Kim Kardashian

One of the most recognized names and faces in the world today is Kim Kardashian. She has more than three hundred and sixty five million Instagram followers. I don't have any Instagram followers. Recently, she decided to get into my business, the private equity business, and it's starting a private equity

I finally got talked into it once I came to that realization. I have had a long standing relationship with Jay, who came from the Carlisle Group, and I was pretty close to doing a few deals with Jay when he was at.

The car Allowed Groups.

So for about ten years we had conversations, whether it was through something we were going to do or people close to us we're going to do. And I was privy to all of those conversations, so we finally, you know, had the conversation that we.

Should really get into business together.

Okay.

It's been a fascinating process.

So the name of your firm is Sky Partners. Sky is usually spelled sky yours is s KK. Why how did you come up with that name?

You know, we had to have a little bit of influence.

I thought, you know, Jay Salmons, I thought that the S for Salmon's and KK Kim Kardashian.

Okay, it worked out.

It worked out.

So you've now been exposed to the private ecuy world for a little bit of time. You've met the investors here and around the world, so forth, what is your review of the private equity investment community? The most honest people you ever.

Met, very very nice people. I actually have been introduced to the world a lot of my friends growing up they are in this space now. So I'm on a group chat where I'm being asked all the time about different companies and businesses, mostly tech that they invest in if they're really good companies. And I've even gotten on you know, zooms with all of the founders to hear

So Jay, how did you two of you first meet and how did you get in the private equity and why did you specialize in consumer? Well?

I started, first of all, David, thanks for having us and for being here with us. I started my investing career about twenty three years ago, and I had the privilege of spending almost the last seventy years working for you. As you know, I actually did not start investing in consumer businesses until I started at Carlisle, but obviously, you know, spend the entirety of my time at Carlisle doing that.

Sky. So you also have a clothing company which is called a Skims, right, and you have a skin care beauty products company called skin Skin by Kim Kim. Okay, all right, all right, did you need a lot of help coming up with that name. Probably not. Yeah, Okay, so that's two businesses is pretty big. Those are big businesses. Why did you think you had the time you have four children to do another business in the private equity world, how much time do you really have for something like this?

I feel like in life you have to do things that challenge you and help you grow and evolve.

And this is a.

Space that after spending a lot of time with Jay and with the knowledge that I've learned starting businesses, taking investments from firms and people that I've learned so much about, and having great relationships, and also being on the other side seeing relationships not work out if you don't partner

Okay, And so when you ask people to do meetings, do they say no? Or is it that hard to get a meeting or probably with investors, or not that hard.

So the answer is no, and I'm grateful for that. And it's largely because, you know, I believe that what KEM and I are building is unlike anything else that's being built in this space, and it's a very intentional combination of two really complementary skill sets that other firms don't have.

So, say, right now, the private ecuy world's tough to get financing for deals and so forth, So are you going to be doing buyouts which require financing or are you going to do growth capital deals which presumably don't need as much financing or any.

Yeah, our strategy is actually really consistent again with what I've done in the which was very unreliant on leverage. In the consumer growth world, it's about great asset selection and great execution on value creation plans. It's not about the marginal amount of leverage that will drive a few basis points of incremental returns. So in some instances, when the companies can support it, we'll use a little bit, but in most instances we won't. It's all about just getting behind the right ideas.

Okay, so when a deal comes along, how do you have an investment committee. I presume you're on the investment committee, and so is it a one person veto If you don't like the deal, it's not going to get done, Or if you don't like the deal, it's not going to get done. How does that work?

Well, so far, we haven't really run into that issue. We both, I think, respect each other's opinion and trust each other. I think culturally we have the same vision of what brands we think can grow and that we can really help make an impact. But we also both really believe that our team being included in these decisions is really important and we want everyone on our team to have a voice.

What is it that you're most looking forward to about private equity? Is it coming to conferences like this? Is that what you're most looking forward to?

Absolutely, I'm honestly most looking forward to my relationships with the founders. I'm really fascinated to hear their backstory. I'm a storyteller. I'm so excited just to have the opportunity to help them win, and I love hearing people's stories and hearing what their magic sauces behind their company and why they wanted to start the company that they did and what their vision is and just hope that I can help that.

So you can be called one of the first influencers, or maybe the first of the influencers. Did you know what an influencer was really going to lead to when you first became a quote influencer?

No, I really didn't.

I knew that social media was really interesting in a way where I personally, when I got on used it as like a free focus group when I had questions about I mean, I was launching my first product ever, which was a Fragrance, and I needed opinions, and I went to Twitter. I remember Twitter was like the first real platform besides MySpace, which at that time, an influencer wasn't even in the mindset.

Same with Twitter.

Really for a while, it was more of, I think, a way to communicate with a fan base.

But I did use it.

As like a free focus group that I thought was fascinating, and I felt like the customer became more invested in the Fragrance that I was launching because they felt like they were a part of it, and I just thought that was really interesting. And I didn't quite at that time though, realize what a tool social media would be for business.

Now you've built several businesses. Is when you were building them, people would say, well, she can't really build a fragrance business, or she can't really build a clothing business because she doesn't have a background on that. But they turn out to be extremely successful. So did people not thinking you could do it urge you to make it even more successful? Or were you nervous that maybe they were right and

I definitely always took the doubt as motivation. I always felt like, and still do always feel a bit insecure about it, confident in the brand. I love creating a brand and launching a brand and the whole process of it. I always have those I think healthy nerves when you're launching something, especially on a launch day or a product

So nobody can build a business or run a business by themselves, so you have to hire people and get people around you from time to time for your businesses. How do you select who you're going to hire? And do you ever have to fire anybody and say well you're good but not quite good enough.

Yes, I have a great team and a small team, and the fires. Firing's really difficult for me, so I always have someone else do it. It's really really hard for me unless it's someone that works in my household and I have a personal relationship with them. Obviously I would give them their respect to do that. But I have a small team. When I started my beauty business, when we started Skims, my business, everything that I do starts with a really selective in house team, even from

Get to know. I trust.

And a good community relationship within my office and within my house staff everywhere is the most important thing.

And you test all the products yourself, in other words, if it's a beauty product or something you always.

Tested, oh everything, Yes, yes, I'm so hands on. I'm so involved. I mean to this day for Skims, I'm still our fit model, which we have like a group of fit models, and I'll know the collection that I didn't fit for I'm very specific on how things fit and make. I pick the fabrics that come up with all of the marketing. So with Skims and my beauty brand, Skin, I do every last thing from packaging design to helping with the fonts and the you know, every campaign, every photographer,

So many people would say in one family, you probably can't have too many talented business people in your family. You seem to have a lot of talented business people. So is there a competition between you and your sisters or you're so friendly there's no competition.

You know, even like Kylie and I are both in the beauty business and we don't compete. We feel like we have two totally different brands and two totally different demographics. So I would say we don't really compete in that way. If anything, we would motivate each other. And even we work on everything really privately and don't really communicate with each other about, you know, what we're launching and what our campaigns look like. I mean, if we're really excited

Compete like that.

I think we all just really focus and do our own thing.

So your mother has been involved with your career as well, and your mother is involved, I guess with your sister's careers as well. So is she a superstar business manager or impresario or how did she manage to keep all of the children happy and have them each have their own career and owned businesses and still be so close to them.

She's definitely the smartest woman I know, and it really started for she was a housewife when she was married to my dad and she raised the four of us. And then when she married my stepdad, she became his agent and manager and got her agent license and figured it out and really helped that, and then it bled into wanting to help her children when the time was right and when our career started.

So I ask her all.

The time how she manages six kids and we all have very similar lives. But I find it really interesting that a lot of people call her to want to get her to be their manager, and she just like her heart is with her children, So I think it's a different kind of love and motivation. But she completely has helped us all figure it out. We come to her for every ounce of advice, and she's really been so great managing all of us. But she's also really

So you were very close to your father, who passed away a very young age of cancer. He was a lawyer, well known lawyer. Did that motivate you to want to go and become a lawyer yourself?

Absolutely?

I mean I think just seeing him every day he would get up, be on his way to work, drop us off at school, see him, you know, go to work, come home for dinner, like we just I saw how hard he worked, and I saw just his work ethic that really drove me, and especially his law studies I think really inspired me.

We talked about it.

I mean, he passed away when I was twenty two, so it was I was in college, and we talked about my path in college and he was really realistic with me. I did not like school, and he said, you know, I just don't think that this. I don't think you want to do this full time. I really want you to think about this, but if you stay in school, I will, you know, help with your apartment, And it was like a trade off that he would help, and I just wanted to be independent and I wanted

Now, to be a lawyer in California, you don't have to go to law school. You can read the law, which is what people used to do many years ago. Abraham Lincoln never went to law school, and he did okay as a lawyer. So you're reading the law, and you've passed one of the bar exams, and you're going to take another one at some point in time, is that right? Yeah?

I think in about two years I take the next one. So you need two bars in order to pass to become a lawyer. So I think now, since I've passed the first one, I could practice under someone, but to be a lawyer on my own, I have to pass the second bar. So I'm constitutional law is kicking my butt right now, and that's what I'm that's what I'm studying currently, and it's you know, it's extremely time consuming, but so worth it.

So as you've become so well known, I think you have more Twitter followers than probably almost anybody in the world. Twitter followers, Instagram followers. You have something like three hundred and fifty million Instagram followers. Is that the right number, something.

Like that, three fifty nine, three hundred and fifty nine million.

I have zero. I have no Instagram followers. I'm afraid to be on Instagram because I wouldn't have any followers. But you have three hundred and fifty nine million. So when you go to a restaurant or you go out in the public anywhere, can you ever be not bothered by people who want to take your picture, want a selfie, want an autograph? How do you deal with all that?

I think you know, depending where you go, you really have to know where to go, and you definitely can get away with that sometimes, but you also have to understand when you're going out in public. That's just kind of I guess what comes along with the territory. I love to travel the world. If I go to Japan, you know, no one will ask their culture is very different. Different places all over the world just have different i think beliefs and cultures where it's just not as important

And how do you convince your children that not every mother is as famous as you? Because they see people coming calling you, you're very well known. How do you convince your children and then not every mother is that way and therefore they have to live a life maybe a little bit different than the one you're living.

Well, I think that they really do understand that every family is different. I mean even within my sisters, you know, other sisters have different rules, snacks that they can eat, snacks we can eat, shows they can want, you know, So we do talk about different families and different rules all the time.

I think that they grew up.

Seeing a lot and you know, whether we're they were at their dad's you know, big events or at filming you know, with me and seeing stuff. I think they just have known, and we've been really open and honest with them about our lives and how big it is and how different it is. And let's be positive and think of all of like the good, positive things and

When you were growing up and you were a little girl at the age of your children, could everybody pronounce the name Kardashian then, because now it's a well known name. But I imagine people have said pronounce it incorrectly then and you correct them or were you? Was everybody pronouncing it correctly then? No?

I remember then. I would laugh with my dad about this during the oj trial, when reporters would always say his name, they would always get it wrong and say different versions of it. And my dad told me a story that when the Armenians came over to America, they usually took off the iaan off their last name, so anyone with Ia and they're Armenian, and so you know,

Well, you and your mother and your sisters and your whole family became famous initially, I think with the TV show called Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Is that what it was? Yes, So when you were first approached about that, did you roll your eyes and say I don't want to do a reality TV show? Or you say, no,

Yeah?

Well, when I remember so vividly being at my best friend's house nineteen eighty nine, So I was nine years old and the show The Real World launched, and I looked at my best friend and I said, that's it. I have to be on a reality show. And she said I go, that's what I want to do when I grow up, and she said, okay, well when we're eighteen, we'll make an audition tape for the Real World. And she goes, I don't want to be on, but I'll be your manager. And her dad's a manager and we

This has to be a reality show.

And we called Ryan Seacrest, got connected to him, met with the E Network, and our show was on the air. We started filming a week later. I think we were a filler show for a show that fell out of production and they needed something quickly, and we just started filming.

When I was nine years old, I wanted to be a major League baseball player. That didn't work out for me, but usually when you want something at nine, it doesn't usually work out. But I guess it worked out for you and your sisters.

I was determined.

They didn't want, they didn't care, and they didn't want to do it. But I talked them into it by saying that we had a clothing store and I said, you guys, this would be the best promotion for our clothing store. We should really consider this, and that got them hooked.

Worked out, it did. Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen.