In a recent interview with Forbes Magazine, Kylie Jenner sits at a dark-wood dining table at her mother’s home in Calabasas, California, flicking through display options for a forthcoming pop-up shop. The youngest member of the Kardashian-Jenner industrial complex needs to decide how to showcase products by her Kylie Cosmetics makeup company. She taps her black iPhone X with a silver glittery nail and turns the screen around to show a coterie of employees a vending machine.
“You guys, imagine this, but all in lip kits,” says Jenner, dressed in a black blazer and matching black patent Louboutins with bright red soles. “I think it needs to be a clear vending machine where you see all the colors.”
Ultimately their fortunes all derive from the same place.
“Social media is an amazing platform,” Jenner says. “I have such easy access to my fans and my customers.”
Given its perpetually young consumer base, the $532 billion beauty industry has always been inordinately driven by influencers and role models. As with fast fashion in clothing, Generation Z consumers have been eschewing lethargic makeup brands like L’Oréal, Estée Lauder and Coty in favor of quick-to-market products that they learn about via social media.
Just 20 when this story publishes (she’ll turn 21 in August) and an extremely young mother (she had baby daughter Stormi in February), Jenner runs one of the hottest makeup companies ever. Kylie Cosmetics launched two years ago with a $29 “lip kit” consisting of a matching set of lipstick and lip liner and has sold more than $630 million worth of makeup since, including an estimated $330 million in 2017. Even using a conservative multiple, and applying our standard 20% discount, Forbes values her company, which has since added other cosmetics like eyeshadow and concealer, at nearly $800 million. Jenner owns 100% of it.
Add to that the millions she’s earned from TV programs and endorsing products like Puma shoes and PacSun clothing, and $60 million in estimated after-tax dividends she’s taken from her company, and she’s conservatively worth $900 million, which along with her age makes her the youngest person on the fourth annual ranking of America’s Richest Self-Made Women. (We estimate that 37-year-old Kardashian West, for comparison, is worth $350 million.) But she’s not just making history as a woman. Another year of growth will make her the youngest self-made billionaire ever, male or female, trumping Mark Zuckerberg, who became a billionaire at age 23. (Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel also became a billionaire in his early 20s, though it’s less clear when he passed that threshold.)
Continue reading on Forbes.com.
