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Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

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Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#11

Post by erdle »

bdibs wrote: post #4
jseliger wrote: post #3

That's interesting: Does Honest Co. make Honest Tea? Because last time I was looking at Honest Tea (or however it may be spelled), every variety had added sugar. Which is not good: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Sugar-Gary-Taubes/dp/030... . If their sweetened tea is any indication, they may be caught in the uncanny valley where normal people still drink soda and people who've gotten the news about sugar won't d…

They're unrelated businesses.

And Coca-Cola owns the brand, distribution, and bottling.

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#13

Post by ProAm »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #7
alexasmyths wrote: post #2

The more interesting piece is how the name 'Jessica Alba' always before the title every time it is mentioned. Because what would they do without star power? Note: George Clooney's billion dollar sale of a brand new Tequila company. And we work hard on algorithms?

> And we work hard on algorithms? There are mathematicians (and scientists) who work harder than most programmers and are poorer than most programmers.

It's probably just a rounding error

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#14

Post by erdle »

alexasmyths wrote: post #8
wavefunction wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney you too can sell water with additives to people for megabux. Or perhaps there's so much loose capital sitting around with no purpose that it's just driving up valuations of companies to ridiculous levels because then folks would just be dumping fake money into questionably valued ventures. "But you guys make toast, on-demand, in only one city." "Exactly, toast o…

"If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney" Actors are the truest of commodities. Many can do it, and it's not hard. When Hollywood 'invests' in an actor, they create the actors Brand, which the actor - then owns. Once an actor becomes familiar with American/Global audiences, then their Brand is worth a lot. Surely, it requires some hustle on the part of the actor - but were it not Clooney, it could hav…

his buddy Gerber knows the liquor and entertainment business. built a fortune on it. got friends with a vacation house next to his Canadian one... they too vouch for his knowledge of liquor.

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#15

Post by praneshp »

alexasmyths wrote: post #8
wavefunction wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney you too can sell water with additives to people for megabux. Or perhaps there's so much loose capital sitting around with no purpose that it's just driving up valuations of companies to ridiculous levels because then folks would just be dumping fake money into questionably valued ventures. "But you guys make toast, on-demand, in only one city." "Exactly, toast o…

"If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney" Actors are the truest of commodities. Many can do it, and it's not hard. When Hollywood 'invests' in an actor, they create the actors Brand, which the actor - then owns. Once an actor becomes familiar with American/Global audiences, then their Brand is worth a lot. Surely, it requires some hustle on the part of the actor - but were it not Clooney, it could hav…

> Actors are the truest of commodities. Many can do it, and it's not hard.

That's peak HN for the day.

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#16

Post by alexasmyths »

coryl wrote: post #10
alexasmyths wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney" Actors are the truest of commodities. Many can do it, and it's not hard. When Hollywood 'invests' in an actor, they create the actors Brand, which the actor - then owns. Once an actor becomes familiar with American/Global audiences, then their Brand is worth a lot. Surely, it requires some hustle on the part of the actor - but were it not Clooney, it could hav…

How do you assess that actors are chosen and not rewarded for their skill like athletes?

Gal Godot - a decent actress - was paid $200K for her role as 'Wonder Woman'. Huge film. But she was paid just like any other of the 'talent' on the crew.

But in subsequent versions of 'Wonder Woman' - she will be paid millions.

Has her 'acting ability' magically improved?

No. But 'her face and personae' are now existentially linked to the character 'Wonder Woman'. Audiences want to see that.

So she'll be paid millions.

Are there actors 'better' than Gal Gadot who could play WW? Of course there are. Probably many. So why not pay them $200K instead of paying Gal 'millions'? Because it's not 'talent' that's the issue in the equation.

The #1 deciding factor in the investment of films over $10M is not the script, not the director, not anything else - it's the actors that are involved.

You need to have 'highly recognizable' actors on board (or the budget to do so) otherwise it's not investable - because audiences want to see familiar faces.

Do you honestly think that 'George Clooney' is such an amazing actor, that there aren't 1000 other people 'as good as him' that could have played his roles well?

Of course there are. There are tons of great actors out there. But they're not household names.

So the question is: given that there are tons of actors better than Brad Pitt out there - how does Brad Pitt even get a single role? Because he's the 'living brand' of 'Brad Pitt'. The living brand of 'Brad Pitt' is what audiences want, which was created by putting the actor in previous roles.

Most athletes are paid very commensurately relative to their actual skill, of course, it's easier to be objective in measuring that.

What matters in film is 'the recognizability of the face/personae'.

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#17

Post by alexasmyths »

praneshp wrote: post #15
alexasmyths wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney" Actors are the truest of commodities. Many can do it, and it's not hard. When Hollywood 'invests' in an actor, they create the actors Brand, which the actor - then owns. Once an actor becomes familiar with American/Global audiences, then their Brand is worth a lot. Surely, it requires some hustle on the part of the actor - but were it not Clooney, it could hav…

> Actors are the truest of commodities. Many can do it, and it's not hard. That's peak HN for the day.

?

There are tons of great actors that you can hire to do something for peanuts. They're such a commodity that tons of talented actors don't even do it full time.

I live across from a 'Community Playhouse' in Montreal. Some of it is terrible, but some of it is magnificent. Almost zero of them are employed in the industry full time. It partly has to do with the fact it's all in French, and that means 'smaller market' - but it could just as easily be in English and the same would apply.

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#18

Post by colordrops »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #12

Whenever some person or company calls themselves "Honest", "Trustworthy", "Wholesome", etc I immediately start thinking that they are going to overcharge me for something. In this case, it seems my heuristic worked well.

I get the same thing when someone calls me "friend" the second I meet them.

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#19

Post by Axsuul »

jseliger wrote: post #3

That's interesting: Does Honest Co. make Honest Tea? Because last time I was looking at Honest Tea (or however it may be spelled), every variety had added sugar. Which is not good: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Sugar-Gary-Taubes/dp/030... . If their sweetened tea is any indication, they may be caught in the uncanny valley where normal people still drink soda and people who've gotten the news about sugar won't d…

Honest Tea's name comes from how their ingredients are sourced. They never claimed for it to be good for you.

Re: Jessica Alba's Honest Co. Slashes Its Valuation

#20

Post by hkmurakami »

alexasmyths wrote: post #8
wavefunction wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney you too can sell water with additives to people for megabux. Or perhaps there's so much loose capital sitting around with no purpose that it's just driving up valuations of companies to ridiculous levels because then folks would just be dumping fake money into questionably valued ventures. "But you guys make toast, on-demand, in only one city." "Exactly, toast o…

"If you can bootstrap yourself into being George Clooney" Actors are the truest of commodities. Many can do it, and it's not hard. When Hollywood 'invests' in an actor, they create the actors Brand, which the actor - then owns. Once an actor becomes familiar with American/Global audiences, then their Brand is worth a lot. Surely, it requires some hustle on the part of the actor - but were it not Clooney, it could hav…

I think you're rebutting yourself here, because like you said, "bootstrapping yourself into George Clooney" is equivalent to building George Clooney the brand, which is not trivial.
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