The Company I Keep

I read this as background research for my book (a big part will be around a “family business” similar to Estée Lauder) but would recommend it to absolutely anyone. It’s an incredible look at how Estée and her two sons built The Estée Lauder Companies. From starting a brand during the war and taking it from the family kitchen to department stores, to building Clinique, Origins, Prescriptives, and more . . . it’s fascinating. We learn about the Revlon Wars (Charles Revson seems like such a villain; I am dying to read up on everything related to him next!). It gave me great material for the book, but something I forgot about was Lauder’s incredible art collection and his work for The Whitney Museum. I couldn’t get enough! He seems like he was an incredible person and led such an interesting life. I could not get enough and genuinely think that anyone and everyone will love this book. Besides all of the great stories, there is some fantastic leadership (and life!) advice. I highly (highly!) recommend it.