Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that succession planning at The Estée Lauder Companies had indeed commenced. The family-owned beauty giant is looking both externally and internally—and likely within the family, itself—as it conducts an executive search to eventually replace C.E.O. Fabrizio Freda, who ostensibly retains the full support of the board, the Lauder clan, etcetera. Despite the company’s market value plunging from $133 billion to barely $43 billion in three years, the Journal piece once again confirmed the Lauder party line: The executive who’s spent 15 years at the helm is not yet abandoning his perch atop the GM Building, which has served as the company’s headquarters for 55 years.