Watch Industry Legend Jean-Claude Biver | House Of Craft

I must say that when I see all the faces I know now why I didn't retire because how can anybody retire from a passion I don't know our economy and the gender inequality will catch up as a brand we better be prepared for that last time I saw you you were actually talking about watches that belong to your father yeah this is all your fault yeah you guys I said it in the video and my intro thanks for bringing it up but this is all your fault I didn't care about Watchers until you guys put all these videos gaming the algorithm pretty much yeah I must say that when I see all the faces all the smiling eyes I know now why I didn't retire it it would have been a real shame to retire and by the way I'm totally and the French they will not necessarily like me but I'm against the retirement too early I'm for the retirement but late um because how can anybody retire from a passion I don't know we must make analyzes with psychologist what does it mean how can you retire from love how can you retire from a passion and I thought that I could retire at 80 from the passion because I didn't know that I had a passion I had been used to work in the watch business for more than 50 years without knowing that it was a deep passion that has helped me to stay alive and it's only when I left my passion that I suddenly had the idea the The Sensation that I was dead because no passion no life and that is terrible and since then I said I have two possibilities possibility number one I call as I did in the past with Mr Hayek I call Mr Arno and say Mr Arno I'm sorry I made a mistake I should not have sold but what is sold is sold but I would like to work I don't I want to sell my company but I want still to work in the company or I can eventually buy a brand and with my son Pier we decided that we could have a brand just with my name name and this name has a certain value it will not help us to become a billionaire but it has little value because it's the a good name for a start for the startup so we decided we would take my name but not my first name because my name is Jean clae and I said we cannot put Jean Claude Beaver because what's about you Pierre when I'm not there anymore I'm still alive for maybe 20 years yeah a little bit more even uh but because my mother is 75 uh 95 it's the excitement you know so I decided because I saw that my son had a a real passion for collector for collecting Watchers and he is better than me he knows much more about the history he knows more about uh the watchmaking art of the beginning of this Century I know a little bit more about collecting and he knows more about the history and all the different events that happened so I said and my wife was Furious because I said to my son stop the university come with me you will learn more by coming and being my assistant than being at the University and she said no no no no our son will do the university and my son said Papa you are right of course and he stopped to study he left the university he was in the second year of of his uh doctorate and we started to work on the name and I'm very pleased that today I have the opportunity to see all of you and also to talk with you and to tell you some Secrets you've talked about you talked about in talking watches the the experience that you had at AP to learn first and I think your career is pretty well known that that year of learning but I'm curious how that sort of informed your perspective on collecting on craftsmanship on the craft of of what you have built as a collection and then sold and then rebuilt over the years I mean where where did that start with ap what did you learn the the the B of AP M go he said to me as you are a young student you don't know anything about the watchmaking art you I can I can offer you a position but before you take the position you must learn about the cheese about the trees about the grass about the snow it means about the people because as long as you don't understand the people you will not understand the art and I said what the hell is he telling me because I was young and I was not used to that I thought I could immediately start and I could travel and I could sell and I could and he said no you must study during 8 nine months what are the characters what are the characteristic of watch maker why do they live where they are now how come they developed all these skills how come that the farmer who is used to cows is suddenly becoming a guy that Masters a 100 of a millimeter with his same finger the fingers of the miracle we were telling we were saying in those days because the fingers that were milking the cows they were also capable to work on a tenth of a millimeter the fingers of the Miracles and he said you're going to learn all this and in order to learn you must first look because Through The Eyes the earthart will enter into your blood because they must find an entry point and the entry point will be the eyes and you will sit next to each watchmaker for 6 to 8 months just to look what they are doing why and smelling because in a in a in a watch company there is a special smell there is a special air because as the watch makers are not moving much the heat is very un usual 25 26° Fahrenheit and there is a certain thickness of the air you will learn all this and you will play football with the team the watchmaker team you will ski with them you will go to the forest you will know every every bird that sings you will be able to know you will know the mushrooms as long as you have not made the you will not become a good Ambassador for us I said D I said to my incredible I think I can join he's talking about the mushroom about the Christmas trees the guy is crazy and she said no no no no go go go she was happy that I could leave so that's how I started and this is the biggest privilege or one of the biggest privilege I got in my life to have six I don't remember how much it was six or seven months H and he said as you are going to learn I will pay you only half salary six or seven month but I had I think I got an enormous privilege because I understood where does the watchmaking art come from why from there and why not from Zurich or from Geneva why from this Valley what's what's special there so I was I got the instruction from the from the base on I understood from the basic side and so after six months when I sold AP I never showed the watch and the German uh retailer the president of the association of the German retailers said there is a lunatic coming to visit you probably you will notice he comes with no watches because I said to myself I was so much Enthusiast I was so much driven by Passion I said I can I I have to talk I have to explain once I have explained I will show the watch but that will only be the second part of my show the first part is I explain so people get conscious and then the second part is now I show you what I told you and and I became very not very I became immediately uh famous in Germany because people were telling that's the guy who comes with no Watchers and that's exactly what I wanted because each time I showed the watch the tension G was gone on the watch and nobody listen anymore to me so I said the best way that people listen to me I show no address so that was my start and from that day on I have never left this business I I have never left and now I am even back nearly back to the valley D because the atellier of my today's brand it's 8 kilometers from there so I am suddenly at the end of my life I am back to the beginning of my life and that is the biggest privilege that I can end my life where I started it wow the 12:00 you know uh can I just interject for one second how great is this guy yeah so it it's been a few years since you and I have have shared a stage we did it at at our hinki 10 anniversary we did it on on YouTube for uh talking watches when when if I may say you were introduced at the time you were running hublo which if I may say at the time the hinki crowd was not necessarily a big fan of if I can say that and and so instead we talked about we had a A Min repeating hublo number one I believe or maybe number double Zer I forget and you had a wide collection of PCH phips uh and that I think uh it in at least in Our Little World which is a bubble if if I may say changed the perception of you as a watch guy because you were buying 2499 and and world times and only watch pieces which I think one of them belongs to Pierre now um which is a nice gift for us on by the way um and how has your collecting of pek and other great Brands really informed what you're doing with with your own brand and then also I think because people love this people can't believe it but what was AP like back then how many watches were you selling I know those are two very different questions but I think fun questions so um AP was a very small brand yeah and I I started at AP in 1973 which means I missed the lounge of the royal o yeah I came a few months later but when I joined AP the Royal was a real problem and Mr gou uh told us we must uh convince the world that a sporty watch with screws water resistant uh made in steel is still a luxury watch we must give to the uh metal of Steel we must give to this to the steel their noble noble feeling and he said and explain to the people that if the watch is in gold or if the watch is in steel the craftsmanship and the hands and the fingers are the same it doesn't it doesn't change it's just the material so we were in that stage explaining because everybody said why do you do in steel why water resist and nobody goes with such a watch in into water and we he said no so Mr go had a real vision of the future of not him of the future of the industry because the most successful Brands today are dayona uh uh patc Philip nus the r this is all the riog style and I remember because I was there when Geral Genta was was a a consultant for AP in those days and Gerald always said about when we complained about the Nautilus and we said come on you are close to us uh you took Inspirations okay you know we were also right to say that even if it was not true but he said something incredible he said listen young people I will now tell you how I made your the naus I took a Royal Oak and I have put it thousand years into the sea near near into the sand of the sea and during Thousand Years wow wow and suddenly it became round soft and that's the work of the time so now from now on you stop telling me that I took inspiration it's the work of the sea and I think this story is incredible I never dared telling this story because it's like if I would advertise AP now Pat but it's it's such a good illustration and that is jenta that is how he always interpretated is like this the the bracelets our bracelets in those days they were shiny and they were very hard they the the test was you take the watch and the watch the the strap is like that and he always said the strap must fall down because the strap must be smooth and the strap must be very flexible and as long as you have your stiff polish straps that's not what you have to do so you see I got really instruction I I got so much from the these days that's why I think I have the biggest privilege and I want to give this privilege back to my son because I tell him all these little stories I show him and I hope he will succeed me he will be better than me he's on the way by he's on the way to do better than me and that is my biggest hope because at the end the duty of a papa is to bring his son to a level that is above the papa if your son is below you God damn must be a tragedy the sun must always be better than yourself so that I I answered maybe one question and the second one I what was the question again well I mean you started you started to answer it which was how how that experience has informed what you're doing with the brand now and working with Pierre Mr Phillip St asked me one day why do you collect so many pic because I was from time to time against him because I was also trying to get to watch and uh I told him because when I was an employee at AP I couldn't get you now on the auction I can beat you so it was a nice fight because at the end of the day it brought me some success because it's because of the watches I collected that I got a good reputation and that people suddenly realized that I was not just a marketing guy I was just not just a foreigner I I belonged to the to the to the yeah to the watchmaking art and and what was it about the pieces that you were seeing at the time especially when you were at AP and you were seeing I mean you talked about in the talking watches the 3700 was a frustration for you but then you have it in the talking watches what what were the things that you were seeing that that challenged you or made you realize how important what other people were doing you get rich through the competition and and if you want to eliminate competition you make your industry poor uh the competition is what keeps Us Alive what keeps us fighting what gives us pleasure what gives us emotion what gives us success so uh and the people that are afraid of competition are quite dangerous it's it's a it's a wrong it's a wrong attitude it's a wrong philosophy of life and when I was much younger I admire I admired PK and patk was a competitor for AP is by the way it's still a competitor uh but in those days the distance between AP and and pek PK was slightly above us so we were fighting like crazy to against pek and because we were fighting against pek I said I should not buy in my collection so many APS because I know understand them I must buy some p in order to get the feeling why P why are they so so successful what do they do differently so I took competition as a partner I said to competition or to P come teach me tell me and I was never rejecting when you reject competition you're getting poor when you accept competition you're getting rich and that is what sometimes the Swiss don't understand in the watch business and there there's a i is that that is a slight critic but very small one but I have another critic which is a little bit stronger I'm I'm shocked but let's let's hear it no the the sometimes we ask ourself what is what is wrong in the Swiss Watch industry not much is wrong because it's very it's a very successful part of Switzerland um but in in a certain way we have too many CEOs that are not anymore in love with Watchers that's for me the biggest tragedy we have very brilliant CEOs because the industry goes well but tomorrow they might work for apple or tomorrow they work for a car company and in the past once you had decided to work in the watch industry you finished your life in the watch industry I started at AP 73 and I'm still not in AP but I'm still in the industry because I love Watchers and we suffer eventually from a lack of love and I see so many people that are coming as brilliant seos but they come from other fields and for them there's a lack of love in general today there if there is one lack that the generations have in the in the world it's love we all need love and I remember when I was a hippie and we were singing All You Need Is Love and that was an incredible song that was a song that was telling us where is the future and the future is Love All You Need Is Love The Beatles 1966 were singing this and on a big show that was done by the BBC and this was a world show it was for the first time that the entire your world could see on the TV set the the this show on and that was the show where the Beatles Su for the first time all you need is love and once you have understood that all you need is love you don't need to go to church anymore you are like in church every day all you need is love finished I I think you're I think you're secretly still a hippie I don't think you were a hippie I think you are now to some extent for sure um can I actually ask one question so you mentioned CEOs and there's one very very very very powerful CEO that was kind of an apprentice of yours in Jean Frederick dufor so what do you think uh and I don't know if we're allowed to say or not what do you think of his tenure at Rolex and I know you work with him very closely at Zenith and and elsewhere yeah and and he worked for me for with uh bluma yeah so uh and he still one of my two best friends is that so yeah he he's still I have only two friends which is a Pity I would love I'm happy to have only one wife but friends I would have three four five but I have only two uh joh Fred is one of the two and I speak to him at least two three times every month and by the way we bought some wine yards in France together so now we have also occasions to to drink and to to T the wine together so we we share a lot of passion he is in my opinion he is the genius of the industry some are some people are geniuses of the art but Rolex is also the watchmaking art but in a certain way it's an industry and he has shown because he comes from the watchmaking art he was the boss of Zenit and he worked for me at at bla and he was capable to understand Rolex and to bring Rolex to a level that had never existed before Rolex is now so strong it has never been so strong in the in the history and by the way all the collectors they all have at least one Rolex it's the most common and watch everybody has some aics and that is phenomenal and the way he handles it the way he travels he's he gives his personality he writes to everybody he's I mean he really has invented a new Rolex and Rolex is reborn through him and I admire him I love him he's just and and he loves Watchers and he will he will never leave the watch industry he's like me he started in the watch industry he will end up in the watch industry I'm curious you also in your career Arc you moving between different brands you've also sort of not just rebuilt your career M multiple times but rebuilt your collection multiple times and I was it 20 2019 2018 when you sold the four watches at Phillips and and my son yeah well I I don't know if that's a serious than or not cuz those are some great watches but I I must say he gave me a vision that I never had he said to me papa you have been collecting cars yes uh from which year was where was your watch the car collection from the 60s why because they were cars I admired when I was 16 years old 18 years old and that's remembering me the the these old days of James Bond and the Ferrari Etc and he said but today in Watchers it's the same do you think many people will admire your Watchers uh from uh 1901 1905 the new generation they will admire much more modern watchers from the 50s from the 60s so your collection should not be uh um too much stable your collection should evolute with the taste and the average age of the collectors and today we have collectors that are 30 years old when I was young a collector was 60 years old or 70 years old when I was young a millionaire could not be under 60 you became a millionaire when you were older than 60 today you become millionaire when you go to school it seems like he also maybe injected a new sort of uh interest in you to look at the younger Craftsmen that were doing the same thing that you loved when you were his age my son is the guardian of my youth thanks to him I don't get old because each time I get old bam he comes and say hey where are you going come on back so thanks to my son I stay young that I must I must say I am incredibly thankful to my son to teach me I thought I would have to teach him but not really he teaches me every day every day I learn every day I got I get new ideas he is animating me vo I think we have a that's the partnership that the papa and the son should have and very often the Papas are too strict or the Papas want to impose his views to the young guy no h i listen to Pierre and each time he says something that I don't agree with I say yes yes yes yes but I think why is he doing this why is he telling me this and I I try to understand why and once I understand why that means I have learned it's only when I say oh I know why you said it that is for me the the signal hey he did it he convinced me because I'm not going to do because he says I'm going to do because he said to me and I found that he was right so I have I have two last questions and then we'll open it up to the audience because I'm sure there's a lot of questions out there but um actually just sort of a two-part one question here two watches one that you regret letting go and one that you wish you would have been there for on top of when you had the opportunity and you regret not getting in the first place 158 this is p Philip 1518 it's a an incredible watch I must say but it's stupid it's not stupid but it's very simple to say that because out of 100 people everybody will agree that that's a phenomenal watch and I think the what I should discover are the Watchers that people don't know I and and and and in that sense I'm a little bit poor it means I am I am in the trend and to be in the trend is good but I I would like to go outside the trend I would like to love pieces that people have not discovered because then you have an additional value you have a an additional satisfaction and this additional satisfaction I'm looking for it and for me I regret that I didn't buy uh fris Paul Jour before that it took me time to realize I was slow I was too much in the industry I so I have a quite a few uh regrets which is good because it means I have an evolution when you have no regret means you don't evolute so never say to somebody I don't regret anything because that means you are stubborn so really uh and I think today we have a revenge of the art the art is coming back in its Purity in its exclusivity in its Dimension even and the stronger these groups are getting the more they buy little Artisans the more you have success with these Artisans because it's exactly the the the the reason why they are successful and I I I think we have an interesting moment in the in our industry interesting for collectors to discover new things but also interesting for the people for the watchmakers because they they don't have anymore this huge pressure of the groups and the group the bigger the group gets the more opportunities are coming are opening for smaller people for small groups or for small watch makers or for Innovations uh and that is that shows us and me that our industry our art is quite strongly alive if anybody has any questions we can open up to the floor Mr Beer first I'd ask that you'd answer my question with a little bit more enthusiasm than you've shown so far uh but my question is this as you started your brand what fear or concern or or Pitfall was the greatest in your mind as you were starting your company and has that fear come to pass and you overcome it or is it still ahead I think the worst will come because the worst is always for me the next and that makes the attraction that's why I want to go there because I know the next is more difficult and it's like when you uh are in the mountains the next at the at one day you will do the Everest because that the highest level of planet Earth so to look always for the most difficult is is a challenge I believe uh the so the next is the most difficult but it's not that I lose courage it's that I get motivation and then the next level and I hope this will not happen might become Finance because I have decided that I would spend all my money eventually all but I will never oh no I will always try to work independently from Banks uh nobody's here from a bank no it's okay and the microphone I I have this Obsession to work with my own money and to be the Own Boss at home and that's why uh I try to avoid the credit of the banks but and now somebody has pushed me to say now the truth without the bank I would not be here today because when I started Blan I needed $22,000 and I didn't have them and I worked during the night at the post office from 800 p.m. to 5 a.m. every night I was not the only student to do that but we were a few uh I worked every day at the post office and with the money from the post office added to the credit of $30,000 from the bank I could buy bloa so when I criticize the bank I am a little bit pretentious because I should never forget that thanks to the 30,000 that they lend me I was able to exist so I'm sorry if anybody is from the bank and I'm sorry against me I was crazy not to say that so so the next step uh I think will be the most difficult because I can feel the investment in the movements because we have the ambition we did now the movement hour minute and second 100% was is new not 100% it the little Parts all the parts were not made by us they were made uh by a very uh dubra a very famous um maker of movements in the valley duu but the movement belongs 100% to me to us I can sell it to others it's my movement although I didn't produce this all this little parts and we have now a chronograph in development we also have uh a Perpetual already in development because all these are developments that last between minimum 8 18 months and 3 years so I can see that the investment we will need might a little bit be too high for me personally so it could be that in two or three years I will ask uh a bank to help me for a few a few seconds and I want to point out that that is that's news the chronograph and the perpetual were things that I had heard privately but now you've said it in front of an audience so I and Pier said to me don't tell about the future Papa okay so we we'll leave that when you have Pier on the phone tell him that I'm sorry I I'll let I'll let him know I I think if if I could just jump in for a second and feel free to share or not how much does it cost to make a movement like that just roughly so we have some perspective here it's it's it's very very easy question to reply before the movement does tick tick tick tick tck you have to spend minimum 3 million that the tick tck tick tck cost 3 million if the tick tac Tick Tac is a miniat repeater it might cost 5 million if it's a grand complication might cost 8 million if it's a Perpetual it will cost 3 million so the difference of the price is now only the difference of the difficulties for instance the finishing of our movement our minute and second and we sell the watch for 79 or 78,000 but the finishing is 100% the same as on the minute repeater we don't have two qualities of finishing and the watch industry used and still have different finishings depending on on the price and I decided every watch must have the same amount of finishing of decoration because it's a beaver watch and the price difference must come not from the finishing but from the difficulty and numbers of hours you need to master the movement and that's why I say so the cheapest movement hour minute and second will cost you 2 and a half million and the most expensive like a minute repeater will cost you 5 million and then the grun complication can be 10 12 million uh that's that's the cost just to have Tick Tac Tick Tac but once you have Tic Tac Tick Tac you have to produce and that's another that's additional cost so the cost I was referring is only the cost to get the first right the engineering yeah exactly with so many years of experience and so many watches behind you when you decided to start your own brand did you have a million ideas in your head for what the first case design was going to be did you start from scratch how where where was the excitement I'm not of course all exciting but what drove you and was that first n something you had known for ages or did you have to sit and start from scratch excellent question because I will give you the the truth in the answer I have made my own brand in order to have a therapy against the fact that I sold bloa I never came over the fact that I sold bloa and I swear when I got the check at the bank picked in Geneva I cried and Mr P said to me why do you cry because I sold my people for money because bla is not me bla is my people and I sold my people can you imagine Mr P and he said yes but that's not true that's your vision you must realize and with this money you can eventually invest and go in the watch business much further I said yeah yeah yeah thank you but I cried and I had the impression that I had sold my people and between us that's true because bla was not me bla cannot be me because I was just the met onen I I I made the the yeah the scenography I decide I was the conductor I didn't make the music the conductor doesn't make doesn't know how to play piano eventually so same for me I don't know how to assemble watch so I have other ideas so I today I must say it's not me even today it's my people that is why I respect so much my people so you see that's that is what has kept me with bla together and now I do my own bla and that's me I don't copy because I hope you you agree with me my watches don't look like bla but there there is an atmosphere with my people uh we are small we are in the nature we are only surrounded by cows and grass and trees uh and we have all the birds singing every morning uh we are in the same philosophy not exactly in the same attitude but in the same and that is why I say my brand is my therapy to forget my huge mistake to have sold bla next question oh in the front thank you you so much um it's pretty clear actually that even though you're a watch Enthusiast and owner a watch brand that you're an incredible CEO like that story alone just tells you how like thoughtful you are about people and you talk a lot about your relationship with your son you know being a papa and the son in the relationship um I think like as Pierre grows up and hopefully has a family of his own and the brand continues like what would you like to see the P Watch brand B like 30 years from now like 50 years from now would what what's most important to you about the organization or the company that it represents the most important would be to keep the Harmony and the the personal relation between the next CEO I hope it's Pierre and the team because I I swear and if you you are all invited to visit of course uh and we will organize this uh in America for all the collectors not only America in the world I want every year to have a group uh from a country uh between six and 10 people that I want to invite instead of doing advertisement I think this is a better advertisement than uh on paper uh to have a picture of your watch so the atmos atmosphere the relationship the love the passion if a if my brand can keep people that can transmit passion that can transmit knowledge that can transmit creativity that can transmit dynamism that's what I'm dreaming of I cannot say how much doesn't matter it's the atmosphere it's the Friendship it's the help it's when you know um yeah I I treat my my company like my religion although I don't have any I'm Catholic by chance but uh but nevertheless I think I I I would be a good church oh a good priest I could become a good priest thank you Mr Bieber this is amazing I want to thank you for your contribution to the watch industry I want to thank you for your passion I understand that you get it you it clicks for you you understand and you're driven by love and passion so my question is throughout the entirety of your life before watchmaking during before your son's birth during after throughout the entirety when you got knocked off of your course what what made you stay focused and continue to hold on to that love it's the same that kept my love for my wife how come I kept this how come I didn't lose it how come I still love her how come I have even the impression I love her in a better way than before we should ask her if she agrees with that but it doesn't cost me to say it was free no and I I and that's the magic of love and passion is love and passion is love the difference that love usually means a relation between human beings and not necessarily a relation between a human being and a piece of art but all the artists have a passion for the art and all the artists are in love of what they do what they do if there's writing if there's painting there sculpture it's the same so love is Magic and this is why I say sometimes my my my uh way of my commanding my company is not it's not it's not like it's not very usual it's different and I believe strongly in spirituality and I believe in old saying why did I choose a stone dial because I believe in the effect stone is giving you you have stones that are giving you hope strength optimism it's a question of belief and people say ah but you will not believe this Mr beaver I said yes I believe it finished uh I believe in that it's eventually not true but it doesn't matter as long as I believe it's good so voila the spirituality and and I want to finish maybe this uh and I hope one day I can bring to my Watchers a part of spirituality and that some people can detect the soul that is in my watch because at the end of the day the watch is just an excuse of the Soul because behind the soul behind the watch the soul is hidden and I also say to my watch makers When You Reach Perfection perfection then you are close to Eternity and that is the best compliment and the best satisfaction you can have if you do a job where at the end of the job you can say okay I let you go now see you later in the eternity wow then you are free then you can say okay I go bye-bye see you next time that's what that's my dream that's my real dream I think we could continue on and on but I think that's a a nice note to leave it on and to leave this conversation with Eternity for now but thank you so much for your time thank you for coming and thanks for sharing this all with us thank you thank you thank you thank you