Joe Sweeny: Unwinding the Thread

Joe Sweeny: Unwinding the Thread

There's no shortage of Twitter threads on the rise of the world's most succesful businesses. And they're often great reads — filled with little-known insights from pivotal moments along the journey of companies like Apple, Nike, and Tesla. No question there's plenty to unpack with any of the most popular companies.

But these companies that establish their origin stories as folklore worth retelling share an unavoidably similar narrative arc, from humble beginnings to inspired innovation to bathtubs full of money.

The same can be said for LVMH, the topic of Joe Sweeny's great thread — but there's a key difference that attracted me to the story: It's a conglomerate. That means instead of a single narrative arc, the story of LVMH is one of many intersecting companies — rising and falling asynchronously.

Joe starts off the story with the baseline facts. Writing to an American audience, the French billionaire Bernard Arnault doesn't have the same recognition as someone like Steve Balmer, who has a little more than half his net worth.

Once the pleasantries are out of the way, the opener ends with a perfect primer along with a bright, enticing picture of Arnault.

Here the readers get the meat and potatoes to explain just how important LVMH truly is, and why they should care. They may recognize the acronym, but they DEFINITELY recognize the most iconic luxury brands in the world.

It's important that the thread covers aspirational brands, as the same properties that act as marketing tools to sell their products are just as effective in creating an allure around their stories.

Coming back to the origin story with a surprising note regarding the once-dire financial straits of the company, there's a fun whiplash effect: from the glamor of Fendi to the reality of business.

Presenting the tough solution of massive layoffs as a path to success isn't necessarily novel, but a 9K-person layoff leading to a $200M turnaround in profitability is objectively fascinating.

After laying the groundwork, we reach the LVMH part of the story. Using the funds from Groupe Boussac, the hostile takeover begins. Maybe I'm projecting or have just watched too much Succession, but simply reading the phrase 'hostile takeover' is an immediate hook for me.

Joe takes us through the rounds of buying before dropping the wild stat of the 33X return in 6 years. Another jaw-dropper.

Here Joe employs an expertly crafted caption + image combo that fits under the "pretty tweet" category I wrote about with Nicolas Cole. The fact doesn't add any structural components to the story, but the aesthetics keep the reader engaged — which I've started to find more and more important recently.

The thread finishes up with a SparkNotes-style wrap-up on the key components readers should be taking away from this thread. Not only is this a great way to close the loop on a story, but from the writer's perspective, it can help provide clarity and act as a tool to keep them on track.