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Showing posts from March, 2022

Beware Mistaken Spreadsheet Authors: the LuxeConsult / Morgan Stanley Report

In 2015, entrepeneur Elizabeth Holmes had an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion. On January 3, 2022, she was found guilty of fraud. In the interim, her net worth was reestimated as zero. One of the most important lessons from the Holmes saga is that falsified data can open the spigot to great riches. A whistleblower testified that Holmes' company manipulated data in order to pass certain tests. We can't lose track of the fact that a spreadsheet always begins empty, and the process whereby that spreadsheet is filled is just as important as the entries in the cells. This month, news broke of a LuxeConsult / Morgan Stanley (hereafter LM) report purporting to describe the state of the luxury watchmaking industry in 2021. It generated a lot of attention . I was a bit bothered by the published pie charts and tables, though. I could not find a copy of the report anywhere. Moreover, the authors assert very specific revenue figures for Rolex, whose secrecy is the stuf