[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_137":-5,"_138":-5,"_139":140,"_141":142,"_143":144},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/1971/transparency-is-the-unsung-hero-of-culture","id",1971,"title","Transparency is the unsung hero of culture","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.660\nThe fact that transparency is a very unsung hero of great company cultures, and\n\n2\n00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:09.680\nit's also\n\n3\n00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:14.960\none of the perils of places that have gone awry. I think most people know that\n\n4\n00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:16.160\na lot of people\n\n5\n00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:20.570\nleave their jobs because they have crappy managers. I think fewer people\n\n6\n00:00:20.570 --> 00:00:22.000\nappreciate that\n\n7\n00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.020\nanother significantly contributing factor is when people don't understand how\n\n8\n00:00:27.020 --> 00:00:28.080\ndecisions are made\n\n9\n00:00:28.080 --> 00:00:32.430\nout of company, and they don't understand what's happening to the company writ\n\n10\n00:00:32.430 --> 00:00:32.960\nlarge,\n\n11\n00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:38.240\nand are kept in a need-to-know basis, so to speak, with just issues directly\n\n12\n00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:39.040\nimpacting their\n\n13\n00:00:39.040 --> 00:00:41.840\npart of the organization. That's great. So you\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",2001119,"end_time",2040479,"keywords","decision-making, communication","slug","transparency-is-the-unsung-hero-of-culture","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","JZctPc7riUnYNpoAK2K7T00LPSwJJOVW5EVmQXFCt02WY","mux_asset_id","qZdBpllbY01SVMBazdn61Dk02xMLVWUY1vXdeJ02l8Vdhw","leader_id",109,"episode_id",257,"updated_at","2025-02-26T19:47:50.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/1971/transparency-is-the-unsung-hero-of-culture","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_101":102,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_25":107,"_108":109,"_62":110,"_59":110,"_111":112,"_69":113,"_39":114,"_115":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_116":117,"_89":118,"_44":119,"_120":121,"_122":123,"_46":-5,"_124":125,"_126":127,"_93":128,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":58,"_59":60,"_61":-5,"_62":60,"_63":-5,"_64":65,"_66":67,"_68":-5,"_69":-5,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":-5,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":-5,"_89":-5,"_46":-5,"_90":91,"_92":-5,"_93":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Have a Healthy Sense of Urgency","have-a-healthy-sense-of-urgency","Learn how a healthy sense of urgency can help you clarify your business model, tap into your purpose, and fight team complacency. See how to respond when a competitor rips you off. Plus, the right way to bring sustainability into your business.","summary","

Today’s guest is Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder of Allbirds, the world’s most comfortable shoe according to Time Magazine. His company is growing by leaps and bounds, and they’ve pioneered a truly sustainable shoe that people really love.

But all of it almost never happened. Fortunately, a few years ago, Joey had the courage to ask himself one really powerful question. And when he did, he got a healthy sense of urgency that NOW was the time to start a company that could make a significant impact on the problems surrounding climate change.

That healthy sense of urgency is something we can all use, even in our day-to-day lives, to help us figure out what we really want to focus on. In this conversation, you’ll hear how Joey tapped into it for himself, his team, and his company. Plus, you’ll get great insights on making business more sustainable, marketing your products’ differentiators, and lots more.

You’ll also learn:

How to leverage the power of mentorship, both for corporate leaders and entrepreneurs
Tips for navigating business decisions while still upholding your most important values
A practical strategy you can use the next time you face a sticky problem
A dangerous mindset you have to weed out, especially in successful companies

Take your learning further. Get proven leadership advice from these (free!) resources:

The How Leaders Lead App: A vast library of 90-second leadership lessons to stay sharp on the go

Daily Insight Emails: One small (but powerful!) leadership principle to focus on each day

Whichever you choose, you can be sure you’ll get the trusted leadership advice you need to advance your career, develop your team, and grow your business.

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.770\nWelcome to Howl Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I\n\n2\n00:00:07.770 --> 00:00:08.320\ninterview\n\n3\n00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:10.560\nsome of the very best leaders in the world.\n\n4\n00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:14.110\nI break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have\n\n5\n00:00:14.110 --> 00:00:14.800\nsomething\n\n6\n00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:18.560\nsimple you can apply as you develop into a better leader.\n\n7\n00:00:18.560 --> 00:00:20.800\nThat's what this podcast is all about.\n\n8\n00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:25.380\nToday's guest is Joy Zwillinger, co-founder of All Birds, the world's most\n\n9\n00:00:25.380 --> 00:00:25.840\ncomfortable\n\n10\n00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:28.560\nshoe according to Time Magazine.\n\n11\n00:00:28.560 --> 00:00:32.960\nThis company is growing by leaps and bounds, and they pioneered a truly\n\n12\n00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:34.160\nsustainable shoe\n\n13\n00:00:34.160 --> 00:00:37.520\nthat people really love, including me.\n\n14\n00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:40.600\nI've got a pair of them on right now.\n\n15\n00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:43.280\nBut all of it almost never happened.\n\n16\n00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:48.140\nFortunately, a few years ago, Joy had the courage to ask himself one really\n\n17\n00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:48.800\npowerful\n\n18\n00:00:48.800 --> 00:00:49.800\nquestion.\n\n19\n00:00:49.800 --> 00:00:56.190\nAnd when he did, he got a healthy sense of urgency that now was the time to\n\n20\n00:00:56.190 --> 00:00:58.000\nstart a company and\n\n21\n00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:03.800\ntry to make a significant impact on the problem surrounding climate change.\n\n22\n00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:08.950\nThat healthy sense of urgency is something we can all use to help us even in\n\n23\n00:01:08.950 --> 00:01:09.520\nour day\n\n24\n00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:13.760\nto day lives, to help us figure out what we really want to focus on.\n\n25\n00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:17.920\nI can't wait for you to hear how Joy tapped into it for himself.\n\n26\n00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:22.260\nHe also shares some great insights on making business more sustainable,\n\n27\n00:01:22.260 --> 00:01:22.800\nmarketing your\n\n28\n00:01:22.800 --> 00:01:26.120\nproduct differentiators, and lots more.\n\n29\n00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:32.220\nSo here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Joy Zwill\n\n30\n00:01:32.220 --> 00:01:33.120\ninger.\n\n31\n00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:40.280\nJoy, thanks so much for being on this show.\n\n32\n00:01:40.280 --> 00:01:42.120\nOh, David, it's awesome to be here.\n\n33\n00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:44.600\nAnd I'm so humbled by those words coming from you.\n\n34\n00:01:44.600 --> 00:01:48.820\nWe're big fans of you over here at All Birds, and your work and what you share\n\n35\n00:01:48.820 --> 00:01:49.800\nwith us at\n\n36\n00:01:49.800 --> 00:01:51.000\nthat leadership summit.\n\n37\n00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:55.210\nAnd also just in general, your work around recognition has been very impactful\n\n38\n00:01:55.210 --> 00:01:55.720\nto me,\n\n39\n00:01:55.720 --> 00:01:57.480\npersonally, and to our organization.\n\n40\n00:01:57.480 --> 00:01:58.680\nSo thanks for having me on.\n\n41\n00:01:58.680 --> 00:01:59.680\nWell, thank you, Joy.\n\n42\n00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:00.680\nI appreciate it.\n\n43\n00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:03.880\nYou know, I want to get to your personal story and leadership insights, but\n\n44\n00:02:03.880 --> 00:02:04.200\nfirst, how's\n\n45\n00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:05.200\nyour week going?\n\n46\n00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:09.480\nAnd can you tell us about a typical week in your life these days?\n\n47\n00:02:09.480 --> 00:02:13.320\nYeah, my week is starting off with a bang.\n\n48\n00:02:13.320 --> 00:02:18.650\nSo I try to keep a good, balanced family and work, even though I think being an\n\n49\n00:02:18.650 --> 00:02:19.600\nentrepreneur\n\n50\n00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:23.000\ngets drilled six inches deep into your skull.\n\n51\n00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:25.320\nAnd then I actually, I color-code my week.\n\n52\n00:02:25.320 --> 00:02:31.140\nSo I generally have a good perspective of yellow being, working with external\n\n53\n00:02:31.140 --> 00:02:31.840\nparties\n\n54\n00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:33.720\nand partners that are important.\n\n55\n00:02:33.720 --> 00:02:35.360\nI have an investor color.\n\n56\n00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:36.960\nI have an investor color.\n\n57\n00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:38.080\nI got a media color.\n\n58\n00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:39.960\nI got internal colors.\n\n59\n00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:43.840\nAnd so I generally have a decent split and I try to manage my time.\n\n60\n00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:48.360\nSo I'm prioritizing the urgent things that I need to accomplish and also\n\n61\n00:02:48.360 --> 00:02:49.360\nsetting aside\n\n62\n00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:53.200\nsome really good, long-term strategic relationship building time for my week.\n\n63\n00:02:53.200 --> 00:02:54.200\nSo it dances.\n\n64\n00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:58.730\nAnd I will say the breadth of activity that I do in a week is one of the things\n\n65\n00:02:58.730 --> 00:02:59.120\nthat\n\n66\n00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:02.120\nkeeps me so motivated, just because it's always learning.\n\n67\n00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:04.680\nIt's doing something exciting every week.\n\n68\n00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:07.600\nJoy, shifting gears to the business style.\n\n69\n00:03:07.600 --> 00:03:10.760\nTell us a story of how you came up with the Allbirds name.\n\n70\n00:03:10.760 --> 00:03:13.880\nI mean, what the heck is that?\n\n71\n00:03:13.880 --> 00:03:16.200\nWell, I know.\n\n72\n00:03:16.200 --> 00:03:21.760\nHow do you make a shoe out of sheep and then call your company after a bird?\n\n73\n00:03:21.760 --> 00:03:25.280\nSo there's some sense to it.\n\n74\n00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:27.920\nWe were thinking about what we stood for as a company.\n\n75\n00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:33.610\nAnd we really knew we believed in innovation based on low-carbon intensity,\n\n76\n00:03:33.610 --> 00:03:35.040\nenvironmentally\n\n77\n00:03:35.040 --> 00:03:37.000\nsensible materials.\n\n78\n00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:38.000\nThat's what we were.\n\n79\n00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:39.080\nWe weren't a shoe company.\n\n80\n00:03:39.080 --> 00:03:40.560\nWe weren't a wool company.\n\n81\n00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:44.010\nWe were going to be something and we aspired to be something that stood for\n\n82\n00:03:44.010 --> 00:03:44.720\nmuch more, both\n\n83\n00:03:44.720 --> 00:03:48.790\nfrom a lifestyle, what we did for people and our customers, but also in terms\n\n84\n00:03:48.790 --> 00:03:49.680\nof the leadership\n\n85\n00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:51.080\nand what we stood for.\n\n86\n00:03:51.080 --> 00:03:53.400\nSo we were and do this creative process.\n\n87\n00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:54.400\nWe were like poking around.\n\n88\n00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:57.600\nWe were saying, \"All right, let's look back to our heritage in New Zealand.\n\n89\n00:03:57.600 --> 00:03:59.600\nWhat do we got there?\"\n\n90\n00:03:59.600 --> 00:04:06.040\nAnd we asked a simple question, \"What birds were there in New Zealand?\"\n\n91\n00:04:06.040 --> 00:04:08.200\n\"What birds there?\"\n\n92\n00:04:08.200 --> 00:04:11.500\nAnd obviously, that was the Kiwi bird, but it turns out when man first settled\n\n93\n00:04:11.500 --> 00:04:11.800\nin New\n\n94\n00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:16.160\nZealand, there was all birds, no mammals.\n\n95\n00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:20.120\nAnd that little fact was so cool and unique because it's such an isolated\n\n96\n00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:20.800\nisland.\n\n97\n00:04:20.800 --> 00:04:21.800\nLike all birds.\n\n98\n00:04:21.800 --> 00:04:22.880\nThere's all birds there.\n\n99\n00:04:22.880 --> 00:04:26.160\nAnd that's kind of a time when before people came in and screwed things up.\n\n100\n00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:28.800\nSo we thought we'd take a swing without one.\n\n101\n00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:31.280\nThat is a great swing and that is so cool.\n\n102\n00:04:31.280 --> 00:04:33.440\nI love that.\n\n103\n00:04:33.440 --> 00:04:35.880\nAnd you start your company, you have huge success.\n\n104\n00:04:35.880 --> 00:04:37.960\nYou're selling all birds online.\n\n105\n00:04:37.960 --> 00:04:42.670\nAnd then you make a strategic decision to go into the brick and mortar business\n\n106\n00:04:42.670 --> 00:04:42.960\n.\n\n107\n00:04:42.960 --> 00:04:46.440\nAnd as I mentioned earlier, I had the chance to talk to your store managers.\n\n108\n00:04:46.440 --> 00:04:48.160\nWhy do you make that call?\n\n109\n00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:50.800\nYeah, I mean, huge success.\n\n110\n00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:55.600\nFirst of all, let me caveat by saying I wouldn't call us that quite yet.\n\n111\n00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:56.600\nWorking on it.\n\n112\n00:04:56.600 --> 00:05:01.280\nBrick and mortar, though, it is so important to our business.\n\n113\n00:05:01.280 --> 00:05:07.350\nMaking an experience that is the best for our customers is step number one for\n\n114\n00:05:07.350 --> 00:05:07.920\nus and\n\n115\n00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:09.680\neverything flows out of that.\n\n116\n00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:13.600\nAnd we see it in the data, but we feel it when we walk in the store.\n\n117\n00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:16.880\nIt is better to come into our store than it is to shop online.\n\n118\n00:05:16.880 --> 00:05:18.040\nJust put it out there.\n\n119\n00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:19.240\nWe're super convenient.\n\n120\n00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:23.670\nWe get issues if you order an e-comm in three days, free returns, free shipping\n\n121\n00:05:23.670 --> 00:05:24.080\n, you name\n\n122\n00:05:24.080 --> 00:05:25.080\nit.\n\n123\n00:05:25.080 --> 00:05:26.080\nI mean, it's phenomenal.\n\n124\n00:05:26.080 --> 00:05:30.590\nBut if you go into our store, we built this entire environment around the try\n\n125\n00:05:30.590 --> 00:05:31.760\non experience.\n\n126\n00:05:31.760 --> 00:05:35.820\nWe have educated our ambassadors and our store leaders in such a way that they\n\n127\n00:05:35.820 --> 00:05:36.480\ncan tell you\n\n128\n00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:42.160\ndown to the molecule that we're using, the fiber from what kind of sheep.\n\n129\n00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:46.820\nThis information is such a rich experience that our customers absolutely love\n\n130\n00:05:46.820 --> 00:05:47.240\nus.\n\n131\n00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:51.590\nAnd we use this thing called net promoter score to show how favorable our\n\n132\n00:05:51.590 --> 00:05:52.160\ncustomers\n\n133\n00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:53.400\nthink about that experience.\n\n134\n00:05:53.400 --> 00:05:58.400\nAnd we see it in the 90s in our store consistently in the 90s, even during a\n\n135\n00:05:58.400 --> 00:05:59.320\npandemic.\n\n136\n00:05:59.320 --> 00:06:01.080\nIt is in the 90s and it's incredible.\n\n137\n00:06:01.080 --> 00:06:04.200\nSo we know that the financial results are going to come from that.\n\n138\n00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:06.120\nAnd we see that in the financials too.\n\n139\n00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:08.360\nThe marketing efficiency is better.\n\n140\n00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:11.640\nPeople have more awareness that our brand exists in America.\n\n141\n00:06:11.640 --> 00:06:15.470\nWe still today, you ask 10 people on the street, only one person has heard of\n\n142\n00:06:15.470 --> 00:06:16.200\nall birds.\n\n143\n00:06:16.200 --> 00:06:18.400\nWe need to get that up and stores help us do that.\n\n144\n00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:21.880\nAnd that flows through our whole business model.\n\n145\n00:06:21.880 --> 00:06:24.400\nSo you launch a lot of stores and you get started.\n\n146\n00:06:24.400 --> 00:06:25.400\nYou're doing it around the world.\n\n147\n00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:26.400\nYou have them in Shanghai.\n\n148\n00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:29.480\nYou're doing great locations.\n\n149\n00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:32.640\nAnd then you mentioned the pandemic.\n\n150\n00:06:32.640 --> 00:06:37.300\nHow has your business coped during the pandemic and how have you had to\n\n151\n00:06:37.300 --> 00:06:38.320\nscramble?\n\n152\n00:06:38.320 --> 00:06:42.840\nWhat a wild time to be a leader of any business.\n\n153\n00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:45.760\nBut retail got hit hard.\n\n154\n00:06:45.760 --> 00:06:49.080\nWe shut down our stores on March 13th.\n\n155\n00:06:49.080 --> 00:06:55.720\nWe had to understand what we were going to do with our staff.\n\n156\n00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:59.450\nTried to see how we could help out in the community to the extent we could do\n\n157\n00:06:59.450 --> 00:07:00.000\nthat.\n\n158\n00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:06.510\nAnd it was like decision after decision of fairly significant magnitude falling\n\n159\n00:07:06.510 --> 00:07:06.680\nback\n\n160\n00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:13.380\non our values and trying to make a whole bunch of these calls that impact a lot\n\n161\n00:07:13.380 --> 00:07:13.520\nof\n\n162\n00:07:13.520 --> 00:07:16.560\npeople.\n\n163\n00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:20.000\nIt was a fair-- many of them are very difficult.\n\n164\n00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:23.440\nAnd the business fortunately ended up fairing really well.\n\n165\n00:07:23.440 --> 00:07:28.410\nIt was quite uncertain in the first month who the hell knew what was going to\n\n166\n00:07:28.410 --> 00:07:29.000\nhappen.\n\n167\n00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:31.920\nAnd then after that, we got our feet underneath us.\n\n168\n00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:34.080\nAnd we started really executing very well.\n\n169\n00:07:34.080 --> 00:07:39.640\nI'm super proud of the team, how they've navigated through this situation.\n\n170\n00:07:39.640 --> 00:07:47.330\nI'll say one of the things now that we're closing in on a year through this\n\n171\n00:07:47.330 --> 00:07:48.320\nthing, the\n\n172\n00:07:48.320 --> 00:07:50.960\nimpact on culture has been quite profound.\n\n173\n00:07:50.960 --> 00:07:55.240\nIt's not just the pandemic, but it's the anxiety and the stress of everyone's\n\n174\n00:07:55.240 --> 00:07:55.840\npersonal\n\n175\n00:07:55.840 --> 00:08:00.220\nsituation and what they're dealing with outside of work, not just inside of\n\n176\n00:08:00.220 --> 00:08:00.600\nwork.\n\n177\n00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:05.640\nCoupling that with societal issues around racial unrest and a whole bunch of\n\n178\n00:08:05.640 --> 00:08:06.640\nother issues\n\n179\n00:08:06.640 --> 00:08:13.440\nthat we've dealt with in the last year, not just in this country, but globally.\n\n180\n00:08:13.440 --> 00:08:15.680\nAnd it takes a toll.\n\n181\n00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:21.520\nAnd that's the thing that we, Tim and I, have spent a lot of time with.\n\n182\n00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:26.000\nAnd that's alongside our executives and our HR leader.\n\n183\n00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:31.370\nJust thinking about how to build empathy in this environment, how we're going\n\n184\n00:08:31.370 --> 00:08:31.920\nto take\n\n185\n00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:37.010\nsome withdrawals from the culture bank, which we have, and fortunately we\n\n186\n00:08:37.010 --> 00:08:37.920\ndeposited quite\n\n187\n00:08:37.920 --> 00:08:41.320\na bit beforehand before we came into the pandemic.\n\n188\n00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:46.550\nBut how do we come out of this and regain that thriving culture that we once\n\n189\n00:08:46.550 --> 00:08:47.080\nhad, the\n\n190\n00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:52.240\nthriving, pulsing, creativity and all the good stuff that we need to be\n\n191\n00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:53.400\nsuccessful?\n\n192\n00:08:53.400 --> 00:08:57.360\nI'd say that's the thing that still keeps me up.\n\n193\n00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:01.080\nThat's the one thing that keeps me up in this pandemic now is how do we regain\n\n194\n00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:01.320\nour\n\n195\n00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:07.750\nattraction as a culture and a fantastic place to work in the same way that we\n\n196\n00:09:07.750 --> 00:09:08.400\nhave with\n\n197\n00:09:08.400 --> 00:09:13.200\nthe same advantage that we had before coming in before we started this thing?\n\n198\n00:09:13.200 --> 00:09:15.750\nAs a leader, Joy, what do you think will be the single biggest thing you're\n\n199\n00:09:15.750 --> 00:09:16.120\ngoing to\n\n200\n00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:17.360\ndo to make that happen?\n\n201\n00:09:17.360 --> 00:09:19.400\nYou know, it's a great question.\n\n202\n00:09:19.400 --> 00:09:22.840\nI'd say it's a number of things.\n\n203\n00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:29.730\nFirst of all, its communication has been stressed probably the highest that I\n\n204\n00:09:29.730 --> 00:09:30.520\n've ever\n\n205\n00:09:30.520 --> 00:09:35.900\ndealt with, the crispness and clarity of communication, frequency of\n\n206\n00:09:35.900 --> 00:09:37.320\ncommunication,\n\n207\n00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:43.840\nvulnerability within that communication has been of paramount importance.\n\n208\n00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:48.880\nAnd we've taken kind of a, we've done a 360 review of ourselves, Tim and I have\n\n209\n00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:49.880\nas co-CEOs\n\n210\n00:09:49.880 --> 00:09:56.110\nand understood how we've navigated through this with our colleagues and at Al\n\n211\n00:09:56.110 --> 00:09:56.800\nberts.\n\n212\n00:09:56.800 --> 00:09:58.720\nThat's been the number one thing to call out.\n\n213\n00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:00.600\nSo I want to continue to do that.\n\n214\n00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:06.230\nAnd I do think, you know, every year we, Tim and I have a development plan that\n\n215\n00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:06.560\nwe write\n\n216\n00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:14.840\nfor ourselves on what we want to do better and coming into the year, and this\n\n217\n00:10:14.840 --> 00:10:15.840\nisn't just\n\n218\n00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:20.330\npandering, but coming into the year we've written in our development plan that\n\n219\n00:10:20.330 --> 00:10:20.840\nwe would,\n\n220\n00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:28.120\ncoming into 2020, we would do more on the recognition front.\n\n221\n00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:32.340\nIt goes to communication, but it's about drawing a line from what makes our\n\n222\n00:10:32.340 --> 00:10:32.960\nbusiness\n\n223\n00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:35.640\ngood to the behaviors that people are exhibiting.\n\n224\n00:10:35.640 --> 00:10:38.240\nAnd we gave out a golden Kiwi.\n\n225\n00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:42.660\nIt's like this, it's this little Kiwi bird, that's it from New Zealand, the\n\n226\n00:10:42.660 --> 00:10:43.320\nwood carving.\n\n227\n00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:47.630\nWe had a goal to give out 100 and we ended up not being able to do that in the\n\n228\n00:10:47.630 --> 00:10:48.120\nsame way\n\n229\n00:10:48.120 --> 00:10:51.160\nwe wanted to because of the pandemic constraints.\n\n230\n00:10:51.160 --> 00:10:55.040\nSo we shifted it and we gave a different award, but we want to pick that back\n\n231\n00:10:55.040 --> 00:10:55.400\nup.\n\n232\n00:10:55.400 --> 00:10:59.520\nSo I'd say those two things are probably the two things I'm going to stress and\n\n233\n00:10:59.520 --> 00:11:00.120\ncontinue\n\n234\n00:11:00.120 --> 00:11:04.420\nto lean on in terms of making sure that people still feel connected and have\n\n235\n00:11:04.420 --> 00:11:05.200\nthe information\n\n236\n00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:08.760\nthey need to do their job really well and feel supported throughout this,\n\n237\n00:11:08.760 --> 00:11:09.520\nwhatever, whatever\n\n238\n00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:11.920\nelse they're going to deal with in 2021.\n\n239\n00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:15.450\nYou know, you said your retail business, you improved the execution and, you\n\n240\n00:11:15.450 --> 00:11:16.320\nknow, really\n\n241\n00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:18.360\nhad good results there.\n\n242\n00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:24.200\nHow did COVID-19 or how is COVID-19 really impacting your online business?\n\n243\n00:11:24.200 --> 00:11:27.320\nYeah, I mean, positive.\n\n244\n00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:34.090\nSo we've enjoyed really nice growth from that perspective and some of that is\n\n245\n00:11:34.090 --> 00:11:35.280\njust shifting\n\n246\n00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:37.720\nbecause people were unable to shop in stores.\n\n247\n00:11:37.720 --> 00:11:40.560\nSo that's been good.\n\n248\n00:11:40.560 --> 00:11:42.400\nThat's been a bright spot.\n\n249\n00:11:42.400 --> 00:11:47.860\nAnother bright spot has been, you know, our category expansion into running\n\n250\n00:11:47.860 --> 00:11:48.560\nshoes.\n\n251\n00:11:48.560 --> 00:11:52.640\nAnd what we found is people are at home, they're working from home now.\n\n252\n00:11:52.640 --> 00:11:57.380\nA lot of our customers are at least and they are strapping on running shoes for\n\n253\n00:11:57.380 --> 00:11:58.080\nthe first\n\n254\n00:11:58.080 --> 00:11:59.480\ntime in a decade.\n\n255\n00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.800\nAnd so lo and behold, we can deliver them to their door pretty quickly and\n\n256\n00:12:02.800 --> 00:12:03.440\ngiving them\n\n257\n00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:05.720\na really great value.\n\n258\n00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:10.540\nAnd lastly, I would say that what has buoyed our e-com business a little bit\n\n259\n00:12:10.540 --> 00:12:11.360\nhas been this\n\n260\n00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:17.410\nshift of an acceleration around the idea that values orientation of a brand\n\n261\n00:12:17.410 --> 00:12:18.760\nthat you're doing\n\n262\n00:12:18.760 --> 00:12:21.720\nbusiness with is increasing.\n\n263\n00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:26.810\nI think people are demanding even more than prior to the pandemic that brands\n\n264\n00:12:26.810 --> 00:12:27.400\nthat are\n\n265\n00:12:27.400 --> 00:12:31.240\ndelivering good stand for something positive on the social issues that they\n\n266\n00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:31.920\ncare about,\n\n267\n00:12:31.920 --> 00:12:33.960\nenvironment being one of the top of the list.\n\n268\n00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:36.760\nAnd so, you know, I think that's helping as well.\n\n269\n00:12:36.760 --> 00:12:41.750\nIt's hard to pin that down exactly, but we see some of the trends and data from\n\n270\n00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:41.920\nGoogle\n\n271\n00:12:41.920 --> 00:12:44.590\nsearch terms and a whole bunch of other things that would suggest that that is\n\n272\n00:12:44.590 --> 00:12:45.640\ncontributing.\n\n273\n00:12:45.640 --> 00:12:49.140\nSo you launched this performance shoe, you got another cool name, the Dasher,\n\n274\n00:12:49.140 --> 00:12:49.600\nokay?\n\n275\n00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:54.550\nYou know, what made you think you can compete with the likes of Nike and, you\n\n276\n00:12:54.550 --> 00:12:55.280\nknow, in the\n\n277\n00:12:55.280 --> 00:12:57.120\nrunning shoe category?\n\n278\n00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:00.320\nWhat the hell made us think we could do any of this from the beginning?\n\n279\n00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:03.920\nSo obviously, are a little bit crazy.\n\n280\n00:13:03.920 --> 00:13:07.200\nYeah, you know, look, we're chipping away.\n\n281\n00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:12.600\nWe're so small that what we're trying to do is earn the trust slowly, but\n\n282\n00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:13.400\nsurely, of\n\n283\n00:13:13.400 --> 00:13:17.390\ncustomers that we can not only deliver a shoe that's really comfortable and\n\n284\n00:13:17.390 --> 00:13:18.920\nfits them well,\n\n285\n00:13:18.920 --> 00:13:23.640\nfits across a couple styles and now enables them to perform an athletic\n\n286\n00:13:23.640 --> 00:13:24.920\nendeavor without\n\n287\n00:13:24.920 --> 00:13:28.000\nharming their body and makes them perform even better.\n\n288\n00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:32.860\nSo we put two and a half years into that Dasher and we did tons of biomechan\n\n289\n00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:34.080\nical work.\n\n290\n00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:38.100\nAnd we tried to come out with a simple, beautiful aesthetic that also delivered\n\n291\n00:13:38.100 --> 00:13:39.160\non that performance\n\n292\n00:13:39.160 --> 00:13:42.240\nand didn't sacrifice on any of our environmental values.\n\n293\n00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:44.760\nAnd we just did a damn good job.\n\n294\n00:13:44.760 --> 00:13:50.140\nAnd I think that focus on, you know, as I've alluded to before, you know,\n\n295\n00:13:50.140 --> 00:13:51.120\nsaying yes to\n\n296\n00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:56.710\none thing for every 99 things you say no to, that has treated us very well\n\n297\n00:13:56.710 --> 00:13:57.880\nthroughout the\n\n298\n00:13:57.880 --> 00:14:01.960\ngrowth of our business from a management kind of philosophy perspective.\n\n299\n00:14:01.960 --> 00:14:04.080\nAnd this is no different.\n\n300\n00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:09.740\nAnd we launched that and it'll come up on the year anniversary of the Dasher\n\n301\n00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:10.480\nand we have\n\n302\n00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:14.990\nnot added another performance athletic product into our footwork line because\n\n303\n00:14:14.990 --> 00:14:15.720\nit's really\n\n304\n00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:21.190\nhard and we wanted to pay it the appropriate amount of respect that goes into\n\n305\n00:14:21.190 --> 00:14:21.760\neach of\n\n306\n00:14:21.760 --> 00:14:23.560\nthese development processes.\n\n307\n00:14:23.560 --> 00:14:27.470\nYou know, as I understand it, the Dasher is also groundbreaking as the first\n\n308\n00:14:27.470 --> 00:14:27.880\nshoe to\n\n309\n00:14:27.880 --> 00:14:30.200\ncarry a carbon number.\n\n310\n00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:32.200\nWhat does that mean exactly, Joey?\n\n311\n00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:38.680\nYeah, it's probably the most important initiative we did in 2020.\n\n312\n00:14:38.680 --> 00:14:43.200\nYou know, when you ask 10 people on the street what sustainability means, you\n\n313\n00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:43.600\n're going to\n\n314\n00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.240\nget 10 different answers.\n\n315\n00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:52.490\nAnd we have tried to synthesize what we believe is the most important priority\n\n316\n00:14:52.490 --> 00:14:53.640\nfrom an environmental\n\n317\n00:14:53.640 --> 00:14:56.000\nperspective into a single number.\n\n318\n00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.430\nAnd this number allows you to understand how much you're contributing to or\n\n319\n00:15:00.430 --> 00:15:01.160\ncombating\n\n320\n00:15:01.160 --> 00:15:03.080\nagainst climate change.\n\n321\n00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:06.710\nAnd if you can play a role and have the education to make a better, more\n\n322\n00:15:06.710 --> 00:15:07.920\ninformed decision as\n\n323\n00:15:07.920 --> 00:15:13.480\na consumer on whether you're contributing to that global condition and global\n\n324\n00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:14.160\nissue,\n\n325\n00:15:14.160 --> 00:15:18.660\nwe think you're going to understand what you're doing from a sustainability\n\n326\n00:15:18.660 --> 00:15:19.880\nperspective.\n\n327\n00:15:19.880 --> 00:15:24.810\nAnd if we can synthesize that into something that is so crisp and clear that\n\n328\n00:15:24.810 --> 00:15:26.200\nwithin a second\n\n329\n00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:30.590\nof digesting our information and our product, you can know the answer to that\n\n330\n00:15:30.590 --> 00:15:31.480\nquestion.\n\n331\n00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:34.960\nWe think you'll be in a better spot to answer that question effectively.\n\n332\n00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:39.780\nAnd we think you will understand the value that we're creating on society, not\n\n333\n00:15:39.780 --> 00:15:40.160\nto mention\n\n334\n00:15:40.160 --> 00:15:41.560\nthat we're making a great product.\n\n335\n00:15:41.560 --> 00:15:45.520\nSo it's trying to align our values with our marketing message.\n\n336\n00:15:45.520 --> 00:15:48.200\nAnd that's as simple as I can put it.\n\n337\n00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:52.300\nAnd we tried to do that in a way that was as clear and crisp as we possibly\n\n338\n00:15:52.300 --> 00:15:52.960\ncould.\n\n339\n00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:57.920\nYou know, I know Bill Gates is 100% behind carbon footprint products.\n\n340\n00:15:57.920 --> 00:16:00.720\nIs this the bandwagon that everybody's jumping on?\n\n341\n00:16:00.720 --> 00:16:03.000\nAnd how do you feel about that?\n\n342\n00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:04.800\nI don't think everyone's jumping on it yet.\n\n343\n00:16:04.800 --> 00:16:09.560\nI think Bill Gates is, which is good because he's a powerful ally.\n\n344\n00:16:09.560 --> 00:16:14.560\nBut I think that more and more people will.\n\n345\n00:16:14.560 --> 00:16:20.680\nI will say what I see unfortunately though is that there's a lot more companies\n\n346\n00:16:20.680 --> 00:16:21.120\nwith\n\n347\n00:16:21.120 --> 00:16:24.600\nplatitudes that don't have much behind them.\n\n348\n00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:29.580\nAnd I still see a lot of greenwashing with environmental plans or small steps\n\n349\n00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:30.560\nin a positive\n\n350\n00:16:30.560 --> 00:16:36.190\ndirection with grandiose statements about their impact than what I would like\n\n351\n00:16:36.190 --> 00:16:36.960\nto see.\n\n352\n00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:41.680\nAnd if everyone were to truly jump on the bandwagon and start to hopefully\n\n353\n00:16:41.680 --> 00:16:42.480\nshare some\n\n354\n00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:46.030\nof the techniques that we're talking about in terms of really identifying the\n\n355\n00:16:46.030 --> 00:16:46.480\nfull end\n\n356\n00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:50.520\nto end lifecycle of carbon pollution and then owning up to it, paying for\n\n357\n00:16:50.520 --> 00:16:51.240\noffsets in the\n\n358\n00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:54.850\nmeantime and trying to race that down to zero, that would be joining the\n\n359\n00:16:54.850 --> 00:16:55.560\nbandwagon.\n\n360\n00:16:55.560 --> 00:17:02.000\nI invite it, I think it would be fantastic and frankly in some of the material\n\n361\n00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:03.200\ninnovations\n\n362\n00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:06.750\nwe've done, we've open sourced our technology so that people can share in the\n\n363\n00:17:06.750 --> 00:17:07.360\nmaterial and\n\n364\n00:17:07.360 --> 00:17:08.760\nhelp get on that bandwagon.\n\n365\n00:17:08.760 --> 00:17:14.350\nSo when that happens, I'll be high-fiving competitors and collaborators alike\n\n366\n00:17:14.350 --> 00:17:14.760\nto do\n\n367\n00:17:14.760 --> 00:17:15.760\nit.\n\n368\n00:17:15.760 --> 00:17:16.760\nFantastic.\n\n369\n00:17:16.760 --> 00:17:21.210\nAnd Joy, I always love my conversations with you and I love to get inside and\n\n370\n00:17:21.210 --> 00:17:21.640\nahead\n\n371\n00:17:21.640 --> 00:17:23.480\nof how leaders think.\n\n372\n00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:28.800\nTell us your thought process for going beyond shoes now and into fashion.\n\n373\n00:17:28.800 --> 00:17:32.600\nYou got the performance shoe and now you've got some new products that you've\n\n374\n00:17:32.600 --> 00:17:34.040\njust launched.\n\n375\n00:17:34.040 --> 00:17:38.080\nHow do you rationalize moving into those different arenas?\n\n376\n00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:44.160\nYeah, we look at what our customers do and how they're living.\n\n377\n00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:46.680\nAnd we can't do everything, right?\n\n378\n00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:48.360\nWe're probably not going to be making a hotel.\n\n379\n00:17:48.360 --> 00:17:52.280\nWe're probably not going to be building things in their houses.\n\n380\n00:17:52.280 --> 00:17:57.290\nSo we got to think about within a reasonable kind of zone of a target area of\n\n381\n00:17:57.290 --> 00:17:58.400\nwhat we can\n\n382\n00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:02.490\naccomplish and what we think we can win in, where we have material innovation\n\n383\n00:18:02.490 --> 00:18:03.320\nthat's core\n\n384\n00:18:03.320 --> 00:18:08.040\nto our company and can create a differentiated product that we know they're\n\n385\n00:18:08.040 --> 00:18:09.160\ngoing to love.\n\n386\n00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:11.320\nLet's explore whether we can do that or not.\n\n387\n00:18:11.320 --> 00:18:16.720\nAnd for us, as I said, when I was alluding to the origin of the name, never for\n\n388\n00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:17.440\na second\n\n389\n00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:20.540\ndid we think we were a shoe company, never did it for a second did we think we\n\n390\n00:18:20.540 --> 00:18:20.840\nwere a\n\n391\n00:18:20.840 --> 00:18:21.840\nwool company.\n\n392\n00:18:21.840 --> 00:18:26.560\nWe have to take these innovations and leverage them in many different ways.\n\n393\n00:18:26.560 --> 00:18:29.480\nLet me give you an example because I think it's one of them.\n\n394\n00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:32.400\nIt's an exemplary of what we try to do.\n\n395\n00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:35.800\nSo we took, we made merino wool shoes.\n\n396\n00:18:35.800 --> 00:18:39.850\nWe then made a eucalyptus fiber base shoe for summer months that was more\n\n397\n00:18:39.850 --> 00:18:40.760\nbreathable.\n\n398\n00:18:40.760 --> 00:18:45.720\nAnd then kind of let the air kind of go right in and touch your toes.\n\n399\n00:18:45.720 --> 00:18:48.850\nAnd then what we decided was, okay, what if we made a fabric that combined\n\n400\n00:18:48.850 --> 00:18:49.680\nthose things?\n\n401\n00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:53.040\nSo we called it Trino, which is tree and merino smashed together.\n\n402\n00:18:53.040 --> 00:18:54.680\nWe didn't pay anyone too much money for that.\n\n403\n00:18:54.680 --> 00:18:56.800\nSo don't worry about that.\n\n404\n00:18:56.800 --> 00:19:01.550\nAnd then we said, okay, now in a garment, if we take that, we also want to\n\n405\n00:19:01.550 --> 00:19:02.400\nreplicate\n\n406\n00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:06.890\nsome antimicrobial characteristics to make real performance in some of these\n\n407\n00:19:06.890 --> 00:19:07.440\nitems.\n\n408\n00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:09.600\nSo we decided we were going to make a t-shirt.\n\n409\n00:19:09.600 --> 00:19:11.160\nDoes the world need another t-shirt?\n\n410\n00:19:11.160 --> 00:19:12.520\nArguably not.\n\n411\n00:19:12.520 --> 00:19:17.680\nBut what we did do was we added the waste stream of the crabbing industry.\n\n412\n00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:22.680\nSo this, the shell of crabs that's leftover, you can actually take part of that\n\n413\n00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:23.040\nwaste and\n\n414\n00:19:23.040 --> 00:19:25.560\nisolate something called kaido-san.\n\n415\n00:19:25.560 --> 00:19:29.480\nAnd we took a proprietary process and turned it into yarn.\n\n416\n00:19:29.480 --> 00:19:31.800\nAnd that creates antimicrobial characteristics.\n\n417\n00:19:31.800 --> 00:19:35.120\nSo now we have this t-shirt that's made of Trino, tree, merino, and the waste\n\n418\n00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:35.560\nstream\n\n419\n00:19:35.560 --> 00:19:37.800\nof crabbing industry, crab shells.\n\n420\n00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:41.890\nAnd not only is that cool from an environmental perspective, but it feels\n\n421\n00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:43.360\namazing, feels different,\n\n422\n00:19:43.360 --> 00:19:46.970\ndelivers amazing performance to your skin, and we can do it all at a very\n\n423\n00:19:46.970 --> 00:19:48.000\nvaluable price.\n\n424\n00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:50.960\nAnd so that's going to just deliver tons of value to our customer.\n\n425\n00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:52.440\nSo does the world need another t-shirt?\n\n426\n00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:55.400\nWell, when you have all three of those ingredients, it absolutely does.\n\n427\n00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:56.720\nThe world does need it.\n\n428\n00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:57.720\nAnd people love it.\n\n429\n00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:01.300\nAnd that's the kind of link between innovation, values, and storytelling that\n\n430\n00:20:01.300 --> 00:20:01.960\nwe really try\n\n431\n00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:03.680\nto do every time we launch a product.\n\n432\n00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:05.160\nYeah, I love that.\n\n433\n00:20:05.160 --> 00:20:08.080\nI've got to tell you, I'm going to go online right after this.\n\n434\n00:20:08.080 --> 00:20:11.490\nAnd I'm going to order all your new products because you're doing some great\n\n435\n00:20:11.490 --> 00:20:12.000\nstuff.\n\n436\n00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:16.920\nI saw where you raised $100 million in funding in September last year.\n\n437\n00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:19.760\nHow do you think about focusing that capital?\n\n438\n00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:25.440\nYeah, it's about what are the big growth factors for the company?\n\n439\n00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:29.160\nAnd I would say there's three things that we focus on.\n\n440\n00:20:29.160 --> 00:20:32.970\nWe got to go and continue to invest internationally because as we get scale in\n\n441\n00:20:32.970 --> 00:20:33.960\ndifferent regions\n\n442\n00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:39.630\nlike China, Japan, and across Europe, we are going to enjoy really good returns\n\n443\n00:20:39.630 --> 00:20:40.320\nfrom that\n\n444\n00:20:40.320 --> 00:20:41.320\ninvestment.\n\n445\n00:20:41.320 --> 00:20:44.400\nThe second thing is in our brick and mortar.\n\n446\n00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:46.720\nSo that takes cash for us.\n\n447\n00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:51.620\nWe're going to build more than a dozen stores this year in 2021 and more than\n\n448\n00:20:51.620 --> 00:20:52.320\nthat in the\n\n449\n00:20:52.320 --> 00:20:53.320\nfuture.\n\n450\n00:20:53.320 --> 00:20:56.120\nSo the cash needs are going to continue to increase there.\n\n451\n00:20:56.120 --> 00:20:58.400\nAnd finally, innovation is the third one.\n\n452\n00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:03.660\nAnd building out this ecosystem of innovative ideas from various different\n\n453\n00:21:03.660 --> 00:21:04.720\nsuppliers and\n\n454\n00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:09.480\nuniversity partners and other kind of organizations, it's not a small feat.\n\n455\n00:21:09.480 --> 00:21:12.850\nAnd so most of that is born in the cost of our product, but we do invest quite\n\n456\n00:21:12.850 --> 00:21:13.560\na significant\n\n457\n00:21:13.560 --> 00:21:14.560\namount in R&D.\n\n458\n00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:16.240\nSo that's the third one.\n\n459\n00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:21.240\nAnd underlying all that, of course, as I mentioned, what carried us through the\n\n460\n00:21:21.240 --> 00:21:22.360\npandemic and allowed\n\n461\n00:21:22.360 --> 00:21:26.610\nus to thrive has been the culture of the organization and the fact that people\n\n462\n00:21:26.610 --> 00:21:28.120\nfeel empowered and\n\n463\n00:21:28.120 --> 00:21:32.280\npassionate about what we do and empowered to do great work.\n\n464\n00:21:32.280 --> 00:21:34.400\nAnd so that's, you know, that takes money.\n\n465\n00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:38.040\nAnd we're building, we're still such a small company.\n\n466\n00:21:38.040 --> 00:21:39.800\nWe want to continue to invest in that.\n\n467\n00:21:39.800 --> 00:21:41.880\nOtherwise, we know we'll always be a small company.\n\n468\n00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:43.480\nThat's not what we aspire to be.\n\n469\n00:21:43.480 --> 00:21:48.800\nJoy, you know, I want to get your perspective on obviously a very meaningful\n\n470\n00:21:48.800 --> 00:21:50.200\ntopic today.\n\n471\n00:21:50.200 --> 00:21:55.360\nAnd you know, how is the big and rightful push towards racial equality and\n\n472\n00:21:55.360 --> 00:21:56.240\ndriving how\n\n473\n00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:57.400\nyou lead?\n\n474\n00:21:57.400 --> 00:22:01.240\nI wouldn't say that it has changed how I lead per se.\n\n475\n00:22:01.240 --> 00:22:07.170\nBut what I would say, first of all, I fully agree with the framing that this\n\n476\n00:22:07.170 --> 00:22:08.480\nmovement around\n\n477\n00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:17.240\nracial justice in America, particularly with black Americans, is overdue.\n\n478\n00:22:17.240 --> 00:22:24.120\nAnd I'm finding a whole lot of benefits from the movement.\n\n479\n00:22:24.120 --> 00:22:30.070\nAnd I think people have been awakened to the idea that diversity is something\n\n480\n00:22:30.070 --> 00:22:33.080\nthat is both\n\n481\n00:22:33.080 --> 00:22:39.210\nimmoral and parative, as well as a business objective and a business outcomes\n\n482\n00:22:39.210 --> 00:22:40.360\nbased idea,\n\n483\n00:22:40.360 --> 00:22:45.370\nwhere if you close yourself down and just hear, you know, the same ideas in an\n\n484\n00:22:45.370 --> 00:22:46.680\necho chamber,\n\n485\n00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:50.880\nyour business is going to be much less successful.\n\n486\n00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:55.400\nAnd my business is a great testament to that.\n\n487\n00:22:55.400 --> 00:23:02.560\nWhen we look hard in the mirror, we're under-penetrated in certain communities.\n\n488\n00:23:02.560 --> 00:23:05.560\nAnd some of those communities are also under-represented inside of our\n\n489\n00:23:05.560 --> 00:23:06.360\norganization and\n\n490\n00:23:06.360 --> 00:23:07.360\nour employment base.\n\n491\n00:23:07.360 --> 00:23:11.980\nSo, you know, I think if any leader today hasn't looked in the mirror and said\n\n492\n00:23:11.980 --> 00:23:12.440\nwe got\n\n493\n00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:17.600\nwork to do, you know, they're lying to themselves or to somebody else.\n\n494\n00:23:17.600 --> 00:23:23.030\nAnd so that has been really, I'd say from the perspective of how I lead, I feel\n\n495\n00:23:23.030 --> 00:23:25.600\nmore empowered\n\n496\n00:23:25.600 --> 00:23:30.160\nto focus on these issues because I think everyone has -- many more people have\n\n497\n00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:30.480\ncome\n\n498\n00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:35.160\naround to the concept that this is a moral and a business imperative.\n\n499\n00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:41.470\nAnd so I think it's given an opportunity to speak about it more openly and use\n\n500\n00:23:41.470 --> 00:23:42.040\nthese\n\n501\n00:23:42.040 --> 00:23:44.320\ntools for the benefit of the business.\n\n502\n00:23:44.320 --> 00:23:48.960\nI'm really encouraged by what I've seen in this area.\n\n503\n00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:54.720\n>> Joy, can you tell us about your upbringing?\n\n504\n00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:55.880\n>> Yeah, sure.\n\n505\n00:23:55.880 --> 00:24:02.000\nSo I classify my upbringing as very fortunate one.\n\n506\n00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:04.760\nI had two loving parents.\n\n507\n00:24:04.760 --> 00:24:07.120\nMy mom is an immigrant from South Africa.\n\n508\n00:24:07.120 --> 00:24:12.900\nMy dad is from New York, both Jewish, both psychology professors at San\n\n509\n00:24:12.900 --> 00:24:14.280\nFrancisco State\n\n510\n00:24:14.280 --> 00:24:20.520\nUniversity in the southern part of the city, government jobs.\n\n511\n00:24:20.520 --> 00:24:27.720\nAnd they taught me the value, I would say, very specifically around education\n\n512\n00:24:27.720 --> 00:24:28.560\nand then\n\n513\n00:24:28.560 --> 00:24:34.190\nbroadly around having kind of some kind of a social purpose in the work that\n\n514\n00:24:34.190 --> 00:24:34.880\nyou do in\n\n515\n00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:38.890\nyour life and making sure that what you do is important to a group of people\n\n516\n00:24:38.890 --> 00:24:39.440\nbroader\n\n517\n00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:41.560\nthan just yourself or your family.\n\n518\n00:24:41.560 --> 00:24:47.620\nAnd so my dad was a social activist that was working in freedom of speech and\n\n519\n00:24:47.620 --> 00:24:48.840\nAfrican-American\n\n520\n00:24:48.840 --> 00:24:53.920\nrights and the purpose that I chose to do was around the environment.\n\n521\n00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:58.040\nAnd I think that is partially given the fact that we spent a lot of time\n\n522\n00:24:58.040 --> 00:24:58.920\noutdoors.\n\n523\n00:24:58.920 --> 00:25:01.240\nMy dad and I went camping together quite regularly.\n\n524\n00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:04.100\n>> Is that when you really discovered your passion for the environment and\n\n525\n00:25:04.100 --> 00:25:04.960\nsustainability?\n\n526\n00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:05.960\n>> That was part of it.\n\n527\n00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:12.100\nI think when I really first gravitated to this was around kind of a couple of\n\n528\n00:25:12.100 --> 00:25:12.680\nyears after\n\n529\n00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:18.950\nI graduated college, maybe three or four years after, and in the early 2000s,\n\n530\n00:25:18.950 --> 00:25:19.840\nwhen I thought\n\n531\n00:25:19.840 --> 00:25:26.520\nthat the biggest problem facing our species was climate change and that if my\n\n532\n00:25:26.520 --> 00:25:27.640\ngeneration\n\n533\n00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:34.490\ndidn't play a major role in solving this problem, that we were screwed, frankly\n\n534\n00:25:34.490 --> 00:25:35.920\n, as a species.\n\n535\n00:25:35.920 --> 00:25:39.550\nThe earth was probably going to be fine because it would recover after not too\n\n536\n00:25:39.550 --> 00:25:40.000\nlong of a\n\n537\n00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:43.400\ntime, but our species would be in big trouble.\n\n538\n00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:47.530\nAnd so I started thinking about how I could contribute to that, the solution to\n\n539\n00:25:47.530 --> 00:25:48.760\nthat problem.\n\n540\n00:25:48.760 --> 00:25:52.950\nAnd that would be for me, something that would be personally rewarding and\n\n541\n00:25:52.950 --> 00:25:53.960\nwould contribute\n\n542\n00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:59.660\nsubstantially to society and give back to what has given me such great fortune\n\n543\n00:25:59.660 --> 00:26:00.200\nand such\n\n544\n00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:01.200\na great life.\n\n545\n00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:04.160\n>> How old were you when that really kind of ticked off in your head?\n\n546\n00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:07.880\n>> Probably like 24, 25.\n\n547\n00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:10.880\nAnd I was doing business.\n\n548\n00:26:10.880 --> 00:26:14.920\nI didn't really know what business was when I was in college.\n\n549\n00:26:14.920 --> 00:26:17.160\nAnd it sounded dynamic and it sounded cool.\n\n550\n00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:21.760\nSo I just jumped into it and took a generalist job as a consultant.\n\n551\n00:26:21.760 --> 00:26:25.200\nAnd that was not particularly exciting to me.\n\n552\n00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:30.300\nBut when I caught this bug that the private sector could play a major role in\n\n553\n00:26:30.300 --> 00:26:31.120\naffecting\n\n554\n00:26:31.120 --> 00:26:33.840\nenvironmental issues positively.\n\n555\n00:26:33.840 --> 00:26:38.330\n>> It started to give me a little excitement because I didn't see myself doing\n\n556\n00:26:38.330 --> 00:26:39.280\npublic policy\n\n557\n00:26:39.280 --> 00:26:42.160\nor being in politics or doing anything like that.\n\n558\n00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:44.480\nAnd I really love the dynamism of business.\n\n559\n00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:49.870\nAnd I started to look at work with small businesses around that time in my\n\n560\n00:26:49.870 --> 00:26:51.640\nearly mid-20s.\n\n561\n00:26:51.640 --> 00:26:54.650\nAnd that got me super excited about the idea that the private sector could do\n\n562\n00:26:54.650 --> 00:26:55.200\nsomething\n\n563\n00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:56.880\nmeaningful to make change.\n\n564\n00:26:56.880 --> 00:26:59.960\n>> Well, you definitely walked a talk on that and we're going to get to that.\n\n565\n00:26:59.960 --> 00:27:02.480\nBut I want to go back to your childhood a little bit.\n\n566\n00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:06.810\nCan you tell us a story about your childhood days that would tell us a lot\n\n567\n00:27:06.810 --> 00:27:07.800\nabout the kind\n\n568\n00:27:07.800 --> 00:27:11.520\nof person that you've become?\n\n569\n00:27:11.520 --> 00:27:18.430\n>> I'd say that one thing that my dad and I did together every year was we took\n\n570\n00:27:18.430 --> 00:27:19.040\none big\n\n571\n00:27:19.040 --> 00:27:22.200\ntrip and it always involved the outdoors.\n\n572\n00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:25.200\nAnd there's usually my sister, myself, and my dad.\n\n573\n00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:28.160\nAnd sometimes there'd be guests that would come along.\n\n574\n00:27:28.160 --> 00:27:32.120\nI remember one time in particular, we went to Yosemite.\n\n575\n00:27:32.120 --> 00:27:37.580\nAnd we took a, I think it was a six-day backpacking trip where we brought into\n\n576\n00:27:37.580 --> 00:27:38.960\nthe national park\n\n577\n00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:42.270\neverything that we needed for that period of time, including all the food we\n\n578\n00:27:42.270 --> 00:27:42.840\nwere going\n\n579\n00:27:42.840 --> 00:27:46.160\nto consume and all the equipment and the tents and whatnot.\n\n580\n00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:47.160\nAnd we hiked out.\n\n581\n00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.320\nAnd every day we walked and set up a new campsite.\n\n582\n00:27:50.320 --> 00:27:55.550\nAnd I'd say one of the principles that really was embedded in me from my dad in\n\n583\n00:27:55.550 --> 00:27:56.480\nparticular\n\n584\n00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:02.690\nwas this idea of personal agency and that the ability to create change through\n\n585\n00:28:02.690 --> 00:28:03.640\none individual's\n\n586\n00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:08.600\ncreative enterprising activities could be quite profound.\n\n587\n00:28:08.600 --> 00:28:11.970\nAnd one of the things he always would say is, hey, if that guy can do it or\n\n588\n00:28:11.970 --> 00:28:12.720\nsomebody can\n\n589\n00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:13.720\ndo it, why can't I do it?\n\n590\n00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:16.120\nA little hard work and perseverance.\n\n591\n00:28:16.120 --> 00:28:20.030\nAnd so I'd say some of these camping trips when we were out, particularly this\n\n592\n00:28:20.030 --> 00:28:20.520\none that\n\n593\n00:28:20.520 --> 00:28:26.520\nI'm thinking about, it was like an incredibly stormy summer.\n\n594\n00:28:26.520 --> 00:28:28.440\nAnd we were out there and there was lightning storms.\n\n595\n00:28:28.440 --> 00:28:31.690\nAnd I don't know if you know, Yosemite, there's tons of forest fires that get\n\n596\n00:28:31.690 --> 00:28:32.560\nstarted by lightning\n\n597\n00:28:32.560 --> 00:28:33.560\nevery year.\n\n598\n00:28:33.560 --> 00:28:38.980\nAnd this one in particular, we were getting soaked and we were setting up tents\n\n599\n00:28:38.980 --> 00:28:39.400\nin the\n\n600\n00:28:39.400 --> 00:28:41.200\nmiddle of pouring rains.\n\n601\n00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:43.680\nWe had a guy with us that was having some heart issues.\n\n602\n00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:46.400\nWe had a friend of mine that was missing his mom.\n\n603\n00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:49.160\nAnd my dad was just sitting there kind of like guys.\n\n604\n00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:51.160\nLots of people before us have done this.\n\n605\n00:28:51.160 --> 00:28:52.360\nWe can figure this out.\n\n606\n00:28:52.360 --> 00:28:53.720\nWe're going to be fine.\n\n607\n00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:54.720\nLet's relax.\n\n608\n00:28:54.720 --> 00:28:57.810\nAnd I think I was just one of those things where my dad was quite a character\n\n609\n00:28:57.810 --> 00:28:58.080\nand he\n\n610\n00:28:58.080 --> 00:29:02.400\nhad this woven through all aspects of his life, this kind of personal agency\n\n611\n00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:03.400\nphilosophy.\n\n612\n00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:06.610\nBut this was one moment that kind of stood out to me and kind of blended in\n\n613\n00:29:06.610 --> 00:29:07.160\nnature.\n\n614\n00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:09.200\nSo that was a nice memory for me.\n\n615\n00:29:09.200 --> 00:29:10.200\nThat's a great story.\n\n616\n00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:14.080\nYou know, I saw where you started out your career, Goldman Sachs is an analyst.\n\n617\n00:29:14.080 --> 00:29:16.120\nWhat did you learn from that experience?\n\n618\n00:29:16.120 --> 00:29:17.120\nFunny.\n\n619\n00:29:17.120 --> 00:29:21.470\nI actually joined as an analyst in their HR group and my parents were\n\n620\n00:29:21.470 --> 00:29:22.840\npsychologists.\n\n621\n00:29:22.840 --> 00:29:27.280\nAnd so I thought psychology sounded cool, but I like business better.\n\n622\n00:29:27.280 --> 00:29:32.090\nAnd since the psychology of business is all done in HR, that would be a great\n\n623\n00:29:32.090 --> 00:29:32.680\nplace to\n\n624\n00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:33.680\nstart.\n\n625\n00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:39.320\nAnd what I learned was that that was not true and that HR is an incredibly\n\n626\n00:29:39.320 --> 00:29:41.000\nimportant aspect\n\n627\n00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.120\nof business.\n\n628\n00:29:43.120 --> 00:29:47.890\nThat the kind of HR that I was thinking about was actually done by managers and\n\n629\n00:29:47.890 --> 00:29:48.480\nthat how\n\n630\n00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:53.520\nyou lead your people at the front line to do the work every day that drives the\n\n631\n00:29:53.520 --> 00:29:54.240\nbusiness\n\n632\n00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:57.920\nfrom the most important impact drivers of top and bottom line.\n\n633\n00:29:57.920 --> 00:30:01.000\nThat's where the real HR actually happens.\n\n634\n00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:04.950\nAnd so I decided leaving that internship that I was not going to immediately\n\n635\n00:30:04.950 --> 00:30:05.400\nreturn\n\n636\n00:30:05.400 --> 00:30:06.400\nto HR.\n\n637\n00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:10.500\nYou know, you left Goldman Sachs and you also did some consulting at Deloitte\n\n638\n00:30:10.500 --> 00:30:11.360\nand you worked\n\n639\n00:30:11.360 --> 00:30:13.440\nwith a number of different companies.\n\n640\n00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:16.120\nWhat did you learn from that consulting experience?\n\n641\n00:30:16.120 --> 00:30:17.680\nA huge variety.\n\n642\n00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:23.760\nSo what I learned was I went from companies like in the CPG industry where\n\n643\n00:30:23.760 --> 00:30:24.560\nthese are buttoned\n\n644\n00:30:24.560 --> 00:30:30.590\nup, polished executives that run processes like when lose a drop of water out\n\n645\n00:30:30.590 --> 00:30:31.320\nof these\n\n646\n00:30:31.320 --> 00:30:33.520\nthings, they're so tight.\n\n647\n00:30:33.520 --> 00:30:37.320\nAnd they do so because it's cut through competition.\n\n648\n00:30:37.320 --> 00:30:42.040\nAnd it's an industry where tiny little changes of pennies can impact bottom\n\n649\n00:30:42.040 --> 00:30:44.000\nlines dramatically.\n\n650\n00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:49.270\nAnd then I went to the garbage industry and I'm doing negotiations around\n\n651\n00:30:49.270 --> 00:30:50.480\nshipping waste\n\n652\n00:30:50.480 --> 00:30:55.900\nbetween transfer stations and landfills and doing these deals with truckers,\n\n653\n00:30:55.900 --> 00:30:56.800\nthird party\n\n654\n00:30:56.800 --> 00:31:01.280\ntruckers at landfill sites amongst the stink and stench.\n\n655\n00:31:01.280 --> 00:31:03.560\nThose guys always said it smells like money.\n\n656\n00:31:03.560 --> 00:31:06.360\nSmelt like something else to me.\n\n657\n00:31:06.360 --> 00:31:10.830\nAnd I'm going in there and doing negotiations, very wild west style of\n\n658\n00:31:10.830 --> 00:31:12.400\nnegotiations, which\n\n659\n00:31:12.400 --> 00:31:15.440\nis the way the business was done in that industry.\n\n660\n00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:20.940\nAnd just, you know, furthering my understanding that business is about making\n\n661\n00:31:20.940 --> 00:31:22.520\nchange and individuals\n\n662\n00:31:22.520 --> 00:31:25.120\ncan make a huge, huge impact.\n\n663\n00:31:25.120 --> 00:31:30.310\nAnd that not everything is a polished PowerPoint and that, you know, you can go\n\n664\n00:31:30.310 --> 00:31:31.120\nout there and\n\n665\n00:31:31.120 --> 00:31:35.840\nget out into the field and make a huge impact with just an individual action.\n\n666\n00:31:35.840 --> 00:31:36.840\nAnd that was pretty exciting.\n\n667\n00:31:36.840 --> 00:31:40.470\nSo I actually gravitated more toward the waste industry style than I did the\n\n668\n00:31:40.470 --> 00:31:41.040\npolished\n\n669\n00:31:41.040 --> 00:31:42.640\nCPG executive style.\n\n670\n00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:47.310\nI think those lessons are true for could be taught to a lot of executives and a\n\n671\n00:31:47.310 --> 00:31:47.680\nlot of\n\n672\n00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:48.680\ndifferent businesses.\n\n673\n00:31:48.680 --> 00:31:50.920\nYou then understand it.\n\n674\n00:31:50.920 --> 00:31:54.050\nYou went off and you spent sort of five years in more of a corporate\n\n675\n00:31:54.050 --> 00:31:54.960\nenvironment with a\n\n676\n00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:58.120\nsolazyme and you were the VP of industrial.\n\n677\n00:31:58.120 --> 00:32:02.840\nSo what did you learn coming up in a corporate environment that you try to keep\n\n678\n00:32:02.840 --> 00:32:03.520\ntop of mind\n\n679\n00:32:03.520 --> 00:32:06.080\ntoday as you build your own company?\n\n680\n00:32:06.080 --> 00:32:08.360\nSo a few things stand out.\n\n681\n00:32:08.360 --> 00:32:13.880\nThat was a big, big growth experience for me.\n\n682\n00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:19.080\nAnd so it's hard to even overstate how much I learn there.\n\n683\n00:32:19.080 --> 00:32:20.280\nBut a couple of things.\n\n684\n00:32:20.280 --> 00:32:26.540\nOne is the value of mentorship and giving people a chance that have hard work\n\n685\n00:32:26.540 --> 00:32:27.080\nand show\n\n686\n00:32:27.080 --> 00:32:28.600\ngreat potential.\n\n687\n00:32:28.600 --> 00:32:33.800\nAnd that when you're at a hot company, it's easy to hire great executives from\n\n688\n00:32:33.800 --> 00:32:34.960\nthe outside.\n\n689\n00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:38.850\nIt almost takes more courage to promote from within and give opportunities to\n\n690\n00:32:38.850 --> 00:32:39.520\ngreat talent\n\n691\n00:32:39.520 --> 00:32:42.760\nthat you have in your organization.\n\n692\n00:32:42.760 --> 00:32:47.330\nAnd because it's so easy to get the perfect resume out there and just bring\n\n693\n00:32:47.330 --> 00:32:48.040\nthem into\n\n694\n00:32:48.040 --> 00:32:50.600\nthe ship instead of promoting from within.\n\n695\n00:32:50.600 --> 00:32:56.780\nAnd part of this was that I got the good fortune of someone taking a risk and\n\n696\n00:32:56.780 --> 00:32:57.480\nhaving\n\n697\n00:32:57.480 --> 00:33:00.600\ncourage to give me an opportunity.\n\n698\n00:33:00.600 --> 00:33:03.160\nAnd that person is a great mentor of mine today.\n\n699\n00:33:03.160 --> 00:33:07.120\nHe was the CEO and founder of the company.\n\n700\n00:33:07.120 --> 00:33:11.200\nAnd now I work with him on a bunch of different enterprises that he does now.\n\n701\n00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:12.840\nAnd so that was an important one.\n\n702\n00:33:12.840 --> 00:33:18.840\nI'd say the other one that I learned was about transparency.\n\n703\n00:33:18.840 --> 00:33:28.440\nAnd the fact that transparency is a very unsung hero of great company cultures.\n\n704\n00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:33.440\nAnd it's also one of the perils of places that have gone awry.\n\n705\n00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:37.250\nI think most people know that a lot of people leave their jobs because they\n\n706\n00:33:37.250 --> 00:33:37.960\nhave crappy\n\n707\n00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:38.960\nmanagers.\n\n708\n00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:45.290\nI think fewer people appreciate that another significantly contributing factor\n\n709\n00:33:45.290 --> 00:33:45.880\nis when\n\n710\n00:33:45.880 --> 00:33:49.620\npeople don't understand how decisions are made at a company and they don't\n\n711\n00:33:49.620 --> 00:33:50.320\nunderstand\n\n712\n00:33:50.320 --> 00:33:55.270\nwhat's happening to the company writ large and are kept in a need to know basis\n\n713\n00:33:55.270 --> 00:33:55.720\n, so to\n\n714\n00:33:55.720 --> 00:34:00.400\nspeak, with just issues directly impacting their part of the organization.\n\n715\n00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:01.680\nThat's great.\n\n716\n00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:05.400\nSo you had a great mentor at this company, SolaZion.\n\n717\n00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:06.940\nYou're doing well.\n\n718\n00:34:06.940 --> 00:34:11.300\nWhat made you leave a really good job and team up with Tim Brown to build the\n\n719\n00:34:11.300 --> 00:34:12.400\nAlberd brand?\n\n720\n00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:16.900\nAnd what did you learn about yourself just as you analyze the opportunity?\n\n721\n00:34:16.900 --> 00:34:19.080\nBecause this couldn't have been a no-brainer.\n\n722\n00:34:19.080 --> 00:34:20.080\nMaybe it was for you.\n\n723\n00:34:20.080 --> 00:34:21.080\nI don't know.\n\n724\n00:34:21.080 --> 00:34:22.080\nTell us.\n\n725\n00:34:22.080 --> 00:34:24.460\nNo, no, no, not a no-brainer.\n\n726\n00:34:24.460 --> 00:34:34.240\nSo the thing that drove me the most was fear and a specific kind of fear.\n\n727\n00:34:34.240 --> 00:34:41.600\nI feared that if I was a 55-year-old guy and I looked back and I hadn't started\n\n728\n00:34:41.600 --> 00:34:42.680\na business\n\n729\n00:34:42.680 --> 00:34:48.580\nor I hadn't become an executive at a very early stage company and given it my\n\n730\n00:34:48.580 --> 00:34:49.120\nall to\n\n731\n00:34:49.120 --> 00:34:53.100\nbuild something important out of that business, both from a financial and an\n\n732\n00:34:53.100 --> 00:34:54.440\nimpact perspective,\n\n733\n00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:56.680\nthat I would be disappointed at my life.\n\n734\n00:34:56.680 --> 00:35:01.900\nAnd that was a perilous fear for me, that I would be that 55-year-old guy with\n\n735\n00:35:01.900 --> 00:35:02.080\nlike\n\n736\n00:35:02.080 --> 00:35:06.990\nthree kids and I'd be sitting in mid-level management and I would look back and\n\n737\n00:35:06.990 --> 00:35:07.320\nI'd\n\n738\n00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:08.320\nhave regrets.\n\n739\n00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:12.200\nAnd so that fear of future potential regrets, that was what really drove me.\n\n740\n00:35:12.200 --> 00:35:15.680\nAnd so now, how do I pick Alberd specifically?\n\n741\n00:35:15.680 --> 00:35:18.200\nThat's a different question.\n\n742\n00:35:18.200 --> 00:35:20.680\nAnd like all good things, it comes from my wife.\n\n743\n00:35:20.680 --> 00:35:26.020\nSo my wife and Tim's wife were the two women who introduced Tim and myself to\n\n744\n00:35:26.020 --> 00:35:26.920\nstart thinking\n\n745\n00:35:26.920 --> 00:35:28.920\nabout doing a business together.\n\n746\n00:35:28.920 --> 00:35:32.770\nAnd as we did it, we started thinking about the potential of the business and\n\n747\n00:35:32.770 --> 00:35:33.200\nwhat the\n\n748\n00:35:33.200 --> 00:35:37.570\nstrategy was, what the purpose of the business was, how we would start, all the\n\n749\n00:35:37.570 --> 00:35:38.520\ncapital strategy,\n\n750\n00:35:38.520 --> 00:35:40.320\nall that stuff.\n\n751\n00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:44.370\nOne of the things that we committed to was, okay, we're going to go from a\n\n752\n00:35:44.370 --> 00:35:45.160\nreally, really\n\n753\n00:35:45.160 --> 00:35:48.680\ngood salary to a really crappy salary.\n\n754\n00:35:48.680 --> 00:35:51.600\nAnd so how long are we going to be able to ride this thing and what are we\n\n755\n00:35:51.600 --> 00:35:52.280\ngoing to commit\n\n756\n00:35:52.280 --> 00:35:53.280\nto?\n\n757\n00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:57.120\nAnd my wife and I sat around the table and we're not great budgeters in general\n\n758\n00:35:57.120 --> 00:35:57.800\n, but we\n\n759\n00:35:57.800 --> 00:36:01.910\ntried to like rough ballpark what we spent per year and how much money we were\n\n760\n00:36:01.910 --> 00:36:02.320\ngoing\n\n761\n00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:04.920\nto lose over the course of two years.\n\n762\n00:36:04.920 --> 00:36:07.200\nAnd we figured out what the number was.\n\n763\n00:36:07.200 --> 00:36:09.480\nAnd we said, all right, we got two years.\n\n764\n00:36:09.480 --> 00:36:11.200\nIs this amount of money?\n\n765\n00:36:11.200 --> 00:36:14.180\nAnd that's the investment we're going to make and we're going to figure that in\n\n766\n00:36:14.180 --> 00:36:14.400\ntwo\n\n767\n00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:15.400\nyears.\n\n768\n00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:18.080\nAnd so you better figure, Joey, you better figure this out in two years.\n\n769\n00:36:18.080 --> 00:36:21.660\nWe're not going to sit around and do this for five years without a good outcome\n\n770\n00:36:21.660 --> 00:36:21.920\none way\n\n771\n00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:22.920\nor another.\n\n772\n00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:28.490\nAnd so I would say that that was a major contributing factor into how we shaped\n\n773\n00:36:28.490 --> 00:36:29.480\nthe early phase\n\n774\n00:36:29.480 --> 00:36:33.880\nof the business from capital formation to every little bit of strategy and\n\n775\n00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:35.520\ntactical detail.\n\n776\n00:36:35.520 --> 00:36:40.430\nAnd so we raised enough money so that we knew we could create the best brand\n\n777\n00:36:40.430 --> 00:36:41.080\nand make\n\n778\n00:36:41.080 --> 00:36:44.950\nsure that we had sufficient inventory and that we amplified the story that we\n\n779\n00:36:44.950 --> 00:36:45.400\nwanted\n\n780\n00:36:45.400 --> 00:36:49.710\nto tell so that there was no way we would get a false negative or a false\n\n781\n00:36:49.710 --> 00:36:50.640\npositive.\n\n782\n00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:53.580\nFalse positive being, oh, we think it's going great, but we actually didn't\n\n783\n00:36:53.580 --> 00:36:54.080\nhave enough\n\n784\n00:36:54.080 --> 00:36:55.080\ninventory.\n\n785\n00:36:55.080 --> 00:36:58.330\nSo it actually wasn't that good because we actually don't know the true demand\n\n786\n00:36:58.330 --> 00:36:58.800\nor a false\n\n787\n00:36:58.800 --> 00:37:01.960\nnegative where we think it didn't work out.\n\n788\n00:37:01.960 --> 00:37:05.010\nBut we actually didn't present the world with the right brand or the right\n\n789\n00:37:05.010 --> 00:37:05.600\nproduct.\n\n790\n00:37:05.600 --> 00:37:10.400\nAnd so we raised enough money to make sure we avoided those two situations.\n\n791\n00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:15.800\nAnd for me, again, fear being the driving factor, I was cool with failing fast.\n\n792\n00:37:15.800 --> 00:37:19.050\nFortunately, we live in a society in a particular place in the world in the Bay\n\n793\n00:37:19.050 --> 00:37:19.960\nArea that almost\n\n794\n00:37:19.960 --> 00:37:22.520\ncelebrates failure.\n\n795\n00:37:22.520 --> 00:37:26.040\nAnd I was definitely cool with wild success.\n\n796\n00:37:26.040 --> 00:37:31.100\nWhat I was fearful of was mediocrity and just in this middle ground living in a\n\n797\n00:37:31.100 --> 00:37:31.920\nplace where\n\n798\n00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:35.440\nevery year you were scrapping and you didn't know which way it was going to go.\n\n799\n00:37:35.440 --> 00:37:38.790\nAnd all of a sudden, again, I found myself 10 years down the road in the same\n\n800\n00:37:38.790 --> 00:37:39.560\nplace with\n\n801\n00:37:39.560 --> 00:37:43.240\nnot like a half-baked business going nowhere.\n\n802\n00:37:43.240 --> 00:37:47.090\nAnd I kind of sunk the prime part of my career and my family's life into a\n\n803\n00:37:47.090 --> 00:37:48.000\nbusiness that\n\n804\n00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:49.000\nwasn't going anywhere.\n\n805\n00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:50.240\nSure, I would learn something.\n\n806\n00:37:50.240 --> 00:37:56.600\nBut that drove me to make sure we failed quickly and miserably or succeeded\n\n807\n00:37:56.600 --> 00:37:57.640\nwildly.\n\n808\n00:37:57.640 --> 00:38:02.520\nYou know, I know both you and Tim are passionate, convicted leaders.\n\n809\n00:38:02.520 --> 00:38:05.680\nWas it an immediate match in heaven for you two guys?\n\n810\n00:38:05.680 --> 00:38:08.480\nAnd how'd you make sure you were on the same page?\n\n811\n00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:10.480\nWas that immediately obvious to you?\n\n812\n00:38:10.480 --> 00:38:14.120\nYou know, with any relationship like this, there's risk.\n\n813\n00:38:14.120 --> 00:38:18.120\nAnd 50% of America gets divorced.\n\n814\n00:38:18.120 --> 00:38:22.330\nSo I think 100% of those people walk into the marriage thinking it's going to\n\n815\n00:38:22.330 --> 00:38:23.280\nlast forever.\n\n816\n00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:24.680\nOr at least they say it.\n\n817\n00:38:24.680 --> 00:38:26.800\nThey say they do and they take their vows.\n\n818\n00:38:26.800 --> 00:38:31.780\nSo you know, there's risk and inherent in these kinds of things as you well\n\n819\n00:38:31.780 --> 00:38:32.440\nknow.\n\n820\n00:38:32.440 --> 00:38:37.360\nI think, you know, fortunately we had a couple of good things in our backs.\n\n821\n00:38:37.360 --> 00:38:42.790\nOne is that I'd known Tim's girlfriend at the time, but now wife quite well\n\n822\n00:38:42.790 --> 00:38:43.800\nbecause she\n\n823\n00:38:43.800 --> 00:38:46.840\nwas friends with my wife and she's a wonderful person.\n\n824\n00:38:46.840 --> 00:38:49.710\nAnd I figured at least I had that proxy that she was going to go the distance\n\n825\n00:38:49.710 --> 00:38:50.200\nwith this\n\n826\n00:38:50.200 --> 00:38:55.800\nguy that he was probably that was at least one tick in the box in his favor.\n\n827\n00:38:55.800 --> 00:39:01.090\nThe second thing is that you can immediately sense like Tim is he's a\n\n828\n00:39:01.090 --> 00:39:02.760\nprofessional athlete.\n\n829\n00:39:02.760 --> 00:39:07.460\nHe rose to be the vice captain of New Zealand at the national team at playing\n\n830\n00:39:07.460 --> 00:39:08.280\nin the World\n\n831\n00:39:08.280 --> 00:39:12.440\nCup for the soccer team for his country in South Africa in 2010.\n\n832\n00:39:12.440 --> 00:39:14.200\nAnd he's a good looking guy.\n\n833\n00:39:14.200 --> 00:39:18.280\nAnd yet the second that you meet him, you're struck at how low ego he is and\n\n834\n00:39:18.280 --> 00:39:19.000\nhow open to\n\n835\n00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:20.800\nlearn he is.\n\n836\n00:39:20.800 --> 00:39:25.670\nAnd a partnership I think at this kind of competitive dynamic that we have in\n\n837\n00:39:25.670 --> 00:39:26.520\nterms of\n\n838\n00:39:26.520 --> 00:39:31.850\nnot not between us but in our industry, it requires and the loneliness of doing\n\n839\n00:39:31.850 --> 00:39:33.320\nentrepreneurship.\n\n840\n00:39:33.320 --> 00:39:34.600\nYou need a partner.\n\n841\n00:39:34.600 --> 00:39:39.830\nAnd fortunately, I think the fact that in particular he's such a low ego guy\n\n842\n00:39:39.830 --> 00:39:40.800\ngave me\n\n843\n00:39:40.800 --> 00:39:43.840\nthe confidence that we could just communicate through stuff.\n\n844\n00:39:43.840 --> 00:39:47.390\nAnd we could make sure to talk through and we did so from day one is that we\n\n845\n00:39:47.390 --> 00:39:48.480\njust talked.\n\n846\n00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:55.230\nI come from a family that is too expressive Jewish psychologists that generally\n\n847\n00:39:55.230 --> 00:39:56.400\nfind communication\n\n848\n00:39:56.400 --> 00:40:02.200\nand talking to be the answer for everything to a degree that could sometimes\n\n849\n00:40:02.200 --> 00:40:02.800\nstartle the\n\n850\n00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:04.320\naverage person.\n\n851\n00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:09.650\nAnd I think that is something we take to our business partnership and that we\n\n852\n00:40:09.650 --> 00:40:10.280\njust talk\n\n853\n00:40:10.280 --> 00:40:14.060\nthrough and we carve out time every week to this day to make sure we talk about\n\n854\n00:40:14.060 --> 00:40:14.600\nthe issues\n\n855\n00:40:14.600 --> 00:40:18.680\nthat we think are our most high impact to our business and our partnership.\n\n856\n00:40:18.680 --> 00:40:21.800\nYou launched the business with your website totally online.\n\n857\n00:40:21.800 --> 00:40:26.740\nTell us about the biggest challenge you had pioneering what I think some would\n\n858\n00:40:26.740 --> 00:40:27.280\ncall the\n\n859\n00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:29.480\nsustainable shoe category.\n\n860\n00:40:29.480 --> 00:40:32.680\nWell, it continues to be a challenge.\n\n861\n00:40:32.680 --> 00:40:36.110\nAnd this is I think the thing that will be our it has been our biggest\n\n862\n00:40:36.110 --> 00:40:36.960\nchallenge and\n\n863\n00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:43.040\nwill continue to be is we are injecting naturally derived materials into a\n\n864\n00:40:43.040 --> 00:40:44.600\nsupply chain that\n\n865\n00:40:44.600 --> 00:40:52.680\nhas almost exclusively used petroleum drive synthetics since the early 1970s.\n\n866\n00:40:52.680 --> 00:40:56.010\nAnd when you're trying to move that fast, you resort to what I would say is\n\n867\n00:40:56.010 --> 00:40:56.840\nunsustainable\n\n868\n00:40:56.840 --> 00:41:00.640\nbehavior in terms of material choices that you use.\n\n869\n00:41:00.640 --> 00:41:03.440\nAnd we're sort of the opposite of that.\n\n870\n00:41:03.440 --> 00:41:09.140\nWe've tried to slow things down and we take a slow fashion approach where we\n\n871\n00:41:09.140 --> 00:41:10.440\ntry to innovate\n\n872\n00:41:10.440 --> 00:41:14.840\non materials and put real research and development into our products.\n\n873\n00:41:14.840 --> 00:41:16.200\nThere's a lot of challenges.\n\n874\n00:41:16.200 --> 00:41:19.800\nWe got to come up with new standards to test the materials when they come into\n\n875\n00:41:19.800 --> 00:41:20.680\nthe factory,\n\n876\n00:41:20.680 --> 00:41:24.140\ndifferent quality control mechanisms when it's coming out of the factory and\n\n877\n00:41:24.140 --> 00:41:24.520\noff the\n\n878\n00:41:24.520 --> 00:41:25.520\nline.\n\n879\n00:41:25.520 --> 00:41:29.750\nAnd a whole bunch of things in between even dealing with issues that the\n\n880\n00:41:29.750 --> 00:41:30.760\nindustry really\n\n881\n00:41:30.760 --> 00:41:35.880\nhasn't faced as much around animal welfare and a whole bunch of other issues\n\n882\n00:41:35.880 --> 00:41:36.340\nthat a\n\n883\n00:41:36.340 --> 00:41:40.640\nsynthetically manufactured product doesn't need to contend with.\n\n884\n00:41:40.640 --> 00:41:43.930\nSo we think we're doing the right thing, but it creates some challenges and\n\n885\n00:41:43.930 --> 00:41:44.840\nsupply chains,\n\n886\n00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:45.840\none of them.\n\n887\n00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:48.370\nBut this idea that we're slowing things down, I think it trickles through a\n\n888\n00:41:48.370 --> 00:41:48.840\nwhole bunch\n\n889\n00:41:48.840 --> 00:41:50.520\nof different aspects of our business.\n\n890\n00:41:50.520 --> 00:41:52.680\nYou're so passionate about this.\n\n891\n00:41:52.680 --> 00:41:56.760\nWas there ever a time though that the company did something that was\n\n892\n00:41:56.760 --> 00:41:58.120\ninconsistent with your\n\n893\n00:41:58.120 --> 00:42:00.200\nsustainable efforts?\n\n894\n00:42:00.200 --> 00:42:02.680\nAnd if so, how did you deal with it?\n\n895\n00:42:02.680 --> 00:42:10.040\nYeah, we're still dealing with that because we've started this business with\n\n896\n00:42:10.040 --> 00:42:11.120\nthe belief\n\n897\n00:42:11.120 --> 00:42:14.560\nthat perfection would be the enemy of good.\n\n898\n00:42:14.560 --> 00:42:19.880\nAnd what that means for us is we can't be perfect.\n\n899\n00:42:19.880 --> 00:42:24.770\nAnd while we can strive for perfection every day, we can't expect to be perfect\n\n900\n00:42:24.770 --> 00:42:25.040\n.\n\n901\n00:42:25.040 --> 00:42:28.720\nAnd we need to acknowledge where our deficiencies are.\n\n902\n00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:30.640\nAnd we have many of them.\n\n903\n00:42:30.640 --> 00:42:36.500\nWhen we're trying to make things all from naturally derived products, and we're\n\n904\n00:42:36.500 --> 00:42:36.920\nalso\n\n905\n00:42:36.920 --> 00:42:40.980\ntrying to be the lowest carbon footprint product in the industry, and we're\n\n906\n00:42:40.980 --> 00:42:42.600\ntrying to compete\n\n907\n00:42:42.600 --> 00:42:47.080\nwith companies who have been using synthetic materials for 50 years.\n\n908\n00:42:47.080 --> 00:42:51.360\nAnd those have pent up some expectations in the minds of consumers that we like\n\n909\n00:42:51.360 --> 00:42:51.680\nit or\n\n910\n00:42:51.680 --> 00:42:53.280\nnot, we have to compete with.\n\n911\n00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:55.240\nWhat do you mean by that, Joey?\n\n912\n00:42:55.240 --> 00:43:00.240\nSo a good example is just simply with wool specifically.\n\n913\n00:43:00.240 --> 00:43:03.040\nSo we started the company with Merino Wool.\n\n914\n00:43:03.040 --> 00:43:09.220\nAnd Merino Wool, and we put it into a sneaker that most of the products that\n\n915\n00:43:09.220 --> 00:43:09.960\nyou'd say\n\n916\n00:43:09.960 --> 00:43:16.440\nwould be competitive with us use plastic, polyester usually, sometimes nylon.\n\n917\n00:43:16.440 --> 00:43:21.940\nAnd that polyester has a particular kind of stretch to it, particular kind of\n\n918\n00:43:21.940 --> 00:43:23.000\ndurability.\n\n919\n00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:25.520\nAnd it performs a specific way.\n\n920\n00:43:25.520 --> 00:43:26.760\nWe put in Merino Wool.\n\n921\n00:43:26.760 --> 00:43:29.800\nAnd this is like putting a cashmere sweater on your foot.\n\n922\n00:43:29.800 --> 00:43:33.930\nIt's like it feels more comfortable than you could imagine until you slip your\n\n923\n00:43:33.930 --> 00:43:34.280\nfoot\n\n924\n00:43:34.280 --> 00:43:36.200\ninto them with no socks.\n\n925\n00:43:36.200 --> 00:43:39.800\nYet, at some point, there's a little bit of different stretch to them.\n\n926\n00:43:39.800 --> 00:43:42.200\nThere's a little bit of different characteristics of this.\n\n927\n00:43:42.200 --> 00:43:45.880\nAnd also we need to match some of the performance characteristics.\n\n928\n00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:50.800\nWe need to put in some component of a synthetic to a certain degree.\n\n929\n00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:53.440\nHow much of that we put in, we can question.\n\n930\n00:43:53.440 --> 00:43:54.840\nHow much is the cost difference?\n\n931\n00:43:54.840 --> 00:43:56.120\nWhat's the carbon impact?\n\n932\n00:43:56.120 --> 00:43:58.960\nAnd we have to weigh those things every day.\n\n933\n00:43:58.960 --> 00:43:59.960\nAnd we do so.\n\n934\n00:43:59.960 --> 00:44:05.900\nAnother example, we had laces that we historically have been making from poly\n\n935\n00:44:05.900 --> 00:44:06.680\nester.\n\n936\n00:44:06.680 --> 00:44:09.360\nAnd that was something that we did not want to do at all.\n\n937\n00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:13.200\nAnd at one point, we finally pushed our factory hard enough where they said,\n\n938\n00:44:13.200 --> 00:44:13.760\nall right, fine,\n\n939\n00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:18.850\nhere we finally found recycled plastic bottles to turn that into the laces that\n\n940\n00:44:18.850 --> 00:44:19.480\nyou guys\n\n941\n00:44:19.480 --> 00:44:21.440\nlike and you want to use.\n\n942\n00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:24.600\nIt costs you about three times as much.\n\n943\n00:44:24.600 --> 00:44:26.760\nSo that's the best we could do.\n\n944\n00:44:26.760 --> 00:44:27.840\nWhat do you think?\n\n945\n00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:33.160\nAnd within literally less than a day, we had concluded that was a no-brainer.\n\n946\n00:44:33.160 --> 00:44:36.600\nWe needed to move to the recycled plastic bottles.\n\n947\n00:44:36.600 --> 00:44:39.380\nAnd that was one of those moments where I was like, great, finally we've\n\n948\n00:44:39.380 --> 00:44:39.960\novercome one\n\n949\n00:44:39.960 --> 00:44:42.200\nof those things that we felt was a deficiency.\n\n950\n00:44:42.200 --> 00:44:43.440\nIt's still not perfect, frankly.\n\n951\n00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:47.000\nIt's still plastic even being recycled.\n\n952\n00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:49.160\nAnd it's just one thing that we need to keep working on.\n\n953\n00:44:49.160 --> 00:44:53.370\nAnd maybe the last example, it's one of the ones I'm probably the most proud of\n\n954\n00:44:53.370 --> 00:44:53.720\n, but also\n\n955\n00:44:53.720 --> 00:44:57.480\nshows one of the weaknesses that we have when we started.\n\n956\n00:44:57.480 --> 00:44:58.480\nWe launched a product.\n\n957\n00:44:58.480 --> 00:44:59.480\nWe thought it was great.\n\n958\n00:44:59.480 --> 00:45:02.160\nYou mentioned Time Magazine called it the most comfortable shoe in the world.\n\n959\n00:45:02.160 --> 00:45:04.200\nSo it's a pretty damn good start.\n\n960\n00:45:04.200 --> 00:45:08.550\nThe bottom unit was made from traditional foam that's used in the sneaker\n\n961\n00:45:08.550 --> 00:45:09.440\nindustry.\n\n962\n00:45:09.440 --> 00:45:14.990\nWe worked for three years to find a solution to making that foam out of a\n\n963\n00:45:14.990 --> 00:45:16.520\nnatural material\n\n964\n00:45:16.520 --> 00:45:21.040\ninstead of using petroleum, which is what the industry typically resorts to.\n\n965\n00:45:21.040 --> 00:45:25.400\nAnd we worked with a Brazilian company called Brascomb.\n\n966\n00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:29.060\nWe convinced them to invest a number of millions of dollars to take a waste\n\n967\n00:45:29.060 --> 00:45:29.880\nstream of sugar\n\n968\n00:45:29.880 --> 00:45:34.360\ncam and convert that into this foam material.\n\n969\n00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:38.280\nSo another way to--the technical word would be EVA is the foam.\n\n970\n00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:39.960\nWe called it green EVA.\n\n971\n00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:43.710\nAnd what we then did with that material was we made it into this incredibly\n\n972\n00:45:43.710 --> 00:45:44.400\nsoft cushion\n\n973\n00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:49.320\nmidsole that was the bottom unit of the shoe and we called it sweet foam.\n\n974\n00:45:49.320 --> 00:45:53.680\nAnd finally, we had overcome the biggest component in our shoe that was not\n\n975\n00:45:53.680 --> 00:45:54.080\nfrom a\n\n976\n00:45:54.080 --> 00:45:58.720\nnaturally derived source and was really impeding our way of what we believe was\n\n977\n00:45:58.720 --> 00:45:59.120\nliving our\n\n978\n00:45:59.120 --> 00:46:01.760\nvalues through our products and our brand.\n\n979\n00:46:01.760 --> 00:46:04.870\nAnd we overcame that and we actually open sourced that ingredient to the whole\n\n980\n00:46:04.870 --> 00:46:05.360\nindustry\n\n981\n00:46:05.360 --> 00:46:07.000\nto use.\n\n982\n00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:10.590\nAnd that's been turning one of our biggest deficiencies into one of our biggest\n\n983\n00:46:10.590 --> 00:46:11.320\nsuccesses,\n\n984\n00:46:11.320 --> 00:46:12.320\nfrankly.\n\n985\n00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:17.950\nI never really like to talk about my business, but we had a patented secret 11\n\n986\n00:46:17.950 --> 00:46:18.720\nherbs and\n\n987\n00:46:18.720 --> 00:46:22.440\nspices that we didn't open up the competition.\n\n988\n00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:26.560\nWhat made you open it up the competition and be so free to everybody else?\n\n989\n00:46:26.560 --> 00:46:27.560\nYeah, it's funny.\n\n990\n00:46:27.560 --> 00:46:31.240\nI think there's certain things we won't share.\n\n991\n00:46:31.240 --> 00:46:36.700\nAnd if we had our own special 11 spice mixture, which is maybe we have some\n\n992\n00:46:36.700 --> 00:46:38.120\nanalogy in some\n\n993\n00:46:38.120 --> 00:46:42.280\nof our textile science that we've done, we're not going to just give that away.\n\n994\n00:46:42.280 --> 00:46:46.290\nBut I would say that solving the problem of climate change is going to take\n\n995\n00:46:46.290 --> 00:46:47.040\ncollective\n\n996\n00:46:47.040 --> 00:46:48.040\naction.\n\n997\n00:46:48.040 --> 00:46:52.080\nIt's going to take collective action between the private sector and the public\n\n998\n00:46:52.080 --> 00:46:52.720\nsector.\n\n999\n00:46:52.720 --> 00:46:55.800\nAnd it's also going to take collective action within the private sector.\n\n1000\n00:46:55.800 --> 00:47:00.540\nAnd so we found that this is a really interesting opportunity to do that\n\n1001\n00:47:00.540 --> 00:47:02.000\ncollective action within\n\n1002\n00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:04.120\nthe private sector for two reasons.\n\n1003\n00:47:04.120 --> 00:47:09.130\nOne, if you use our material instead of the traditional petroleum derived, you\n\n1004\n00:47:09.130 --> 00:47:09.680\nwere actually\n\n1005\n00:47:09.680 --> 00:47:14.370\nsucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere instead of just simply emitting it\n\n1006\n00:47:14.370 --> 00:47:14.600\n.\n\n1007\n00:47:14.600 --> 00:47:18.600\nIn the production process of material, it actually sucks net carbon out of the\n\n1008\n00:47:18.600 --> 00:47:19.280\natmosphere,\n\n1009\n00:47:19.280 --> 00:47:22.670\nwhich is so cool that if everyone did that in the foot or industry, we would be\n\n1010\n00:47:22.670 --> 00:47:23.080\nsaving\n\n1011\n00:47:23.080 --> 00:47:28.670\nmillions and millions and millions of tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted\n\n1012\n00:47:28.670 --> 00:47:29.080\ninto\n\n1013\n00:47:29.080 --> 00:47:30.080\nthe environment.\n\n1014\n00:47:30.080 --> 00:47:31.480\nSo that's just a win for the planet.\n\n1015\n00:47:31.480 --> 00:47:36.110\nThe second is the more companies who buy this material and do whatever they\n\n1016\n00:47:36.110 --> 00:47:36.720\nwant to do\n\n1017\n00:47:36.720 --> 00:47:39.720\nwith this material, the lower the cost is going to be.\n\n1018\n00:47:39.720 --> 00:47:42.870\nAnd we'll make sure that we get the lowest cost at all times from our supplier\n\n1019\n00:47:42.870 --> 00:47:43.360\nfor being\n\n1020\n00:47:43.360 --> 00:47:45.480\nthe pioneer with them and starting it.\n\n1021\n00:47:45.480 --> 00:47:49.650\nBut that cost accrual, that benefit is going to come to us from a financial\n\n1022\n00:47:49.650 --> 00:47:50.760\nperspective.\n\n1023\n00:47:50.760 --> 00:47:54.180\nAnd so there's this pragmatic view from a financial perspective and an altru\n\n1024\n00:47:54.180 --> 00:47:54.720\nistic view\n\n1025\n00:47:54.720 --> 00:47:55.720\nfor the planet.\n\n1026\n00:47:55.720 --> 00:47:58.870\nAnd that made it such a great recipe to share it that we wanted to make sure\n\n1027\n00:47:58.870 --> 00:47:59.560\nthat everyone\n\n1028\n00:47:59.560 --> 00:48:01.200\nwho wanted it could have it.\n\n1029\n00:48:01.200 --> 00:48:05.440\nSo you went up this old line industry that wasn't environmentally conscious.\n\n1030\n00:48:05.440 --> 00:48:07.160\nYou really disrupted the mindset.\n\n1031\n00:48:07.160 --> 00:48:11.280\nYou had to have people telling you all along the way that, hey, you're crazy.\n\n1032\n00:48:11.280 --> 00:48:12.560\nYou can't do this.\n\n1033\n00:48:12.560 --> 00:48:17.130\nWhat advice can you give to people when they hear those, you can't do this,\n\n1034\n00:48:17.130 --> 00:48:18.200\nthat phrase?\n\n1035\n00:48:18.200 --> 00:48:22.840\nYou know, sometimes people who tell you you shouldn't do things are right.\n\n1036\n00:48:22.840 --> 00:48:26.000\nSometimes they're wrong.\n\n1037\n00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:32.600\nI can remember probably the two worst conversations I've had at Allbirds have\n\n1038\n00:48:32.600 --> 00:48:34.440\nbeen from two former\n\n1039\n00:48:34.440 --> 00:48:40.740\nexecutives from very large companies that had played a major role in creating\n\n1040\n00:48:40.740 --> 00:48:41.880\nthe industry\n\n1041\n00:48:41.880 --> 00:48:43.600\nas it stands today.\n\n1042\n00:48:43.600 --> 00:48:47.880\nAnd they both said, there's no way this is going to be successful.\n\n1043\n00:48:47.880 --> 00:48:53.800\nA, because no one's done it before and B, because it's just dumb.\n\n1044\n00:48:53.800 --> 00:48:59.630\nAnd they're disheartening because those conversations are with people who know\n\n1045\n00:48:59.630 --> 00:49:00.440\na lot about your\n\n1046\n00:49:00.440 --> 00:49:04.760\nindustry and they know a lot more than you'll almost ever know in what they've\n\n1047\n00:49:04.760 --> 00:49:05.320\nlived in\n\n1048\n00:49:05.320 --> 00:49:06.800\ntheir industry.\n\n1049\n00:49:06.800 --> 00:49:09.280\nAnd so how could you just ignore that?\n\n1050\n00:49:09.280 --> 00:49:10.960\nBut you got to put it into context.\n\n1051\n00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:14.740\nAnd I think of myself as a network learner where when I have a hard problem\n\n1052\n00:49:14.740 --> 00:49:15.360\nthat I don't\n\n1053\n00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:20.400\nknow the answer to, I generally go out to the five to ten smartest people I\n\n1054\n00:49:20.400 --> 00:49:21.080\nknow who\n\n1055\n00:49:21.080 --> 00:49:22.720\nknow something about this issue.\n\n1056\n00:49:22.720 --> 00:49:25.520\nAnd I ask them the same question and I get their advice.\n\n1057\n00:49:25.520 --> 00:49:28.780\nAnd then I try to put context around where those people are coming from and\n\n1058\n00:49:28.780 --> 00:49:29.640\nwhat's smartest\n\n1059\n00:49:29.640 --> 00:49:33.180\nwith the idiosyncrasies of our business and then come up with an answer or a\n\n1060\n00:49:33.180 --> 00:49:33.760\nsolution\n\n1061\n00:49:33.760 --> 00:49:35.600\nthat we think will work for us.\n\n1062\n00:49:35.600 --> 00:49:41.020\nAnd so that, I would say in those situations, I take those as data points and I\n\n1063\n00:49:41.020 --> 00:49:41.640\ntry not to\n\n1064\n00:49:41.640 --> 00:49:42.640\nget disheartened.\n\n1065\n00:49:42.640 --> 00:49:46.440\nAnd I think entrepreneurship, you run into these situations, you run into a lot\n\n1066\n00:49:46.440 --> 00:49:46.720\nmore\n\n1067\n00:49:46.720 --> 00:49:50.840\nnose and you run into yeses and you can't be disheartened by those.\n\n1068\n00:49:50.840 --> 00:49:54.000\nAnd if you would be, probably stop getting out of bed every morning.\n\n1069\n00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:58.840\nSo it's no point in letting them get you down too much.\n\n1070\n00:49:58.840 --> 00:50:02.140\nYou know, when you and Tim started, you said you really wanted to get out there\n\n1071\n00:50:02.140 --> 00:50:02.600\nand really\n\n1072\n00:50:02.600 --> 00:50:04.160\nnot tip your toe into water.\n\n1073\n00:50:04.160 --> 00:50:07.160\nYour first purchase order was 10,000 pairs of shoes.\n\n1074\n00:50:07.160 --> 00:50:09.720\nYou had it basically made in seven months.\n\n1075\n00:50:09.720 --> 00:50:13.960\nIt usually takes twice that amount of time to get it done.\n\n1076\n00:50:13.960 --> 00:50:15.920\nYou had amazing sense of urgency.\n\n1077\n00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:17.720\nNow I understand it better from your wife.\n\n1078\n00:50:17.720 --> 00:50:21.000\nYou better get your ass and your company going.\n\n1079\n00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:25.410\nBut have you been able to keep that sense of urgency as a company as you've\n\n1080\n00:50:25.410 --> 00:50:26.000\ngrown?\n\n1081\n00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:29.960\nYeah, I mean, I think we've tried not to take any risks from that point forward\n\n1082\n00:50:29.960 --> 00:50:30.160\n.\n\n1083\n00:50:30.160 --> 00:50:34.160\nThat could be catastrophic risk to the company.\n\n1084\n00:50:34.160 --> 00:50:37.400\nBut on the micro level, we try to take much more courageous bets.\n\n1085\n00:50:37.400 --> 00:50:42.590\nAnd I'd say, you know, we've had moments where I have felt our organization has\n\n1086\n00:50:42.590 --> 00:50:44.080\nslowed down\n\n1087\n00:50:44.080 --> 00:50:48.990\nand thinks that we're now entitled to selling shoes every day instead of having\n\n1088\n00:50:48.990 --> 00:50:49.640\nto go work\n\n1089\n00:50:49.640 --> 00:50:52.000\nevery day and go sell those shoes.\n\n1090\n00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:55.440\nAnd those moments scare the hell out of me.\n\n1091\n00:50:55.440 --> 00:51:00.880\nAnd I think when I sense those, I try to re-inject a sense of urgency, get rid\n\n1092\n00:51:00.880 --> 00:51:02.800\nof all that complacency,\n\n1093\n00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:05.520\nand try to push people to be courageous.\n\n1094\n00:51:05.520 --> 00:51:08.320\nAnd you know, we're in a moment like that today.\n\n1095\n00:51:08.320 --> 00:51:12.800\nToday, we are in a situation where big brands and big companies realize that\n\n1096\n00:51:12.800 --> 00:51:13.600\nconsumers care\n\n1097\n00:51:13.600 --> 00:51:15.120\nabout sustainability.\n\n1098\n00:51:15.120 --> 00:51:19.320\nAnd so everybody is now starting to talk about sustainability.\n\n1099\n00:51:19.320 --> 00:51:23.130\nAnd they define it however they think is most prudent for their marketing\n\n1100\n00:51:23.130 --> 00:51:23.840\nbenefit.\n\n1101\n00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:29.250\nAnd it's interesting because this change has happened much more quickly than I\n\n1102\n00:51:29.250 --> 00:51:29.600\nwould have\n\n1103\n00:51:29.600 --> 00:51:32.000\never expected it to have happened.\n\n1104\n00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.710\nAnd if you see a brand come out with a new product in three years, that's not\n\n1105\n00:51:37.710 --> 00:51:38.040\nfrom, if\n\n1106\n00:51:38.040 --> 00:51:43.310\nthey're using plastic, that it's not recycled plastic, I would be absolutely\n\n1107\n00:51:43.310 --> 00:51:43.760\nshocked.\n\n1108\n00:51:43.760 --> 00:51:47.160\nEveryone is going to be doing the bare minimum from this point forward because\n\n1109\n00:51:47.160 --> 00:51:47.920\nthey recognize\n\n1110\n00:51:47.920 --> 00:51:49.680\nthat consumers are demanding it.\n\n1111\n00:51:49.680 --> 00:51:55.040\nSo how do we stand out and how do we stand out and make our statements clear\n\n1112\n00:51:55.040 --> 00:51:55.360\nthat the\n\n1113\n00:51:55.360 --> 00:51:59.080\nway that we're doing things are with the authenticity that's required to really\n\n1114\n00:51:59.080 --> 00:51:59.440\nsolve\n\n1115\n00:51:59.440 --> 00:52:00.440\nthis problem?\n\n1116\n00:52:00.440 --> 00:52:02.640\nThat's something that takes courageous action.\n\n1117\n00:52:02.640 --> 00:52:06.190\nAnd I think we're going to need to be more bold in our marketing and in the\n\n1118\n00:52:06.190 --> 00:52:06.880\nstatements\n\n1119\n00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:12.170\nthat we make publicly to combat what will otherwise be an incredibly noisy room\n\n1120\n00:52:12.170 --> 00:52:12.440\n.\n\n1121\n00:52:12.440 --> 00:52:16.430\nAnd so how do we continue to stand out when that has kind of caught up with\n\n1122\n00:52:16.430 --> 00:52:17.640\nwhat we originally\n\n1123\n00:52:17.640 --> 00:52:18.640\nset out to accomplish?\n\n1124\n00:52:18.640 --> 00:52:22.280\nYeah, you have a lot of people trying to copycat what you do.\n\n1125\n00:52:22.280 --> 00:52:27.680\nAmazon developed a shoot and you basically took them on directly.\n\n1126\n00:52:27.680 --> 00:52:31.880\nHow emotional, you're the founder, you created this stuff.\n\n1127\n00:52:31.880 --> 00:52:34.720\nYou got Amazon basically ripping you off.\n\n1128\n00:52:34.720 --> 00:52:35.880\nHow do you feel about that?\n\n1129\n00:52:35.880 --> 00:52:39.480\nHow do you handle that emotionally?\n\n1130\n00:52:39.480 --> 00:52:41.840\nYou know, I'm a competitor.\n\n1131\n00:52:41.840 --> 00:52:48.110\nSo I look at it as I try to win and I think that we're trying to win the right\n\n1132\n00:52:48.110 --> 00:52:49.040\ngame, first\n\n1133\n00:52:49.040 --> 00:52:50.040\nof all.\n\n1134\n00:52:50.040 --> 00:52:54.940\nAnd so I'm unabashedly, I'm unabashedly comfortable with the idea that if we\n\n1135\n00:52:54.940 --> 00:52:55.680\nwin, we're doing\n\n1136\n00:52:55.680 --> 00:52:56.880\nsomething good.\n\n1137\n00:52:56.880 --> 00:52:58.560\nAnd so I should try to win.\n\n1138\n00:52:58.560 --> 00:53:02.840\nAnd so I look at that situation and I don't get upset.\n\n1139\n00:53:02.840 --> 00:53:08.420\nI get competitive and I just try to understand why they're doing what they're\n\n1140\n00:53:08.420 --> 00:53:09.200\ndoing.\n\n1141\n00:53:09.200 --> 00:53:12.780\nAnd in the case of Amazon, they're doing it because they had so many people\n\n1142\n00:53:12.780 --> 00:53:13.280\ntype all\n\n1143\n00:53:13.280 --> 00:53:17.900\nbirds into their Amazon.com search bar that I know we're onto something good\n\n1144\n00:53:17.900 --> 00:53:18.440\nand they\n\n1145\n00:53:18.440 --> 00:53:19.440\nsense it too.\n\n1146\n00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:21.560\nSo that's a good thing.\n\n1147\n00:53:21.560 --> 00:53:22.840\nAnd then how they actually did it.\n\n1148\n00:53:22.840 --> 00:53:24.240\nThey did it in a crappy way.\n\n1149\n00:53:24.240 --> 00:53:26.120\nWe open sourced that faux material.\n\n1150\n00:53:26.120 --> 00:53:27.120\nThey didn't even use it.\n\n1151\n00:53:27.120 --> 00:53:30.350\nThey just try to copy the look and try to siphon off demand that we've created\n\n1152\n00:53:30.350 --> 00:53:30.760\nfor this\n\n1153\n00:53:30.760 --> 00:53:32.480\nnew category of footwear.\n\n1154\n00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:34.880\nAnd how do we beat them at that?\n\n1155\n00:53:34.880 --> 00:53:39.970\nAnd so we decided that despite the fact that they are one of the most valuable\n\n1156\n00:53:39.970 --> 00:53:40.720\ncompanies\n\n1157\n00:53:40.720 --> 00:53:45.010\nin the world, it's not the most depending on the day, we'll just go at them and\n\n1158\n00:53:45.010 --> 00:53:45.360\ntake\n\n1159\n00:53:45.360 --> 00:53:51.920\nthem on and see if we can use the authenticity of our message to win the day.\n\n1160\n00:53:51.920 --> 00:53:53.600\nYou know, we're about to wrap this up.\n\n1161\n00:53:53.600 --> 00:53:57.090\nI always like to have a little phone with a little lightning round Q and A here\n\n1162\n00:53:57.090 --> 00:53:57.160\n.\n\n1163\n00:53:57.160 --> 00:54:01.200\nSo what three words would best describe you?\n\n1164\n00:54:01.200 --> 00:54:08.240\nUrgent, bombastic, high energy.\n\n1165\n00:54:08.240 --> 00:54:10.480\nWhat's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n1166\n00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:11.480\nLethurgy.\n\n1167\n00:54:11.480 --> 00:54:15.920\nShare a random fact about you that few people would know.\n\n1168\n00:54:15.920 --> 00:54:20.590\nI have two colors of hair and I was born with those two colors of hair and\n\n1169\n00:54:20.590 --> 00:54:21.880\nwhile it's thinning\n\n1170\n00:54:21.880 --> 00:54:26.060\na little bit at the moment, you can still see it and my nickname was skunk\n\n1171\n00:54:26.060 --> 00:54:26.720\ngrowing up\n\n1172\n00:54:26.720 --> 00:54:28.640\nas a result.\n\n1173\n00:54:28.640 --> 00:54:35.110\nIf you could trade places for one day with anyone in the world, who would it be\n\n1174\n00:54:35.110 --> 00:54:35.520\n?\n\n1175\n00:54:35.520 --> 00:54:43.520\nProbably, probably, uh, Ronaldo, Christiane Ronaldo.\n\n1176\n00:54:43.520 --> 00:54:48.770\nI wanted to be a pro soccer player, like a lot of kids and even like when I\n\n1177\n00:54:48.770 --> 00:54:49.760\nsigned legal\n\n1178\n00:54:49.760 --> 00:54:55.180\ncontracts now, it's still the signature that I developed when I was like eight\n\n1179\n00:54:55.180 --> 00:54:55.920\nyears old\n\n1180\n00:54:55.920 --> 00:54:59.890\nbecause I wanted to make sure I had a cool looking signature when I signed my\n\n1181\n00:54:59.890 --> 00:55:00.600\nsoccer ball\n\n1182\n00:55:00.600 --> 00:55:03.440\nwhen some kid comes up to me after my professional soccer game.\n\n1183\n00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:07.830\nWell, turn out that that didn't end up happening, but Tim's my partner in that\n\n1184\n00:55:07.830 --> 00:55:08.320\none.\n\n1185\n00:55:08.320 --> 00:55:11.080\nSo you can take the glory.\n\n1186\n00:55:11.080 --> 00:55:16.400\nSo Joey, what three bits of advice would you give to aspiring leaders?\n\n1187\n00:55:16.400 --> 00:55:22.050\nSpiring leaders, let's say, I would say, um, from a management perspective,\n\n1188\n00:55:22.050 --> 00:55:24.720\njust be yourself.\n\n1189\n00:55:24.720 --> 00:55:28.480\nTry to be the manager you think you should be.\n\n1190\n00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:33.410\nFrom a leadership perspective, I would say when speaking about vision, make\n\n1191\n00:55:33.410 --> 00:55:34.080\nsure that\n\n1192\n00:55:34.080 --> 00:55:39.680\nyou draw a link between purpose and profit and vice versa.\n\n1193\n00:55:39.680 --> 00:55:44.650\nAnd having that connection be fully aligned is one of the most powerful weapons\n\n1194\n00:55:44.650 --> 00:55:45.640\nin motivating\n\n1195\n00:55:45.640 --> 00:55:51.400\na company and maintaining relevance with consumers.\n\n1196\n00:55:51.400 --> 00:55:59.620\nAnd let's see, finally, from an individual perspective, I would just say always\n\n1197\n00:55:59.620 --> 00:56:00.280\nrealize\n\n1198\n00:56:00.280 --> 00:56:02.600\nthat the rules of the game can be changed.\n\n1199\n00:56:02.600 --> 00:56:06.450\nAnd that's one of the most fun things about business in my perspective is, you\n\n1200\n00:56:06.450 --> 00:56:06.840\nknow, without\n\n1201\n00:56:06.840 --> 00:56:11.480\nbreaking any laws or regulations or anything like that, not encouraging that.\n\n1202\n00:56:11.480 --> 00:56:16.180\nUnderstand that that rules are there, but that they're meant to be broken and\n\n1203\n00:56:16.180 --> 00:56:16.480\nthat they're\n\n1204\n00:56:16.480 --> 00:56:21.590\nmeant to be changed and businesses about dynamic leaders and individuals can do\n\n1205\n00:56:21.590 --> 00:56:22.640\nalmost anything\n\n1206\n00:56:22.640 --> 00:56:26.320\nto make a huge and different and positive outcome.\n\n1207\n00:56:26.320 --> 00:56:31.060\nYou know, the thing that I really admire about you and your company is you're\n\n1208\n00:56:31.060 --> 00:56:32.000\nso authentic.\n\n1209\n00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:35.040\nI mean, you're, you're definitely the real deal.\n\n1210\n00:56:35.040 --> 00:56:38.760\nYour real deal is a brand and your real deal is a person.\n\n1211\n00:56:38.760 --> 00:56:41.120\nAnd I always talk about the shadow of the leader.\n\n1212\n00:56:41.120 --> 00:56:44.660\nIt's clear that you cast a tremendous shadow and your entire company is\n\n1213\n00:56:44.660 --> 00:56:45.600\npassionate about\n\n1214\n00:56:45.600 --> 00:56:46.600\nwhat they do.\n\n1215\n00:56:46.600 --> 00:56:50.080\nAnd I want to thank you for taking the time for being on this show, Joy.\n\n1216\n00:56:50.080 --> 00:56:51.320\nYou're an amazing guy.\n\n1217\n00:56:51.320 --> 00:56:52.320\nWell, thank you.\n\n1218\n00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:55.040\nHumbled once again to end the conversation just like I started.\n\n1219\n00:56:55.040 --> 00:56:56.040\nThank you, David.\n\n1220\n00:56:56.040 --> 00:57:00.240\nI really appreciate that.\n\n1221\n00:57:00.240 --> 00:57:09.690\nWell, Joy is just a fantastic example of that expression that we can do good by\n\n1222\n00:57:09.690 --> 00:57:11.560\ndoing well.\n\n1223\n00:57:11.560 --> 00:57:15.890\nAnd while there are no easy answers when it comes to climate change, Joy just\n\n1224\n00:57:15.890 --> 00:57:16.520\nknew he\n\n1225\n00:57:16.520 --> 00:57:21.920\nhad to go after his big dream of starting a company that made sustainability a\n\n1226\n00:57:21.920 --> 00:57:22.320\ntrue\n\n1227\n00:57:22.320 --> 00:57:23.820\npriority.\n\n1228\n00:57:23.820 --> 00:57:29.690\nBut it all started with the question he asked himself, what will I regret not\n\n1229\n00:57:29.690 --> 00:57:30.520\ndoing?\n\n1230\n00:57:30.520 --> 00:57:32.880\nIt's such a powerful question.\n\n1231\n00:57:32.880 --> 00:57:37.160\nAnd this week, as part of your weekly personal development plan, I want you to\n\n1232\n00:57:37.160 --> 00:57:37.960\nask yourself\n\n1233\n00:57:37.960 --> 00:57:39.600\nthe same thing.\n\n1234\n00:57:39.600 --> 00:57:44.220\nImagine you're looking back on today or this week or your entire career, if you\n\n1235\n00:57:44.220 --> 00:57:45.000\n're feeling\n\n1236\n00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:50.840\nreally brave, ask yourself, what will you regret not doing?\n\n1237\n00:57:50.840 --> 00:57:55.720\nWhen we answer that question, we tap into a healthy sense of urgency that\n\n1238\n00:57:55.720 --> 00:57:56.520\nreminds us\n\n1239\n00:57:56.520 --> 00:58:00.320\nour days, our weeks, our careers are finite.\n\n1240\n00:58:00.320 --> 00:58:05.120\nAnd we have to make the most of them asking that question was the kickstart.\n\n1241\n00:58:05.120 --> 00:58:10.020\nJoy needed to go out and start all birds and it can help you clarify what's\n\n1242\n00:58:10.020 --> 00:58:11.240\nreally important\n\n1243\n00:58:11.240 --> 00:58:16.240\nto you, whether it's as simple as trying to prioritize your daily schedule or\n\n1244\n00:58:16.240 --> 00:58:17.440\nas significant\n\n1245\n00:58:17.440 --> 00:58:20.240\nas making a major career move.\n\n1246\n00:58:20.240 --> 00:58:22.320\nSo do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1247\n00:58:22.320 --> 00:58:26.560\nWhat we learned today is that great leaders have a healthy sense of urgency.\n\n1248\n00:58:26.560 --> 00:58:30.370\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every\n\n1249\n00:58:30.370 --> 00:58:31.160\nThursday you\n\n1250\n00:58:31.160 --> 00:58:35.200\nget to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world.\n\n1251\n00:58:35.200 --> 00:58:38.990\nI make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can\n\n1252\n00:58:38.990 --> 00:58:39.760\napply to your\n\n1253\n00:58:39.760 --> 00:58:43.400\nbusiness so that you will become the best leader you can be.\n\n1254\n00:58:43.400 --> 00:58:53.400\n[BLANK_AUDIO]\n\n1255\n00:58:53.400 --> 00:59:03.400\n[BLANK_AUDIO]","

David Novak 0:04

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is joy zwillinger, co founder of Allbirds, the world's most comfortable shoe according to Time Magazine, his company is growing by leaps and bounds. And they pioneered a truly sustainable shoe that people really love, including me, I've got a pair of money right now. But all of it almost never happened. Fortunately, a few years ago, Joy had the courage to ask himself one really powerful question. And when he did, he got a healthy sense of urgency, that now was the time to start a company and try to make a significant impact on the problems surrounding climate change. That healthy sense of urgency is something we can all use to help us even in our day to day lives. To help us figure out what we really want to focus on. I can't wait for you to hear how Joy tapped into it for himself. He also shares some great insights on making business more sustainable marketing, your product differentiators and lots more. So here's my conversation with my good friend, Han soon to be yours, Joy's will injure.

Joy, thanks so much for being on this show.

Joey Zwillinger 1:40

Oh, David's awesome to be here. And I'm so humbled by those words coming from you. We're big fans of you over here at all birds and your work and what you share with us at that leadership summit. And also just in general, your work around recognition has been very impactful to me personally and to our organization. So thanks for having me on. Well, thank

David Novak 1:58

you, Joey, I appreciate it. You know, I want to get to your personal story and leadership insights. But first, how's your week going? And can you tell us about a typical week in your life these days?

Joey Zwillinger 2:09

Yeah, I, my week is starting off at the bank. So I, I try to keep a good balance family and work even though I think being an entrepreneur gets drilled six inches deep into your skull. And then I actually I color code my week. So I generally have a good perspective of yellow being working with external parties and partners that are important. I have an investor, I have an investor color, I got a media color, I got an internal colors. And so I generally have a decent split. And I try to manage my time. So I'm prioritizing the urgent things that I that I need to accomplish. And also setting aside some really good long term strategic relationship building time for my week. So it dances and I will say the breadth of activity that I do in a week is one of the things that keeps me so motivated, just because it's always learning that's doing something exciting every week,

David Novak 3:04

joy, shifting gears to the business now, tell us the story of how you came up with the Allbirds name. I mean, what the heck is that?

Joey Zwillinger 3:15

I know how do you how do you make a shoe out of sheep and then call your company after a bird. So there's some sense to it, we were we were thinking about what we stood for as a company. And we really knew we believed in innovation based on low carbon intensity, environmentally sensible materials. That's what we were, we weren't a shoe company, we weren't a wool company, we were going to be something and we aspired to be something that stood for much more, both from like a lifestyle what we did for people and our customers, but also in terms of the leadership and what we stood for. So we were and through this creative process. We're like poking around, we're saying I look back to our heritage and New Zealand, what you know, what do we got there? And we we asked the simple question, what birds were there in New Zealand? You know what birds there and obviously, there's the Kiwi bird. But turns out when man first settled in New Zealand, there was all birds, no mammals. And and that little fact was, so it was so cool and unique. Because it's such an isolated island. Like all birds, there's all birds there. And that's kind of a time when four people came in and screwed things up. So we thought we thought we'd take a swim with Alan

David Novak 4:29

is a great swig and that is so cool. I love it. You know, and you start your company, you have huge success, you're selling Allbirds online and then you it make a strategic decision to go into the brick and mortar business. And you know, as I mentioned earlier, I had the chance to talk to your store managers. Why did you make that call?

Joey Zwillinger 4:47

Yeah, the I mean huge success. First of all, let me caveat by saying I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't call us that quite yet. Working on it. brick and mortar though it is it is so important to Our business, making an experience that is the best for our customers is is step number one for us and everything flows out of that. And we see it in the data, but we feel it when we walk in the store it is it is better to come into our store than it is to shop online. Just put it out there, we were super convenient, we get issues, if you order on a common three days, free returns, free shipping, you name it, I mean, it's phenomenal. But if you go into our store, we've built this entire environment around the Tryon experience. We have educated our ambassadors and our store leaders in such a way that they can tell you down to the molecule that we're using the fiber from what kind of sheep, this information is such a rich experience, that our customers absolutely love us. And we use this thing called Net Promoter Score to show how favorable our customers think about that experience. And we see it in the 90s in our store consistently in the 90s Eat, you know, even during a pandemic, it is in the 90s. And it's incredible. So we know that the financial results are going to come from that. And we see that in the financials to the marketing efficiencies better, people have more awareness that our brand exists. In America, we still today, you as 10 people on the street, only one person has heard of all words, we need to get that up in stores help us do that. And that flows through our whole whole, our whole business model. So you launch

David Novak 6:22

a lot of stores and you get started, you're doing it around the world, you haven't been Shanghai, you know, you're doing great locations. And then you mentioned the pandemic, you know, how is your business cope during the pandemic? And how have you had to scramble?

Joey Zwillinger 6:38

What a wild time to be a leader of any business, but retail got hit hard, you know, we shut down our stores on March 13, we had to understand whether we could what we were going to do with our our staff tried to see how we could help out in the community to the extent we could do that. And it was like decision after decision of fairly significant magnitude falling back on our values and trying to make a whole bunch of of these calls that impact a lot of people and and it was it was it fair, many of them are very difficult. And the business fortunately, ended up faring really well it was quite uncertain, like the first month who the hell knows knew what was gonna happen. And then after that, we got our feet underneath us and, and we started really executing very well. And I'm super proud of the team, how they've, how they've, how they've navigated through this situation, I'll say one of the things now that we're, we're, you know, closing in on a, on a year through this thing, the impact on culture has been quite profound. It's not just the pandemic, but it's the anxiety and the stress of everyone's personal situation and what they're dealing with outside of work not just inside of work, coupling that with, you know, societal issues around racial unrest, and a whole bunch of other issues that have that have we've dealt with in the last in the last year, not just in this country, but globally. And and, you know, it takes a toll. And that's, that's the thing that we Tim and I have spent a lot of time with, and that's alongside our executives and our HR leader, and just just thinking about how to build empathy in this environment, how we're going to, you know, we're going to take some withdrawals from the culture Bank, which we have. Fortunately, we deposited quite a bit beforehand, before we came into the pandemic, but how do we come out of this and, and regain that thriving culture that we once had the thriving, pulsing creativity and all the good stuff that we need to be successful? I'd say that's the that's the thing that still keeps me up. That's the one thing that keeps me up in this pandemic now is how do we regain our traction as a culture and a fantastic place to work? In the same way that we have with the same advantage that we had before coming in before we started this

David Novak 9:12

as a leader joy? What do you think would be the single biggest thing you're going to do to make that happen?

Joey Zwillinger 9:17

You know, it's so great question I'd say it's, it's a number of things. First of all, it's it's communication has been stressed. The probably the highest that I've ever dealt with the crispness and clarity of communication, frequency of communication, vulnerability within that communication has been of paramount importance. And we've we've taken kind of a we've done a 360 review of ourselves, Tim and I have as CO CEOs and understood how we've navigated through this with our, with our colleagues and at all birds and that's been the number one thing to call out. So I want to continue to do that. At, and I do think, you know, we, we, every year we Tim and I have a development plan that we we write for for, for ourselves and what we want to do better and coming into the year. And this isn't this isn't just pandering, but coming into the year, we written in our development plan that we would coming into 2020, we would, we would do more on the recognition front, and it goes to communication, but it's about drawing a line from what makes our business good to the behaviors that people are exhibiting, and we gave out a Golden Kiwi, it's like this, it's this little Kiwi bird that's from from New Zealand, wood carving a goal to give out 100. And we ended up not being able to do that, in the same way we wanted to because of the pandemic constraints. So we shifted it and we gave a different award. But we want to pick that back up. So I'd say those two things are probably the two things I'm going to stress and continue to lean on in terms of making sure that people still feel connected and have the information they need to do their job really well. And, and feel supported throughout this whatever whatever else they're going to deal with in 2021.

David Novak 11:11

You know, you said your retail business, you improve the execution and you know, really had good results or how did COVID-19 are and how is COVID-19 really impacting your online business?

Joey Zwillinger 11:24

Yeah, I mean, positive. So we've we've had, we've enjoyed really nice growth from that perspective. And some of that is just shifting, because people were unable to shop in store. So that's been good. That's been that's been a bright spot. Another bright spot has been, you know, our category expansion into running shoes. And what we found is people are at home, they're working from home now, a lot of our customers are at least and and they are strapping on running shoes for the first time in a decade. And So lo and behold, we can we can deliver them to their door pretty quickly and giving them a really great value. And lastly, I would say that what has buoyed our econ business a little bit has been this shift of an acceleration around the idea that values orientation of a brand that you're doing business with, is is increasing. I think people are demanding even more than prior to the pandemic, that that brands that are delivering good stand for something positive on the social issues that they care about environment being one of the top of the list. And so, uh, you know, I think that's helping as well. It's hard to pin that down exactly. But we see some of the trends and in data from Google search terms and a whole bunch of other things that would suggest that that is contributing.

David Novak 12:45

So you launched this performance shoe, you got another cool name the dasher. Okay, you know, what made you think you can compete with the likes of Nike and, you know, with in the running shoe category, or what

Joey Zwillinger 12:56

the hell made us think we could do any of this from the beginning, obviously, are a little bit crazy. Yeah, you know, look, we're chipping away, we're so small, that what we're trying to do is earn the trust slowly but surely have customers that we can not only deliver a shoe that's really comfortable and fits them well fits across a couple styles. And now a now enables them to perform an athletic endeavor without harming their body and makes them perform even better. So we put two and a half years into that Dasher, and we did tons of biomechanical work. And we tried to come out with a simple, beautiful aesthetic that also delivered on that performance and didn't sacrifice on any of our environmental values. And we just did a damn good job. And I think that focus on you know, as I've, as I've alluded to, before, you know, saying saying yes to one thing for every 99 things you say no to, that has that has treated us very well throughout the growth of our business from a management kind of philosophy perspective. And this is this is no different. And we launched that and it'll come up on the University of the dasher and, and we, we we have not added another performance athletic product into our footwear line. Because it's really hard and we wanted to pay it the the appropriate amount of respect that goes into each of these development processes.

David Novak 14:23

You know, as I understand it, the dasher is also groundbreaking is the first shoe to carry a carbon number. What does that mean? Exactly? Joy?

Joey Zwillinger 14:32

Yeah, the it's probably the most important initiative we did in 2020. You know, when you ask 10 people on the street, what sustainability means you're gonna get 10 different answers. And, and we have tried to synthesize what we believe is the most important priority from an environmental perspective into a single number. And this number allows you to understand how much you're contributing To our combating against climate change. And if you can play a role and have the education to make a better, more informed decision as a consumer, on on whether you're you're contributing to that global condition and global issue, we think you're going to understand what you're doing from a sustainability perspective. And if we can synthesize that into something that is so crisp and clear that with within a second of digesting our information and our product, you can know the answer to that question, we think you'll be in a better spot to answer that question effectively. And we think you will, you will understand the value that we're creating on society, not to mention that we're making a great product. So it's trying to align our values with our marketing message. And that that's, that's as simple as I can put it. And we tried to do that in a way that was as clear and crisp as we possibly could.

David Novak 15:52

You know, I know Bill Gates is 100%, behind carbon footprint products. Is this the bandwagon that everybody's jumping on? And how do you feel about that?

Joey Zwillinger 16:02

I don't think everyone's jumping on it yet. I think Bill Gates is, which is good, because he's a powerful ally. But I think that more and more people will, I will say what I see Unfortunately, though, is that there's a lot more companies with platitudes that don't have much behind them. And I still see a lot of greenwashing with environmental plans or small steps in a positive direction, with grandiose statements about their impact, then what I would like to see, and if everyone were to truly jump on the bandwagon and start to, you know, hopefully share some of the techniques that we're talking about in terms of really identifying the full end to end lifecycle of carbon pollution, and then owning up to it paying for offsets in the meantime, and trying to raise that down to zero, that would be joining the bandwagon I invite it i i think it would be fantastic. And frankly, in some of the some of the material innovations we've done, we've open sourced our technology, so that people can share in the material and help get on that bandwagon. So when that happens, I'll be I'll be I'll be high fiving competitors and collaborators, I like to do it.

David Novak 17:15

Fantastic. You don't and you know, Joy, I always love my conversations with you. And I love to get inside of the head of how leaders think, tell us your thought process for going beyond shoes now and into into fashion. You got the performance shoe. And now you've got some new products that you've just launched. And how do you rationalize moving into those different arenas?

Joey Zwillinger 17:37

Yeah, you know, we look at what our customers do, and how they're living. And we, you know, there's only we can't do everything, right, we're probably not going to be making a hotel, we're probably not going to be, you know, building things in their houses. So we got to think about within a reasonable kind of zone of a target area of what we can, what we can accomplish and what we think we can win and where we have material innovation that's core to our company, and can create a differentiated product that we know they're gonna love. Let's explore whether we can do that or not. And for us, as I said, when when I was alluding to the origin of the name, never for a second, do we think we are a shoe company never did it for a second that we think we are a wool company, we have to take these innovations and leverage them in in many different ways. Let me give you an example. Because I think it's one of them. It's a exemplary of what we try to do. We so we took we made merino wool shoes, we then made a eucalyptus fiber bass shoot for summer months that was more breathable, and it kind of let the air kind of go right in and touch your toes. And then what we decided was okay, what if we made a fabric that combine those things, so we call the Trino, which is tree and Merino smash together, we didn't pay anyone too much money for that. So don't worry about that. And then and then and then we said, Okay, now in an in a garment. If we take that we also want to replicate some antimicrobial characteristics to make real performance in some of these, some of these items. So we decided we were going to make a t shirt. does the world need another t shirt? Arguably not. But what we did do was we added the waste stream of the crabbing industry. So this the shell of crabs that's leftover, you can actually take part of that waste, and isolate something called kite Osan. And we took a proprietary process and turned it into yarn. And that creates antimicrobial characteristics. So now we have this t shirt that's made of Trino tree Merino and the waste stream of crabbing industry crab shells. And not only is that cool from an environmental perspective, but it feels amazing, feels different, delivers amazing performance to your skin and we can do it all at a very valuable price. And so that's gonna just deliver tons of value to our customer. So does the world need another t shirt? Well, when you have all three of those ingredients, it absolutely does. The world does need it and people love it. And that's the kind of link between innovation value to use and storytelling that we really try to do every time we launch a product.

David Novak 20:03

Yeah, I love that. And I gotta tell you, I'm gonna go online right after this. And I'm, I'm going to order all your new products, because you're doing some great stuff. You know, I saw where you raised $100 million in funding in September last year, you know, how do you think about focusing that capital?

Joey Zwillinger 20:19

Yeah, it's about what are the big growth factors for the company. And I would say there's, there's three things that we focus on, we got to go and continue to invest internationally. Because as we get scale in different regions like China, Japan, and across Europe, we are going to enjoy a really good returns from that investment. So that's one. The second thing is in our brick and mortar. So that takes takes cash for us, we're, you know, we're going to build more than a dozen stores this year, in 2021. And more than that in the future, so the cash needs are going to continue to increase there. And finally, innovation is the third one and building out this ecosystem of, of innovative ideas from various different suppliers and university partners and other other kinds of organizations. It's not a small feat. And so most of that is born in the cost of our product, but we do invest quite a significant amount in r&d. So that's the third one. And underlying all that, of course, as I've mentioned, what carried us through the pandemic, and allowed us to thrive has been the culture of the organization. And the fact that people feel empowered and passionate about what we do, and empowered to do great work. And so that's, you know, that takes money, and we're building, we're still such such a small company, we want to continue to invest in the otherwise we know, we'll always be a small company. And that's not what we aspire to be

David Novak 21:43

joy. You know, I want to get your perspective on, obviously a very meaningful topic today. And, you know, how is the big and rightful push towards racial equality driving how you lead,

Joey Zwillinger 21:57

I wouldn't say that it has changed how I lead per se, but what I would say, first of all, I fully agree with the framing that this this movement, around racial justice in America, particularly with black Americans, is, is overdue. And, and I'm finding a whole lot of benefits from the movement. And, and I think people have been awakened to the idea that diversity is something that is, is both a moral imperative, as well as a business objective, and a business outcomes based idea, where if you close yourself down, and just hear, you know, the same ideas in an echo chamber, your business is going to be much less successful. And my business is, is a great testament to that, when we're, when we look hard in the mirror, we, you know, we're under penetrated in certain communities. And, and some of those communities are also underrepresented inside of our organization and our employment base. So, you know, I think if any leader today hasn't looked in the mirror and said, We got work to do, you know, they've, they're lying to themselves or to somebody else. And so, that has been really, I'd say, from from the perspective of how I lead, I feel more empowered to, to focus on these issues, because I think everyone has many more people have come around to the concept that this is, this is a moral and a business imperative. And so I think it's, it's given an opportunity to speak about it more openly, and use these tools for the benefit of the business. I'm really encouraged by, by what I've seen in this area.

David Novak 23:52

Joy, can you tell us about your upbringing?

Joey Zwillinger 23:55

Yeah, sure. So I classify my my upbringing is very fortunate one I had, I had two loving parents, my mom is an immigrant from South Africa. My dad is from New York, both Jewish, both psychology professors at San Francisco State University. In the southern part of the city government jobs and, and they, they taught me the value, I would say very specifically around education, and then broadly around, having kind of some kind of a social purpose in the work that you do in your life and making sure that what you do is important to a group of people broader than just yourself or your family. And so, my dad was a social activist that was that was working in freedom of speech and African American writes. And the purpose that I chose to do was around the environment. And I think that is partially given the fact that that we spend a lot of time outdoors my dad and I went camping again quite regularly

David Novak 25:01

is that when you really discovered your passion for the environment and sustainability, that was

Joey Zwillinger 25:05

part of it. And I think when when I really first gravitated to this was was around kind of a couple years after I graduated college, maybe maybe three or four years after. And in the early 2000s, when I thought that the biggest problem facing our species was climate change, and that if my generation didn't play a major role in solving this problem, that we were, we were screwed, frankly, as, as a species, the Earth was probably going to be fine, because it would recover after after not too long of a time, but our species would be in big trouble. And so I started thinking about how I could contribute to that, the solution to that problem, and that would be, for me, something that would be personally rewarding, and would contribute substantially to society and give back to, you know, what, what has given me such great fortune and such a great life?

David Novak 26:00

How old were you and that really kind of ticked off in your head,

Joey Zwillinger 26:04

probably like 2425. And I wasn't I wasn't, I was doing business, I just, I didn't really know what business was when I was in college. And it sounded dynamic, and it sounded cool. So I just jumped into it and took a generalist job as a consultant. And I that was not particularly exciting to me. But when I when I caught this bug that the private sector could play a major role in, in affecting environmental issues positively. That started to, to give me a little excitement, because I didn't see myself doing public policy, or being in politics or doing anything like that. I really loved the dynamism of business. And I started to look at work with small businesses around around that time in my early mid 20s. And that got me super excited about the idea that the private sector could do something meaningful to make change.

David Novak 26:57

Well, you've definitely walked the talk on that, and we're gonna get to that. But I want to go back to your childhood a little bit. Can you tell us a story about your childhood days that would tell us a lot about the kind of person that you've become?

Joey Zwillinger 27:11

I'd say that, you know, one thing that my dad and I did together every year was we took one big trip, and it always involved the outdoors. And there's usually my sister, myself and my dad, and sometimes there'll be guests that will come along. I remember one time in particular, we went to Yosemite. And we took a, I think was a six day backpacking trip where we brought into the into the National Park, everything that we needed for that period of time, including all the food we were going to consume, and all the equipment and the tents and whatnot. And we hiked down every day, we walked and set up a new campsite. And I'd say, one of the principles that really was embedded in me from my dad in particular was this idea of personal agency, and that the ability to create change through one individual's creative, enterprising activities could be quite profound. And, and one of the things he always would say is, hey, if that guy can do it, or somebody can do it, why can't I do it with a little hard work and, and, and perseverance. And so I'd say some of these camping trips when we were out, and particularly this one that I'm thinking about, it was, it was like an incredibly stormy summer. And we were out there and there was lightning storms. And if you don't do samedi, there's tons of forest fires that get started by by lightning every year. And this one in particular, we were, we were getting soaked, and we were setting up tents. In the middle of pouring rains, we had a guy with us that was having some heart issues, we had a friend of mine that was missing his mom, and my dad was just sitting there kind of like, Guys, lots of people before us have done this, we can figure this out, we're gonna be fine. Let's relax. And I think that was just one of those things where my dad was quite a character. And he had this woven through all aspects of his life, this kind of personal agency philosophy, but this was one moment that kind of stood out to me and kind of blended in nature. So that was, that was a nice memory. For me.

David Novak 29:09

It's a great story. You know, I saw where you started out your career at Goldman Sachs as an analyst. What did you learn from that experience?

Joey Zwillinger 29:15

Funny, so I actually joined as an analyst in their HR group, and my parents were psychologists. And so I thought, psychology sounded cool, but I like business better. And since the psychology of business is all done in HR, that would be a great place to start. And when I learned was, that that was not true. And that HR is an incredibly important aspect of of business. Yet the kind of HR that I was thinking about was actually done by managers. And that is how you lead your people at the front line to do the work every day that drives the business from the the most important impact drivers of top and bottom line. That's where the real HR actually happened. And so I decided leaving that internship that I was not going to immediately return to HR.

David Novak 30:06

You know, you left Goldman Sachs and you also did some consulting at Deloitte and you work with a number of different companies. What do you learn from, from that consulting experience?

Joey Zwillinger 30:16

A huge variety. So what I learned was, I went from companies like in the CPG industry, where these are buttoned up polished executives that run processes, like win lose a drop of water out of these things, they're so tight. And they do so because it's cutthroat competition. And it's an industry where tiny little changes of pennies can impact bottom lines dramatically. And then I went to the garbage industry. And I'm doing negotiations around shipping waste between transfer stations and landfills. And doing these deals with truckers, third party truckers at landfill sites, amongst the stink and stench, those guys always said, it smells like money smelt like something else today. And, and I'm going in there and doing negotiations, very wild west style of negotiations, which is the way the business was done in that industry. And just, you know, furthering my understanding that business is about making change, and individuals can make a huge, huge impact. And that not everything is a is a polished PowerPoint. And that, you know, you can, you can go out there and get out into the field and make a huge impact with just an individual action. And that was pretty exciting. So actually gravitated more toward the waist industry style than I did the Polish CPG executive style, I think those lessons are true for could be could be could be taught to a lot of executives and a lot of different businesses,

David Novak 31:48

you then understand it, you went off and you've spent sort of five years in more of a corporate environment was Solazyme, and you were the VP of industrial. So what did you learn, coming up in a corporate environment that you try to keep top of mind today as you build your own company.

Joey Zwillinger 32:05

So a few things standout? i That was that was a big, big growth experience for me. And so I, it's hard to even overstate how much I learned there. But couple things. One is the value of mentorship, and giving people a chance that that have hard work and show great potential. And that when you're at a hot company, it's easy to hire great executives from the outside, it almost takes more courage to promote from within and give opportunities to great talent that you have in your organization. And, and because it's so easy to get the perfect resume out there and just bring them bring them into the ship instead of instead of promoting from within. And I learned that you know, and part of this was that I got the good fortune of someone taking a risk and having courage to to give me an opportunity. And that person is a great mentor of mine today. He was the CEO and founder of the company. And now I work with him on a bunch of different enterprises that he does now. And so that was an important one, I'd say the other one that I learned was, was about transparency. And the fact that transparency is a very unsung hero of of great company cultures. And it's also one of the perils of of places that have gone awry. I think most people know that. A lot of people leave their jobs because they have crappy managers. I think less people, fewer people appreciate that. That another significantly contributing factor is when people don't understand how decisions are made at a company. And they don't understand what's happening to the company writ large. And our captain need to know basis, so to speak, with just issues directly impacting their part of the organization.

David Novak 34:00

And that's great. So you had a great mentor at this company. Solazyme, you're doing well. What made you leave a really good job and team up with Tim Brown to build the Auberge ran and what did you learn about yourself just as you analyze the opportunity, because this This couldn't have been a no brainer, maybe it was for you? I don't know. Tell us?

Joey Zwillinger 34:21

No, no, no, not a no brainer. So I, the thing that drove me the most was fear, and a specific kind of fear. I feared that if I was a 55 year old guy, and I looked back and I hadn't started a business, or I hadn't become an executive at a very early stage company, and given it my all, to build something important out of that business, both from a financial and an impact perspective, that I would be disappointed at my life. And that was a perilous fear for me that I would be there That 55 year old guy with like, three kids, and I'd be sitting in mid level management and I would look back and and I'd have regrets. And so that fear of future potential regrets. That was what really drove me. And so now now, how do I pick all over specifically? That's a different question. And, and like all good things, it comes from my wife. So my wife and Tim's wife were the the two women who introduced Tim and myself to start thinking about doing a business together. And as we did it, and we started thinking about the potential the business and what strategy was, what the purpose of the business was, how we would start all the capital strategy, all that stuff. One of the things that we committed to was, Okay, we're gonna go from a really, really good salary to a really crappy salary. And so how long are we going to be able to ride this thing? And what are we going to commit to, and my wife and I sat around the table, and we're not great budgeters in general, but we tried to like rough ballpark, what we spent per year, and how much money we were going to lose over the course of two years. And we figured out what the number was. And we said, All right, we got two years is this amount of money. And that's the investment we're gonna make. And we're gonna figure it out in two years. And so you better figure Joey, you better figure this out in two years, we're not going to sit around and do this for five years without without a good outcome, one way or another. And so I would say that that was a major contributing factor into how we shaped the early phase of the business, from capital formation to every little bit of strategy and tactical detail. And so we raised enough money so that we knew we could create the best brand, and make sure that we had sufficient inventory. And that we amplify the story that we wanted to tell so that there was no way we would get a false negative or a false positive, false positive being, oh, we think it's going great. But we actually didn't have enough inventory. So like, it actually wasn't that good. Because we actually don't know the true demand or a false negative, where we think it didn't work out. But we actually didn't present the world with the right brand or the right product. And so we raised enough money to make sure we avoided those two situations. And for me, again, fear being the driving factor. I was cool with failing fast. Fortunately, we live in a society in a particular place in the world in the Bay Area that almost celebrates failure. And I was definitely cool with wild success. What I was, what I was fearful of was mediocrity, and just just in this middle ground, living in a place where every year you were scrapping, and you didn't know which way it was gonna go. And all of a sudden, again, I found myself 10 years down the road in the same place with not it was like a half big business going nowhere. And I, I kind of sunk the prime part of my career and my family's life and into a business that wasn't going anywhere. Sure, I would learn something, but that that drove me to make sure we fail quickly and miserably or succeeded wildly.

David Novak 37:57

You know, I know, both you and Tim are passionate convicted leaders. It was an immediate match in heaven for you to guys. And how'd you make sure you were on the same page? Was that immediately obvious to you?

Joey Zwillinger 38:10

You know, with any relationship like this, there's there's risk and you know, 50% of America gets divorced. So, I think I think 100% of those people walk into the marriage thinking it's gonna last forever, or at least they say they say they do, and they take their vows. So, you know, there's, there's risk inherent in these kinds of things, as you well know. I think, you know, fortunately, we had a couple good things in our backs. One is that I'd known Tim's girlfriend at the time, but now wife quite well, because she was friends with my wife, and she's a wonderful person. And I figured at least I had that proxy that if she was gonna go the distance with this guy, that he was probably that was at least one tick in the box in his favor. The second thing is that you can immediately sense like Tim is, he's he's a professional athlete, he rose to be the vice captain of New Zealand at the national team at playing in the World Cup for the soccer team for his country in South Africa in 2010. And he's a good looking guy. And yet, the second that you meet him, you're struck at how low ego he is, and how open to learn he is and, and a partnership, I think at this kind of competitive dynamic that we have in terms of not not between us, but in our industry. It requires and the loneliness of doing entrepreneurship, you need a partner. And fortunately, I think the fact that that in particular, he's such a low ego guy gave me gave me the confidence that we could just communicate through stuff, and we could make sure to talk through and we did so from day one is that we just talked and you know, I come from a family that is too expressive Jewish psychologists that generally find communication and talking to be the answer for everything to You'd agree that could sometimes startle the average person. And I think I think that that is something we take to our business partnership and that we just talked through, we carve out time every week to this day, to make sure we talk about the issues that we think are our most high impact to our business. In our in our partnership,

David Novak 40:18

you launched the business with your website totally online, tell us about the biggest challenge you had pioneering what I think some would call the sustainable shoe category.

Joey Zwillinger 40:29

Well, it continues to be a challenge. And this is I think the thing that will be our it has been our biggest challenge and we'll continue to be is we are we are injecting naturally derived materials into a supply chain that has almost exclusively use petroleum derived synthetics since the early 1970s. And when you're trying to move that fast, you resort to what I would say is unsustainable behavior in terms of material choices that you use, and we're sort of the the opposite of that. We've tried to slow things down. And we take a slow fashion approach, where where we, we try to innovate on materials and put real research and development into our products, there's a lot of challenges, we got to come up with new standards to test the materials when they come into the factory, different quality control mechanisms when it's coming out of the factory, and off the line, and a whole bunch of things in between. Even dealing with with issues that the industry really hasn't faced as much around animal welfare and a whole bunch of other issues. That a synthetically manufactured product doesn't doesn't need to contend with. So we think we're doing the right thing, but it creates some challenges in supply chain is one of them. But But this idea that we're slowing things down, I think it trickles through a whole bunch of different aspects of our business. You know,

David Novak 41:50

you're so passionate about this. Was there ever a time, though, that the company did something that was inconsistent with your sustainable efforts? And? And if so, how do you deal with it?

Joey Zwillinger 42:02

Yeah, you know, we're still dealing with that, because you can't, we've we started this business with with the belief that perfection would be the enemy of good. And what that means for us is, we can't be perfect. And while we can strive for perfection every day, we can't expect to be perfect. And we need to acknowledge where our deficiencies are. And we have many of them when we're trying to make things all from naturally derived products. And we're also trying to be the lowest carbon footprint products on in the industry. And we're trying to compete with companies who have been using synthetic materials for 50 years. And those have pent up some expectations in the minds of consumers that we like it or not, we have to compete with,

David Novak 42:53

like, What do you mean by that joy.

Joey Zwillinger 42:54

So a good example is just simply with wool specifically. So we started the company with merino wool and merino wool, and we put it into a sneaker, that most of the products that would you'd say, would be competitive with us use plastic, polyester, usually, sometimes nylon. And that polyester has a particular kind of stretch to it, particularly kind of durability. And it, it performs a specific way we put in merino wool. And this is like putting a cashmere sweater on your foot, it's like it feels more comfortable than then you could imagine until you slip your feet into him with no socks. Yet at some point, there's a little bit of different stretch, Jim, there's a little bit of different characteristics of this. And also we need to match some of the performance characteristics, we need to put in some component of a synthetic to a certain degree. How much of that we put in, we can question how much is the cost difference? What's the carbon impact? And we have to weigh those things every day. And we do so you know, another example we had, we had laces that we historically have been making from polyester. And that was something that we did not want to do at all. And at one point, we finally pushed our factory hard enough where they said, All right, fine. Here, we finally found recycled plastic bottles to turn that into the laces that you guys like and you want to use. It costs you about three times as much. So like that's the best we could do. What do you think, and within literally less than a day, we had concluded that was a no brainer, we needed to move to the recycled plastic bottles. And that was one of those moments where it's like great. Finally, we've overcome one of those things that we felt was a deficiency. It's still not perfect. Frankly, it's still plastic even even being recycled. And it's just one thing that we need to keep working on. Maybe the last example it's one of the ones I'm probably the most proud of, but also shows one of the weaknesses we have when we started. We launched the product. We thought it was great. You mentioned time magazine calls it the most comfortable shoe in the world. So it's a pretty damn good start. The bottom unit was made from traditional foam that's used in the sneaker industry, we worked for three years to find a solution to making that foam out of a natural material instead of using petroleum, which is what the industry typically resorts to. And we worked with the Brazilian company called Braskem, we convinced them to invest a number of millions of dollars to take a waste stream of sugarcane and convert that into into this phone material. So another way to technical word would be EBA is the phone when we call the Greenie VA. And what we then did with that material was we made it into this incredibly soft cushion. midsole. That was the bottom unit of the shoe. And and we called it sweet foam. And finally, we had overcome the biggest component in our shoe that was not from a naturally derived source, and was really impeding our way of what we believe was living our values through our products and our brand. And we overcame that. And we actually open source that ingredient to the whole industry to us. And that's been turning one of our biggest deficiencies into our one of our biggest successes, frankly,

David Novak 46:11

well, you know, I never really liked to talk about my business, but we had a patented secret 11 herbs and spices that we didn't open up the competition, you know, what made you open it up the competition to be so free to everybody else.

Joey Zwillinger 46:26

Yeah, it's funny, you know, I think there's certain things we won't share. And if we had our own special 11 spice mixture, which maybe we have some analogy and some of our textile sides that we've done, we're not going to just give that away. But But I would say that, that solving the problem of climate change is going to take collective action, it's going to take collective action between the private sector and the public sector. And it's also going to take collective action within the private sector. And so we found that this was a really interesting opportunity to, to do that collective action within the private sector for two reasons. One, if you use our material, instead of the traditional petroleum derived, you are actually sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, instead of instead of just simply emitting it in the in the production process material, it actually sucks net carbon out of the atmosphere, which is so cool that if everyone did that, in the footwear industry, we would be saving millions and millions and millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the environment. So that's just a win for the planet. The second is, the more companies who buy this material, and do whatever they want to do with this material, the lower the cost is going to be. And we'll make sure that we get the lowest cost at all times from our supplier for being the Pioneer with them and starting it. But that cost accrual and that benefits gonna gonna come to us from a financial perspective. And so there's this pragmatic view from a financial perspective and an altruistic view for the planet. And that made it such a great recipe to share it that we wanted to make sure that everyone who wanted it could have it.

David Novak 48:00

So you went up this old line industry that wasn't environmentally conscious, you really disrupted the mindset, you had to have people telling you all along the way that Hey, Joey, you're crazy, you know, you can't do this. What advice can you give to people when they hear those, you can't do this that praise?

Joey Zwillinger 48:17

You know, sometimes, people who tell you you shouldn't do things or right, sometimes they're wrong. I can remember probably the two worst conversations I've had, and All birds have been from two former executives from very large companies that had had played a major role in creating the this industry as it stands today. And they both said, There's no way this is going to be successful. A because no one's done it before and be because it's just dumb. And, and, and they're disheartening. Because you know, those conversations are with people who know a lot about your industry, and they know a lot more than you'll almost ever know, and what they've lived in their industry. And so, so how can you just ignore that, but you got to put it into context. And I think I think of myself as a network learner, where when I have a hard problem that I don't know the answer to I generally go out to the five to 10 smartest people I know, who knows something about this issue, and I ask them the same question and I get their advice. And then I try to put context around where those people are coming from and what smartest with the idiosyncrasies of our business and then come up with an answer or a solution that we think will work for us. And so that, you know, I would say in those in those situations, I take those as data points, and I try not to get disheartened and I think you know entrepreneurship, you run into these situations you run into a lot more nose and you run into yeses and and you can't be disheartened by those if you would be probably stopped getting out of bed every morning. So no point no point in letting him Let him get you down too much.

David Novak 49:58

You know when you and Tim started You said you really wanted to get out there and really, you know, not tip your toe in the water, your first purchase order was 10,000 pairs of shoes, you had an basically made in seven months, it usually takes, you know, twice that amount of time to get it done. You had amazing sense of urgency. Now I understand that better from your wife, you better get your ass and your company going, but have you been able to keep that sense of urgency as a company as you as you grow?

Joey Zwillinger 50:26

Yeah, I mean, I think we've tried not to take any risks from that point forward, that could that could be catastrophic risk to the company. But on the micro level, we tried to take much more courageous bets. And I'd say, you know, I've we've had moments where I have felt our organization has slowed down, and thinks that we're now entitled to selling shoes every day, instead of having to go work every day and go sell those shoes. And those those moments scare the hell out of me. And, and I think when I sent those, I tried to re inject a sense of urgency, get rid of all that complacency, and try to push people to be courageous. And, you know, we're in a moment like that today. Today, we are in a situation where big brands and big companies realize that consumers care about sustainability. And so everybody is now starting to talk about sustainability. And they define it however they think is most prudent for their marketing benefit. And and I'm, it's interesting, because this change has happened much more quickly than I would have ever expected it to have happened. And if you see a brand, come out with a new product in three years, that's not from if they're using plastic that is not recycled plastic, I would be absolutely shocked. Everyone is going to be doing the bare minimum from this point forward, because they recognize that consumers are demanding it. So how do we stand out? And how do we stand out and make our statements clear that the way that we're doing things are with the authenticity that's required to really solve this problem? That's something that takes courageous action. And I think we're going to need to be more bold in our marketing, and in the statements that we make publicly to combat what will otherwise be an incredibly noisy room. And so how do we continue to stand out when that when that has kind of caught up with what we what we originally set out to accomplish?

David Novak 52:18

You have a lot of people trying to copycat what you do I belong to an Amazon developed a shoe, then you basically took them on directly, you know, how emotional you know, you're the founder that you created this stuff, you got to Amazon basically ripping you off? How do you feel about that? How do you handle that emotionally?

Joey Zwillinger 52:38

Ah, you know, I, I'm, I'm a competitor. So I look at it as I try to win. And I think that we're trying to win the right game, first of all, and so I'm unabashedly, I'm unabashedly comfortable with the idea that if we win, we're doing something good. And so I should try to win. And so I look at that situation, and I don't, I don't get upset, I get, I get competitive. And I just tried to understand why they're doing what they're doing. And you know, in the case of Amazon, they're doing it because they had so many people type Allbirds into their amazon.com search bar, that I know we're onto something good. And they sense that they sensed it too. So that's, that's a good thing. And then how they actually did it, they did it in a crappy way that we open sourced that foam material, they didn't even use it. They just tried to copy the look and try to siphon off demand that we've created for this new category of footwear. And and, you know, how do we beat them at that. And so we decided to, despite the fact that they are one of the most valuable companies in the world, it's not the most, depending on the day, that we'll just go at them and take them on and see if we can see if we can use the authenticity of our message to to win the day.

David Novak 53:51

You know, we're about to wrap this up. I always like to have a little fun with a little lightning round q&a here. So what three words would best describe you?

Joey Zwillinger 54:02

Urgent, bombastic, high energy.

David Novak 54:07

What's your biggest pet peeve?

Joey Zwillinger 54:10

lethargy,

David Novak 54:12

share a random fact about you that few people would know.

Joey Zwillinger 54:15

I have two colors of hair. And I was born with those two colors of hair and wallets thinning a little bit at the moment. You can still see it and my nickname was skunk growing up as a result.

David Novak 54:28

If you could trade places for one day with anyone in the world who would have be

Joey Zwillinger 54:34

probably, probably Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo. I wanted to be a pro soccer player like like a lot of kids and and I even like when I signed legal contracts now. It's still the signature that I developed when I was like, eight years old, because I wanted to make sure I had a cool looking signature when I signed my s Soccer ball when some kid comes up to me after my professional soccer game, Well, turns out that that didn't end up happening. But Tim Tims, my partner on that one. So you can take, he can take the glory.

David Novak 55:10

So joy, what three bits of advice would you give to aspiring leaders,

Joey Zwillinger 55:15

aspiring leaders, let's see, I would say, from a management perspective, be yourself. Don't try to be the manager you think you should be. from a leadership perspective, I would say when speaking about vision, make sure that you you draw a link between purpose and profit, and vice versa. And having that connection be fully aligned is, is one of the most powerful weapons in motivating a company and, and maintaining relevance with consumers. And, let's see, finally, from an individual perspective, I would just say, always realize that the rules of the game can be changed. And that's one of the most fun things about business in my perspective is, you know, without breaking any laws, or regulations or anything like that, not encouraging that. Understand that that rules are there, but that they're meant to be broken, and that they're meant to be changed, and businesses about dynamic leaders and individuals can can do almost anything to to make a huge difference and positive outcome.

David Novak 56:26

You know, the thing that I really admire about you and your company is you're so authentic. I mean, you're, you're definitely the real deal. You're a real deal as a brand. And you're a real deal as a person. And I always talk about the shadow the leader, it's clear that you cast a tremendous shadow and your entire company is passionate about what they do. And I want to thank you for taking the time for being on this show. Joy, you're an amazing guy.

Joey Zwillinger 56:51

Thank you humbled once again, to end the conversation just like I started. Thank you, David, really appreciate that.

David Novak 57:05

Well, Joy is just a fantastic example of that expression that we can do good by doing well. And while there are no easy answers when it comes to climate change, joy just knew he had to go after his big dream of starting a company that made sustainability a true priority. But it all started with a question he asked himself, what will I regret not doing? It's such a powerful question. And this week is part of your weekly personal development plan. I want you to ask yourself the same thing. Imagine you're looking back on today, or this week, or your entire career if you're feeling really brave. Ask yourself, What will you regret not doing? When we answer that question, we tap into a healthy sense of urgency that reminds us our days or weeks our careers are finite, and we have to make the most of them. Asking that question was the kickstart Joey needed to go out and start Allbirds and it can help you clarify what's really important to you. Whether it's as simple as trying to prioritize your daily schedule, or as significant as making a major career move. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders have a healthy sense of urgency. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be

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