Money For Nothing...And The Clicks​ ​​​​​​for Free

Not even 21, Kylie Jenner has built a $900 million cosmetics fortune with virtually no employees, capital or expertise. This new model of extreme fame leverage is radically reshaping business, culture and politics.

- Natalie Robehmed

Kylie Jenner sits at a dark-wood dining table at her mother’s home in Calabasas, California, flicking through display options for a forthcoming pop-up shop. The youngest member of the Kardashian-Jenner industrial complex needs to decide how to showcase products by her Kylie Cosmetics makeup company. She taps her black iPhone X with a silver glittery nail and turns the screen around to show a coterie of employees a vending machine.

“You guys, imagine this, but all in lip kits,” says Jenner, dressed in a black blazer and matching black patent Louboutins with bright red soles. “I think it needs to be a clear vending machine where you see all the colors.”

What her half-sister Kim Kardashian West did for booty, Jenner has done for full lips. Like Kardashian West, she has leveraged her assets to gain both fame and money. But while her sister is best known for the former, Jenner has proved adept at the latter. In historic fashion.

Just 20 when this story publishes (she’ll turn 21 in August) and an extremely young mother (she had baby daughter Stormi in February), Jenner runs one of the hottest makeup companies ever. Kylie Cosmetics launched two years ago with a $29 “lip kit” consisting of a matching set of lipstick and lip liner, and has sold more than $630 million worth of makeup since, including an estimated $330 million in 2017. Even using a conservative multiple, and applying our standard 20% discount, Forbes values her company, which has since added other cosmetics like eyeshadow and concealer, at nearly $800 million. Jenner owns 100% of it.