He does his little bit of stand-up. He trots out his prepared material. His audience laughs and his audience applauds. He is not the only mug in the room.

He was high on the admiration, laughter, and applause and obviously let his guard down. Nice going, dude.

What a great speech. A chain of shops gets destroyed in about 10 seconds.

The prawn sandwich line is a classic lol

This shows one thing only, the power of the media...The next day headlines, 'Ratners says he sells people CRAP'. He didn't deserve to lose 500 million overnight because of this esp. if you listen carefully to his speech, without the tabloids nobody would have heard anything about it. Funny enough, today with the internet, I think it would have worked in his favour because everyone would have watched his speech and I think most would have realised it was blown out of proportion.

4:12 At this moment, if one listens very, very closely, they can hear - in the distant horizon - the pained death-screech of a company.

And this is why you should never deride your own product in public.

3:41 This comment "went viral" as we say now, cost his business 500 million pounds in stock value within days of this speech, and eventually cost him his job. My father "did a Ratner." He was a Director of NASA under Jerry Ford and was allowed to stay on in the Carter Administration. He was one of the highest level appointees allowed to stay. At a speech in Florida, he joked that he would continue in his job unless he "succumbed to peanut poisoning" and some other similar comments. Just as with Ratner above, he thought he was only making some harmless jokes to connect with the audience. The Carter people at the time were sensitive to jabs about Jimmy having been a peanut farmer, and when he heard what my Dad had said, Carter's top advisor Hamilton Jordan hit the roof. My father was booted out of NASA within days. Not because of peanut poisoning, but because of his own big mouth. And so it goes.

Wouldn't it be totally satisfying to hear such candid talk from the leading retailers of today? And even more satisfying to then watch as their empires of crap crumble to dust?

Nothing wrong with honesty in business, the problem was the derisive nature of the joke wasn't just aimed at the product line, but the consumer too. I actually thought most of his speech (and business plan) was excellent. But you have to remember, no matter how rich you get, it's down to the good graces of the people buying your products. Mocking them is mocking the very thing that funds your existence.

Everyone knows you get what you pay for- but this crossed the line into outright mockery of the "ordinaries".

It's all pretty candid - as if he's thinking "I've got to get a laugh out of them, no matter what it takes..."

While he did indeed shoot himself in the foot and blow up his business in the process, most of the rest of what he said in his speech was pretty good info. Would've been considered a great speech if it wasn't for those two gaffes.

I was today years old when I heard of this guy. He really did hammer his clientele. I think his biggest problem was the whole not being good at public speaking.

Imagine if Steve jobs told the truth in front of a massive crowd waiting for some i-crap People always complain that companies and politicians bullshit us, this shows how they are rewarded for that. the guy is and stayed rich and having a comfortable life, he doesn't have to lie

He's the Mr. Bean of jewelry.

Brave to upload this

It's great to show contempt for your public. What im saying is that this guy could run for prime minister in 5 years and probably win.

Atleast he was honest

The speech was actually pretty good after the famous line

Spoiler Alert. When he referred to fashion sense for next year, there wasn't a next year!

The shock that nobody laughed after 19:22 ("The problem was, when Christmas came ... we discovered that they don't celebrate Christmas in Holland."), and how perplexed he became realizing it, is kinda like the moment the penny dropped: "Damn... Is this really the kind of audience I thought is was?..."

Legend.

Here because of The Hustle

Incredible story Gerald was a legend audiobook worth listing to

this is so great, :)

when you have so much money you lose your sense of reality and think your invincible

This guy should write a book- "How to screw up a million dollar business in one day"

Love his satire

There is a phrase supposedly used by market traders in the West Midlands: never make a mug of your punter.

The problem was that he couldn't forecast the cration of the internet and KZfaq. What was supposed to be a private speech, with a limited audience, is now public, open to millions.

Great speech, sad ending.

At least he was honest...

4:10 - a long pause when you knew you might already screw up and if you should continue, but forget that, I love the audience reaction, lemme just continue...

18:28 This Icarus was flying high with 34% of the UK market, and was aiming for 50% in the following years - Then he gave this speech ...

"I want to be myself, but as performed by Eric Idle."

I appreciate his honesty, but I'm not Ratner stockholder.

3:00 to 7:10 is where he royally blew it up and did his whole business empire in: "Come to think of it it has very little to do with quality." "Total Crap, and No Point Beating it Around the Bush." "Never will win awards for design." "Garish," "Not of the best taste and I admit that." "Earrings less than M&S Shrimp Sandwich and the sandwich would last longer." and "Very disappointed." All of these alone are bad enough, but he made every single one of this gaff remarks within those four minutes. No wonder "Doing a Ratner" became the byword for CEOs or of those similar position of large companies saying bad and/or dumb things about their own company. I was just plain incredulous listening to those 4 minutes and 10 seconds

He was only thinking of entertaining the conference - and forgot about the wider audience. Apparently he said current Ryanair crisis is not Michael O'Leary's"Ratner Moment"So that's the end for Ryanair

The guy is a genius econometrist!

Moral: never tell your strategies clearly.

Thankyou for putting this up. Fascinating a very clever man falls foul of The Icarus Syndrome. He had the knowledge right enough,he just should not have shared it so freely. I myself have never understood the desire for glittery things I would rather have a bar of chocolate than a bar of gold. The one time I did find myself buying a ring for a girl,when the girl did the bunk the jeweller wouldn't buy it back because it was worthless. I will stay with electronics gadget they actually do something

His wife told him not to say those 'jokes'.

What's interesting is that this very same speech could have been delivered successfully, if delivered from the frame of being the ADVOCATE of the consumer. He needed only to champion the common man's need/desire to own things which feel like finery at a great price, and that experience shouldn't be reserved for the "fat cats." He instead delivered the punchlines from the perspective OF the fat cats, and it ended up looking like throwing rocks at the consumer. Oops.

Did he know this was being recorded I’m guessing as the camera was probably the size of a wardrobe but what was he thinking maybe a private function he’d of got away with it. I don’t struggle but I was offended listening to some of this ‘material’. Glad to see he’s back on his feet now and just made his first mill since all this. Learning and growing never stops and if it does you’re not living

He reminds me of Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday before it all went pear shaped.

Even great public speakers have bad days

J am sure people can see what he did. He made more money in that ten minutes than in the thirty years before it.

Political equivalent was Hungarian prime minister Gyurcsany's Osszod Speech. Also hilarious.

😂😂😂😂😂

hmm

His father spent his life time building the business and his thicko arrogant son destroyed the business in 6 seconds

Skip to 3 minutes to see the gaffs... lol

here from atrioc

We put the Rat in Ratners. Real life Michael Scott?

He's an absolute legend who got lost in his own success which was built on borrowed money 💰 100s of millions....a strong man for coming back up. Interesting book of his which I'm reading 📚 🤔

.. effectively slagging off his own customers..nice. knob.

OMG gd what a genius you are. This is the same thing Coke and teasla motor is doing right this moment. For all you morons out there its a tactic to buy all your shares back at a reduced price so that you dont have to deal with stockholders. Ya its a char burner move but the pay off is so large. What people failed to see is his family owns most of the shares anyways. What fouls he made you all out to be. This man deserves a standing ovation for this performance.

It seems to me that the man was basically crucified for telling the truth. Most people aren't fools; they know that 99p jewelry is going to involve cutting some drastic corners. But they bought it anyways. They bought it because it looked good enough and because it was affordable. As long as people care to present themselves as wealthier than they actually are, there's going to be a market for "dollar store" imitation-ish jewelry. And if people bought the stuff and felt cheated afterwards, they only have their lack of common sense to blame.

He now speaks for Boris and the wokes....

He was trying to be funny but it went too far. He was essentially ridiculing his own customer base and trying to say to the audience how clever he was.

Ratner. What sort of name is that? French maybe? No…not French. Does the man who sells garbage have a Dutch name maybe? Hmmm, no, don’t think it’s Dutch. I guess it will just remain a mystery to me.

Mr.💩

TOTAL DECADENCE , THIS IS WHAT THESE FOLKS ARE LIKE , NO MORALITY , HE MOST PROBALY WENT AWAY & LIVED HIS RICH LIFE , AS IF NOTHING HAPPENED ? ALL THE FOLKS WHO LOST THERE JOBS ??????? 2,500 SHOPS . THIS IS WHAT THEY NEVER EVER EVER THINK ABOUT ? NICE FOLKS , EHHHHHHH . PEACE AND GOD ALMIGHTY BLESS .