A coffee, a chat and MB&F: interview with Maximilian Büsser

If you are passionate about watchmaking – as I believe you are if you are reading these lines – I wish you the privilege, at least once in your life, of having a coffee and a chat with Maximilian Büsser, the founder of MB&F. You will understand why it is one of the most incredible brands in independent watchmaking: because Büsser is an incredible person. Concrete, never banal, humble (despite the fact that Chanel, which already owns 20% of F.P. Journe, has now a 25% stake in his company since August), we spoke with him about watches, mechanics, enterprise, vision, but above all about life. We met him in the MB&F corner at GMT Great Masters of Time on Via della Spiga, in Milan.

Let’s start with the watches: are there any complications that we will never see inside an MB&F?

No. What I have learnt over the years is never say never. When I started 20 years ago, I set out not to do certain things, which I then did. What I have never strayed from are the values that my parents, especially my mother, passed on to me: treat others as you would like to be treated, that is important to me and that will never change. I didn’t have a particularly happy childhood; I was bullied, I was a lonely kid and I often felt uncomfortable. So when I meet someone who is struggling, I try to be as kind as possible. Another idea that will never change for me is not letting myself be influenced by the market. I don’t think I have ever created something similar to what someone else had done: if someone had already done it, there was no reason for us to do it too. When I started, I was terrified that no one would buy my watches; now what scares me is not that, but the fact that I might create something that people don’t like. Thanks to social media, we have made whole generations dream, hope, take risks; they can say ‘I could do this in my life too’ – and I’m not necessarily talking about watches. Here, I would be really sad if I let down the people to whom we want to transmit our values, for whom we want to be super creative, to do what we believe in. If I started being mainstream, changing dials or sizes, I would literally be killed by my community. And I would be the first to be disappointed in myself.

You talked about super creativity: where does the creative process that leads to the birth of your watches start from? From inside or outside them?

It is a rather schizophrenic process (laughs, ed). When it comes to a Horological Machine, it always starts from the outside, but not from the shape. We are not designers, I am an engineer, a watchmaker, I don’t want to be a designer. When we design a watch we know, for example, that it will need a central tourbillon and that this one should have a bridge; we know we should create it as beautiful and symmetrical as possible but we can’t, so we will make a flying tourbillon, because it doesn’t have a bridge and so it fits with our aesthetic idea. The movement exists so that it can bring life to the project in which it is embedded. That’s how the Horological Machine process works. As for the Legacy Machines, the process is reversed. We know what the case is like and we try to make something that is in line with our essence. In watchmaking, everything was created between 1720 and 1870. What was really new in the 20th century? Nothing. The geniuses of the past did not have CAD, CNC machines, knowledge about the materials: by hand-drawing on a piece of paper they created some of the most incredible inventions, and now we are, as they say, harvesting the fruits. I don’t want to harvest the fruits, I want to sow. After my engineering studies I realised I didn’t want to be an engineer so I applied for a job at Procter & Gamble, without really being convinced, but I had the incredible luck of meeting Stephane Belmont from Jaeger-LeCoultre who literally saved my life by bringing me to work for the company. That’s why MB&F is also my way of giving back what I received.

Do you think the gap between big brands and independent brands is going to widen? More in terms of creativity rather than price…

When people asked me ten years ago what I thought the future would be like, I replied that there would be the big brands, who would work on their symbolic pieces, and the independent craftsmen, those who consider their work as their life, who would develop their incredible ideas into incredible products in small quantities. And that is what has happened so far. But maybe we will see some changes. For example, I find very interesting the work that Jean Arnault is doing with small artisanal brands, despite the fact that LVMH is a group that makes billions of dollars. But he loves watches. If CEOs love watches, whatever the size of their company, we will see more creativity; if they love profit, we will see less. We also had a creative collaboration with Bulgari, but I like to say it was a collaboration with Fabrizio Buonamassa, Antoine Pin and Jean-Christophe Babin: with the people, not the brand. And yet I was terrified: it was still a €3 billion company and I was nobody. Yet it was extraordinary, because everyone on that team loved watches. 

Is there one of your collections that you love the most?

When parents see their child in difficulty, they love them even more. The same is true for me, for the watches that have been the most difficult to bring to life for various reasons: poorly sold, too crazy on the mechanical side, financially a disaster. When I created MB&F I only had one watch in the pipeline. It was madness. I only had one idea, not enough money, no business plan and I thought it best to quit my previous job and create a company. I was in love with my idea, and when you are in love you don’t reason. Now, after 20 years, I look back and think maybe I had a problem… but I thank myself. For example, I seriously thought that watches like HM1 or HM4 would put me out of business and nobody would buy them. Even HM6 or LM1 or Flying T, I thought they would be financially meaningless. In 2018 Michael Tay, owner of The Hour Glass, a great lover of our products and one of the most enlightened retailers, my partner from the beginning, told me I was becoming predictable. What? He could tell me anything, but not that. So that day I realised that I had to take more risks, and so I did. For everything that came out later I have Michael to thank, because he gave me a wake-up call.

You said at the beginning that you want to ‘sow watchmaking fruits’. In what way?

I’ll tell you an anecdote from a few months ago. Every four months I organise a two-hour session with the new members of my team; there are about 50 of us, 30 of whom arrived in the last three years, at a time when the company was surfing the crest of a wave. During one session I shared my story, and at the end I asked if anyone had anything to say or ask. A very nice guy from the north of France, from a middle-class family, told me that he had explained to his grandmother that he worked for a company that made watches worth hundreds of thousands of euros and that she had asked him: ‘Why are there people who work so hard at doing this, when there are much more important things to do in life?’ This is the question I have been asking myself for a long time. Three years ago, I told my team that we should work on the ‘reason why’ of the company; making watches worth hundreds of thousands of euros is complicated in today’s world, where many people are struggling. And we came to realise that the ‘reason why’ characterising MB&F is to help people to be more creative, to take more risks. If they look at what we have been able to accomplish with little means and strong values, without following the paths of others, maybe in their life, whatever life they lead, they will be able to open many doors. MB&F is my means to enable people to think differently.

In MB&F, F means ‘friends’. How many real friends do you have in life beyond watchmaking?

Few real friends, two or three, but above all I have my family, my totem. In our industry, success is the greatest danger, because when you achieve it you start to be less creative, to take fewer risks, to treat people worse. And that is exactly what has happened to watchmaking in the last three years. I am proud of my team and my company because we have done exactly the opposite: both in terms of creativity, of taking risks, of being generous and kind. I am 57 years old, for the past three years my project has been very simple: to make MB&F survive after me. I have lost many friends because of illnesses or accidents, so I have started to think about it. I have responsibilities as a father and as an entrepreneur, and my succession plan is part of that. I really love this new phase of my life, which is mentoring. As I get older, experience compensates for the possible decline in creativity. In the last couple of years, I have realised that I created my projects many years ago, when I had the will and the courage to emerge, but that the most important things I can bring to my company are still to come, like offering my experience to young people who have crazy ideas. When I was young, people like Henry-John Belmont or Günter Blümlein mentored me: this is another way of giving back, as I said before.

What does a friend have to bring to MB&F to be a true friend?

Share the same human values. Bring enthusiasm, be willing to take on new challenges, don’t always say no when presented with an idea. The British distinguish people who have the so-called ‘growth mindset’ from those who have the ‘fixed mindset’. Those with the latter only trust their own experience and see challenges as a danger, those with the former see them as an opportunity and are curious. I want to be surrounded by people with a ‘growth mindset’. 

Is there a colleague you particularly admire?

All those who created their brand not for money, but because for them it was the only way to exist. I think of people like Denis Flageollet, Benoit Mintiens, Felix Baumgartner, who created something never seen before. 

Independent artisan brands are increasingly successful at auctions. Do you think that one day your watches will also become top lots?

Honestly, that is not what I want. Today we see brands whose auction value is totally disconnected from quality, and that is very dangerous. In the last three years we have seen people buying watches like they were bitcoins and I don’t want my brand to become an asset for speculators. First, because it’s dangerous; second, because how are we going to recognise someone who really loves one of our watches and deserves it from someone who is just looking for an investment? That’s why I hope MB&F never becomes an auction brand.

By Davide Passoni