5min chapter

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Upskill your career in AI

People of AI

CHAPTER

A Journey of Career Discovery and Transition

The chapter chronicles the speaker's transition from pursuing a medical career to discovering a passion for computer science and bioinformatics. It explores their journey through academia, industry roles at Goldman Sachs and meta, and insights on building a valuable skill set in technology.

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Speaker 1
And so it
Speaker 2
was more about loving those things and wanting to upgrade to them. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. I totally agree. And actually, I think high oleic sunflower oil is fine. Like it's not, I wouldn't,
Speaker 1
we're not frying in it, for
Speaker 2
example. Yeah. But I mean, the the oleic acid is a mono unsaturated fat. And I think the primary concerns around seed oils are with regard to their predominance of polyunsaturated fats, which are the least chemically stable and the most prone to oxidation and alteration when exposed to heat and oxygen. But high oleic sunflower oil, as the name implies, is high in oleic acid, which again, is a mono unsaturated fat. So it's actually, I mean, it's not a bad oil. It's like very similar in its fatty acid profile to avocado oil. So people that like see that on, you know, salad dressing bottles, for example, I'm like, don't, I mean, don't worry that it's not, it's not as ideal as extra virgin olive oil. Right. For example, but I definitely applaud that you guys have switched it out for, because it is still, you know, it's, it's somewhat more processed avocado oil is great. Yeah. And of course, extra virgin olive oil has more evidence than any of the other oils with regard to health benefits. Like there are these incredible polyphenols and extra virgin olive oil. It's even more heat stable. Because it's about, it's got about 15% saturated fat, which is the most chemically stable. So no, it's definitely, I think, I move in the right direction. You guys are definitely pioneers.
Speaker 1
Yeah, we're proud of it. And I think also we, part of the struggle was if you really zoom out and look at the broader mission of sweet green, it is really to connect, you know, the whole country, this type of food and create a brand that can reach everyone. And so ultimately, when you start thinking about shifting eating behaviors and shifting food behaviors in parts of the country, or maybe people, you know, don't have access to it, you know, it's even shifting people to eating, you know, high quality nutrient dense protein and vegetables cooked in whatever is probably better than maybe what they're eating before. Same, just like context matters. And for us, ultimately, we want to have a brand and an offering and talk about our food in a way that is not so prescriptive and just kind of invites people in. Yeah, totally. Are
Speaker 2
there any unique or standout ingredients that you are most excited about that set that might set sweet green apart from other contenders in the fast casual space? On our current menu?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh, man, lots. You know, I think we are wild rice is really incredible. And if you've had the wild rice, but it comes from, we've been sourcing from Lundberg Farms, other years, organic wild rice. And it has this texture, it's nutty, it takes sauce really well, and it's sourced really incredibly.
Speaker 2
Lundberg, correct me if I'm wrong, would they grow all their rice in California? Did they not?
Speaker 1
I think majority,
Speaker 2
yeah. Yeah, which is great because brown rice has been known to harbor arsenic if grown in soil that has been contaminated with arsenic. But the risk of arsenic contamination in soil is very low in California, if memory serves correctly. And Lundberg, as far as I know, and have no affiliation, but they grow their right, they tend to grow their rice in California. Yeah,
Speaker 1
we get our quinoa from a company called Simpli that has some really incredible regenerative practices. Peach season, we source peaches from all these great growers around the country. It's probably one of my favorite things we do all year when they're at peak season, and including some really incredible farmers and growers here in California. And yeah, I mean, there's a long list I could talk about our supply chain for a long time.
Speaker 2
That's cool. But what, like, I mean, you guys have like, there's like nori that you guys use in certain dishes. Yeah, we just introduced a nori seasoning. Yeah, for what's it called again? Nori for a cocky. For a cocky. I love that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you guys use that on the on the salmon plate that I'm
Speaker 1
obsessed with. Yeah, creates a lot of flavor and not very, not a lot of calories, but it really creates a lot of great flavor in that dish. Yeah,
Speaker 2
it's so good. You don't see that in other fast casual that like those kinds of premium ingredients and other fast casual spots. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. And where are you guys now? I know that you're like heavy on the coasts. You're, you know, obviously, like in the Northeast, you guys are everywhere in California, you're everywhere. I know in Austin, you've got a few locations. What's next?
Speaker 1
Yeah, so today we are, you know, 16 years in, we're in 221 restaurants in 19 states. We're opening Seattle in January now. That'll be exciting 20th state. And we're all over the Midwest, all over the South, all over Texas. Are
Speaker 2
you guys international
Speaker 1
yet? Not yet. One day, we hope to be, but you know, the opportunity domestically is so big. You know, 220 restaurants is pretty small. When you think about a just the pure set of the larger national fast casual folks and just the opportunity to really shift fast food. I mean, there are thousands to tens of thousands of units of some of these other brands. And so for us, really, even though it's like 16 years and 220 restaurants sounds very
Speaker 2
big, it's still pretty small relatively. And you guys recently opened up a location that's like all robotic driven. Did you not? We
Speaker 1
did. We opened our second one. So two years ago, we acquired a company called Spice, these four incredible entrepreneurs, MIT grads that had built basically, you know, had a similar mission to us. And we'd known them from the early days. And they built basically a robotic version of Sweet Green. Wow. And the idea was just to create a whole different, you know, fast food model to really rethink the whole service model, the whole team member experience, the whole customer value prop. And they built this incredible technology. And at some point we came together and said, let's join forces. So we acquired them two years ago. And six months ago, launched the first one in Sweet Green. Why was
Speaker 2
that appealing to you?
Speaker 1
You know, for us, we're constantly thinking about what does the future of the fast food experience look like? And how does the whole model have to shift? And for us, you know, I would say my co-founders and I are conscious capitalists. We believe in building a business that can get really big and, you know, be a profitable company that does a lot of good. And for us, we see with scale comes more impact. And so with that, we've always been really curious at kind of poking what has to change or evolve in the whole fast food equation and experience. One of the biggest things I haven't talked about, but in our first 10 years, probably one of the outside of building a supply chain and a brand, the biggest thing we did do was some heavy, heavy investment in technology. Building one of the first restaurant apps, one of the most digitally penetrative brands from a percentage point of view, pre-COVID, which was really good for us during COVID and helped us. But the, you know, we believe that just even the definition for consumers on what is convenient was going to shift. And we had, I think we launched our first restaurant app in 2012 before most anyone. And we just believe that, you know, this idea of when we first opened Sweet Green, the idea of convenience was, oh, wow, this place opened that I can, you know, walk downstairs, walk five blocks and only wait 15 minutes in line. How convenient. Fast forward 10 years, people are like, I have to walk downstairs, I have to walk five blocks, I have to wait 15 minutes. That's not convenient. And so for us, this idea of just creating different channels that remove even more friction for customers to order ahead and just pick up order for delivery, it drove a ton of our business. So that for us was like the first big shift in the fast food model that we really helped lead a lot of. And now as we look at the future, you know, the whole team member experience and just the thinking about the whole labor model, the customer experience, we believe there's an opportunity to just continuously shift it. And this automation really creates a totally different experience and creates a lot of value for the customer and the team member. It's incredibly fast. You can do over 500 bowls an hour, which is really great. It's very accurate, very clean, perfect portioning. And it does all these wonderful things and it creates this opportunity for team members to not just be doing these repetitive tasks all day, but to really engage with our customers. So we redeploy team members to talk to customers and focus more on hospitality. And then they're still cooking by hand and they're still, you know, engaging with customers, cooking by hand, and spending their time doing those engaging in that behavior, which we think is really incredibly valuable for them and the customer. Yeah.

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