Ep. 155. [Podcast Showcase Series] – Business For Good Interviews John Mackey, CEO and Cofounder of Whole Foods

Welcome to the first in our Podcast Showcase Series with Paul Shapiro and Toni Okamoto interviewing John Mackey. He started this little company, grew it, and then sold it to Amazon. You might know it as Whole Foods Market.

Though Paul and Toni can tell you all about their guest, I can tell you a little bit about Paul and Toni.

This super star duo is hosted by none other than Paul Shapiro, animal activist, author and now CEO of the Better Meat Co, and Toni Okamoto, who is a cookbook author, and the creator of Plant-based on a Budget, which encourages people that eating plant-based doesn’t have to be expensive. Toni was featured on What The Health and has a pretty viral youtube video where she and her business partner Michelle Cehn compare the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger.  

As many know, Paul and I met on the My Food Job Rocks podcast and through chance, I got the opportunity to found Better Meat Co with him. Paul chose Sacramento to be the HQ of Better Meat Co, not because of strategy but because that is where Toni lives, his fiance’s home town. I was happy about the location for my own personal reasons as well.

As Paul learned about how I did my podcast through the many talks we’ve had, he was very impressed with the number of connections and knowledge I’ve amassed throughout a couple of years of doing this and thought it would be valuable and fun to do a podcast with Toni.

Business for Good is a podcast that focuses on the businesses that solve humanities biggest problems and one of those problems being food! Today, we go into the mind of John Mackey, Paul’s friend, but also the CEO and CEO-founder of Whole Foods.

Business for Good as many other episodes that focus on food, such as slavery-free chocolate and investors for plant-based companies. But they also have an impressive list of other guests such as coral reef revitalists, musicians who are making a sustainable impact, and… toilet paper companies where if you buy their products, they will build toilets in third world countries.

Without further ado, enjoy the first episode of the Business for Good’s podcast, their episode with John Mackey.

You can check out more of Paul and Toni’s episode at businessforgoodpodcast.com

Shownotes

As a student, John Mackey was an idealistic hippie who worked in a vegetarian co-op while studying religion and philosophy. He never took a business class during his whole academic career. In other words, he wasn’t exactly the guy people would’ve placed bets on to become a businessman, let alone one who’d launch a natural foods empire called Whole Foods Market that would get purchased by Amazon for $14 billion. (Note: John long ago stopped taking a salary and even donated all of his Whole Foods stock, so he didn’t see a penny of the sale.)

Listen to John discuss with Toni Okamoto and Paul Shapiro his thoughts on everything from venture capitalists and labor unions to Whole Foods’ sale to Amazon and of course how to do good in the world via business.

John’s Books:

• Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business
• Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems
• The Whole Foods Diet: The Lifesaving Plan for Health and Longevity

John’s book recommendations during the show:

• Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
• Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
• The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the Worldby Brad Stone
• The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
• Books by Peter Drucker

More info:

• Conscious Capitalism, the organization John cofounded

 

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