Original subtitles

curious music

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?

atmospheric music

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?

dramatic music

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?"

dramatic music

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.

suspenseful music

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.

curious music

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.

playful music

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.

dramatic music

intriguing music

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.

suspenseful music

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?

intriguing music

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.

tense music

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?

dramatic music

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."

dramatic music

- 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?

playful music

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.

intriguing music

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?

atmospheric music

I mean, could be, could be whatever, you know?

dramatic music

They are polishing whatever.

You can send him... what you have.

curious music

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.

intriguing music

So it means there is no simple identification.

Not simple, not fast.

Doesn't exist and will never exist, you know.

uplifting music

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.

tense music

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.

intriguing music

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?

dramatic music

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.

gentle music

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.

uplifting music

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 fiancée.

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.

upbeat music

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?

contemplative music

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.

dramatic music

- 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...

- atmospheric music

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.

intriguing music

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.

dramatic music

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.

elegant music

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.

dramatic music

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.

music ends

"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