Transcript
Introduction
The book that I'm going to talk to you about today is nearly impossible to find. It was first published in 1946. There's only 1,000 copies ever made. It's called Rolex Jubilee, and then the subtitle is actually in Latin, but when you translate it from Latin into English, it literally means go with me. And so it's a tiny four-volume history of Rolex. And Volume 1 was written by Hans Wilsdorf, who is the founder of Rolex, and so he tells the founding story of Rolex in his own words.
There's a lot of things that will surprise you in this story, the first one being that he was the sole shareholder of Rolex. But the second one was that he was an orphan. So he goes right into his early life, and in one sentence, he sets the entire stage for us. He says, "I was born on March 22, 1881. My mother's early death was soon followed by that of my father's. And at age 12, I was an orphan." And there's a decision made by his uncles that is going to change the trajectory of Hans' entire life.