[{"_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/2395/inspire-dont-preach","id",2395,"title","Inspire, don’t preach","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000\nI used to get an arguments with marketers who would say,\n\n2\n00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:08.440\nyou really need to bring out some clinical nutritionists\n\n3\n00:00:08.440 --> 00:00:10.160\nto tell people about how healthy this is.\n\n4\n00:00:10.160 --> 00:00:13.220\nYou need to market directly to mom in a really clear way.\n\n5\n00:00:13.220 --> 00:00:16.680\nAnd I said, now I wanna use athletes to do it.\n\n6\n00:00:16.680 --> 00:00:20.520\nAnd so, first of all, you know,\n\n7\n00:00:20.520 --> 00:00:23.480\nyou go to any marketing, you go to Kellogg or something\n\n8\n00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:25.480\nlike that, the business school, they'll say,\n\n9\n00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:27.400\nwell, traditional paradigms,\n\n10\n00:00:27.400 --> 00:00:28.720\nif mom is shopping in the supermarket\n\n11\n00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:31.320\nso you should tell her all your marketing to her.\n\n12\n00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:33.960\nAnd I said, well, I don't know.\n\n13\n00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:36.120\nI had this really distinct experience when I was a kid\n\n14\n00:00:36.120 --> 00:00:39.840\nwhere my mom was walking in the supermarket\n\n15\n00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:41.640\nand I was with her and our football coach\n\n16\n00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:43.840\nand I wasn't a great football player, I was very thin.\n\n17\n00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:46.760\nAnd, but I played, my brother was pretty big\n\n18\n00:00:46.760 --> 00:00:49.760\nand matured earlier than I did and everything is older than me.\n\n19\n00:00:49.760 --> 00:00:51.920\nAnd he walked by and he said, you know,\n\n20\n00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:54.320\nyou're serving those two boys steak, you know,\n\n21\n00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:56.720\nlike something like that, I think exactly those words.\n\n22\n00:00:56.720 --> 00:00:59.440\nNice, you know, he's sort of jotting with my mom.\n\n23\n00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:01.240\nAnd that made a big impression on me,\n\n24\n00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:04.240\nthat type of thinking that there's this link\n\n25\n00:01:04.240 --> 00:01:07.520\nbetween animal protein and masculinity.\n\n26\n00:01:07.520 --> 00:01:10.960\nAnd that if you don't consume animal protein,\n\n27\n00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:13.080\nsomehow you're less masculine, right?\n\n28\n00:01:13.080 --> 00:01:16.040\nAnd so I wanted to attack that at its core.\n\n29\n00:01:16.040 --> 00:01:18.960\nAnd so I wanted to use the Got Milk campaign as a model\n\n30\n00:01:18.960 --> 00:01:21.840\nthat said, look, let's help people understand\n\n31\n00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:24.640\nthat it's the amino acids they're consuming\n\n32\n00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:28.040\nand the protein itself, not the origin, right?\n\n33\n00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:29.480\nIt is important, right?\n\n34\n00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:32.320\nAnd so I wanted the very best performing athletes\n\n35\n00:01:32.320 --> 00:01:34.840\nin the world to start using our product\n\n36\n00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:35.920\nand then go tell people about it.\n\n37\n00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:36.760\nAnd then you know what that does?\n\n38\n00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:39.400\nThat arms mom with the information she needs\n\n39\n00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:40.760\nto get the rest of the table on board.\n\n40\n00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:43.240\nSo when she brings home a plant-based burger,\n\n41\n00:01:43.240 --> 00:01:45.760\nplant-based meat, she's not being, you know,\n\n42\n00:01:45.760 --> 00:01:48.880\nmocked by her children or by the husband,\n\n43\n00:01:48.880 --> 00:01:53.280\nshe has the tool she needs to get the rest of the family\n\n44\n00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:54.120\non board.\n\n45\n00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:56.320\nAnd so that was a very deliberate approach.\n\n46\n00:01:56.320 --> 00:01:57.240\nAnd I think it's worked.\n\n47\n00:01:57.240 --> 00:01:58.440\nYou know, you want to inspire people.\n\n48\n00:01:58.440 --> 00:01:59.680\nYou don't want to preach it to them.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",2152079,"end_time",2271419,"keywords","positive, marketers, paradigms, impression, attack, inspire, marketing, positioning,","slug","inspire-dont-preach","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","BfTT7YOABHER9MTcpjye2IJHXhtAnxpY9g01RnxhKKm8","mux_asset_id","a28dbaeKAzwbj02XeS01v00nh5VmGg8nPv7CPpLe4WC6gQ","leader_id",134,"episode_id",282,"updated_at","2025-03-07T15:24:59.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/2395/inspire-dont-preach","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","Tap Into the Power of Purpose","tap-into-the-power-of-purpose","Learn how a strong sense of purpose can transform your business – from product development, to messaging, to partnerships, and more. Plus, how to encourage a “fail fast” culture on your team (without sacrificing excellent work).","summary","

Today’s guest is Ethan Brown, Founder and CEO of Beyond Meat.

You hear a lot of leaders say they want to change the world. But that is literally Ethan’s mission at Beyond Meat. Their company is devoted to getting the same protein as animal meat straight from plants – so they can reduce climate change, improve human health, and help animal welfare. Now that’s an epic mission!

And when you listen to Ethan, you realize just how powerful his sense of purpose is. It’s the driving force behind the incredible product development at Beyond Meat. It’s what influences their marketing and competitive strategy.

It’s also a huge piece of their team culture.

That sense of purpose is like the ultimate source of renewable energy!

Now of course, your sense of purpose is going to vary. But great leaders know how to use purpose as motivation when the going gets tough or when they need to reach a big goal.

Nobody does that better than Ethan – and with so much intelligence and humility to boot. So let’s dig in and see how great leaders tap into the power of purpose.

You’ll also learn:

One common tactic that can actually hold your company back, especially in product development and marketing
The surprising mindset that helps you stay relevant in a rapidly shifting world
How to encourage the “fail fast” culture on your team
Why self-awareness is crucial to your growth as a leader

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 --> 00:00:08.720\nWelcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I\n\n2\n00:00:08.720 --> 00:00:09.360\ninterview some\n\n3\n00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:11.520\nof the very best leaders in the world.\n\n4\n00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:15.040\nI break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have\n\n5\n00:00:15.040 --> 00:00:15.680\nsomething\n\n6\n00:00:15.680 --> 00:00:19.520\nthat you can apply as you develop into a better leader.\n\n7\n00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:22.360\nThat's what this podcast is all about.\n\n8\n00:00:22.360 --> 00:00:26.560\nToday's guest is Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of Beyond Meat.\n\n9\n00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:30.600\nNow, you're going to hear a lot of leaders and they'll talk about changing the\n\n10\n00:00:30.600 --> 00:00:30.920\nworld,\n\n11\n00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:34.640\nbut that is literally Ethan's mission at Beyond Meat.\n\n12\n00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:39.480\nHis company is devoted to getting the same protein as animal meat straight from\n\n13\n00:00:39.480 --> 00:00:40.000\nplants\n\n14\n00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.760\nso that they can reduce climate change, improve human health, and help animal\n\n15\n00:00:44.760 --> 00:00:45.560\nwelfare.\n\n16\n00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:49.840\nNow, if that isn't an epic mission, I don't know what is.\n\n17\n00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:54.360\nAnd you know, when you listen to Ethan, you realize just how powerful his sense\n\n18\n00:00:54.360 --> 00:00:55.080\nof purpose\n\n19\n00:00:55.080 --> 00:00:56.080\nis.\n\n20\n00:00:56.080 --> 00:01:00.540\nThe driving force behind the incredible product development at Beyond Meat is\n\n21\n00:01:00.540 --> 00:01:01.520\nwhat influences\n\n22\n00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:04.200\ntheir marketing and competitive strategy.\n\n23\n00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.680\nIt's also a huge piece of their team culture.\n\n24\n00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:12.800\nThat sense of purpose is like the ultimate source of renewable energy.\n\n25\n00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:17.490\nNow, of course, your sense of purpose is going to vary, but great leaders know\n\n26\n00:01:17.490 --> 00:01:18.120\nhow to use\n\n27\n00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:24.420\npurpose as motivation when the going gets tough or they need to reach a big\n\n28\n00:01:24.420 --> 00:01:25.240\ngoal.\n\n29\n00:01:25.240 --> 00:01:30.320\nEthan does this exceptionally well and with so much intelligence and humility\n\n30\n00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:31.480\nto boot.\n\n31\n00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:35.960\nSo let's dig in and see how great leaders tap into the power of purpose.\n\n32\n00:01:35.960 --> 00:01:46.680\nHere's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Ethan Brown.\n\n33\n00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:49.200\nEthan, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us.\n\n34\n00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:51.120\nOh, it's such a pleasure to be here.\n\n35\n00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:56.330\nAs you know, I'm a big fan of your work and followed your career and read a lot\n\n36\n00:01:56.330 --> 00:01:56.920\nof your\n\n37\n00:01:56.920 --> 00:01:57.920\nwork.\n\n38\n00:01:57.920 --> 00:01:59.320\nAnd so just really appreciative to be here.\n\n39\n00:01:59.320 --> 00:02:02.720\nYou know, Ethan, I'd like to just start out by having you give us a basic\n\n40\n00:02:02.720 --> 00:02:03.360\nprimer.\n\n41\n00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:06.800\nWhat is Beyond Meat and what kind of products are you making today?\n\n42\n00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:07.800\nSure.\n\n43\n00:02:07.800 --> 00:02:10.280\nSo Beyond Meat is a protein company.\n\n44\n00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:15.560\nAnd what we do is instead of running plant material and water through animals,\n\n45\n00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:16.320\nwe instead\n\n46\n00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:19.560\nextract the core parts of meat directly from the plant.\n\n47\n00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:23.700\nAnd we use a system of heating, cooling, and pressure to align those in the\n\n48\n00:02:23.700 --> 00:02:24.560\narchitecture\n\n49\n00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:26.160\nof muscle or meat.\n\n50\n00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:29.190\nAnd so if you think about what the animal is doing, they're consuming a lot of\n\n51\n00:02:29.190 --> 00:02:29.840\nvegetation\n\n52\n00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:30.840\nand a lot of water.\n\n53\n00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:34.400\nAnd they use their biology to organize that in the form of muscle, which is\n\n54\n00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:35.080\nfamiliar to\n\n55\n00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:36.080\nus as meat.\n\n56\n00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:41.230\nBut what we're doing is taking those core parts of meat, which are amino acids,\n\n57\n00:02:41.230 --> 00:02:41.880\nlipids,\n\n58\n00:02:41.880 --> 00:02:47.280\ntrace minerals, vitamins, and of course water directly from plant material.\n\n59\n00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:50.720\nAnd we are organizing those against the blueprint or architecture of meat.\n\n60\n00:02:50.720 --> 00:02:53.240\nSo we're building meat directly from plants.\n\n61\n00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:54.920\nAnd for us, it's been 11 year journey.\n\n62\n00:02:54.920 --> 00:02:56.520\nWe're getting closer and closer.\n\n63\n00:02:56.520 --> 00:03:00.040\nBut we do believe there'll be a day when we'll be able to provide a product to\n\n64\n00:03:00.040 --> 00:03:00.720\nconsumers\n\n65\n00:03:00.720 --> 00:03:03.080\nthat is indistinguishable from animal protein.\n\n66\n00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:06.360\nAnd it provides terrific and nutritious protein for the son of the plate.\n\n67\n00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:10.020\nI understand that your dad, you know, he was a professor, but he actually grew\n\n68\n00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:10.440\nup on a\n\n69\n00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:13.760\nfarm and he had a farm when you were a kid.\n\n70\n00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:15.680\nIt was basically his hobby.\n\n71\n00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:16.680\nYeah.\n\n72\n00:03:16.680 --> 00:03:17.680\nCan he influence on you?\n\n73\n00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:19.080\nOh, yes, it did.\n\n74\n00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:20.080\nIt did.\n\n75\n00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:22.580\nAnd my father more generally, I've been very fortunate to enjoy a great\n\n76\n00:03:22.580 --> 00:03:23.320\nrelationship with\n\n77\n00:03:23.320 --> 00:03:24.320\nhim.\n\n78\n00:03:24.320 --> 00:03:25.320\nAnd he's actually still teaching.\n\n79\n00:03:25.320 --> 00:03:31.720\nHe's at McGill in Montreal and early on, he's an interesting person.\n\n80\n00:03:31.720 --> 00:03:34.920\nHe grew up in what was at the time rural Connecticut.\n\n81\n00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:41.680\nAnd my grandfather, his father was a minister and had the opportunity to be the\n\n82\n00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:42.560\nchaplain\n\n83\n00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:44.040\nat a couple of different colleges.\n\n84\n00:03:44.040 --> 00:03:48.360\nSo they moved a bit in New England doing that.\n\n85\n00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:51.000\nBut it was always in beautiful rural areas.\n\n86\n00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:56.080\nAnd so when it came time for him to pursue his career, he really had to decide\n\n87\n00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:56.520\nhow to\n\n88\n00:03:56.520 --> 00:04:00.740\nbalance his desire to be in the outdoors and in nature with his career\n\n89\n00:04:00.740 --> 00:04:01.960\nambitions, which\n\n90\n00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:05.280\nwere pretty significant around academia.\n\n91\n00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:12.220\nAnd so when he got his degree in philosophy from Columbia, and at the time, he\n\n92\n00:04:12.220 --> 00:04:12.960\nset the\n\n93\n00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:16.360\nrecord for finishing his coursework because he just couldn't stand being in New\n\n94\n00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:17.360\nYork City.\n\n95\n00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:21.760\nAnd that's very unusual for a young person to behave that way, right?\n\n96\n00:04:21.760 --> 00:04:24.840\nSo I just got to get out of the city.\n\n97\n00:04:24.840 --> 00:04:29.160\nAnd so that sort of stuck that kind of urgency to be out in the outdoors,\n\n98\n00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:30.080\nstayed with him\n\n99\n00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:31.080\nthroughout my childhood.\n\n100\n00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:36.320\nAnd so we grew up in Washington, DC, and then later in College Park, Maryland.\n\n101\n00:04:36.320 --> 00:04:40.370\nWe have a farm in the western part of the state of Maryland that became a\n\n102\n00:04:40.370 --> 00:04:41.000\nretreat for\n\n103\n00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:43.960\nus and my father's a bit entrepreneurial himself.\n\n104\n00:04:43.960 --> 00:04:48.660\nAnd so instead of it just being a casual hobby farm, he turned it to a dairy\n\n105\n00:04:48.660 --> 00:04:49.600\noperation with\n\n106\n00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:50.880\nour neighbor up there.\n\n107\n00:04:50.880 --> 00:04:54.290\nAnd so I did have a lot of time spent there and had an interesting childhood\n\n108\n00:04:54.290 --> 00:04:56.200\nwhere I was\n\n109\n00:04:56.200 --> 00:05:00.100\ngrowing up in the city, but also having these long stretches of time out in the\n\n110\n00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:00.720\ncountry.\n\n111\n00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:04.400\nAnd so I think I really learned a lot through that process and it forms my\n\n112\n00:05:04.400 --> 00:05:05.480\nthinking today.\n\n113\n00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:09.050\nMy mother, she actually lived on a farm and I could see the schoolhouse that\n\n114\n00:05:09.050 --> 00:05:09.600\nthey went\n\n115\n00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:10.600\nto about a mile.\n\n116\n00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:16.000\nI still can smell the tractor smell.\n\n117\n00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:17.640\nIt's always like in my mind.\n\n118\n00:05:17.640 --> 00:05:19.720\nOr the sound of a chainsaw.\n\n119\n00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:21.080\nIt just brings you right back.\n\n120\n00:05:21.080 --> 00:05:22.080\nIt's really interesting.\n\n121\n00:05:22.080 --> 00:05:23.080\nYeah, absolutely.\n\n122\n00:05:23.080 --> 00:05:27.150\nYou know, is it true I read this somewhere that you were actually a fast food\n\n123\n00:05:27.150 --> 00:05:27.880\njunkie?\n\n124\n00:05:27.880 --> 00:05:29.720\nThat's music to my ears.\n\n125\n00:05:29.720 --> 00:05:32.960\nBut is it true that you really like the fast food?\n\n126\n00:05:32.960 --> 00:05:34.240\nIt's more on target than that.\n\n127\n00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:39.940\nSo I have just terrific memories of being on the Chesapeake Bay and we used to\n\n128\n00:05:39.940 --> 00:05:40.840\nget a big\n\n129\n00:05:40.840 --> 00:05:46.330\nbucket of KFC and take it out on the bay and just have a great day sailing and\n\n130\n00:05:46.330 --> 00:05:47.120\nenjoying\n\n131\n00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:48.120\nKFC chicken.\n\n132\n00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:51.640\nAnd so my first date was at McDonald's.\n\n133\n00:05:51.640 --> 00:05:54.760\nAnd I grew up really enjoying that.\n\n134\n00:05:54.760 --> 00:05:59.330\nAnd I think it's great food and it's great experience to be able to get\n\n135\n00:05:59.330 --> 00:06:00.520\naffordable food\n\n136\n00:06:00.520 --> 00:06:01.520\nlike that.\n\n137\n00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:07.240\nSo for me, Beyond Meat has never been about high-end chefs or five-star\n\n138\n00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:08.680\nrestaurants.\n\n139\n00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:13.090\nIt's been about how do we meet people in their daily lives, where they are, and\n\n140\n00:06:13.090 --> 00:06:13.640\naffect the\n\n141\n00:06:13.640 --> 00:06:19.760\nmost and highest number of people providing them with nutritious food.\n\n142\n00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:23.200\nWell I'm really happy that you enjoyed that Kentucky Fried Chicken for a while.\n\n143\n00:06:23.200 --> 00:06:26.480\nNow I understand that you did become a vegan.\n\n144\n00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:28.040\nWhat really drove that process?\n\n145\n00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:29.560\nYou know, it's interesting.\n\n146\n00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:34.980\nSo I got into energy because I cared and I've stated this before but I think it\n\n147\n00:06:34.980 --> 00:06:37.280\n's worth repeating.\n\n148\n00:06:37.280 --> 00:06:41.350\nWhen I was getting out of school, I was restless like many young people and I\n\n149\n00:06:41.350 --> 00:06:41.960\ntook a lot of\n\n150\n00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:45.860\ndifferent turns trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to express my\n\n151\n00:06:45.860 --> 00:06:46.840\ncommitment to trying\n\n152\n00:06:46.840 --> 00:06:48.360\nto make this a better world.\n\n153\n00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:54.260\nAnd so I was sitting in my father's office kind of right after school and I was\n\n154\n00:06:54.260 --> 00:06:54.920\nsaying\n\n155\n00:06:54.920 --> 00:07:00.580\nI really want to stop studying right now and I want to just go out and enjoy\n\n156\n00:07:00.580 --> 00:07:01.160\nmyself by\n\n157\n00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:02.760\nfriends who are doing X, Y, and Z.\n\n158\n00:07:02.760 --> 00:07:04.360\nHe said let's talk about your career.\n\n159\n00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:05.360\nI said okay.\n\n160\n00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:07.600\nAnd I said how should I think about this?\n\n161\n00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:10.240\nHe said well what's the biggest problem in the world?\n\n162\n00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:14.330\nAnd it didn't come to me right away but I said we know I really think it's\n\n163\n00:07:14.330 --> 00:07:15.000\nprobably\n\n164\n00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:20.990\nclimate because if we can't get the climate stabilized, I could be the best\n\n165\n00:07:20.990 --> 00:07:21.560\nlawyer in\n\n166\n00:07:21.560 --> 00:07:25.840\nthe world or surgeon in the world or whatever I could try to aspire to be.\n\n167\n00:07:25.840 --> 00:07:30.350\nBut if the world is destabilized because of the basic environment in which we\n\n168\n00:07:30.350 --> 00:07:30.640\nlive\n\n169\n00:07:30.640 --> 00:07:35.030\nhas become unstable, those things are going to be impacted and it's going to\n\n170\n00:07:35.030 --> 00:07:36.400\nimpact everything.\n\n171\n00:07:36.400 --> 00:07:39.080\nSo if you ask me what the biggest problem is, I have to say well it's probably\n\n172\n00:07:39.080 --> 00:07:39.520\nclimate\n\n173\n00:07:39.520 --> 00:07:40.520\nchange.\n\n174\n00:07:40.520 --> 00:07:43.710\nAnd so he said well that's probably a good way to focus your career and so I\n\n175\n00:07:43.710 --> 00:07:44.280\ndid that.\n\n176\n00:07:44.280 --> 00:07:45.880\nI thought that makes sense to me.\n\n177\n00:07:45.880 --> 00:07:52.750\nAnd so I started to get into energy and worked for a long time in energy but I\n\n178\n00:07:52.750 --> 00:07:55.000\nbegan to realize\n\n179\n00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:01.670\nthat it wasn't just the car we drive or the light ball we use or the power\n\n180\n00:08:01.670 --> 00:08:02.880\nplant, the\n\n181\n00:08:02.880 --> 00:08:06.280\npower, the facilities in which we work.\n\n182\n00:08:06.280 --> 00:08:09.430\nIt's also the protein at the center of the plate and in fact the protein at the\n\n183\n00:08:09.430 --> 00:08:09.800\ncenter\n\n184\n00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:14.490\nof the plate is probably a more important solution than anything else we can do\n\n185\n00:08:14.490 --> 00:08:15.160\nin terms of\n\n186\n00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:16.400\naddressing climate.\n\n187\n00:08:16.400 --> 00:08:22.230\nAnd so that became a fascination for me and I said I got to go out and figure\n\n188\n00:08:22.230 --> 00:08:22.840\nout how\n\n189\n00:08:22.840 --> 00:08:29.450\nwe can continue to enjoy the incredible experience of the culinary work we've\n\n190\n00:08:29.450 --> 00:08:31.120\ndone around animal\n\n191\n00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:32.640\nprotein etc.\n\n192\n00:08:32.640 --> 00:08:35.580\nBut do it with protein as direct from plants and that will make a very\n\n193\n00:08:35.580 --> 00:08:36.920\nsignificant contribution\n\n194\n00:08:36.920 --> 00:08:37.920\nto climate.\n\n195\n00:08:37.920 --> 00:08:39.400\nNow I also had other motivations.\n\n196\n00:08:39.400 --> 00:08:42.950\nWhen you grow up around the animals on the farm it's much harder to think about\n\n197\n00:08:42.950 --> 00:08:43.320\nthem as\n\n198\n00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:44.320\nunits.\n\n199\n00:08:44.320 --> 00:08:48.760\nSo you begin to think about them in their lives then you begin to think about\n\n200\n00:08:48.760 --> 00:08:49.280\nthe use\n\n201\n00:08:49.280 --> 00:08:53.600\nof land energy and water and then of course human health.\n\n202\n00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:56.300\nAnd so all of those things started to fascinate me and I became really\n\n203\n00:08:56.300 --> 00:08:57.160\ninterested in this\n\n204\n00:08:57.160 --> 00:09:02.330\none concept that I could focus on one thing which is changing the protein at\n\n205\n00:09:02.330 --> 00:09:03.080\nthe center\n\n206\n00:09:03.080 --> 00:09:06.700\nof the plate from an animal based protein to a plant based protein and I could\n\n207\n00:09:06.700 --> 00:09:07.600\nsimultaneously\n\n208\n00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:10.320\nadvance four things that I think are important.\n\n209\n00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:14.790\nIt's human health, it's climate change, it's the conservation of natural\n\n210\n00:09:14.790 --> 00:09:15.640\nresources and\n\n211\n00:09:15.640 --> 00:09:16.960\nlastly animal welfare.\n\n212\n00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:20.660\nI've never seen anything in my career and I still haven't today where through a\n\n213\n00:09:20.660 --> 00:09:21.200\nsingular\n\n214\n00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:25.040\nfocus you can advance four really important objectives.\n\n215\n00:09:25.040 --> 00:09:27.360\nWhat do you think you do most that improves human health?\n\n216\n00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:29.080\nI want to go through each one of those trends.\n\n217\n00:09:29.080 --> 00:09:30.080\nThat's very interesting.\n\n218\n00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:31.080\nSure.\n\n219\n00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:35.520\nSo I think it's something that's just constantly evolving.\n\n220\n00:09:35.520 --> 00:09:40.250\nAnd so, and by the way, we've worked with KFC as you know and it's just been a\n\n221\n00:09:40.250 --> 00:09:41.080\ntremendous\n\n222\n00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:43.200\nexperience and they are, you should be very proud.\n\n223\n00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:46.670\nI mean they're leaning forward in a way that just shows their leadership and\n\n224\n00:09:46.670 --> 00:09:47.200\nKevin there\n\n225\n00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:50.880\nand I mean it's just, it's been a remarkable partnership.\n\n226\n00:09:50.880 --> 00:09:55.560\nAnd so the idea here is let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.\n\n227\n00:09:55.560 --> 00:09:58.700\nLet's try to get everything that's great about animal protein which is there's\n\n228\n00:09:58.700 --> 00:09:59.440\na lot, right?\n\n229\n00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:02.440\nIt's got good sources of protein, et cetera.\n\n230\n00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:08.840\nBut you have to also remember that the muscle which we harvest as meat is there\n\n231\n00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:09.520\nfor the\n\n232\n00:10:09.520 --> 00:10:11.120\nanimal to do work.\n\n233\n00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:13.760\nJust like the muscle in your bicep is there to do work.\n\n234\n00:10:13.760 --> 00:10:17.720\nSo not everything in that muscle is going to be great for you if you consume it\n\n235\n00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:18.160\nevery\n\n236\n00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:19.360\nday, right?\n\n237\n00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:23.560\nAnd so let's find a way to capture everything that's great in that and reduce\n\n238\n00:10:23.560 --> 00:10:24.200\nthe things\n\n239\n00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:25.200\nthat aren't.\n\n240\n00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:27.930\nAnd so we think about our products have no cholesterol, they have lower\n\n241\n00:10:27.930 --> 00:10:28.600\nsaturated fat,\n\n242\n00:10:28.600 --> 00:10:31.200\nthey have no heme iron, they have no heterocyclic amine.\n\n243\n00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:35.830\nSo all of these things that are increasingly of concern in the mental community\n\n244\n00:10:35.830 --> 00:10:36.080\n, we can\n\n245\n00:10:36.080 --> 00:10:37.440\nstrip out.\n\n246\n00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:41.800\nAnd so for me, we actually trademark this, we feel so passionate about it.\n\n247\n00:10:41.800 --> 00:10:43.040\nEat what you love.\n\n248\n00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:46.780\nIf you love having burgers, if you love having chicken, go ahead and keep doing\n\n249\n00:10:46.780 --> 00:10:47.280\nit, but we're\n\n250\n00:10:47.280 --> 00:10:49.840\ngoing to do it in a way that's better for you.\n\n251\n00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:52.160\nAnd that's where plant-based meat comes into play.\n\n252\n00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:55.520\nWell, how do you even respond to the criticism that you get that the food is\n\n253\n00:10:55.520 --> 00:10:56.400\ntoo processed?\n\n254\n00:10:56.400 --> 00:11:00.730\nYeah, it's a great, I really appreciate the question because it is an important\n\n255\n00:11:00.730 --> 00:11:01.160\nperspective\n\n256\n00:11:01.160 --> 00:11:05.240\nthat we have to do a lot of education around.\n\n257\n00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:10.420\nAnd with the COVID-19 disruption that's happened to our economy, we've taken up\n\n258\n00:11:10.420 --> 00:11:11.520\npause on that.\n\n259\n00:11:11.520 --> 00:11:19.570\nBut 2020 really will be about for us clarifying with the consumer what it means\n\n260\n00:11:19.570 --> 00:11:20.760\nto think about\n\n261\n00:11:20.760 --> 00:11:21.920\nour process.\n\n262\n00:11:21.920 --> 00:11:26.240\nAnd so first and foremost, I really believe it's a tale of two processes.\n\n263\n00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:30.980\nIf you look at our process, we're stripping the protein from the plant, how do\n\n264\n00:11:30.980 --> 00:11:31.120\nwe do\n\n265\n00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:32.120\nthat?\n\n266\n00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:33.120\nIt's pretty basic.\n\n267\n00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:37.050\nSo we have a supplier now that does this for us, but what happens is, let's say\n\n268\n00:11:37.050 --> 00:11:37.320\nI'll\n\n269\n00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:39.560\ntake a piece.\n\n270\n00:11:39.560 --> 00:11:44.030\nSo the peas are milled, so you have a flour, and then you place that flour in\n\n271\n00:11:44.030 --> 00:11:44.640\nliterally\n\n272\n00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:45.640\nin the water.\n\n273\n00:11:45.640 --> 00:11:48.370\nYou change the pH level of that water, you could do that with a lemon if you\n\n274\n00:11:48.370 --> 00:11:48.760\nwanted\n\n275\n00:11:48.760 --> 00:11:49.920\nto.\n\n276\n00:11:49.920 --> 00:11:53.120\nAnd that separates the fiber and the protein.\n\n277\n00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:57.040\nThe protein is extracted and it's dried.\n\n278\n00:11:57.040 --> 00:11:59.360\nAnd then we run that through heating, cooling, and pressure.\n\n279\n00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:03.060\nAnd that's essentially resetting the bonds from the organization that they\n\n280\n00:12:03.060 --> 00:12:03.680\nwould have\n\n281\n00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:09.800\nin a plant to one that's more analogous to one that they would have in muscle.\n\n282\n00:12:09.800 --> 00:12:11.240\nThat's kind of our process.\n\n283\n00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:15.860\nNow you have to just oppose that with the other process, which is to feed a lot\n\n284\n00:12:15.860 --> 00:12:16.480\nof material\n\n285\n00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:22.960\nto an animal, use the animal's biology to convert all of that into muscle, and\n\n286\n00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:23.320\nthen you\n\n287\n00:12:23.320 --> 00:12:25.840\nharvest the animal or slaughter the animal.\n\n288\n00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:26.840\nThere are a lot of steps in that.\n\n289\n00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.160\nThe consumers are increasingly uncomfortable with including the use of\n\n290\n00:12:29.160 --> 00:12:29.760\nantibiotics and\n\n291\n00:12:29.760 --> 00:12:30.920\nthings like that.\n\n292\n00:12:30.920 --> 00:12:32.600\nSo we're able to skip all of that.\n\n293\n00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:37.040\nSo I think it's important to think about, you know, process is simply a word,\n\n294\n00:12:37.040 --> 00:12:37.200\nand it's\n\n295\n00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:41.040\nactually, if you look it up, it's a series of steps towards a goal, right?\n\n296\n00:12:41.040 --> 00:12:42.960\nSo process is neutral.\n\n297\n00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:47.060\nAnd I think there's been some clever marketing among incumbent members of\n\n298\n00:12:47.060 --> 00:12:48.280\nindustry to suggest\n\n299\n00:12:48.280 --> 00:12:50.840\nthat just because there's a process involved, that's somehow bad.\n\n300\n00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:54.400\nI think it's important to step back and say, okay, what is the process?\n\n301\n00:12:54.400 --> 00:12:55.880\nYeah, that's a great point.\n\n302\n00:12:55.880 --> 00:12:58.910\nYou know, and I want to talk a little bit more about that later, that the\n\n303\n00:12:58.910 --> 00:12:59.560\nsecond trend that\n\n304\n00:12:59.560 --> 00:13:03.780\nyou're addressing, which you already brought up was the whole issue of climate\n\n305\n00:13:03.780 --> 00:13:04.360\nchange,\n\n306\n00:13:04.360 --> 00:13:08.200\nwhat would be the biggest thing you're doing that's going to impact that?\n\n307\n00:13:08.200 --> 00:13:14.800\nIt's really around the more efficient conversion of plant material to meat.\n\n308\n00:13:14.800 --> 00:13:18.690\nAnd so if you look at, if you take a burger, for example, that's created\n\n309\n00:13:18.690 --> 00:13:20.000\nthrough our process,\n\n310\n00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:23.020\nand you take a burger that's created through the normal process of running the\n\n311\n00:13:23.020 --> 00:13:23.680\nplant material\n\n312\n00:13:23.680 --> 00:13:24.520\nthrough the animal.\n\n313\n00:13:24.520 --> 00:13:29.450\nWe have 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and that just has to do with a lot\n\n314\n00:13:29.450 --> 00:13:30.560\nof efficiencies\n\n315\n00:13:30.560 --> 00:13:31.880\nalong the way.\n\n316\n00:13:31.880 --> 00:13:36.480\nAnd so just like in business, in operations courses, microeconomics courses,\n\n317\n00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:37.040\nthe goal\n\n318\n00:13:37.040 --> 00:13:42.190\nhere is to debodel neck the production of protein, and the big bottleneck in\n\n319\n00:13:42.190 --> 00:13:42.840\nprotein\n\n320\n00:13:42.840 --> 00:13:44.200\nproduction is the animal.\n\n321\n00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:48.040\nAnd if you can extract that from the process, you gain these efficiencies,\n\n322\n00:13:48.040 --> 00:13:49.160\nwhich then afford\n\n323\n00:13:49.160 --> 00:13:51.680\nthese environmental benefits, and that's what's happening with us.\n\n324\n00:13:51.680 --> 00:13:53.000\nYeah, that's very interesting.\n\n325\n00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:58.200\nAnd the other thing that you're attacking, Ethan, is addressing global resource\n\n326\n00:13:58.200 --> 00:13:59.320\nconstraints.\n\n327\n00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:00.520\nHow are you doing that?\n\n328\n00:14:00.520 --> 00:14:05.550\nYes, I'd also be remiss to not bring up your own mamata that, sorry, and the\n\n329\n00:14:05.550 --> 00:14:06.040\nwork you've\n\n330\n00:14:06.040 --> 00:14:07.040\ndone there.\n\n331\n00:14:07.040 --> 00:14:08.360\nAnd so let me just take a second to do that.\n\n332\n00:14:08.360 --> 00:14:09.800\nYeah, I wanted to ask you about that.\n\n333\n00:14:09.800 --> 00:14:13.560\nWe wouldn't be having this conversation if we're not for that university.\n\n334\n00:14:13.560 --> 00:14:19.670\nI just can't say enough good things about the people there and the values they\n\n335\n00:14:19.670 --> 00:14:20.400\nhave.\n\n336\n00:14:20.400 --> 00:14:24.590\nThe reason I brought that up in this context is that America has these terrific\n\n337\n00:14:24.590 --> 00:14:25.080\nland-grant\n\n338\n00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:28.240\nuniversities, Missouri is one of them, University of Maryland is another one.\n\n339\n00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:31.840\nI worked with both of them to form this company.\n\n340\n00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:38.830\nAnd it's, I think, a really interesting outcome that two universities who have\n\n341\n00:14:38.830 --> 00:14:40.480\nstrong AG programs\n\n342\n00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:45.730\nhelp to develop a company that will, I think, bring the next revolution to\n\n343\n00:14:45.730 --> 00:14:46.880\nagriculture in\n\n344\n00:14:46.880 --> 00:14:49.080\nterms of making it more efficient, right?\n\n345\n00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:55.400\nAnd so if you think about the efficiency of our system, we're using 99% less\n\n346\n00:14:55.400 --> 00:14:56.200\nwater to\n\n347\n00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:58.600\nproduce a burger, right?\n\n348\n00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:01.360\nWe're using 93% less land, right?\n\n349\n00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:05.960\nSo the benefits there are really quantifiable.\n\n350\n00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:11.760\nAnd so our goal is then to make sure that we're not asking you as a consumer\n\n351\n00:15:11.760 --> 00:15:12.360\ngoing to\n\n352\n00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:19.300\nKFC or going to the Taco Bell or going into any of these institutions to make a\n\n353\n00:15:19.300 --> 00:15:20.520\nsacrifice,\n\n354\n00:15:20.520 --> 00:15:22.580\nbecause we know how consumers are, right?\n\n355\n00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:24.360\nWe have to continue to delight them.\n\n356\n00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:26.880\nAnd that's why I do admire what Tesla has done, right?\n\n357\n00:15:26.880 --> 00:15:27.880\nThey've taken something.\n\n358\n00:15:27.880 --> 00:15:29.640\nIt's a social issue.\n\n359\n00:15:29.640 --> 00:15:30.640\nAnd they've made it a-learning.\n\n360\n00:15:30.640 --> 00:15:34.080\nThey've said, \"We're going to create cars and you're going to want to drive.\n\n361\n00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:35.240\nYou're going to seek this out.\n\n362\n00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:36.520\nWe have to do that beyond meat.\"\n\n363\n00:15:36.520 --> 00:15:38.600\nAnd I think we're on our way to doing that.\n\n364\n00:15:38.600 --> 00:15:43.560\nWe learned that many times people do not want to compromise on taste.\n\n365\n00:15:43.560 --> 00:15:45.400\nPeople want it all.\n\n366\n00:15:45.400 --> 00:15:46.800\nThey don't want to make the compromise.\n\n367\n00:15:46.800 --> 00:15:50.870\nSo you can talk about being more nutritious and affecting climate change and\n\n368\n00:15:50.870 --> 00:15:51.520\nall that,\n\n369\n00:15:51.520 --> 00:15:54.640\nbut it doesn't taste good.\n\n370\n00:15:54.640 --> 00:15:56.120\nPeople aren't going to eat it.\n\n371\n00:15:56.120 --> 00:15:59.960\nYou're not going to get the ticket in your hand to have the conversation.\n\n372\n00:15:59.960 --> 00:16:01.880\nYou've got to make a taste grade, and that's okay.\n\n373\n00:16:01.880 --> 00:16:02.880\nI mean, that's fine.\n\n374\n00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:08.200\nLook, the original, this stone is a friend and one of our early investors.\n\n375\n00:16:08.200 --> 00:16:11.600\nAnd years ago, when we were starting out, we used to talk about this.\n\n376\n00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:16.160\nThat food is one of the original social media, right?\n\n377\n00:16:16.160 --> 00:16:20.280\nIt was what we all gather around to talk and meet and share our day and things\n\n378\n00:16:20.280 --> 00:16:20.760\nof that\n\n379\n00:16:20.760 --> 00:16:21.760\nnature.\n\n380\n00:16:21.760 --> 00:16:22.760\nAnd so we want to enjoy it.\n\n381\n00:16:22.760 --> 00:16:23.760\nAnd that's fine.\n\n382\n00:16:23.760 --> 00:16:26.640\nWe will fail if we don't delight the consumer.\n\n383\n00:16:26.640 --> 00:16:29.360\nAnd we have to keep that front and center of everything we do.\n\n384\n00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:30.360\nYeah, absolutely.\n\n385\n00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:34.600\nThe other trend that you're talking about is improving animal welfare.\n\n386\n00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:37.000\nThat's pretty self-explanatory of your cow.\n\n387\n00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:38.920\nBut give me your perspective on it.\n\n388\n00:16:38.920 --> 00:16:44.440\nWell, I just think it's, we've innovated around so much in our life.\n\n389\n00:16:44.440 --> 00:16:45.440\nAnd I love innovation.\n\n390\n00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:47.320\nI'm very passionate about it.\n\n391\n00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:53.320\nI think this is a story of American innovation that's as neat as any in the\n\n392\n00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:54.760\nsense that we're\n\n393\n00:16:54.760 --> 00:16:57.560\ntaking something that we all think is a good.\n\n394\n00:16:57.560 --> 00:17:01.560\nWe really enjoy that center of the plate protein.\n\n395\n00:17:01.560 --> 00:17:02.960\nAnd we're trying to make it better.\n\n396\n00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:07.880\nAnd so we're not doing this over a telegram.\n\n397\n00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:11.520\nWe're not doing it over a landline.\n\n398\n00:17:11.520 --> 00:17:14.280\nWe're doing it over something that is eclipsed all of those.\n\n399\n00:17:14.280 --> 00:17:15.800\nAnd that's the process of innovation.\n\n400\n00:17:15.800 --> 00:17:21.190\nNobody had to land-bast or denigrate the landline to make the mobile phone\n\n401\n00:17:21.190 --> 00:17:22.680\npopular, right?\n\n402\n00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:26.800\nAnd so we don't really have to beat up on the old system.\n\n403\n00:17:26.800 --> 00:17:28.360\nWe just have to make something that's better.\n\n404\n00:17:28.360 --> 00:17:33.340\nAnd so if you can create meat without using the animal, I think very few people\n\n405\n00:17:33.340 --> 00:17:33.840\nwould\n\n406\n00:17:33.840 --> 00:17:35.480\nsay that's not a good idea.\n\n407\n00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:37.440\nLet's try to do it.\n\n408\n00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:39.240\nAnd I think we can.\n\n409\n00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:42.960\nAnd that then takes the moral question off the table.\n\n410\n00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:45.000\nAnd that's something I'm very happy to do.\n\n411\n00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:48.720\nYou've got some really altruistic things that you're trying to do here.\n\n412\n00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:51.720\nWhich one of these global trends do you think is most important that you just\n\n413\n00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:52.800\ntalked about?\n\n414\n00:17:52.800 --> 00:17:53.800\nIs it climate change?\n\n415\n00:17:53.800 --> 00:17:55.720\nWell, I can tell you where the consumer is.\n\n416\n00:17:55.720 --> 00:18:01.200\nThe consumer comes to us first over health, for sure.\n\n417\n00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:06.090\nAnd then there is a halo that can develop around the fact that you're doing\n\n418\n00:18:06.090 --> 00:18:06.920\nsomething\n\n419\n00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:12.440\nthat's great for your body, but also can be really good for the Earth.\n\n420\n00:18:12.440 --> 00:18:13.520\nBut it's interesting.\n\n421\n00:18:13.520 --> 00:18:15.880\nThere are some demographic trends, right?\n\n422\n00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:19.680\nSo 40 and older, definitely health as a driver.\n\n423\n00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:22.630\nBut young people, looking at the folks like Greta and others that are\n\n424\n00:18:22.630 --> 00:18:23.440\nprotesting over\n\n425\n00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:25.640\nclimate, they're coming to it first.\n\n426\n00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:26.640\nThere's the environment.\n\n427\n00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:30.920\nNow, we have to always say, we got to get taste first.\n\n428\n00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:33.960\nWe got to really delight the consumer.\n\n429\n00:18:33.960 --> 00:18:35.360\nSecond, nutrition.\n\n430\n00:18:35.360 --> 00:18:38.200\nPeople think that plant-based eating is healthier.\n\n431\n00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:39.760\nDon't disappoint them.\n\n432\n00:18:39.760 --> 00:18:43.920\nDon't have a turnout that there's something in there that's not good for them\n\n433\n00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:44.400\nor that\n\n434\n00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:48.680\nthe levels of X, Y, and Z are in excess or something.\n\n435\n00:18:48.680 --> 00:18:50.640\nMake sure it really is healthier.\n\n436\n00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:52.840\nAnd so we do a ton of work on that.\n\n437\n00:18:52.840 --> 00:18:57.020\nWe work with Stanford, we work with a bunch of different institutions on\n\n438\n00:18:57.020 --> 00:18:58.120\nconstantly looking\n\n439\n00:18:58.120 --> 00:19:01.080\nat how do we make our products healthier and healthier?\n\n440\n00:19:01.080 --> 00:19:05.490\nAnd so, but first and foremost, is that a second-sumer coming after us for\n\n441\n00:19:05.490 --> 00:19:06.160\nhealth?\n\n442\n00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:10.020\nNow, of course, everyone today is concerned about infectious disease that is\n\n443\n00:19:10.020 --> 00:19:10.520\ncreated\n\n444\n00:19:10.520 --> 00:19:11.840\nfrom animals.\n\n445\n00:19:11.840 --> 00:19:16.280\nAnd this has to make your products even more on trend.\n\n446\n00:19:16.280 --> 00:19:18.440\nWhat are you hearing from consumers on that front?\n\n447\n00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:22.520\nYou do hear that, and there have been some op-eds written by particularly those\n\n448\n00:19:22.520 --> 00:19:23.120\nacademics\n\n449\n00:19:23.120 --> 00:19:26.600\nthat have written on that point.\n\n450\n00:19:26.600 --> 00:19:30.600\nI think what's happening here is you have to look at the ratio.\n\n451\n00:19:30.600 --> 00:19:34.450\nAnd I have a terrific chart, which I sometimes show, which is the ratio of\n\n452\n00:19:34.450 --> 00:19:35.640\nhumans to livestock\n\n453\n00:19:35.640 --> 00:19:37.720\non the Earth's surface.\n\n454\n00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:41.780\nAnd as you grow that human population, and if that ratio holds or even\n\n455\n00:19:41.780 --> 00:19:42.720\nincreases as the\n\n456\n00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:47.670\ndeveloping world becomes much more interesting eating animal protein, you are\n\n457\n00:19:47.670 --> 00:19:48.320\nreaching\n\n458\n00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:53.090\nvery, very quickly the limits of what our ecosystem globally can handle and\n\n459\n00:19:53.090 --> 00:19:53.680\nwhat the\n\n460\n00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:54.680\nbiosphere can handle.\n\n461\n00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:57.360\nYou can't have infinite growth in a finite system.\n\n462\n00:19:57.360 --> 00:19:59.160\nThat's a pretty simple idea.\n\n463\n00:19:59.160 --> 00:20:00.360\nBut that's what we're trying to do.\n\n464\n00:20:00.360 --> 00:20:02.080\nAnd so we have to somehow break that ratio.\n\n465\n00:20:02.080 --> 00:20:06.390\nWe have to somehow be able to feed the population without growing the livestock\n\n466\n00:20:06.390 --> 00:20:07.040\nnumbers, right?\n\n467\n00:20:07.040 --> 00:20:09.360\nAnd in fact, dramatically reducing them.\n\n468\n00:20:09.360 --> 00:20:13.220\nAnd so, what you're seeing with some of these things is that we're bumping up\n\n469\n00:20:13.220 --> 00:20:14.160\nagainst limits\n\n470\n00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:18.600\nof what a ecosystem and biological system can handle.\n\n471\n00:20:18.600 --> 00:20:21.680\nAnd so you are seeing whether it's bird flu or what's happening here.\n\n472\n00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:24.480\nYou're starting to see those boundaries be compromised.\n\n473\n00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:28.560\nEthan, you talked about why you started the company.\n\n474\n00:20:28.560 --> 00:20:32.000\nAnd it seemed to be more of a process than a aha moment.\n\n475\n00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:35.240\nDid you wake up one night and say, \"I'm going to do this.\"\n\n476\n00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:37.120\nDo you remember that aha moment?\n\n477\n00:20:37.120 --> 00:20:38.680\nNo, no.\n\n478\n00:20:38.680 --> 00:20:43.640\nYou know, you got to get uncomfortable about something, I think, sometimes.\n\n479\n00:20:43.640 --> 00:20:47.680\nAnd I started to get really uncomfortable about this year over year.\n\n480\n00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:52.170\nYou know, I just, I began to think there's something here in the sense of that\n\n481\n00:20:52.170 --> 00:20:52.560\nyou didn't\n\n482\n00:20:52.560 --> 00:20:54.320\nneed to use the animal to build meat.\n\n483\n00:20:54.320 --> 00:20:56.280\nAnd I knew about Veggie burgers and things like that.\n\n484\n00:20:56.280 --> 00:20:58.680\nThat was never my interest.\n\n485\n00:20:58.680 --> 00:21:03.360\nWhat I wanted to do was to try to figure out, and this is something I think has\n\n486\n00:21:03.360 --> 00:21:04.000\nhelped me\n\n487\n00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:09.850\nin my career, and it's both a plus and a minus for me for sure, is that I will\n\n488\n00:21:09.850 --> 00:21:10.680\nmarinate\n\n489\n00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:14.560\nin problems in terms of trying to figure them out.\n\n490\n00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:17.890\nAnd so that can be really healthy when it's directed toward something that's\n\n491\n00:21:17.890 --> 00:21:18.400\npositive\n\n492\n00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:22.720\nlike work or if it can be unhealthy if it's ruminating about something.\n\n493\n00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:29.340\nAnd so in the sense that I just started to think this isn't the right way to go\n\n494\n00:21:29.340 --> 00:21:30.440\nforward.\n\n495\n00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:32.320\nHow do we do something different?\n\n496\n00:21:32.320 --> 00:21:36.190\nAnd year over year, you know, I was in the fuel-cell industry, and I was making\n\n497\n00:21:36.190 --> 00:21:36.480\ngreat\n\n498\n00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:39.000\nprogress, as I mentioned, or talked about.\n\n499\n00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:41.200\nSo I'm in a great career, right?\n\n500\n00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:44.400\nBut I just felt like it's an itch that I had to scratch.\n\n501\n00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:47.610\nYou know, really when my kids were born and I started to realize the food\n\n502\n00:21:47.610 --> 00:21:48.560\nchoices that\n\n503\n00:21:48.560 --> 00:21:51.310\nthey were going to have to make, I said, \"I got to go do this because I don't\n\n504\n00:21:51.310 --> 00:21:51.600\ndo it.\n\n505\n00:21:51.600 --> 00:21:52.600\nI'm going to regret it.\"\n\n506\n00:21:52.600 --> 00:21:55.640\nAnd so was that discomfort really that pushed me over the edge the most?\n\n507\n00:21:55.640 --> 00:21:59.440\nI love the idea of people pursuing things because of just the fear of the lost\n\n508\n00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:00.080\npotential\n\n509\n00:22:00.080 --> 00:22:01.080\nthat you have.\n\n510\n00:22:01.080 --> 00:22:02.080\n100%.\n\n511\n00:22:02.080 --> 00:22:06.460\nWell, you took the company public and you know, you've had enormous success by\n\n512\n00:22:06.460 --> 00:22:07.200\nanybody's\n\n513\n00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:08.200\nstandard.\n\n514\n00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:11.960\nSo obviously you've achieved some tremendous personal wealth.\n\n515\n00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:17.560\nBut I know that you live a relatively understated lifestyle.\n\n516\n00:22:17.560 --> 00:22:20.240\nYou take Uber when you go on market tours.\n\n517\n00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:21.840\nYou don't take the limos.\n\n518\n00:22:21.840 --> 00:22:27.280\nAnd you actually, the last I heard is that you drive a 2016 Prius.\n\n519\n00:22:27.280 --> 00:22:29.800\nWhat's keeping you out of the limos in the Ferraris?\n\n520\n00:22:29.800 --> 00:22:32.760\nI mean, how do you stay in grounded?\n\n521\n00:22:32.760 --> 00:22:35.560\nSo I do have to admit, I finally did get a Tesla.\n\n522\n00:22:35.560 --> 00:22:39.000\nBut I don't think I was just raised that way.\n\n523\n00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:41.560\nI think, look, I was raised in middle class.\n\n524\n00:22:41.560 --> 00:22:46.920\nSo I had no issues at all with material comfort growing up.\n\n525\n00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:48.720\nI'm very blessed in that way.\n\n526\n00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:56.160\nAnd I look at your childhood of moving around and just the credible resilience.\n\n527\n00:22:56.160 --> 00:23:02.680\nAnd I was very, very fortunate to have a middle class upbringing.\n\n528\n00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:05.920\nBut we were never the family with the nice cars or anything of that nature.\n\n529\n00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:10.200\nAnd my dad being an academic, I think that was kind of his approach.\n\n530\n00:23:10.200 --> 00:23:14.760\nAnd look, I'll buy probably a lot of land, things like that.\n\n531\n00:23:14.760 --> 00:23:16.440\nBut it's just kind of who you are.\n\n532\n00:23:16.440 --> 00:23:17.440\nWell, that's great.\n\n533\n00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:20.880\nIt sounds like you just might be the Warren Buffett of the food industry.\n\n534\n00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:23.720\nI met with Warren and he drives his Lincoln Continental.\n\n535\n00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:26.240\nAnd he probably drives the Tesla down for all I know.\n\n536\n00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:27.240\nI'll tell you what.\n\n537\n00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:28.880\nSo I love Buffett.\n\n538\n00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:30.480\nAnd so it's funny.\n\n539\n00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:33.160\nBecause you wouldn't sort of-- the business school that I went to,\n\n540\n00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:34.440\nI went to because of him.\n\n541\n00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:36.160\nI applied to one business school.\n\n542\n00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:40.600\nAnd they asked me in the interview for the school, they said, well, why do you\n\n543\n00:23:40.600 --> 00:23:41.000\nwant to come here?\n\n544\n00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:42.560\nAnd I really hadn't done my homework unfortunately.\n\n545\n00:23:42.560 --> 00:23:44.840\nI just knew that I really-- I read all Warren's stuff.\n\n546\n00:23:44.840 --> 00:23:48.160\nAnd I read all his annual reports and things like that.\n\n547\n00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:50.440\nAnd I said, wow, I want to-- what do we want to study?\n\n548\n00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:52.440\nI said, well, I want to study leadership.\n\n549\n00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:54.840\nI was like, we don't have a leadership program.\n\n550\n00:23:54.840 --> 00:23:58.120\nI was like, oh, no, I'm not going to get in here.\n\n551\n00:23:58.120 --> 00:24:00.920\nAnd so the interview after that went fine.\n\n552\n00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:04.640\nBut then I get back to my mother's and I'm walking down the hall.\n\n553\n00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:07.160\nI said, Ethan, you know, the back of your shirt's untucked in the back.\n\n554\n00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:08.680\nI'm like, oh, man, I'm not getting in.\n\n555\n00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:10.000\nI should apply to more schools.\n\n556\n00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:15.720\nAnd we thank God I got in and Buffett, that whole principle that he has around\n\n557\n00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:16.600\nsimplicity,\n\n558\n00:24:16.600 --> 00:24:17.560\nI find interesting.\n\n559\n00:24:17.560 --> 00:24:19.160\nYeah, absolutely.\n\n560\n00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:20.400\nI love Warren.\n\n561\n00:24:20.400 --> 00:24:22.560\nAnd I think you guys have a lot of comment.\n\n562\n00:24:22.560 --> 00:24:26.920\nI didn't know this until I started hearing about your company, reading about it\n\n563\n00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:27.200\n.\n\n564\n00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:29.680\nBut I understand you're targeting flexitarians.\n\n565\n00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:30.920\nI love that phrase.\n\n566\n00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:32.960\nDid you coin that term itself?\n\n567\n00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:34.880\nAnd what exactly is the flexitarians?\n\n568\n00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:38.000\nSo we didn't coin it ourselves, but here's what it is.\n\n569\n00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:43.320\nSo 93% of the people at the nation's largest grocer that buy the beyond burger\n\n570\n00:24:43.320 --> 00:24:45.440\nare also putting animal protein in their cart.\n\n571\n00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:49.110\nAnd that's really important to me in the sense that we're reaching a mainstream\n\n572\n00:24:49.110 --> 00:24:49.800\naudience.\n\n573\n00:24:49.800 --> 00:24:50.320\nRight?\n\n574\n00:24:50.320 --> 00:24:53.480\nWe never set out to reach a niche audience, right?\n\n575\n00:24:53.480 --> 00:24:57.920\nSo we want the consumer that is in the main to be buying our products.\n\n576\n00:24:57.920 --> 00:25:02.880\nAnd that's why the relationships with KFC, et cetera, are so important, because\n\n577\n00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:03.120\nthat's\n\n578\n00:25:03.120 --> 00:25:04.520\nwhere the mainstream consumer is.\n\n579\n00:25:04.520 --> 00:25:05.880\nAnd that's where we need to be.\n\n580\n00:25:05.880 --> 00:25:09.510\nAnd so flexitarian is someone who's using both animal protein and plant protein\n\n581\n00:25:09.510 --> 00:25:09.520\n.\n\n582\n00:25:09.520 --> 00:25:13.120\nAnd interestingly, your strategy says you don't say don't eat meat.\n\n583\n00:25:13.120 --> 00:25:14.120\nCorrect.\n\n584\n00:25:14.120 --> 00:25:18.320\nYou know, what you've obviously taken a totally different strategy.\n\n585\n00:25:18.320 --> 00:25:20.240\nAnd sure, it gets back to that example.\n\n586\n00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:26.320\nAnd I had a great opportunity to meet with Bill Ford recently.\n\n587\n00:25:26.320 --> 00:25:31.440\nAnd I really admire what Henry Ford did around the automobile.\n\n588\n00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:36.240\nAnd again, he didn't go out and say, the horse is terrible.\n\n589\n00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:38.400\nThe horse is all these bad things.\n\n590\n00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:41.240\nHe just said, I've got a better way to get from A to B, right?\n\n591\n00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:44.600\nAnd we don't say don't use the phone.\n\n592\n00:25:44.600 --> 00:25:47.600\nWe just say, hey, we've got a mobile phone that's better than a landline.\n\n593\n00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:50.440\nAnd so I just don't think it's necessary to be negative.\n\n594\n00:25:50.440 --> 00:25:53.040\nYou look at all the great leaders in the world.\n\n595\n00:25:53.040 --> 00:25:55.560\nAnd I've listened to your podcasts and they're great.\n\n596\n00:25:55.560 --> 00:25:58.890\nAnd some of the traits that you hear, I was listening to your Tom Brady one\n\n597\n00:25:58.890 --> 00:25:59.480\nlike who wouldn't\n\n598\n00:25:59.480 --> 00:26:00.480\nlisten to that, right?\n\n599\n00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:03.160\nAnd it's a positivity.\n\n600\n00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:04.600\nIt's like you can be hard on yourself.\n\n601\n00:26:04.600 --> 00:26:09.940\nYou can be so hard on yourself, but like don't walk around being negative,\n\n602\n00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:10.720\nright?\n\n603\n00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:13.440\nAnd so we just don't carry that with us.\n\n604\n00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:15.000\nWe say we think we have a better solution.\n\n605\n00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.040\nAnd I heard about KFC launching a plant-based chicken product in Atlanta.\n\n606\n00:26:19.040 --> 00:26:22.960\nAnd I know they were just lines just waiting up for people trying to get into.\n\n607\n00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:24.600\nThey just had to try it.\n\n608\n00:26:24.600 --> 00:26:28.560\nSo I called Kevin Hochman, the president of KFC and the R&D people.\n\n609\n00:26:28.560 --> 00:26:31.400\nI said, can you give me a product showing on this?\n\n610\n00:26:31.400 --> 00:26:35.160\nSo I went to the KFC Restaurant Support Center.\n\n611\n00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:38.170\nI tried your first product and I had to tell you, Ethan, I just didn't really\n\n612\n00:26:38.170 --> 00:26:38.840\nlike it.\n\n613\n00:26:38.840 --> 00:26:40.760\nI told you to chew for me.\n\n614\n00:26:40.760 --> 00:26:44.690\nAnd I tried your latest version and it had all the characteristics of whole\n\n615\n00:26:44.690 --> 00:26:45.560\nmuscle chicken.\n\n616\n00:26:45.560 --> 00:26:48.560\nI thought it was really, really so much better.\n\n617\n00:26:48.560 --> 00:26:51.320\nAnd this happened within a span of like six months.\n\n618\n00:26:51.320 --> 00:26:54.480\nAre you making that kind of rapid technology gains across all the meat\n\n619\n00:26:54.480 --> 00:26:55.280\ncategories?\n\n620\n00:26:55.280 --> 00:26:56.800\nYes, we are.\n\n621\n00:26:56.800 --> 00:27:01.000\nAnd I'm the first one to be totally dissatisfied with our products, right?\n\n622\n00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:05.340\nSo the process for me is one that's difficult in the sense that what's on the\n\n623\n00:27:05.340 --> 00:27:06.320\nshelves today,\n\n624\n00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:07.960\nI think is good.\n\n625\n00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:12.480\nBut what we have in our labs is so much better and I can't wait to get it out\n\n626\n00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:13.760\nto the consumer.\n\n627\n00:27:13.760 --> 00:27:16.200\nAnd then the challenge is it takes a while to do that, right?\n\n628\n00:27:16.200 --> 00:27:21.600\nBut yes, I think that rapid iteration is very common within our company.\n\n629\n00:27:21.600 --> 00:27:26.050\nAnd what we do is we have a very structured approach to that, which is called\n\n630\n00:27:26.050 --> 00:27:26.360\nthe Beyond\n\n631\n00:27:26.360 --> 00:27:29.080\nMeat Rapid and Relentless Innovation Program.\n\n632\n00:27:29.080 --> 00:27:33.290\nAnd it's that idea that if you marinate in the issue, if you can get yourself\n\n633\n00:27:33.290 --> 00:27:33.840\nlost in\n\n634\n00:27:33.840 --> 00:27:36.960\nthe issue, if you can, and there's a great book showing this.\n\n635\n00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:42.900\nAnd if you're leading a company set aside time to read because it just refres\n\n636\n00:27:42.900 --> 00:27:43.640\nhes your\n\n637\n00:27:43.640 --> 00:27:45.760\nperspective on things and you can gain so much insight.\n\n638\n00:27:45.760 --> 00:27:49.430\nSo one of the books has made a big impact on me is insisting on the impossible\n\n639\n00:27:49.430 --> 00:27:49.840\non it.\n\n640\n00:27:49.840 --> 00:27:54.180\nIt's about Edwin Land and the work that he did around Polaroid and how to\n\n641\n00:27:54.180 --> 00:27:54.680\ncreate that\n\n642\n00:27:54.680 --> 00:27:57.080\nenvironment where people can actually get lost and work.\n\n643\n00:27:57.080 --> 00:27:58.080\nThey might forget to eat.\n\n644\n00:27:58.080 --> 00:28:02.240\nYeah, they might forget to shower because they're so intensely focused on how\n\n645\n00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:02.520\ndo I\n\n646\n00:28:02.520 --> 00:28:05.040\nmake this product better, right?\n\n647\n00:28:05.040 --> 00:28:09.930\nAnd if you can bring that intensity every single day, right, you'll see\n\n648\n00:28:09.930 --> 00:28:11.360\nincredible progress.\n\n649\n00:28:11.360 --> 00:28:15.500\nNow, if you're caught up in Gantt charts and spreadsheets all the time and long\n\n650\n00:28:15.500 --> 00:28:16.320\nprocesses,\n\n651\n00:28:16.320 --> 00:28:19.620\nand one of the things that I think is shocking to people when they come here is\n\n652\n00:28:19.620 --> 00:28:20.200\nthey'll come\n\n653\n00:28:20.200 --> 00:28:21.360\nand they'll say, it's going to take us two months to do this.\n\n654\n00:28:21.360 --> 00:28:23.040\nThey'll say, well, how do you do it in two weeks?\n\n655\n00:28:23.040 --> 00:28:24.040\nAnd we're serious.\n\n656\n00:28:24.040 --> 00:28:26.320\nAnd we'll say, OK, and they say, well, we can't.\n\n657\n00:28:26.320 --> 00:28:28.880\nSo what resources do you need, right?\n\n658\n00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:31.320\nAnd they say, well, I, you know, go get them, right?\n\n659\n00:28:31.320 --> 00:28:32.880\nAnd that's the kind of approach we have here.\n\n660\n00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:34.040\nYeah, that's great.\n\n661\n00:28:34.040 --> 00:28:38.620\nMichael Land, who did create Polaroid, you know, a great idea, but it didn't\n\n662\n00:28:38.620 --> 00:28:39.440\nreally flourish,\n\n663\n00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:40.440\nto be honest with you.\n\n664\n00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:41.440\nYeah.\n\n665\n00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:44.600\nHow are you going about the process of building a sustainable growth company?\n\n666\n00:28:44.600 --> 00:28:48.480\nYou know, a lot of times people have ideas and boom, you know, it doesn't\n\n667\n00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:49.240\nreally take\n\n668\n00:28:49.240 --> 00:28:50.760\noff and sustain itself.\n\n669\n00:28:50.760 --> 00:28:52.920\nSo you don't really want to be a Polaroid.\n\n670\n00:28:52.920 --> 00:28:54.360\nNo, correct.\n\n671\n00:28:54.360 --> 00:28:56.200\nAnd so there's a lot of other examples.\n\n672\n00:28:56.200 --> 00:28:59.220\nAnd this is a great book recently, which has become friends with the author by\n\n673\n00:28:59.220 --> 00:28:59.480\na guy\n\n674\n00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:00.480\nnamed Safi Bikal.\n\n675\n00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:03.560\nThat's called Loon Shots.\n\n676\n00:29:03.560 --> 00:29:08.910\nAnd part of the process of just staying ahead and leading and creating a\n\n677\n00:29:08.910 --> 00:29:10.080\ncategory is to\n\n678\n00:29:10.080 --> 00:29:13.440\nhave a healthy sense of, to be terrified, right?\n\n679\n00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:14.680\nTo be paranoid.\n\n680\n00:29:14.680 --> 00:29:16.520\nYou know, how do you stay?\n\n681\n00:29:16.520 --> 00:29:17.920\nAnd that's been within my whole life.\n\n682\n00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:19.960\nHow do you, how do you stay ahead?\n\n683\n00:29:19.960 --> 00:29:20.960\nRight.\n\n684\n00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:22.360\nHow do you, and I don't know where it comes from.\n\n685\n00:29:22.360 --> 00:29:26.450\nSome people have it, some people don't, but like, you know, I have that fear,\n\n686\n00:29:26.450 --> 00:29:28.400\nright, of\n\n687\n00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:31.720\nnot delivering on what I'm trying to do.\n\n688\n00:29:31.720 --> 00:29:32.720\nRight.\n\n689\n00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:36.840\nAnd if you carry that with you, right, you'll be successful if you work hard\n\n690\n00:29:36.840 --> 00:29:37.840\nenough, right?\n\n691\n00:29:37.840 --> 00:29:39.520\nAnd obviously some capability.\n\n692\n00:29:39.520 --> 00:29:46.100\nBut I think with cases like Blockbuster and, you know, so many examples,\n\n693\n00:29:46.100 --> 00:29:47.560\nskeletons that\n\n694\n00:29:47.560 --> 00:29:52.040\njust didn't react and adapt, I don't care about the technology we use.\n\n695\n00:29:52.040 --> 00:29:54.240\nI'm agnostic and I'm an engineer.\n\n696\n00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:57.870\nSo if what we're doing isn't working as well as something else out there, I\n\n697\n00:29:57.870 --> 00:29:58.440\nwill throw it\n\n698\n00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:01.120\nin the trash and I will get the best approach possible.\n\n699\n00:30:01.120 --> 00:30:02.120\nRight.\n\n700\n00:30:02.120 --> 00:30:04.880\nSo you got to be agnostic and not fall in love with a particular approach.\n\n701\n00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:05.880\nRight.\n\n702\n00:30:05.880 --> 00:30:07.950\nSo if you want to, if you want to have the best picture in the world, you\n\n703\n00:30:07.950 --> 00:30:08.600\nshouldn't care\n\n704\n00:30:08.600 --> 00:30:12.280\nwhether it comes on a film that you have to shake or something is digital.\n\n705\n00:30:12.280 --> 00:30:14.240\nYou should be focused on that best picture.\n\n706\n00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:15.240\nYeah.\n\n707\n00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:16.240\nThat's great.\n\n708\n00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:21.200\nYou know, the, the KFC R and D team led by VJ Sukumar, you know, when I met\n\n709\n00:30:21.200 --> 00:30:22.040\nwith them,\n\n710\n00:30:22.040 --> 00:30:24.080\nthey were blown away by your research team.\n\n711\n00:30:24.080 --> 00:30:25.840\nThey said you had over a hundred scientists.\n\n712\n00:30:25.840 --> 00:30:27.080\nYou probably weren't aware of that.\n\n713\n00:30:27.080 --> 00:30:28.080\nOkay.\n\n714\n00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:31.320\nSo your, your head of R and D is from Iran.\n\n715\n00:30:31.320 --> 00:30:33.800\nYou have over 50 PhDs.\n\n716\n00:30:33.800 --> 00:30:37.360\nYou've got leaders from Vietnam, India.\n\n717\n00:30:37.360 --> 00:30:42.240\nHow do you lead such a diverse and high IQ group of people?\n\n718\n00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:46.970\nWhat kind of skills does it take for you to have to work with a scientist who's\n\n719\n00:30:46.970 --> 00:30:48.120\nstereotypically\n\n720\n00:30:48.120 --> 00:30:50.360\nor head down looking in their petri dishes?\n\n721\n00:30:50.360 --> 00:30:51.360\nYeah.\n\n722\n00:30:51.360 --> 00:30:52.360\nYeah.\n\n723\n00:30:52.360 --> 00:30:53.360\nSo it's funny.\n\n724\n00:30:53.360 --> 00:30:55.390\nI mean, first of all, it gets to some of the things that you've written a lot\n\n725\n00:30:55.390 --> 00:30:55.640\nabout\n\n726\n00:30:55.640 --> 00:30:59.200\nits respect, respect for people, you know.\n\n727\n00:30:59.200 --> 00:31:01.840\nAnd I really respect them.\n\n728\n00:31:01.840 --> 00:31:05.320\nAnd I think they respect me and it's a, it's a dance.\n\n729\n00:31:05.320 --> 00:31:08.170\nYou know, I mean, I'm pushing them so hard and they're, they're, they're\n\n730\n00:31:08.170 --> 00:31:08.760\npushing back\n\n731\n00:31:08.760 --> 00:31:12.280\nand, and we're, but we're, we're so committed to this objective.\n\n732\n00:31:12.280 --> 00:31:16.700\nAnd so many of them came out of biomedical where they're working on, you know,\n\n733\n00:31:16.700 --> 00:31:17.200\ntrying\n\n734\n00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:19.160\nto treat cancer, for example.\n\n735\n00:31:19.160 --> 00:31:22.670\nAnd now they feel, you know, if you think about, you know, let food be thy\n\n736\n00:31:22.670 --> 00:31:23.400\nmedicine.\n\n737\n00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:27.880\nNow this is a way of hopefully helping people live healthier lives.\n\n738\n00:31:27.880 --> 00:31:29.680\nAnd so, but it's fun.\n\n739\n00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:31.160\nThere's been funny things along the way.\n\n740\n00:31:31.160 --> 00:31:34.990\nI once hung up a, when I was in graduate school, there was a poster in one of\n\n741\n00:31:34.990 --> 00:31:35.600\nour computer\n\n742\n00:31:35.600 --> 00:31:36.840\nrooms that was, I loved it.\n\n743\n00:31:36.840 --> 00:31:40.370\nThere was a picture of a apartment building, probably in New York, Chicago,\n\n744\n00:31:40.370 --> 00:31:40.760\nsomething like\n\n745\n00:31:40.760 --> 00:31:41.760\nthat.\n\n746\n00:31:41.760 --> 00:31:44.350\nAnd there was a one light on what's one person sitting in front of their\n\n747\n00:31:44.350 --> 00:31:44.840\ncomputer.\n\n748\n00:31:44.840 --> 00:31:48.650\nAnd it just said very simply underneath somewhere someone was working harder at\n\n749\n00:31:48.650 --> 00:31:49.320\nyour idea than\n\n750\n00:31:49.320 --> 00:31:50.320\nyou are.\n\n751\n00:31:50.320 --> 00:31:51.320\nRight.\n\n752\n00:31:51.320 --> 00:31:53.720\nAnd I couldn't find the poster.\n\n753\n00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:58.680\nSo I just got some canvas and I had to type out on the canvas, said that quote.\n\n754\n00:31:58.680 --> 00:32:00.680\nAnd I hung it in our innovation lab.\n\n755\n00:32:00.680 --> 00:32:03.400\nGo ahead of innovation at that point.\n\n756\n00:32:03.400 --> 00:32:06.710\nCame up and said, you know, either a lot of people are asking who's working\n\n757\n00:32:06.710 --> 00:32:07.240\nharder than\n\n758\n00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:08.240\nus.\n\n759\n00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:10.600\nI said, no, no, it's like a, it's like a metaphor, you know, it's like a just a\n\n760\n00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:11.680\nway to stay hungry.\n\n761\n00:32:11.680 --> 00:32:13.480\nAnd I said, okay, okay.\n\n762\n00:32:13.480 --> 00:32:14.480\nIt came back.\n\n763\n00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:15.480\nIt came back.\n\n764\n00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:17.930\nHe said, he's, and they still kind of want to know they're kind of like\n\n765\n00:32:17.930 --> 00:32:18.520\ninsulted that\n\n766\n00:32:18.520 --> 00:32:20.920\nyou think there's someone out there who's working harder.\n\n767\n00:32:20.920 --> 00:32:23.680\nI said, I said, no, think about it this way.\n\n768\n00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:27.400\nThink about it as like something will be hanging in a locker room.\n\n769\n00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:30.720\nHe said, a lot of these guys have never been in a locker room.\n\n770\n00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:32.880\nI said, okay, I'll take it down.\n\n771\n00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:34.440\nI'll take it down.\n\n772\n00:32:34.440 --> 00:32:37.320\nBut so I took that down.\n\n773\n00:32:37.320 --> 00:32:39.920\nBut it's just I think I'm going to put it up.\n\n774\n00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:40.920\nI love it.\n\n775\n00:32:40.920 --> 00:32:42.120\nIt's a great quote.\n\n776\n00:32:42.120 --> 00:32:44.320\nAnd so, so it's that mentality.\n\n777\n00:32:44.320 --> 00:32:45.320\nWe just have fun together.\n\n778\n00:32:45.320 --> 00:32:46.760\nWe work so hard together.\n\n779\n00:32:46.760 --> 00:32:48.440\nThat's such respect for their intellect.\n\n780\n00:32:48.440 --> 00:32:52.960\nI know you're a big believer in the fail fast mindset.\n\n781\n00:32:52.960 --> 00:32:56.280\nHow do you really drive that deep in your culture?\n\n782\n00:32:56.280 --> 00:32:58.800\nShoot personal, personal experience.\n\n783\n00:32:58.800 --> 00:33:02.240\nI have failed a lot of things.\n\n784\n00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:05.000\nAnd so I know that it's okay to fail.\n\n785\n00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:08.400\nI think it's actually people who have failed are better leaders.\n\n786\n00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:12.520\nThey really are.\n\n787\n00:33:12.520 --> 00:33:17.320\nSo I think it's about effort.\n\n788\n00:33:17.320 --> 00:33:20.440\nIf you're putting in the effort and you're using the very best of your\n\n789\n00:33:20.440 --> 00:33:21.080\ncapabilities to\n\n790\n00:33:21.080 --> 00:33:25.360\ntry to do something and you fail, God bless you, if you're not putting forward\n\n791\n00:33:25.360 --> 00:33:25.960\nthe effort\n\n792\n00:33:25.960 --> 00:33:29.480\nand you can't do something, you'll be very uncomfortable here.\n\n793\n00:33:29.480 --> 00:33:31.920\nAnd that's the kind of culture we have.\n\n794\n00:33:31.920 --> 00:33:35.550\nAnd so as long as someone, if you see them grinding and working and they make a\n\n795\n00:33:35.550 --> 00:33:36.520\nmistake,\n\n796\n00:33:36.520 --> 00:33:37.520\nfine.\n\n797\n00:33:37.520 --> 00:33:43.190\nOr if they are so afraid of failing that they bury you in spreadsheets and in\n\n798\n00:33:43.190 --> 00:33:44.200\nanalysis and\n\n799\n00:33:44.200 --> 00:33:47.280\neverything else where you just aren't willing, you can't move.\n\n800\n00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:48.600\nThey're also not going to do well here.\n\n801\n00:33:48.600 --> 00:33:52.800\nSo it's a culture that we put a lot of emphasis on speed.\n\n802\n00:33:52.800 --> 00:33:56.240\nWe reward risk taking and we're okay with failing.\n\n803\n00:33:56.240 --> 00:34:00.000\nYou obviously believe the culture is critical to your success.\n\n804\n00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:02.560\nAre you doing anything really different on that front?\n\n805\n00:34:02.560 --> 00:34:08.470\nAre you trying to drive a behavior that you're not going to see in most\n\n806\n00:34:08.470 --> 00:34:09.840\ncompanies?\n\n807\n00:34:09.840 --> 00:34:11.760\nI think it's intensity.\n\n808\n00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:17.520\nI think it's intensity, respect for one another, accountability, ownership, all\n\n809\n00:34:17.520 --> 00:34:18.880\nof those things\n\n810\n00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:20.200\nare really important here.\n\n811\n00:34:20.200 --> 00:34:23.760\nIt's also a sense it's a privilege to work here.\n\n812\n00:34:23.760 --> 00:34:26.240\nI feel blessed to be doing what I'm doing.\n\n813\n00:34:26.240 --> 00:34:29.760\nI really do and I feel lucky.\n\n814\n00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:32.720\nAnd I think I want other people here to feel that way too.\n\n815\n00:34:32.720 --> 00:34:36.400\nIt's a special place to be and I want them to carry that with them.\n\n816\n00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:38.040\nI don't know that every company feels that way.\n\n817\n00:34:38.040 --> 00:34:46.960\nYou're a tremendous learner obviously.\n\n818\n00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:49.680\nThat's coming through so clear in this conversation.\n\n819\n00:34:49.680 --> 00:34:53.520\nA friend of mine told me that you're a big fan of the Got Milk marketing\n\n820\n00:34:53.520 --> 00:34:54.320\ncampaign and\n\n821\n00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:57.040\nthat you actually hired the person who created it.\n\n822\n00:34:57.040 --> 00:34:59.080\nI was thinking about this.\n\n823\n00:34:59.080 --> 00:35:00.720\nThat was a long time ago.\n\n824\n00:35:00.720 --> 00:35:04.000\nThis person must definitely be a senior citizen.\n\n825\n00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:05.000\nIs this true?\n\n826\n00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:06.000\nDid you hire that person?\n\n827\n00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:07.320\nWhat's your thinking behind it?\n\n828\n00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:10.480\nHe's a good friend of mine, Jeff Manning.\n\n829\n00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:16.230\nHe was on the California Milk Board and wrote the original brief, I think, for\n\n830\n00:35:16.230 --> 00:35:17.040\nthe advertising\n\n831\n00:35:17.040 --> 00:35:23.080\nfirm that did that, which I think was quite an an affinity, I think.\n\n832\n00:35:23.080 --> 00:35:27.440\nHe and I worked together for years and we're still close.\n\n833\n00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:33.140\nI was amazed as a young person that you could go into schools and gyms and that\n\n834\n00:35:33.140 --> 00:35:34.240\na particular\n\n835\n00:35:34.240 --> 00:35:39.480\nprotein could advertise directly to children in that environment.\n\n836\n00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:41.920\nI wanted to learn about that program.\n\n837\n00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:46.950\nIt also had an important element that was really vital to how we positioned our\n\n838\n00:35:46.950 --> 00:35:47.840\ncompany.\n\n839\n00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:51.840\nIt was positive.\n\n840\n00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:57.930\nI used to get an arguments with marketers who would say, \"You really need to\n\n841\n00:35:57.930 --> 00:35:58.680\nbring out\n\n842\n00:35:58.680 --> 00:36:02.040\nsome clinical nutritionists to tell people about how healthy this is.\n\n843\n00:36:02.040 --> 00:36:06.480\nYou need to market directly to mom in a really clear way.\"\n\n844\n00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:10.680\nI said, \"Now I want to use athletes to do it.\"\n\n845\n00:36:10.680 --> 00:36:16.250\nFirst of all, you go to any marketing, you go to Kellogg or something like that\n\n846\n00:36:16.250 --> 00:36:16.800\n, the business\n\n847\n00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:17.800\nschool.\n\n848\n00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:20.520\nThey'll say, \"The traditional paradigm is that mom is chopping supermarket so\n\n849\n00:36:20.520 --> 00:36:21.360\nyou should\n\n850\n00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:23.240\ntailor all your marketing to her.\"\n\n851\n00:36:23.240 --> 00:36:25.720\nI said, \"Well, I don't know.\n\n852\n00:36:25.720 --> 00:36:30.280\nI had this really distinct experience when I was a kid where my mom was walking\n\n853\n00:36:30.280 --> 00:36:30.640\nin the\n\n854\n00:36:30.640 --> 00:36:31.800\nsupermarket.\n\n855\n00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:33.480\nI was with her and our football coach.\n\n856\n00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:34.480\nI wasn't a great football player.\n\n857\n00:36:34.480 --> 00:36:37.200\nI was very thin, but I played.\n\n858\n00:36:37.200 --> 00:36:41.600\nMy brother was pretty big and matured earlier than I did and everything is\n\n859\n00:36:41.600 --> 00:36:42.400\nolder than me.\"\n\n860\n00:36:42.400 --> 00:36:46.430\nHe walked by and he said, \"You're serving those two boys steak, something like\n\n861\n00:36:46.430 --> 00:36:47.080\nthat.\"\n\n862\n00:36:47.080 --> 00:36:48.720\nI think exactly those words.\n\n863\n00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:49.720\nNice.\n\n864\n00:36:49.720 --> 00:36:51.760\nHe's sort of chatting with my mom.\n\n865\n00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:56.450\nThat made a big impression on me, that type of thinking that there's this link\n\n866\n00:36:56.450 --> 00:36:57.040\nbetween\n\n867\n00:36:57.040 --> 00:36:59.960\nanimal protein and masculinity.\n\n868\n00:36:59.960 --> 00:37:05.560\nThat if you don't consume animal protein, somehow you're less masculine.\n\n869\n00:37:05.560 --> 00:37:08.120\nI wanted to attack that at its core.\n\n870\n00:37:08.120 --> 00:37:12.120\nI wanted to use the Got Milk campaign as a model that said, \"Look, let's help\n\n871\n00:37:12.120 --> 00:37:12.640\npeople\n\n872\n00:37:12.640 --> 00:37:17.830\nunderstand that it's the amino acids they're consuming and the protein itself,\n\n873\n00:37:17.830 --> 00:37:18.360\nnot the\n\n874\n00:37:18.360 --> 00:37:22.000\norigin that is important.\"\n\n875\n00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:26.020\nI wanted the very best performing athletes in the world to start using our\n\n876\n00:37:26.020 --> 00:37:26.760\nproduct and\n\n877\n00:37:26.760 --> 00:37:27.960\nthen go tell people about it.\n\n878\n00:37:27.960 --> 00:37:28.960\nYou know what that does?\n\n879\n00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:32.280\nThat arms mom with the information she needs to get the rest of the table on\n\n880\n00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:32.800\nboard.\n\n881\n00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:38.260\nWhen she brings home a plant-based burger, plant-based meat, she's not being\n\n882\n00:37:38.260 --> 00:37:38.800\nmocked\n\n883\n00:37:38.800 --> 00:37:44.370\nby her children or by the husband she has the tool she needs to get the rest of\n\n884\n00:37:44.370 --> 00:37:45.040\nthe family\n\n885\n00:37:45.040 --> 00:37:46.480\non board.\n\n886\n00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:48.280\nThat was a very deliberate approach.\n\n887\n00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:49.280\nI think it's worked.\n\n888\n00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:50.280\nYou want to inspire people.\n\n889\n00:37:50.280 --> 00:37:52.040\nYou don't want to preach it to them.\n\n890\n00:37:52.040 --> 00:37:53.040\nThat's great.\n\n891\n00:37:53.040 --> 00:37:58.320\nYou're thinking behind heaven, Kyrie Irving and Lindsey Vaughn, you even have\n\n892\n00:37:58.320 --> 00:37:59.440\nSnoop Dogg.\n\n893\n00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:03.400\nYou've got investors like Leonardo DiCaprio.\n\n894\n00:38:03.400 --> 00:38:06.280\nYou're obviously big into leveraging these big names.\n\n895\n00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:07.280\nAre they coming to you?\n\n896\n00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:08.880\nThese people, I used to work at Pepsi.\n\n897\n00:38:08.880 --> 00:38:11.960\nThey cost us a fortune to get them.\n\n898\n00:38:11.960 --> 00:38:15.800\nHow are you signing these people up as brand ambassadors?\n\n899\n00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:19.600\nSo many of them are investors first and foremost.\n\n900\n00:38:19.600 --> 00:38:24.600\nSo that really helps, right?\n\n901\n00:38:24.600 --> 00:38:27.420\nWe have a woman who I'm good friends with who also works here called Beth Mosk\n\n902\n00:38:27.420 --> 00:38:27.880\nowitz who\n\n903\n00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:34.350\nis just a tremendous connector of people and many of them have come through her\n\n904\n00:38:34.350 --> 00:38:34.400\n.\n\n905\n00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:40.640\nWe just really try to create a culture where we're a business for sure.\n\n906\n00:38:40.640 --> 00:38:43.710\nWe're going to create a great return for our shareholders but we're also out to\n\n907\n00:38:43.710 --> 00:38:44.320\naccomplish\n\n908\n00:38:44.320 --> 00:38:45.320\nsomething that's really important.\n\n909\n00:38:45.320 --> 00:38:50.870\nI was on a thing yesterday, a couple of days ago with Chris Paul, take Chris as\n\n910\n00:38:50.870 --> 00:38:52.040\nan example.\n\n911\n00:38:52.040 --> 00:38:57.490\nSo Chris Paul, you know, perennial All-Star NBA player, he's in his 17th season\n\n912\n00:38:57.490 --> 00:38:58.680\n, 2020\n\n913\n00:38:58.680 --> 00:38:59.880\nAll-Star Game.\n\n914\n00:38:59.880 --> 00:39:04.400\nHe gets a lob dunk from Russell Westbrook.\n\n915\n00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:06.560\nChris is maybe 6'2\", right?\n\n916\n00:39:06.560 --> 00:39:08.560\nHe's 35, right?\n\n917\n00:39:08.560 --> 00:39:11.600\nAnd he's getting up in the air and just throwing that ball down.\n\n918\n00:39:11.600 --> 00:39:14.440\nAfter the game they asked, \"How are you able to do that?\"\n\n919\n00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:17.450\nAnd one of the things he talks about is he switched to a plant-based diet and\n\n920\n00:39:17.450 --> 00:39:17.880\nthat cuts\n\n921\n00:39:17.880 --> 00:39:20.440\ndown on the inflammation in his knees, right?\n\n922\n00:39:20.440 --> 00:39:25.750\nAnd so, you know, the benefits to athletes for using this, but by the way, that\n\n923\n00:39:25.750 --> 00:39:26.240\nreduction\n\n924\n00:39:26.240 --> 00:39:30.020\nin inflammation is not just good for Chris, it's good if you're 60, if you're\n\n925\n00:39:30.020 --> 00:39:30.640\n70 and\n\n926\n00:39:30.640 --> 00:39:35.400\nyou're maybe battling with, you know, arthritis or with heart disease or, you\n\n927\n00:39:35.400 --> 00:39:36.280\nknow, so many\n\n928\n00:39:36.280 --> 00:39:39.330\nof the diseases that we think are separate are actually related and some of the\n\n929\n00:39:39.330 --> 00:39:39.680\nthings\n\n930\n00:39:39.680 --> 00:39:42.560\nthat tie them together have to do with inflammation.\n\n931\n00:39:42.560 --> 00:39:45.050\nAnd so animal protein, it's well understood now in the medical community that\n\n932\n00:39:45.050 --> 00:39:45.440\nhelps to\n\n933\n00:39:45.440 --> 00:39:47.320\nkeep inflammation down, right?\n\n934\n00:39:47.320 --> 00:39:51.020\nSo if you're Chris, not only are you going to perform better, but hey, by the\n\n935\n00:39:51.020 --> 00:39:51.480\nway, for\n\n936\n00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:55.160\nhis folks, you know, this might be a better product for them, right?\n\n937\n00:39:55.160 --> 00:39:58.340\nSo there's benefits for him, not only professionally, but also in his community\n\n938\n00:39:58.340 --> 00:39:58.600\n.\n\n939\n00:39:58.600 --> 00:40:03.720\nHey, Ethan, you are turning me into a flexitarian, you know?\n\n940\n00:40:03.720 --> 00:40:09.200\nI used to work at Pepsi and we had this intense rivalry with Coke, you know?\n\n941\n00:40:09.200 --> 00:40:12.770\nAnd it looks to me like you have the makings of this potentially happening with\n\n942\n00:40:12.770 --> 00:40:13.440\nthis company\n\n943\n00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:15.640\ncalled Impossible Foods.\n\n944\n00:40:15.640 --> 00:40:19.520\nHow do you view them as a competitor and what makes you different?\n\n945\n00:40:19.520 --> 00:40:22.500\nYou know this because you're a competitor too, you know, competition is great\n\n946\n00:40:22.500 --> 00:40:22.760\nand it's\n\n947\n00:40:22.760 --> 00:40:28.880\neven better when you're winning.\n\n948\n00:40:28.880 --> 00:40:29.880\nBut that is so true.\n\n949\n00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:32.160\nAnd it's a lot of fun.\n\n950\n00:40:32.160 --> 00:40:33.160\nPeople are like, oh, do you hate them?\n\n951\n00:40:33.160 --> 00:40:34.960\nNo, I mean, they're a good company.\n\n952\n00:40:34.960 --> 00:40:35.960\nThey're working hard.\n\n953\n00:40:35.960 --> 00:40:37.560\nThey're got a lot of good people.\n\n954\n00:40:37.560 --> 00:40:40.160\nThey're trying to do the right thing, but there is a big difference.\n\n955\n00:40:40.160 --> 00:40:42.160\nThe difference around this.\n\n956\n00:40:42.160 --> 00:40:47.880\nSo I started coming in 2009 and didn't do it with venture money to begin with.\n\n957\n00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:51.520\nTook several years to get that, two and a half rather.\n\n958\n00:40:51.520 --> 00:40:54.810\nAnd so a lot of times we just had to rely on revenue to keep the doors open or\n\n959\n00:40:54.810 --> 00:40:55.360\nanything\n\n960\n00:40:55.360 --> 00:40:56.360\nelse.\n\n961\n00:40:56.360 --> 00:40:59.480\nAnd so I was in the stores talking to customers all the time.\n\n962\n00:40:59.480 --> 00:41:03.720\nAnd one of the things that became really apparent was that people did not want\n\n963\n00:41:03.720 --> 00:41:04.040\nGMOs\n\n964\n00:41:04.040 --> 00:41:05.040\nin their products.\n\n965\n00:41:05.040 --> 00:41:07.240\nThey didn't want anything artificial in their products, right?\n\n966\n00:41:07.240 --> 00:41:10.840\nAnd so you got to think about the mindset of the homosafian, right?\n\n967\n00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:14.160\nEvolving, and there's some great literature on this, evolving.\n\n968\n00:41:14.160 --> 00:41:16.840\nWe were very conservative about what we're willing to put in our mouths, right?\n\n969\n00:41:16.840 --> 00:41:18.360\nBecause mistakes would kill us.\n\n970\n00:41:18.360 --> 00:41:20.200\nAnd we carry that conservatism today.\n\n971\n00:41:20.200 --> 00:41:25.110\nSo I don't want to ask any family in America or anywhere else to experiment\n\n972\n00:41:25.110 --> 00:41:25.920\nwith their\n\n973\n00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:28.920\nfamily and their kids on something that's never been in the food supply.\n\n974\n00:41:28.920 --> 00:41:32.280\nSo I said, all right, we're just not going to use genetic modification, right?\n\n975\n00:41:32.280 --> 00:41:35.720\nI believe that there's everything in nature that we need to build meat, drug,\n\n976\n00:41:35.720 --> 00:41:36.600\nand plants.\n\n977\n00:41:36.600 --> 00:41:39.480\nIf you care enough and work hard enough to find it.\n\n978\n00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:40.480\nAnd that's what we're doing.\n\n979\n00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:41.520\nIt's a massive discovery.\n\n980\n00:41:41.520 --> 00:41:47.080\nIt's a search throughout the plant kingdom to find all the elements we need.\n\n981\n00:41:47.080 --> 00:41:49.370\nBut people want to eat healthier, but they also want to eat like their\n\n982\n00:41:49.370 --> 00:41:50.240\ngrandparents because\n\n983\n00:41:50.240 --> 00:41:51.320\nit has conservatism.\n\n984\n00:41:51.320 --> 00:41:54.040\nAnd so the big difference between the two companies, right, is that we've\n\n985\n00:41:54.040 --> 00:41:54.680\ndecided not\n\n986\n00:41:54.680 --> 00:41:57.800\nto use genetic modification, and they are using it not bad.\n\n987\n00:41:57.800 --> 00:41:59.240\nThey're using it not a problem.\n\n988\n00:41:59.240 --> 00:42:00.240\nThey're using it.\n\n989\n00:42:00.240 --> 00:42:01.240\nBut that's not what we're doing.\n\n990\n00:42:01.240 --> 00:42:06.240\nAnd we think that's a better long-term bet on where the consumer's going.\n\n991\n00:42:06.240 --> 00:42:09.800\nAnd then another competitor you have right now is just the meat industry.\n\n992\n00:42:09.800 --> 00:42:11.920\nThey're really taking some real cheap shots at you.\n\n993\n00:42:11.920 --> 00:42:14.280\nHow do you as a competitor deal with that?\n\n994\n00:42:14.280 --> 00:42:17.320\nSo I personally don't like that, obviously.\n\n995\n00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:20.280\nI listened to some of your podcasts.\n\n996\n00:42:20.280 --> 00:42:24.900\nAnd it's hard to beat up in the press and have people take stuff out on you and\n\n997\n00:42:24.900 --> 00:42:25.240\nyou\n\n998\n00:42:25.240 --> 00:42:26.800\ngot to just develop thick skin.\n\n999\n00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:32.000\nWhat bothers me the most about that is we talked about our farm up in Maryland.\n\n1000\n00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:38.300\nAnd on either side of that farm are people that are either currently or have\n\n1001\n00:42:38.300 --> 00:42:39.000\nraised\n\n1002\n00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:40.720\nbeef cattle.\n\n1003\n00:42:40.720 --> 00:42:43.880\nAnd I have good relationships with them.\n\n1004\n00:42:43.880 --> 00:42:49.290\nAnd what's great about this country anyway is that if a topic you don't want to\n\n1005\n00:42:49.290 --> 00:42:49.720\ntalk\n\n1006\n00:42:49.720 --> 00:42:51.840\nabout, you can talk about sports.\n\n1007\n00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:54.120\nYou can talk about politics.\n\n1008\n00:42:54.120 --> 00:42:56.480\nAnd so I just don't have to go there with them.\n\n1009\n00:42:56.480 --> 00:43:00.470\nAnd so for people too, but I like them and I want to be able to return and have\n\n1010\n00:43:00.470 --> 00:43:00.840\nnice\n\n1011\n00:43:00.840 --> 00:43:03.040\nrelationships.\n\n1012\n00:43:03.040 --> 00:43:06.600\nAnd so I'm not somebody who's antagonistic toward the meat industry.\n\n1013\n00:43:06.600 --> 00:43:09.440\nI don't think it's necessary to be so.\n\n1014\n00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:12.280\nAnd so you've seen me forge relationships with them.\n\n1015\n00:43:12.280 --> 00:43:13.480\nWe had a partnership with Tyson.\n\n1016\n00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:16.680\nI know John Tyson personally.\n\n1017\n00:43:16.680 --> 00:43:17.680\nI think it's a shame.\n\n1018\n00:43:17.680 --> 00:43:19.640\nI wouldn't do it myself.\n\n1019\n00:43:19.640 --> 00:43:20.640\nYeah.\n\n1020\n00:43:20.640 --> 00:43:24.920\nYou know, right now I know you're, you talked about your passion of totally\n\n1021\n00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:25.760\nreplicating\n\n1022\n00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:28.640\nthe taste and characteristics of meats.\n\n1023\n00:43:28.640 --> 00:43:33.390\nBut I know right now because of scale and other is you have a huge cost\n\n1024\n00:43:33.390 --> 00:43:34.640\ndisadvantage.\n\n1025\n00:43:34.640 --> 00:43:38.740\nAt least I'm supposing that is, is that something that you're going to have to\n\n1026\n00:43:38.740 --> 00:43:39.040\nlive\n\n1027\n00:43:39.040 --> 00:43:42.840\nwith or what do you see as your opportunity and strategy on that front?\n\n1028\n00:43:42.840 --> 00:43:46.760\nI really appreciate asking that question because it's big passion for me.\n\n1029\n00:43:46.760 --> 00:43:51.160\nWe could not be more expensive than animal protein.\n\n1030\n00:43:51.160 --> 00:43:52.440\nIt doesn't make any sense, right?\n\n1031\n00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:55.770\nSo we're going to talk about this open up a microeconomics textbooks that\n\n1032\n00:43:55.770 --> 00:43:56.600\nbottleneck comes\n\n1033\n00:43:56.600 --> 00:43:57.600\nout of production.\n\n1034\n00:43:57.600 --> 00:44:00.520\nMore efficient, you can lower costs, et cetera.\n\n1035\n00:44:00.520 --> 00:44:04.160\nSo we've taken the biggest bottleneck there is in the history of agriculture\n\n1036\n00:44:04.160 --> 00:44:04.720\nout of the\n\n1037\n00:44:04.720 --> 00:44:05.720\nsystem, right?\n\n1038\n00:44:05.720 --> 00:44:06.720\nAnd again, we're not perfect.\n\n1039\n00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:08.680\nWe're not getting, you know, we're not there yet.\n\n1040\n00:44:08.680 --> 00:44:11.010\nWe'll get there to the point where we're indistinguishable that the chicken\n\n1041\n00:44:11.010 --> 00:44:11.480\nwill make two\n\n1042\n00:44:11.480 --> 00:44:12.480\nyears from now from KFC.\n\n1043\n00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:15.450\nIf we're lucky enough to still work with them, we'll be much better than one\n\n1044\n00:44:15.450 --> 00:44:16.080\nwill make in\n\n1045\n00:44:16.080 --> 00:44:17.920\nthe day, even though the one today is pretty good.\n\n1046\n00:44:17.920 --> 00:44:18.920\nRight?\n\n1047\n00:44:18.920 --> 00:44:23.120\nSo we'll get closer and closer, but the issue is scale, right?\n\n1048\n00:44:23.120 --> 00:44:26.440\nAnd so there's no material obstacle to us underpricing animal protein.\n\n1049\n00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:29.810\nSo I made a commitment a year ago that we would underpricing animal protein, at\n\n1050\n00:44:29.810 --> 00:44:30.160\nleast\n\n1051\n00:44:30.160 --> 00:44:33.480\none of our categories of beef, pork, and poultry.\n\n1052\n00:44:33.480 --> 00:44:34.480\nAnd we'll do that.\n\n1053\n00:44:34.480 --> 00:44:36.860\nAnd then ultimately we'll be able to underprice in each category, maybe not\n\n1054\n00:44:36.860 --> 00:44:38.000\nevery single cut,\n\n1055\n00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:40.000\nbut the vast majority of them.\n\n1056\n00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:44.040\nAnd that's going to be exciting day because if we get the texture right, we get\n\n1057\n00:44:44.040 --> 00:44:45.800\nthat satiating\n\n1058\n00:44:45.800 --> 00:44:49.260\ntaste and experience right, and then we drop the price below animal protein,\n\n1059\n00:44:49.260 --> 00:44:49.760\nthere are\n\n1060\n00:44:49.760 --> 00:44:53.120\nvery few consumers who will be like, yeah, I'm still not going to do that.\n\n1061\n00:44:53.120 --> 00:44:59.390\nI would say so when you can have equal product quality and win on price, that's\n\n1062\n00:44:59.390 --> 00:45:00.160\na pretty\n\n1063\n00:45:00.160 --> 00:45:01.160\ngood equation.\n\n1064\n00:45:01.160 --> 00:45:03.680\nIt works for a lot, a lot of people.\n\n1065\n00:45:03.680 --> 00:45:07.080\nHow would you describe your management style?\n\n1066\n00:45:07.080 --> 00:45:08.080\nIt's interesting.\n\n1067\n00:45:08.080 --> 00:45:17.320\nI'm definitely more entrepreneur than I am, kind of a CEO you'd bring in from\n\n1068\n00:45:17.320 --> 00:45:19.280\nthe outside.\n\n1069\n00:45:19.280 --> 00:45:24.980\nI think management comes down to character and personality and behavior traits,\n\n1070\n00:45:24.980 --> 00:45:25.720\nright?\n\n1071\n00:45:25.720 --> 00:45:29.240\nAnd so when you work with me, you get who I am.\n\n1072\n00:45:29.240 --> 00:45:34.020\nThere's not a management style necessarily that's different from who I am as a\n\n1073\n00:45:34.020 --> 00:45:34.760\nperson.\n\n1074\n00:45:34.760 --> 00:45:38.600\nSo I think you'll get a lot of loyalty from me.\n\n1075\n00:45:38.600 --> 00:45:43.120\nYou'll get a lot of intensity, a lot of ambition.\n\n1076\n00:45:43.120 --> 00:45:47.380\nYou know, I really do, as people say it all the time, but I really do try to\n\n1077\n00:45:47.380 --> 00:45:48.160\nhire people\n\n1078\n00:45:48.160 --> 00:45:51.120\nthat are a lot better than me at what they do.\n\n1079\n00:45:51.120 --> 00:45:54.270\nAnd I've done that and that has made all the difference in the world for me and\n\n1080\n00:45:54.270 --> 00:45:54.680\nsurround\n\n1081\n00:45:54.680 --> 00:45:58.080\nmyself with people that are better at what they do than I could be.\n\n1082\n00:45:58.080 --> 00:46:00.480\nAnd so my board is full of very competent people.\n\n1083\n00:46:00.480 --> 00:46:03.200\nMickey, someone were talking about a great example, right?\n\n1084\n00:46:03.200 --> 00:46:04.640\nHe's an extraordinary guy.\n\n1085\n00:46:04.640 --> 00:46:07.450\nHe knows the field a lot better than I do and I got to give him the freedom to\n\n1086\n00:46:07.450 --> 00:46:07.880\ndo it\n\n1087\n00:46:07.880 --> 00:46:08.880\nand that's what I do.\n\n1088\n00:46:08.880 --> 00:46:12.940\nYeah, that's Mickey Pant, who used to be the CEO of Young China, terrific,\n\n1089\n00:46:12.940 --> 00:46:13.680\nexactly.\n\n1090\n00:46:13.680 --> 00:46:18.200\nAnd I actually did a podcast with that you can listen to.\n\n1091\n00:46:18.200 --> 00:46:21.120\nYou've been described and you just mentioned it, ambitious.\n\n1092\n00:46:21.120 --> 00:46:27.120\nYou've been described as massively ambitious by one of your former bosses.\n\n1093\n00:46:27.120 --> 00:46:29.800\nWhat's behind your ambition?\n\n1094\n00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:36.820\nI think it's the desire to try to be of service to an issue that is so\n\n1095\n00:46:36.820 --> 00:46:38.480\nimportant.\n\n1096\n00:46:38.480 --> 00:46:47.280\nAnd once you get a taste of the fact that you can do it, it becomes enthralling\n\n1097\n00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:47.480\nthat\n\n1098\n00:46:47.480 --> 00:46:51.320\nyou could actually get something done that's so meaningful.\n\n1099\n00:46:51.320 --> 00:46:53.800\nAnd so I just want to try to do it.\n\n1100\n00:46:53.800 --> 00:46:57.160\nAnd I think I've been very blessed as a child.\n\n1101\n00:46:57.160 --> 00:47:01.240\nI wasn't always successful.\n\n1102\n00:47:01.240 --> 00:47:04.600\nI wasn't very focused at school when I was young.\n\n1103\n00:47:04.600 --> 00:47:08.880\nI wasn't pelvis in college that I became very academically interested.\n\n1104\n00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:10.360\nBut I was surrounded by people.\n\n1105\n00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:11.840\nMy father's a good example.\n\n1106\n00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:15.000\nI'd come downstairs early in the morning to get ready for school.\n\n1107\n00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:17.920\nSometimes it'd be as early as 5.30 or something.\n\n1108\n00:47:17.920 --> 00:47:19.840\nAnd it would sound like it's raining in my basement.\n\n1109\n00:47:19.840 --> 00:47:21.680\nI'm like, \"What the heck?\"\n\n1110\n00:47:21.680 --> 00:47:26.570\nAnd so I'd go down there and he was just banging away on this IBM computer\n\n1111\n00:47:26.570 --> 00:47:27.360\nwriting whatever\n\n1112\n00:47:27.360 --> 00:47:30.000\nbook he was writing or whatever.\n\n1113\n00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.120\nAnd then my grandfathers were both very, as I mentioned in the minister.\n\n1114\n00:47:34.120 --> 00:47:36.080\nI was an entrepreneur and a publisher.\n\n1115\n00:47:36.080 --> 00:47:40.150\nI have great role models around me that were successful people and who were\n\n1116\n00:47:40.150 --> 00:47:40.560\nleaders.\n\n1117\n00:47:40.560 --> 00:47:44.550\nAnd I think that helped me a lot to say, \"I wasn't going to check the box in\n\n1118\n00:47:44.550 --> 00:47:45.160\nlife.\n\n1119\n00:47:45.160 --> 00:47:48.520\nI was going to try to go out and do something that was meaningful.\"\n\n1120\n00:47:48.520 --> 00:47:50.320\nBut I would say this.\n\n1121\n00:47:50.320 --> 00:47:51.600\nI've listened to some of your podcasts.\n\n1122\n00:47:51.600 --> 00:47:55.560\nI am not someone who was dreaming of being a leader.\n\n1123\n00:47:55.560 --> 00:47:57.120\nI am much more reluctant leader.\n\n1124\n00:47:57.120 --> 00:48:01.290\nI think I'm someone who has found a problem that they feel enough passion about\n\n1125\n00:48:01.290 --> 00:48:01.640\nthat\n\n1126\n00:48:01.640 --> 00:48:04.850\nthey want to solve, that they've been able to articulate a path that other\n\n1127\n00:48:04.850 --> 00:48:05.320\npeople are\n\n1128\n00:48:05.320 --> 00:48:07.920\nwanting to follow with them and join them in.\n\n1129\n00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:11.560\nBut I'm not someone who is dreaming as a kid of being a leader.\n\n1130\n00:48:11.560 --> 00:48:13.080\nThat wasn't me.\n\n1131\n00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:14.680\nNow you are a big time leader.\n\n1132\n00:48:14.680 --> 00:48:19.000\nYou're a CEO of a publicly traded company.\n\n1133\n00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:22.720\nHow are you going about getting better at that?\n\n1134\n00:48:22.720 --> 00:48:28.080\nThrough discussions like this and reading, I think just learning from others, I\n\n1135\n00:48:28.080 --> 00:48:28.680\nvery much\n\n1136\n00:48:28.680 --> 00:48:32.720\nagree with the statement that success leaves clues.\n\n1137\n00:48:32.720 --> 00:48:34.400\nTo be humble, it means just be humble.\n\n1138\n00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:37.000\nThere's a ton that I can learn.\n\n1139\n00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:42.120\nAnd we're all mix of confidence and insecurity.\n\n1140\n00:48:42.120 --> 00:48:44.880\nIt's okay to be insecure about things and to try to address them.\n\n1141\n00:48:44.880 --> 00:48:49.680\nAnd so much of the work of being a better leader at this point is now internal\n\n1142\n00:48:49.680 --> 00:48:50.360\nwork.\n\n1143\n00:48:50.360 --> 00:48:54.680\nHow do I work through issues within myself that I want to address?\n\n1144\n00:48:54.680 --> 00:48:57.920\nAnd the better that I can do that, the more effective I'll be as a leader.\n\n1145\n00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:02.760\nI'm less into management books and I'm more into that process of better\n\n1146\n00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:03.640\nunderstanding\n\n1147\n00:49:03.640 --> 00:49:07.920\nwhy I make the decisions that I make, why I do what I do so that I can improve\n\n1148\n00:49:07.920 --> 00:49:08.880\non weaknesses\n\n1149\n00:49:08.880 --> 00:49:12.560\nand be a better person and be a better leader as a result.\n\n1150\n00:49:12.560 --> 00:49:18.160\nTalking about books as a book by Robert Sapowski called Behave, it's really a\n\n1151\n00:49:18.160 --> 00:49:18.440\ngreat, it's\n\n1152\n00:49:18.440 --> 00:49:22.040\nfreaking long and it's too long.\n\n1153\n00:49:22.040 --> 00:49:26.640\nBut it's about why we do what we do from a neurological perspective.\n\n1154\n00:49:26.640 --> 00:49:27.880\nAnd it's fascinating.\n\n1155\n00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:33.160\nAnd so for me, the next stage of leadership is better understanding human\n\n1156\n00:49:33.160 --> 00:49:34.080\nbehavior, including\n\n1157\n00:49:34.080 --> 00:49:35.080\nmy own.\n\n1158\n00:49:35.080 --> 00:49:40.200\nWith this whole coronavirus, a lot of people have had time to self-reflect.\n\n1159\n00:49:40.200 --> 00:49:44.640\nHave you been able to have the time to have more self-reflection through this?\n\n1160\n00:49:44.640 --> 00:49:45.640\nI have.\n\n1161\n00:49:45.640 --> 00:49:46.720\nIt hasn't been that the work hasn't slowed down.\n\n1162\n00:49:46.720 --> 00:49:51.200\nI think the coronavirus, obviously, it's just an horrific, awful tragedy.\n\n1163\n00:49:51.200 --> 00:49:58.560\nAnd not enough, it cannot be.\n\n1164\n00:49:58.560 --> 00:50:03.600\nOne of the things that's come of it is the world has slowed down and stopped\n\n1165\n00:50:03.600 --> 00:50:04.440\nalmost.\n\n1166\n00:50:04.440 --> 00:50:08.580\nAnd so you'll see things happening that are extraordinary in the sense of, I\n\n1167\n00:50:08.580 --> 00:50:09.120\nlive in Los\n\n1168\n00:50:09.120 --> 00:50:11.390\nAngeles and I can see this in the Santa Monica Mountains in a way I've never\n\n1169\n00:50:11.390 --> 00:50:12.720\nseen them before.\n\n1170\n00:50:12.720 --> 00:50:13.720\nThey're so clear.\n\n1171\n00:50:13.720 --> 00:50:15.760\nThe same thing happened in the Himalayas.\n\n1172\n00:50:15.760 --> 00:50:20.640\nClimate, greenhouse gas emissions, plummeted, traffic fatalities, plummeted.\n\n1173\n00:50:20.640 --> 00:50:24.030\nSo there's things that are happening here that we have to take from this and\n\n1174\n00:50:24.030 --> 00:50:24.600\ntry to carry\n\n1175\n00:50:24.600 --> 00:50:28.600\nforward even as we restore our economy.\n\n1176\n00:50:28.600 --> 00:50:33.120\nAnd so yes, for me, it isn't so much the work has slowed down.\n\n1177\n00:50:33.120 --> 00:50:34.120\nIt hasn't.\n\n1178\n00:50:34.120 --> 00:50:37.560\nIt's that stuff at night that you were doing as a parent running around to\n\n1179\n00:50:37.560 --> 00:50:38.400\npractices and\n\n1180\n00:50:38.400 --> 00:50:40.400\nlike that has stopped.\n\n1181\n00:50:40.400 --> 00:50:43.040\nAnd so I have had more time to reflect.\n\n1182\n00:50:43.040 --> 00:50:44.880\nAnd that's been enjoyable.\n\n1183\n00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:49.060\nAs a public company, your company came out and just the stock went through the\n\n1184\n00:50:49.060 --> 00:50:49.640\nroof and\n\n1185\n00:50:49.640 --> 00:50:52.560\nthen it really dropped dramatically.\n\n1186\n00:50:52.560 --> 00:50:56.120\nYou've had tremendous volatility in the stock price.\n\n1187\n00:50:56.120 --> 00:51:01.200\nHow has that impacted you and how do you keep yourself up during those valleys?\n\n1188\n00:51:01.200 --> 00:51:03.400\nYeah, that's a great question.\n\n1189\n00:51:03.400 --> 00:51:07.120\nAt first, it did bother me.\n\n1190\n00:51:07.120 --> 00:51:10.750\nBut you begin to, and you know this better than anybody, you begin to realize\n\n1191\n00:51:10.750 --> 00:51:11.200\nthat they're\n\n1192\n00:51:11.200 --> 00:51:14.280\njust sometimes not rational reactions to things in the market.\n\n1193\n00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:17.730\nAnd the more you can understand that, the more you just focus on the long-term\n\n1194\n00:51:17.730 --> 00:51:18.160\nnature\n\n1195\n00:51:18.160 --> 00:51:19.160\nof your business.\n\n1196\n00:51:19.160 --> 00:51:20.160\nAnd I really do.\n\n1197\n00:51:20.160 --> 00:51:24.710\nThe business that I admire are those ones that have carried forward that long-\n\n1198\n00:51:24.710 --> 00:51:25.040\nterm\n\n1199\n00:51:25.040 --> 00:51:26.040\nperspective.\n\n1200\n00:51:26.040 --> 00:51:30.440\nAnd so Amazon would be a great example, right?\n\n1201\n00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:34.280\nWe have to steal ourselves against trying to satisfy quarterly targets.\n\n1202\n00:51:34.280 --> 00:51:36.280\nAnd we have to think about the long-term.\n\n1203\n00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:39.680\nIf we do that, we can be a massive global protein company.\n\n1204\n00:51:39.680 --> 00:51:42.880\nIf we don't, we'll be one of many players.\n\n1205\n00:51:42.880 --> 00:51:46.840\nYou know, I used to meet with Warren Buffett every year in Omaha.\n\n1206\n00:51:46.840 --> 00:51:47.840\nThat's amazing.\n\n1207\n00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:49.760\nYou guys have lunch at KFC.\n\n1208\n00:51:49.760 --> 00:51:54.120\nHe said, \"Put your ego in your business performance, not your stock price.\"\n\n1209\n00:51:54.120 --> 00:51:56.680\nAnd I think that's a very wise counsel.\n\n1210\n00:51:56.680 --> 00:52:00.120\nYou know, I remember early on in my days at Yum, I made a stupid mistake of\n\n1211\n00:52:00.120 --> 00:52:00.680\nsaying we\n\n1212\n00:52:00.680 --> 00:52:02.320\nwere Yum.com.\n\n1213\n00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:03.600\nAnd we bombed it.\n\n1214\n00:52:03.600 --> 00:52:06.840\nWe went down like that at the hell of a hot-com company too.\n\n1215\n00:52:06.840 --> 00:52:08.720\nSo, you know, I learned that.\n\n1216\n00:52:08.720 --> 00:52:14.480\nYou know, I want to ask you one other thing on just competition.\n\n1217\n00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:16.080\nYou're an impossible food CEO.\n\n1218\n00:52:16.080 --> 00:52:17.640\nHe's pretty bombastic.\n\n1219\n00:52:17.640 --> 00:52:21.490\nHe makes these big claims that the plant-based products are going to outsell\n\n1220\n00:52:21.490 --> 00:52:24.240\nmeat by 2035.\n\n1221\n00:52:24.240 --> 00:52:27.400\nYou know, how do you feel about a statement like that?\n\n1222\n00:52:27.400 --> 00:52:28.400\nI don't make them.\n\n1223\n00:52:28.400 --> 00:52:32.320\nI don't think it's a good idea.\n\n1224\n00:52:32.320 --> 00:52:35.720\nFirst of all, I think humility is really important part of leadership.\n\n1225\n00:52:35.720 --> 00:52:40.720\nAnd I hope that I am a humble person.\n\n1226\n00:52:40.720 --> 00:52:46.780\nYou know, that's how I feel about myself in terms of, you know, I'm hard on\n\n1227\n00:52:46.780 --> 00:52:47.600\nmyself.\n\n1228\n00:52:47.600 --> 00:52:51.720\nLike, it's funny the other day, a colleague of mine didn't like the way I had\n\n1229\n00:52:51.720 --> 00:52:52.680\ndone something\n\n1230\n00:52:52.680 --> 00:52:54.920\ninto a very upfront blunt about it.\n\n1231\n00:52:54.920 --> 00:52:56.320\nAnd it was a performance issue.\n\n1232\n00:52:56.320 --> 00:52:58.920\nIt wasn't like a game.\n\n1233\n00:52:58.920 --> 00:52:59.920\nAnd I agreed.\n\n1234\n00:52:59.920 --> 00:53:01.920\nBut she was so worried about letting me know.\n\n1235\n00:53:01.920 --> 00:53:06.260\nAnd I said, if you only knew what I already thought about what I did, you\n\n1236\n00:53:06.260 --> 00:53:07.240\nwouldn't even\n\n1237\n00:53:07.240 --> 00:53:09.040\nworry about it, you know?\n\n1238\n00:53:09.040 --> 00:53:13.120\nLike, so just that, you know, being humble and realizing that you're making,\n\n1239\n00:53:13.120 --> 00:53:13.720\nyou know,\n\n1240\n00:53:13.720 --> 00:53:14.720\nyou make a lot of mistakes.\n\n1241\n00:53:14.720 --> 00:53:15.720\nI don't think that's really important.\n\n1242\n00:53:15.720 --> 00:53:18.200\nSo first of all, I just stay away from statements like that.\n\n1243\n00:53:18.200 --> 00:53:19.200\nSecond is antagonistic.\n\n1244\n00:53:19.200 --> 00:53:20.920\nI don't want to be antagonistic.\n\n1245\n00:53:20.920 --> 00:53:28.870\nYou know, when I work with Kevin and Andre at KFC and others, David, I want\n\n1246\n00:53:28.870 --> 00:53:29.800\nthem to be\n\n1247\n00:53:29.800 --> 00:53:31.640\nso successful in what we're doing.\n\n1248\n00:53:31.640 --> 00:53:33.160\nI want them to succeed.\n\n1249\n00:53:33.160 --> 00:53:37.860\nAnd McDonald's, I've talked very, at length about this, you know, I want these\n\n1250\n00:53:37.860 --> 00:53:38.520\ncompanies\n\n1251\n00:53:38.520 --> 00:53:41.240\nto be super successful in partnership.\n\n1252\n00:53:41.240 --> 00:53:44.240\nAnd so let's just focus on that.\n\n1253\n00:53:44.240 --> 00:53:48.960\nLet's just focus on, on, can we provide a healthy product for consumers and do\n\n1254\n00:53:48.960 --> 00:53:49.320\nso in\n\n1255\n00:53:49.320 --> 00:53:51.160\na way that everybody wins?\n\n1256\n00:53:51.160 --> 00:53:53.480\nThat seems to be the right focus.\n\n1257\n00:53:53.480 --> 00:53:55.930\nYou know, Ethan, one of the things I've just started doing is just to have a\n\n1258\n00:53:55.930 --> 00:53:56.520\nlittle fun\n\n1259\n00:53:56.520 --> 00:53:59.840\nat the end of these conversations with a little lightning round.\n\n1260\n00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:00.840\nOkay.\n\n1261\n00:54:00.840 --> 00:54:03.450\nYou know, I've had a blast already with this conversation, but I wanted to do\n\n1262\n00:54:03.450 --> 00:54:03.960\njust a real\n\n1263\n00:54:03.960 --> 00:54:06.240\nquick lightning round of Q and A. Okay.\n\n1264\n00:54:06.240 --> 00:54:07.240\nSure.\n\n1265\n00:54:07.240 --> 00:54:08.240\nAre you ready for this?\n\n1266\n00:54:08.240 --> 00:54:09.240\nI'll try.\n\n1267\n00:54:09.240 --> 00:54:10.240\nOkay.\n\n1268\n00:54:10.240 --> 00:54:11.920\nWhat three words best describe you?\n\n1269\n00:54:11.920 --> 00:54:17.440\nI think passionate, I think loyal.\n\n1270\n00:54:17.440 --> 00:54:22.480\nAnd you know, I think the thing about being intellectually thorough, I really\n\n1271\n00:54:22.480 --> 00:54:23.040\ntry to get\n\n1272\n00:54:23.040 --> 00:54:24.240\nto the bottom of things.\n\n1273\n00:54:24.240 --> 00:54:25.240\nOkay.\n\n1274\n00:54:25.240 --> 00:54:26.240\nWhat's your biggest pet peeve?\n\n1275\n00:54:26.240 --> 00:54:27.840\nA lack of effort.\n\n1276\n00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:29.440\nWhat's your favorite movie and why?\n\n1277\n00:54:29.440 --> 00:54:30.440\nOh, Hoosiers.\n\n1278\n00:54:30.440 --> 00:54:32.720\nI will cry every time I watch it.\n\n1279\n00:54:32.720 --> 00:54:34.960\nMe too.\n\n1280\n00:54:34.960 --> 00:54:38.320\nShare in the fact about you that few people would know.\n\n1281\n00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:47.240\nI'm trying to use this time during the COVID-19 crisis to learn piano.\n\n1282\n00:54:47.240 --> 00:54:51.560\nIf you could trade places with one person for a day, who would it be and why?\n\n1283\n00:54:51.560 --> 00:54:55.170\nYou know, it would be one of my children so that I could better understand how\n\n1284\n00:54:55.170 --> 00:54:55.640\nthey view\n\n1285\n00:54:55.640 --> 00:54:58.200\nthe world and how I could help them.\n\n1286\n00:54:58.200 --> 00:55:03.480\nAnd I have to ask you this, when do you have a pet?\n\n1287\n00:55:03.480 --> 00:55:05.480\nHow long do you have?\n\n1288\n00:55:05.480 --> 00:55:08.280\nThat answers that question.\n\n1289\n00:55:08.280 --> 00:55:09.840\nI love animals.\n\n1290\n00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:13.680\nYou know, you're an up and coming company.\n\n1291\n00:55:13.680 --> 00:55:18.060\nAnd so what do you think are the three most important characteristics you look\n\n1292\n00:55:18.060 --> 00:55:18.520\nfor and\n\n1293\n00:55:18.520 --> 00:55:21.520\nthe people that you want to really grow your business?\n\n1294\n00:55:21.520 --> 00:55:22.520\nSure.\n\n1295\n00:55:22.520 --> 00:55:24.720\nI think it's that shining capability.\n\n1296\n00:55:24.720 --> 00:55:30.540\nYou know, it's very clear to me that this person is special and can do things\n\n1297\n00:55:30.540 --> 00:55:31.240\nthat maybe\n\n1298\n00:55:31.240 --> 00:55:33.480\nothers wouldn't be able to do.\n\n1299\n00:55:33.480 --> 00:55:36.520\nSo you try to find that characteristic.\n\n1300\n00:55:36.520 --> 00:55:38.760\nBut it's worth nothing if there's not that work ethic.\n\n1301\n00:55:38.760 --> 00:55:40.920\nI will just all day long.\n\n1302\n00:55:40.920 --> 00:55:42.280\nI will bet on a work ethic.\n\n1303\n00:55:42.280 --> 00:55:44.280\nI mean, absolutely.\n\n1304\n00:55:44.280 --> 00:55:45.440\nAnd then just character, right?\n\n1305\n00:55:45.440 --> 00:55:47.800\nYou know, are they going to do the right thing?\n\n1306\n00:55:47.800 --> 00:55:49.920\nYou mentioned failure a little earlier.\n\n1307\n00:55:49.920 --> 00:55:50.920\nAnd you're one of these guys.\n\n1308\n00:55:50.920 --> 00:55:55.340\nIf you look at them and you know, you've been so successful, what would be your\n\n1309\n00:55:55.340 --> 00:55:55.720\nepic\n\n1310\n00:55:55.720 --> 00:55:56.720\nfailure?\n\n1311\n00:55:56.720 --> 00:55:59.000\nDo you have one that really stands out in your career?\n\n1312\n00:55:59.000 --> 00:56:00.000\nYeah, sure.\n\n1313\n00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:01.000\nI felt a lot.\n\n1314\n00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:08.150\nWhen I was fired by my board when I was like 27 for, we had a disagreement over\n\n1315\n00:56:08.150 --> 00:56:09.240\nsomething\n\n1316\n00:56:09.240 --> 00:56:11.800\nand I didn't handle it well.\n\n1317\n00:56:11.800 --> 00:56:14.160\nI felt I was right.\n\n1318\n00:56:14.160 --> 00:56:18.730\nAnd I just sort of told them that I was right and that, you know, here are the\n\n1319\n00:56:18.730 --> 00:56:19.440\nissues the\n\n1320\n00:56:19.440 --> 00:56:23.440\nway they were managing and they said, \"Speaker, you're walking papers.\"\n\n1321\n00:56:23.440 --> 00:56:24.440\nThat was a mistake.\n\n1322\n00:56:24.440 --> 00:56:26.600\nSo that was a failure.\n\n1323\n00:56:26.600 --> 00:56:28.360\nBut there are other things.\n\n1324\n00:56:28.360 --> 00:56:30.200\nI've made mistakes and failed for sure.\n\n1325\n00:56:30.200 --> 00:56:33.440\nNow, so what would you see as your biggest success?\n\n1326\n00:56:33.440 --> 00:56:35.680\nIn business?\n\n1327\n00:56:35.680 --> 00:56:39.520\nFor me, the thing is these partnerships that we're having with these QSRs,\n\n1328\n00:56:39.520 --> 00:56:40.440\nincluding KFC,\n\n1329\n00:56:40.440 --> 00:56:44.560\nare so important to me because it's where we're going to meet the consumer.\n\n1330\n00:56:44.560 --> 00:56:46.160\nAnd so I put those right there.\n\n1331\n00:56:46.160 --> 00:56:49.580\nYeah, you know, it's interesting that Pepsi and Coke built their businesses,\n\n1332\n00:56:49.580 --> 00:56:50.160\nyou know,\n\n1333\n00:56:50.160 --> 00:56:53.600\nin the restaurants, getting people to try the product, you know, the same way.\n\n1334\n00:56:53.600 --> 00:56:55.960\nSo that's what you're going about at the same way.\n\n1335\n00:56:55.960 --> 00:57:00.740\nAnd I have to ask you one other question, which is, you know, can you share a\n\n1336\n00:57:00.740 --> 00:57:01.160\nlittle\n\n1337\n00:57:01.160 --> 00:57:04.360\nbit about your family and how you're striving to keep things in balance?\n\n1338\n00:57:04.360 --> 00:57:07.360\nBecause you're obviously, you do have that intensity.\n\n1339\n00:57:07.360 --> 00:57:10.160\nYeah, that's one that's interesting.\n\n1340\n00:57:10.160 --> 00:57:16.300\nI mean, as important as all this work is to me, I'm pretty typical in the sense\n\n1341\n00:57:16.300 --> 00:57:17.400\nof that,\n\n1342\n00:57:17.400 --> 00:57:21.200\nyou know, my family is still more important to me, for sure.\n\n1343\n00:57:21.200 --> 00:57:26.480\nYou know, and if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick my family.\n\n1344\n00:57:26.480 --> 00:57:31.400\nAnd you know, I've always viewed my kids as ice cream cones.\n\n1345\n00:57:31.400 --> 00:57:33.280\nYou know, they're going to melt.\n\n1346\n00:57:33.280 --> 00:57:34.560\nYou better enjoy them, right?\n\n1347\n00:57:34.560 --> 00:57:37.600\nBecause they're going to be up and gone.\n\n1348\n00:57:37.600 --> 00:57:39.520\nAnd so the time is now to enjoy them.\n\n1349\n00:57:39.520 --> 00:57:42.160\nAnd so I do try to be really involved in their lives.\n\n1350\n00:57:42.160 --> 00:57:46.140\nAnd you generally, through sports, you know, my son is a very active basketball\n\n1351\n00:57:46.140 --> 00:57:46.760\nplayer,\n\n1352\n00:57:46.760 --> 00:57:48.480\nmy daughter's a volleyball player.\n\n1353\n00:57:48.480 --> 00:57:51.640\nAnd so it's through things like that.\n\n1354\n00:57:51.640 --> 00:57:55.320\nBut even with this effort over this period to learn a new instrument, you know,\n\n1355\n00:57:55.320 --> 00:57:55.520\nI bought\n\n1356\n00:57:55.520 --> 00:57:59.680\nmy son a saxophone and my daughter a guitar.\n\n1357\n00:57:59.680 --> 00:58:04.760\nJust try to be with them, try to be president because mannequos so fast.\n\n1358\n00:58:04.760 --> 00:58:06.920\nYeah, that's just great.\n\n1359\n00:58:06.920 --> 00:58:11.440\nYou know, I have to tell you that I played the saxophone for about six months.\n\n1360\n00:58:11.440 --> 00:58:14.560\nAnd before I decide I wanted to be a major league baseball player.\n\n1361\n00:58:14.560 --> 00:58:16.160\nAnd that didn't happen.\n\n1362\n00:58:16.160 --> 00:58:20.980\nYeah, well, I wanted to be at some point a basketball player and I didn't go\n\n1363\n00:58:20.980 --> 00:58:21.480\nthat far.\n\n1364\n00:58:21.480 --> 00:58:25.900\nBut Ethan, I have to tell you, I said at the top that you were an incredible\n\n1365\n00:58:25.900 --> 00:58:26.680\nhuman being\n\n1366\n00:58:26.680 --> 00:58:27.680\nand more.\n\n1367\n00:58:27.680 --> 00:58:30.810\nI mean, you are a really, really special person, one of those people that you\n\n1368\n00:58:30.810 --> 00:58:31.560\nlook for, you\n\n1369\n00:58:31.560 --> 00:58:33.440\nknow, that does shine.\n\n1370\n00:58:33.440 --> 00:58:37.080\nAnd, you know, I've got one more question for you.\n\n1371\n00:58:37.080 --> 00:58:38.080\nSure.\n\n1372\n00:58:38.080 --> 00:58:41.680\nYou look out and you see beyond me, what's your future back vision?\n\n1373\n00:58:41.680 --> 00:58:42.680\nSure.\n\n1374\n00:58:42.680 --> 00:58:47.560\nBefore I answer that, I also just, I so admire and I'm not just saying this to\n\n1375\n00:58:47.560 --> 00:58:48.720\nsay it, but\n\n1376\n00:58:48.720 --> 00:58:54.040\nthe journey you've taken in your life is one that's remarkable to me.\n\n1377\n00:58:54.040 --> 00:59:00.010\nAnd the, you know, I'm, I, the work you're doing to create better leaders today\n\n1378\n00:59:00.010 --> 00:59:00.400\n.\n\n1379\n00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:02.280\nYou know, it's not just going to be listened to by leaders.\n\n1380\n00:59:02.280 --> 00:59:05.380\nLike my kids are going to listen to your podcast because of the value of the\n\n1381\n00:59:05.380 --> 00:59:06.160\nconversations\n\n1382\n00:59:06.160 --> 00:59:07.800\nyou're having.\n\n1383\n00:59:07.800 --> 00:59:10.880\nAnd so I just, I really, I write that back at you.\n\n1384\n00:59:10.880 --> 00:59:11.880\nThank you.\n\n1385\n00:59:11.880 --> 00:59:12.880\nYeah.\n\n1386\n00:59:12.880 --> 00:59:13.880\nThank you.\n\n1387\n00:59:13.880 --> 00:59:14.880\nYou did an appreciate it.\n\n1388\n00:59:14.880 --> 00:59:17.200\nSo the future for Beyond Meat, a global protein company, for sure.\n\n1389\n00:59:17.200 --> 00:59:21.850\nYou know, active, very active in Asia, very active in Europe, very active here\n\n1390\n00:59:21.850 --> 00:59:22.280\nin the\n\n1391\n00:59:22.280 --> 00:59:27.640\nUnited States, and decoupling meat from animals so that we can continue to\n\n1392\n00:59:27.640 --> 00:59:28.880\nenjoy the dishes\n\n1393\n00:59:28.880 --> 00:59:32.960\nand the meals and the experiences that we have, but do so in a way that maybe\n\n1394\n00:59:32.960 --> 00:59:33.560\nis better\n\n1395\n00:59:33.560 --> 00:59:37.000\nfor our bodies and better for the earth.\n\n1396\n00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:40.350\nWell Ethan, if there's one guy in the world that can bake that happen, it's\n\n1397\n00:59:40.350 --> 00:59:40.640\ntrue.\n\n1398\n00:59:40.640 --> 00:59:44.140\nI'm trying to, you know, I always say, show me a leader and I'll show you a\n\n1399\n00:59:44.140 --> 00:59:45.040\ngreat business.\n\n1400\n00:59:45.040 --> 00:59:46.560\nSo go down to my mind.\n\n1401\n00:59:46.560 --> 00:59:47.560\nYou are the leader.\n\n1402\n00:59:47.560 --> 00:59:48.560\nSo thank you once again.\n\n1403\n00:59:48.560 --> 00:59:49.560\nThank you.\n\n1404\n00:59:49.560 --> 00:59:50.560\nDo it on this show.\n\n1405\n00:59:50.560 --> 00:59:51.560\nThank you so much.\n\n1406\n00:59:51.560 --> 00:59:52.560\nI really appreciate it.\n\n1407\n00:59:52.560 --> 00:59:53.560\nIt's real honor.\n\n1408\n00:59:53.560 --> 01:00:03.800\nWell, I know you can tell from this conversation with Ethan that Beyond Meat is\n\n1409\n01:00:03.800 --> 01:00:06.040\ninto innovation\n\n1410\n01:00:06.040 --> 01:00:08.440\nand continuous improvement.\n\n1411\n01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:12.760\nAnd believe me, he and his team are constantly trying to crack the code.\n\n1412\n01:00:12.760 --> 01:00:17.590\nYou know, and getting ready for this podcast, I actually went to the KFC Test\n\n1413\n01:00:17.590 --> 01:00:18.440\nKitchens and\n\n1414\n01:00:18.440 --> 01:00:23.250\nI had them prepare for me the original chicken patty that they put together\n\n1415\n01:00:23.250 --> 01:00:24.440\nwith Beyond Meat\n\n1416\n01:00:24.440 --> 01:00:26.240\nand the one that they have now.\n\n1417\n01:00:26.240 --> 01:00:30.360\nAnd I have to tell you, the improvement wasn't just incremental.\n\n1418\n01:00:30.360 --> 01:00:36.300\nIt was quantum and it just goes to show that what Ethan is working on with his\n\n1419\n01:00:36.300 --> 01:00:36.600\nteam, it's\n\n1420\n01:00:36.600 --> 01:00:43.060\ngoing to happen and he's going to do it because you saw the passion that he has\n\n1421\n01:00:43.060 --> 01:00:43.080\n.\n\n1422\n01:00:43.080 --> 01:00:48.170\nNow you and I both know huge improvement, like what's happening at Beyond Meat\n\n1423\n01:00:48.170 --> 01:00:49.080\njust doesn't\n\n1424\n01:00:49.080 --> 01:00:50.080\nhappen.\n\n1425\n01:00:50.080 --> 01:00:54.320\nIt's a result of an incredible team and an incredible leader.\n\n1426\n01:00:54.320 --> 01:00:58.760\nAnd I'm really struck by how plugged in Ethan is to his purpose.\n\n1427\n01:00:58.760 --> 01:01:02.520\nIt's the reason he's pushing his team's timelines and not letting them get\n\n1428\n01:01:02.520 --> 01:01:04.320\nburied in spreadsheets.\n\n1429\n01:01:04.320 --> 01:01:08.740\nIt's building a culture of intelligent people who feel empowered to take risk\n\n1430\n01:01:08.740 --> 01:01:09.560\nand that purpose\n\n1431\n01:01:09.560 --> 01:01:14.700\nis the force behind his relentless positivity and how he approaches his\n\n1432\n01:01:14.700 --> 01:01:17.280\nmessaging, his partnerships\n\n1433\n01:01:17.280 --> 01:01:20.040\nand even competition.\n\n1434\n01:01:20.040 --> 01:01:22.320\nSo are you ready for a little coaching?\n\n1435\n01:01:22.320 --> 01:01:23.680\nLet's go.\n\n1436\n01:01:23.680 --> 01:01:28.040\nThis week, as a part of your weekly personal development plan, I want you to\n\n1437\n01:01:28.040 --> 01:01:28.760\ntap into the\n\n1438\n01:01:28.760 --> 01:01:32.640\npower of purpose for yourself in these two steps.\n\n1439\n01:01:32.640 --> 01:01:36.480\nFirst, think of something you're not satisfied with.\n\n1440\n01:01:36.480 --> 01:01:40.830\nMaybe it's related to your company or your own development or your community or\n\n1441\n01:01:40.830 --> 01:01:41.400\nthe world\n\n1442\n01:01:41.400 --> 01:01:42.400\nat large.\n\n1443\n01:01:42.400 --> 01:01:45.480\nThen I want you to connect with the why.\n\n1444\n01:01:45.480 --> 01:01:48.000\nWhy you really want it to be better?\n\n1445\n01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:52.660\nWhen we answer that question honestly, we tap into the power of purpose and\n\n1446\n01:01:52.660 --> 01:01:53.200\nthat's what\n\n1447\n01:01:53.200 --> 01:01:58.760\nwill help us lead our teams and ourselves to accomplish amazing things.\n\n1448\n01:01:58.760 --> 01:02:00.720\nSo do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1449\n01:02:00.720 --> 01:02:05.120\nWhat we learned today is that great leaders tap into the power of purpose.\n\n1450\n01:02:05.120 --> 01:02:09.380\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead where every\n\n1451\n01:02:09.380 --> 01:02:10.240\nThursday you\n\n1452\n01:02:10.240 --> 01:02:14.880\nget to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world.\n\n1453\n01:02:14.880 --> 01:02:18.870\nI make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can\n\n1454\n01:02:18.870 --> 01:02:19.680\napply to your\n\n1455\n01:02:19.680 --> 01:02:23.240\nbusiness so that you will become the best leader you can be.\n\n1456\n01:02:23.240 --> 01:02:33.240\n[BLANK_AUDIO]\n\n1457\n01:02:33.240 --> 01:02:59.240\n[ Silence ]","

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 that you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of Beyond Meat. Now, you're gonna hear a lot of leaders and they'll talk about changing the world. But that is literally Ethan's mission at Beyond Meat. His company is devoted to getting the same protein as animal beat straight from plants, so that they can reduce climate change, improve human health, and help animal welfare. Now, if that isn't an epic mission, I don't know what is. And you know, when you listen to Ethan, you realize just how powerful his sense of purpose is, is the driving force behind the incredible product development of Beyond Meat. It's what influences their marketing and competitive strategy. It's also a huge piece of their team culture. That sense of purpose is like the ultimate source of renewable energy. Now, of course, your sense of purpose is going to vary. But great leaders know how to use purpose as motivation, when the going gets tough, or they need to reach a big goal. Ethan does this exceptionally well, it was so much intelligence and humility to boot. So let's dig in and see how great leaders tap into the power of purpose. Here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Ethan Brown.

Ethan, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us.

Ethan Brown 1:49

Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here. As you know, I'm a big fan of your work. And I've followed your career and read a lot of your work. And so just really appreciative to be here.

David Novak 1:59

You know, Ethan, I'd like to just start out by having you give us a basic primer. What is beyond meat? And what kind of products are you making today?

Ethan Brown 2:06

Sure. So Beyond Meat is a protein company. And what we do is instead of running plant material and water through animals, we instead extract the core parts of meat directly from the plant. And we use a system of heating, cooling and pressure to align those in the architecture of muscle or meat. And so if you think about what the animals doing, they're consuming a lot of vegetation and a lot of water. And they use their biology to organize that in the form of muscle, which is familiar to us as meat. But what we're doing is taking those core parts of meat, which are amino acids, lipids, trace minerals, vitamins, and of course, water directly from plant material, and we are organizing those against the blueprint or architecture of meat. So we're building meat directly from plants. And for us, it's been 11 year journey, we're getting closer and closer. But we do believe there'll be a day when we'll be able to provide a product to consumers that is indistinguishable from animal protein. And it provides terrific and nutritious protein for the son of the plate.

David Novak 3:06

I understand that your dad's you know, he was a professor, but he actually grew up on a farm and he had a farm when you were a kid, it was basically as his hobby. Yeah. Did that have any influence on you? Either?

Ethan Brown 3:18

Oh, yes, it did. It did. And my father more generally, I've been very fortunate to enjoy a great relationship with him. And he's actually still teaching. He's at McGill in Montreal, and you're early on. He's an interesting, interesting person. He grew up in what was at the time rural Connecticut, and my grandfather, his father was a minister, and had the opportunity to be the chaplain at a couple of different colleges. And so they they moved a bit in New England doing that, but as always in beautiful rural areas. And so when it came time for him to pursue his career, he really had to decide how to balance his desire to be in the outdoors and in nature, with his career ambitions, which are were pretty significant around academia. And so, you know, when he got his degree in philosophy from Columbia, and at the time, he set the record for finishing his coursework because he just couldn't stand being in New York City. And that's very unusual for a young person to behave that way, right to think I guess, gotta get out of the city. And, and so that sort of stuck, that kind of urgency to be out in the outdoors, stayed with him throughout my childhood. And so though we grew up in Washington, DC, and then later in College Park, Maryland, we have a farm in the western part of the state of Maryland, it became a retreat for us and my father's a bit entrepreneurial himself. And so instead of just being a kind of casual hobby farm, he turned into a dairy operation with our neighbor up there and so I did have a lot of time spent there and had an interesting childhood where I was growing up in the city but also having these long stretches of time out in the country. And so I think I really learned a lot through that process and informs my thinking today,

David Novak 5:05

my mother, she actually lived on a farm and I could see the schoolhouse that they went to about a mile. I still can smell the the tractor smell, right? It's always it's like in my mind

Ethan Brown 5:17

or the sound of a chainsaw. That just brings you right back. It's really interesting. Yeah,

David Novak 5:22

absolutely. You know, is it true, I read this somewhere that you were actually a fast food junkie. That's music to my ears. So is it true that you really liked the like fast food,

Ethan Brown 5:32

it's more on target than that. So I have just terrific memories of being on the Chesapeake Bay. And we used to get a big bucket of KFC and take it out on the bay and just have a great day sailing and enjoying KFC chicken. And so my first date was at McDonald's. And, you know, I grew up really enjoying that I think it's great food and great experience to be able to get affordable food like that. And so, for me Beyond Meat, it's never been about high end chefs or, you know, five star restaurants. It's been about how do we meet people in their daily lives where they are and affect the most and highest number of people providing them with nutritious food?

David Novak 6:19

Well, I'm really happy that you enjoy that Kentucky Fried Chicken for a while now I understand that you did become a vegan. Yeah, you know what really drove that process?

Ethan Brown 6:28

You know, it's interesting. So I got into energy, because I cared and I say this before, but I think it's worth repeating. When I was getting out of school, I was restless, like many young people, and I took a lot of different turns trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to express, you know, my commitment to try to make this a better world. And so I was sitting in my father's office, kind of right after school. And I was saying, I really want to stop studying right now. And I was in graduate, I want to, I want to just go out and do it myself. My friends are doing X, Y and Z. Let's talk about your career. I said, Okay. And he said, you know, how should I think about this is, well, what's the biggest problem in the world. And it didn't come to me right away. But I said, we know, I really think it's probably climate, because if if we can't get the climate stabilized, you know, I can be the best lawyer in the world or surgeon in the world, or whatever I could try to aspire to be. But if the world is destabilized, because of the basic environment in which we live is become unstable, those things are going to be impacted, and it's gonna impact everything. So if you asked me what the biggest problem is, I have to say, well, it's probably climate change. And so he said, Well, that's probably a good way to focus your career. And so I did that, I thought that's, that makes sense to me. And so I started to get into, to energy. And, and worked for for a long time and energy. But I began to realize that it wasn't just, you know, the car we drive, or the light ball we use, or the power plant, the power is the facilities in which we work. It's also the protein at the center of the plate. In fact, the protein, that center of the plate is probably a more important solution than anything else we can do in terms of addressing climate. And so that became a fascination for me. And I said, I gotta go out and figure out how we can continue to enjoy the incredible experience of the culinary work we've done around animal protein, etc. But do it with protein extract from plant, and that will make a very significant contribution to climate. Now, I also had other motivations. When you when you grow up around animals on the farm, it's much harder to think about them as units, right? And so you begin to think about them in their lives, then you begin to think about, you know, the use of land, energy and water. And then, of course, human health, right. And so all of those things started to fascinate me. And I became really interested in one concept that I could focus on one thing, which is changing the protein at the senator plate, from an animal based protein to a plant based protein, and I could simultaneously advance for things that I think are important that human health, it's climate change, it's the conservation of natural resources. And lastly, in welfare, I'd never seen anything in my career. And I still haven't today, where through a singular focus, you can advance four really important objectives.

David Novak 9:24

What do you think you do most that improves human health? I want to go through each one of those trends. So that's very interesting.

Ethan Brown 9:29

Sure. So I think it's it's in this is it's, it's something that's just constantly evolving. And so and by the way, you know, we've worked with KFC, as you know, and it's just been a tremendous experience. And they are, you should be very proud. I mean, they're leaning forward in a way that just shows their leadership and Kevin there, and it's just, it's been a remarkable partnership. And so the idea here is let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Let's try to get everything that's great about animal protein, which is there's a lot right it's got a sources of protein etc. But you have to also remember that the the muscle which we harvest, as meat is there for the animal to do work just like the muscle and your bicep is there to do work. So not everything in that muscle is going to be great for you if you consume it every day, right. And so let's find a way to capture everything that's great in that and reduce the things that aren't. And so we think about their products have no cholesterol, they have lower saturated fat, they have no heme iron, they have no heterocyclic, Amiens, so all of these things that are, are increasingly of concern to the metal community, we can strip out. And so for me, we actually trademark this, we feel so passionate about it. Eat what you love. If you love having burgers, if you love having chicken, go and keep doing it. But we're going to do it in a way that's better for you. And that's where plant based meat comes into play.

David Novak 10:51

Well, how do you how do you even respond to the criticism that you get that the food is to process? That's

Ethan Brown 10:56

a great, that's a really appreciate the question, because it is an important perspective that we have to do a lot of education around. And with the COVID-19 disruption that's happened to our economy, we've taken a pause on that. But 2020 really will be about for us clarifying with the consumer, what it means to think about our process. And so first and foremost, I really believe it's a tale of two processes. If you look at our process, we're stripping the protein from the plant. And how do we do that, it's pretty basic. So we have a supplier. Now that does this for us. But what happens is, let's say I'll take peas, so the peas are milled, so you have a flower. And then you place that flower, in literally in water, you change the pH level of that water, you could do that with a lemon if you want it to. And that separates the fiber and the protein, the protein is extracted, and it's dried. And then we run that through heating, cooling and pressure. And that's essentially resetting the bonds from the organization that they would have in a plant to one that's more analogous to one that they would have in muscle. That's kind of our process. Now, you have to juxtapose that with the other process, which is to feed a lot of material to an animal, use the animal's biology to convert all of that into muscle, and then you harvest the animal or slaughter the animal. There are a lot of steps in that that consumers are increasingly uncomfortable with, including the use of antibiotics and things like that. So we're able to skip all of that. So I think it's important to think about your process is simply a word. And it's actually if you look it up, it's a series of steps towards a goal. Right. So process is neutral. And I think there's been some clever marketing among incumbent members of industry to suggest that just because there's a process involved, that's somehow bad, I think it's important to step back and say, Okay, what is the process?

David Novak 12:54

Yeah, that's a great point, you know, and I want to talk a little bit more about that later that the second trend that you're addressing, which you already brought up was the whole issue of climate change, what would be the biggest thing you're doing that's going to impact that?

Ethan Brown 13:07

It's really around the more efficient conversion of plant material to meat. And so if you look at, if you take a burger, for example, that's created through our process, and you take a burger that's created through the normal process of running plant material through the animal, we have 90%, fewer greenhouse gas emissions. And that just has to do with a lot of efficiencies along the way. And so just like in business, and operations courses, micro economics courses, the goal here is to the bottleneck, the production of protein, and the big bottleneck in protein production is the animal. And if you can extract that from the process, you gain these efficiencies, which then afford these environmental benefits. And that's what's happening with us.

David Novak 13:51

Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah. The other thing that you're attacking, Ethan is addressing global resource constraints. And you know, how you doing that.

Ethan Brown 14:00

So I would also be remiss to not bring up your alma mater, that, Missouri and the work you've done there. And so let me just take a second to do that. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about we wouldn't be having this conversation if it were not for that university. I just can't say enough good things about the people there and the values they have. The reason I brought that up in this context is that America has these terrific land grant universities, Missouri is one of them, university, Maryland and other one, I worked with both of them to form this company. And it's, I think, a really interesting outcome that two universities who have strong ag programs helped to develop a company that will, I think, bring the next revolution to agriculture in terms of making it more efficient, right. And so if you think about the efficiency of our system, we're using 99% Less water to produce a burger, right? We're using 93% Lesson land, right? So the benefits there are really quantifiable. And so our goal is then to make sure that we're not asking you as a consumer, going to KFC or going to Taco Bell, or going into any of these institutions to make a sacrifice, because we know how consumers are right, we have to continue to delight them. And that's why I do admire what Tesla has done, right, they've taken something as a social issue. And they've made it alluring. They've said, we're going to create cars, and you're going to want to drive, you're going to seek this out, we have to do that Beyond Meat. And I think we're on our way to doing that.

David Novak 15:38

We learned that many times, you know, people do not want to compromise on taste. They don't, you know, they, you know, people want it all, they don't want to make the compromise. So you can talk about being more nutritious and, you know, affecting climate change and all that. But if it doesn't taste good, you know, people aren't going to

Ethan Brown 15:54

eat it, you're not going to get the ticket in your hand to have the conversation you have you got to make it taste great. And that's okay. I mean, that's fine. Look, I mean, the original, this stone is, is a friend and one of our early investors. And years ago, when we were starting out, we should talk about this, that food is one of the, you know, original social media, right? It was what we all gather around to talk and meet and share our day and things of that nature. And so we want to enjoy it. And that's fine. We will fail if we don't delight the consumer, and we have to keep that front and center of everything we do.

David Novak 16:29

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the other trend that you're talking about is improving animal welfare. You know, that's pretty self explanatory. Your cow but but give me your perspective on

Ethan Brown 16:38

it. Well, I just think it's it's, you know, we've, we've innovated around so much in our life, and I love innovation, I'm very passionate about it. I think this is a story of American innovation. That's, that's as needed any, in the sense that we're taking something that we all think is a good, you know, we really enjoy that, that center of the plate protein. And we're trying to make it better. And so, you know, we're not doing this over telegram. We're not doing it over a landline. We're doing it over something that is eclipsed all of those. And that's the process of innovation. Nobody had to lambast or denigrate the landline to make the mobile phone popular, right. And so we don't really have to beat up on the old system, we just have to make something that's better. And so if you can create meat without using the animal that I think very few people would say, that's not a good idea. You know, like, let's, let's try to do it. And I think I think we can, and that then takes the moral question off the table. And that's something I'm very happy to do. You've got some

David Novak 17:45

really altruistic things that you're trying to do here. Which one of these global trends do you think is most important that you just talked about? Is it climate change?

Ethan Brown 17:53

Well, I can tell you where the consumer is, the consumer comes to us first over health, for sure. And then there's a halo that can develop around the fact that you're doing something great for your body, but also can be really good for for for the earth. But it's interesting. There's some demographic trends, right. So 40, and older, definitely health as a driver. But young people looking at the folks like Greta and others that are protesting over climate, they're coming to it first, because the environment now we have to always say like, we got to get taste first, right, we got to really delight the consumer. Second nutrition. People think that plant based eating is healthier, don't disappoint them, don't have a turnout, that there's something in there, that's not good for them, or that the, you know, the levels of X, Y, and Z, you know, are in excess or something. Make sure it really is healthier. And so we do a ton of work on that. And you know, we work with Stanford, we work with a bunch of different institutions are constantly looking at how do we make our products healthier and healthier? And so but but but but first and foremost, is that consumer coming after us for for health?

David Novak 19:05

Now, of course, everyone today is concerned about infectious disease that is created from animals. And this has to make your products even more on trend. What are you hearing from consumers on that front?

Ethan Brown 19:18

You do hear that and there have been some op eds written by particular some academics have written on that point. I think what's happening here is you have to look at the ratio. And I have a terrific chart which I sometimes show which is the ratio of humans to livestock on the surface. And as you grow that human population, and if that ratio holds or even increases, as the developing world becomes much more interested in eating animal protein, you are reaching very, very quickly the limits of what our ecosystem globally can handle, and what the biosphere can handle. You can't have infinite growth on a finite system. That's a pretty simple idea. But that's what we're trying to Do and so we have to somehow break that ratio, we have to somehow be able to feed the population without growing the livestock numbers, right? And in fact, dramatically reducing them. And so what you're seeing with some of these things is that we're we're bumping up against limits of what a ecosystem and biological system could handle. And so you're seeing whether it's bird flu, or what's happening here, you're starting to see those boundaries be be compromised.

David Novak 20:24

Ethan, you talked about your why you started the company. And it seemed to be more of a process than than a aha moment. Did you have? Did you wake up one night and say, I'm gonna do this? And remember that aha moment or?

Ethan Brown 20:37

No, though? You know, it's, you got to get uncomfortable about something, I think sometimes, and I started to get really uncomfortable this year, over a year. You know, I just I began to think there's something here in the sense of that you didn't need to use animal to build meat tonight knew about veggie burgers and things like that, that was never my interest. What I wanted to do was to try to figure out, and this is something I think has helped me in my career. And it's both a plus. And a minus, for me for sure, is that I will marinate in problems in terms of like, trying to figure them out, right? And so that can be really healthy when it's directed toward, you know, something that's positive, like work or if it can be, it can be unhealthy if it's ruminating about something, right. And so in the sense that I just started to think this isn't the right way to go forward, how do we do something different, and a year over a year, you know, I was in the fuel cell industry, and I was making great progress, as I mentioned, you know, or talked about having a great career, right? And but I just felt like there's an itch that I had to scratch. You know, really, when my kids were born, and I started to realize the food choices that they were going to have to make, I said, I gotta go do this, because I don't do it. I'm gonna regret it. And so it was that discomfort, really, that pushed me over the edge of the most.

David Novak 21:55

I love the idea of people pursuing things because of just the fear of the loss potential that Yeah, well, you took the company public. And you know, you've had enormous success by anybody standard. You've, you know, obviously, you've achieved some tremendous personal wealth. But I know that you you live a relatively understated lifestyle. You You take Uber, when you go on market tours, you, you don't take the limos, and you actually, the last I heard is that you drive a 2016 Prius? What's keeping you out of the limos and Ferraris? How do you stay in grounded?

Ethan Brown 22:32

So I do have to admit, I finally I finally did get a Tesla. But you know, I don't think I was just raised that way. I think, look, I was raised middle class. So I had no issues at all with with, you know, material comfort growing up, but very blessed in that way. And, you know, I look at your childhood of moving around, and just the incredible resilience and and I was very, very fortunate to, to have a middle class upbringing. But we were never like family with the nice cars or, or anything of that nature. And my dad being an academic, I think that that was kind of his approach. And, you know, look, I'll buy probably a lot of land, things like that, but it's just kind of who you are. And

David Novak 23:16

well, that's great. It sounds like he just might be the Warren Buffett of the food industry. I met with Warren and he drives his Lincoln Continental and you know, he probably drives the Tesla down for all I

Ethan Brown 23:26

tell you what he could do so so I love Buffett and so so it's funny, right? Because you wouldn't sort of the business school that I went to, I went to because of him. I applied to one business school. And then they asked me in the interview for the school, they said why do you want to come in and I really hadn't done my homework unfortunate. I just knew that, you know, I really I've read all Warren stuff, and I read all the candy reports and things like that and and I said, Wow, I want to what do we want to study? I said, Well, I want to study leadership. Like we don't have a leadership program was like, oh, no, not gonna get any here. And so the interview after that one fine. But then I get back to my mother's and I'm walking down I said, Ethan you know, the back your shorts on tucked in the back. I'm like, Man, I'm not getting and I should apply to more schools. And we thank God I got in and Buffett that whole principle that he has around, you know, simplicity I find interesting.

David Novak 24:17

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I love Warren and I think you guys have a lot in common. I didn't know this until I started hearing about your company and reading about it. But But I understand you're targeting flexitarians I love that phrase. They did you coined that term itself, and what exactly is the flexitarian?

Ethan Brown 24:34

So we didn't call it ourselves. But here's what it is. So 93% of the people at the nation's largest grocer that by the beyond burger are also putting animal protein in their cart. And that's really important to me in the sense that we're reaching a mainstream audience right? We never set out to return nice audience right. So we want the consumer that is in the main to be buying our products and that's why the relationships with them KFC etc, are so important, because that's where the mainstream consumer is. And that's where we need to be. And so flexitarian is someone who's using both animal protein and plant protein.

David Novak 25:09

And your interestingly, your strategy says you don't say don't eat meat, you know, in what you've obviously taken a totally different strategy. And

Ethan Brown 25:18

sure it gets back to that example. And, you know, I had a great opportunity to meet with, with Bill Ford. And recently, and, you know, I really admire what Henry Ford did around the automobile. And, you know, he didn't again, he didn't go out and say, you know, the horse is terrible, you know, horses. So all these bad things, you just said, I got a better way to get from A to B. Right. And we don't say don't use the phone. We just say we got a mobile phone that's better than a landline. Right? So I just don't think it's, it's, it's necessary to be negative, you look at all the great leaders in the world. You know, and I've listened to your podcasts, and they're great. And some of the traits that you hear, you're not just in your Tom Brady one, like who wouldn't listen that right. And, you know, it's that positivity. It's, it's like, you can be hard on yourself, you can be so hard on yourself, but like, don't, don't walk around being negative, right. And so we just don't carry that with us. You know, we say we think we have a better solution.

David Novak 26:14

When I heard about KFC launching a plant based chicken product in Atlanta. And I know, there were just lines just people trying to get into they just had to try it. So I called Kevin Hochman, the president of KFC in the r&d people, I said, Can you give me a product showing on this, you know, so I went to the KFC restaurant Support Center, and I tried your first product, and I had to tell you eat and I just didn't really like it. For me, then I tried your latest version, and it had all the characteristics of whole muscle chicken, I thought it was really, really so much better. And this happened within a span of like six months. Are you making that kind of rapid technology gains across all the meat categories?

Ethan Brown 26:55

Yes, we are. And I'm the first one to be totally dissatisfied with our products. Right? So, you know, in the process for me is one that's difficult in the sense that what's on the shelves today, I think is good. But what we have in our labs is so much better, and I can't wait to get it out to the consumer. And then the challenges it takes takes a while to do that. Right. But yes, I think that rapid iteration is very common within our within our company. And and what we we do is we have a very structured approach that we just called the Beyond Meat rapid and relentless innovation program. And it's that idea that if you marinate in the issue if you can get yourself lost in the issue, if you can, and there's a great books on this. And you know, it's just if you're leading a company, set aside time to read, because it just refreshes your perspective on things, and you can gain so much insight. So one of the books that made a big impact on me is insisting on the impossible, and it's about Edwin Land, and the work that he did around Polaroid, and how to create that environment where people can actually get lost and what they might forget to eat. And they might forget to shower because they're so intensely focused on how do I make this product better, right. And if you can bring that intensity every single day, right, you'll see incredible progress. Now if you're caught up in Gantt charts and spreadsheets all the time and long processes and one of the things that I think is shocking to people when they come here is they'll come and they'll say is gonna take us two months to do this, like, Well, how do you do in two weeks? And we're serious? And we're and we'll say okay, and they said, well, we can't so what resources do you need? Right? And they said, Well, I you know, go get them. Right. And that's the kind of approach we have

David Novak 28:32

here. Yeah, that's great. Michael land you know, do did create Polaroid, you know, it did it, you know, a great idea. But it didn't really flourish to be honest with you know, how are you going about the process of building a sustainable growth company and a lot of times people have ideas and boom, you know, doesn't really take off and sustain itself. So you don't you don't really want to be a Polaroid. No,

Ethan Brown 28:53

correct and and so there's there's a lot of other examples and this is great book recently, which I've become friends with the author by again, I'm Safi Bacall. It's called loon shots. And part of the process of of just staying ahead and leading and creating a category is to have a healthy sense of, to be terrified, right to be paranoid. You know, how do you stay? And that's been waiting my whole life. How do you? How do you stay ahead? Right? How do you and I don't know where it comes from? Some people have some people don't but like, you know, I have that fear. Right? Of, of not delivering on what I'm trying to do. Right. And and if you carry that with you, right, you'll you'll be successful if you work hard enough, right? I mean, obviously some capability but I think with cases like Blockbuster and you know, the show many examples, skeletons that are that just didn't react and adapt. I don't care about the technology we use. I'm agnostic, not an engineer. So if what we're doing isn't working as well as something else out there. I will throw it in the trash and I will get the best approach possible, right? So you got to be agnostic and not fall in love with a particular approach. Right? So if you want to, if you want have the best picture in the world, you shouldn't care whether it comes on a film that you have to shake or something as digital, you should be focused on that Best Picture.

David Novak 30:14

Yeah, that's great. You know, the the KFC r&d team led by Vijay Sukumar. You know, when I met with them, they were blown away by your research team, they said you had over 100 scientists, you probably have more than that. Okay. But your your your head of r&d is from Iran, you have over 50 PhDs, you've got leaders from Vietnam, India, how do you lead such a diverse and high IQ group of people? What kind of skills does it take for you to have to work with a scientists who stereotypically are head down? Look it in their petri dish? Yeah.

Ethan Brown 30:50

So it's funny, I mean, first of all, it gets to some of the things that you've written a lot about is respect respect for people, you know, and I really respect them. And I think they respect me, and it's a, it's a dance, you know, I mean, we're, I'm pushing them so hard, and they're, they're pushing back. And, and we're, but we're so committed to this objective. And so many of them came out of biomedical where they're working on, you know, trying to treat cancer, for example. And now they feel, you know, if you think about, you know, Let food be thy medicine. Now, this is a way of hopefully, helping people live healthier lives. And so, but it was fun to have been funny things along the way, I once hung up a lot. When I was in graduate school, there was a poster in one of our computer rooms that was loved it, it was a picture of a apartment building, probably in New York, Chicago Senate that there was a one light on with one person sitting in front of their computer. And it just said very simply underneath somewhere, someone is working harder to your idea than you are. Right. And I couldn't find the poster. So I just got some canvas, and I had it typed out on the canvas, said that quote, and I hung it in our innovation lab. Go ahead of innovation at that point. cannot sit you know, either a lot of people are asking who's working harder than us? I said, No, no, it's like a, like a metaphor. You know, it's like a just a way to stay hungry. Is it? No, okay. Okay. It came back, came back and said, Isn't they still kind of want to know, they're kind of like, insulted that you think there's someone out there who's working harder? I said, No, think about it this way. Think about it seems like it was something we'll be hanging in a locker room. He said, a lot of these guys have never been in a locker room. They said, Okay, I'll take it down. But, so I took that down, but it's just,

David Novak 32:38

I think I'm gonna put it up.

Ethan Brown 32:40

It's a great quote. And so so it's that mentality, you know, we just have fun together, we work so hard to get such respect for their intellect. And I

David Novak 32:48

know you're a big believer in that fail fast mindset, you know, how do you really drive that deep in your culture?

Ethan Brown 32:56

Shoot, personal, personal experience, you know, I've failed a lot of things. And so I know that it's okay to fail. I think it's actually people who have failed, are better leaders, you know, they really are. So, I think it's, it's, it's about effort, you know, if you're, if you're putting in the effort, and you're using the very best of your capabilities to try to do something and you fail, God bless you, if you're not putting forth the effort, and you can't do something, you'll be very uncomfortable here. You know, and that's, that's the, that's the kind of culture we have. And so as long as someone, if you see them grinding and working, and they make a mistake, fine. Or if they are so afraid of failing that they bury you in spreadsheets, and analysis and everything else where you just aren't willing, you can't move, right, they're also not going to do well here. So it's a culture that we put a lot of emphasis on speed, we'll reward risk taking, and we're okay with failing,

David Novak 33:56

you obviously, believe that culture is critical to your success. Are you doing anything really different on that front? Are you trying to drive a behavior that you're not going to see in most companies?

Ethan Brown 34:09

You know, I think it's intensity. Its intensity, is I think, intensity, respect for one another, accountability, ownership, all those things are really important here. It's also a sense, it's a privilege to work here. I know, I feel blessed to be doing what I'm doing. Like I really do. And I feel lucky. And I think I want other people here to feel that way too. It's a special place to be and I want them to carry that with them. I don't know that every company feels that way. And

David Novak 34:44

you're a tremendous learner. Obviously, it's coming through so clear in his conversation. You know, a friend of mine told me that you're a big fan of the gut milk marketing, and that you actually hired the person who created and I was thinking about this, you know, that was a long time. to go this, this person must definitely be a senior citizen. Is this true that did you hire that person? And what's your thinking behind it? He's

Ethan Brown 35:07

good friend of mine, Jeff Manning. And so he was on the California milk board and was wrote the original brief I think for for the advertising firm that did that, which I think was quite Nick Kennedy, I think. And so, yeah, so he and I work together for years, and we're still still close. I just, I was amazed, as a young person, that you could go into schools and gyms and, and that a particular protein could advertise directly to children in that in that in that environment. And so I wanted to learn about that program. But it also had an important element that was really vital to how we positioned our company, it was positive, right. And so, you know, I used to get in arguments with marketers who would say, you really need to bring out some clinical nutritionist to tell people about how healthy this is, you need to market directly to mom in a really clear way. And I said, No, I want to use athletes to do it. And so, you know, first of all, you know, this, there's just you go to any marketing, you go to Kellogg or something like that the business school, they'll say we traditional paradigms, mom is shopping supermarket, so you should tailor all your marketing to her. And I said, Well, I don't know, I had this really distinct experience when I was a kid where my mom was walking in the supermarket. And I was with her and our football coach, and I wasn't a great football player, I was very thin. And but I played, but my brother was was pretty big. And he matured earlier than I did. And everything is older than me. And he walked by he said, you know, you you serve in those two boys steak, you know, something like that, too. I think exactly those words. Nice. You know, he's sort of genuine mom. And that made a big impression on me that type of thinking that, that there's this link between animal protein and masculinity. And that if you don't consume animal protein, somehow you're less masculine. Right. And so I wanted to attack that at its core. And so I wanted to use the Got Milk campaign as a model that said, look, let's help people understand that it's the amino acids they're consuming and the protein itself, not the origin. Right? That is important. Right? And so I wanted the very best performing athletes in the world to start using our product, and then go tell people about it. And then you know, what that does that arms mom with the information she needs to get the rest of the table on board. So when she brings home a plant based burger, plant based meat, she's not being, you know, mocked by your children or by the husband, she is has the tools she needs to get the rest of the family on board. And so that was a very deliberate approach. And I think it's worked. You know, you want to inspire people, you don't want to preach at them.

David Novak 37:51

Yeah, that's great. I wanted to ask you, thank you behind having Kyrie Irving and then Lindsey Vonn, and even have Snoop Dogg. You've got investors like Leonardo DiCaprio. You're obviously big into leveraging these big names, or they come into you these people I used to work at Pepsi, they cost us a fortune to get them, are they How are you signing these people up as brand ambassadors? Yeah,

Ethan Brown 38:15

so there, many of them are investors, first and foremost. And so that that really helps right there rowing in the same direction with us. And we have a woman who I'm good friends with, who also works here called Beth Moscowitz, who is just a tremendous connector of people and, and many of them have come through through her and we just really try to create a culture where we're business, we're sure, we're gonna create a great return for our shareholders. But we're also out to accomplish something that's really important. So take us on to thing I said a couple days ago with with Chris Paul, take Chris's example. So Chris Paul, you know, perennial, all star, NBA player, he's in a 17, season 2020, all star game, he gets a lob Dunk from, from Russell Westbrook. Chris has maybe six to right, he's 35. Right? And he's getting up in the air and just throwing that ball down. After the game, they asked what how are you able to do that. And he's one of the things he talks about as he switched to a plant based diet. And that cuts down on the inflammation in his knees, right. And so, you know, the benefits to athletes for using it. But by the way, that reduction in inflammation is not just good for Chris, it's good. If you're 60, if you're 70, and you're maybe battling with, you know, arthritis or with heart disease, or so many of the diseases that we think are separate are actually related in some of the things that tie them together have to do with inflammation. And so animal protein, it's well understood now in the middle community that helps to keep inflammation down. Right. So if you're Chris not only going to perform better, but hey, by the way, for his folks, you know, this might be a better product for them. Right. So there's benefits for him not only professionally but also in his community.

David Novak 39:58

Hey, Ethan, you are turning me into a flexitarian. I used to work at Pepsi. And we we had this intense rivalry with Coke, you know, and it looks to me like you'd have the makings of this potentially happening with this company called Impossible Foods. How do you view them as a competitor and what makes you different?

Ethan Brown 40:19

You know, this to your competitor to you know, competition is great. And it's even better when you're winning. But that is so true. It's a lot of fun. People are like, Oh, do you hate but now, I mean, they're good company. They're working hard. They're there, they got a lot of good people, they're trying to do the right thing. But there is a big difference. The difference is around this. So I started coming 2009. And didn't deal with venture money to begin with took several years to get that two and a half rather. And, and so a lot of times, we just had to rely on revenue to keep the doors open everything else. And so I was in the stores talking to customers all the time. And one of the things that became really apparent was that people did not want GMOs in their product. They didn't want anything artificial in their product, right? And so you got to think about the mindset of homosapien, right? evolving. And there's some great literature on this evolving, we were very conservative about what we're willing to put in our mouths, right? Because mistakes would kill us. And we carry that conservatism today. So I don't want to ask any family in America or anywhere else, to experiment with their family and their kids on somebody who's never been in the food supply. So I said, Alright, we're just not going to use genetic modification, right? I believe that there's everything in nature that we need to build matrix and plant it if you if you care enough and work hard enough to find it. And that's what we're doing. It's a massive discovery. It's a it's a search throughout the plant kingdom to find all the elements we need. But people so people want to eat healthier, they also want to eat like their grandparents, because there's conservatism. And so the big difference between the two companies, right, is that we've decided not to use genetic modification. And they are using it not bad, they're using it. Not a problem. They're using it. But that's not what we're doing. And we think that's a better long term bet on where the consumer is going.

David Novak 42:06

And then another competitor you have right now, it's just the meat industry, there's really taken some real cheap shots at Yeah, how do you as a competitor deal with that?

Ethan Brown 42:14

So I personally don't like that, obviously, you know, I listened to some of your podcasts. And, you know, it's hard to beat up in the press and have people take stuff out on you, and you got to just develop thick skin. But what bothers me the most about that is, you know, we talked about our farm, up in Maryland, and on either side of that farm, or people that are either currently or have raised beef cattle, you know, and I have good relationships with them. And, you know, what's great about this country anyway, is that, you know, if there's a topic you don't wanna talk about, you can talk about sports, you can talk about politics, you know, and so I just don't have to go there with them. And so for people to I liked them, and I want to be able to turn and have nice relationships and and so I'm not somebody who's antagonistic toward the meat industry, you know, I don't think it's necessary to be so. And so you've seen me forge relationships with them. We had a partnership with Tyson. I know John Tyson. Personally. I think it's a shame, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it myself.

David Novak 43:20

Yeah. You know, you know, right. Now, I know you're you talked about your passion of totally replicating the tastes and characteristics of meat. What I know, right now, because of scale. In other words, you have a huge cost disadvantage. At least I'm doing supposing that is, is that something that you're going to have to live with? Or what do you see as your opportunity and strategy on that front?

Ethan Brown 43:42

I really appreciate you asking that question. Because it's a big passion for me. We could not be more expensive than animal protein. It doesn't make any sense right? So we're hearing me talk about this little bit of a micro economics textbooks bottleneck comes out of production, you get more efficient and lower cost, etc. Right? So we've taken the biggest bottleneck there is in the history of agriculture out of the system, right and again, we're not perfect we're not getting you know, we're not there yet. We'll get there to the point where indistinguishable than the chicken they will make two years from now from KFC if we're lucky enough to still work with them will be much better than what we're making today. Even though the one today is pretty good. Right? So we'll get closer and closer but the the issue is scale. Right? And so there's no material obstacle to us underpricing animal protein, so I made a commitment a year ago that we would underprice animal protein at least one of our categories of beef pork and poultry. And and we'll do that and then ultimately be able to underprice in each category. Maybe not every single cut but the vast majority of them and, and that's going to be exciting day because if we get the the texture right, we get that satiating taste and experience right. And then we drop the price below animal protein there very few consumers would be like yeah, I'm still not gonna do that.

David Novak 44:53

I would say so when you when you can have equal product quality, and when on prem went on price, that's it. Pretty good equation, it works for a lot, a lot of people, you know, how would you describe your management style?

Ethan Brown 45:06

You know, it's interesting. I'm definitely more entrepreneur than I am kind of a CEO you'd bring in from the outside. I think management comes down to character, and, and personality and behavior traits, right. And so when you work with me, you get who I am, there's not a management style necessarily is different from who I am as a person. So I think you'll get a lot of loyalty from me, you'll get a lot of intensity, a lot of ambition. You know, I'll I really do is if you'll say it all the time. But I really do try to hire people that are a lot better than me at what they do. And I've done that. And that has made all the difference in the world for me and surround myself with people that are better at what they do than I could be. And so my board is full of very competent people, Mickey, some are talking about a great example, right? He's extraordinary guy, he knows the field a lot better than I do. And I gotta give him the freedom to do it. And that's what I do.

David Novak 46:08

Yeah, that's Mickey pant used to be the CEO of Yum, China. Terrific. Exactly, that I actually did a podcast with the chicken listen to, you know, Ethan, you, you've been described. And you just mentioned it ambitious, you know, you've been described as massively ambitious, you know, by one of your former bosses, you know, what's behind your ambition?

Ethan Brown 46:29

I think it's the, it's the desire to try to be of service to a issue that is so important. And once you kind of get a taste of the fact that you can do it, it becomes enthralling, you know, that you could actually get something done that's so meaningful, right. And so I just want to try to do it. And I think I've been very blessed as a child. And I wasn't always successful, right? I, you know, I wasn't very focused at school, when I was young, I wasn't till I was in college, that I became very academically interested. But I was surrounded by people, my father is a good example. I'd come downstairs early in the morning to get ready for school, you know, be somebody's earliest 530 or something. And it would sound like it's raining in my basement. And so I'd go down there, and he was just banging away on this IBM computer, writing whatever book he was writing or whatever. And, and then I might my grandfather's are both very, you know, as I mentioned, the minister mother was an entrepreneur and a publisher. I have great role models around me that were successful people and it were leaders. And I think that helped me a lot to say, I wasn't gonna check the box in life, I was gonna try to go out and do something that was meaningful. But I will say this, I've listened to some of your podcasts, I am not someone who was dreaming of being a leader, I am much more reluctant leader, I think of someone who is has found a problem that they feel enough passionate about that they want to solve, that they've been able to articulate a path that other people are willing to follow with them and join them in. But I'm not someone who was sort of dreaming as a kid of being a leader. That wasn't me.

David Novak 48:12

Now, you are a big time leader. You're a CEO of a publicly traded company. How are you going about getting better at that?

Ethan Brown 48:22

Through discussions like this, and reading? You know, I think just learning from others, I very much agree with the statement that success leaves clues. You know, to be humble, I mean, just be humble. Like, there's a ton that I can learn. And we're all mix of confidence and insecurity. And, you know, it's okay to be insecure about things and to try to address them. And so, so much of the work of being a better leader at this point is now internal work, you know, how do I work through issues within myself that I want to address, right? And the better that I can do that the more effective I'll be as a leader, I'm less into management books, and I'm more into that process of better understanding why I make the decisions that I make, why I do what I do, so that I can improve on weaknesses, and be a better person and be a better leader as a result. You know, talking about books, there's a book by Robert Sapolsky called behave it's really a great frigging long and and it's too long, but it's about why we do what we do from a neurological perspective and it's fascinating and so for me, the next stage of leadership is better understanding human behavior, including my own

David Novak 49:34

with this whole Coronavirus. You know, a lot of people have had time to self reflect. Have you been able to have the time to have more self reflection through this?

Ethan Brown 49:44

I have it hasn't been the work hasn't slowed down. I think the Coronavirus obviously, just in a horrific, awful tragedy and not enough to be cannot be just, you know, and just the loss of life is just incredible. One of the things that come up It is the world has slowed down and stopped almost right. And so you'll see things happening that are extraordinary in the sense of I live in Los Angeles, and I can see the Santa Monica Mountains in a way I've never seen them before. They're so clear. Same thing happened in Himalayas, right climate, greenhouse gas emissions have plummeted. traffic fatalities have plummeted. Right. So there's things that are happening here that we have to take from this and try to carry forward even as we restore our economy. And so yes, you know, for me, it isn't so much that work is slow down, it hasn't. It's that that stuff at night that you were doing his apparent running around to practices and things like that, that has stopped. Right. And so I have had more time to reflect and and that's been enjoyable

David Novak 50:44

as a public company, your your company came out and just the stock went through the roof, and then it really dropped dramatically. You've had tremendous volatility in the stock price. How has that impacted you? And and how do you keep yourself up during those valleys?

Ethan Brown 51:01

Yeah, it's a great question. At first, it did bother me. But you begin to and you know, this better than anybody begin to realize that they're just sometimes not rational reactions to things in the market. And the more you can understand that, the more you just focus on the long term nature of your business. And I really do the businesses that I admire, are those ones that have carried forward that long term perspective. And so Amazon would be a great example, right? You know, we have to steel ourselves against trying to satisfy quarterly targets. And we have to think about the long term. If we do that we can be a massive global protein company. If we don't, we'll be one of many players.

David Novak 51:42

You know, I used to meet with Warren Buffett every every year in Omaha, it's amazing. We'd always have lunch at KFC. And he said, Put your ego and your business performance, not your stock price. And I just had a very wise counsel. You know, I remember early on in my days at Yum, I made a stupid mistake of saying we were yum.com. And we bombed, we went down like that the companies do. So, you know, I learned that, you know, you know, I want to ask you one of the things just competition, your your Impossible Foods CEO, he's pretty bombastic, he makes his big claims that the plant based products are gonna outsell meat by 2035. You know, how do you feel about a statement like that?

Ethan Brown 52:27

I don't make them. I don't I don't think it's a good idea. First of all, I think humility is really important part of leadership. And, and I hope that I am a humble person. You know, that's how I feel about myself in terms of, you know, I'm hard on myself. Like, it's funny. The other day, a colleague of mine didn't like the way I had done something into very upfront and blunt about it. And it was a performance issue wasn't like, but, and I agreed, but she was so worried about letting me know. And I said, if you only knew what I already thought about what I did, you wouldn't even worry about it, you know, like so. So just that, you know, being humble and realizing that you're making you make a lot of mistakes, stuff like that is really important. So first of all, just stay away from statements like that. Second isn't tokenistic? I don't want to be antagonistic. When I work with Kevin and Andrea at KFC and, and others, David, I want them to be so successful in what we're doing. I want them to succeed. And McDonald's, I've talked very at length about this, you know, I want these companies to be super successful in partnership. And so let's just focus on that. Let's just focus on on on, can we provide a healthy product for consumers, and do so in a way that everybody wins? That seems to be the right focus?

David Novak 53:53

You know, one of the things I've just started doing is just to have a little fun at the end of these conversations with a little lightning round. Okay, you know, I've had a blast already with this conversation, but I want to do just a real quick lightning round of q&a. Okay, sure. Are you ready for this?

Unknown Speaker 54:07

I'll try. Okay,

David Novak 54:09

what three words best describe you?

Ethan Brown 54:12

I think passionate. Loyal. And, you know, I think this thing about being intellectually thorough, I really try to get to the bottom of things.

David Novak 54:24

Okay, what's your biggest pet peeve?

Ethan Brown 54:26

Oh, lack of effort.

David Novak 54:27

What's your favorite movie and why?

Ethan Brown 54:29

Oh, Hoosiers, I will cry every time I watch you

David Novak 54:33

need to share in fact about you that few people would know.

Ethan Brown 54:39

I'm trying to use this time during the COVID 19 crisis to learn piano.

David Novak 54:47

If you could trade places with one person for a day, who would it be and why?

Ethan Brown 54:51

You know, it'd be one of my children so that I could better understand how they view the world and how I can help them.

David Novak 54:57

And I have to ask you this. What do you have Yeah.

Ethan Brown 55:03

How long do you have?

David Novak 55:06

Oh, that answers that question.

Ethan Brown 55:08

I love animals that have a lot. You know, you

David Novak 55:11

think you're an up and coming company. And so what do you think are the three most important characteristics you look for and, and the people that you want to really grow your business?

Ethan Brown 55:21

Sure. I think it's that that shining capability, you know, it's very clear to me that this person is special and can do things that maybe others wouldn't be able to do. So you try to find that that characteristic, but it's worth nothing. If there's not that work ethic. I will just all day long, I will bet on a work ethic. I mean, absolutely. And then just character, right, you know, are they going to do the right thing?

David Novak 55:47

You mentioned failure, little earlier, and you're one of these guys, you look at him, and you've been so successful? What would be your epic fail? If you have one that really stands out? And your your career? Yeah, sure.

Ethan Brown 55:59

I felt a lot. I mean, I was fired by my board. When I was like, 27. Four, we had a disagreement over something. And I didn't handle it. Well, I was I felt I was right. And I just sort of told them that I was right. And that, you know, here are the issues of the way they were managing. And they said, You're you're walking papers, that was a mistake. It was a failure. But there are other things when I've made mistakes, and failed for sure.

David Novak 56:30

No. So what would you see as your biggest success in business?

Ethan Brown 56:33

For me, the thing that these partnerships that we're having with these QSR ours, including KFC are so important to me, because it's it's where we're going to meet the consumer. And so I put those right there.

David Novak 56:46

Yeah, you know, it's interesting that Pepsi and Coke built their businesses, you know, in the restaurants, getting people to try the product, you know, the same way. So that's, you're going about it the same way. And I have to ask you one other question, which is, you know, can you share a little bit about your family and how you're striving to keep things in balance? Because you're obviously you do have that intensity?

Ethan Brown 57:07

Yeah. That's, that's one that's interesting. I mean, I, as important as all this work is, to me, I'm pretty typical in the sense of that, you know, my family still more important to me, for sure. You know, and if I had to choose between the two big my family and, you know, I've always viewed my kids as ice cream cones, you know, they're there, they're going to melty better enjoy them, right, because they're going to be up and gone. And, and, and so the time is now to enjoy them. And so I do try to be really involved in their lives. And generally, through sports, you know, my son is a very active basketball player, my daughter's a volleyball player. And so it's through things like that. But even with this effort over this, this period to learn a new instrument, you know, I bought my my son a saxophone, and my daughter guitar. just tried to be with them. Probably best because, man, it goes so fast.

David Novak 58:04

Yeah, that's, that's just great. You know, I have to tell you that I played the saxophone for about six months, before I decided I wanted to be a major league baseball player. And that didn't happen.

Ethan Brown 58:16

Yeah, well, I wanted to be at some point of battle player. And I didn't go that far.

David Novak 58:21

But Ethan, I have to tell you, I said at the top, that you are an incredible human being and more than a you are a really, really special person, one of those people that you look for, you know, that does the shine. And, you know, I've got one more question for you. Sure. You look out and you see beyond me, what's your future back vision?

Ethan Brown 58:41

Sure. And so just before I answer that, I also just I so admire, and I'm not just saying this to say it, but that the journey you've taken in your life is one that's remarkable to me. And the, the, you know, I the work you're doing to create better leaders today, you know, it's not just going to be listened to by leaders, like my kids are gonna listen to your podcast because of the value of the conversations you're having. And so I just really, I right back at you. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate. So the future for Beyond Meat, global protein company, for sure. You know, active, very active in Asia, very active in Europe, very active here in United States, and decoupling meat from animals so that we can continue to enjoy the dishes and the meals and experiences that we have to do so in a way that maybe it's better for our bodies and better for the earth.

David Novak 59:36

Well, even if there's one guy in the world that can make that happen. You know, I always say she'll be a leader and I'll show you a great business. No doubt in my mind. You are the leader. So thank you, once again, thank you and on this show.

Ethan Brown 59:49

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it's a real honor

David Novak 1:00:00

Well, I know you can tell from this conversation with Ethan, the Beyond Meat is into innovation and continuous improvement. And believe me, he and his team are constantly trying to crack the code, you know, and getting ready for this podcast, I actually went to the KFC test kitchens. And I had them prepare for me the original chicken Patty that they put together with Beyond Meat and the one that they have now. And I have to tell you, the improvement wasn't just incremental, it was Quantum. And it just goes to show that what Ethan is working on with his team, it's gonna happen, and he's going to do it, because you saw the passion that he has. Now, you and I both know, huge improvement, like what's happening beyond me just doesn't happen. It's a result of an incredible team and an incredible leader. And I'm really struck by how plugged in Ethan is to His purpose is the reason he's pushing his team's timelines and not letting them get buried in spreadsheets. It's building a culture of intelligent people who feel empowered to take risk. And that purpose is the force behind his relentless positivity, and how he approaches his messaging, his partnerships, and even competition. So are you ready for a little coaching? Let's go. This week as a part of your weekly personal development plan, I want you to tap into the power of purpose for yourself in these two steps. First, think is something you're not satisfied with. Maybe it's related to your company, or your own development, or your community or the world at large, then I want you to connect with the why, why you really want it to be better. When we answer that question, honestly, we tap into the power of purpose. And that's what will help us lead our teams and ourselves to accomplish amazing things. So do you want to know how leaders lead what we learned today is that great leaders tap into the power of purpose. 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'll become the best leader you can be

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