James Leprino profile (billionaire who controls pizza cheese market)

[Liberty]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2017/05/23/james-leprino-exclusive-mozzarella-billionaire-cheese-pizza-hut-dominos-papa-johns/

 

His laser focus on large pizza chains has allowed him to control as much as 85% of the market for pizza cheese and somehow sell simultaneously to a set of customers — Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's and Little Caesars — that try to cut each others' throat in every way that doesn't involve where they buy their milk products. [...] Dominating the market has its advantages: He's able to invest in technology that no run-of-the-mill dairy farmer ever could, resulting in more than 50 patents —and an estimated 7% net margin, which dwarfs the dairy-industry average. [...]

 

Price has long been Leprino's biggest advantage, and a large one since cheese accounts for about 40% of a pizza's cost. Leprino's scale begat better prices, which begat more scale. And that scale also led to cost-saving breakthroughs that Leprino's fragmented competitors could neither catch up with technologically nor fight in patent court. "They are a biotech company that is wrapped inside a food business," Zimmerman says.

[DooDiligence]

Looks like a Berkshire business on the surface.

 

What will searching for Malone photos turn up next?

[LC]

"I would tell people,'Lester is the man that made me rich,' " Leprino says. Notably, though, Leprino never gave Kielsmeier any equity. While Leprino got rich, Kielsmeier — who came to work every day right until his death at 95 in 2012--would have to content himself with being very well paid.

 

The moral of the story is finding someone who can revolutionize an industry who will let you leverage their work for relative peanuts.

[DooDiligence]

"I would tell people,'Lester is the man that made me rich,' " Leprino says. Notably, though, Leprino never gave Kielsmeier any equity. While Leprino got rich, Kielsmeier — who came to work every day right until his death at 95 in 2012--would have to content himself with being very well paid.

 

The moral of the story is finding someone who can revolutionize an industry who will let you leverage their work for relative peanuts.

 

Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg  ;D

[Liberty]

"I would tell people,'Lester is the man that made me rich,' " Leprino says. Notably, though, Leprino never gave Kielsmeier any equity. While Leprino got rich, Kielsmeier — who came to work every day right until his death at 95 in 2012--would have to content himself with being very well paid.

 

The moral of the story is finding someone who can revolutionize an industry who will let you leverage their work for relative peanuts.

 

Bob Magness had a pretty good deal on John Malone for a long time...