China's $60 Office Chairs Are Breaking Herman Miller's $4 Billion Empire — Here's Why

The Aeron launched in 1994 at $1,000, landed in the Museum of Modern Art before it even hit stores, and became the throne of the dot-com boom. Nine million sold. Then Herman Miller sued the knockoffs — won $6.4 million — but the court declared the Aeron itself too functional to own. Meanwhile a county in China called Anji now makes one in three of the world's chairs, and the mesh that made the Aeron famous became a commodity textile anyone can buy. We break down the $60 math, the Sarah Chair origin story, the $6.4M lawsuit with a hole in it, the Anji factory machine, the 2020 work-from-home boom, MillerKnoll's $3.84B empire valued at $1.46B, and why the most famous chair in the world is breaking. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Showroom 2:07 The Sixty-Dollar Math 4:18 The Elderly Chair 6:30 The Lawsuit 8:14 Anji 9:51 The Challengers 11:33 The Breaking Point 13:19 Fair Is Fair 15:08 The Verdict #hermanmiller #aeron #officechair