『The Empire Builders Podcast』のカバーアート

The Empire Builders Podcast

The Empire Builders Podcast

著者： Stephen Semple and David Young
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概要

 Reverse engineering the success of established business empires.The Empire Builders Podcast マネジメント マネジメント・リーダーシップ マーケティング マーケティング・セールス リーダーシップ 経済学
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  • #243: Doritos & Tostitos – A Risk That Paid Off

    #243: Doritos & Tostitos – A Risk That Paid Off
    2026/02/11
    Arch West had the heart of an entrepreneur and liked to take risks. Unfortunately he worked for Frito-Lay and had bosses to convince. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [AirVantage Heating & Cooling Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young and Stephen Semple is here with another Empire Builders story. And today, whispered in my ear as the countdown started that we’re going to talk about Doritos and Tostitos. And my brain instantly had electric shot go through it because are they the same? Are Tostitos and Doritos, is it the same company? Is Frito-Lay- Stephen Semple: Same company. Yeah, yep. Frito-Lay. Dave Young: Yeah. How about Takis? Stephen Semple: Oh, I don’t know. Dave Young: They get bought up yet? Stephen Semple: I don’t know. But [inaudible 00:02:04] did, they were actually created by Frito-Lay. Dave Young: By Frito-Lay. Again, back to my childhood, we’d go to the lake in the summer and always had bags and bags of nacho cheese flavored Doritos. Stephen Semple: There you go. Dave Young: And my mom used to say, “We’re going to eat so many of these. There’s just going to be corners poking out of us.” Oh my gosh. They’ve been around a while. Stephen Semple: They have been around a while. Yeah, they were launched in 1966. Dave Young: Doritos or … Stephen Semple: Doritos was done first and it was launched by Frito-Lay in 1966. Dave Young: All right. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Today, Doritos is part of Pepsi. And the estimated sales coming from Doritos is like 2 to $3 billion a year in sales. That’s a lot of cheese nachos. Dave Young: It is. Stephen Semple: It’s one of the top snack brands in the world sold in over 100 countries. So now while it’s a product inside of a big company, there’s a reason why I feel like it’s a bit of an empire building story because it’s an interesting little story of risk taking an entrepreneurship inside of this big corporation. That’s why I felt like it still kind of fits. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And it’s all because of the actions of a guy by the name of Arch West, who’s a Frito-Lay executive. And when you hear this story, you realize he’s got a heart of an entrepreneur and is a bit of a risk-taker. Dave Young: Arch West. Stephen Semple: Arch West. So Arch came from nothing. He was raised in a youth home. He went to the military. And after the military, he gets into food marketing and he becomes a VP at Frito-Lay. Now, our story starts in the late 1950s. And like all good stories, it starts with a visit to Disneyland at Anaheim because that’s where all great stories start. Dave Young: So Arch goes to Disneyland. Stephen Semple: So Arch goes to Disneyland. And in Disneyland, there’s a restaurant called Casa de Fritos, which of course has been created. I don’t know if it’s still there, but at the time Casa de Fritos, which was basically created for distributing Frito’s products. It’s like this made up Mexican restaurant in the international food area of Disneyland. And remember, this is the ’50s. Dave Young: So Frito’s was in existence. Stephen Semple: Yes. Fritos was in existence. Dave Young: The little curly corn chip thingies. Stephen Semple: Correct. That was in existence. Dave Young: So I keep thinking like Lay’s Corporation- Stephen Semple: Frito-Lay had already merged at this point. Dave Young: So Frito became Frito-Lay? Stephen Semple: Yep. So it was Frito-Lay, wasn’t part of Pepsi yet, but it was Frito-Lay. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And they had this restaurant in Disneyland called Casa De Fritos for distributing Frito products. And as I said, it’s this made up Mexican restaurant, because remember this is the 50s in Disneyland. So how authentic is it? Probably not at all. Dave Young: Probably had Speedy Gonzalez and his friends. Stephen Semple: Right- Dave Young: … Taking orders. Sure. Stephen Semple: ...
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    18 分
  • #242: Nintendo – Video Games Starting in 1889

    #242: Nintendo – Video Games Starting in 1889
    2026/02/04
    Mario Bros. is the biggest franchise of all time. Bigger than Star Wars, Marvel… bigger than Harry Potter. Nintendo is an empire. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is… Well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [Travis Crawford Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with you, and Stephen Semple’s alongside, with another empire-building story for us that- Stephen Semple: An exciting story. Dave Young: It’ll take you back to childhood, but it doesn’t take me back to childhood because I’m too goddamned old. Stephen Semple: Well, it depends how you look at this, this might be- Dave Young: No, I suppose. I suppose the company [inaudible 00:01:55]. Stephen Semple: It might be older than your childhood, but depends what we decide to talk about. Dave Young: Yeah, it’s just like when the big games came out, the… So we’re talking about Nintendo today. Stephen Semple: Correct. Correct. Dave Young: And I had Atari and things like that. And my kids all had the Nintendo. I actually have a Nintendo Switch, but I didn’t get that until I was… Stephen Semple: It also originally started as an arcade game, if we go back, because we are going to go back far enough. Dave Young: Well, that’s true. That’s true. Stephen Semple: Yes, yes. But if we actually went back to the company, Nintendo, we would be going back to 1889. Dave Young: Okay. So not so much my childhood. There you go. Stephen Semple: 1889. Yeah. And we’re really not going to talk so much about the origin and Nintendo as a company, but really, the origin of the video game business, and more specifically Donkey Kong, and went on later to become the Mario Brothers franchise. That’s really what we’re going to talk about. Dave Young: Now, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Now, I don’t know everything, but I’m pretty sure video wasn’t around in 1889. Stephen Semple: It was not. Dave Young: There was no video games. Stephen Semple: No, there was not. So that’s why we’re really going to be talking about more of the recent history of Nintendo. Dave Young: A real Donkey Kong, climbing ladders and throwing barrels. Stephen Semple: Okay. That’s it. That’s it. Dave Young: Or a monkey, a gorilla. Yeah. Stephen Semple: And here’s the thing, the Mario Brothers franchise is huge. It’s one of the biggest franchises in history. There’s been 800 million video games sold worldwide, making it the bestselling video game of all time. It’s bigger than Pokemon in game sales alone. The estimated lifetime sales across all revenues for the Mario Brothers franchise is $60 billion. Bigger than Star Wars, bigger than Harry Potter, bigger than Marvel. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: The movies alone sold over a billion dollars. There’s theme park now. It’s huge. It’s absolutely massive. And the Nintendo company is very old. It was founded back in Kyoto, Japan in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi. That’s it, Yamauchi. Dave Young: Oh. Stephen Semple: Boy, I’m going to struggle with these names. Dave Young: What were they doing back then? What was the company doing? Stephen Semple: The first product they did was a playing card called Hanafuda, and it was very, very successful. So they actually started- Dave Young: As a gaming company. Stephen Semple: … in game business doing playing cards. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Now, during the 1950s, during Japan’s economic recovery, because if you remember, the economy was decimated in World War II, and through the Marshall Plan and whatnot, there was this rebuild going on. And during that time, they had a new leader, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who decided to explore all sorts of new businesses. He was doing all sorts of stuff. They had taxis, they had love hotels. Yes, you heard it right, love hotels. Dave Young: Love hotels. Stephen Semple: Instant rice, and of course, toys. And most of the things they did failed, except toys held a promise, so they continued to lean into toys. So it’s April 1978, so this is basically really where our story starts, and Taito, a competitor, releases a game called Space Invaders. Dave Young: Oh, right. I remember Space Invaders. Sure. Stephen Semple: Remember Space Invaders? And of course, this is back in the day of arcades, and you’re putting money into the games. This is so big in Japan, there’s 100 yen shortage. It would be like being in the U.S., and we run out of quarters. Dave Young: Right. Stephen Semple: It’s so big. So Nintendo, because it’s having some success in the game space, decides to make a knockoff of ...
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    20 分
  • #241: P.F. Chang’s – From Scottsdale To The World

    #241: P.F. Chang’s – From Scottsdale To The World
    2026/01/28
    300 hundred restaurants in 22 countries might not sound like a billion dollar empire, but you would be wrong. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom-and-pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is… Well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients, so here’s one of those. [OG Law Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young. Stephen Semple is here, and we’re going to talk about the building of another empire. And I’ve got to admit, I don’t know a whole lot about this one. I’ve maybe… Stephen Semple: Oh, wow. That’s exciting. Dave Young: We’re going to talk about P.F. Chang’s. I’ve maybe eaten at one of them, I would say less than half a dozen times in my life. Stephen Semple: Okay. Dave Young: And I think it’s just more of a convenience and proximity issue. I’m never really near any of them. Stephen Semple: So while they’re big, they’re not massive. They’re 300 restaurants in 22 countries, so they’re not like many of the other things we’ve talked about where there’s thousands of them. Dave Young: Right. Stephen Semple: So no, they’re not as prevalent. But look, 300 restaurants is still pretty successful. Dave Young: Yeah, that’s a lot. How did they get started? I’m not going to guess. I’m going to let you tell me. Stephen Semple: Okay. The business was founded by Philip Chiang and Paul Fleming. And Paul Fleming, you might recognize because he’s of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse fame. Dave Young: Oh, okay. Stephen Semple: They got together, and they founded P.F. Chang in Scottsdale, Arizona- Dave Young: That makes a lot of sense. Stephen Semple: … in 1993. Now, Philip spells his last name C-H-I-A-N-G. So at a certain point, he changed his spelling just to make it easier. Drop the I and make it easier. Dave Young: Drop the I and made it just… Spell it the way it sounds. Stephen Semple: … Spell it the way it sounds, make it easier for the U.S. market. And the company has been bought and sold a few times over the years, but the first acquisition from the founders, from Philip and Paul, happened in 2012 by Centerbridge Partners in a deal worth a little bit over a billion dollars. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: They did okay. They walk away with some cash. Dave Young: Now, was it before or after they started putting it in supermarkets? Stephen Semple: I do not know the answer to that question. Dave Young: Probably predates. Stephen Semple: I’m going to suspect after. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: But the story starts with Philip’s mother, Cecilia Chiang. Cecilia was born in Beijing in 1920 to a really wealthy family. She grew up in a palace in China, ate high-end food, full staff, chefs, the whole nine yards, part of the aristocracy. And during the Chinese Civil War and the Japanese occupation, her family fled China and relocated in Japan, and there, the family opened a restaurant. Now in the 1960s, she travels to the U.S. Cecilia travels to U.S. to help her sister who came to America because of the economic challenges in Japan, and her sister had opened a restaurant in San Francisco and needed help- Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: … and Cecilia came over to help her. But that venture failed, but Cecilia still remained in the U.S. And look, Chinese food in America at that time was not good. If you look at just about every food that has come to United States, the first people who brought it, whether it was Italian, whether it was Mexican, whether it was Chinese, the first immigrants were the people who were poor. Dave Young: Yeah. What years are we talking about here? Stephen Semple: 1960. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So the first immigrants who came were the people who were poor, so therefore, typically the food is not the great food, it’s not made with the great ingredients. And so here she is, she’s looking around and she’s saying, “Look, there’s this poor Chinese food, all basically from the Canton region.” And most of it has been also turned into an American version, because basically, again, people were making it with whatever was available, so it really became very Americanized. Dave Young: Right. Stephen Semple: And Cecilia saw that, and what she wanted to do was introduce America to a more refined Chinese food, what she had experienced growing up as a wealthy person in China. So in 1961, she opens a sit-down restaurant with food from Northern China called The Mandarin. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: And it opens not in Chinatown, because here’s the thing that she recognized, context is everything. If she opened it in Chinatown, people’s expectation would be ...
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    17 分
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