Hailey Bieber, AI and fast launches: how e.l.f. Beauty is winning

0:01 The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet When it comes to their own wealth. Most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them.

0:22 Creative planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, state planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, state strategy, investments all under one roof. Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale.

0:53 Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reed Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad, and more. Will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great, or you want to build something great, We want you there with us too.

1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. We've never actually had a DEI program or quotas or a number of the things that are getting attacked. But we're one of less than one percent of public US companies with a board that's sixty percent women, forty percent diverse.

1:46 We did a provocative campaign last year titled So many dicks, so few of everyone else. There are more men named Richard. Rick or Dick on America's corporate boards, then entire populations of underserved. I love the fact that seventy six percent of our team are women, seventy-four percent are Gen C millennial, forty-four percent are diverse. We just posted our twenty-eighth consecutive quarters of Net Sales and Market Share Gates. The composition of our team.

2:15 Is the biggest competitive advantage we have. That's Tarang Amin, CEO of Elf Beauty. Even if you're not into the beauty space, ELF is a fascinating business. I wanted to talk to Tarang because he's deploying unexpected disruptive practices that are really working in today's marketplace, from speed of product development to AI experimentation to teaming up with Haley Bieber. Elf's choices, as Trang explains it, flow directly from the company's values. Even if some of those values seem out of vogue, like sustainability or diversity, how he applies those values to partnerships with everyone from Sephora and Target to Dollar General and H<unk>M, well

3:00 It's a study in principles with nuance that directly reflects our current environment. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is rapid response.

3:16 I'm Bob Staffe, and I'm here with Tereng Amin, CEO of Elf Beauty. Tereng, thanks for being here. Well, thank you for having me. I I have to ask about um El S Super Bowl ad featuring Melissa McCarthy. Did it end up having the impact you hoped for? How do you know? I mean Superbowl ads are are expensive.

3:36 Yeah, well, it had absolutely the impact we wanted. Uh we're known for moving at the speed of culture. We saw a great cultural moment with Bad Bunny performing at halftime. I think he came on SNL about four months ago, telling everyone they had four months to learn Spanish. So it was a great It was a great jumping off point for us to get Melissa and actually do that satire and the response has been amazing. Not only in the US, but it also ran on Univision in Mexico. And the amount of responses we've gotten from Mexico and throughout the Latin community and even broader has been terrific. Any pause. I mean there um there are some folks who including You know, the president who kinda pushed back about about a Spanish language uh halftime show and you you went all in with the ad. Did you have any concerns about that? No, we don't. We're for every eye, lip, and face, and that includes a Latin community uh that we celebrated and the the spot was really fun. It's kind of elf at its best, uh, of really being able to take advantage of the moment and espouse what we had.

4:39 From the moment that ad ran, we saw an immediate pickup on sales. So it did great both culturally as well as to our sales. And so we're gonna continue running it. It's been about ten years since you took Elf Public. Recently announced strong earnings, helped by your billion dollar acquisition last year of Hailey Bieber's road brand. Expected to bring in, I don't know, two hundred and sixty or so million dollars in sales this year or more. What's it been like having Haley as a as a business partner?

5:10 Well, you know, Haley's terrific. Uh a lot of people know her as a celebrity, but I consider one of the most thoughtful founders I've ever met. Her vision for that brand and what she's been able to do with her partners is just Nothing short of spectacular. I mean, this is a business that went from zero to two hundred and twelve million in net sales in less than three years. Direct to consumer only with just 10 products. I'd never seen a business like that. And the level of consumer fervor of the brand is unlike anything I've seen. I mean, people will camp out literally overnight, wait 14 hours in line for an event that Haley's not even at. They're buying into the entire lifestyle of the brand, the entire products. We just launched the brand into Sephora North America a few months ago. The biggest launch Sephora America's ever had. Um, a number one brand in Sephora. We just did the same with Sephora UK. That launch was five times bigger. than anything else Sephora UK has ever seen. And this week we're actually taking the brand to Mecca in Australia and New Zealand.

6:12 Does uh partnering with uh with Roe, does it sort of have impacts or you have discussions about elf's brand positioning. I mean Haley arguably has the the cultural cachet uh almost of a luxury brand, right? And you're you're moving into Sephora, but Elf I I mean, you're in eleven thousand Dollar General stores, right? How do you think about that brand positioning for Elf as you move forward? Our vision is to be a different kind of beauty company. The way we do that is we build brands that disrupt norms, shape culture, and connect communities. And even though Road is entry level prestige.

6:49 It's incredibly accessible relative to the quality of the products they have that compare to products that are priced way more. So we love being able to democratize that access to beauty. Whether it be ELF, which sells for seven dollars and fifty cents versus prestige at thirty, or whether it be Road that sells in the upper twenties relative to products that are over a hundred dollars. Affordability is is a topic that's uh that's much talked about right now. It sounds always been your t I mean, I don't know, seventy five percent of your product portfolio is ten dollars or less, right? Like that's that's not

7:25 by chance, and that's not necessarily in your mind like downmarket. No, it's not. the insight that we had, I mean I've been CEO for twelve years was Elf always had Really great price products, a dollar, two dollars, three dollars. People couldn't believe that we could do it at those price points. The insight we had though was why not target the best products in beauty? Put our elf twist on it, introduce it at incredible value. One of my favorite products right now is we just introduced this soft satin concealer. The only other thing like it in the marketplace is priced at thirty two dollars. We introduce ours at five dollars. So it is quite intentional and it is a real advantage of ours.

8:07 Mm. I mean a a lot of your products are have been sourced from China. And you've only had to raise prices a handful of times in the last two decades. But last year was one of them in part due to due to Trump's tariffs. With with the chaotic tariff environment, like Does that Does that impact how you approach that? Did you have any sort of wake up moments over the last year?

8:31 Well I'd say it's over the last few years. I think our average for this fiscal year is sixty percent tariffs. If somebody told me we'd have sixty percent tariffs, I wouldn't believe it. But we use the same balance plan we did in twenty nineteen. We did take prices up by one dollar on our products. We also ha continue to diversify our supply chain as well as diversify our business. I just talked about the rapid growth we have internationally, which isn't subject to tariffs. So if you look at our manufacturing footprint today, yes, China is still the majority, but we also have operations in the US, in Thailand. Italy, South Korea. So it really is having this well diversified supply chain to meet the grow global demand that we have amongst our brands. Mm.

9:23 Particularly popular among Gen Z and millennial customers. I know that three quarters of your staff is also in their 20s and 30s. Are there things that you think leaders misunderstand about the younger generations as shoppers, as employees. Well I think the thing people misunderstand is they tend to try to

9:44 look at the differences between D c uh cohorts versus what the similarities are. The unifying element across all three of those generations is how do we connect with them? How do we engage with them? I remember a few years ago, my CMO came to me and she said, We have to be on TikTok because that's where Gen Z is. And my response is, Well, if that's where Gen Z is, absolutely. We need to be on TikTok. Now now what's TikTok? This was a few years ago. So I'm always I'm always learning. I'm always seeing new platforms. We're the first beauty brand with our own channel on Twitch. Uh we also have um The number one branded experience right now on Roblox. So we consciously seek out where are they living, what are they doing, how do we engage and entertain them.

10:28 They also care for what the company stands for. So the fact that we're double certified cruelty free by both PETA and Leaping Bunny, the fact that we formulate elf clean, which means we don't use twenty one hundred ingredients in our formulations when the FDA only bans I think eleven ingredients from cosmetics formulations fact that we're vegan, also the only beauty company that's fair trade certified means a lot to the community that we serve. They they care about the values behind a company as much as how great their products are. Mm. And when when you when you look into sort of where you want the brand to meet Your customers. How much are you talking about?

11:08 You know, AI platforms. I mean Open AI is now accepting ads. Are you thinking about moving into those spaces or Does that make you wary? No, I'd say we're we're naturally curious. always looking at different platforms, always looking to get experience. Our first time on TikTok, we had no idea what we were doing, but we were curious and we looked around. We were like, wow, there's a lot of music on TikTok. There's a lot of dancing. Uh you know

11:36 Why don't we just commission our own song? So we commissioned our own eyes of face song, did a hashtag challenge. I think that's something like Three or four billion views. by the time people were copying us on TikTok, we were already partnering with Simon Cowell, the co-founder of American Idol, to create a rock band on TikTok. And we had a challenge for a makeup artist to to accompany the group around the world. That ended up doing 15 billion views. So I'd say we're always curious, always looking for like how can we disrupt, where can we go? And I'd say the same is true with AI. Our our initial focus on AI is how can it enable our team to do even better. So AI has enabled our community managers to be able to communicate and basically handle a hundred percent.

12:23 It's allowed automation in areas that Pete frankly people don't really want to do over and over and over again. And so we really look at it as an enabler of how can we better connect with the communities we serve. And you're you're not worried that getting closer to AI resources will In any way put off. Uh any Customers who who might be more wary about it.

12:46 Well, I'd say that's always uh experience based. Uh we're gonna do some things and we're not afraid. We we're always testing and learning. We're not afraid of failing somewhere and basically learning from it and keep moving. People often ask me, What mistakes have you made? And my response is usually you mean since this morning? Uh we're constantly trying things. We're constantly trying uh messing up. D do you do you find Consumers are more loyal to to brands. Or to retailers or to like influenc these days. Like how do you look at that ecosystem?

13:21 Well, I'm a little biased because I've spent thirty five years in the consumer branding space. So I I would say It's always about brands and brands can be anything. Some influencers have their own brand and that's a brand people believe in. Uh retailers have their brand and that's a brand people believe in. I remember there's a quote from a former CEO of one of the big consumer companies that said, There's no such thing as a tired brand. There might be tired brand managers, but not a tired brand. And so it's our duty to continue to refresh and make sure that brand has meaning for people. And and whether your brand is in, you know, Dollar General or Sephora, which you mentioned, or TikTok shop, like uh all across your modulating it differently in each of those channels based on those brands, or are you like

14:12 No, we're ourselves wherever you find us. Well it's a combination. Elf is always elf. I don't care if you find it at Dollar General or at Sephora, uh Elf is elf. But then we will Figure out what each retailer wants and how they win. A great example is Dollar General. We surprised a lot of people when we went to Dollar General, but the thesis was really clear. Many of their stores are in rural areas with less than twenty thousand people where you have to drive twenty miles uh for your beauty products. So we said we found them to be beauty deserts. And we said, you know, if we introduce elf, we can serve a population that isn't currently being served. Not only was it the most successful launch dollar general's ever seen, But sixty percent of the people who buy elf at Dollar General have never bought cosmetics at Dollar General.

14:57 So we're happy to be in Dollar General. We're happy to be in Sephora. We're the number one brand by far at Target, which is our first customer. I think we have over twenty percent of their entire category. But you also find us at Ulta Beauty at Walmart. Amazon's one of the fastest growing customers we have. We tend to be agnostic in terms of where someone buys or experiences elf. We wanna to be make sure that we're accessible though. So you you just launched your first fragrance in in partnership with with HM. Um this is a this is a new area, I guess, where you could have more accessibility. But also trends move so Fast today, you know, you're talking about TikTok at speed.

15:38 When you make a choice Like fragrances are really any new product. How do you know what's a long term commitment, or you know, is everything sort of As you say, I could decide by the end of the day that it you know, it was a mistake. I remember the days where I used to try to come up with a concept, make a product, make up a whole bunch of it and hope people came to buy it. Uh

16:01 That's not our model. Our model is going to our community and seeing what they want. Uh one of the things my CMO does is she terrorizes me by taking me on TikTok live every once in a while. She's not even very nice about it. She'll say, All right, you got the big boss here. Tell them what you want. And our community isn't shy. I remember last year I went on one of those TikTok lives and you know, looking at the chat and the community was like, Hey, there's this prestige uh Uh bronzing drop. We love it, but we can't afford thirty eight bucks. Help us out. And then be like twenty more chats after that, like, no, no, boss, man, we want them now. Like I said, I I I'd leave that call a little traumatized. I'll call my head of R and D. and be tell her like please tell me we have a three year pipeline. We have bronzing drops on the pipeline. She says, We have it. I'm like, Oh, thank God. W when are they coming out? She's like eighteen months. And I'm like oh no, I cannot get yelled by our community on something they want. We introduced them six months later.

16:57 So Our model is one where we already know there's demand because our community's asking for it. And so fragrances were something you were hearing from the community? Our communities have been asking us forever of when am I going to see an old fragrance? Now we don't have expertise in fragrance, so this is a great opportunity to partner with H M. So we did a limited time drop of three high end fragrances, and the response has been terrific. And so we'll take those signals and say, Okay Should we be in the fragrance business longer term? Let's see how it does. And we'll we'll take that and we'll keep moving.

17:31 Your career is in is in consumer products and brands writ large, but it sounds like you've had to do a lot of study yourself about the specific areas of beauty to to know What's what's different and and what can move the needle. I would say nobody had ever accused me of being a makeup enthusiast as a sixty year old male. Uh but I have an entire team of passionate

17:57 enthusiasts and I do a product review every two weeks. Uh and I make it an open ticket. Some people are horrified. Wait a minute, these are our nuclear codes. How are you letting anyone in the company who wants to be there? I'm like I'm letting them in first of all, if anybody beats us with one of our ideas and we're too slow. I want to make sure we keep our elf speed. But second of all, I want the insights that come from our team that represents our community. So I go to that product review and all I'm doing is asking open ended questions. Tell me what's so great about this concealer. Like, hey, why why do we gotta charge five dollars? Why can't I charge a little bit more? Why can't I charge seven bucks for it? You just told me the prestige item was thirty two dollars. And the number of responses I get, the level of engagement I get, frankly makes me smarter every day. And and being a man when when a lot of your customers and a lot of your products are are are geared to women, I mean How how much of a uh a challenge is that? I I I talked to another CEO who went into a different business, was the first woman running it, and she's like

18:56 I'm trying everything though. Our predecessors never tried these products, you know? Yeah. No, I tried. Uh in fact today for this interview I have our uh holy hydration moisturizer, our poreless body primer, which I swear by smooths out all of my Big pores here. Uh I've got uh our well people powder and our uh hydration concealer. So you've gotta be curious about the areas you work in, even if you're not the end consumer. I've all always had that curiosity and it's it's one of the things that frankly energizes me to to constantly learn. Mm-hmm. Nothing like hearing from a CEO about what face products he uses.

19:38 What strikes me just as much, though, is how Tarant blends discipline with experimentation. So, how is he responding to the Trump administration's evolvitions on sustainability and diversity? And what other businesses most misunderstand about the beauty industry? We'll talk about that more after the break. Stay with us. The Wired Newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wire's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future.

20:20 Is the AI boom sustainable? How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

20:35 Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed the guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's gonna be two types of companies.

21:17 Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Chayubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives.

21:50 Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Before the break, Ef Beauty's Tang Amin explained how working with both Hailey Bieber and Dollar General fits in ELF's strategy. Now he talks about why ELF is vocally committed to sustainability and diversity, regardless of White House policies, and how he thinks about partnering with brands like Target that may pursue a different course. Rapid fire round about lessons he's learned from iconic college basketball coach Mike Sheshewsky, how his family buying a motel when he was 14 changed him, and what people most misunderstand about the beauty business. Let's jump back in.

22:32 You mentioned earlier The care you take with the the materials that go into uh your products. Uh uh a lot of businesses we've seen sort of Deprioritize sustainability over the last couple of years with the new occupant in the White House.

22:50 Has has your relationship to sustainability evolved? I mean do customers care about it as much as it seemed they once did? You know, they care about it just as much as they once did. Uh we pay less attention to the rhetoric around us. The reason why we're the only beauty company that's fair trade certified is it meant something to our consumers. They they want great quality products at great prices, but they also want to feel good about the company they're buying them from. And knowing that every one of our factories is certified fair trade, where the worker conditions are certified, the sustainability

23:24 Practices really gives them peace of mind that this is a company that I can do business with. I would say it's less about whatever policies are in place at any given administration or time. We're the first mass brand that was cruelty free. Not because I had a dog and I really cared about pets. Uh it came from our community really cared. And we got other companies to go cruelty free as well. Uh as we hope to do the same with Fair Trade. You've also continued to be an advocate for DEI practices when there's been pushback on that. Do you feel What's the right word, like lonely among your peers who aren't maybe being as as vocal these days? You know, I I I would say I don't feel lonely because maybe some of my peers are quieter about the topic, just given the pressures they may be facing. But deep down, I've never met a CEO who didn't want the best possible workforce, who didn't want the most

24:21 the best advantage they could get. And that starts with people. And what we found when your team reflects the community you're serving, it's a competitive advantage. I love the fact that seventy six percent of our team are women, seventy four percent are Gen Z millennial, forty four percent are diverse. And I see the advantage every day. And the fact that you're in a category where Catering to diverse skin tones is sort of central. I mean, does that Make it easier for you to be more vocal, maybe, than than some of your colleagues? You know, I'd say a couple of things to make it easier for us. First of all,

24:56 We've never actually had a DEI program or quotas or a number of the things that are getting attacked. It was more fundamental to uh that to us. I don't need quotas. I don't need anything else. I just have an openness to invite anyone who's passionate about making the best of beauty accessible. Our authority is speaks for itself in the stats, not only for our employee base, but we're one of less than one percent of public US companies with a board that's sixty percent women, forty percent diverse. We did a provocative campaign last year to bring uh shine a light on the homogeneity of America's boards. Uh the campaign was titled Uh So Many Dicks, So Few of Everyone Else and and picture a billboard that had a picture of a bunch of white men on it. And the basic insight were there are more men named Richard

25:44 Rick or Dick on America's corporate boards than entire populations of underserved populations. Of course, there's nothing wrong with being a Richard, Rick, or Dick. We just wanted to shine a light for for others. We ran it on every one of our social channels and what we got back was ninety eight percent positive sentiment. This is why I buy elf. Elf stands up for others. Yeah, we did get two percent that said hey There's nothing wrong with men on boards. There's nothing wrong with being Richard Rick or Dick. And and that wasn't the point of our piece, but we're gonna continue to be outspoken on the things that are important to us. Hm and when when your values base this way

26:22 How do you navigate the partnerships you have with others, with with retailers who may take a different approach? Like does it matter if you align on all values with H and M or target. You know, when you're in those places. We align on the things that matter the most. Like b all those companies are incredibly ethical. They treat their employees well. They care about serving their guests. Those are the things we align on. It it but I don't I don't fall into this polarized world of extremes.

26:53 Unless you're a hundred percent on that extreme, it doesn't I I feel that's a little bit what's broken in the country right now, which is losing that ability of having an intelligent dialogue, including things that you disagree on. And so no, it doesn't have to be a hundred percent alignment. It has to be alignment on the values that matter most. So we always find ways And places where we can agree on people, even if we disagree on others. And so if if H and M maybe doesn't have the same uh public commitment to sustainability that you do, or that target is not being as vocal about DEI practices. That's

27:27 That doesn't pr necessarily give you pause. No, it doesn't give us pause as long as like I mean if Target stopped caring about their guests, that would be a bigger issue. Uh, but we can't weigh in and it's not our right back to the framework I talked about to talk about other people's policies or what they should do. That would just be preaching. And that's never been elf. Uh Elf is been much more positive and much more inclusive. I believe in inclusion in all possible ways. Somebody once asked me, like, Oh, you got you got two white males on your board. And I said wrong with that? And and they're like, Oh, but you're you're all about diversity. I'm like We're for every eye lip and face. By the way, that includes white men as much as it does people of color and uh women and everyone else. And so that's a part I was talking about earlier is I just don't understand the polarization. Like inclusivity's inclusivity. We're for everyone. It's uh refreshing to hear someone actually say it out loud because a lot of folks are afraid to these days.

28:26 I know there's a lot of fear out there and and again, we have some advantages. We're not a federal contractor, we're not subject to executive orders. We didn't never had the quotas or DR some of the the smaller things that are being attacked. We just posted our twenty eighth consecutive quarters of net sales and market share gates. And I can tell you Uh, the composition of our team is the biggest competitive advantage we have, the team and the culture that we have. I'd love to do a a rapid fire round, get some big picture lessons from you. Is that okay? Absolutely. Of course. All right. So so the first one is you you you sit on the board of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke University. Is there advice that you've gotten from Coach K?

29:13 Uh that that you apply that you would share? There's so many lessons I've gotten from Coach K. The most meaningful Uh our leadership lessons on team.

29:23 He uses a synology of think of your hand. You got five fingers. That hand is way more powerful when the five fingers comes together and make a a fist. I mean he talks all the time. His best teams were the most vocal in terms of giving each other feedback. So we do we don't leave that to chance. We train people on how do you give pinpointed specific feedback in helping the team succeed, because it's not a natural human uh instinct for most people to give that. You've said you learned a lot about business after your family bought a motel when you were fourteen. Can you share a lesson that you that you continue to hark back to from from those days? Yeah, I would say, you know, the the just to paint a picture, this was uh nineteen seventy nine, interest rates were eighteen percent. Every penny we had was in that motel.

30:11 Was a little stressful at the time, I do have to admit. Are there things you learn from being in that stress? I learned uh This whole point of Breathing. Calming yourself down.

30:23 being focused on okay, what do you gotta do. I I tell people it's it's a terrible analogy. I use a manufacturer analogy. You've either got a batch system or a continuous flow. I always say I kinda do like all right, let's do A Let's get A done really well. Let's go B. Then we'll go C, then we'll do that. I I always felt like when sometimes in business things get too complicated. I go back to like large mathematical formulas. The only way to solve it is break it up. break it up into solvable parts and then put the thing back together again.

30:54 I learned that the motels which is it was almost overwhelming everything we had to do to turn around that first property. So Where are we gonna start? And then we can do one problem after the other. I always say, look, we can face any reality. We just need to know what that reality is. So um I'm often I I say I'm often the nicest when things aren't going well, because most likely it's probably my fault anyway. Uh, but two people don't meet it need me to project panic and fear and anger. Uh I I tend to be a little grumpy when things are going well just'cause I don't want us uh in turn to get complacent. But uh the key is one step at a time and I found no matter how big the challenge starts somewhere and uh And forward motion. Keep moving forward. Not everything is gonna go the way you want, but keep moving, keep trying, keep learning. And if you do that, things tend to solve themselves. What's the most misunderstanding?

31:46 Understood thing, you think about the The beauty business. You know, I think the mi m misunderstood is sometimes people think it's superficial. Well, this is just about your appearance. I think what they misunderstand is a lot of times your appearance ties to your self worth, your emotions, uh a reflection of who you are. And so there's greater depth. And sometimes I think people stop. At the superficial. They stop at the headline. And it's just to dig deeper. D dig deeper into what's the true meaning of what you're doing and what is it you're really trying to achieve.

32:21 So with with all this change, with all the world around you moving so quickly. What do you feel like is at stake for for Elf right now? You know, I think what's at stake is continue to transform our industry. If we want to be a different type of beauty company. Are we? Indeed, disrupting norms. Are we shaping culture? Are we connecting communities? And if we do that, I mean, this is a business that's grown more than tenfold in the last decade. And so I can't wait for the next ten years have in store for us.

32:53 Well, uh Tarang, this this was great. Thanks so much for doing it. Well thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. I really like the questions that Tarang poses at the end. Are we disrupting norms? Are we shaping culture? Are we connecting communities? Not every business strives to be radically different from those around them. Even ELF presents itself in many situations as a traditional consumer products brand, but Tarang's aspirations to keep moving, keep shaking things up. That's an essential trait in a time of change.

33:27 At the same time, ELF is trying to influence that change to help shape culture and deepen human connection. Sometimes when businesses and leaders talk about values, it can seem like those values are separate from the operating of the company. What ELF's success to this point demonstrates is how building the company around the values That becomes a competitive advantage and key to business success. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.

34:02 Rapid response is a wait what original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashimaku Tonina. Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastanelli. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Le Tal Malad.

34:24 For more, visit rapidresponsshow.com. So

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.