Bling Billionaire

Jewelers sell sentiment. But MATTHEW STULLER made a ten-figure fortune in gold and diamonds by focusing on logistics, not love.

- Christopher Helman

Matthew Gordy Stuller was 15 when his mom dropped him off at the library in his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, so he could catch up on studying. An indifferent student, he ditched his books to wander around downtown and spotted a “going steady” ring in a jewelry store window that he thought might win over a particular girl. He persuaded the store owner to sell him the $39.99 ring, which succeeded in charming the young lady, for $5 down and $5 a week. “I’ve always been somewhat of a romantic,” he confides.

Yet sentiment has little to do with how Stuller, now 73, has become America’s wholesale jewelry king, with a net worth that Forbes estimates at more than $1 billion. Instead, he has built his fortune through a relentless focus on manufacturing processes, logistics and satisfying his retailer customers’ every need.

Stuller met that $5 weekly nut by delivering papers, mowing lawns and washing cars. He showed up every Saturday at 10 a.m. at the jewelry store to make his payment, then hung around to help. “They always needed their windows cleaned,” he recalls. Before long, he had a paid part-time job at the shop, where the bench jeweler taught him how to polish jewelry, size rings and set stones. “I loved it,” he says.

By his senior year of high school, Stuller was holing up late at night in the janitor’s closet at his father’s dental practice, repairing jewelry and experimenting with lost-wax casting (used by dentists to produce bridges and crowns) to fabricate missing parts like clasps and links. He still needed to buy certain items. Yet when he called the big distributors, he found them rude. “It was like you were interrupting their day. ‘What do you want?’ ”