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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, as promised, I am back, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to continue on the topic of my Housewives trajectory and

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Speaker 1: what took me to this point and what I think

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Speaker 1: about things that are said about me and me going back,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to keep getting into it. So when

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Speaker 1: I left, I really left. I did not want to

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Speaker 1: go back. That was not where I wanted to be.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not you know, believe me, I'll rip somebody

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Speaker 1: like the best of them. It just wasn't what I

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Speaker 1: wanted to do. I didn't want to be doing the

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Speaker 1: gotcha And you know, Bravo and the production company and

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Speaker 1: all these people will say it's four months of work,

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Speaker 1: and it's a lot of money for the four months

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Speaker 1: of work, But anybody who's on the Housewives, no knows,

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Speaker 1: it's not four months of work. It's four months of shooting.

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Speaker 1: Then it's doing a reunion, but now out way more

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Speaker 1: than then. Then it was more like four months of shooting.

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Speaker 1: Now it's four months of shooting, eight months of defending yourself,

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Speaker 1: preparing for the for the fall, talking about editing, doing

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Speaker 1: press to promote it, doing press to protect yourself, doing

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Speaker 1: press to trash. Are the people doing you know, it's endless.

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Speaker 1: It's year round. You shoot the show, then you panic

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Speaker 1: for a while and finish doing what they call pickups,

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Speaker 1: which is doing those interview bites for a while, freaking out,

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Speaker 1: still hardbring resentment. Then the show. Then you have to

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Speaker 1: promote the show. So then you have to do all

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Speaker 1: the press to promote the show. And that's a whole

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Speaker 1: other ship show too. If you don't want to be

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Speaker 1: sitting down promoting the show with certain people, you want

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Speaker 1: to do it, you know, on your own or however,

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Speaker 1: that's a whole thing. And what shows people get picked for,

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Speaker 1: meaning I would get the Today's show, someone else gets this.

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Speaker 1: Why do I do? Ellen? Why don't we? You know,

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Speaker 1: that's a whole competition, and across the whole franchise. The

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Speaker 1: competition is fierce. Now okay, I'll get to that, but

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Speaker 1: I don't want to forget it all. Just say it.

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Speaker 1: It's fierce now. I have had people from all of

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Speaker 1: the different franchises say to me, oh, well, they sent

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Speaker 1: me to hear they sent me to another country to

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Speaker 1: promote it. They had me do it alone because I'm

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Speaker 1: the only one doing this. Just me and this person

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Speaker 1: are doing this. Cover It is cause It is competition,

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Speaker 1: like you can't believe. It is not women supporting women

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Speaker 1: at all. It is women supporting women on television, or

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Speaker 1: women saying they're supporting women, or women pretending they're supporting women.

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Speaker 1: It is every woman for themselves. It is this way

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Speaker 1: across the board. There are a few exceptions. I will

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Speaker 1: say that Tinsley happens to be a nice person who

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Speaker 1: literally like doesn't really like to be in the fray.

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Speaker 1: She's an operator. She's got her own game she's running,

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Speaker 1: and she's got her own brand of games she's running.

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Speaker 1: But she's not in there to like kill or be killed. Um,

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Speaker 1: that's just somebody who jumps off the page. I don't

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Speaker 1: know everybody from every other season. I know that on Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: I respect the fact that they will go fucking all

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Speaker 1: the way. It is not just the tip. They will

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Speaker 1: say whatever they want there are They do not edit themselves.

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Speaker 1: The things that they say behind your back are things

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Speaker 1: they'll say to your back. I respect that. I've always

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Speaker 1: respected that. The other end of the spectrum is the

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Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Housewives. They do the opposite. I've been in

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Speaker 1: a crossover episode. I was in that episode when Erica

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Speaker 1: came over to my house. They were all telling sending

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Speaker 1: me things ahead of time that she was in, sending

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Speaker 1: me sexy videos that she was in. They were telling

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Speaker 1: me about her rolling their eyes. That wasn't the caliber

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Speaker 1: of person they wanted for Beverly Hills. They also thought

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Speaker 1: she was boring. They brought her over to my house

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Speaker 1: and they hadn't said a single thing to her face.

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Speaker 1: They wanted me to be the person that said what

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Speaker 1: they were thinking. I got it, and I understood from

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Speaker 1: the why the producers wanted that as well. They tiptoe

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Speaker 1: the most. The Beverly Hills housewives are terrified to say

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Speaker 1: what they really feel. They have to say what is

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Speaker 1: politically correct and what will not be taken uh, you

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Speaker 1: know wrong. They are the most calculated in that regard

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Speaker 1: the opposite end of the spectrum of um Atlanta. They

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Speaker 1: have the big houses and the hair and the costumes

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Speaker 1: and the bags and the money. Porn that that's entertainment,

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Speaker 1: so they can get away with New York we had.

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Speaker 1: You know, most people have small, shitty apartments, so you've

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Speaker 1: got to really survive on you know, what's coming out

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Speaker 1: of your mouth. You don't have the same kind of

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Speaker 1: like money porn. Most people don't have the same real

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Speaker 1: estate porn, you know. And you have other cities like

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Speaker 1: Atlanta that do have real estate porn because their houses

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Speaker 1: are much less expensive by nature of the real estate

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Speaker 1: market there in the suburbs of Atlanta. So a two

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Speaker 1: million dollar house there could be eighteen thousand square feet,

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Speaker 1: where a two million dollar house in New York City

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Speaker 1: would be could be square feet. So like you know this,

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Speaker 1: these are the things that have to be balanced by

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Speaker 1: by by Bravo. You know, you've got to show big houses.

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Speaker 1: So in New York City that's not as easy. So

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Speaker 1: you have to have people that might be really witty

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Speaker 1: or willing to go there. And New York women are

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Speaker 1: pretty much will willing to go there, not quite to

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Speaker 1: the level that Atlanta will go there, and they're not

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Speaker 1: as restricted as as as as a group like Beverly Hills.

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Speaker 1: But I come from when people weren't weren't wearing costumes.

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Speaker 1: I remember Andy Cohen walking into my house. It was

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Speaker 1: gonna be like the eagles Hell freezes overtour. I was

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Speaker 1: never coming back. I never wanted to come back. I

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Speaker 1: didn't want to do it. I forgot what I was

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Speaker 1: doing I was doing my talk show, I was doing

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Speaker 1: other things. I just was happy with my life. I

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Speaker 1: was making money. I was being paid seven figures a

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Speaker 1: year just by my cocktail, even after selling it. You know,

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Speaker 1: like things were good. I was writing books. It was good.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm not a person who I don't want

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Speaker 1: to do it. I don't want to take every dollar

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Speaker 1: off the floor. I just want to always have balance

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Speaker 1: and be happy. And we'll do another show on balance.

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Speaker 1: But um so I just didn't want to do it.

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Speaker 1: Andy Cohen came and he came to my kitchen and

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Speaker 1: I was pitching him another show, and he said, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna pitch you this, and he wanted me to

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Speaker 1: come back. We didn't know about the ratings, and they

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Speaker 1: used to not tell us ratings. There were no ratings.

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Speaker 1: We had no idea what the ratings were. Once we

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Speaker 1: started to realize what the ratings were, we were finding

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Speaker 1: it out on our own. Bravo wasn't even telling us.

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Speaker 1: I used to send emails. I used to send emails

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Speaker 1: on everyone's behalf to Bravo, being like, we deserve to

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Speaker 1: know what the ratings are and if we do well,

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Speaker 1: we deserve to know that we've done well. You don't

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Speaker 1: want to hide the rate. They used don't want to

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Speaker 1: hide the ratings from us, So we want to know

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Speaker 1: how well we were doing so we wouldn't ask for

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Speaker 1: more money. And all the girls will will verify this.

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Speaker 1: You know. We used to talk about it and finally

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Speaker 1: they had to just tell us after years of me

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Speaker 1: emailing them said, we'll tell you that Bravo. I've got

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Speaker 1: the emails, I've got the receipt I used to be like,

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Speaker 1: tell us what the ratings are and when we do well,

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Speaker 1: we should be rewarded. But they won't. They won't admit

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Speaker 1: that that part. Um and he came into my kitchen

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Speaker 1: and he said to me, and this is something for negotiating.

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Speaker 1: He said to me, Um, come back and I said,

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Speaker 1: I'm coming to you with a number. And that's it.

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Speaker 1: There will be no negotiating. Now. You have to understand.

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Speaker 1: Any of the girls can also tell you what it's

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Speaker 1: like to negotiate with Bravo. They're not playing any games.

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Speaker 1: And too, I don't blame them because they are. Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm the I'm the one who come up with the terminology.

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Speaker 1: How Housewives of jelly Beans and a jelly Bean jar

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Speaker 1: there's a bunch of them, and you could. You know

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Speaker 1: when I was negotiating, when I was leaving after three seasons,

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Speaker 1: there was Jersey, there was Atlanta. Things were doing well,

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Speaker 1: and other they didn't. You know, I didn't have a

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Speaker 1: lot of negotiating power, and I didn't negotiate, and I

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Speaker 1: just took my last third season and said, fine, I'll

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Speaker 1: take whatever money I took. Because I also knew I

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Speaker 1: had a spin off, which, by the way, was at

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Speaker 1: the time the highest rated series premiere in Bravo history.

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Speaker 1: It was a very big success for three seasons, so

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Speaker 1: and I wanted that to do well. So negotiating with them,

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Speaker 1: you know, they've got all the leverage. All the girls

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Speaker 1: need the money and the relevance, so they really don't

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Speaker 1: have any leverage. They pretend they have leverage. I think

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Speaker 1: they have leverage. They fight to the end, then they

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Speaker 1: give Bravo and ultimatum. Bravo calls their bluff. The girls

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Speaker 1: say they're walking away, Bravo starts shooting. The girls crawl

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Speaker 1: back and repeat every season. Girls band together, then one

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Speaker 1: girl gets scared. She walks away from the other girls

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Speaker 1: she bandaged together with. Now she now everybody has less power.

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Speaker 1: They literally you could write a book on how terrible

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Speaker 1: Bravo talent is at negotiating, and Bravo will confirm this

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Speaker 1: as well. One season, one of the girls said, I

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Speaker 1: want to make one dollar more than Bethany is making

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Speaker 1: and or I'm not coming back, and Bravo laughed, folded

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Speaker 1: their hands as it fine, don't come back. Then the

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Speaker 1: girl came begging back because she had broken away from

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Speaker 1: her negotiating team and had no leverage. And Bravo knows

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Speaker 1: that they all need it. They need the money, they

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Speaker 1: need it, so it's just like the war. You could

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Speaker 1: do a course in Harvard on what not to do

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Speaker 1: about negotiating. But I said to Andy, I will give

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Speaker 1: you a number. There will be no negotiating back and forth.

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Speaker 1: That's my number. And actually I now know that I'm

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Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars lower than they would have given

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Speaker 1: me per episode for that negotiation. But I wanted to

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Speaker 1: not go back and forth. I don't negotiate like that

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Speaker 1: in general. I like to say what I need to

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Speaker 1: get paid, and they don't play games. I don't say

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Speaker 1: I want to give ten, but I'll want ten, but

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Speaker 1: I'll take it. I say the number I need. I

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Speaker 1: told the number I needed. They came back. A contract

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Speaker 1: was signed. A contract was signed in the way that

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Speaker 1: I could do it with regards to my excruciating, horrific

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Speaker 1: divorce as it pertains to my daughter I was making.

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Speaker 1: I was able to state the turns, their terms they're

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Speaker 1: needed to be. I came back to the house. I

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Speaker 1: was on different terms, not only legally with the other women,

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Speaker 1: because I ran into one of the girls at SOHO

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Speaker 1: House and she said to me, please say you're coming back.

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Speaker 1: I ran into one of the newer girls between Heather,

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Speaker 1: Carol and Kristen, and they said, please say you're coming back.

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Speaker 1: Because Sonja will admit She's the only one that will

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Speaker 1: actually admit that. She emailment to say, please say you're

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Speaker 1: coming back. Everybody was saying they are asking me to

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Speaker 1: come back because whether they loved me or hated me,

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Speaker 1: and most it was the ladder. The show had tanked

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Speaker 1: and they wanted good business. They wanted good business and

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Speaker 1: they wanted me back. That made me feel good. I

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Speaker 1: came back. It separated me. No one expected us to

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Speaker 1: be all paid the same, treated the same. It just

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Speaker 1: they just wanted a good show and it was it

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Speaker 1: for me personally and Lauren. Michael said it best when

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Speaker 1: he said to me, you have to sometimes make an

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Speaker 1: exit to make an end. You have to make an

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Speaker 1: exit to make an entrance. I didn't do any of

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Speaker 1: this on purpose, but it happened. I walked away. It

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Speaker 1: made me hire and demand they want to be back.

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Speaker 1: I came back. This was exciting, unexpected. Um, it may

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Speaker 1: seem funny to you. It's just so unique that I

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Speaker 1: would be so fascinated by their story. But wow, what

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Speaker 1: a fascinating story it is going to be. My guests

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Speaker 1: are Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Yes, the Ben and Jerry.

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Speaker 1: They share with me how a failed attempt at getting

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Speaker 1: into medical school and a failed pottery career led them

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Speaker 1: into the world of specialty ice cream in a way

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Speaker 1: that no one had ever seen before that continues to

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Speaker 1: this day. They started with just one small shop in Vermont,

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Speaker 1: and their famous ice cream is now sold all over

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Speaker 1: the world. I promised them we wouldn't do a gotcha interview,

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Speaker 1: but I still got the dirt on the only disagreement

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Speaker 1: they've ever had, and it's a dramatic one. Their success

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Speaker 1: has been built around one important thing, chunks. It's a

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Speaker 1: very chunky interview. I can't wait for you to hear it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So who is Ben and who is Jerry? I'm Jerry.

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Speaker 1: It used to be that Ben had the beard, but

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Speaker 1: we switched several years ago. Okay, So you are childhood friends?

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Speaker 1: How old? Well we met in seventh grade, Jim class.

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Speaker 1: We were the two slowest fattest kids in class. We

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Speaker 1: met running around the track. Actually Jerry and I were walking.

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Speaker 1: And you have been actual best friends ever since. Hard

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Speaker 1: to believe. Huh. Unbelievable, like a like a lifelong marriage.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's unbelievable. Um. And what were where? Where

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Speaker 1: did you grow up? Brooklyn? Well, we were born in Brooklyn.

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Speaker 1: We grew up on Long Island in the town of Merrick.

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Speaker 1: I know Merrick because I lived in Rockettell Center. Merrick

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Speaker 1: was I think the first or second sushi restaurant in

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Speaker 1: Long Island in like the seventies. Yeah, there weren't no

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Speaker 1: sushi when we were there. I can tell you that

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Speaker 1: south Shore, Long Island you don't have the accent, no,

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Speaker 1: somehow or other. Uh. It seemed like South Americ people

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Speaker 1: had the accent. We were North American people. You were

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Speaker 1: North Americ people. Okay, was that um? Because in Great

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Speaker 1: Napa Long Island there's north and south and south was

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Speaker 1: it's still upper middle class or middle class, but it

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Speaker 1: was lower socioeconomics. So were you in were you both

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Speaker 1: of means growing up or uh? Struggling? I would not

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Speaker 1: scribe us as of means? Would you describe us as

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Speaker 1: of means? Jerry? Not particularly? But for us, the difference

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Speaker 1: between South America and North Merrick was the kids in

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Speaker 1: South America were the fast kids. They were like they

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Speaker 1: knew what was going on. They were hip, and the

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Speaker 1: kids in North Merrick were like clueless. That's that's where

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Speaker 1: Ben and I found ourselves and the clueless bunch got it.

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Speaker 1: Like in gym class, it sounds like did you grow

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Speaker 1: up in from similar families? Like did you have the

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Speaker 1: same sort of cultural messaging around you, meaning your parents

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Speaker 1: were driven? Did they say, you know, you have to

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Speaker 1: have a solid work ethic, you have to always have

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Speaker 1: a job, Like what about that? Well? Uh, let's see,

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Speaker 1: my father was a hard worker. He was a workaholic. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He was an auditor for the New York State Department

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Speaker 1: of Ordered and Control. Uh. He ordered it school districts

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Speaker 1: uh north of New York City. He found that, um,

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Speaker 1: the person who was stealing the money was usually the

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Speaker 1: little old lady who was watching the petty cash. Then

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Speaker 1: he became a um, you know, kind of general manager

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Speaker 1: of a direct mail printing and advertising and mailing company,

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Speaker 1: and you know, he used to he used to talk

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Speaker 1: about his business management issues at the kitchen table, and

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Speaker 1: that was kind of an education for me. Did you

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Speaker 1: want to be a business person? No? I of course

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Speaker 1: wanted to be uh, you know, a policeman or a

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Speaker 1: firement or a carpenter. And my parents really eventually I

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Speaker 1: think I wanted to be an electrician, and they explained

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Speaker 1: to me, no, you don't want to be an electrician,

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Speaker 1: you want to be an electrical engineer. You know. I

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Speaker 1: kind of like working with my hands. I liked photography.

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Speaker 1: I was very good at extracurricular activities. But I wasn't

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Speaker 1: very good at uh school. I mostly I had a

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Speaker 1: hard time motivating myself to do my own work. I

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Speaker 1: got it, I do get that. And so you were

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Speaker 1: the there's there's in my cocktail brand, skinny Girl. I

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Speaker 1: was the creative and the marketer and the vision and

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Speaker 1: my partner was the operations guy. So you, Ben were

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Speaker 1: the creative and not that you're both not creative, well

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Speaker 1: get into that, but you were the creative in your business.

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Speaker 1: I was the marketing guy and Jerry was the guy

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Speaker 1: who made all the ice cream. Oh, so Jerry was operations.

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Speaker 1: Ben is is is of course being a little modest.

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Speaker 1: He's incredibly creative and uh he he created everything. But

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Speaker 1: you know, and so going back to growing up, I

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Speaker 1: think education was important for me. And the message I

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Speaker 1: got from my parents was we don't care what you do.

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Speaker 1: As long as you're happy, We're going to support you

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Speaker 1: no matter what. You know. It was one of these

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Speaker 1: we love you no matter what sort of things and

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Speaker 1: very non directive, and that might have been a little

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Speaker 1: different from the message Ben was getting. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: the message I was getting was that you should be

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Speaker 1: a lawyer right today was so you put, your parents

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Speaker 1: are more financially focused, which is interesting. Your parents are

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Speaker 1: more financially focused, and you were the creative and Jerry's

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Speaker 1: parents were more just be happy and live free, and

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Speaker 1: you ended up being the operations guys. So that's that's

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Speaker 1: interesting to me. Um. I read something that one of

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Speaker 1: you worked at Saratoga Springs Race Track for those listening,

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Speaker 1: the oldest racetrack in the country. I grew up going

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Speaker 1: to Saratoga and this summer because I grew up in

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Speaker 1: a horse racing family. My father was a Hall of

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Speaker 1: Fame horse racer trainer. My my father was Bobby Frankel.

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Speaker 1: He was in the Hall of Fame as a trainer.

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Speaker 1: My stepfather, John Parris Ella, was also a very successful

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Speaker 1: horse trainer. So we spent every summer in Saratoga. To

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Speaker 1: a separate podcast on how that place has changed. But

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Speaker 1: I remember from being a kid, I guess I've always

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Speaker 1: been brand aware my whole life. I've always know everything

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Speaker 1: to this day. I noticed every restaurant, every sign, every font,

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Speaker 1: every menu, and I remember that bench on that corner

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Speaker 1: not far from Mrs London's, I think, in Saratoga at

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Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's, and that was the first time I

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Speaker 1: ever saw the brand. And that was a thousand years ago,

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Speaker 1: and reading the reading today, I realized, if that was

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Speaker 1: early on in your brand. It started in Vermont and

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Speaker 1: that wasn't far behind, right, Yeah, I think that was

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Speaker 1: like the first or second franchise shop that we opened.

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Speaker 1: It was owned by a friend of ours from high school,

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Speaker 1: Jeff Durstuwitt's, and I was very involved personally in uh

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Speaker 1: in you know, helping to construct that um that shop

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Speaker 1: and design it. It was. It was in an old

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Speaker 1: gas station like our original and ben us Ben used

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Speaker 1: to work at Mrs London. It's a long time ago.

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Speaker 1: It was one of the many jobs he got fired from. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, Yes, I was a pinkerton guard at the

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Speaker 1: Saratoga Racetrack. Uh you know. They gave me a holster

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Speaker 1: with no gun in it and a badge and a

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Speaker 1: whistle and uh my job was to guard the Traverse canoe.

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Speaker 1: You're probably people I've told this story too that is

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Speaker 1: aware of the Traverse canoe and travers is a big

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Speaker 1: race like the Kentucky Derby of of Saratoga on the

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Speaker 1: third Saturday in August. So they had this canoe painted

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Speaker 1: in the colors of the jockey's uniform who won the Traverse,

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Speaker 1: and it was located in a little man made pond

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Speaker 1: behind the toadboard. Well, you got to be a cop.

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Speaker 1: You wanted to be a cop, so you've got to

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Speaker 1: be a cop. So the two of you get together

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Speaker 1: and how do your roles? Well, First of all, how

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Speaker 1: do you come up with the idea for your business

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Speaker 1: and how do your roles get to find Because people

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Speaker 1: listening are working in businesses, running their own businesses, a

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Speaker 1: lot of them are interested in just the food space

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Speaker 1: and having an idea and it coming to fruition. I

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Speaker 1: just want to kind of understand your dynamic in the fruition,

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Speaker 1: the idea, how it came to fruition, and then how

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Speaker 1: does everyone fall into who they are in this building

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Speaker 1: of a brand. You know, it's it's funny, Bethany, because

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Speaker 1: when you describe it, you're making it sound like there

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Speaker 1: was a lot more thought and planning that went into

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Speaker 1: it for me, and nothing like that. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: we we started an ice cream shop because we were

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Speaker 1: failing and everything else we were trying to do. I

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Speaker 1: tried to get into medical school and got rejected from

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Speaker 1: all the medical schools I applied to. Ben was trying

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Speaker 1: to be a potter and nobody would buy his pot area.

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Speaker 1: And we just decided to open up an ice cream

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Speaker 1: shop because we had always liked to eat, and we

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Speaker 1: thought we would do something with food, and we just

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Speaker 1: picked ice cream. Got it could have been anything. It

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Speaker 1: could have We thought about other things. We thought about bagels.

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Speaker 1: It could have been bagels. We thought about a fond restaurant,

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Speaker 1: We thought about a rotisseary restaurant. Well, that's a great point.

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Speaker 1: I agree. I just wanted to have a lowcality margharita.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't all that deep, and then exactly could have

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Speaker 1: been ten other things that I care about. But do

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Speaker 1: you believe that UM had it been now, knowing who

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Speaker 1: you both are and how you both fell into business

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Speaker 1: and you didn't know you were entrepreneurs, and you're undeniably entrepreneurs,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get into that you did it in your

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Speaker 1: own caring, philanthropic way, we'll get into that. But do

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Speaker 1: you believe that if you had had a bagel store

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Speaker 1: or a fond store or whatever these other ideas were,

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Speaker 1: that it would have been successful? Now, knowing what you

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Speaker 1: know that it was ice cream, not not near a successful.

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Speaker 1: I think that UM America has a very deep love

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Speaker 1: affair with ice cream that's way beyond whatever they've got

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Speaker 1: with bagels, are fun due or rotisserie roasted foods or crepes,

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Speaker 1: Thank goodness for that, right, Ben? So there could have

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Speaker 1: been a luck. So that's a luck part. Look Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: It's definitely definitely a bunch of luck. And we ended

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Speaker 1: up getting into an industry that was growing quite rapidly

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Speaker 1: at the time, the super premium ice cream industry, and

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Speaker 1: the way the way we got into our roles. You know,

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Speaker 1: Ben Ben was creating all the flavors and I was

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Speaker 1: making the ice cream. And it was because I think

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Speaker 1: Ben knew what he wanted in ice cream. Uh he

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Speaker 1: wanted big chunks of cookies and candies, and he wanted

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Speaker 1: very strong flavors. And I was very comfortable with routines,

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Speaker 1: you know, sort of making ice cream, doing the same

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Speaker 1: thing over and over. I'm not creative at all, and

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Speaker 1: so I think we just kind of fell into what

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Speaker 1: we were doing based on what we enjoyed. You know,

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Speaker 1: Jared keeps on saying he's not creative, But it was

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Speaker 1: Jerry who came up with our best promotion of all time,

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Speaker 1: which was pop Sidbiswe the penny off per celsius Degree

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Speaker 1: below zero Winter Extravaganza. The colder it gets, the more

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Speaker 1: you save forever degree below zero celsius, we would take

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Speaker 1: a penny off the cost of a cone, and you know,

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Speaker 1: at the time, a penny meant something you know. I

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Speaker 1: mean the cone cost fifty cents. When it was really cold,

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Speaker 1: you could get one. Forts It was a brilliant concept,

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Speaker 1: I think. I think the actual execution or success of

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Speaker 1: the program was it didn't live up to what it

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Speaker 1: could have been. For whatever, we were not streaming in

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Speaker 1: the door when it was twenty below zero. But at

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Speaker 1: least left you. I know you were still around when

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Speaker 1: it was twenty below zero and it was market. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you should have been around for the big January white

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Speaker 1: sale that we had us off anything white we had

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Speaker 1: in the store, vanilla cream. That's hilarious. Um well, but

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Speaker 1: it was so you were the formulator. It sounds like

427
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:22,879
Speaker 1: you were sort of the chemist. You were formulating and

428
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 1: then and then you were executing the duplication. It had

429
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:27,199
Speaker 1: to be you know that that it was gonna that

430
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 1: it was gonna work. So you said premium ice cream

431
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: became a big thing. And sometimes I think people wonder

432
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: myself included. So I'm in the sala addressing category and

433
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:38,440
Speaker 1: some people are wondering whether they should be baking cookies

434
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,199
Speaker 1: and it's so crowded or salt stuff. You go to

435
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: the Food and Wine Show, there's fifty types of salsa

436
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:45,880
Speaker 1: and olive oil. So how much is when things are

437
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: competitive in a market good and when it's too much?

438
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 1: Meaning you were noticing that the premium ice cream category

439
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 1: was becoming more relevant. But in some cases that might

440
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,439
Speaker 1: scare somebody away because there's so much competition. But by

441
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: the same toe, can you want there to be to

442
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 1: be relevant and there to be a conversation to be

443
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: had in society? So how do people know how to

444
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,920
Speaker 1: gauge that, like when to jump into a crowded category,

445
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: but there's room for more people, room for more products. Well,

446
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 1: we were certainly not jumping in with our eyes open.

447
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: I mean we were not aware that it was a

448
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:24,320
Speaker 1: growing category at the time. I mean, I think you

449
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: just gotta do something that you're passionate about and that uh,

450
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: and that has a point of difference. Hopefully, the point

451
00:24:33,280 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: of difference is that it's really good unusual that that

452
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 1: it's a you know, you need to find a void

453
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 1: in the marketplace and let that be your niche. And

454
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: I think that in terms of kind of like least

455
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: cost stuff or stuff that's average, it's really hard for

456
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:58,880
Speaker 1: a small company to compete with big companies in that area.

457
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,199
Speaker 1: Big companies are always going to do be able to

458
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:07,120
Speaker 1: produce stuff at a lower cost, but they have a

459
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 1: hard time producing really high quality stuff. How do you

460
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 1: honor the integrity of the brand, the initial culture of

461
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: the brand when it's growing, when you need to make

462
00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: your margins, when you need to be competitive, how do

463
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: you both manage to do that? Or how have you

464
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 1: managed to that? How can people do that? I think

465
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: Ben is uncompromising when it comes to quality. Uh. I

466
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:35,239
Speaker 1: remember in the early days when uh you know, when

467
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,439
Speaker 1: we were this little company that had no resources, no money,

468
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: and if if the ice cream didn't come out perfect,

469
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 1: Ben would say, we got to dump it. And people

470
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 1: would go, we can't afford the dump it, Ben, and

471
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,239
Speaker 1: we can't do that, And there was no question in

472
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: Ben's mind. Uh, you cannot afford to not be doing

473
00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 1: your best. So there's that element, and then you know,

474
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: Ben Ben is awful, spoken very eloquently about the inexorable

475
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 1: drift towards the main street. Uh. How you know, everything

476
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: sort of pushes you to become more like everybody else

477
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: and for you to lose your difference and to lose

478
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: your quality not just around the quality of your product,

479
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: but around so many different things well, I hear every

480
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: day and all the different categories that I am, I hear, well,

481
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:28,679
Speaker 1: this is trending, and we're seeing a lot of this

482
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: right now, and it literally makes my skin my hair

483
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: stand up on end because I don't want to do

484
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: what's trending and what you want to keep your own

485
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: clear point of view, and it's not that easy to

486
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: do because partners are scared, retailers are scared. Other people

487
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: want you to sort of just go with the flow,

488
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,360
Speaker 1: and that's how you become a diluted version of yourself.

489
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: When I spoke to Cameron Diaz, she and her partner

490
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 1: were saying that in their relationships at home, if something

491
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: is really important to one person, then the other person

492
00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 1: goes in that direction. So I'm wondering if that applies

493
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: to business. Have you two butt heads or you literally

494
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: just have always had this copasetic kumbay our relationship. I mean,

495
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: if one of you is really serious about something like

496
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: throwing away the batch and it's really important, does the

497
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,239
Speaker 1: other one just fall in because it's that much more

498
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: important to that person. It's amazing you bring that up,

499
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: because that was how we've operated. We we always and

500
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't unspoken. It was absolutely agreed that

501
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 1: if somebody felt really strongly about something, they would get

502
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: their way. I can't even think of times, well maybe

503
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: one time, uh, where we both felt strongly about something,

504
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 1: but by and large, it was extremely rare when we

505
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: when we butted heads. You know that the big disagreement

506
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: we've had that that we always talked about was the

507
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: size of the chunks in the ice cream. Done one well,

508
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: Ben one First, he was right in retrospect. It's easy

509
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: to say that in retrospect hindsight right or even even better.

510
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: But yeah, and and this comes back to being the

511
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: creative person that Ben was, and this comes back to

512
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:18,479
Speaker 1: me being the operational person who was making the ice cream.

513
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 1: Ben wanted big chunks of cookies and candies in the

514
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 1: ice cream. He always said, uh, people don't care if

515
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,120
Speaker 1: they get a chunk in every bite, as long as

516
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: they know there's a big chunk coming. And I would say, no, Ben,

517
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 1: we need a much better distribution of smaller chunks. That's

518
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:42,719
Speaker 1: you know, so people know it's in there, and you know.

519
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: At the same time, I was the guy making the

520
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: ice cream, and I can tell you it is a

521
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: lot harder putting big I was thinking about that the

522
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: machinery for to get through the like extrusion process or something, right,

523
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: I mean, Bethany, we've been making ice cream at Ben

524
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: and Jerry's for over forty years. You know the hallmar Well,

525
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: one of the hallmarks is these big chunks of cookies

526
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: and candies. And there's still no the other ice cream

527
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: company putting in big chunks. It's that hard to do that,

528
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 1: Ben So. And back in the old days when I

529
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: was doing it, you know, yes, I thought, yeah, people

530
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 1: want more smaller chunks. But at the same time it

531
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: was making my life really uh, it wasn't. Hell. I

532
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: don't know what do you think, Ben, Is it more

533
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: expensive putting in big chunks? It's not more expensive unless

534
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: you put in more of them. Okay, I got you.

535
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: The original discussion was about should we have a larger

536
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: amount of smaller chunks or a smaller amount of larger chunks,

537
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: And eventually what we agreed on was the larger amount

538
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: of larger chunks. So these are the little This is

539
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: the you know, this is the weeds that you sometimes

540
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: get into. And it sounds like you could have your

541
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: The advice could be the same for a marriage as

542
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: it is for your business marriage. If it's important to you,

543
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: it's important to me. So it sounds like Ben Ben

544
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: used to go around saying a chunk is not a

545
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: chunk unless it's a chunk. And you know that on

546
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: the surface, it doesn't seem like there's a lot there,

547
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: but I can tell you there's a lot lurking there.

548
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: I love that. Okay, you are still both involved in

549
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: the brand on sort of advisory levels, right. I think

550
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: what we like to say is where we're employed at

551
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's, were not involved in management or operations.

552
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: But if they do well, you still both do well. Actually,

553
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: it's not like that at all. We I don't think, uh,

554
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 1: we do any better. Whether the company sells a lot

555
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: of ice cream or not much ice cream, we kind

556
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: of do the same. So do you think that um

557
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: has the brand been preserved in the way that it

558
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 1: initially was um incubated and does it feel like the

559
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: culture is still there and the quality and the way

560
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 1: that you envisioned it. So Ben and Jerry's was acquired

561
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: by this larger company, Unilever, a little over twenty years ago. Uh,

562
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: and Unilever is this very large consumer brands product that

563
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: has all sorts of personal care brands and food brands.

564
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: So they make Hellman's mayonnaise, Dove soap. Uh. You know.

565
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: We always like to joke that on the same day

566
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: they bought Ben and Jerry's, they also bought slim Fast,

567
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: So you know, they've got a really good sense of humor. Uh.

568
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: You know. So it's been twenty years. I would say

569
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: for the first half of that time, it was really difficult.

570
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: I think Unilever and their leadership did not understand Ben

571
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: and Jerry's. They didn't really appreciate what made it what

572
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: it is. And then, you know, probably about ten years ago,

573
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: there was a great CEO at Unilever, Paul Pullman, who

574
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: retired just a few years ago, and he was very

575
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: committed to sustainability. He understood the values of the company,

576
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: and I think at that time, Uh, Ben and Jerry's

577
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: started to thrive again, both in terms of the product

578
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: and in terms of the social mission. Uh. You know.

579
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: And one thing we haven't really talked about Bethany is

580
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: the social Mission company. But but and the only reason

581
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: I mentioned is because the success of the company is

582
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: attributable at least as much to the social mission of

583
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: the company as it is to the quality of the product,

584
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: and and the flavors and the chunks themselves that you

585
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: can't really separate them. They're all they're all part of

586
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: the mash. Well, I agree, because it's not just because

587
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: there are obviously two names attached, but there's a feeling

588
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 1: to the brand where you feel like the brand has

589
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: a soul and not every single person knows the mission

590
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: and all of the philanthropic work you've done and how

591
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: you treated your employees, which we can get into, and

592
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: the culture, but there's something about the vibe of the

593
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: brand that indicates that that it's sort of like a

594
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: feel good, nice person, good person, not capitalism brand. It

595
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: just always felt like that, and I just think that

596
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,719
Speaker 1: came through in some of the flavors, and you know,

597
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: just the sort of the deadhead vibe and just giving

598
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: back and the campaigns and all that. You know, a

599
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: lot of that was Ben too, you know Ben Ben uh.

600
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: You know, so the company started out very countercultural because

601
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: I think Ben and I were kind of countercultural. But

602
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: the other thing about Ben is he's completely anti authoritarian,

603
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 1: which is part of his chure, and I think, you

604
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: know that was that was built into the company very

605
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: early on. How do you be non entrepreneur real type

606
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: people and change with not only the times, but like

607
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be more corporate, more hr more.

608
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: You need to grown up in the room who's smarter

609
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: than you to just have these conversations that are not

610
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: you're not naturally inclined to have, which I've read about

611
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: both of you, and it sounds like you went through that.

612
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: So how do people navigate these growing pains? Your ice

613
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: cream makers? You're doing well, You're making money. People like it, Like,

614
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: so how did you navigate that arc? Yeah? You know,

615
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 1: I I think the way you're talking about it is

616
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: exactly the way to do it. I mean, so for

617
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 1: Ben and myself, I think it was recognizing the things

618
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: we were good at, and almost so that means recognizing

619
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 1: the things we were not that good at. Uh. You know,

620
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: Ben and I are wonderful, caring, creative people, etcetera, etcetera.

621
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:56,240
Speaker 1: We're not managers. We were not good with policy and procedure,

622
00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: and and so we needed to bring in great people

623
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: and a team to do that. And I think that

624
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: one of the critical aspects of that is finding people

625
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: not just who have those skills, but people who share

626
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: the values and the culture that you bring. And I'm

627
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: sure you could talk a lot about that, and you know,

628
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: it's got to be a fit. So both of you

629
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: are not quote unquote uh managers or those type of

630
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:28,439
Speaker 1: process oriented people, although you're more process oriented, but um

631
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: do you both have a very serious work ethic, like

632
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 1: get it done and work you know, as long as

633
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: it takes to get it done. Very serious. You know.

634
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: In in the early days, we were living and sleeping

635
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: and eating uh at the ice cream shop we were

636
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: we were sleeping on top of the freezers in the

637
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: back room. So it was seven day a week, you know,

638
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: ten or twelve hours a day. Well, I guess that's

639
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: kind of on the shore side, but that's what I'm saying.

640
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: And Jeffrey Katzenberg said on here, and he got into trouble.

641
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: I think about this comment he made years ago. This

642
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: is not literal, but he said, if you don't if

643
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: you don't come in on Saturday, don't bother coming in

644
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: on Sunday, you know. But that's a true entrepreneur. And

645
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: I just don't like to sugarcoat things to entrepreneurs because

646
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: everybody now is about you know, thinking about all the

647
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: time that they have off and getting our breaks and

648
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: all that. You know, there's a whole new you get,

649
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 1: you know, cancelation culture for everything not being totally perfect

650
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,240
Speaker 1: and in a square box of human resources. Well, that's

651
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: not what I experienced coming up. And the people that

652
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: I know that are the most successful, that's not what

653
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,399
Speaker 1: they experienced either. So however, you all want to get

654
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:42,760
Speaker 1: it done. I'm just saying true entrepreneurs work their asses

655
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: off because someone else is willing to work there as well,

656
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: you know, the nice the nice thing for Ben and me, uh,

657
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: you know, doing it together. And I think, well, I

658
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: can speak for myself. A lot of the reason I

659
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 1: was working so hard was I wanted to keep up

660
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: my end of the bargain with Ben. I knew what

661
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: he was still, I knew he was killing himself and

662
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:04,760
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't want to be the guy letting

663
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,359
Speaker 1: things down. So yeah, that's the way it was for

664
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: both of us. I mean, we were both trying to

665
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,760
Speaker 1: work as hard as the other guy. You know, people

666
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: say how hard it is, you know, working with friends

667
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 1: or whatever. I think the experience we had was completely

668
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,439
Speaker 1: the opposite. I mean, we felt so lucky and still

669
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:27,879
Speaker 1: do to be working with each other because I mean,

670
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: you have that trust and you have that personal commitment

671
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: to your your friendship, your relationship that I think for

672
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:41,280
Speaker 1: us goes much much deeper than the business, And um,

673
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: how do you think that someone is supposed to determine

674
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: whether they're really supposed to have a partner or be

675
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 1: on their own, Because it's a very different dynamic. For me,

676
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,399
Speaker 1: it was never a question about it. There's I mean

677
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: even today we're bet and I get to doing stuff together.

678
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 1: My first thing to Ben is, yeah, I'll do it

679
00:37:58,480 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: if you want to do it with me, but I'm

680
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: going to do it on my own. There had to

681
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: be a time when you didn't really have the money

682
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: to get the management that you needed to take this

683
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: thing to the next level and to scale it. How

684
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: did you how do you deal with that? And did

685
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: you know you were going to scale it? Like? What

686
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 1: are you thinking in that weird purgatory time? You know,

687
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: I think uh, Ben and Jerry's was always under resourced

688
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:40,879
Speaker 1: in terms of money or whatever until it popped off

689
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 1: and you got bought. Yeah, but you know, at that point, uh,

690
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: you know, there was we weren't running it. I mean,

691
00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 1: we weren't running it well before then, but you owned it.

692
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 1: You had someone else running it well before then, but

693
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: you owned it had you sold off apart to that person.

694
00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: I don't think it's bad to not have all the

695
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: resources you think you need. You find ways to do it,

696
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:09,320
Speaker 1: You find smarter, less expensive ways to do things, and

697
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: you make it work. It. It makes you think smarter

698
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: about what you're doing. And uh, it certainly keeps you focused, right,

699
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you don't get unfocused when when you're

700
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to get something done that

701
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: you don't really have the resources to do. How do

702
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: you know when to hold them? And went to fold them,

703
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:33,720
Speaker 1: went to sell someone to let go? Like what? Because

704
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 1: I had my own reason for those decisions that evolved

705
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: things that are not sexy, like intellectual property versus money,

706
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:42,320
Speaker 1: and street cred versus money, so or just not getting

707
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: sued versus money. You know, what are the decisions when

708
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: you're saying should we sell? We didn't want the company

709
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 1: to be sold even at the point it got acquired.

710
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 1: But what had happened was Ben and Jerry's was a

711
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: public company. The company started in nineteen seventy as this

712
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: little homemade ice cream parlor, and the company had a

713
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: stock offering just within the state of Vermont. Why I

714
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: don't I just don't understand why. Uh, well, the company

715
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 1: needed to raise some money, and Ben found this, uh

716
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 1: kind of obscure law in the state of Vermont that

717
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: said you could sell stock in the company to vermonts.

718
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 1: And the reason we wanted to do that was to

719
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: give people in Vermont who had been supporting the company

720
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:42,359
Speaker 1: an opportunity to become owners of the business. And uh,

721
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: you know, that way, the company would be owned by

722
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:51,760
Speaker 1: essentially the local community, so that as the business prospered,

723
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 1: the owners the local community would automatically process. Wow, that

724
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 1: is interesting and very on brand for you guys culturally. Okay,

725
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,800
Speaker 1: that's right. And and and then a couple of years

726
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: after that, the company had a national public stock offering,

727
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: so that was in about It's interesting that you say

728
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:15,280
Speaker 1: we were on brand for the company's culture. We weren't

729
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: trying to be on brand. We were just trying to

730
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: be what we believed in. We were trying to use

731
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: this need for cash, you know, they were there was

732
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: a bunch of venture capitalists that were coming to us

733
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: saying we want to invest in your company, and we

734
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: we instead of I mean, essentially, the way we saw

735
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 1: that was it was essentially a bunch of people who

736
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: already had a whole lot of money. You wanted more right,

737
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: you would you want to do like a co op.

738
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: We wanted people wanted to share the wealth. We wanted

739
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: to spread the wealth. We wanted people who did not

740
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: already have a whole lot of money to have a

741
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: chance to get in on the ground floor. But that

742
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 1: was the rose that I had pedal and Thorn's because

743
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: that one move made you end up having to do

744
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,439
Speaker 1: the I p O, which made you end up having

745
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 1: to sell. So it was like a weird journey that

746
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 1: you didn't necessarily want to be on. I don't I

747
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: don't think that one move required us to have the

748
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: I p O. I mean, you know, the the national

749
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: I p O. Uh. You know, eventually we did. And

750
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:36,400
Speaker 1: you know, I think that if we had been a

751
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: little smarter, uh, we would not I've been forced to

752
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: to sell the company. But you know, interesting we live

753
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: and we learned, don't we wow? So is that I

754
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: usually ask later in the conversation, is that your rose

755
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 1: and your thorn, or that was not a rose at all?

756
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 1: Was that a rose at the time? And you're high

757
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 1: and you're low. Well know, one out of every hundred

758
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: Vermont families bought stock and Ben and Jerry's uh totally rosy.

759
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:13,839
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I mean what you're I mean,

760
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: so you're talking about roses and you're talking about Thorn's

761
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: what you want to talk about? What was? What was?

762
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: What was bad? Or you're you're trying to sit not

763
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 1: meaning like a daily fight or like the thing of

764
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,760
Speaker 1: your careers. I usually ask it later, but it sounds

765
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 1: like this is a complicated thing that went down. So

766
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:35,239
Speaker 1: usually the roses like the high of the career, and

767
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: then you know, the thorn is the low of the career.

768
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:40,280
Speaker 1: You know, I think the low is when the company

769
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: got sold. Uh, you know, both Jerry and I tried

770
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: to keep it independent. And I think that's good for

771
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: people to hear because people always think when they read

772
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 1: the headlines, somebody sold that that is like their big

773
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: pay day and everybody's all excited. And there are many

774
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: things that make people have to do things their intellectual

775
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: property issues that go on with certain people that they

776
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: end up losing their name and they don't even realize it.

777
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: There are issues like this that you're talking about, where

778
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 1: things get out of your hands and people say to me,

779
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 1: if I sold half my business, now I have a

780
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: bigger dog collar on my neck, a different person to

781
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: aunt driving this sleigh. Like, So, just for entrepreneurs at home,

782
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 1: what would you say, Like, what's the message behind all

783
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: of this? You can help other people because people all

784
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,240
Speaker 1: want a big event, you know, a big financial event,

785
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: and they may be careful what you wish for. You know,

786
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: It's funny you ask about the highs and the lowest.

787
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: When I think about Ben and Jerry's Uh, the greatest

788
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,719
Speaker 1: thing for me is not that the company got successful

789
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: or made a lot of money or that it Uh.

790
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: The greatest things for me that I think about are

791
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:53,839
Speaker 1: the experiences, the relationships. It's all about that. It's it's

792
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: not that, uh. You know, at one point the company

793
00:44:57,320 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: sold X number of dollars of ice cream, owns or whatever.

794
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 1: It's it's never about that. One of the house for

795
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: us was scooping ice cream Occupy Wall Street, Uh in

796
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: New York. I mean I I felt like, you know,

797
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: being able to help support that movement by giving ice

798
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 1: cream to people and by just lending the credibility of

799
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's to it. UH to me was a

800
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: real high point that I felt like this, this was

801
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 1: why we created, this is why Ben and Jerry's came

802
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: to be. It's truly I say this all the time.

803
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: The people that I speak to you are truly successful.

804
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 1: Nobody is about the money. You can't. I once knew

805
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: a girl who said, I have to find a product

806
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 1: to sell. I need to find white space. I'm looking

807
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: for white space. And I thought, what a moron. It's

808
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: inside of you. You know what I mean? Inside you

809
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: is what are you passionate about? What do you love,

810
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 1: what do you not like? What's bothering you? It's aggregated

811
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: whatever it is like. That's what true entrepreneurialism is to me,

812
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 1: and that's what we're saying. Paul Pullman, who is the

813
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: former CEO of Unilever, just came out with a book

814
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 1: called net Positive, and it is about how corporations, businesses,

815
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:34,920
Speaker 1: what they need to do in our new world is

816
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,799
Speaker 1: to meet the needs of the society, to deal with

817
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 1: the issues of racial injustice, to deal with the issues

818
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: of economic injustice, and the environment, and that it is

819
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 1: by using the power of their businesses and integrating those

820
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: values into their business that they end up becoming successful,

821
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: high profit businesses. So it's a win win. You're saying,

822
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: your whole entire business was about what you truly felt,

823
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 1: and the values were coming through in the brand and

824
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: the products. So it was based. That's a good foundation.

825
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 1: That's a house that's built on a solid foundation, is

826
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 1: what you're saying. You know, it's it's it's a really interesting, uh,

827
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:29,439
Speaker 1: facet of the human experience that as you give, you receive. Yes,

828
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 1: as you help others, you're helped in return. As you

829
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:39,359
Speaker 1: authentically give, business supports the community, the community supports your business.

830
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it's nothing more really than uh the golden rule.

831
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:50,880
Speaker 1: But you know, you you can't prove it. You can't

832
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 1: prove that, well, we we did all this stuff to

833
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: support the community, and that is why we've become more profitable.

834
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: But I can tell you that we did do all

835
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: this stuff to support the community. We did take all

836
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: these social and political stands, and the company kept on

837
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: getting more and more profitable. Well that's an amazing construct.

838
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: But also from what I've read, you also did that

839
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: internally in your business, like externally in the community, but

840
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: in your internal community it was a great workplace. You've

841
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: made that a serious priority. Whether you're good to quote

842
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: unquote managers or not. You managed to make sure that

843
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: the your employees were happy. You know, our company started

844
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 1: in seventy eight. Uh. In the eighties, Uh, we were

845
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: giving healthcare benefits to domestic partners. We had a compressed

846
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:52,720
Speaker 1: salary ratio so that the highest paid person didn't get

847
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:56,280
Speaker 1: more than five times with the lowest paid person got.

848
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just cared about that stuff. I think.

849
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: I think part of it for Benning me was we

850
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 1: had no business training. We we you know, we didn't

851
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:12,239
Speaker 1: go to business school whatever. And and the other thing was, uh,

852
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: we didn't really see ourselves as bosses. We had much

853
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 1: more of a of a worker mentality because we'd always

854
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: worked for other people and we wanted to run a

855
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: company the way we would want to be treated. Right.

856
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,719
Speaker 1: I mean that just kind of makes sense. Right. That's

857
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: amazing for people listening, because it makes people think no

858
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: one's an expert on I think, which you weren't and

859
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 1: which I wasn't. Do you have any I guess you

860
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:41,359
Speaker 1: kind of said your regrets, but any regrets are big

861
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:44,359
Speaker 1: mistakes that people could learn from what what you could

862
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 1: have done differently, that they would do differently. Well, I

863
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: think we we used to and continue to make mistakes

864
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 1: all the time. You you just referenced it yourself that

865
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: you know, you have to be trying new things, you

866
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: have to be taking risks, and some sizeable percentage of

867
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 1: those things don't work, they fail, and you have you

868
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,759
Speaker 1: were Ben you wrote a book right above the Indeed,

869
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 1: I did to write a book. Uh, it's about what

870
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:16,799
Speaker 1: Jerry and I are focused on right now, which is

871
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 1: the campaign to end qualified immunity. Uh. You know, there's

872
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 1: a there's a loophole in the law whereby if police

873
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,920
Speaker 1: officers break the law, they get off scott free. They're

874
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 1: immune from prosecution. And that's the reason why you see,

875
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 1: uh these situations where rogue cops will be brutalizing or

876
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: murdering on armed black people and they get off with

877
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: a slap on the wrist or a lot of times

878
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 1: they're they're not prosecuted. It's because of this particular legal

879
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:01,439
Speaker 1: doctrine that needs to be overturned. So we are part

880
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:08,319
Speaker 1: of a coalition now of over two dozen organizations including Uh,

881
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: the a c o U and Americans for Prosperity and

882
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 1: the Cato Institute and the n a CP Legal Defense Fund,

883
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 1: that all understand that this is not just. And you know,

884
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 1: I think the thing that we've been thinking about lately

885
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 1: is that, you know, so many people look at this

886
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 1: as a black problem, that it's black people that are

887
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:38,799
Speaker 1: getting murdered and abused, but the reality is that it's

888
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:43,240
Speaker 1: a white problem. That we live in a white society.

889
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 1: It's a majority white culture. The police who act in

890
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 1: our name and with our money are people that we

891
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 1: white people put in power, and when they go and

892
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 1: screw up, we need to take responsibility and hold them accountable.

893
00:52:03,719 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 1: And so that's that's what we're working on. Fabulous. And

894
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: are you both in relationships? I don't. I didn't read

895
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 1: anything about your personal life. I don't know if that's intentional.

896
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:15,800
Speaker 1: You don't have to tell me about you guys. You

897
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 1: have kids? What a wife? I got a daughter, I

898
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: got a granddaughter. Okay, what about you? Ben? I would

899
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 1: say that we're very, very happily married, both of us,

900
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:30,840
Speaker 1: not to each other, but to to our beautiful wives.

901
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: And uh, we we both have grandchildren. Were are your

902
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: wife's friends. Yeah. In fact, we uh Ben and some

903
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 1: other friends and his beautiful wife were over her brunch

904
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 1: on on Saturday and we hang at we're all members

905
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: of the fifty one club. Are you probably not familiar

906
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 1: with the tift one club In Vermont, Bethany, there is

907
00:52:56,440 --> 00:53:00,400
Speaker 1: a club called it. No, it's it's people who go

908
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:03,880
Speaker 1: to visit all two hundred and fifty one towns in

909
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 1: the state of Vermont. It's the Vermont to Oh that's cool.

910
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:10,759
Speaker 1: I thought it was like that. I thought, I thought,

911
00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 1: because you guys have in Vermont. It was that like

912
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,719
Speaker 1: the pot smoking time that's that day. I don't know

913
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 1: what it is a time. It sounded like, God, I'm

914
00:53:19,040 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 1: such so stupid. Well, all right, well you're getting your

915
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: number twenty vermonttown. My beautiful wife and I are actually

916
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:37,600
Speaker 1: going on a two fifty one club tour through southern

917
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 1: Vermont UH starting at the end of this week Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

918
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:48,280
Speaker 1: Will be visiting UH near Burlington, the big city near Banton, Okay,

919
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:50,799
Speaker 1: because I love Stows, such a good mountain not that

920
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,239
Speaker 1: far away. And you know what's on the wage Stow,

921
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 1: don't you don't? But it's the Ben and Jerry's Factory

922
00:53:56,520 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 1: in Waterbury, the number one tourist attraction in Vermont. I'll

923
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 1: now I can bring my daughter and tell her that

924
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 1: I know you guys, and you can get me ahead

925
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 1: to jump the line with brand for ice cream. Yeah,

926
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: we're going to take really good care of you and

927
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,480
Speaker 1: your daughter when we come. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna take

928
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:15,240
Speaker 1: our road trip to go to the Ben and Jerry.

929
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I'm so excited. I was like, I think

930
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:21,040
Speaker 1: your name is probably still pretty valuable around there. Um. Wow,

931
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: what an interesting conversation. I know we had some back

932
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: and forth ahead of time. Wait before I just want

933
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:29,080
Speaker 1: to tell you when you come visit the factory, Bethany,

934
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 1: you can go visit the flavor Graveyard. You can go

935
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:38,320
Speaker 1: visit some of the dearly departed flavors that are buried

936
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:43,359
Speaker 1: right there on the ground. White what Russian who was

937
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:46,560
Speaker 1: resurrected a couple of times, but they came back from

938
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 1: the dead Halloween. It's perfect thing for you guys to

939
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:55,359
Speaker 1: do around Halloween, bring bring bring flavors back from the dead. Right,

940
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 1: such a good conversation, and I appreciate you trusting me.

941
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:03,319
Speaker 1: So it was a pleasure. Yes, thank you for interesting conversation.

942
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'd like to I'd like to hear more

943
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:10,359
Speaker 1: about your ventures sometimes and then drink Skinny Girl. Yeah,

944
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 1: they certainly can. Again, I don't. I I sold off

945
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 1: the Skinny Girl. I owned the Skinny Girl intellectual property

946
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: except for in cocktail, so I kept all the I

947
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:22,960
Speaker 1: P So imagine if you kept Ben and Jerry's in uh,

948
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 1: you know, lip gloss and makeup and every genes and

949
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:29,760
Speaker 1: everything else. That's what I did. Uh yeah, we we

950
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:33,720
Speaker 1: we don't have any intellectual property. All we have is ourselves.

951
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: We have the real Ben Jerry. Awesome, Thank you, have

952
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 1: a great day, by bye. That was incredible. It's so

953
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: great when you have a conversation where it goes so

954
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: well and at the end you could tell Ben and

955
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 1: Jerry were so happy because they're probably not having conversations

956
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: like this, And that's what I want this to be,

957
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:06,200
Speaker 1: if you can have an entertaining takeaway conversation without being

958
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 1: about just hawking products or trying to catch somebody in something.

959
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: So they were amazing. I now knowing what I know,

960
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:16,080
Speaker 1: the fact that it almost didn't happen this interview, I'm

961
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:19,760
Speaker 1: so happy that I pushed through to make everybody feel comfortable.

962
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 1: You know that I'll say, this will be the best

963
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,959
Speaker 1: conversation you're ever going to have. Just have it, and

964
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: people love it. So I'm so thrilled and I'm so

965
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: grateful to you, and we keep going and it's so successful,

966
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:32,719
Speaker 1: and I just want you to keep rating, reviewing, and

967
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:37,160
Speaker 1: subscribing because UM obsessed loving these conversations.