Fort Knox for Lubricant

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👋 Good Morning. Seventy-three years. One handwritten notebook. Zero patents. The formula that built a $620 million business sits locked in an undisclosed vault.

Read time: 4 minutes | 1,013 words

STORY 

🔐 The $620 Million Secret Kept in a Notebook

Seventy-three years ago, a small team in San Diego failed 39 times before getting it right.

They were trying to create a rust-prevention solvent for Atlas Missile outer skins. Water displacement was the goal. WD stood for "Water Displacement." The 40 meant it was their 40th attempt.

They finally succeeded in 1953.

That formula has never been patented. Never been digitized. Never left a bank vault except three times in three decades.

It lives in a handwritten notebook locked inside an undisclosed Bank of America location in San Diego.

Fewer than ten people have seen it. Most will never get close.

The Exclusivity

Steve Brass is CEO of WD-40. He joined the company in the early 1990s. He waited more than 30 years to see the formula.

"Actually getting in there, it was like getting into Fort Knox, quite frankly," he said.

The process requires weeks of notice. Multiple nondisclosure agreements. A key held only by the company's top lawyer. Passage through a bank vault.

All for a few minutes with a spiral notebook.

Finance Chief Sara Hyzer joined Brass for the 2024 viewing. Neither understood what they were looking at. They're not scientists.

The only instruction Hyzer remembers from the notebook: "Do not smoke."

Meghan Lieb runs research and development. She's worked at WD-40 for 20 years as a scientist. She thought she'd eventually see the formula.

She won't.

"My family probably assumes I know what's in it," Lieb said. "I think they would be like, 'You've been working there a long time. Why don't they trust you?'"

The notebook in the vault is the only complete version. Everyone else works with a coded formula. Including the scientists developing new products.

Lieb has made peace with her outsider status. But she admits certain colleagues have mystique just from being near the notebook.

"I think Wendy's cool because she saw it," she said about a colleague who glimpsed the outside of the diary.

The Business Logic

That secrecy protects nearly 80% of WD-40's revenue.

The original formula generated around $620 million in their most recent fiscal year. The company markets over 2,000 approved uses. Consumers find thousands more.

Reddit users swap stories: removing burrs from horse manes, attracting fish, killing wasps, coaxing boa constrictors from car engines, cleaning gum off turtle shells.

Wired magazine sent WD-40 for lab testing over a decade ago. They published a component list.

The company confirmed some ingredients were correct. But knowing some components doesn't crack the formula.

"It's similar to saying you know what's in Coca-Cola—carbonated water, sugar, and caramel color—yet simply mixing those ingredients together doesn't come close to recreating the finished product," a WD-40 spokeswoman said.

Patents expire. Secrets don't.

The formula has left the vault three times in 30 years:

Once when an executive rode into Times Square on horseback wearing armor to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary at Nasdaq.

Once when an armored vehicle moved it between bank vaults in 2018. The executive was handcuffed to a metal briefcase.

Once in summer 2024 when Brass and Hyzer signed paperwork at the bank.

Brass may expand access if the company hits $1 billion in revenue. Long-tenured employees might make the cut.

Board members won't.

"There is no way I'm showing my board members our formula," he said with a laugh.

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INSIGHT

🤐 What Secrets Are Worth Keeping

Most companies obsess over transparency. WD-40 built a $620 million business on opacity.

The conventional wisdom says patents protect innovation. But patents expire in 20 years. They require full public disclosure. Anyone can read exactly how your product works.

• Coca-Cola chose secrecy over patents in 1891. The formula remains protected 134 years later.

• KFC's 11 herbs and spices sit in a vault in Louisville. Two separate companies blend parts of the recipe so neither knows the complete formula.

• Google's search algorithm isn't patented. Neither is McDonald's Big Mac sauce recipe.

The pattern reveals something counterintuitive about competitive advantage.

Secrecy works when three conditions align:

• The formula can't be reverse-engineered completely. Wired identified some WD-40 components. That knowledge is useless. Knowing ingredients isn't the same as knowing proportions, process, or sequencing.

• The product creates sustained demand. WD-40 has sold the same formula for 73 years. No improvements necessary. The original formulation for rust prevention on missiles works perfectly for squeaky hinges.

• The mystery adds value. Consumers don't just buy WD-40. They buy into the legend. The locked vault. The handcuffed briefcases. The CEO who waited three decades for a glimpse.

This is the opposite of how most businesses operate. We default to documentation. Digital records. Cloud backups. Redundancy.

WD-40 keeps a single handwritten notebook in a bank vault. One fire, one breach, one mistake and the formula disappears forever.

That risk is the point.

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ACTION

🎯 Your Secrecy Audit

Most businesses leak competitive advantage through excessive transparency. Time to audit what you're giving away.

Map your intellectual property:

• What makes your product or service genuinely difficult to replicate?

• Which processes took years to perfect?

• Where do you have knowledge competitors would pay millions to access?

Evaluate your protection strategy:

• Are you using patents when secrecy would serve you better?

• What information do competitors extract from public filings?

• Do employees understand what must stay confidential?

Test your secrecy protocols:

• Who has access to your most valuable information?

• Could a single departure compromise competitive position?

• Are your crown jewels documented in ways that create unnecessary risk?

Here's your next step:

Identify one piece of intellectual property you're protecting through transparency when secrecy might work better. Ask yourself if documenting it publicly serves your interests or your competitors'.

Then consider the WD-40 approach. Sometimes the most valuable information is the information nobody gets to see.

Not your board. Not your investors. Not even the scientists working with it daily.

Just a locked notebook in an undisclosed vault.

MEME