s Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, president of Chopard, points out in the interview he, together with his son, gave us for the Generations series that begins in this issue, family-owned companies are not as unusual as we may think, quaint throwbacks to a bygone era. On the contrary. While there are certainly fewer families running day-to-day operations, some of the world’s largest groups and businesses remain in family hands, particularly in the legacy industries of luxury and watchmaking.

Think, among others, of the Arnaults, the Ruperts, the Hayeks and the Sterns, the latter having captured the theme of generations better than anyone in what is still one of the most iconic watch advertising campaigns ever.

Even the world’s largest “corporation”, the United States, is governed by a family. The Trumps are the latest in a long line of dynasties, the likes of the Roosevelts, the Kennedys and the Bushes. In this twenty-first century of ours, so critical of nepo babies, are we still living under family rule?

Forgive this all too human reflex. For those among us who don’t earn a place in history, all that will remain of us, personally, for all eternity – perhaps – is the DNA that we will continue to disseminate, for we are but tiny dots in the universe, small links in the immense evolutionary chain.

Biological time, the clock we temporarily inhabit, thus offers a perspective that extends beyond our finitude. In the evening of our life, when our earthly riches will amount to very little, our last vision will perhaps be one of childhood, of an endless cycle. Is this also why we cling to the memory of our ancestors and why we accord greater value to a watch that has “lived”, even though the time it shows is the same as everywhere else?

As one of the rare, even only, watch media to have had several generations of editors from the same family (four since 1927), we could offer our watchmaker-friends the original experience of an interview with representatives of multiple generations around the table. For the older ones, this was a chance to recall shared experiences from the past thirty years; for the younger ones, an opportunity to comment on the changes taking place now… when young and old weren’t engaged in discussions across the generations. An exercise, then, with no concern for time nor age and with a single value at its core: continuity and succession. The only thing we can hope to leave behind!

CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW ISSUE