The Importance of Gross Margins

Stanford Department of Management Science and Engineering lecturer Ravi Belani illustrates the crucial importance of “gross margins” using a simple analogy about selling cookies on the Stanford campus. He explains how a single ratio – a gross margin of 75% – is a mathematical yet almost magical key to building a business that can grow at a 3x clip per year, and turn a $1 million valuation into a $1 billion valuation in a decade.