

19:24

prices to sell off old merchandise so he

19:26

could introduce new lines of clothing. And

19:29

initially the markets were not into it. So

19:31

profits and the company's stock initially plunged, but

19:33

Mickey Drexler had a vision and he stuck

19:35

with it. And he described the clothes

19:37

he was going for as not high-risk fashion, but

19:40

good taste, good style. Not too far to the

19:42

left, not too far to the right. And

19:44

they focused on casual, cool basics. So you

19:47

know, those khakis, jeans, t-shirts. But he also

19:49

added a wider range of styles and all

19:51

in an extensive colour range. And that kind

19:53

of range of colour, I think, is one

19:55

of the most distinctive things about the Gap

19:57

now. It's things like the classic pocket

19:59

tee. shirt that was a big hit and

20:01

in 1985 it was worn by both Mick

20:03

Jagger who was performing at Live Aid and

20:05

Martyn McFly and Back to the Future so

20:07

it's an 80s icon. And they

20:10

more than doubled the number of stars for

20:12

women adding things like blouses and dresses. And

20:14

because their original custom based the baby

20:17

boomers were now becoming parents themselves they

20:19

also launched Gap Kids followed a few

20:21

years later by Baby Gap. And they

20:23

also expanded outside the US so they

20:25

opened several stores in London, England and

20:27

a store in Vancouver, Canada. But their

20:30

rapid expansion and the impressive work ethic

20:32

that the Fishers cultivated led one British

20:34

retail consultant to say they

20:36

were the most anal people I have

20:38

ever met comparing the Gap to the

20:40

Moonies which is a common nickname for

20:42

the leaders of the South Korean religious

20:45

group the Unification Church. They also

20:47

revamped Banana Republic so they got rid of

20:49

that safari theme and they brought in sportswear.

20:52

Mickey's plan was working. The New York Times

20:54

at the time called it one of the

20:56

most remarkable turnarounds in retailing history. So

20:58

by 1987 Don and Doris's net worth

21:00

had reached $500 million so

21:03

they're officially halfway to a billion. And

21:05

at the end of the 1980s they brought in the navy

21:08

and white square Gap logo. That was

21:10

launched so the brand was ready for

21:12

its heyday, the 1990s. Now

21:15

enter 1991. Gap Inc as it's called has 950 stores with $2

21:17

billion in sales. It's the second best-selling

21:23

brand in American clothing after their old

21:25

partner's Levi Strauss. And that was

21:27

a year they also stopped selling Levi's and

21:29

at the time both companies said it was

21:32

a mutual breakup although in his autobiography Don

21:34

said that Levi's actually dumped them first. He

21:36

said, I clearly understood how much they feared

21:38

the Gap label a serious competition to the

21:41

Levi brand. And that's interesting so

21:43

from being a reseller essentially of

21:45

Levi's stuff, a retail outlet

21:47

for Levi's, Levi's were now fearing

21:49

the Gap label was going to be a

21:51

serious competitor to the Levi brand itself. And

21:54

as we'll see they were right. That was the

21:56

same year that Doris and Don are first listed

21:58

together as billionaires by fraud. Fortune magazine worth $1.9

22:01

billion with a nearly 41% shareholding of the Gap.

22:05

So Doris and Don are officially billionaires, she

22:08

at the age of 60 and

22:10

him at age 63. So

22:24

how do we go beyond a billion?

22:26

The 1990s is considered by many to

22:28

be Gap's best decade it was one

22:30

of almost total commercial and

22:32

even cultural domination. It was a big cultural thing

22:34

as well. It was a huge cultural

22:36

force and actually you can tell because for

22:38

the front cover of US Vogue's 100th

22:41

anniversary issue, so this is a really really

22:43

big deal, they got 10 supermodels and that

22:45

includes models who are called the supers, you

22:47

know people like Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia

22:49

Schiffer and they were all put in white

22:51

jeans from the Gap and shirts. So that

22:53

tells you a little bit about how cool

22:55

the Gap was considered at the time. Sharon

22:57

Stone wore a $25 Gap black tie. They

23:00

were a turtleneck to the Oscars and they were even

23:02

satirised on Saturday Night Live,

23:04

a famous satirical show in the US.

23:06

The skit featured Adam Sandler, David Spade

23:08

and Chris Farley as Gap girls. Don

23:10

and Doris thought this was great, they thought it was the

23:12

ultimate compliment. And the New York

23:15

Times article from the 90s said this about

23:17

the Gap, as ubiquitous as McDonald's, as

23:19

centrally managed as the former Soviet Union and

23:21

as American as Mickey Mouse, the Gap Inc

23:23

has you covered from the cradle to

23:25

the grave? I've got a feeling that

23:28

the seeds of the demise of the Gap are

23:30

being sown with editorials like that because when you

23:32

go on the cover of the 100th anniversary of

23:34

Vogue and everyone's wearing your stuff, the

23:36

only way is down. But they didn't

23:38

rest on their laurels. In 1994, they founded a new

23:41

startup brand selling lower price clothes to compete

23:43

with the popularity of the rise of discount

23:46

stores, things like TK Maxx, TJ Maxx in

23:48

the US. Now this was actually Mickey's

23:50

idea and it was originally called Gap Warehouse

23:52

but Don was concerned it would negatively impact

23:54

the profit margins of the Gap. Yeah,

23:56

why would you go to the Gap when you can get the cheapest

23:58

stuff at Gap Warehouse? Exactly. So they changed the

24:01

name of it. To distinguish it from that,

24:03

they changed the name to Old Navy, apparently

24:05

after a bar Mickey had seen in Paris.

24:07

And Mickey's bet was right. Old

24:09

Navy was the first retailer to make a

24:11

billion dollars in under four years. And

24:13

within ten years, Old Navy had a staggering 800

24:15

stores. And

24:17

perhaps because of the success of Old Navy,

24:20

in 1995, Mickey took over from Don Fisher as

24:23

Chief Executive of Gap, Inc. with Don

24:25

remaining as President. And by the end

24:27

of the decade, Gap, Inc.'s net profit was over

24:29

$1 billion. So Doris

24:32

and Don's wealth was now listed separately by

24:34

Forbes. They were each worth $4.3 billion, making

24:38

them the joint 92nd richest people

24:40

in the world. So they're sitting

24:42

pretty on the billionaire list, but fashion really

24:45

is a cruel mistress because the Gap was

24:47

about to go out of fashion. It

24:49

had been founded on rebellious youth

24:52

culture during the summer of love,

24:54

but it was now seen as

24:56

a corporate giant. It was known

24:58

for blandness, ubiquitous consumerism, basically boring.

25:00

Basically boring, bland and tasteless.

25:03

So actually, if you watched the

25:05

popular Gen X film Reality Bites

25:07

with Winona Ryder, it actually

25:10

portrayed working at the Gap as the ultimate sellout

25:12

job. And in the 90s, there was no bigger

25:14

insult than saying you were a sellout. Yeah.

25:16

Even Joey, the character in Friends, was

25:18

disgusted when he sees Ross sporting the

25:20

same Gap shirt as him in a

25:22

2004 episode of Friends and he moans,

25:25

stupid Gap on every corner. So

25:27

it turns out that actually having hundreds

25:29

of stores and being that ubiquitous, in

25:31

fashion at least, works against you. It

25:33

ultimately always does. There's always going to be something

25:36

new and the people first to fall are the

25:38

edifices, right? Exactly. So if you want

25:40

to stay popular, you have to continuously reinvent

25:42

yourself to stay relevant. And Gap

25:45

at this point hasn't really expanded its

25:47

offering or made any interesting pivots into

25:49

anything else. That is why I think

25:51

partly it began its descent. Yeah. And

25:53

also at this time, they were also getting some

25:56

bad press over the conditions of workers making their

25:58

clothes in developing countries, including the US. of child

26:00

labour. Now we should say the company

26:02

responded over the next few years by putting

26:04

in place systems to eliminate such practices, although

26:06

it won't be the first or last time

26:08

they're found to have used child labour. Or

26:10

the only company to have had those problems.

26:12

It's been a widespread problem in the clothing

26:14

industry. But unfortunately the damage had

26:17

been done. The gap was seen

26:19

as a symbol of consumerism and

26:21

the damaging effects of globalisation. And that

26:23

showed up in the profits. They started to plummet. From 1

26:25

billion in 1999, it made 875 million in 2000 and just

26:27

475 million, so

26:32

half of that in 2002. All

26:35

this meant that Mickey was replaced as CEO in

26:37

2002. The board said he stepped down, but Mickey

26:40

has repeatedly said that he was fired. He said,

26:42

Don and I would both agree that it didn't

26:44

end pretty, but we had a hell of a

26:46

run together building a really great company. But

26:48

it was the end of an era.

26:51

That dynamic threesome of Don, Doris and

26:53

Mickey that had proved so successful was

26:55

now over. Now don't feel too

26:57

sad for Mickey because he went on to

26:59

become the chairman and CEO of J Crew,

27:02

another big American retail giant. And he kept

27:04

his colourful character over there. He would got

27:06

a Tanoi system installed in the office to

27:08

blast his comms out to staff a dozen

27:10

times a day, which included musings on sales,

27:13

moccasins, Lady Gaga and the weather. But

27:15

the staff loved that. Back to the Fishers

27:17

though. In 2003, Doris stepped down as chief merchandiser

27:20

aged 72 and a year later, Don

27:23

stepped down as chairman aged 76 to

27:25

be succeeded by their son, Bob. And Don

27:27

and Doris also transferred control of half

27:29

of the 19% stake in the company to

27:32

their three sons. Both Doris and

27:34

Don remained members of the board and never

27:36

missed a board meeting until Unfortunately,

27:39

in 2009, Doris lost Don. He died at

27:41

home in San Francisco from cancer at the

27:43

age of 81. At that time,

27:45

sales at Gap were down, but they were

27:48

still a staggering $15 billion. They

27:51

employed more than 134,000 people in over 3,000 stores across 25 countries. Quite

27:58

the thing. And earlier that year, Forbes had

28:00

still listed the Fisher family on their rich

28:02

list as being worth $4.9 billion. Well,

28:05

since then, a lot of people listening will

28:07

know the story Gap struggles on, but it

28:09

never returned to the heights of its 1990s

28:12

heyday. In

28:14

2019, the Fisher family lost a billion dollars

28:16

in under a year as Gap Inc stock

28:18

plummeted. Doris, by the way, still owns 6.1%

28:21

and her sons have just under 30%. Yeah,

28:24

so what happens to Gap then? We've talked

28:26

a little bit about how they became a

28:28

symbol of globalism,

28:30

consumerism, exploitation, just

28:33

boringness. And as

28:35

always in fashion, the competition never sits still.

28:38

Yep. There was just simply too much

28:40

competition from other cheap, casual clothing lines.

28:42

You know, we think about companies like

28:44

Inditex, which owns Zara, H&M. You know,

28:46

you've also got the rise of supermarket

28:49

clothing brands. In the UK, for instance,

28:51

we've got supermarkets like Asda creating their

28:53

own fashion. Yeah. And you've also got,

28:55

of course, the likes of ASOS and

28:57

what have you. The crushing rise of

28:59

online retail. Yes. And the rise

29:01

of don't forget fast fashion, which continuously

29:03

pumps out new lines of clothing and

29:06

new styles. Yeah. Now,

29:08

in spite of the fall of the Gap,

29:10

the house of Gap, the Fisher family itself

29:12

are still all billionaires. So together Doris's three

29:14

sons are worth $6.1 billion. And

29:17

Doris aged 93 on her own

29:19

is worth $1.5 billion.

29:21

And she still serves as honorary lifetime

29:23

director on the board of Gap Inc

29:26

at 93 years old. So

29:28

a woman whose life has spanned the summer

29:30

of love to the power decade

29:32

of the 80s, to the 90s,

29:35

to now and still a billionaire. Incredible, really. And

29:37

actually what was interesting is that they

29:40

were quite a bit older than their target market

29:42

throughout. And she's still on the board at 93.

29:44

So got staying pay. You've

29:46

got to give her that. Yeah. Even though the

29:48

fall from grace has been pretty steep, if

29:51

you're able to sell to people half your

29:53

age in fashion, I mean, we've got to give

29:55

her props for that. So let us judge

29:57

93 year old Doris Fisher worth.

32:00

the first place. I think what we've

32:02

proved on this podcast is that going to Stanford

32:04

or getting in and then dropping out is literally

32:06

a license to print money. Well,

32:08

if you're an A level student or an 18

32:10

year old wondering where to go to university and

32:12

you want to make a lot of money, think

32:14

about Stanford. Spoiler alert, it costs about $100,000 a year to go there.

32:19

So I think Doris would probably be well

32:21

placed to afford that given that she didn't

32:23

have a particularly working class background.

32:25

Fine. So rags to riches low, I

32:27

would say. She'd get pretty rich,

32:29

but she's not like hundreds of billions like some of ours.

32:31

So I'm going to give her a four.

32:34

Yeah, I think I'll give her a four out of 10 as well.

32:38

Okay. Villainy, what have they done to get to the top?

32:40

Who have they done over? What sharp moves have they made?

32:42

Well, some of the stories that have come

32:45

out around workers' conditions for the gap in

32:47

their outsourced factories are really bad.

32:49

So in 1999, the

32:51

independent newspaper reported Chinese workers

32:53

making gap clothing were forced

32:55

to have abortions. In 2000,

32:57

the BBC Panorama programme uncovered sweatshot

32:59

working conditions and child labour at

33:02

textiles factories in Cambodia. And

33:05

in 2004, Gap released its first

33:07

social responsibility report and admitted to

33:09

widespread problems including child labour violations

33:11

and unsafe machinery in factories that

33:13

used around the world. So

33:16

the Gap responded to some of

33:18

these discoveries, these exposés by terminating

33:20

contracts with scores of factories. But

33:23

in 2007, the Observer filmed a 10-year-old boy making

33:26

gap clothes who said he'd been working for four

33:28

months without pay, while another 12-year-old boy said he

33:30

was beaten if bosses thought they were not working

33:32

hard enough. And at the time, a Gap

33:34

spokesperson said, we have a strict prohibition on child

33:36

labour and we are taking this very

33:39

seriously. Now there's no defence to

33:41

this, but it should be noted that

33:44

lots of clothing manufacturers have had

33:46

similar problems in basically ironing out

33:48

or being vigilant enough or auditing

33:50

sufficiently their supply chain because often

33:53

they'll have contracts with independent contractors

33:55

in countries where they have got

33:57

very little oversight and visibility. that

34:00

generally is improving through the industry, but the

34:02

gap is not alone in having these problems.

34:04

No. So how should we judge them for

34:07

this kind of oversight? Like you say, a

34:09

lot of clothing companies forefile of this as

34:11

well. Yeah. I think

34:13

they are probably middle of the pack when

34:16

it comes to oversight of this. There are

34:18

worse examples of Primark factory, for example, collapse,

34:20

killing dozens of Bangladeshi workers. So

34:22

I think they're middle of the pack in this area.

34:26

On Villainy, the other things we talk about are

34:28

Villainy, what did they do to their

34:31

colleagues, their business partners. And on

34:33

the colleagues and business partners, there's

34:35

nothing outstanding, it seems to me, from

34:38

their story that they were particularly ruthless

34:40

or villainous. No. I mean, the

34:42

person you'd look at is how they treated Mickey

34:44

though. And he still seemed, even though he said

34:46

he'd been fired, to have looked back on his

34:48

time at the gap relatively fondly. I got

34:50

the feeling in the end, there were no hard

34:53

feelings there. We had a good run, we clashed

34:55

a few times, it didn't end very well, but

34:57

that's life. I think

34:59

also the gap, maybe when

35:01

we look back on all of this, maybe

35:03

one of the first brands to be considered

35:06

part of the fast fashion wave. So you

35:08

know that trend of cheap, accessible clothing, you

35:10

can buy a white t-shirt and you can

35:12

buy another one a week later because it's

35:14

so cheap. It's funny, I don't associate

35:16

gap with fast fashion. I associate them

35:18

with kind of basics you

35:21

don't have to replace because they're so plain,

35:23

they're so ubiquitous. They're the kind of basics

35:25

that you just have in your wardrobe, like

35:27

a t-shirt, which actually lasts quite a long

35:29

time. That's interesting. Maybe this

35:32

is the generation gap, the gap

35:34

spotted in the market. The gap squared. Yeah.

35:37

Inception gap. Okay,

35:41

so Villainy, I'm going to say I'm going to

35:43

go less than average, I would say on this

35:45

one. So I'm

35:47

going to go for a three. Oh wow,

35:49

okay. I'm going to go for a six out of

35:52

ten actually. Wow, this is a big divergence. Yeah.

35:54

The biggest divergence of pin we've almost ever had

35:57

that could begin the generation gap.

35:59

Exactly. Philanthropy.

36:01

So how much have they given away? What have they

36:03

done for society and communities in which they work? So

36:06

they started the Gap Foundation in 1977, the

36:09

year after the Gap went public. At

36:11

the time of Don's death, it's actually

36:13

donated more than $100 million to various

36:15

causes. They're interested in education. Doris

36:17

and Don use quite a lot of their

36:19

wealth and resources supporting US charter schools, which

36:22

are schools that are publicly funded but independently

36:24

run. And they've donated $100 million of their

36:26

own money to that. Now it's

36:28

worth noting that charter schools are also the

36:30

subject of quite a lot of criticism. So

36:33

in the past, they've denied enrollment to low

36:35

performing and other potentially in inverted

36:38

commas undesirable students. They've also

36:40

suspended African-American and disabled students

36:42

at higher rates than traditional

36:44

schools. So what credit you

36:46

give them for their donations to charter schools will

36:49

depend very heavily on what you think of charter

36:51

schools. But philanthropy is clearly important to

36:53

Doris. She said, somebody put my age play bridge

36:55

all day, but I love the work I do

36:57

in our communities. I love being able to help

36:59

people who have fewer opportunities. My family and our

37:01

employers are that way too. It makes me proud

37:03

to see and hear about things they do to

37:05

help other people. Tricky

37:07

one. Tricky one, this. I feel like I'm tempted

37:10

to go straight down the middle and give them a five out

37:12

of 10 for this. I'm going to go lower than that.

37:14

I think one of the things that offend me is people

37:16

who spend things

37:18

on their own pet projects. For

37:20

example, charter schools are pet projects, which not everyone

37:22

agrees with. So I think they get no marks

37:24

for that for me. That leads a hundred million

37:27

to various courses from the GATT Foundation. And also

37:29

when you compare that to the $1.1 billion

37:31

they spent on their own art collection, they

37:34

get a three from me. That is very true,

37:36

actually. I think maybe for the first time you're going to convince me

37:38

to go down to three. Yes. I

37:40

finally convinced you rather than the other way around. This

37:43

is a first. So now

37:45

we come to power. How much power does

37:47

Doris Fisher and Don when he was alive

37:49

wield? Well, they're

37:52

both Republicans and prominent political

37:54

donors. They were financial backers

37:56

of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

37:58

and President George W Bush.

38:01

But they also donate across the political

38:03

divide. They've donated to democratic senator Dianne

38:05

Feinstein and the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

38:08

I just love the way rich people do that in

38:10

America. They back both horses in the race. Yeah. They

38:12

spread their bets. They hedge the bets. Well,

38:14

Forbes also reported that Doris was among

38:16

20 billionaires who were part of a

38:18

dark money group in inverted commas that

38:21

opposed Barack Obama's election campaign in 2012.

38:23

Along with her sons, she

38:25

donated nearly nine million to the

38:27

group called Americans for Job Security. So she's

38:30

in the weeds. You know, she's in there

38:32

in the political circles. I

38:35

wouldn't say that she's a particularly powerful figure. No,

38:37

because I guess you have to put

38:39

it into context of the fact that

38:41

political donors in America are spending silly

38:44

amounts of money. Millions, billions. Everyone

38:46

who's rich in America pretty much is a

38:48

political donor. Everyone. And she's nowhere near

38:50

the level of other billionaires we've covered, like

38:53

Sam Bankman Fried, who was donating way

38:55

more than that, millions and millions to the

38:57

Democrats or Elon Musk, who said he was

38:59

going to, for example, to bring it right

39:01

up to date, was going to give 50

39:03

million dollars a month to

39:06

President Trump's reelection campaign. So

39:09

not in that category at all. And obviously doesn't

39:11

also own a global website where you can publish

39:13

your own opinions. If Doris tried

39:15

to call the White House right now, they would say,

39:17

are you calling to give me fashion

39:19

advice? I think they'd say, please hold the

39:21

line. We'll get back to you. Yeah, I think Power,

39:24

I would give him a two. Yeah,

39:26

I think Power, she would score unfortunately quite

39:28

lowly. So two out of ten. But not

39:30

legacy. I think the gap is quite an interesting

39:32

story, right? It's right up there. It

39:34

really is. And I think in the

39:36

90s, at least you could say that

39:39

the gap was one of those all

39:41

American brands that were completely ubiquitous, you

39:43

know, brands like you would now say

39:45

things like Apple, Google, Levi's, McDonald's, McDonald's

39:47

at the time gap was right up

39:49

there. Yeah. It was a cultural export to the

39:51

rest of the world as well. There was, you know,

39:53

what does America look like? When you said what does

39:56

America look like? It looked a bit like the gap.

39:58

It looked a bit like the gap campaigns. happy,

40:01

smiling, multicultural families

40:03

wearing colourful clothing on a white background.

40:05

You can basically see the campaign as. I

40:08

can see that campaign in my mind's eye and

40:10

that's quite a powerful legacy. So I would score

40:12

them high on legacy. Also a sanitary tale about

40:15

how when you become too big and

40:17

too ubiquitous and too kind of all-encompassing,

40:19

when it comes to fashion, you've got a massive target on

40:22

your back as well. It's interesting that fashion

40:24

is one of those field industries where the

40:26

phrase too big to fail doesn't come in.

40:28

It's really interesting. It's not like Google, for

40:30

example, you know, breaking Google stranglehold on search

40:32

engines has proved almost impossible. We'll see whether

40:35

chat GPT can do that. But

40:37

bringing down a fashion giant like Gap and

40:39

saying that that's not for turning that can

40:41

happen overnight almost. And it's interesting to

40:43

think that other billionaires we've covered like Bernard Arnaud

40:45

are in fashion. But the

40:47

reason why they've become so rich is

40:50

because they've kind of spread their risk

40:52

across several different massive clothing brands. Bernard

40:54

Arnaud and his empire is a house of

40:56

brands rather than the brand in itself. So

40:59

the Gap in terms of legacy, I think

41:02

is a really interesting one. I would actually

41:04

score it really highly. I'd say even an

41:06

eight or nine out of ten. I agree. I'm going to

41:08

go eight, definitely. So finally we

41:10

come to the ultimate judgment. Is

41:12

Doris Fisher good, bad or just

41:14

another billionaire? This one's

41:16

pretty easy for me. She's just another

41:19

billionaire. You know, there's nothing particularly good

41:21

about the story. There's nothing particularly bad

41:23

about the story, about her. It's interesting

41:25

that she clothed America and gave us

41:27

a vision of what America looked like.

41:30

And that eventually was bound to crumble

41:32

at some point. But I don't

41:34

think I can put her in the good or bad category.

41:36

She's just got a very nice art collection and she is

41:38

just another billionaire. I'm going to agree with you.

41:40

For me, she's just another billionaire. I mean, maybe

41:43

the corporate blandness of Gap has

41:45

kind of seeped into my judgment.

41:47

So you find that almost offensive. I

41:51

think that, and maybe this is very much a product

41:53

of being in the 21st century, I think

41:56

that there's no longer a way that any one

41:58

company can dominate the visual. aesthetic of a generation

42:00

in the same way that GAP has done. I

42:03

think that even Levi's have

42:05

had to innovate and change their image repeatedly

42:07

and continuously, and GAP never managed to do

42:09

that. So for me, she is just another

42:11

billionaire. Okay. That was a fascinating critique

42:14

of, what do you say, Neville, dominate the

42:16

aesthetic of a generation ever again? Watch

42:19

this space. Maybe

42:21

there's another, yeah, maybe another GAP will appear in

42:23

the market. And

42:31

for our last of the current series, Good

42:33

Bad Billionaires, Sad Times, who are we going

42:36

to end with? We've got none other

42:38

than the man who has been called the

42:40

dungeon master for reasons that will become very

42:42

clear in the episode. For me, one of

42:45

the smartest, most odd people

42:47

I've ever interviewed, his fingerprints are

42:49

all over some of the biggest

42:51

tech companies that we've discussed. His

42:53

story links in with many others,

42:55

including Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and

42:57

Donald Trump. Oh, that's right. It

43:00

is Peter Thiel, angel investor

43:02

in Facebook, seemingly an

43:04

enemy of government democracy, but also

43:07

has some lucrative contracts for them too. Good

43:10

Bad Billionaire was produced by Hannah Hufford

43:12

and Louise Morris with additional production support

43:14

from Emma Betteridge. James Cook is the

43:16

editor and it's a BBC Studios production

43:18

for BBC World Service. For the

43:20

BBC World Service and the podcast commissioning editor

43:23

is John Manel. Hey

43:43

there, it's Michael Lewis, author of Going Infinite,

43:45

Moneyball, The Blind Side, and Liars Poker. On

43:47

the latest season of my podcast against the

43:49

rules, I'm exploring what it means to be

43:52

a sports fan in America and

43:54

what the rise of sports betting is doing

43:56

to our teams, our states, and ourselves. Join

43:59

me and listen to a game. Against the Rules on America's

44:01

number one podcast network, iHeart. Open

44:04

your free iHeart app and search Against

44:06

the Rules. Listen to

44:08

Against the Rules on the iHeart Radio app,

44:10

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

44:12

podcasts.