Latest / Family Business Stories with Fexingo: Succession, Legacy, and Multi-Generational Companies / How the Zildjian Family Kept a Cymbal Empire Ringing for 400 Years
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've ever walked into a drum shop and glanced at a cymbal, you've seen the name stamped on it: Zildjian. It's on almost every professional kit from jazz to metal. But what's wild is that mark has been there, mostly unchanged, since 1623 — that's four hundred and three years ago. Luna: 1623? That predates the New York Stock Exchange by almost two centuries. And it's still family-owned? Lucas: Still family-owned. Fourteen generations, all descended from the same Armenian alchemist in Constantinople. Avedis Zildjian was a metalsmith who discovered a way to combine tin, copper, and silver into an alloy that produced a bright, sustained tone without cracking. The sultan of the Ottoman Empire gave him the surname Zildjian — it means 'son of a cymbal maker' — and the monopoly to supply the imperial court. Luna: So the recipe literally became a state secret. How did they keep it alive through the fall of the empire, the Armenian Genocide, two world wars? Lucas: That's the thread we're following today. The turning point came in 1929. Avedis III, a grandson, was running the business in Constantinople — now Istanbul — and he saw the writing on the wall. The Ottoman Empire had collapsed, the Turkish government was hostile to Armenian businesses, and the global market for cymbals was shifting west with jazz. So he packed up the family — and the secret alloy formula — and moved the entire operation to Quincy, Massachusetts. Luna: That's right on the water near Boston. Why Quincy? Lucas: Proximity to the port and a growing Armenian immigrant community. But also because the American percussion market was exploding. By 1930, Zildjian had the only cymbal factory in the United States. And they held onto that monopoly for decades, because the formula was passed down orally, father to eldest son, never written down. If you weren't a Zildjian, you couldn't make a Zildjian cymbal. Luna: That's an incredible moat. But also a risk — what if the eldest son didn't want the business, or wasn't capable? Lucas: That almost happened in the 1970s. The family had a rule: only direct male descendants could inherit the secret. But by the 1960s, the company was stagnating. They were making the same dozen cymbal models they'd made for 300 years. Meanwhile, rock and roll drummers like Keith Moon and John Bonham were smashing cymbals faster than Zildjian could replace them. The company needed to innovate — and it needed new leadership. Luna: But the family's own rules blocked them from hiring outside. How did they break the cycle? Lucas: They partly broke it. In 1970, the family brought in a non-family CEO for the first time — a Harvard MBA named Armand Zildjian's brother-in-law, actually, but still not a blood Zildjian. And they created two classes of stock: voting shares stayed within the family, non-voting shares could be sold to employees. That let them raise capital without losing control. They also introduced the first mass-produced cymbal line, the Zildjian A Custom series, which became the standard for studio drummers. Luna: And that brings us to the next crisis: succession. Because the male-only rule was bound to collide with modern reality. Lucas: Exactly. Armand Zildjian, who ran the company from 1970 to 2002, had three daughters. Under the old rules, none of them could inherit the secret. But Armand did something radical: he changed the bylaws. He taught the formula to his daughter Craigie — yes, that's her name — and then to his daughter Debbie. Today, Debbie Zildjian is the CEO. She's the fourteenth generation and the first woman to hold the role. Luna: Did that cause a rift in the family? I imagine cousins who expected to inherit were not thrilled. Lucas: It absolutely did. There was a lawsuit in the early 2000s — a cousin sued, claiming the secret should have passed to him. The case was settled out of court, but it forced the family to formalize what had been informal for centuries. They created a family council, a written succession plan, and a protocol for how the alloy formula gets transferred. It's still kept in a bank vault, only accessible by two living family members at a time. Luna: So the oral tradition is gone, but the secrecy remains. Smart. Because if the formula ever leaked, the moat collapses. Lucas: Exactly. And today, Zildjian controls about fifty percent of the global cymbal market. That's down from seventy percent in the 1980s — competitors like Sabian, which was actually founded by a Zildjian cousin who left the company, and Meinl have taken share. But Zildjian still dominates the high end. A single hand-hammered ride cymbal can retail for over six hundred dollars. And the company remains entirely private, with no debt, and no plans to sell. Luna: It's interesting that you mention Sabian. That's the classic family business trap — a feud leads to a split, and now you've created your own competitor. Lucas: Right, and that happened in 1981. Robert Zildjian, Armand's brother, lost the succession battle, so he moved to Canada and founded Sabian. Today Sabian is the second-largest cymbal maker in the world. So the family effectively carved the market in two. But Zildjian recovered because they had the brand heritage and the secret alloy that drummers still swear by. Luna: And now Debbie Zildjian is steering the company into the 21st century. What's her biggest challenge? Lucas: Two things. First, the drum market itself is shrinking — electronic drums and software drum machines have eaten into acoustic drum sales. Second, the family is now huge — fourteen generations means hundreds of living descendants, many of whom own non-voting shares but have no role in the business. Keeping them aligned without letting the company become a passive income vehicle is tough. Luna: And if you're a descendant who doesn't work there, your only liquidity is selling to another family member. There's no public market for your shares. Lucas: Right. So the family has to maintain a culture where the business feels like a mission, not just a check. Debbie has focused on that — she's opened the factory to family members, created apprenticeship programs, and even started a 'Zildjian Family Foundation' to fund music education. The message is: you're part of something bigger than a cymbal company. Luna: It's almost like the formula isn't just the alloy — it's the family's identity. And that identity has to be deliberately renewed every generation. Lucas: That's exactly the insight. And it's why this business has survived four centuries while most companies don't make it past the third generation. The Zildjians didn't just preserve a secret — they preserved the will to share it with the right person at the right time. Luna: Speaking of preservation — we keep this show ad-free deliberately, because these conversations are meant to be a resource, not interrupted. If you've found value in the deep dives we do, and you want to support keeping it that way, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Even a small contribution helps us keep digging into stories like this. And the whole archive is free for anyone to revisit. Luna: Now, back to Zildjian. Lucas, you mentioned that the company still makes cymbals by hand for their top-end line. How does that work alongside modern manufacturing? Lucas: They have a factory in Norwell, Massachusetts, that's basically a blend of old and new. The secret alloy is melted in giant furnaces, then poured into molds. But the hammering — the shaping that gives each cymbal its unique tone — is still done by hand by a small crew of master craftsmen, many of whom have been there for thirty years. They use a technique called 'rotary hammering' that dates back to the 1600s. Then each cymbal is tested by a drummer in a sound room. If it doesn't meet the 'Zildjian sound', it gets recycled back into the furnace. Luna: So there's no SKU that's exactly the same twice. That's a tremendous selling point for professional drummers. Lucas: Exactly. And it's why Zildjian can charge a premium. A beginner cymbal might be made entirely by machine in their Chinese factory — that's the Zildjian Planet line — but the pro-level stuff is still made in Massachusetts, hand-hammered, with the secret alloy. The brand has managed to have it both ways: a mass-market entry point and a high-end artisanal product, all under the same family name. Luna: And the family manages that without diluting the brand. I think that's the key lesson for any family business: know what your core product is, and never compromise the quality of that core. Lucas: Right. And Zildjian has occasionally strayed from that. In the 1990s they launched a line of drumsticks, which flopped. They tried drum hardware — stands and pedals — and those never gained traction. Each time they pulled back and refocused on cymbals. The family council now has a rule: if it doesn't involve the alloy, think twice. Luna: That discipline is hard to maintain when you have shareholders — even family shareholders — pushing for growth. Lucas: It's why they've never taken outside capital. The voting stock is held by maybe twenty family members, all of whom work in the business. They don't have to answer to private equity or public markets. They can say no to a product line that would boost revenue this quarter but damage the brand in five years. Luna: So the lesson for other family businesses might be: don't grow for growth's sake. Grow in ways that reinforce your core advantage. Lucas: And be willing to turn down easy money. That's the Zildjian story in a nutshell: a 400-year-old secret, a family that adapted its rules just enough to survive, and a product that hasn't fundamentally changed since the Ottoman Empire. They didn't chase trends. They waited for trends to come back to them. Luna: It's a rare example of a business where tradition is an asset, not a liability. Lucas: And it'll be interesting to see if the next generation — the fifteenth — can hold that line. Debbie Zildjian is in her sixties now. She has two children, both in their thirties, who work in the company. One runs marketing, the other oversees production. The question is whether they'll have the same hunger to protect the secret, or whether the business becomes more of a stewardship than a growth engine. Luna: Maybe that's the final lesson: a family business that lasts centuries isn't really a business. It's a trust. Lucas: Yeah. And the Zildjians have been good trustees for four hundred years. Let's see if they make it to five.