Trigger discipline

How the Glock took over

Good morning and Happy New Year, savvy analysts. This is your Stock Market Rundown for January 2nd, 2024. Thanks for joining me as we kick off a fresh year of financial tomfoolery. Let’s dig in:

TODAY’S TOP STORY: PULLING THE TRIGGER

From Pop Smoke to the Wu-Tang Clan, rappers have always delighted in referencing Glocks. But they probably don’t realize the famous semi-automatic pistol was invented by a man who used it to build a billion-dollar fortune.

Gaston Glock died on December 27th at age 94, his legacy cemented in the Glock handgun that became a staple of Hollywood blockbusters and criminal gangs alike. 

His eponymous weapon was created when the Austrian military put out a tender for a new service pistol in 1980. Gaston’s company made household products like knives and curtain rods, not weaponry. But thanks to his expertise in synthetic materials, he came up with the innovative idea of a gun with a polymer frame. 

(The Glock being fabricated of mostly polymer has led to an urban legend that it’s invisible to metal detectors, but don’t try smuggling one through customs—polymer does show up on airport X-ray machines.)

The gun’s light weight and reliability soon led to its adoption by police forces and security agencies around the world. Plus, John Wick uses one… badass.

Gaston Glock himself lived a wild life. He survived an assassination attempt in 1999 when an embezzling associate hired a former wrestler to attack him with a rubber mallet. Gaston, age 70 at the time, knocked out a few of the assailant’s teeth.

Gaston may have enjoyed the genteel pastimes of a reclusive billionaire, raising thoroughbreds in the Austrian countryside, but his company wasn’t above exploiting tawdry tactics to hawk their wares. 

When Glock entered the US market, its salesmen invited police department firearms experts on training trips that ended with lap dances at Atlanta’s infamous Gold Club. Hey, sometimes you have to get a little sleazy on the way to making billions.

SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

• Thanks to the success of Chat GPT, the annual revenue run rate of OpenAI has swelled to $1.6 billion. Who knew there was this much money in completing English homework and drafting best-man speeches?

• Truck engine maker Cummins was hit with a billion-dollar fine for modifying truck engines so they emitted illegal levels of smog-forming pollution. These guys were single-handedly keeping the asthma-puffer manufacturers in business.

• Owning a sports team is the dream of every rich dude—and it turns out rich ladies are no different. Billionaire Mark Cuban just sold the Dallas Mavericks to Las Vegas casino magnate Miriam Adelson, the world’s fifth-richest woman.

• Good news for goldbugs: numerous US states are considering legislation that will eliminate capital gains taxes on precious metals. Question: how do doomsday preppers plan to actually use their gold hoard if civilization collapses? Shave off a few flakes in exchange for cans of tuna?

That’s it for today, my friends; see you bright and early tomorrow morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe

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