Nothing Lasts Forever (2022) Movie Script
Well, I know my wife's been
looking around
for something special.
After all, it's been
a few years
since I bought her a diamond.
This is a half hoop.
Of course, the diamond content
in the full hoop
is much greater.
Was it a half hoop
or a full hoop
your wife had in mind?
I think she'd prefer
the full hoop.
Most women do.
Mary, have you seen these?
Jane, those are diamonds.
I know. Aren't they gorgeous?
And it is your birthday
quite soon.
Well...
It's always worth
showing an expensive piece
from the top end
even if it doesn't sell
for some time.
You know, what you might call
an aspirational piece.
Uh, so what's the point
of attracting people
with an item
they can't afford to buy?
Because they'll tend to spend
more on what they choose to buy.
Well, this is the one I like,
but why is it nearly twice
the price of this one?
The value of a diamond
depends on four characteristics.
The larger the diamond,
the rarer it is,
the better the color,
the more valuable it is.
The greater the clarity,
the more beautiful it is.
However,
it's the quality of the cut
that gives the diamond
its brilliance.
- What about that one?
- A very fine stone.
Remarkably few inclusions.
Yes, well, internal
characteristics are only
really visible
through the loupe.
Beautiful clarity.
And, of course,
you don't see
the high dispersion you get
with simulated stones.
It is a diamond, then?
I like so much idea
about synthetic diamonds.
It is much more cheaper
than natural stones.
And also, they looks better.
But if a diamond
can be produced in a laboratory,
of the same or better quality,
for much, much cheaper,
why should we still
mine for diamonds?
Uh, that's...
I can tell you only this is
a good question.
Some people want something that
really belongs to the earth,
something what is made by God,
not made in the... some lab.
What do you think about this?
Let me tell you a story, right?
When I started
in the diamond business, um,
and I was knocking on doors,
my mother gave me $5,000 cash.
I said, "Mom, I don't want
to take your money."
She says, "I don't want you
to spend the money.
I want you to put it
in your pocket.
You'll talk differently
if you have
$5,000 in your pocket."
That's what she said to me.
You wear something
that's valuable
and you know it's valuable,
you strut differently.
You feel different.
Your sense of confidence,
your sense of who you are,
is different.
The real thing has...
brings with it a certain sense
of "I know it's real."
You could have a Picasso
in your house...
it's a lithograph,
and maybe no one knows that
it's not the real thing,
but you do.
When I tell people
I'm gonna sit down
with Martin Rapaport,
what I usually say is,
"This is the most famous person
in the diamond industry.
He sets the prices of diamonds."
Oh, I don't set the prices.
I report the prices.
It's like the weatherman.
I don't make the weather.
I let you know
what the weather is.
- No.
- Why?
Because I don't think that...
I don't legitimize a product
that I believe is gonna be seen
as one of the most illegitimate
products in the 21st century.
- When was 9/11?
- 2001.
Yeah. So, in 2003,
I made a conference in New York
about synthetic diamonds.
This is what the,
uh, machine looks like.
And when we apply the pressure
and the temperature
to this core, the... Whoa!
Synthetic diamonds
were not that new,
but the ability to create
gem-quality
synthetic diamonds was.
Visually, even to the most
experienced gemologist,
they may be indistinguishable
from natural diamond.
It's a big problem for all of us
because it's already
on the market.
It's already here.
What are we going to do?
A synthetic diamond
will be produced
and reproduced with machines
until supply exceeds demand.
The consumer is used to
having technology
bring them products
they otherwise couldn't afford.
Simple as that.
A diamond is a diamond.
Are you crazy?
The wedding ring is a sign
of ultimate commitment and love,
and the woman doesn't
just think it's worth,
I don't know, $80 or 120...
"Put it on a scale,
and that's our marriage."
No, no, no, not at all.
The diamond's actually
a symbol of commitment.
It has to be expensive.
It has to have value.
Has to retain value.
The woman projects
the value of the diamond
onto herself.
"He's giving me something
of great value
because he values me greatly."
He thinks she thinks,
"Oh, this is like a diamond.
I just got a better deal
'cause it's man-made."
They're suckers.
Because eventually,
what's going to happen?
They're gonna come back
in ten years,
and they'll say,
"Oh, what's it worth?
What's my marriage worth?
What's my relationship worth?"
I just think the idea of
"is it real or isn't it real"
is so absurd.
I was at a birthday party
in Paris,
and the woman sitting next me,
she smiled and said, "So,
what kind of jewelry
do you design?"
I was like, "Um, well,
actually, I designed that.
I designed
your engagement ring."
And she said,
"You design engagement rings?"
And I said, "No, I designed
your engagement ring."
And her husband immediately
asked me what all men ask.
They ask about the price.
"Tell me the truth.
Well, how much
should it have cost?"
He just kept saying,
"Tell me the truth."
And I said, "You want the truth?
Do you want to know the truth?
The truth about diamonds is
they're all exactly the same
and none of them are
really worth anything."
And then, ultimately,
I was like,
"Do you know what
a diamond cartel is?"
Mm-hmm.
People want a variety of things.
None of them are particularly
about romance or true love.
People want things
because they've been told
to want them.
And De Beers has convinced
hundreds of millions of people
over almost a century
so effectively
that they want a diamond.
And the way they did it
was by inventing a product...
they called it
an engagement ring...
that would hold these
little white diamonds,
which were
the least desirable kind.
But before that,
nobody really wanted them,
and this was just a way to get
the new emerging middle class
of America
after World War II to buy them.
So, what is a diamond?
What's a stone worth?
Why do people want
what they want?
And in this case,
the answer is:
because they've been told to.
That must've set you back a bit.
Not really.
About two months' salary.
Not much for something
that's forever.
A diamond is forever.
De Beers invented
a way to sell them to people.
People want the thing,
the best thing,
and they've convinced them
that that's a diamond
and nothing else.
De Beers is
the diamond business,
and this building is
where they control
the world diamond trade.
By buying up most of
the world's uncut diamonds,
the company can regulate supply
to select dealers...
...increasing it in good years
and reducing it in bad
to keep prices high.
A century after it began,
the diamond cartel
still controls the production,
the marketing and the pricing of
rough diamonds around the world.
It's impossible to say
factual statements about
De Beers without sounding...
...judgmental.
Its monopolistic control
violates U.S. antitrust laws,
but the cartel has successfully
kept its executives
beyond the reach
of American justice.
Well, until there's
a major crack in the market,
the cartel will survive
simply because
it is too powerful.
And that's fine,
because it's not
about anything important;
it's about diamonds.
De Beers executives are nervous
about all of this.
They would not allow themselves
to be interviewed
for 60 Minutes.
Then again,
it's very important
because it's moved capital
across continents
for about 100 years.
"Serena e Lomunno"
by Riz Ortolani
History has always been
part of the diamond world.
The generation
that preceded me within De Beers
who would've, you know,
locked the front door,
and nobody in, thank you.
This interview
would not have happened.
No, I don't think so.
De Beers was controlled by
the Oppenheimers since really
sort of the 1920s.
But they're all gone,
and, well, I'm still there,
so I carry on with the mission.
Yeah, you know,
it helps in life to be lucky.
There must have been
something ordained
in the way I ended up.
Some say, "What's your job,
then, Stephen?"
Oh, well, you know,
in a way, my job is to
inspire, I guess,
each generation
with this extraordinary story
of the diamond.
People don't know, huh,
a diamond is like
three billion years old.
Older than life.
Some of them older
than stars in the sky.
You can't make that.
Yeah, we can synthesize carbon,
but in reality,
we can't make what a diamond is.
We can't make something
which is a billion years old
that connects us
to the formation of the world.
We can't make something where
every one is inherently unique.
And we can't make something
that has an intrinsic rarity
and preciousness to it.
And the one thing that
waried us a lot about
lab-grown diamonds
is if they were marketed
in a way that pretended
that they had the values
of a real diamond.
We're in the period
of misinformation.
Well, confusion.
People aren't quite sure
what it is or what it isn't,
but, um, it's only
an existential threat
if-if we somehow damage
the relationship
that consumers have
with what a diamond really is.
You know, there are
some ways to make it
more difficult
for existing technology,
but it doesn't mean that
there aren't solutions.
We have a responsibility
to detect them.
The question becomes:
What type of technology
do you need to do so?
Detection I'm not fussed about,
because I know
what De Beers can do.
Do you perceive aluminum
as being a valuable material?
- Personally?
- Personally.
- Aluminum?
- Aluminum.
- Negative.
- No.
Do you know that
there's an aluminum
little obelisk on top
of the Washington Monument?
Because aluminum, at the time
that the Washington Monument
was built,
was some of the most
expensive material out there.
It was really hard
to put together.
You know, it was, like, a feat
that they had done this.
And then,
like a couple years later,
somebody comes up with a process
to mass-produce aluminum,
and now it's dirt cheap.
So, what was once, you know,
really coveted and valuable
is just a commodity
that we throw away.
You know, diamond's
gonna be the same.
John Janik,
he is a Carnegie fellow
from the Carnegie Institution.
Okay, so here you have these,
um, synthetic diamonds.
- Mm-hmm.
- And you actually, uh...
you like to call them
cultured diamonds.
You took them
to the Diamond District...
the real one...
not too far from here,
and they couldn't tell
the difference.
- Not-not... not a bit.
- Not a bit.
And they appraised them
for basically
what natural diamonds
would go for?
That's right...
for wholesale prices.
My PhD was in making crystals
of different materials.
I would make rubies,
which is aluminum oxide
with a little bit
of chromium in it.
I made exotic uranium compounds.
I made these materials,
and then I went
and studied their properties.
A crystal is just
a repeating structure of atoms.
So, if you have a carbon
and a carbon and a carbon
in a repeating pattern,
that's a diamond crystal.
We can actually make diamonds
that are more perfect
than natural diamonds.
We can grow
about a carat per day.
But it will be cheaper, though.
- That's the whole point.
- You can't tell the difference.
So, if you can't tell
the difference, John, then this
inevitably has to hurt
the diamond market out there.
You mean these things
have value? I...
I had no idea.
You got to understand,
the sale of synthetic diamonds
as diamond engagement rings
is a fundamental violation
of the ethics
of the diamond industry,
in my opinion.
But is-is it
just about the money?
'Cause, you know, that's...
You-you're hurting people
where it counts.
You're kicking them
in their emotional,
"I love you," commitment spot.
This is terrible,
terrible, terrible!
I mean, come on.
If I want to rip you off,
fine, rip me off.
Why rip me off
with what I gave my wife?
There's a story of a guy who was
selling treated diamonds...
it's called
the Yehuda treatment...
but he charged everyone
a-a lot less.
But when the women found out
that their diamonds
were treated,
there was a line
around the block
and around the block
and around the block
to try to return the diamonds.
The women, they felt
so cheated and so angry,
and this guy, he gave everybody
the money till he had no money.
Then he drank jewelry cleaner
and killed himself.
And he didn't steal... he didn't
rip 'em off, theoretically.
It wasn't about the money.
It was the failure
to disclose it.
Look, I don't know
what's gonna happen.
Right?
But in ten years from now,
there's an extremely great
likelihood
that people are gonna
look back and say,
"That diamond industry!
They sold that stuff!
And it wasn't worth
the price I paid at all!
What did they do to me?"
And how is the woman gonna feel
if she projects the value
of the diamond
onto herself subconsciously?
How is she gonna feel
about her diamond?
Let's say someone sees my ring
and says, "Is that real?"
Am I gonna say
yes or no?
No woman who thought
she could get away with it
has ever, ever said,
"No, it's fake."
Okay, but is
a diamond a diamond?
What do you mean?
I mean synthetic diamonds
have leaked into
the natural diamond market.
Really?
There saying one percent, maybe,
in the form of melee...
these teeny, teeny,
tiny diamonds
that are sold in parcels.
It's more like 20%.
And nobody's even saying
what percent
of larger stones are lab-grown.
But for the diamond,
not for the synthetic diamond.
The diamond was never real,
either.
The diamond was always a lie.
So the synthetic diamond
is just a lie about a lie,
which I happen to think
is hilarious
and sort of delightful.
And one could argue
that synthetic diamonds,
if what you're looking for is
a really colorless,
flawless one... no nitrogen,
no nothing... they can be made
like nature intended
but never quite managed.
Every stone.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is really a problem,
you know?
Two, three months before this,
we publish that we found like
five percent stones mixed,
you know, so...
They would say,
"If De Beers says,
'In the thousands of the stones,
we didn't found one stone, '
then... the synthetics
is not a problem."
Like, uh, "It doesn't matter."
So, where are those stones?
No one will say, "I'm mixing
and I'm selling," of course.
No one told me this,
but then they are saying,
"Everybody are mixing
if they can get the stones
from China."
Wow. Wow.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
At the beginning,
the quality was, uh...
was, uh, problematic.
Who is, who is buying
these stones?
Where they are
selling these stones?
Look, we don't really
sell diamonds.
We sell the idea
behind the diamonds.
And what's going on
with these synthetic guys,
th-they're like parasites
getting under our skin,
and they're trying to steal
the diamond dream.
That's what they're really
trying to do.
They're trying
to steal the diamond dream.
But if they steal
the diamond dream,
if they burn the diamonds
down to the core,
if they destroy
the basic customer base
for buying diamonds
as the ultimate symbol
of committed love,
now they've destroyed
the whole idea.
And that's the challenge that
we face in the diamond industry.
A young girl...
...thinks about life
and her future and what's
going to happen to her.
And she imagines one day
she will fall in love.
And she'll get married.
And that person
will give her a diamond.
And so the diamond dream
is about:
What will life bring me?
What greatness? What happiness?
What's gonna happen to me?
As a ten-year-old girl, even.
The diamond dream
is about relationships.
The human condition
is about relationships.
We don't want to die alone.
I think the diamond...
you know, the-the words, huh,
"a diamond dream," um,
were probably something
I just thought up, huh?
But actually, it existed
long before De Beers.
You know, it goes well back
to the Duke of Burgundy,
apparently, according to legend,
who gave the first
diamond betrothal ring.
No marketer told him
to do so, huh?
And that core reason he did it
is as true today
as it was then, which is that
he was seeking to send
this symbol to his future wife
that she was precious to him
and that this moment
that they were marking
was something precious.
No, because diamond cutting
had just been perfected
in Bruges
and he wanted Bruges as part
of a multinational land deal
that involved marrying
Mary of Burgundy.
God, I wish people in history
were named something
other than Mary.
And I would assume
he knows that... maybe...
but, no, it wasn't 'cause
it was a precious object.
It was a token, for sure.
And he didn't give it to her;
he gave it to her father.
And-and the point being?
The point being
that that story is bunk.
Or...
it's what you make out of it.
It's kind of like a diamond.
It's an ugly rock
that if you cut enough
reflective windows into it,
it looks like something else.
The 92-carat D color flawless,
heart-shaped diamond and pearl,
the largest
D color flawless heart
to be offered for sale
at auction...
Like, those large diamonds,
those famous diamonds,
they act like it's
a once-in-a-lifetime find,
and yet, every time you look,
Sotheby's or Christie's
is auctioning another one.
It's the largest D flawless
diamond to ever come to market.
It is the largest emerald cut
ever offered at auction.
But the truth is there are
a lot of diamonds waiting
for the company
to have a good reason
to have a miraculous find,
and then someone... let's say...
someone with a skill set
very much like mine...
would be hired
under nondisclosure terms
to spin a sort of fantasy
about how
this diamond was found.
The story that I'm about
to tell you surpasses all those
that nourish my memory.
Never shall I forget the miracle
of the Queen of Kalahari.
It has to be the right name
and the right story.
They have origin stories,
like superheroes.
In the clouded
mountains of Africa,
an incredible treasure
was discovered.
It was an abandoned section
of the mine,
and it was just about
to be closed down.
A miner found
something glistening,
and with a penknife,
he picked it out.
We weren't sure
what it was, and...
He took it
to his surface manager,
who looked at
this great big lump
and threw it out the window,
saying,
"It's a piece of rock crystal."
And then, as we were taking
one last look at it
in the setting sun,
we saw something glinting,
and...
The miner retrieved it,
and they looked at it again
and realized that it was
a 3,106-carat
rough diamond.
Lo and behold, it's this giant,
beautiful diamond
that will then
be marketed with, you know,
vistas of a sunset
with something that makes them
think of Africa,
as though Africa isn't
a gigantic continent comprised
of dozens of countries,
most of which have nothing
to do with diamonds.
Welcome to the Karowe mine!
But the truth is
it got pulled out by a bulldozer
in a pile of dirt and waste,
and that is how
it was discovered.
Sold!
So it's like every origin story.
It's been... embroidered.
The whole concept
of-of romantic love
is actually a fairly new concept
that's probably
less than 150 years old,
let alone giving
these expensive gifts
as-as a token of-of that love.
That's even newer.
That's 100 years old.
John, it is your business.
It is my business. Yeah.
But you don't have to buy
somebody's story.
You don't have to buy
the marketing.
I was that kid that would,
like, ask questions like,
"If we're all descendant
from Adam and Eve, how-how come
we're not all inbred?"
And, you know,
the answers I would get
from adults were:
"Shut up. You don't ask
questions like that."
And I realized as a little kid,
if adults don't have
good answers
for these questions,
they don't know
what the fuck
they're talking about.
So my fundamental belief
is that the value of diamond
is in its technological
capability.
Diamond has the same
transformative potential
that silicon did have,
and I do think that probably
within 15 to 20 years
we'll see amazingly fast
diamond transistors
in a lot of
our personal devices.
Five...
But we don't think
of it that way.
We think of it as a gemstone,
so, you know,
I got to do what I got to do,
which is
make money by destroying
a gem industry
to create a new industry
that I think is more valuable.
You know, creative destruction.
Isn't that... wasn't that Shiva?
I mean, could be, could be
whatever, you know?
They are polishing whatever.
You can send him...
what you have.
Very, very secret.
So, actually seeing...
You can't.
And what are they
really scared about?
They are scared, you know...
Every day.
...they have to go out.
Legally. Or illegally.
Because when are you a thief?
Only when you're caught.
Until then,
you're an honest person.
It's not synthetics
which is a problem.
Yeah, it is fraud. It is fraud.
It is downright fraud.
Many, many sources
in the market.
Nobody can enter.
"Ho You Come Here Naughty Boy"
by Naheed Parvez
singer vocalizing
Come here, naughty boy
Oh, you, come here
Naughty boy, naughty boy
Oh, you, come here
Naughty boy, naughty boy...
singer vocalizing
But they're in
the market mixed with naturals?
Is that what he's saying?
Oh, you, come here...
Oh, you, come here
Naughty boy, naughty boy
song ends
This edition
of International Diamond Week
is taking place during
the most sensitive period
the world diamond industry
has ever known.
That's a tough, uh, thing to do.
Both are real diamonds.
You know? Both are
real diamonds. You know?
The polished diamond output
of one dominant
synthetic rough producer
is said to enter
the consumer market
largely undisclosed.
So winter is coming.
Everybody I know knows about it.
- Zero.
- Because then they would
start asking questions, and...
who benefits?
How? I mean, the police
don't have any clue.
You can't make out
the difference.
You need special equipment.
There's always been mixing.
The problem is not the mixing.
The problem is consumers
finding out about the mixing.
As long as nobody found out,
nobody cares, right?
Somebody sells me
a synthetic diamond,
and I don't know it.
Who was the crime
committed against?
Was it committed against me?
I wanted
a diamond, and here I have one.
So I'm happy.
And if I don't know
the difference,
the difference doesn't exist.
You don't know.
You don't know.
So it means there is
no simple identification.
Not simple, not fast.
Doesn't exist and will
never exist, you know.
The International Institute
of Diamond Grading & Research
is a very new, important
business for De Beers.
It's focused primarily currently
on selling detection equipment
around the world.
Welcome to
the new world of authenticity.
Alrosa Diamond Inspector
is a mini laboratory...
GIA's gem-testing device
distinguishes natural diamonds
from laboratory-grown
diamonds...
It comes with the fastest
and smartest technology ever.
Pass.
It's like your own
portable gemologist.
A person with
no technical knowledge
can easily learn
and operate the system.
...desktop instrument
is easy to operate.
Come on. I was like, uh...
All of us, small guys,
small labs, everything,
will-will go, will go...
will be closed very soon.
They only put the melee
through those machines.
Because its purpose
is not to subvert
any criminal activity.
It's to make everyone else
feel safe so there's no panic.
Security theater.
Uh, surprise, your big diamond
might be fake, too,
even if you have
that nice GIA certificate.
What do you mean?
I mean you might buy a diamond
with a GIA certificate
telling you where it's from,
where it was mined,
that it's a for-real, actual
and conflict-free diamond,
and the only thing that
you might be conflicted about
is the fact that it's not.
Mm-hmm, and that certificate
is-is like a...
it's like a bearer bond.
If you have it,
you could have any...
you could...
you could have a tennis ball
and one of those certificates,
and if they match,
you-you have to accept
that this tennis ball
is a really weird-looking
diamond.
So there's a whole
cottage industry
in making fake
birth certificates
for "fake"
or lab-grown diamonds.
Well, that's why De Beers
ha-had to respond to that.
'Cause we heard stories
of mixing.
And-and it doesn't matter to me
whether it's, you know,
a ten-carat diamond, you know,
worth half a million dollars
or whether it-it's
a one-pointer.
The-the-the promise
you're making
is that they're all
miracles of nature.
The role diamonds play
are about marking
important moments in life
with something that is
intrinsically rare and precious.
And you can't make that.
It's impossible.
It's not about the money,
but it is about precious things,
you know, do cost money.
It's all greed.
What do you mean?
You know, if you want to make
money off of these mines,
you got to pretend
like they're scarce.
You know,
for many, many, many years,
people only found diamonds in
riverbeds and streams in India,
but then, at some point,
people found that there's these
deposits called kimberlites.
You know, kimberlite pipes
are not rare.
They're all over the world.
And then they just started
mining 'em.
So the reality is
that diamond is
one of the most common gemstones
on the face of the planet.
But De Beers keeps them
off to the side and says,
"No, we don't have 'em.
We don't know what
you're talking about."
And they control the prices.
They want you
to continue believing
that your natural gemstone
is valuable and unique and rare
and precious, just like
your love, but it's not.
It's-it's just like
everybody else's.
These are diamonds.
All of those bags,
all the way to the ceiling,
are diamonds?
Yes.
And how many other rooms
do you have like this?
Oh, about, uh, 28 rooms.
How many millions
of carats do you have down here?
No, that is a commercial secret.
So this is one of the last
great secrets of Russia?
It's a secret for any
organization storing diamonds.
There are enough
for every man, woman
and child on the planet
to have a half-carat
diamond ring,
with a half a billion
carats left over.
There are a lot of diamonds.
They're not scarce or rare.
So I'm sorry you're asking
the only chick you got on film
and I have nothing romantic
to say about it,
but they are an economic good,
and they put them
in ring holders.
Well, you know,
we're probably past peak supply.
Yeah.
It's fascinating
to me when I look back
on how my life developed
the way it did,
because my first interaction
with the world of diamonds
was actually
well before I ever knew
that I would end up
within De Beers or within the...
within the diamond world.
You know, I grew up
in Schenectady, New York,
the old headquarters
of General Electric,
the early synthesizer
of industrial diamond.
A scientist at General Electric,
Mr. Hall,
he was the next-door neighbor.
He'd give me five dollars
every time it snowed
to shovel his walk.
Dr. H. Tracy Hall
is a world-famous chemist.
He is one of the inventors
of the first practical process
for making large quantities
of man-made diamonds.
It was the sidewalk
from his front door
and then across the street
that I had to do
with my shovel.
And he'd come out and inspect it
before he'd give me
the five-dollar bill.
Do you remember Tracy Hall?
I remember him
as being scary.
That is one of
the most incredible stories.
From shoveling
Tracy Hall's driveway
to marrying an Oppenheimer.
I did think subsequently,
"What if I had left
just a little bit more ice
on that pavement?"
Really?
Well, would we have had
another couple of decades
without synthesized diamond?
I think the fact that
the very top brass at De Beers
sat in a room with you
and signed a release,
it's a sign
of incredible weakness.
Compared to five years ago,
there would be no interview.
There would never be
an interview.
There's a lot of reasons
for that.
One of them is,
if synthetic diamond jewelry
ever takes a big market share...
which I think
it very well could...
then it would end up
like cultured pearls.
No one would remember
there was ever a difference
between cultured diamonds
and not-cultured diamonds.
I don't even bother
keeping them separate
in my jewelry boxes.
If you want people
to really absorb information,
you need to be able
to tell it to them
in a way that is memorable.
That's the definition
of a storyteller.
Stories are the only way
in today's world
people can absorb information
in any depth.
In the old days,
it was more classic marketing.
You know, I could buy NBC, CBS,
and you all saw it in a week.
But now it's-it's more core.
You need to take a step back.
It's not about myths.
It's about truth.
And truth is a good thing
if your story is a good one.
Actually, here in Botswana,
the world's leading producer
of diamonds,
there's a huge positive benefit
created by the natural diamond.
You know, sometimes
synthetic producers
try and position their product
as somehow an ethical
or environmental alternative.
They say, "Oh, we don't make
a hole in the ground."
And you're right, we do make
a big hole in the ground.
It's about
two kilometers across,
in a country the size of France,
with nothing around it
but scrubland.
You can look at that
in two ways.
You can look at that hole
and say,
"There's a big hole
in the ground,"
or you can look
in that hole and think,
how lucky the people
of Botswana were
to have this two-kilometer
bit of land in an area that...
what were they gonna do with it?
Have like ten cows?
And in that hole has been
this extraordinary
transformation of a country
from four miles of tarred road
to 4,000
because of that hole
in the ground.
A doctor for every 50,000 people
before diamonds.
Now a doctor for every 300.
Hospitals, free education. Why?
It's-it's that hole
in the ground.
De Beers is an African company.
A lot of us may be based
in London, but the deep ethos
of our operations
has Africa at its core.
And there's nothing
more important to an African
than their environment...
in particular, their wildlife...
and you need to protect that,
as well.
You know, if I could bring
every American
engagement ring consumer here
to see with their own eyes
what diamonds do,
they would never buy anything
but-but a natural diamond.
You'd actually say,
"Geez, you know,
why would you
synthesize something
when it could do such harm
to-to this country?"
The story is extraordinarily
inspiring and has the great
convenience of being true.
And you show me another
two-kilometer bit of...
of the world that has done that.
I want to take
this problem of synthetics
to a whole other level.
We're now living
in a world of...
gender equality.
Are diamonds under threat
not because of synthetics only...
although synthetics
brings it down...
because of
the whole question of,
what is the relationship
between the man and the woman
in the 21st century?
Why is she receiving the gift
and not him?
What's going on here?
I could talk about the idea
of, you know,
uh, anthropological studies
that show
that the woman has the babies
and, because she has the babies,
she wants the man
to make a commitment
and know that he's gonna
support her. Okay.
But we live in
a modern world today
where women may be earning
more than men.
She may not need him
or want him.
We switch jobs
every couple of years.
Maybe we're gonna switch,
uh, partners every few years.
Our-our society is changing.
And so the role of the diamond
is under threat
because the role of the woman
and the man is under threat.
But every day,
millennials are getting older.
Their clocks are ticking.
Their desire to procreate,
whether it's genetic
or otherwise
or whether it's, uh, uh,
Darwinian, is there.
What's going to happen?
Does the diamond play a role
in cementing the relationship?
Does the woman
still want a diamond?
And if so, why?
I-I did. Yeah.
I-I grew a diamond
for my former fiance.
Wait, so what's the story there?
Um...
I grew a diamond
and had it cut and polished
and, uh, had it set in a setting
and proposed to her with it.
And?
I think she was unimpressed.
What does that mean?
It was too small.
It was half a carat.
- What did she say?
- Um...
...that she wanted a bigger one.
Ladies and gentlemen,
dear colleagues,
my name is D-Dusan Simic,
and, uh, I'll talk today about
my invention, my patent.
It will ensure that we will have
two completely different
products
that cannot hurt each other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.
It was a decision.
Right now, I'm closing the lab
and I'm going, uh, to do
other things, you know.
It-it was nonsense to have a lab
that it doesn't bring,
it doesn't bring any money.
I really believe in this.
I mean, it could be
a solution, you know.
Can I ask a dumb question?
Of course. Of course.
Uh, this brings
the presentations to...
- Come on, I know all about you.
- Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You-you have a power...
- I'll do a deal with you.
You have the power...
I have the power
to make it work.
...to make it work.
Yes?
And action.
At De Beers, everything you do,
if the person
who owns your diamond
sees anything
that makes them unhappy,
is the wrong thing to do.
They have to feel proud
of-of-of that diamond.
That bit is, like,
the sacrosanct.
You must protect them.
You don't want people
who question things.
Those aren't good consumers.
They question
how many of their...
"Are all of these real?
Well, how I know for sure?"
Then they're gonna start
to ask questions about...
what are the differences?
I don't hate De Beers.
It's not a personal grudge.
It has nothing to do
with my career, per se,
like, you know,
anybody's annoyed me
at any point in the past
or being the only woman
in the room.
I-I have no skin in the game.
It's just that I'm interested
in what they're actually doing.
And I think, if you look closer,
it's never really
what you thought you saw.
And in this case,
you're assuming
the mixing scandal
was ever a problem
for the people
claiming it's a problem.
Because they're also
the ones putting the most money
and quietly the most manpower
into growing them in labs.
So, a lie about a lie
about a lie about a lie.
Delightful.
The diamond jewelry industry
is set for a shake-up
after global diamond giant
De Beers announced
it planned to sell diamonds
grown in a laboratory.
After years of
criticizing lab-made diamonds,
the world's largest
diamond miner, De Beers,
will now sell them.
Of course they were
working on growing their own.
De Beers never sold a diamond...
they sold an idea...
and this is just a new idea.
The Lightbox brand is bringing
the synthesized product
in a way that is
honest about what it is
but, equally importantly,
what it isn't.
The difference is that,
while a natural diamond is made
over billions of years,
comes from deep in the ground,
a lab-grown diamond is
literally made in a factory
over a period
of about two weeks.
It's something less precious.
Maybe for travel jewelry.
It's a nice thing, huh?
It's... you know, you see
a sparkly blue or pink stone,
it's pretty, and it's
very inexpensive to make.
Consumer research tells us
that women prefer
natural diamonds
for life's big occasions
like an engagement ring
or a wedding band,
but these are perfect for all
of other life's occasions.
If you lose it,
don't worry so much,
'cause it's not very expensive.
It's not a memorable thing
that 30 years from now
you're going to be,
you know, cherishing.
You're not gonna pass it on
to your children.
But there's a lot
of jewelry like that,
and there's nothing wrong
with it.
Oh, yeah, really?
After shitting on it
for ten years,
you want to get into it?
All right.
I think where it came from is
they want to cut out
all the people like me.
They want to cut out all
the people that are
creating new diamonds
by undercutting the market.
The gemstone giant De Beers
is building a $94 million dollar
plant there in Gresham.
The laboratory-made
stones produced
will be up to 90% less expensive
than natural stones.
At that point,
you have to assume
they don't want to sell them.
Because when you have
a product that you can't sell,
what do you do?
You put it on sale.
You reduce the price, right?
All this product is
$800 a carat,
so that's much, much less
- than natural diamonds.
- Wow.
So it's a different
thought process...
right? When you're going
to shop for it.
Now we know, because De Beers
have told us so,
that there's a difference,
"We've differentiated."
But then the FTC just expanded
the definition of diamond,
and now it includes
lab-grown diamonds.
So, does that mean a diamond
is only worth $800 a carat?
Simply, he did not...
he did not understand.
He's talking about
something else.
Even I cannot understand
what he wants to say, you know.
I send mail answer to Martin,
and, uh, since then,
he is not, uh...
he did not answer it.
I don't... I don't know.
We did not continue, you know.
I don't know.
- Okay, we go to...?
- Uh, LaGuardia.
- LaGuardia. Okay.
- Yeah, turn left.
Something like that?
You told me D?
Yeah. Terminal D. Thank you.
There is no room for this.
To make money?
I don't know.
Right now, right now, I'm, uh...
I'm waiting for it.
I'll start...
Ah. Good idea, huh?
So, I don't know...
I don't remember who is who.
I don't remember who is where.
Here's Miley and everybody.
All right, Sunday night,
we have to play craps.
It's after my speech.
It's gonna be
a crazy day for me.
I'm gonna be blowing up
half the industry.
What's the speech about?
- Synthetics.
- Synthetics!
- Oh.
- Oh, wow.
- Yeah.
- Wow, that's serious.
It's gonna be happening, man.
Anyways, thinking about
this threat of synthetics...
I think it's
a really big problem.
I bought a lot of stuff
from a-a jeweler in New Jersey,
and he told me he sells
95% synthetic diamond
engagement rings.
- 95%.
- What price points?
All over the place.
And I'm like, "Oh, how about
this natural stone? It's cheap."
And he's like,
"I'm gonna sell synthetic."
That's-that's scary to me.
If you have a retail store
and someone's gonna come in,
they're gonna say,
"How much is this diamond?
Oh, this one's 5,000?
It's a one-carat?
How much is this one?"
"Uh, this one's 500 bucks.
It's a synthetic."
"Okay. What's the difference?"
"I don't know.
GIA can barely tell."
People that are getting married,
you're not thinking...
that's like thinking about...
You're not thinking what?
You're not thinking about
getting divorced, you know,
- when you're getting married.
- Sure.
So you don't care about
the resale value?
- So... yeah, no, you don't.
- No, they don't.
- Yeah, they don't care.
- Think about it.
We're in a throw-away economy.
Throw away everything.
Buy something, throw it away
five years later.
- Right.
- You spend $1,000 on a phone,
- throw it out next year.
- And they-they already realize
that diamonds have no value.
I-I have people that
they already say that.
- Guys, especially.
- So, why sell natural?
That's the big challenge.
That's the challenge.
Millennials,
they want an experience.
You know?
And-and they are scared...
There's this quote
I like that's, uh...
"All your life, you live
so close to the truth
that it becomes a permanent blur
in the corner of your eye.
And when something nudges it
into outline, it's like being
ambushed by the grotesque."
A lot of things fall
into the category
of true or not true, but...
a lot of things don't.
A lot of things start as a lie
and have a way of becoming true.
They lied about
how many there were.
They lied
about how they got them.
They lied about
where they kept them.
They lie about
all kinds of things
because they built a myth.
If they want to sell
natural diamonds,
they have to insist on the myth.
If they want to sell
synthetic diamonds,
they have to insist on the myth.
Because why would you want
a synthetic diamond
if a real diamond
wasn't valuable?
- So it's all here?
- Yeah, this is a...
This is like a, like a...
The truth is not a requirement
for what people believe.
What people believe
is what they want to believe,
what they need to believe,
what doesn't conflict with
their more necessary
load-bearing beliefs.
Ultimately, what everybody
around them believes.
Avi, where are the synthetics?
Anybody know
where the synthetics are?
How much are these pinks?
These are around, like, $600.
Six... Really? So expensive.
So, what do we do with you guys?
What should we do
with you synthetic guys?
You tell me.
What is your solution?
I don't know yet. I'm thinking.
The only solution is you.
I think you could give us
a proper solution,
a proper place on the market
and a proper pricing.
We lose
the engagement ring market,
you're all out of business.
Us being...
everybody's out of business.
I have the utmost admiration
for De Beers.
Incredible admiration.
They created an illusion
so spectacular
it turned into truth.
How do you not applaud that?
Okay.
Mass delusions
can turn on a dime,
and it's not that
synthetic diamonds
might be made undetectable.
It's that
they might have been
made real at that point.
There's the ball game.
So...
Became...
Okay? Okay.
Yeah? Wow.
Morning, everyone.
Now we're gonna get
this party started,
and I'm gonna welcome
Mr. Martin Rapaport.
All right.
Good morning, everybody.
Uh, welcome.
Good morning, Vegas.
Okay, let's see
where we are here.
The first thing that
I just want to explain
a little bit about Rapaport
is that
we're in the value business.
Which means,
if it's not ethical,
I don't want to do it, okay?
Established in 1978,
230 employees,
nine offices, uh, six countries.
RapNet diamond trading network,
the largest in the world...
it's got about $7.4 billion
dollars listed every day.
We're gonna have a vote.
Should RapNet, the largest
diamond trading network
in the world,
carry synthetics?
Yes.
Should Rapaport produce
a price list for synthetics?
Second question.
Why-why is this
making you so happy?
Because let people speak.
No one knows.
Everyone's confused.
I never saw so many people
walking around...
"I don't know. Should I?
Shouldn't I? Would I? Would I?"
Let's ask everybody.
Should we be giving people
the perception of value
when it's not there?
What the hell's going on here?
Could someone tell me?
Anybody know?
The threat of synthetic diamonds
is a wake-up call.
It says, "Hey, guys.
You got a hole
in your boat here."
For this machine, for this, uh,
uh, diamond industry to work,
we need to have all of these
functioning pieces operating
at some level of responsibility
and relationship.
We can't just be ourselves,
our own little islands.
We should be thinking about,
"What exactly are we selling?"
It's the promise of diamonds.
And the big question, "Do we
invest in synthetic diamonds?"
Are we investing in ethical
diamonds in the supply chain?
Are we gonna do both?
What are we gonna do?
Wh-Where are we gonna go?
We know we can't stay
where we are.
And I can say to you that
the RapNet members have voted.
So roll the drums.
Here is how the votes went.
Should RapNet list
synthetic diamonds
as a way to buy
and sell diamonds?
79% no.
Should Rapaport publish
a synthetic price list?
No.
So, what's
the Rapaport position?
Claims that synthetic diamonds
are exactly the same
as natural diamonds, false.
It's just a big lie.
Am I gonna be the person
that's going to legitimize
lab-grown diamonds?
No, I'm not gonna do that.
But we have to invest.
We have to go forward.
We cannot just keep
doing business the way we were.
Prices are going down.
What the hell does that mean?
What do you mean?
How can prices of diamonds
keep going down
and down and down?
What the hell is going on here?
Even the mining companies now
don't have enough money
to fix everything.
But a commitment
of a billion dollars
in marketing in actual diamonds
is something I am calling for
today, here and now.
I am telling you that there is
a bogeyman under the bed
and that things are not right.
But we keep thinking,
"Prices, discounts."
This is stupid. It's wrong.
The diamond engagement ring is
an emotional and spiritual gift
that transcends
the physical diamond
as it communicates
the commitment of love forever.
That is what we're selling.
But we must have a heart.
We must have a soul.
Diamonds are a reflection of us.
You know that light
bouncing around? It's us.
We... we the people
of the diamond industry.
That's what
these diamonds reflect.
Know this:
diamonds are a symbol.
They're not a product.
They're not a commodity.
Good, huh?
Let's go.
When all is said and done,
diamonds are only
as good as we are.
So I give us a blessing.
May we be worthy of the product,
of the symbolism that we sell.
May we be up to diamonds.
Thank you.
"Nothing Lasts Forever"
by The Kinks
When we were young
And green
We shared our dreams
Together
And you were my friend
We had our good times, pal
We thought they'd last
Forever
But nothing lasts forever
Nothing lasts forever
Time goes by
And people change
It's best we go
Our separate ways
And it was wrong
to think our love
Would never end
My friend
Nothing lasts forever
Nothing lasts forever
Time goes by
It takes us all
Nations crumble
And empires fall
And who are we
To think that we
Would always be?
You see
Nothing lasts forever
Nothing lasts forever
I know that
You'll survive
And you'll get by
Whatever
Though you say goodbye
My love will never die
It will last forever
looking around
for something special.
After all, it's been
a few years
since I bought her a diamond.
This is a half hoop.
Of course, the diamond content
in the full hoop
is much greater.
Was it a half hoop
or a full hoop
your wife had in mind?
I think she'd prefer
the full hoop.
Most women do.
Mary, have you seen these?
Jane, those are diamonds.
I know. Aren't they gorgeous?
And it is your birthday
quite soon.
Well...
It's always worth
showing an expensive piece
from the top end
even if it doesn't sell
for some time.
You know, what you might call
an aspirational piece.
Uh, so what's the point
of attracting people
with an item
they can't afford to buy?
Because they'll tend to spend
more on what they choose to buy.
Well, this is the one I like,
but why is it nearly twice
the price of this one?
The value of a diamond
depends on four characteristics.
The larger the diamond,
the rarer it is,
the better the color,
the more valuable it is.
The greater the clarity,
the more beautiful it is.
However,
it's the quality of the cut
that gives the diamond
its brilliance.
- What about that one?
- A very fine stone.
Remarkably few inclusions.
Yes, well, internal
characteristics are only
really visible
through the loupe.
Beautiful clarity.
And, of course,
you don't see
the high dispersion you get
with simulated stones.
It is a diamond, then?
I like so much idea
about synthetic diamonds.
It is much more cheaper
than natural stones.
And also, they looks better.
But if a diamond
can be produced in a laboratory,
of the same or better quality,
for much, much cheaper,
why should we still
mine for diamonds?
Uh, that's...
I can tell you only this is
a good question.
Some people want something that
really belongs to the earth,
something what is made by God,
not made in the... some lab.
What do you think about this?
Let me tell you a story, right?
When I started
in the diamond business, um,
and I was knocking on doors,
my mother gave me $5,000 cash.
I said, "Mom, I don't want
to take your money."
She says, "I don't want you
to spend the money.
I want you to put it
in your pocket.
You'll talk differently
if you have
$5,000 in your pocket."
That's what she said to me.
You wear something
that's valuable
and you know it's valuable,
you strut differently.
You feel different.
Your sense of confidence,
your sense of who you are,
is different.
The real thing has...
brings with it a certain sense
of "I know it's real."
You could have a Picasso
in your house...
it's a lithograph,
and maybe no one knows that
it's not the real thing,
but you do.
When I tell people
I'm gonna sit down
with Martin Rapaport,
what I usually say is,
"This is the most famous person
in the diamond industry.
He sets the prices of diamonds."
Oh, I don't set the prices.
I report the prices.
It's like the weatherman.
I don't make the weather.
I let you know
what the weather is.
- No.
- Why?
Because I don't think that...
I don't legitimize a product
that I believe is gonna be seen
as one of the most illegitimate
products in the 21st century.
- When was 9/11?
- 2001.
Yeah. So, in 2003,
I made a conference in New York
about synthetic diamonds.
This is what the,
uh, machine looks like.
And when we apply the pressure
and the temperature
to this core, the... Whoa!
Synthetic diamonds
were not that new,
but the ability to create
gem-quality
synthetic diamonds was.
Visually, even to the most
experienced gemologist,
they may be indistinguishable
from natural diamond.
It's a big problem for all of us
because it's already
on the market.
It's already here.
What are we going to do?
A synthetic diamond
will be produced
and reproduced with machines
until supply exceeds demand.
The consumer is used to
having technology
bring them products
they otherwise couldn't afford.
Simple as that.
A diamond is a diamond.
Are you crazy?
The wedding ring is a sign
of ultimate commitment and love,
and the woman doesn't
just think it's worth,
I don't know, $80 or 120...
"Put it on a scale,
and that's our marriage."
No, no, no, not at all.
The diamond's actually
a symbol of commitment.
It has to be expensive.
It has to have value.
Has to retain value.
The woman projects
the value of the diamond
onto herself.
"He's giving me something
of great value
because he values me greatly."
He thinks she thinks,
"Oh, this is like a diamond.
I just got a better deal
'cause it's man-made."
They're suckers.
Because eventually,
what's going to happen?
They're gonna come back
in ten years,
and they'll say,
"Oh, what's it worth?
What's my marriage worth?
What's my relationship worth?"
I just think the idea of
"is it real or isn't it real"
is so absurd.
I was at a birthday party
in Paris,
and the woman sitting next me,
she smiled and said, "So,
what kind of jewelry
do you design?"
I was like, "Um, well,
actually, I designed that.
I designed
your engagement ring."
And she said,
"You design engagement rings?"
And I said, "No, I designed
your engagement ring."
And her husband immediately
asked me what all men ask.
They ask about the price.
"Tell me the truth.
Well, how much
should it have cost?"
He just kept saying,
"Tell me the truth."
And I said, "You want the truth?
Do you want to know the truth?
The truth about diamonds is
they're all exactly the same
and none of them are
really worth anything."
And then, ultimately,
I was like,
"Do you know what
a diamond cartel is?"
Mm-hmm.
People want a variety of things.
None of them are particularly
about romance or true love.
People want things
because they've been told
to want them.
And De Beers has convinced
hundreds of millions of people
over almost a century
so effectively
that they want a diamond.
And the way they did it
was by inventing a product...
they called it
an engagement ring...
that would hold these
little white diamonds,
which were
the least desirable kind.
But before that,
nobody really wanted them,
and this was just a way to get
the new emerging middle class
of America
after World War II to buy them.
So, what is a diamond?
What's a stone worth?
Why do people want
what they want?
And in this case,
the answer is:
because they've been told to.
That must've set you back a bit.
Not really.
About two months' salary.
Not much for something
that's forever.
A diamond is forever.
De Beers invented
a way to sell them to people.
People want the thing,
the best thing,
and they've convinced them
that that's a diamond
and nothing else.
De Beers is
the diamond business,
and this building is
where they control
the world diamond trade.
By buying up most of
the world's uncut diamonds,
the company can regulate supply
to select dealers...
...increasing it in good years
and reducing it in bad
to keep prices high.
A century after it began,
the diamond cartel
still controls the production,
the marketing and the pricing of
rough diamonds around the world.
It's impossible to say
factual statements about
De Beers without sounding...
...judgmental.
Its monopolistic control
violates U.S. antitrust laws,
but the cartel has successfully
kept its executives
beyond the reach
of American justice.
Well, until there's
a major crack in the market,
the cartel will survive
simply because
it is too powerful.
And that's fine,
because it's not
about anything important;
it's about diamonds.
De Beers executives are nervous
about all of this.
They would not allow themselves
to be interviewed
for 60 Minutes.
Then again,
it's very important
because it's moved capital
across continents
for about 100 years.
"Serena e Lomunno"
by Riz Ortolani
History has always been
part of the diamond world.
The generation
that preceded me within De Beers
who would've, you know,
locked the front door,
and nobody in, thank you.
This interview
would not have happened.
No, I don't think so.
De Beers was controlled by
the Oppenheimers since really
sort of the 1920s.
But they're all gone,
and, well, I'm still there,
so I carry on with the mission.
Yeah, you know,
it helps in life to be lucky.
There must have been
something ordained
in the way I ended up.
Some say, "What's your job,
then, Stephen?"
Oh, well, you know,
in a way, my job is to
inspire, I guess,
each generation
with this extraordinary story
of the diamond.
People don't know, huh,
a diamond is like
three billion years old.
Older than life.
Some of them older
than stars in the sky.
You can't make that.
Yeah, we can synthesize carbon,
but in reality,
we can't make what a diamond is.
We can't make something
which is a billion years old
that connects us
to the formation of the world.
We can't make something where
every one is inherently unique.
And we can't make something
that has an intrinsic rarity
and preciousness to it.
And the one thing that
waried us a lot about
lab-grown diamonds
is if they were marketed
in a way that pretended
that they had the values
of a real diamond.
We're in the period
of misinformation.
Well, confusion.
People aren't quite sure
what it is or what it isn't,
but, um, it's only
an existential threat
if-if we somehow damage
the relationship
that consumers have
with what a diamond really is.
You know, there are
some ways to make it
more difficult
for existing technology,
but it doesn't mean that
there aren't solutions.
We have a responsibility
to detect them.
The question becomes:
What type of technology
do you need to do so?
Detection I'm not fussed about,
because I know
what De Beers can do.
Do you perceive aluminum
as being a valuable material?
- Personally?
- Personally.
- Aluminum?
- Aluminum.
- Negative.
- No.
Do you know that
there's an aluminum
little obelisk on top
of the Washington Monument?
Because aluminum, at the time
that the Washington Monument
was built,
was some of the most
expensive material out there.
It was really hard
to put together.
You know, it was, like, a feat
that they had done this.
And then,
like a couple years later,
somebody comes up with a process
to mass-produce aluminum,
and now it's dirt cheap.
So, what was once, you know,
really coveted and valuable
is just a commodity
that we throw away.
You know, diamond's
gonna be the same.
John Janik,
he is a Carnegie fellow
from the Carnegie Institution.
Okay, so here you have these,
um, synthetic diamonds.
- Mm-hmm.
- And you actually, uh...
you like to call them
cultured diamonds.
You took them
to the Diamond District...
the real one...
not too far from here,
and they couldn't tell
the difference.
- Not-not... not a bit.
- Not a bit.
And they appraised them
for basically
what natural diamonds
would go for?
That's right...
for wholesale prices.
My PhD was in making crystals
of different materials.
I would make rubies,
which is aluminum oxide
with a little bit
of chromium in it.
I made exotic uranium compounds.
I made these materials,
and then I went
and studied their properties.
A crystal is just
a repeating structure of atoms.
So, if you have a carbon
and a carbon and a carbon
in a repeating pattern,
that's a diamond crystal.
We can actually make diamonds
that are more perfect
than natural diamonds.
We can grow
about a carat per day.
But it will be cheaper, though.
- That's the whole point.
- You can't tell the difference.
So, if you can't tell
the difference, John, then this
inevitably has to hurt
the diamond market out there.
You mean these things
have value? I...
I had no idea.
You got to understand,
the sale of synthetic diamonds
as diamond engagement rings
is a fundamental violation
of the ethics
of the diamond industry,
in my opinion.
But is-is it
just about the money?
'Cause, you know, that's...
You-you're hurting people
where it counts.
You're kicking them
in their emotional,
"I love you," commitment spot.
This is terrible,
terrible, terrible!
I mean, come on.
If I want to rip you off,
fine, rip me off.
Why rip me off
with what I gave my wife?
There's a story of a guy who was
selling treated diamonds...
it's called
the Yehuda treatment...
but he charged everyone
a-a lot less.
But when the women found out
that their diamonds
were treated,
there was a line
around the block
and around the block
and around the block
to try to return the diamonds.
The women, they felt
so cheated and so angry,
and this guy, he gave everybody
the money till he had no money.
Then he drank jewelry cleaner
and killed himself.
And he didn't steal... he didn't
rip 'em off, theoretically.
It wasn't about the money.
It was the failure
to disclose it.
Look, I don't know
what's gonna happen.
Right?
But in ten years from now,
there's an extremely great
likelihood
that people are gonna
look back and say,
"That diamond industry!
They sold that stuff!
And it wasn't worth
the price I paid at all!
What did they do to me?"
And how is the woman gonna feel
if she projects the value
of the diamond
onto herself subconsciously?
How is she gonna feel
about her diamond?
Let's say someone sees my ring
and says, "Is that real?"
Am I gonna say
yes or no?
No woman who thought
she could get away with it
has ever, ever said,
"No, it's fake."
Okay, but is
a diamond a diamond?
What do you mean?
I mean synthetic diamonds
have leaked into
the natural diamond market.
Really?
There saying one percent, maybe,
in the form of melee...
these teeny, teeny,
tiny diamonds
that are sold in parcels.
It's more like 20%.
And nobody's even saying
what percent
of larger stones are lab-grown.
But for the diamond,
not for the synthetic diamond.
The diamond was never real,
either.
The diamond was always a lie.
So the synthetic diamond
is just a lie about a lie,
which I happen to think
is hilarious
and sort of delightful.
And one could argue
that synthetic diamonds,
if what you're looking for is
a really colorless,
flawless one... no nitrogen,
no nothing... they can be made
like nature intended
but never quite managed.
Every stone.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is really a problem,
you know?
Two, three months before this,
we publish that we found like
five percent stones mixed,
you know, so...
They would say,
"If De Beers says,
'In the thousands of the stones,
we didn't found one stone, '
then... the synthetics
is not a problem."
Like, uh, "It doesn't matter."
So, where are those stones?
No one will say, "I'm mixing
and I'm selling," of course.
No one told me this,
but then they are saying,
"Everybody are mixing
if they can get the stones
from China."
Wow. Wow.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
At the beginning,
the quality was, uh...
was, uh, problematic.
Who is, who is buying
these stones?
Where they are
selling these stones?
Look, we don't really
sell diamonds.
We sell the idea
behind the diamonds.
And what's going on
with these synthetic guys,
th-they're like parasites
getting under our skin,
and they're trying to steal
the diamond dream.
That's what they're really
trying to do.
They're trying
to steal the diamond dream.
But if they steal
the diamond dream,
if they burn the diamonds
down to the core,
if they destroy
the basic customer base
for buying diamonds
as the ultimate symbol
of committed love,
now they've destroyed
the whole idea.
And that's the challenge that
we face in the diamond industry.
A young girl...
...thinks about life
and her future and what's
going to happen to her.
And she imagines one day
she will fall in love.
And she'll get married.
And that person
will give her a diamond.
And so the diamond dream
is about:
What will life bring me?
What greatness? What happiness?
What's gonna happen to me?
As a ten-year-old girl, even.
The diamond dream
is about relationships.
The human condition
is about relationships.
We don't want to die alone.
I think the diamond...
you know, the-the words, huh,
"a diamond dream," um,
were probably something
I just thought up, huh?
But actually, it existed
long before De Beers.
You know, it goes well back
to the Duke of Burgundy,
apparently, according to legend,
who gave the first
diamond betrothal ring.
No marketer told him
to do so, huh?
And that core reason he did it
is as true today
as it was then, which is that
he was seeking to send
this symbol to his future wife
that she was precious to him
and that this moment
that they were marking
was something precious.
No, because diamond cutting
had just been perfected
in Bruges
and he wanted Bruges as part
of a multinational land deal
that involved marrying
Mary of Burgundy.
God, I wish people in history
were named something
other than Mary.
And I would assume
he knows that... maybe...
but, no, it wasn't 'cause
it was a precious object.
It was a token, for sure.
And he didn't give it to her;
he gave it to her father.
And-and the point being?
The point being
that that story is bunk.
Or...
it's what you make out of it.
It's kind of like a diamond.
It's an ugly rock
that if you cut enough
reflective windows into it,
it looks like something else.
The 92-carat D color flawless,
heart-shaped diamond and pearl,
the largest
D color flawless heart
to be offered for sale
at auction...
Like, those large diamonds,
those famous diamonds,
they act like it's
a once-in-a-lifetime find,
and yet, every time you look,
Sotheby's or Christie's
is auctioning another one.
It's the largest D flawless
diamond to ever come to market.
It is the largest emerald cut
ever offered at auction.
But the truth is there are
a lot of diamonds waiting
for the company
to have a good reason
to have a miraculous find,
and then someone... let's say...
someone with a skill set
very much like mine...
would be hired
under nondisclosure terms
to spin a sort of fantasy
about how
this diamond was found.
The story that I'm about
to tell you surpasses all those
that nourish my memory.
Never shall I forget the miracle
of the Queen of Kalahari.
It has to be the right name
and the right story.
They have origin stories,
like superheroes.
In the clouded
mountains of Africa,
an incredible treasure
was discovered.
It was an abandoned section
of the mine,
and it was just about
to be closed down.
A miner found
something glistening,
and with a penknife,
he picked it out.
We weren't sure
what it was, and...
He took it
to his surface manager,
who looked at
this great big lump
and threw it out the window,
saying,
"It's a piece of rock crystal."
And then, as we were taking
one last look at it
in the setting sun,
we saw something glinting,
and...
The miner retrieved it,
and they looked at it again
and realized that it was
a 3,106-carat
rough diamond.
Lo and behold, it's this giant,
beautiful diamond
that will then
be marketed with, you know,
vistas of a sunset
with something that makes them
think of Africa,
as though Africa isn't
a gigantic continent comprised
of dozens of countries,
most of which have nothing
to do with diamonds.
Welcome to the Karowe mine!
But the truth is
it got pulled out by a bulldozer
in a pile of dirt and waste,
and that is how
it was discovered.
Sold!
So it's like every origin story.
It's been... embroidered.
The whole concept
of-of romantic love
is actually a fairly new concept
that's probably
less than 150 years old,
let alone giving
these expensive gifts
as-as a token of-of that love.
That's even newer.
That's 100 years old.
John, it is your business.
It is my business. Yeah.
But you don't have to buy
somebody's story.
You don't have to buy
the marketing.
I was that kid that would,
like, ask questions like,
"If we're all descendant
from Adam and Eve, how-how come
we're not all inbred?"
And, you know,
the answers I would get
from adults were:
"Shut up. You don't ask
questions like that."
And I realized as a little kid,
if adults don't have
good answers
for these questions,
they don't know
what the fuck
they're talking about.
So my fundamental belief
is that the value of diamond
is in its technological
capability.
Diamond has the same
transformative potential
that silicon did have,
and I do think that probably
within 15 to 20 years
we'll see amazingly fast
diamond transistors
in a lot of
our personal devices.
Five...
But we don't think
of it that way.
We think of it as a gemstone,
so, you know,
I got to do what I got to do,
which is
make money by destroying
a gem industry
to create a new industry
that I think is more valuable.
You know, creative destruction.
Isn't that... wasn't that Shiva?
I mean, could be, could be
whatever, you know?
They are polishing whatever.
You can send him...
what you have.
Very, very secret.
So, actually seeing...
You can't.
And what are they
really scared about?
They are scared, you know...
Every day.
...they have to go out.
Legally. Or illegally.
Because when are you a thief?
Only when you're caught.
Until then,
you're an honest person.
It's not synthetics
which is a problem.
Yeah, it is fraud. It is fraud.
It is downright fraud.
Many, many sources
in the market.
Nobody can enter.
"Ho You Come Here Naughty Boy"
by Naheed Parvez
singer vocalizing
Come here, naughty boy
Oh, you, come here
Naughty boy, naughty boy
Oh, you, come here
Naughty boy, naughty boy...
singer vocalizing
But they're in
the market mixed with naturals?
Is that what he's saying?
Oh, you, come here...
Oh, you, come here
Naughty boy, naughty boy
song ends
This edition
of International Diamond Week
is taking place during
the most sensitive period
the world diamond industry
has ever known.
That's a tough, uh, thing to do.
Both are real diamonds.
You know? Both are
real diamonds. You know?
The polished diamond output
of one dominant
synthetic rough producer
is said to enter
the consumer market
largely undisclosed.
So winter is coming.
Everybody I know knows about it.
- Zero.
- Because then they would
start asking questions, and...
who benefits?
How? I mean, the police
don't have any clue.
You can't make out
the difference.
You need special equipment.
There's always been mixing.
The problem is not the mixing.
The problem is consumers
finding out about the mixing.
As long as nobody found out,
nobody cares, right?
Somebody sells me
a synthetic diamond,
and I don't know it.
Who was the crime
committed against?
Was it committed against me?
I wanted
a diamond, and here I have one.
So I'm happy.
And if I don't know
the difference,
the difference doesn't exist.
You don't know.
You don't know.
So it means there is
no simple identification.
Not simple, not fast.
Doesn't exist and will
never exist, you know.
The International Institute
of Diamond Grading & Research
is a very new, important
business for De Beers.
It's focused primarily currently
on selling detection equipment
around the world.
Welcome to
the new world of authenticity.
Alrosa Diamond Inspector
is a mini laboratory...
GIA's gem-testing device
distinguishes natural diamonds
from laboratory-grown
diamonds...
It comes with the fastest
and smartest technology ever.
Pass.
It's like your own
portable gemologist.
A person with
no technical knowledge
can easily learn
and operate the system.
...desktop instrument
is easy to operate.
Come on. I was like, uh...
All of us, small guys,
small labs, everything,
will-will go, will go...
will be closed very soon.
They only put the melee
through those machines.
Because its purpose
is not to subvert
any criminal activity.
It's to make everyone else
feel safe so there's no panic.
Security theater.
Uh, surprise, your big diamond
might be fake, too,
even if you have
that nice GIA certificate.
What do you mean?
I mean you might buy a diamond
with a GIA certificate
telling you where it's from,
where it was mined,
that it's a for-real, actual
and conflict-free diamond,
and the only thing that
you might be conflicted about
is the fact that it's not.
Mm-hmm, and that certificate
is-is like a...
it's like a bearer bond.
If you have it,
you could have any...
you could...
you could have a tennis ball
and one of those certificates,
and if they match,
you-you have to accept
that this tennis ball
is a really weird-looking
diamond.
So there's a whole
cottage industry
in making fake
birth certificates
for "fake"
or lab-grown diamonds.
Well, that's why De Beers
ha-had to respond to that.
'Cause we heard stories
of mixing.
And-and it doesn't matter to me
whether it's, you know,
a ten-carat diamond, you know,
worth half a million dollars
or whether it-it's
a one-pointer.
The-the-the promise
you're making
is that they're all
miracles of nature.
The role diamonds play
are about marking
important moments in life
with something that is
intrinsically rare and precious.
And you can't make that.
It's impossible.
It's not about the money,
but it is about precious things,
you know, do cost money.
It's all greed.
What do you mean?
You know, if you want to make
money off of these mines,
you got to pretend
like they're scarce.
You know,
for many, many, many years,
people only found diamonds in
riverbeds and streams in India,
but then, at some point,
people found that there's these
deposits called kimberlites.
You know, kimberlite pipes
are not rare.
They're all over the world.
And then they just started
mining 'em.
So the reality is
that diamond is
one of the most common gemstones
on the face of the planet.
But De Beers keeps them
off to the side and says,
"No, we don't have 'em.
We don't know what
you're talking about."
And they control the prices.
They want you
to continue believing
that your natural gemstone
is valuable and unique and rare
and precious, just like
your love, but it's not.
It's-it's just like
everybody else's.
These are diamonds.
All of those bags,
all the way to the ceiling,
are diamonds?
Yes.
And how many other rooms
do you have like this?
Oh, about, uh, 28 rooms.
How many millions
of carats do you have down here?
No, that is a commercial secret.
So this is one of the last
great secrets of Russia?
It's a secret for any
organization storing diamonds.
There are enough
for every man, woman
and child on the planet
to have a half-carat
diamond ring,
with a half a billion
carats left over.
There are a lot of diamonds.
They're not scarce or rare.
So I'm sorry you're asking
the only chick you got on film
and I have nothing romantic
to say about it,
but they are an economic good,
and they put them
in ring holders.
Well, you know,
we're probably past peak supply.
Yeah.
It's fascinating
to me when I look back
on how my life developed
the way it did,
because my first interaction
with the world of diamonds
was actually
well before I ever knew
that I would end up
within De Beers or within the...
within the diamond world.
You know, I grew up
in Schenectady, New York,
the old headquarters
of General Electric,
the early synthesizer
of industrial diamond.
A scientist at General Electric,
Mr. Hall,
he was the next-door neighbor.
He'd give me five dollars
every time it snowed
to shovel his walk.
Dr. H. Tracy Hall
is a world-famous chemist.
He is one of the inventors
of the first practical process
for making large quantities
of man-made diamonds.
It was the sidewalk
from his front door
and then across the street
that I had to do
with my shovel.
And he'd come out and inspect it
before he'd give me
the five-dollar bill.
Do you remember Tracy Hall?
I remember him
as being scary.
That is one of
the most incredible stories.
From shoveling
Tracy Hall's driveway
to marrying an Oppenheimer.
I did think subsequently,
"What if I had left
just a little bit more ice
on that pavement?"
Really?
Well, would we have had
another couple of decades
without synthesized diamond?
I think the fact that
the very top brass at De Beers
sat in a room with you
and signed a release,
it's a sign
of incredible weakness.
Compared to five years ago,
there would be no interview.
There would never be
an interview.
There's a lot of reasons
for that.
One of them is,
if synthetic diamond jewelry
ever takes a big market share...
which I think
it very well could...
then it would end up
like cultured pearls.
No one would remember
there was ever a difference
between cultured diamonds
and not-cultured diamonds.
I don't even bother
keeping them separate
in my jewelry boxes.
If you want people
to really absorb information,
you need to be able
to tell it to them
in a way that is memorable.
That's the definition
of a storyteller.
Stories are the only way
in today's world
people can absorb information
in any depth.
In the old days,
it was more classic marketing.
You know, I could buy NBC, CBS,
and you all saw it in a week.
But now it's-it's more core.
You need to take a step back.
It's not about myths.
It's about truth.
And truth is a good thing
if your story is a good one.
Actually, here in Botswana,
the world's leading producer
of diamonds,
there's a huge positive benefit
created by the natural diamond.
You know, sometimes
synthetic producers
try and position their product
as somehow an ethical
or environmental alternative.
They say, "Oh, we don't make
a hole in the ground."
And you're right, we do make
a big hole in the ground.
It's about
two kilometers across,
in a country the size of France,
with nothing around it
but scrubland.
You can look at that
in two ways.
You can look at that hole
and say,
"There's a big hole
in the ground,"
or you can look
in that hole and think,
how lucky the people
of Botswana were
to have this two-kilometer
bit of land in an area that...
what were they gonna do with it?
Have like ten cows?
And in that hole has been
this extraordinary
transformation of a country
from four miles of tarred road
to 4,000
because of that hole
in the ground.
A doctor for every 50,000 people
before diamonds.
Now a doctor for every 300.
Hospitals, free education. Why?
It's-it's that hole
in the ground.
De Beers is an African company.
A lot of us may be based
in London, but the deep ethos
of our operations
has Africa at its core.
And there's nothing
more important to an African
than their environment...
in particular, their wildlife...
and you need to protect that,
as well.
You know, if I could bring
every American
engagement ring consumer here
to see with their own eyes
what diamonds do,
they would never buy anything
but-but a natural diamond.
You'd actually say,
"Geez, you know,
why would you
synthesize something
when it could do such harm
to-to this country?"
The story is extraordinarily
inspiring and has the great
convenience of being true.
And you show me another
two-kilometer bit of...
of the world that has done that.
I want to take
this problem of synthetics
to a whole other level.
We're now living
in a world of...
gender equality.
Are diamonds under threat
not because of synthetics only...
although synthetics
brings it down...
because of
the whole question of,
what is the relationship
between the man and the woman
in the 21st century?
Why is she receiving the gift
and not him?
What's going on here?
I could talk about the idea
of, you know,
uh, anthropological studies
that show
that the woman has the babies
and, because she has the babies,
she wants the man
to make a commitment
and know that he's gonna
support her. Okay.
But we live in
a modern world today
where women may be earning
more than men.
She may not need him
or want him.
We switch jobs
every couple of years.
Maybe we're gonna switch,
uh, partners every few years.
Our-our society is changing.
And so the role of the diamond
is under threat
because the role of the woman
and the man is under threat.
But every day,
millennials are getting older.
Their clocks are ticking.
Their desire to procreate,
whether it's genetic
or otherwise
or whether it's, uh, uh,
Darwinian, is there.
What's going to happen?
Does the diamond play a role
in cementing the relationship?
Does the woman
still want a diamond?
And if so, why?
I-I did. Yeah.
I-I grew a diamond
for my former fiance.
Wait, so what's the story there?
Um...
I grew a diamond
and had it cut and polished
and, uh, had it set in a setting
and proposed to her with it.
And?
I think she was unimpressed.
What does that mean?
It was too small.
It was half a carat.
- What did she say?
- Um...
...that she wanted a bigger one.
Ladies and gentlemen,
dear colleagues,
my name is D-Dusan Simic,
and, uh, I'll talk today about
my invention, my patent.
It will ensure that we will have
two completely different
products
that cannot hurt each other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.
It was a decision.
Right now, I'm closing the lab
and I'm going, uh, to do
other things, you know.
It-it was nonsense to have a lab
that it doesn't bring,
it doesn't bring any money.
I really believe in this.
I mean, it could be
a solution, you know.
Can I ask a dumb question?
Of course. Of course.
Uh, this brings
the presentations to...
- Come on, I know all about you.
- Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You-you have a power...
- I'll do a deal with you.
You have the power...
I have the power
to make it work.
...to make it work.
Yes?
And action.
At De Beers, everything you do,
if the person
who owns your diamond
sees anything
that makes them unhappy,
is the wrong thing to do.
They have to feel proud
of-of-of that diamond.
That bit is, like,
the sacrosanct.
You must protect them.
You don't want people
who question things.
Those aren't good consumers.
They question
how many of their...
"Are all of these real?
Well, how I know for sure?"
Then they're gonna start
to ask questions about...
what are the differences?
I don't hate De Beers.
It's not a personal grudge.
It has nothing to do
with my career, per se,
like, you know,
anybody's annoyed me
at any point in the past
or being the only woman
in the room.
I-I have no skin in the game.
It's just that I'm interested
in what they're actually doing.
And I think, if you look closer,
it's never really
what you thought you saw.
And in this case,
you're assuming
the mixing scandal
was ever a problem
for the people
claiming it's a problem.
Because they're also
the ones putting the most money
and quietly the most manpower
into growing them in labs.
So, a lie about a lie
about a lie about a lie.
Delightful.
The diamond jewelry industry
is set for a shake-up
after global diamond giant
De Beers announced
it planned to sell diamonds
grown in a laboratory.
After years of
criticizing lab-made diamonds,
the world's largest
diamond miner, De Beers,
will now sell them.
Of course they were
working on growing their own.
De Beers never sold a diamond...
they sold an idea...
and this is just a new idea.
The Lightbox brand is bringing
the synthesized product
in a way that is
honest about what it is
but, equally importantly,
what it isn't.
The difference is that,
while a natural diamond is made
over billions of years,
comes from deep in the ground,
a lab-grown diamond is
literally made in a factory
over a period
of about two weeks.
It's something less precious.
Maybe for travel jewelry.
It's a nice thing, huh?
It's... you know, you see
a sparkly blue or pink stone,
it's pretty, and it's
very inexpensive to make.
Consumer research tells us
that women prefer
natural diamonds
for life's big occasions
like an engagement ring
or a wedding band,
but these are perfect for all
of other life's occasions.
If you lose it,
don't worry so much,
'cause it's not very expensive.
It's not a memorable thing
that 30 years from now
you're going to be,
you know, cherishing.
You're not gonna pass it on
to your children.
But there's a lot
of jewelry like that,
and there's nothing wrong
with it.
Oh, yeah, really?
After shitting on it
for ten years,
you want to get into it?
All right.
I think where it came from is
they want to cut out
all the people like me.
They want to cut out all
the people that are
creating new diamonds
by undercutting the market.
The gemstone giant De Beers
is building a $94 million dollar
plant there in Gresham.
The laboratory-made
stones produced
will be up to 90% less expensive
than natural stones.
At that point,
you have to assume
they don't want to sell them.
Because when you have
a product that you can't sell,
what do you do?
You put it on sale.
You reduce the price, right?
All this product is
$800 a carat,
so that's much, much less
- than natural diamonds.
- Wow.
So it's a different
thought process...
right? When you're going
to shop for it.
Now we know, because De Beers
have told us so,
that there's a difference,
"We've differentiated."
But then the FTC just expanded
the definition of diamond,
and now it includes
lab-grown diamonds.
So, does that mean a diamond
is only worth $800 a carat?
Simply, he did not...
he did not understand.
He's talking about
something else.
Even I cannot understand
what he wants to say, you know.
I send mail answer to Martin,
and, uh, since then,
he is not, uh...
he did not answer it.
I don't... I don't know.
We did not continue, you know.
I don't know.
- Okay, we go to...?
- Uh, LaGuardia.
- LaGuardia. Okay.
- Yeah, turn left.
Something like that?
You told me D?
Yeah. Terminal D. Thank you.
There is no room for this.
To make money?
I don't know.
Right now, right now, I'm, uh...
I'm waiting for it.
I'll start...
Ah. Good idea, huh?
So, I don't know...
I don't remember who is who.
I don't remember who is where.
Here's Miley and everybody.
All right, Sunday night,
we have to play craps.
It's after my speech.
It's gonna be
a crazy day for me.
I'm gonna be blowing up
half the industry.
What's the speech about?
- Synthetics.
- Synthetics!
- Oh.
- Oh, wow.
- Yeah.
- Wow, that's serious.
It's gonna be happening, man.
Anyways, thinking about
this threat of synthetics...
I think it's
a really big problem.
I bought a lot of stuff
from a-a jeweler in New Jersey,
and he told me he sells
95% synthetic diamond
engagement rings.
- 95%.
- What price points?
All over the place.
And I'm like, "Oh, how about
this natural stone? It's cheap."
And he's like,
"I'm gonna sell synthetic."
That's-that's scary to me.
If you have a retail store
and someone's gonna come in,
they're gonna say,
"How much is this diamond?
Oh, this one's 5,000?
It's a one-carat?
How much is this one?"
"Uh, this one's 500 bucks.
It's a synthetic."
"Okay. What's the difference?"
"I don't know.
GIA can barely tell."
People that are getting married,
you're not thinking...
that's like thinking about...
You're not thinking what?
You're not thinking about
getting divorced, you know,
- when you're getting married.
- Sure.
So you don't care about
the resale value?
- So... yeah, no, you don't.
- No, they don't.
- Yeah, they don't care.
- Think about it.
We're in a throw-away economy.
Throw away everything.
Buy something, throw it away
five years later.
- Right.
- You spend $1,000 on a phone,
- throw it out next year.
- And they-they already realize
that diamonds have no value.
I-I have people that
they already say that.
- Guys, especially.
- So, why sell natural?
That's the big challenge.
That's the challenge.
Millennials,
they want an experience.
You know?
And-and they are scared...
There's this quote
I like that's, uh...
"All your life, you live
so close to the truth
that it becomes a permanent blur
in the corner of your eye.
And when something nudges it
into outline, it's like being
ambushed by the grotesque."
A lot of things fall
into the category
of true or not true, but...
a lot of things don't.
A lot of things start as a lie
and have a way of becoming true.
They lied about
how many there were.
They lied
about how they got them.
They lied about
where they kept them.
They lie about
all kinds of things
because they built a myth.
If they want to sell
natural diamonds,
they have to insist on the myth.
If they want to sell
synthetic diamonds,
they have to insist on the myth.
Because why would you want
a synthetic diamond
if a real diamond
wasn't valuable?
- So it's all here?
- Yeah, this is a...
This is like a, like a...
The truth is not a requirement
for what people believe.
What people believe
is what they want to believe,
what they need to believe,
what doesn't conflict with
their more necessary
load-bearing beliefs.
Ultimately, what everybody
around them believes.
Avi, where are the synthetics?
Anybody know
where the synthetics are?
How much are these pinks?
These are around, like, $600.
Six... Really? So expensive.
So, what do we do with you guys?
What should we do
with you synthetic guys?
You tell me.
What is your solution?
I don't know yet. I'm thinking.
The only solution is you.
I think you could give us
a proper solution,
a proper place on the market
and a proper pricing.
We lose
the engagement ring market,
you're all out of business.
Us being...
everybody's out of business.
I have the utmost admiration
for De Beers.
Incredible admiration.
They created an illusion
so spectacular
it turned into truth.
How do you not applaud that?
Okay.
Mass delusions
can turn on a dime,
and it's not that
synthetic diamonds
might be made undetectable.
It's that
they might have been
made real at that point.
There's the ball game.
So...
Became...
Okay? Okay.
Yeah? Wow.
Morning, everyone.
Now we're gonna get
this party started,
and I'm gonna welcome
Mr. Martin Rapaport.
All right.
Good morning, everybody.
Uh, welcome.
Good morning, Vegas.
Okay, let's see
where we are here.
The first thing that
I just want to explain
a little bit about Rapaport
is that
we're in the value business.
Which means,
if it's not ethical,
I don't want to do it, okay?
Established in 1978,
230 employees,
nine offices, uh, six countries.
RapNet diamond trading network,
the largest in the world...
it's got about $7.4 billion
dollars listed every day.
We're gonna have a vote.
Should RapNet, the largest
diamond trading network
in the world,
carry synthetics?
Yes.
Should Rapaport produce
a price list for synthetics?
Second question.
Why-why is this
making you so happy?
Because let people speak.
No one knows.
Everyone's confused.
I never saw so many people
walking around...
"I don't know. Should I?
Shouldn't I? Would I? Would I?"
Let's ask everybody.
Should we be giving people
the perception of value
when it's not there?
What the hell's going on here?
Could someone tell me?
Anybody know?
The threat of synthetic diamonds
is a wake-up call.
It says, "Hey, guys.
You got a hole
in your boat here."
For this machine, for this, uh,
uh, diamond industry to work,
we need to have all of these
functioning pieces operating
at some level of responsibility
and relationship.
We can't just be ourselves,
our own little islands.
We should be thinking about,
"What exactly are we selling?"
It's the promise of diamonds.
And the big question, "Do we
invest in synthetic diamonds?"
Are we investing in ethical
diamonds in the supply chain?
Are we gonna do both?
What are we gonna do?
Wh-Where are we gonna go?
We know we can't stay
where we are.
And I can say to you that
the RapNet members have voted.
So roll the drums.
Here is how the votes went.
Should RapNet list
synthetic diamonds
as a way to buy
and sell diamonds?
79% no.
Should Rapaport publish
a synthetic price list?
No.
So, what's
the Rapaport position?
Claims that synthetic diamonds
are exactly the same
as natural diamonds, false.
It's just a big lie.
Am I gonna be the person
that's going to legitimize
lab-grown diamonds?
No, I'm not gonna do that.
But we have to invest.
We have to go forward.
We cannot just keep
doing business the way we were.
Prices are going down.
What the hell does that mean?
What do you mean?
How can prices of diamonds
keep going down
and down and down?
What the hell is going on here?
Even the mining companies now
don't have enough money
to fix everything.
But a commitment
of a billion dollars
in marketing in actual diamonds
is something I am calling for
today, here and now.
I am telling you that there is
a bogeyman under the bed
and that things are not right.
But we keep thinking,
"Prices, discounts."
This is stupid. It's wrong.
The diamond engagement ring is
an emotional and spiritual gift
that transcends
the physical diamond
as it communicates
the commitment of love forever.
That is what we're selling.
But we must have a heart.
We must have a soul.
Diamonds are a reflection of us.
You know that light
bouncing around? It's us.
We... we the people
of the diamond industry.
That's what
these diamonds reflect.
Know this:
diamonds are a symbol.
They're not a product.
They're not a commodity.
Good, huh?
Let's go.
When all is said and done,
diamonds are only
as good as we are.
So I give us a blessing.
May we be worthy of the product,
of the symbolism that we sell.
May we be up to diamonds.
Thank you.
"Nothing Lasts Forever"
by The Kinks
When we were young
And green
We shared our dreams
Together
And you were my friend
We had our good times, pal
We thought they'd last
Forever
But nothing lasts forever
Nothing lasts forever
Time goes by
And people change
It's best we go
Our separate ways
And it was wrong
to think our love
Would never end
My friend
Nothing lasts forever
Nothing lasts forever
Time goes by
It takes us all
Nations crumble
And empires fall
And who are we
To think that we
Would always be?
You see
Nothing lasts forever
Nothing lasts forever
I know that
You'll survive
And you'll get by
Whatever
Though you say goodbye
My love will never die
It will last forever