@booktv.org. or consult your program guide. select the sissy spends new online store at c-span shop.org. to check out the new c-span products. with the 1117th congress in session we are taking preorders for the congressional directory. every c-span shop purchase help support c-span operation. shop today at c-span shop.org. >> now on cspan2 book tv more television for serious readers. >> good afternoon everyone. i am robert door president of the american enterprise and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this afternoons conversation with john mackey. john is the cofounder and ceo of whole foods market. the cofounder of capitalism he feared they'd attack what is the book conscious leadership

elevating humanity through business. john and i can't think of a better guest you have on thanks giving week than you. it is a pleasure to have you welcome to our discussion this afternoon person 'you robert think you have me on the show. >> are edge about, i loved your book i recommend the book. i am now almost 18 months into my term and while i've been a ceo in my previous businesses, it's always good to be reminded what makes effective leadership work in any institution of any size. you have a lot of great lessons about how to be a good leader. one has to do with having a purpose and lead with love another hasid with innovation and integrity. i want to ask you of all of these lessons that are also important, what you think is the most important? what you think you rely on as your go to attribute that is made you so successful?

select the first chapter the book is called put purpose first. so i guess i better put it first. [laughter] >> the purpose part is important. you seem to address and i went to address for our listeners why you think it is true that the for-profit firms are out to make money and develop a profit, and pay shareholders they are most successful when they see a higher purpose but give us a sense of that. >> this is the single biggest misunderstanding about business and capitalism i think there is. until we get this corrected, capitalism is always going to be sustained, criticized, attacked. it will be attacked for its motivations for its motivations are seen and of course business has to make money. if business doesn't make money it will fail.

but that doesn't mean that is it's a purpose, to make money. i mean, a metaphor a good way to explain it is my body has to produce red blood cells. without producing red blood cells i'm going to die. just because i have to make red blood cells does not mean the purpose of my life is to produce red blood cells. it is a necessary condition but it does not define who i am. similarly business half to make money. but business is really about creating value for other people, that is why it exists to create value for other people. if it does a good job of creating good value in products and services that its customers wants, than the business will flourish and it will make money for its investors. but i think because business gets put in this narrow box it's all about money, it's all about making money. that is so odd if you think about it.

if you ask what the purpose of a doctor is, doctors make a lot of money in our society but i don't think they would say hey i'm a doctor to make as much money if possible. even if that's true that's on the ethics stand behind medicine. the ethics behind medicine, teachers educate, architects design buildings, engineers construct things but every one of these professions refers back to some type of value creation. with they are doing in the world to serve other people. business is the biggest value creating the world by far. and so we should be talking about in terms of its value creation for its customers. and often the jobs it creates for its employees. the residual effects that happen trades with suppliers who also trade for these very reasons. they are benefiting and prospering as a result. it creates for the investors

in larger communities. it creates investors from these constituents all the stakeholders. so we don't ourselves a service by the leak trying to explain business purpose is making as much money as possible but i think we lose the argument as soon as we say that for most people. >> and into our business we started whole foods market you had a very straightforward purpose with what i think to bring better quality wholesome natural food to people so they can purchase them. that's a great purpose and you accomplish that. he'll lead to more people eating better, more healthy more wholesome food. isn't that something to be proud of that achievement? >> absolutely. our stated purpose for today, let me explain a couple of things. when he started the business with my girlfriend i was 24 and she was 20, we're just a couple of kids really.

we did not have a stated higher purpose. we are passionate about national organic food. he asked with a higher purpose of whole food was back in 1978 i would've said higher purpose yeah. we just want to sell healthy food to people. and earn a living and have some fun doing it. [laughter] guess what, those things still all existed whole foods. the fun part had a tough go in 2020 with covid. but in general that's part of who we are. our purpose has a deepened in the last 42 years. our official stated purpose is now to nourish people on the planet. that has a lot of depth to that how you define nourish, how you define people and how you define the planet. the only different layers to them. think every business that you admire the most has a higher

purpose. i know hundreds of entrepreneurs in my life, hundreds very, very few of them start a business just to get rich. sure they want to make my day like to get rich but mostly they're passionate about something. if you read biographies of people like steve jobs, bill gates, elon musk, jeff bezos, these guys were passionate about something. something they wanted to create. so excited they wanted to get going on it. they made a lot of money because they create a lot of value for other people. see victor telling the story of purpose in getting the message of the purpose of a company or institution or organization down throughout every member of it, you tell a story of never heard of. and i think of myself a little bit of a history buff a special the kennedy administration. when president in it he was touring the space center human into a custodian, someone who was mopping the floor and cleaning up the place and he

said what you doing? the custodian set i'm helping to get a man on the moon. i wanted to ask you, i have struggled this at ai. how do you get everyone in the building to be united behind one purpose? how do you get that message out? he referred to your people who work as your team members, how do you do that? >> that is a good question robert. it is not easy. i think the first thing is the leadership has to embody the purpose themselves. people pay so much more attention to what you do and how you show up in the world and what you say. we have very well attuned hypocrisy witness the governor's faux pas in california or nancy pelosi's faux pas at the spot. when we see hypocrisy people are always looking to call me a hypocrite. there always looking.

it's very important that i personally and other leaders embody the higher purpose of whole foods but you have to walk the talkers just talk. that being said, and a company like whole foods we have about 100,000 people who work for the company. we are getting turnover and continued growth. we are adding on ten to 20000 new team members a year. so how do you keep the purpose? how do you institutionalize that? the only way to do it is it has to be part of the orientation print has to be something that you talk about all the time. it's important that the leaders reference what they are doing, backed with the higher purpose of the organization is. you show up all the time coming up talk about it all the time. because you have new people coming and all the time you could never take it for granted. when you have a resilient powerful culture, the culture does a lot of the work for you. because other people that are there, that have already internalized the values and

purpose of the organization, they will spread. they act like it immune system for the organization. the organization's been around for a long time they have a culture based on their values and their focus. and if it is a good strong culture, the new can expect the organization to do its work in getting people converted over. if you don't have a good culture, there's a lot of hypocrisy and people don't think your living up to it, it won't be very effective. the purpose is something that it can never, i needed analogy right now. i have no doubt in my mind that the united states has a higher purpose, it has been, it is they are in the declaration of independence it's there on the bill of rights. and yet, ask not. it's been forgotten. a lot of the country no longer resonates the founding purpose of america is. and so we've done a very poor

job of continuing to communicate the higher purpose of the united states. >> i completely agree with that, we had a i complete agree with that. we had a great scholar read a book called learning patriotism for you had to teach those values and talk about them all the time. so people recognize what is these source of our success in the country? it is in her founding document. if the whole unit focused on that pretty want to do more than a college campuses. even with younger students. so communicate, communicate, communicate is exactly right for my perspective it has worked for me as well. but it's a problem in the country. >> one of the reasons i love ai one reason i contribute to ai is that very thing. >> want to ask about leading with love. i love that too about your book. if you have a way in which you encourage a positive collaboration and positive feedback from woodworker to another.

can you tell a little bit about that? i think of a practice in a meeting where you conclude by saying -- tell me about that. first i will say oftentimes not associated with corporations. in fact there genuinely seen as heartless money grabbers. part of their image problem they have in world's comments due to the metaphors we have about businesses being hypercompetitive. we used for metaphors, leaves lots highly competitive sports metaphors. when you are at war there's not much place for love a check that the door they do that with the family. we have thanksgiving a beer and christmas time, but check it out the door ready come to work here. we are at war. we've got to win. that is very unfortunate. because love is not weak is what many people associate with.

it's not just a virtue also masculine virtue. love is the glue that holds an organization together. >> us if you give to things to people they will love the organization stay with it decade after decade after decade. they have low turnover 20 firstlings amazon notice. you've got a lot of people who worked in more than 20 years. and the reason why is if you give people purpose to give people a sense that they care about that they are loved, that is so people want to pray they want purpose and they want love. you can meet both of those desires and needs you are going to have a great organization. cell appreciation is one where you can release love in an organization. and so this is something whole foods does if you've got nothing else out of my talk today remember this one thing. if you just enter meetings with appreciation you will release love in your

organization. with whole foods we wrap it up by doing voluntary appreciations. they are not mandatory, nobody has to do it. but what happens is we do in authentic of someone else you can't do in authentic appreciation that opening your heart. people know the difference. when someone is just saying something when they are actually feeling that and expressing it from their heart. when you do in authentic appreciation from your heart and others will pick up on it. in addition it's hard to stay in judgment of someone who has just given authentic appreciation to you if tom, i thought tom was kind of a jerk and tom is there saying how much he appreciates the things i do and he's doing in an authentic way not just sucking up to me, and i am probably going to rethink who tom is going to look at him with fresh eyes.

tyson stories of whole foods. appreciation such a big deal at whole foods, with my leadership group with our senior leadership group the couple of years ago we were spending so much time doing appreciations at the end of meetings that we had ever ruled that the limit was to look you can't appreciate everybody on the team here. were going to limit you to three appreciations and that still is too long. receive got one appreciation make it count. give other appreciations good. but do the outside of this meeting. and so we can get our appreciations with one down to about 30 minutes which is probably a reasonable amount of time. but try it, it is very powerful. at other organizations entrepreneurs tell me they started doing appreciations and everything changed after that. >> see mentioned a couple times in our conversation already effective merge with

amazon and it's quite remarkable coming together to iconic american companies. i want you to tell us a little bit about how that is going whether there have been intentions. i also wanted to point out about how jeff phases as in i didn't know either, he has meetings he is an empty chair for the customer. this of the customers always represented. do i have that right? tell me about the merger parts make the empty chair is part of the amazon story. whether they still actively do that or not i am not sure. it's part of the anthology. probably based on real stuff happens. while they think about a merger between two companies in it was a fortune to intercompany when they bought

us, it's a little bit like a marriage. and i say that because they're coming together voluntarily for mutual gain and benefits. and hopefully because you really admire the other person. i use the metaphor like a whirlwind romance, occult love for cipro told that story at the same time i won't retell that story. when you get married, most people know what i'm talking about. if you're going to get married you're going going to change. that is inevitable. because the other person is going to influence you. you will gradually become, let me move over to get the son, off my face. the ricoh. you will gradually change. amazon has had a big impact on whole foods if gradually changed on the other hand we had a very resilient culture predates only sin a healthy

marriage there is a mean, there's a new, there's an us. so that all three have to be healthy. so whole foods, we have to stay whole foods. we have to bottle a higher purpose. we have to fulfill our core values. we have to be whole foods. they have unique special culture. amazon is largely respected that. our culture is evolving but not because amazon is pat kramer things down her throat give you one example, whole foods tends to make previously the merger i would say we were more intuitive in our decision-making. amazon is a very, very data-driven in their decision-making process. so a lot of times to be talking to amazon giving our opinions, our theories, it's a show us the data. were not going to make the decision unless you show the data. liver practice their rewrite of the scalia six pager

submits your arguments with data supporting that. if you do a good job of that you're going to get decision that you want. if you don't do a good job you going to be sent back to the drawing board and told no. so whole foods has begun to think more that way, more data-driven nr decision-making. that's it positive for us great still not her intuition and her entrepreneurial take on things. but we are more data-driven. so how is that merger going and getting back to that? it's going pretty well because whole foods is evolving, amazon thinking long term. working on her fourth price reduction something our company badly needed to do. premerger amazon did a lot of technology. and i go through the book i talk about how it has been a win for everyone of our stakeholders in a win for our customers through lower prices.

starting paid $15 an hour got to level everybody up. we counted the cost to amazon. history wouldn't do that? and they did. of course it was great for morale, team members loved it. that time had about 90000 people. 85000 of them got a raise in pay. they're pretty excited about that. it's a win for our team member win for the suppliers. they weren't selling to amazon before. that his many good thing for them, greater distribution, when for our investors. from the time we began talking to amazon to win the deal closed, they got a 4 billion-dollar increase in valuations, that was a win for them. i think a win for all of the aspects of it as well. up with there's philanthropy and things in our community amazon is supported that not touch a cram that all as an added additional donations in

some cases. it is a win, win, win, win. it's been good. spent fewer about your situation but generally about the negative, the potential negative impact of the large size. doesn't make it harder to lead the way you want to lead? >> i would say the biggest challenge, as a result of this merger amazon sprite one, two, three companies in the world that gets scrutinized, everything they do is under a microscope. so whole foods, we were big. but now everything we do is under the microscope. that is pretty bizarre. we've also got to think about anything we say or do, we do not want that to negatively impact amazon. intercourse amazon doesn't want. what's interesting is, both

time to the guy a report to amazon one time knees using my metaphor of marriage. when you married into this family, you got a bunch of in-laws now. and some people don't like the in-laws too much. and you're going to have to live with that because you're part of the family now. i thought that was a very clever way of putting it, that would people are mad at the matter whole foods and vice versa. so that is different being under the microscope so closely all the time but have to be guarded a little bit and let us in an interview like this because somebody will hear it somewhere knowing any handling string appear. statements leak freely with us, you don't worry about us. [laughter] >> yes i understand. listen, you have an appendix but we call cultural intelligence. bringing to shift a little bit

from your company per going to back to your company and leadership of the company a little bit. i didn't ask about this in an effort to what is your view is where we are as a country. you talk about three kinds of cultural intelligence, the traditional, the modern, and in the progressive. the old rule-based very focused on faith and church, modern is the sort of liberal america that's open to society , believes in science and change. i'm progressive is a kind of step further is a mild authoritarian. and the talk about something post progressive culture. could you just tell us a little bit about what that is? it looked to me a little bit like the divide, something that gets us pass the division plaguing america. maybe i'm wrong. >> guest: this is a good

framework. in those interested in following up, we have an appendix at the very end of the book that goes into detail about this. chances are the authors might write further. >> look like you're laying laying the seed for something bigger later. suspect we've got a book, conscious america will dive in. but understanding in the united states to be think about it in terms of world views, their three dominant worldviews in america. the first one is a more traditional worldview which is based on faith, family, country. it is got traditional values about religion, about family, and harkens back the constitution and the declaration of independence. blackberry ai were comfortable in them. ischemic and the kind of heroes you might get in

traditional might be like ronald reagan, winston churchill, william buckley, people like that. so traditional worldview would have a lot more leaf and sort of truth being revealed through revelation through faith. the modernist is much more scientific. it's more of the enlightenment of progress through science through reason through capitalism. if you think about, we would estimate about 30% of the population of the united states is traditional. that is where they are anchored. in about 50% is anchored in modernism. so some of the examples of modernist to be thomas jefferson, ben franklin, madison, john f. kennedy, einstein, edison, milton

freedman in some way. and guys like bill gates is another strong modernist. now the progressives which make up about 20% of the population right now -- mexico each of these comes out is the worldview of all they partly reject the worldview that came before them. modernism rejected faith. it rejected religion largely. they believe in reason, they believe in science, they don't believe in scripture were revelations and things like that. so part of them there is a rejection what comes before. until progressivism arose, had this alignment between traditionalists and modernist science that drove america for many, many, many decades.

and then it comes about because their flaws or failures in the previous worldviews. so, modernism is not going to realized aspects of the things progressivism comes down is limiting the limitations, moderna the environmental movement has come out of that because modernism's producing economic progress. there's externalities coming out of that that negatively affect the environment. people tend to have strong environmental views. we know we have particularly this year in the last few years yvette antiracism movement. that is very progressive. the whole woke ideology as a progressive mindset. basically arguing that america

is inconsistent with its founding values of equality of all, that we have not done a good enough job in overcoming racism, having inclusivity. that is been in the media lots. of course you know i see we made a lot of progress in america. but we still have some problems, right? that helps motivate it. i would say progressive is pretty globalist in the sense that is very concerned about inequality, suffering by any place in the world really. so there is a strong anti- modernist streak to progressivism as well. a distrust of science except when it serves the ideology. a mistrust of progress.

they don't like capitalism much. suspect is a rejection of capitalism. so there's an element of socialism. those are the three got 30% traditionalists and about 20% progressives. progressives because they dominate academia, hollywood, and the media, punch way above their weight class in terms of their actual numbers. if that is the cultural war. we have these three worldviews that are struggling with each other. so how are we going to move past it? the authors argue we have to go post progressive. the essence of post- progressivism is we have to recognize all three of these worldviews have dignities and disasters for their good things about them they're bad things about it. but we have to do is honor the good things in each of these worldviews. so for example, we have to

recognize the progressives insights are important. they should not go away. we can't throw out capitalism replace with socialism. socialism has been tried 42 times in the last 100 years and 42 failures it doesn't work. if you keep capitalism but i would argue any conscious capitalism. i wrote a book on it. which is capitalism but done in a much more conscious way. taking into account higher purpose, stakeholders, human flourishing and done very conscious way. so, we need to take the best of all of these worldviews i make sure the very bad things that we can recognize and bad things. so bad things that might be disasters, might be traditional worldview are racism, bigotry, sexism homophobia. that can be accusations sometimes of traditional values.

modernist we can recognize that sometimes that can be captured by special interest. that it can be elitist, it can be uncaring so to speak. >> can be a little overly materialistic. >> and we look at some of the disasters in the progressivism. anti- modernism, reverse patriotism. we no longer patriot americans the worst country that's ever existed. very authoritarian. >> i can be self righteous in skokie, telling everybody, criticizing and then canceling people out different views. we clearly see a lot of disasters for progressivism right now. because they are on display. they're also the beauties of progressivism we need to integrate to go forward in a healthy way. self americas going to get to the next place we need to integrate the best of each of

these three worldviews and minimize the worst of each of these worldviews. we would call that post- progressivism what we call the integral world view. stomach i'm really encourage you to keep that work going. we see that divide all the time. i wanted to ask you where you see in your stores? if you look at the map of america with the last election this red blue thing for urban rural divide. also the elites versus the non- elites. you have stores in both kinds of america. you have workers and customers in both kinds of america. i just wonder for year perspective after all these years being right in the middle of that, is that divide is pronounced and painful as it looks? or do we exaggerated because of media attention against? >> know i think there's a pretty big divide.

2020 is been a terrible year because of covid. and everybody being locked up in people getting lonely, getting angry, getting frustrated. people losing their jobs, their businesses failing. people on edge. we sell the rights that happen to somebody, whole foods had a number of stores and been damaged. we are damaged a couple nights ago in portland a couple of our stores were damaged. that happening 15 or 20 of her stores have damage during peaceful protests. and so we have our team members, we had big controversy this summer about dress code because whole foods is always had we want to to where we don't you to promote we are political causes are with its black lives matter, make america great again, whatever it is check it out

the door. we want you to be serving our customers and not bringing politics into the stores. has been controversial. we just had a big blowup last week because we did not want our canadian team members to be wearing poppies. we actually had the legislature of canada condemned whole foods market for telling people they just wanted them to her official company dress. and in whole foods you get the government threatening to shut you down, he will change her dress code. and we did for canada. i wonder if that would've happened if amazon didn't own whole foods. i'm not sure it would've everything's magnified because of the amazon connection. >> that's so unfortunate, and disturbing about being eight or stores. it seems to me that are you

eager to be more active in portland i am from new york we know protest and disturbances. but we don't under the period of time i worked there, we did believe in a certain kind of order and respect of property. is that loss? >> it is being challenged to put it that way. here's the thing, we are grocers. which is what to sell food. we have to do that. our team members have to be safe. we've had stores broken into, we give quick instructions. in chicago, in new york, in seattle, and portland, in oakland, and several other cities as well we have had disturbances. we have protocols in place, protect our team members. they are far more important than property. we had team members who run

out the backdoor. some of these people break in the store they can with baseball bats and they just start banging our cash registers just going into the wine department on getting wine bottles and just being destructive. so business have to be -- we need peace. commerce is based on. rule of law we need the rule of law. and i think that rule of law has been challenged a little bit and is being challenged. we are in a rocky place in america right now. we are defunding the police and a lot of communities. and so it is harder to do business. we have to hire a lot more security guards now. >> keeps speaking of hard to do business i want to ask about innovation started culture in america. it's a question were getting from our audience. do you think you can do it you did all those years ago as

easily? or are the restrictions on our ability to start a business, grow a business, be free to establish a really successful enterprise, you feel that is lost? splenic that's a good question robert. i don't really know been doing this for 42 years. it was pretty easy to start a business back in 1978. i just open the doors for business one day. i guess what, the government bureaucrats came around to where is your health department certificate? i said do we need one of those? i said where's your building permit? they came around but they didn't shut us down they just said you got to get that. we had to pay a fee and get that. >> nu always focused on your purpose. he felt a lot of stories about business people who just wanted to keep focusing on what they wanted to achieve. they ran into roadblocks they kept their eye on a bigger goal to get through them.

business people have to constantly innovate around bureaucracy and stupid rules and figure out ways so they can stay in business. i mean that is reality. in the whole history of business in one way is dealing with -- you need rules committee regulations, you need loss or stores are not broken into and looted all the time you need police. on the other hand, you can overly regulate business with hard to do business. and then the whole society comes less prosperous. >> i want to back to the book again. i do really like the book. it's great lessons for leaders. but, one of the things i love about is you don't only tell us your story you tells the story of 100 other businesspeople who started business and lead with these values. i guess i wanted to ask what

is your sense, is it your sense these kind of leadership values are on the rise? are they are more prevalent than you realize? or do you think your fighting uphill against a culture that release to be changed dramatically in the business world? >> it is evolving. it needs to evolve. that's how i see it. that's the path to poverty for they talk about trickle-down wealth. socialism is trickled up poverty and impoverished is everything. that's my fear. the academic community is generally to business. this isn't new. you will see that all the

minority groups are business people have been persecuted, the jews in the west and the chinese in the east of the two best examples. the aristocrats, the intellectuals, the clergy, they may have always despised business as what tradesmen do, they are making a profits. they are terrible people, they are not gentlemen. to study european history, the big business person is called a jew even if you weren't jewish. that was an attack on business culture and away. so, now the universities are -- i mean you go through their they are so progressive and so anticapitalist. when i go speak at universities for example, sometimes i get hecklers. sometimes they disinvited me. but more often i watch the

students, particularly if i'm speaking at a business school. they love the message. can do well, you can be prosperous and you can have a higher purpose. that is music to their ears. professors are very skeptical. arms are crossed to argue with me about it. when the the interesting things to me about business schools not businesspeople intellectual who never actually been in business at all. it is very interesting. and who don't actually understand business, both particulate understand entrepreneurial ship. and actually can often times be hostile towards the very

thing they are teaching. so. >> that is a particular challenge. >> and yet how many people do you employ? >> about 100,000 now. >> 1000 people jobs is a valuable those are livelihoods those of the well-being as her pathways up. that is the greater contribution to human flourishing then universities in some ways. it is tremendous. i'm a former welfare administer that i mentioned earlier. i have lived up people providing jobs. that is when it counted on when the economy was strong on people and all kinds of industries and hired skilled workers were hiring, that is the best thing we could have. let me be clear about it, capitalism or actually i prefer innovationism, if you

go back 200 years ago when innovation was really beginning to pick up steam, 94% of everybody live on the planet with less than $2 a day, 94% only 6% and more than $2 a day. that is in today's dollars per today that's under 10%. the average life span to her years ago was 30, now it is 72.6. in advanced countries is closer to 80. illiteracy rates to her years ago across the planet were 88%. now they are 12%. lc documentation after documentation after documentation. has science and technology combined operationalize them to make our lives better they're not the villains of the story they are the heroes

of the story. the entrepreneurs are the ones that create great progress. and they are universally for the most part. if you look at the polls, people don't trust business. they don't think business -- not because her motivations are wrong. business is greedy, selfish, all they care about is making money. so they cannot be trusted. it's fundamentally a bad thing. so we have the move toward socialism. they see it's inherently corrupt. that is wrong, capitalism is the greatest thing ever done. they put out a narrative about us that's wrong, it's an accurate, it is doing tremendous damage to the minds of young people. you have to counter that. we also does see for a victim

of our success comments were taken over. without the market unemployment goes down, where's a bit in the past? people are long-term unemployed. also they realize the benefits of a growing economy perspective may not realize it robert, the reality is what we have done the last 200 years has never happened before. okay? humanity for the most part had very slow progress. and that is because businesspeople are basically so regulated the genie never got out of the bottle until the enlightenment. and so for a brief period of time the intellectuals at least went neutral on business. and so maybe there is some good in this. and then we exploited, another trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle. they stuff it back in the bottle we will stagnate we will begin to regress. i'm not saying the whole

technological civilization will collapse but it will not progress and it will begin to stagnate. start to decline it gradually. mean if we put in some of these green new deal policies we start to see us go backwards. see you really look the longer-term trends. you're not caught up in this election or this crisis. he mentioned a couple times ice once get your sense of where we are in the communities that you serve in your sense of a large employer business person in america. and your observation of the pharmaceutical industry and others that have moved so quickly to develop a vaccine. are you feeling we are seeing the light at the end of the title here? are things going to get better? the other thing i hate to ask you a mundane business question, but i thought some

people in the grocery business there were some upticks during covid. he could see people were eating at home or comment that not happen in your business? >> no our sales are way up. way up. media reports things wrongs for two reason. the first one is our transaction count is down the traffic is down for the dell for two reasons the first one is whole foods does a lot of business and prepared foods. office workers coming in for lunch, with offices closed down during covid we did not get that traffic in. the average traffic count would down then but secondly our online business has tripled since covid. they got up three 100%. so actual sales they are way out. it's just an accurately reported brood business is done well during covid but i think all supermarket chains have done well. all restaurants they have made

a transition temporarily to not eating out as much, eating a lot more at home. that is been good for supermarkets. whole foods, walmart, kroger, >> you have been able to adjust covid restrictions in place and sovereign interventions what's your view on that? >> first of all of the responsible team members safer and proud of the fact our cat was out in front of a lot of this. we been recognized the safest super markets in covid. two temperature testing, things like that.

i think we've been successful people who have died, their relatively small at whole foods. obvious if i told you how much should be headlines, but pretty low, pretty low. but you know, let's make no mistake about it. it's been very difficult year even with our sales up. everyone is wearing a mask. everyone is social distancing, whole foods is a huggy culture no one's hugging. we do elbows are we checked feet with one another is not quite the same is it. people aren't socializing as much. i say whole foods made a lot of cultural deposits for number of years. in 2020 they been making withdrawals on those deposits. >> tumor questions in your book you say you like to hire local within. you don't like to overdo that. there is a percentage you like i think 80% or maybe 75%.

because you saw peeping invigorates the culture. tells a little bit about your hiring and choosing a team member. it's a balance between fueling hire from within, the only promote from within, the knot really enhances the culture in the sense that people know that if they work hard they can rise up and get ahead. and because whole foods has been growing, it is been a great place of opportunity for people doesn't require a college education to rise to the rank say speak you're not going to stagnate because you're not getting enough new ideas enough innovations from the outside ferments with

creativity. on the other hand if you permit too many people from the outside, then people begin to think g, you can't get ahead in this company for the way to get ahead is to go work somewhere else were you will be more greatly appreciated. so, approximately an hour leadership about 25% get promoted from outside the company. about 75% are promoted within. that's it worked out for whole foods to be kind of the right number. the fact it varies with other companies i think. steve xo, i told you before i wanted to ask the thanksgiving questions related to the underlying business and your passion for healthy and wholesome foods. you know, we have had a tough year no doubt about it. but we are going have thanksgiving. who may have gathering smaller than usual but were still going to have gatherings of family what is the food at the main stay at your table.

and you would recommend to those of us putting together our menus for thursday base back i may be a bad person to ask simply because i am plant -based i am a vegan. >> i knew that i didn't think you're going to say turkey. we all eat vegetables. what is your go to dish? what should go to dish? it generally is a bean stew with a ton of vegetables in it. cfl be on the table for things giving your family? >> plotted from sweet potatoes to broccoli to cauliflower to okra whatever veggies are in season. i hope you have a great thanksgiving and thank you for all you've done. thank you for your book, your

guidance, and for participating in this conversation this afternoon. do you have any final words or anything else a thing we missed that you want to say? i always like to give people that chance if they feel there's a message they want to convey. >> i guess i will convey a message of hope. that we are, america's gone through difficult time. we are not nearly through it, we're not going to get through it anytime soon pretty cannot give you a short term. you face bigger challenges than this one. i think we can get through this one to think this will take a few years sometimes her best on her backs against the

wall we are forced to make changes make reformations. as a great underlying love of the country i think we've seen in the election cycle. even if not particularly hope about the short-term think all year from now a lot of art no more behaviors will be returning which is going to be a good thing. stopping cisco that's a good thing. : :

>>.

>> i am not opposed to taking down the confederate soldiers and confederate leaders. they were traitors to the union. and i think to take those statues down his spine. but i do, i am appalled actually with statues of washington for the dc government has a commission that if we don't start explaining the washington monument and with jefferson memorial better than maybe they should be moved to another place. they can't do this because those are statues and monuments are on private land. but i am appalled at this. and the core is usually they were slaveholders. they knew holding slaves were

wrong and jefferson called it on a stain on virginia and other spoke of it as a mortal sin and jefferson calls it a sin against god. they were fully aware of the dilemma in which they live him a contradiction in which they existed. but they found themselves unable the circumstances were not such that they can achieve the full emancipation that justice demanded. that didn't stop them once they understood what a unique place they were in what unique time they were in, they were all educated in the enlightenment. the idea of freedom and liberty and justice and equality were essential to that the scottish enlightenment and all washington educated but the other three went to find school so they were perfectly

ready to start a new nation based on the highest principles and that's what they did. and you are right. it is a contradiction but i sure am glad they did it.

>> when harry truman got the word from the british they could no longer defend greece or turkey again soviet aggression and joseph stalin's design, he was having to deal with a republican congress that had just got elected democrats they stay disastrous midterm election 1946 the first midterm while president and republicans were back in power for the first time in 14 years. anybody that has read the least bit about fdr knows when fdr was president washington

was fdr's town. he did not care much for dissent from people inside his own oval office. so republicans had enough to kowtow to the democratic president of the past 14 years and the last thing they wanted to do was help fdr successor them out of a position they had held their entire existence. republicans for the most part were isolationist. also they just finished world war ii. a nation was exhausted from four years of war obviously. harry truman gets the message he has got to engage a republican house and senate and mainly the chairman of the

foreign affairs committee from michigan traditionally was isolationist. so truman first worked vandenberg but also all of the republicans and it was a constant effort to republicans in and explain to them they could no more appease joseph stalin's designs on central and western europe then chamberlain had appease hitler's design on the same way earlier. so the way that follows the history of the mentor. , the republicans after riverside in 1919 woodrow

wilson came back and try to get the united states involved in the league of nations. here very contentious negotiations with the senate with henry cabot lodge another isolationist to refuse to follow wilson's efforts to get the united states involved in the league of nations. the country retreated back into a fortress america mentality which allowed adolf hitler to build his strength and oil september 1st, 1939 world war ii began and we know the consequences of that. so one of the reasons i go into such a great detail on the legislative efforts with truman's because he showed how to do it and by surrounding himself with the best and the brightest of his time. the wisemen as walter isaacson called them.

and he was the organizer the victory of world war ii and the undersecretary of state the most capable diplomat in washington dc at the time george cannon wrote the famous long telegram and also the need for the united states to engage in a containment policy. harriman was his ambassador to the soviet union who knew the soviet union as well as better than anyone and also new stalin well. it was hard work with republicans but also surrounding himself with a great team that actually allowed him it was a revolution a form policy allowing him to do that