Have you ever heard of a company called Luxottica?

What we learned was pretty shocking!

The details:

    Luxottica is a $20 billion company.
    It makes glasses and sells them.
    500 million people wear its products.
    65 million pairs were sold last year.
    It owns Ray Bans and Oakley. It makes glasses for other brands it does not own, including Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Prada, Burbury, Prada, Tiffany, and many more.
    It owns glasses stores Lenscrafters, Pearle Vision, Oliver Peoples, Sunglass Hut and others.
    It owns Eyemed, the nation's most popular vision insurance company.

Because it owns so much of the eyewear industry – from supply chain to distribution – Luxottica is able to charge very high prices for the glasses it sells.

The average frame plus lenses costs $300 at Lenscrafters. That's about 20X more that it costs to make them.

Some people think this is an unfair ripoff.

Some people believe that Luxottica is a monopoly that cannot be defeated.

One company that does not feel this way is New York-based startup Warby Parker, which is on a never-say-die mission to destroy Luxottica.