PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 03: A black Hermès Birkin bag in box calf leather with gold-tone hardware is displayed on a glass shelf under the spotlight, highlighting the iconic model’s luxurious texture and classic structure. Photographed during a Sotheby’s fashion and luxury goods auction preview on July 3, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images)
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There are exponentially more willing buyers of Birkin Bags than there are Birkin Bags. This is why Hermes has to be so careful in choosing who they sell their bags to.
Among other things, it needs to consider those who will best represent it, thus broadening the enthusiasm for the other products of the brand. Sales may also reflect a look into the future, in which efforts are made to please small buyers who may eventually be large buyers. Certainly Hermes must look beyond the best customers to spread sales across city, region, country and continents to maintain globalized customer interest and loyalty.
Arguably most important to Hermes is what it learns from some buyers about how the bags are used, what they are used with, what they are worn with and all sorts of other issues. Let’s call these buyers “enterprise buyers” as described in my 2018 book, The end of work.
From these rare but not necessarily wealthier customers, businesses learn how to not only meet the needs of existing and future customers, but also how to lead their needs. Regarding the Hermes brand opposite, if you’re McDonald’s testing the marketability of a new food, would you rather sell it to a traditional vegan or someone known to devour fast food with great regularity? Hopefully the question answers itself.
It’s useful to think about as Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) introduces the GAIN AI Act. The legislation would force chip companies such as Nvidia, AMD and Intel to “satisfy US demand before shipping products to China and other countries subject to US embargoes.” The problems with this legislation are many. Let’s start with a pivot back to Mercury.
It’s worth noting that your chances of buying a Birkin bag improve on the secondary market. In other words, those who sell Mercury will occasionally bring out the bags for sale.
It applies to Nvidia, AMD and Intel, how wrong US lawmakers were to force domestic sales that then pushed favored buyers to sell Nvidia chips at a premium inside and outside the U.S. Nvidia and others should be able to pick and choose their customers, not put them at a long-term disadvantage.
Then there’s the more obvious point that, especially if chipmaking doesn’t keep up with global demand, AMD, Nvidia and others have to decide very carefully who they sell to today with tomorrow in mind. The latter is not only about maintaining existing market share in the present, but also about chipmakers positioning themselves for much larger global sales in the future.
As for China, it is still a very poor country compared to the United States. It is a sign that the best days of China’s development are ahead. Which means that the legislation of Sen. Banks could potentially cost the biggest US chipmakers short-term market share losses that will become much more costly in the future.
Or perhaps the loss of global share could be permanent if a perceived unreliability of U.S. manufacturers through legislative decree forces Chinese technologists to turn inward or away from the United States in search of more reliable domestic or foreign suppliers. Check out Huawei’s Mate Pro 60 smartphone if you’re skeptical.
Which brings us to the critical “venture buyer”. If Nvidia, AMD, Intel and others can’t sell to an increasingly innovative Chinese technology industry, they won’t be able to learn from these buyers how their chips are used, what the market applications of those chips are and could be, and what to design in the future to take advantage of the knowledge they gain.
To paraphrase Jensen Huang, others don’t have to lose for Nvidia to win. Exactly. It is clear that the biggest leaps in AI will come not through silent innovation, but great ones working together.
Precisely because Chinese innovation is on the rise, Nvidia needs to be able to sell to and learn from these bold buyers who, in favor of American brands, will teach American innovators even more about their value through their visionary use. In short, the GAIN AI Act not only jeopardizes the market share of Nvidia, AMD, and Intel in China, but it jeopardizes their future ability to compete around the world, including in the United States.
