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Speaker 1: Hi everyone at Sophia, and welcome back to Work in Progress.

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Speaker 1: I am so excited to have been given the chance

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Speaker 1: to sit down with two legends, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield,

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Speaker 1: better known to most of us as Ben and Jerry

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Speaker 1: of Ben and Jerry's ice Cream. Some of you may

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Speaker 1: be more familiar with these two guys for their incredibly

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Speaker 1: successful and super delicious ice cream business, but they are

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Speaker 1: also lifelong friends and lifelong activists. They've both been recognized

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Speaker 1: for fostering their company's commitment to social responsibility by the

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Speaker 1: Council on Economic Priorities and by the United States Small

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Speaker 1: Business Administration. They've also received the James Beard Humanitarians of

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Speaker 1: the Year Award, the Peace Museum's Community Peacemakers of the

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Speaker 1: Year Award, and the Corporate Giving Award. Ben has served

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Speaker 1: down the boards of Greenpeace, Business for Social Responsibility and

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Speaker 1: have for International, the Social Venture Network, Hampshire College and Oxfam,

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Speaker 1: and in addition, Ben also served as the national co

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Speaker 1: chair of the Bernie twenty campaign. Jerry is involved in

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Speaker 1: promoting the social and environmental initiatives that Ben and Jerry's undertakes,

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Speaker 1: and he is the vice president of the Ben and

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Speaker 1: Jerry's foundation. Presently, the two are laser focused on their

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Speaker 1: campaign to fight end qualified immunity, which will discuss in

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Speaker 1: detail today. It is an incredibly important and extremely timely effort,

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Speaker 1: especially in light of the recent verdict in the Derek

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Speaker 1: Chauvin trial for the murder of George Floyd and the

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Speaker 1: recent murder by police of Dante Wright. We discuss how

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Speaker 1: they became so invested in this issue, their mission, statement,

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Speaker 1: police brutality, and black lives matter. We also, of course

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Speaker 1: talk about the history of Ben and Jerry's, the fascinating

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Speaker 1: science and what might be unexpected engineering behind ice cream making,

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Speaker 1: on what makes their's so unique. I'm excited for you

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Speaker 1: all to dig into this treat of an episode and

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Speaker 1: here with these two great businessmen and humanitarians have to

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Speaker 1: share with us today. Thank you guys both so much

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Speaker 1: for being here. I have so loved my journey as

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Speaker 1: a fan because I, like so many people, know you

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Speaker 1: for your incredible ice cream. You make parties better and

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Speaker 1: birthdays better. And then myself and so many other people

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Speaker 1: in the world realized you're both these deeply committed activists.

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Speaker 1: But before we get into the present, I really do

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Speaker 1: love to go back with people because I meet you

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Speaker 1: today as you know, these iconic business leaders and these

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Speaker 1: founders of a massive, massive company. But I'm very curious

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Speaker 1: about the beginning. I'm curious about how all of this

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Speaker 1: came to be. You both are from Brooklyn, correct, That's

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Speaker 1: where we were born. My parents moved out to Long

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Speaker 1: Island when I was one and a half. You're a

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Speaker 1: Long Island kid. I'm a Long Island kid. Can you

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Speaker 1: paint a picture of what was happening in the city,

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Speaker 1: you know, when you were, I don't know, say, having

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Speaker 1: your supremely cool double digit birthday turning ten. Well, I was.

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Speaker 1: I was a fat, chubby kid. I was, you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of bullied and made fun of course, I was

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Speaker 1: a fat chubby kid. You know. I was kind of

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Speaker 1: a smart kid. I was able to get by in

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Speaker 1: school without really doing my homework. And I was a

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Speaker 1: tall kid, so I got picked to put up the

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Speaker 1: bulletin boards, you know, one the teacher wounded something up.

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Speaker 1: I I kind of reached my academic peak. Actually, in

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Speaker 1: uh elementary school, I was voted most likely to succeed.

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Speaker 1: You didn't have that as one of my my accomplishments.

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Speaker 1: When you gave the thing at the beginning. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: then it was all downhill from there. And what about you, Jerry? Well, So,

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Speaker 1: Ben and I grew up in the same town. I

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Speaker 1: was also a chubby kid. And Ben and I met

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Speaker 1: when we were thirteen. We were in seventh grade together

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Speaker 1: in the same junior high school and we met in

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Speaker 1: gym class running around the track because we were the

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Speaker 1: too slowest, fattest kids in the class. And you know,

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Speaker 1: plus we were we were kind of nerdy kids. And

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Speaker 1: I would have to say, not really in the social

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Speaker 1: main stream, wouldn't you say, Ben? Yeah, I think you'd

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Speaker 1: have to say that. So were you too fast friends? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we got along great. You know what I think when

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Speaker 1: you're not really in the fast crowd, Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: when you're sort of outliers. We had I don't know

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Speaker 1: two or three or four friends who are outliers. And

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Speaker 1: we used to have lunch together in seventh grade in

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Speaker 1: a separate part of the lunch room. And uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: we we've found our our people. I'm lucky to find

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Speaker 1: some of your people early. What what were you guys

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Speaker 1: really interested in? Then? I was interested in science and

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Speaker 1: I was interested in electricity. I have like a little

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Speaker 1: work table next to my father's desk in the basement,

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Speaker 1: and I just had all these wires that I kept

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Speaker 1: on kind of twisting together, and it was this huge,

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Speaker 1: big tangle of wires. So that's that's what I said

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Speaker 1: to I like that I was. I was kind of

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Speaker 1: a science geek who as a kid, I was really

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Speaker 1: fascinated by how things worked. And I remember also in

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Speaker 1: the seventh grade, we did our first animal dissections for

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Speaker 1: biology and I could not believe what the inside of

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Speaker 1: a living thing looked like. And I came home and

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Speaker 1: told my parents I wanted to be a surgeon. I

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Speaker 1: was like, this is the coolest You don't understand. You

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Speaker 1: can put people back together and it's and my parents

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Speaker 1: were sort of like, ok, okay, um. So you can

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Speaker 1: imagine their displeasure many years later when I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't think I'm going to go to medical school.

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Speaker 1: I think I want to be an actor. My mom,

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Speaker 1: good god, what have we done. We shouldn't let her

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Speaker 1: do so many plays. I told my parents I wanted

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Speaker 1: to be uh an electrician, and they said, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: dear you, you want to be an electrical engineer. UH.

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Speaker 1: And I didn't I didn't do either one of those things.

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Speaker 1: I didn't go to medical school either, and now I'm

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Speaker 1: playing a doctor in my new job. So you never

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Speaker 1: really know how these things become full circle. I'm curious,

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Speaker 1: you know, you and you just spoke about your family.

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Speaker 1: I think about the ways our families can encourage us to,

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Speaker 1: you know, dream bigger, set larger goals, and and since

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Speaker 1: the both of you, you know, have been in each

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Speaker 1: other's lives since the seventh grade, I know you've lived

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Speaker 1: together at one point, I have questions about that. I'm curious.

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Speaker 1: How did your families each influence you in terms of

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Speaker 1: what they encouraged you to do or what they taught

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Speaker 1: you was possible. I I wonder what you can kind

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Speaker 1: of trace in terms of your familial experience as kids

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Speaker 1: to your your current belief systems about you know, changing

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Speaker 1: the world and and building things that you don't see yet. Well,

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Speaker 1: my pair earnts were the kind of parents who loved

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Speaker 1: you and supported you no matter what. Whatever you wanted

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Speaker 1: to do was fine with them. They were very non directive,

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Speaker 1: and I think there were big believers in education, and

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Speaker 1: that worked for me because I was a real rule follower,

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Speaker 1: so I did whatever they told me to do in school,

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Speaker 1: And unlike Ben, who didn't used to do his homework,

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Speaker 1: I always did my homework, and I always handed in

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Speaker 1: my assignments on time, and when I got home from school,

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Speaker 1: I did my homework right away. I never progressed. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't. You couldn't really find two more different people

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Speaker 1: in in many respects than Ben and me, and yet

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Speaker 1: you're the best of friends. How is your friendship which

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Speaker 1: was established so early and also the factory that you

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Speaker 1: just bring up that you're very different in terms of

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Speaker 1: your habits. How was that for you to to live together?

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Speaker 1: Because now I'm curious who cleaned the house? Who was

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Speaker 1: the messy roommate? Like, how did that all go down? Well,

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Speaker 1: we lived together, I think several different times. I think

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Speaker 1: what maybe the Well, the first time was when I,

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Speaker 1: you know, I had I had gone to college, and uh,

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Speaker 1: they had a January kind of term where you take

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Speaker 1: them up to January and do some independent study. And

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Speaker 1: I went with some friends to drive and we drove

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Speaker 1: out to California and we were supposedly researching alternative educational institutions.

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Speaker 1: I don't really recall visiting any of those but I

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Speaker 1: did decide at the end of January that I was

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Speaker 1: going to drop out of school and stay in California. Um,

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Speaker 1: get a job as an ice cream man, you know,

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Speaker 1: ringing bells and selling ice cream two kids, because I

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Speaker 1: had experience at that, because I did that when I

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Speaker 1: was in high school. Yeah, your senior year, right, you

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Speaker 1: you were in an ice cream shop then, Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: these guys left, and you know, I had like no money,

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Speaker 1: no place to live. I was trying to figure out, Wow,

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Speaker 1: do I get a job first or do I find

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Speaker 1: a place to live first? And I couldn't figure that out,

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Speaker 1: and I just felt so alone, you know, the loneliest

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Speaker 1: I've ever felt in my life. And I started hitchhiking

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Speaker 1: back to the closest person that I could find that

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Speaker 1: I knew, and that was Jerry, who lived in uh Oberlin.

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Speaker 1: He was going to school at Oberlin College, and uh

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Speaker 1: I just moved in and lived on his floor for

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Speaker 1: a few months. And I was pretty well behaved. I

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Speaker 1: think living on your floor, Jare, Yeah, Ben was great

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Speaker 1: And the question of who cleaned up never came up,

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Speaker 1: but it did come up when we lived together in

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Speaker 1: New York City in an apartment after I had gotten

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Speaker 1: out of college and Ben had dropped out of a

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Speaker 1: few colleges, and this was when I really should have

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Speaker 1: realized what my future partner was like, because in terms

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Speaker 1: of cleaning up, Ben's theory was, well, whoever gets tired

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Speaker 1: of how messy and dirty it is, first they should

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Speaker 1: clean up. And so it's really like the lowest common

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Speaker 1: denominator who cleans up? I mean, it makes sense when

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Speaker 1: you think about it, right, I mean, it just had

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Speaker 1: never occurred to me to put it in those terms.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a battle of the wills, really, who

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Speaker 1: can hold out the longest. I don't think it was

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Speaker 1: about well the wheels, It's like, what what your level

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Speaker 1: of acceptance of the way things were? I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't think Ben was trying to get me to clean

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Speaker 1: up before him, were you? I mean no, I don't

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Speaker 1: think that was the idea it was. It was just

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Speaker 1: reconceptualizing neat versus messy. Why shouldn't the norm and the accepted,

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Speaker 1: the accepted norm be messy and if somebody didn't like it,

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Speaker 1: let him go clean up. But in this house, the

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Speaker 1: accepted norm's messy. See Jerry's laughing, and I'm starting to sweat,

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Speaker 1: and I'm realizing, of course, I would call it a

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Speaker 1: battle of the wheels because I'm so o c D.

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Speaker 1: But I'm like the level of willpower it would take

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Speaker 1: me to walk past the sink with dishes in it.

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it. Wow, Well you'd be a good

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Speaker 1: person to live with because you'd clean everything up, you see.

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Speaker 1: But the thing about Ben thing I was laughing is

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Speaker 1: because when Ben talks about norms, because that that is

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Speaker 1: one of the essential qualities of Ben is that he

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Speaker 1: does not accept or see or whatever what what many

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Speaker 1: people think of as conventional norms. He's he's somewhat unconventional.

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Speaker 1: I would have to say, well, I think I need

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Speaker 1: to admit to you, juror that in that particular situation

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Speaker 1: where I was positing this idea that you know, why

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Speaker 1: why shouldn't the norm just be messy? I was just

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Speaker 1: trying to find a reason why I wouldn't have to

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Speaker 1: clean up. Well, be that it isn't made. The bigger

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Speaker 1: question is about and you know, this is kind of

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Speaker 1: much of the essence of Ben and Jerry's is you

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Speaker 1: don't need to do things the way they've always been done.

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Speaker 1: You don't need to think about things the way other

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Speaker 1: people think about them, and it it extends not just

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Speaker 1: from what makes ice cream a good ice cream, but

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Speaker 1: it extends to larger issues like what is the role

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Speaker 1: of business in society? It goes from the smallest, most

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Speaker 1: tangible thing to the biggest, broadest conceptual things. And that's

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Speaker 1: that's been He's got his hands in it, and he's

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Speaker 1: got his head in it too. I love that. I

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Speaker 1: do think it's so interesting as you speak about it, Jerry,

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Speaker 1: because you talk about growing up being a rule follower,

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Speaker 1: liking rules, liking um structure in a way, and Ben

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Speaker 1: you you being a more unconventional person. And I would

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Speaker 1: imagine in your conversations about what each of you thinks,

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Speaker 1: it's that space between where all the ideas are probably had.

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Speaker 1: So how whether it is as you just mentioned, how

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Speaker 1: why ice cream is what it is, or how it's

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Speaker 1: made two social activism and and the role of as

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Speaker 1: you said, business in society. Where did some of these

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Speaker 1: ideas between the two of you begin? How How did

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Speaker 1: you know you wanted to work together? How did you

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Speaker 1: decide on ice cream? How did you decide on on Burlington?

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Speaker 1: By the way, because you're talking about all the places

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Speaker 1: you lived, and I have not heard you talk about Vermont.

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Speaker 1: So how did you wind up opening a shop and Vermont?

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Speaker 1: I have so many questions. Well, essentially we were two failures.

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Speaker 1: Jerry had gone four years straight through college and I

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Speaker 1: was trying to become a doctor. And he applied to

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Speaker 1: medical school and they all rejected him. And then he

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Speaker 1: tried to get some life experience that would bolster his

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Speaker 1: medical school resume. You got a job as a lab technician, which,

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Speaker 1: by the way, I'm about to make use of. He

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Speaker 1: got a job as a lab technician, and he applied

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Speaker 1: to another twenty medical schools and they all rejected him.

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Speaker 1: So he was a failure. I was trying to make

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Speaker 1: my living being a potter, making pottery and selling pottery.

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Speaker 1: Um I would make my pottery and take it around

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Speaker 1: to craft fairs and this big old white van and

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Speaker 1: nobody bought my pottery, and it was some of the

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Speaker 1: most discouraging, disheartening experiences of my life. And so I

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Speaker 1: was a failure too. And I don't know, we were

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Speaker 1: just kind of we got to get you know, we

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Speaker 1: you know, we would continue to see each other socially.

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Speaker 1: I think maybe we were living together in New York City,

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Speaker 1: and I think we we started talking about, well, maybe

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Speaker 1: we should open up a restaurant together. Um kind of

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Speaker 1: went from there. I mean, we all we always like

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Speaker 1: to eat. We were we were good eaters, and neither

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Speaker 1: one of us had any business training whatsoever. We you know,

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Speaker 1: we didn't think about business when we were opening up

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Speaker 1: an ice cream shop. We were becoming ice cream guys.

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Speaker 1: And you know we actually before we opened up, we

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Speaker 1: practiced on our own making test batches of ice cream

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Speaker 1: and home ice cream makers. That's that's sort of how

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Speaker 1: we figured out how to do it well. And Jerry

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Speaker 1: had that biochemistry background. There there's a big, blue, thick

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Speaker 1: textbook in the ice cream industry called ice Cream by

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Speaker 1: the father of modern American ice cream, window S. R. Buckle,

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Speaker 1: who is no longer with us. But I mean, this

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Speaker 1: was a very complex book. It went through the entire

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Speaker 1: signs of ice cream. I couldn't understand it, but Jerry,

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Speaker 1: because he had that biochemistry background, he could understand it.

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Speaker 1: So I was going around kind of testing out ice

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Speaker 1: cream recipes from homemade ice cream books, and Jerry was

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Speaker 1: using the theory, the science behind it to also try

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Speaker 1: out different kinds of ice cream, and between the two

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Speaker 1: of us we we I think it was mostly Jerry

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Speaker 1: we we came out with something really good. Is there

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Speaker 1: a piece of that science that the average lay person

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Speaker 1: like me might be fascinated to learn about? How ice

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Speaker 1: cream works? Oh? Yes, ice cream is a very very

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Speaker 1: interesting and complex food, isn't it? Then? It certainly is.

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Speaker 1: I think one thing, for example, that you might be

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Speaker 1: interested in is that the key to making good ice cream,

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Speaker 1: something that tastes really smooth in your mouth and creamy,

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Speaker 1: is the particle size of the ice crystal and the whole, Yes,

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Speaker 1: the whole. The whole theory of ice cream is to

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Speaker 1: freeze the liquid as fast as possible, and so in

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Speaker 1: order to do that, you end up using what is

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Speaker 1: called generically a scraped surface heat exchanger. So this is

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Speaker 1: nothing more than a barrel or a can that has

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Speaker 1: a refrigerant around the outside, and on the inside there

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Speaker 1: are these scrapers. It's you know, in in home ice

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Speaker 1: cream they call it a dash or a dasher blade.

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Speaker 1: And what happens is this dasher blade is spinning around

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Speaker 1: inside the can and there's a very ry's thin layer

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Speaker 1: of ice cream that freezes, and so it spins around,

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Speaker 1: it scrapes that off, and then another thin layer freezes

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Speaker 1: and it goes on like that. That's how you get

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Speaker 1: really smooth, creamy ice cream. And then one of the

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Speaker 1: other interesting things is that ice cream contains all three

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Speaker 1: phases of matter. It's liquid, solid, and gas, all of those.

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Speaker 1: But the best thing about it, and this isn't really

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Speaker 1: that scientific, but this is something I've learned from Ben,

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Speaker 1: is that ice cream is the only frozen food that

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Speaker 1: you eat while it's still frozen. You gotta wrap your

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Speaker 1: head around that, right, I see, I see that's right.

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Speaker 1: Of course you haven't thought about that's why it's so good. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So you two are becoming science and engineering experts figuring

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Speaker 1: out what was what was the first flavor of ice

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Speaker 1: cream you ever made? You know, it's you're you're really

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Speaker 1: overstating the case when you talk about science and engineer

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Speaker 1: am I because I didn't read that giant text book

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Speaker 1: and I'm never gonna what We we re engineered our

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Speaker 1: ice cream making machines, did we not? Yes? Yes we did.

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Speaker 1: We We reamed out the ports, we slowed down the motor. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but so so when so when you talk about it,

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Speaker 1: when you talk about the essence of Ben and Jerry's

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Speaker 1: with with respect to the ice cream. The product itself,

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Speaker 1: it is high quality ingredients, so it's rich and creamy,

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Speaker 1: and then it's got the big chunks of cookies and

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Speaker 1: candies and swirl and that's the texture variation. And that

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Speaker 1: that the big chunks, that is Ben and that is

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Speaker 1: the essence of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And what's

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Speaker 1: so amazed amazing about it is that Ben and Jerry's

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Speaker 1: is now forty three years old. Ben and I just

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Speaker 1: turned seventy and Ben and Jerry's has been making ice

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Speaker 1: cream with big chunks since then forty three years, and

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Speaker 1: yet it's still almost impossible to find another ice cream

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Speaker 1: commercially that you can get that has big chunks in it.

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Speaker 1: Nobody else has figured out how to do it. And

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Speaker 1: it's because the people that make Ben and Jerry's are amazing,

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Speaker 1: the people that are willing to put in the care

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Speaker 1: that it takes. Because you know, ice cream machinery is

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Speaker 1: not really designed to put in big chunks of cookies

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Speaker 1: and candies and ice cream, and so most ice cream

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Speaker 1: companies make ice cream that's easy to make, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to what people want to eat. That's really the key.

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Speaker 1: If you make what people want to eat, chances are

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Speaker 1: you're going to be successful. That's so cool. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: and what occurred to me when when we were figuring

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Speaker 1: this out was that the reason why most commercially made

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Speaker 1: food isn't that good is because the products are designed

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Speaker 1: to run well on the machinery. They're designed for for

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Speaker 1: the machinery to really like it. They're not really designed

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Speaker 1: for people to really like it. That feels like amusing

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Speaker 1: on capitalism. That is really blowing my brain. I okay,

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Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Forty three years later, talking about this,

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Speaker 1: this re engineering that you did and and creating for

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Speaker 1: the consumer rather than the machine, feels mind blowing but

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Speaker 1: easy to accept because look at the brand. But what's

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Speaker 1: going on forty three years ago? Do your families think

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Speaker 1: this is a great idea? Do they think you're insane?

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Speaker 1: Do your friends think that your lunatics? Or are they

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Speaker 1: thrilled to test products like what's happening at the inception

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Speaker 1: of this company for the two of you, Well, for

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Speaker 1: my parents, you know, me dropping out of college was

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Speaker 1: a horrible thing for them. It was crushing for them.

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Speaker 1: And then me deciding to be a potter. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that was kind of kicking them while they were down,

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Speaker 1: and so they were really bummed about what I was doing,

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Speaker 1: you know. And then I got a job working as

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Speaker 1: a potter at a residential school for emotionally disturbed kids

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Speaker 1: in the aud Ondex where I was paid two hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars a month, and they didn't like that either. So

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Speaker 1: when I announced that Jerry and I are going to

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Speaker 1: start an ice cream store, they were ecstatic. I sunned

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Speaker 1: the businessman. I mean, they were so ecstatic, and I

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Speaker 1: was so used to them thinking what I was doing

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Speaker 1: was really screwed up. I thought there was there was

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Speaker 1: probably something wrong with what I was going to start doing.

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Speaker 1: But I did it. And my parents, as I mentioned,

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Speaker 1: we're we're happy with whatever I was doing. But you know,

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Speaker 1: once again, I think in context, Ben and I felt

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Speaker 1: like we were just opening it up another ice cream shop.

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Speaker 1: We didn't feel like we were going into business. We

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Speaker 1: didn't think this was a career decision. We thought we

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Speaker 1: would do this for a couple of years and then

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Speaker 1: do something else. We just thought it would be a

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Speaker 1: fun thing to try, and we thought it would work

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Speaker 1: or it wouldn't work, and there you go. And when

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Speaker 1: did you know it was different? When did you know

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just a shop, but that you guys were

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Speaker 1: creating a true company. I think it occurred to me.

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Speaker 1: We in the business in seventy eight in this old

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Speaker 1: converted gas station, and I don't know, I think in

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Speaker 1: the mid eighties we ended up building an actual ice

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Speaker 1: cream making plant, a factory. And I was taking someone

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Speaker 1: on a tour outside this huge building, and I'm walking

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Speaker 1: around with them and I'm looking at it and I'm realizing, jeez,

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Speaker 1: I'm like an industrialist. It was. It was. It was

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Speaker 1: quite a realization. It was shocking. And how did your

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Speaker 1: business become so enmeshed with activism? Were you were you

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Speaker 1: both always interested in politics? Were you always observing social

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Speaker 1: change or or the lack thereof necessary social change? I mean,

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Speaker 1: where did those lightbulbs start lighting up for you? You You know,

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Speaker 1: I had gone to college in the late sixties, and

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Speaker 1: so that was during the Vietnam War, and it was

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Speaker 1: the Civil rights era, and so I got exposed to

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of social activism at that time.

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Speaker 1: But as far as the company was concerned, I think

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00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: that was something that that evolved over time when when

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Speaker 1: we first began, our idea was to have this ice

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Speaker 1: cream shop that was a little community based shop, and

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00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: we didn't have any vision for a so called activist

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00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: company or or anything else. Our idea was to throw

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00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:48,919
Speaker 1: a little festivals on the corner where the shop was,

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00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 1: or or things like that. I think when we realized that, well,

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00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: when the company got bigger and we started selling ice

406
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: cream out of her outside of Vermont, the media started

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00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: coming to us, and you know, they wanted to interview

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Speaker 1: us about whatever um college is called up, and they

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00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:15,439
Speaker 1: wanted us to come and speak to their students about whatever.

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Speaker 1: And we decided that if they wanted to hear us talk,

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Speaker 1: we would kind of use that platform to talk about

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Speaker 1: social justice. You know, when I was a young kid

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Speaker 1: growing up living on Long Island, my family, every once

414
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Speaker 1: in a while would drive into New York City and

415
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: the route that you would take let you out, you know,

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Speaker 1: you went over the bridge and it let you out

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Speaker 1: right at the border of Harlem and a really well

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Speaker 1: to do section of New York. And so we're driving

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Speaker 1: down the street in this car and I'm looking out

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Speaker 1: on one side and you see, you know, all these

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Speaker 1: kind of bombed out buildings and guard ridge strewn everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and cars you know that didn't work up on blocks,

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Speaker 1: and you know, all the signs of poverty, and on

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Speaker 1: the other side, it's all the signs, all the signs

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Speaker 1: of affluence. Um, I couldn't make sense of it or that,

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Speaker 1: you know, just because somebody ended up being born on

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Speaker 1: one side of a particular line, they lived a life

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Speaker 1: of poverty. On another side, they lived a life of riches.

429
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't didn't sit well with me. Yeah,

430
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: I had much the same experience as a kid, I think.

431
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: You know, my mom grew up in Jersey and in

432
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 1: New York, and I grew up here in California, in

433
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and my dad came here, you know, late sixties,

434
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 1: early seventies. He was going to college here, but he's

435
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: from Canada, and he he really grappled with the fact,

436
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: you know, in that Vietnam and post Vietnam era, that

437
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: just because he wasn't like a young American kid, he

438
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: couldn't have been drafted. It was a really sort of

439
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: surreal thing for him. And I didn't realize how much

440
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: my parents always talked to me about what we were

441
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: looking at. You know what disparities meant, what immigration meant um,

442
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: Even the ways in which you know, my mom's mother

443
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: coming through Ellis Island, you know, the American dream story,

444
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: even the ways in which she worked so hard to assimilate,

445
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: you know, forbade my great grandmother from speaking Italian to

446
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: my mother because they had to be American and you

447
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: and you could lose your culture. All of these things

448
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: really have always made me question what is identity? Who

449
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: is deserving? Why does where where you live govern how

450
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: you live or where you're born decide what you get?

451
00:30:54,680 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: And I I love hearing about you guys, think ing

452
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: about you know, if I'm going to go to this

453
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: college and talk about my company, you know, they want

454
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: me to come because it's a successful company. But what

455
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: social issue can I talk about? Because it's kind of

456
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: the way I feel like, I feel like I trojan

457
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: horse my own career. I'm supposed to talk about a

458
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,360
Speaker 1: TV show, but I'm like, are we discussing intersectional oppression

459
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: of communities of color in America? And people are like,

460
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: what are you doing? What is happening? What's on TV

461
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: at eight o'clock? But to me, I'm like, well, this

462
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: platform is such an immense privilege. I better spend it well, right,

463
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: So I feel such a kinship to the way that

464
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: you're you're speaking about that. And and to consider that,

465
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: you know, you were doing this stuff in the eighties.

466
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: There was no social media. There was no you know,

467
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: let me jump on Instagram and share a photo of

468
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: what happened in this place and and let people know

469
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: about the world. So where were you as your company

470
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: was growing and you did realize you both could spend

471
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: that privilege. Where were you gleaning information? What what sources

472
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: were you leaning into? Two? Make sure you felt informed?

473
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: Or was it more that just by nature of existing

474
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 1: in the world and reading the paper, you were fired

475
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: up about issues that you were reading about. I think

476
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of living in the world and

477
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: being aware of what's going on. At some point, I

478
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: think after the business started, I ended up getting these

479
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: newsletters and video cassettes from the Center for Defense Information,

480
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: which was a group of high level retired military officers

481
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: that were critical of what the United States military was doing.

482
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: And I ended up getting very much aware and kind

483
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 1: of focused on the idea that you know, the US

484
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: and the Soviet un and we're spending huge amounts of money.

485
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 1: I mean, half of half of our discretionary budget was

486
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: spent on making weapons designed to kill millions of people

487
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 1: in my name that I had nothing against. And you know,

488
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: just a small percentage of that military budget would be

489
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: enough to you know, eliminate poverty definitely in the US

490
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: and probably around the world. And it just kind of

491
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 1: drove me crazy. I mean, I I just you know,

492
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: it was very focused on that and ended up spending

493
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: a lot of time trying to get that changed. Yeah.

494
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: I mean, you've you've served on so many boards the

495
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: Social Venture Network, OXFAM, Greenpeace, Businesses for Social Responsibility, have

496
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: for international What what have those experiences taught you? And

497
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: how do you begin even serving on one of, let

498
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: alone all of those boards. What's what's the process, like,

499
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: you know, for for listeners at home who want to

500
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: be involved, what kinds of work do you do to

501
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:09,439
Speaker 1: eventually become a board member of an organization like one

502
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: of those? Well, I mean mostly what I learned from

503
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: being on those boards is that I don't really like

504
00:34:19,960 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: being on boards. I Mean, they were all great organizations,

505
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: but in a lot of respects, you know, the people

506
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: that are working in the organization day to day, you know,

507
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: devoting their lives to it, have an idea of what

508
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: they want to do. And this board that you know

509
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: gets together I don't know once a month, four times

510
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 1: a year, isn't really that that much in touch with

511
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: the the organization and what it's doing. And you know,

512
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 1: I think I'm more of a hands own guy, you know,

513
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 1: I like to to actually do stuff as opposed to, uh,

514
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: I don't know, sit around on boards. Is that what

515
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: motivated the two of you to start the Ben and

516
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: Jerry Foundation, to really be hands on with you know,

517
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,879
Speaker 1: instigating and supporting change. Well, I think you know, there

518
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 1: was this stage in the Business is Life when you know,

519
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: it was growing at a very rapid rate. Jerry and

520
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: I were spending all of our time, I mean like

521
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 1: all of our time, you know, like working eighty or

522
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,720
Speaker 1: a hundred hours a week, and you know, we weren't

523
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,800
Speaker 1: really making any money. And then we started making a

524
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 1: little money, but we we kind of had a pay

525
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: it back to the bank. You know, it was all

526
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: bank loans, and we decided that we should sell the business.

527
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: You know that we were just becoming cogs in the

528
00:35:56,120 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: economic machine that oppresses a whole of people. Uh, that

529
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: business exploits its employees, it exploits the environment, exploits the community.

530
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: And we didn't really want to do that, and we

531
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 1: actually put the business up for sale. And then I

532
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: was delivering ice cream and I had made friends with

533
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 1: this old eccentric restaurant tour Maurice Purpora, and I told

534
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 1: them that we were planning on selling the business. And

535
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 1: you said, Ben, you're crazy. How could you possibly think

536
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 1: about selling the business. It's so young, it has so

537
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 1: much potential, it's you could do anything. And and I said, Maurice,

538
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: you know what business does. It exploits these guys, those guys,

539
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 1: the other guys. He said, Ben, if there's something you

540
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: don't like about business, why don't you just change it?

541
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 1: And that hadn't really occurred to me before. And that's

542
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: when we decided to keep the business and kind of

543
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: conduct this EXPERI perament and see if it was possible

544
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: that business was just a neutral tool, like a hammer,

545
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:12,319
Speaker 1: and you can use it to tear things down or

546
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:14,839
Speaker 1: you can use it to build things up. And so

547
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:18,439
Speaker 1: how did you begin to decide or I guess rather,

548
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 1: what were the changes that the two of you made

549
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: in the company to begin building up because you mentioned

550
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:31,760
Speaker 1: business often exploits employees. Supply chains contain so much harm,

551
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 1: factories are dangerous for people. I mean, the list goes

552
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 1: on and on. So how do you decide as a

553
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: unit as business partners, we're going to stay in charge

554
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: and we are going to uplift our people. We're going

555
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: to protect our employees, we're going to pay people. Well,

556
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: what what are the steps that you began taking when

557
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: when you had that aha moment, we weren't quite sure

558
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: how we were going to do that. I don't know, Jerry,

559
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: you remember any of those steps. Well. So part of

560
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: it was formalizing a mission for the company. And as

561
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: we mentioned, the company started in in the company came

562
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: out with a mission statement that was a three part mission,

563
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: and the mission talked about a product mission, that talked

564
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: about a financial mission, and it talked about a social

565
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: mission using the power of the business to address social

566
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 1: and environmental concerns in the world. And that all three

567
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: of those missions were equally important and interdependent. So that

568
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: that was a key step, I think, And and from

569
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: there it was a matter of figuring out how you

570
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: want to do it. And I think, as Ben and

571
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: I have often said, we had no idea how we

572
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:58,399
Speaker 1: wanted to do it. And one thing I've learned from

573
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: Ben is is, uh, when you don't know what to do,

574
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: you just come up with some idea and you try it,

575
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. Usually it

576
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: doesn't work, and then you learn from it, you make

577
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: some changes, and you try it again. And eventually we

578
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 1: decided that we were going to look at all the

579
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 1: normal day to day business activities that bet a business does.

580
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: So for an ice cream company, it would be how

581
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: do you source your ingredients, or how do you do

582
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 1: your marketing, or how do you sell your ice cream,

583
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 1: and to try to integrate social and environmental concerns into

584
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: those activities. But I think the real kind of the

585
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 1: real breakthrough for Ben and Jerry's was the idea of

586
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:55,319
Speaker 1: using its voice to talk about social issues that might

587
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: be controversial that we're not universally agreed upon, and that

588
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 1: you would be taking a risk of alienating people and

589
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: some of your customers and uh, you were talking a

590
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: little earlier about using your platform right talking about whatever,

591
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: and there's pushback, right people people want you to either

592
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: keep making your flavors or keep talking about your projects

593
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 1: or you know, something like that. And I think, you know,

594
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: having someone like Ben at the company, or there was

595
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 1: another person, Jeff Ferman, who was really instrumental in pushing

596
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: the company forward and saying, look, we're based on values

597
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: and we need to be willing to talk about them.

598
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: And you know, amazingly the company has done fine with that.

599
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 1: And and a lot of the controversy was within the company,

600
00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: not necessarily outside, but get people within the company to

601
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: believe that it was appropriate for business to be talking

602
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: about the military budget and what was a government program

603
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:15,280
Speaker 1: essentially where you might be seen as unpatriotic or whatever.

604
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, a lot of the a lot of the

605
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: pushback was overcoming our own hesitancy about it. This was

606
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 1: in an era where there the term socially responsible business

607
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:32,240
Speaker 1: had not been coined yet, so you know, I remember

608
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: going to bookstores and going to the you know, the

609
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: business section, and trying to find books on how to

610
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: do what we were trying to do, and there just

611
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 1: weren't any. So, you know, I mean, the reason why

612
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: we came up with this three part mission statement was

613
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 1: because at the board of director's level, at Ben and Jerry's,

614
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,840
Speaker 1: there was a lot of conflict. There were you know,

615
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 1: there was a lot of arguments about, you know, should

616
00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: the business be doing this thing that's not really directly

617
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: related to increasing profits. Should we be devoting company time

618
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: and energy too, you know, sourcing blueberries from Native Americans

619
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: in order to help Native Americans instead of just getting

620
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: the cheapest blueberry we could get from X y Z

621
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:25,280
Speaker 1: Mega Blueberry Company. And so, in order to solve these

622
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: arguments that were happening at the board of directors level,

623
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: that's why that mission statement was made. And then I

624
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: don't remember whether Peace Pops came out before that mission

625
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: statement or right after it, but anyhow, you know, this

626
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 1: was during the Cold War, and uh, the US and

627
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union were at each other's throats, and we

628
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:50,479
Speaker 1: were coming out with the chocolate covered ice cream pop

629
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: on a stick. You know, I felt like, instead of

630
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: using the packaging to talk about what a great chocolate

631
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: covered ice cream pop on a stick you're about to eat,

632
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: why don't we use our packaging to talk about the

633
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 1: issue of all this money that's getting wasted on the

634
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:13,479
Speaker 1: Pentagon and let's advocate to take one per cent of

635
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: the Pentagon budget, which would have been three billion dollars

636
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: at the time and use it to create bridges of

637
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: understanding between the people of the Soviet Union and the

638
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: people of the United States in order to try to

639
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: get at the roots of the Cold War. So it

640
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: was an argument about is it proper fitting? Is it?

641
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 1: Is this something that a business can do to take

642
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: a stand on that on that issue, it was really

643
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: kind of tearing the company apart. The the internal conflict

644
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: and finally I just shoved it down people's throats and uh,

645
00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 1: did you did you fight so hard to do it

646
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: because you just knew that it was the right thing

647
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: to do. You just you had that sort of extra

648
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: sense that you were convinced that someone needed to stand

649
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 1: up and have this conversation. I guess it's a great question.

650
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 1: No one's ever asked been that question before because I

651
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 1: think about that. I think about that, You know that

652
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: kind of fire and when you've got it like in

653
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 1: your heart or in your belly and you just are

654
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: literally burning over something. And I I've always felt like

655
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: that was I could never put a word on it.

656
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: I was like, it's like a lighthouse, It's like an

657
00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:44,240
Speaker 1: internal GPS, It's a I always was struggling to figure

658
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:46,360
Speaker 1: out what to call that, because people would say what

659
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: we essentially, people would be like, why are you like this?

660
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: And I'm like, it's like I'm on fire. I can't,

661
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: I can't. And then Glenn and Doyle, one of my

662
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,360
Speaker 1: favorite activists and authors, said, oh, that's your sacred rage.

663
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is why you're a New

664
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller because you just termed the thing that

665
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: I've been talking about forever and in terrible verbiage of

666
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: my own. And I it strikes me that you you

667
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: had that kind of flame burning over this, and and

668
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: it feels to me even now, I think you guys

669
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: have done such a beautiful job. You know when I

670
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: flip through your Instagram and you're explaining cash bail or

671
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: you're explaining systemic racism, and and you're talking on on

672
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:32,720
Speaker 1: your ice cream brands social media page about social issues

673
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: that are important to us to understand so that we

674
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: can be better friends and neighbors, that we can have better,

675
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: stronger communities, because the reality is, if someone somewhere is

676
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: being harmed, we're all being harmed. I I truly am grateful,

677
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: and I love, I love the way that you've been

678
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:54,560
Speaker 1: able to do it, and I see the roots of

679
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 1: it as we talk. You know what you're doing in

680
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: how it goes back to this moment in the eighties,

681
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: how you said the packaging of the pop is going

682
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: to be this and here's a mission statements. Is how

683
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: you why? I think in my head, I sort of

684
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: see it like a like a funnel, you know, when

685
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 1: when things are moving down and they narrow and they

686
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 1: go through the little bottleneck. What you really did was

687
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: say to everyone working with and for you, it has

688
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:25,880
Speaker 1: to fit through this or it isn't us. And I

689
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:29,360
Speaker 1: think that those kind of guidelines can really simplify for

690
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 1: people ways of behaving and ways of advocating. And I

691
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: wonder have there been moments throughout all of this, throughout

692
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 1: all of your advocacy that that have stood out to

693
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 1: you when you've realized that you both were making such

694
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: an impact. Well not really, I mean, so one thing

695
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 1: I'll say, I mean, you describe that beautifully, and I'll

696
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 1: just add to it that it's not easy. It's it's

697
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 1: a struggle. And so people should understand if you want

698
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: to do stuff like this, you have to stand up

699
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: and it's not always easy. And it's great to have

700
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: someone in your company like Ben who who is willing

701
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,959
Speaker 1: to do that. The other thing I'll say is that

702
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:22,800
Speaker 1: you know, Ben and I are are not in charge

703
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: of anything at Ben and Jerry's and and haven't been

704
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:30,760
Speaker 1: for a long time. And after the murder of George Floyd,

705
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:34,320
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's came out with a statement that said

706
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: we must dismantle white supremacy. It was just clear and

707
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: well spoken and forthright. And it's nothing Ben and I did.

708
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 1: And yet I'm incredibly proud that there are people at

709
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's who who are doing that, who are

710
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,879
Speaker 1: taking it upon themselves to do that. I hear you

711
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:01,720
Speaker 1: because of or as you mentioned, you know, you guys

712
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: did it. You eventually did sell the company. You uh

713
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: you you wrote that phenomenal book. You know how to

714
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:11,440
Speaker 1: run a value lad business and make money doing it. You.

715
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 1: But but I would say that didn't just happen at

716
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's. That happened because of both of you.

717
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:22,359
Speaker 1: There's no way that a company that you know, that

718
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: since its inception in the seventies had been a political

719
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 1: would suddenly in so exactingly brave and wise. You have

720
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:39,720
Speaker 1: both set the stage there. I I get the sense

721
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: that you you don't take compliments well, um, which I understand.

722
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: It's something that I've been working on. If it's true

723
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: that we're the same, it's something I've been working on

724
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 1: for the last few years, is not to like rebuff

725
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:54,280
Speaker 1: a compliment the minute it comes in. But I hope

726
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 1: that there is a place, even if you don't want

727
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:58,759
Speaker 1: to do it in conversation, where you know and you

728
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:02,720
Speaker 1: own that you guys did that. You laid the bricks

729
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: of the road that other people have been able to continue.

730
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: And I actually think it's such a testament to that

731
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: mission statement you mentioned from the eighties, that three part

732
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:16,319
Speaker 1: mission statement will which I will ask you to send

733
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: to me so that I can share it when we

734
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: share this interview. But you created the vessel that other

735
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,439
Speaker 1: people now maintain, and I think you should really be

736
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: proud of that, Like you guys are badass. Well, I'm

737
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: proud of it. And and they're the people there now

738
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:41,320
Speaker 1: are going beyond an you passed. And you know, actually,

739
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: if if we're going to take credit for something, I

740
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: think at least Ben and I did understand that that

741
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 1: our job was to try to infuse into the company

742
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:56,919
Speaker 1: those values that it was not based on two old

743
00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 1: ice cream guys. That It's based on the value use

744
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 1: of the company, and that's what endures. Yeah, I mean

745
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 1: when we very consciously decided to try to infuse the

746
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: values into the company, we didn't think that we were

747
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 1: going to be successful. We resisted the sale of the company.

748
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 1: We did everything we could to keep it from getting

749
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:23,840
Speaker 1: sold because we felt that if it got sold, we

750
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: would lose the values, the company would lose the values.

751
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:33,879
Speaker 1: So yeah, I accept your compliment, thank you, And yeah,

752
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: I think the thing that we that we really did

753
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: accomplish was infusing the values into the company. I think that,

754
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 1: you know, it was part of a realization that business

755
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: has now become the most powerful force in the world. Originally,

756
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: the most powerful force in the world was religion, and

757
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:00,120
Speaker 1: then the most powerful force in the world came to

758
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 1: be nation states, and business has only come to be

759
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: the most powerful force within my own lifetime. And religion

760
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 1: and nation states at least have as their purpose to

761
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:22,040
Speaker 1: improve the quality of life for people in general. But

762
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 1: business has never had that as part of its purpose

763
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: at all. And so what this was was a realization

764
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: that if we are going to have a world that

765
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:41,120
Speaker 1: benefits people as a whole. That then that's beneficial to society.

766
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:45,080
Speaker 1: Business has got to use its power to do that,

767
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 1: just because it's the most powerful thing there is. And

768
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 1: you know the reality when you look at it, you

769
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:57,759
Speaker 1: realize that, you know, business controls our media through ownership,

770
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: it controls our legislation through lobbyists, controls our elections through

771
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: political donations. So business is an incredibly political animal. It

772
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:13,960
Speaker 1: just uses all of its power in its own narrow

773
00:52:14,040 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 1: self interest, and it tries to do it covertly. It

774
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:22,800
Speaker 1: doesn't really want people to know that they are putting

775
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 1: their finger on the scales and you know, influencing our

776
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: elections and our laws. All that happened at Ben and

777
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 1: Jerry's was we said, yeah, we're going to be political,

778
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:39,360
Speaker 1: and but we're going to be over honest, and instead

779
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: of doing it just in our own narrow self interest,

780
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 1: we're going to do it for the interests of the

781
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: community as a whole. Yeah. Years ago I met with

782
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 1: a guy who started an organization called represent us and

783
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: they've got seven present bipartisan support. The whole point is

784
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: to get corporate money out of elections and the information

785
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:04,799
Speaker 1: that they provide the public it's wild. I coasted an

786
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 1: event for them, and it was wild to see how

787
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 1: shocked people were about how much corporate money goes into politics.

788
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 1: And you realize the only way we're going to clean

789
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: this up is if we get honest about it. So

790
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:23,319
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the you say overt, but I just

791
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: think about it as being really honest. So many businesses

792
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: don't want us to know who they don't it too,

793
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: they don't want us to know what lobbyists they employ.

794
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: And if we could go more in the the direction

795
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 1: of the example you all set, I think about what

796
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:42,879
Speaker 1: would be possible. I'm curious at at what point what

797
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:44,760
Speaker 1: was the year? Well, this is a two part question.

798
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: What was the year that you sold the company? And

799
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: if there's any anything you want to share about that,

800
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 1: because there are people who are going to flock to

801
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:55,840
Speaker 1: this episode because they want to learn from your business wisdom,

802
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,319
Speaker 1: and I'm sure so many people are curious about why

803
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 1: that happens and how that happens. And then I wonder,

804
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:04,360
Speaker 1: and I can repeat the question later because maybe this

805
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,240
Speaker 1: will be a big tangent, but I wonder how you

806
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 1: you also then maintain all of your work with the foundation,

807
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 1: so I think the year was two thousand or two

808
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 1: thousand one. The company got sold because it was a

809
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:24,520
Speaker 1: public company at the time, which means anyone can purchase shares,

810
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 1: and so that's that's what happened. All I can tell

811
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:34,319
Speaker 1: you it was an incredibly difficult and horrible time, and

812
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 1: I think it was a hard time for Ben and

813
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:39,960
Speaker 1: me personally that the company was getting sold, not just

814
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 1: for us individually but together. You know, Ben and Jury's

815
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:50,960
Speaker 1: was the first company in Vermont to go public, just

816
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 1: within the state of Vermont. We had an in state

817
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 1: public stock offer, so shares of the company were available

818
00:54:59,640 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 1: only to vermontors and and essentially what we felt was

819
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:10,600
Speaker 1: that this was an effort to share the wealth, that

820
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: we wanted to make the community the owners of the business.

821
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:19,279
Speaker 1: And by the end of that stock offering, one out

822
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: of every hundred Vermont families had bought stock in Ben

823
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:26,279
Speaker 1: and Jury's. You know, we had shareholders meetings that were

824
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 1: really huge parties. There were music festivals, and you know,

825
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 1: I mean usually publicly held companies are trying to hold

826
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: their shareholders meetings at an inconvenient time, in an inconvenient

827
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:41,280
Speaker 1: place and try to get as few people as possible

828
00:55:41,320 --> 00:55:43,960
Speaker 1: to show up, and we were doing the opposite. And

829
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:46,799
Speaker 1: you know, we rented the biggest tent in Vermont, and

830
00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 1: you know, still couldn't hold all the people that came.

831
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 1: So the idea was to make the community the owners

832
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: of the business. We were successful in doing that. Then

833
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: we ended up going public nationally. And what I wanted

834
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:08,440
Speaker 1: was to be an anti corporate corporation. And I really

835
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:13,319
Speaker 1: see the basis of so many of the problems in

836
00:56:13,360 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: the world being the increasing concentration of wealth into fewer

837
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:23,400
Speaker 1: and fewer hands. And so having the company, which was

838
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:27,719
Speaker 1: trying to be an anti corporate corporation gets sold to

839
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:31,319
Speaker 1: some huge corporation, you know, when against all of that.

840
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 1: So I know that's what happened. So did that did

841
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: that sort of Oh? And it just said It puts

842
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 1: a nautom my stomach to think about that for you guys,

843
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:46,920
Speaker 1: that that notion that the exact thing you were trying

844
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 1: to avoid in corporate culture became kind of unavoidable. It's

845
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 1: it feels like getting caught in a riptide or something.

846
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 1: Is that what led you to establish the foundation or

847
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,800
Speaker 1: had you already done that the foundation? We established the

848
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:06,719
Speaker 1: foundation when the company went public. We needed it to

849
00:57:06,760 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 1: be established so that shareholders, you know, we were going

850
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:14,919
Speaker 1: to have a significant amount of money was going out

851
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 1: of the corporation into this foundation. We originally wanted of

852
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 1: profits to go out and you know, the underwriters talked

853
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:27,920
Speaker 1: us down to seven and a half. So we needed

854
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 1: the share the people who would buy shares to know

855
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:34,160
Speaker 1: that that was gonna be that that's what they were

856
00:57:34,160 --> 00:57:40,080
Speaker 1: buying into, right, So that's when that happened and Jerry

857
00:57:40,120 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 1: became the president of the foundation. Um, you know, he

858
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: can tell you about and what are the what are

859
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 1: the things the foundation is most deeply focused on. The

860
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: Foundation is focused on grants too small nonprofit organizations that

861
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:07,200
Speaker 1: are doinging grassroots organizing for social justice and their organizations

862
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:12,880
Speaker 1: that are run and operated by the people who are impacted.

863
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that's interesting about

864
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 1: the foundation is that, uh, the final decision making for

865
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 1: these grant applications that come in is done by a

866
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: volunteer group of employees who uh decide where the money goes.

867
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 1: And so there's there's something really nice about about the

868
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:40,200
Speaker 1: fact that the people who are doing the work to

869
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: earn the money get to see where it goes, and

870
00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 1: you know has been mentioned. I used to be the president,

871
00:58:48,280 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 1: I'm now the vice president. I'm one of the trustees,

872
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:55,680
Speaker 1: and the four trustees of the Foundation are essentially a

873
00:58:55,760 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 1: rubber stamp for sending the money out wherever the employee

874
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 1: committee decides that should go. That's very cool and it

875
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: strikes me as different, you know, than what you were saying,

876
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:11,880
Speaker 1: Ben about how so often this board of directors is

877
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 1: not that involved, meets and makes the top level decisions,

878
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:17,600
Speaker 1: and you guys have engineered this to be the reverse.

879
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 1: And I just I love it. It's like it gives

880
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 1: me big high five energy. Um. Where where does the

881
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:29,600
Speaker 1: campaign to end qualified immunity fit in with the work

882
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 1: of the foundation or or are those things happening in parallel?

883
00:59:32,960 --> 00:59:37,960
Speaker 1: So the campaign to end qualified immunity is a separate

884
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: initiative that Ben and I are involved in, you know,

885
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you're aware. Over the years, they have

886
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 1: been far too many murders of unarmed black people. Uh.

887
00:59:51,680 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 1: And with last summer the murder of George Floyd was

888
00:59:56,920 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 1: just such an outrage and a of course, like millions

889
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 1: of Americans, we wanted to do something. We became aware

890
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 1: of an open letter to Congress that was written by

891
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 1: the Players Coalition, signed by professional athletes, UH and front

892
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:22,560
Speaker 1: office people, urging Congress to end qualified immunity. And qualified

893
01:00:22,560 --> 01:00:27,880
Speaker 1: immunity is this made up legal doctrine that is essentially

894
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:32,200
Speaker 1: a get out of jail free card for bad cops,

895
01:00:32,960 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 1: and so we wanted to see if we could help

896
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 1: with that campaign. We came out with a similar letter

897
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 1: that was signed by open seven hundred business people, and

898
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: since then we've created this this campaign that that is

899
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:55,680
Speaker 1: comprised of sixteen national advocacy organizations, ranging from the a

900
01:00:55,800 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 1: c l U and the n DOUB a CP Legal

901
01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 1: Defense Ends Fund, to the Cato Institute, the Institute for Justice,

902
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:09,480
Speaker 1: which is another libertarian group, Americans for Prosperity. So it's

903
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:14,640
Speaker 1: a very broad and diverse campaign and we're we're working

904
01:01:14,680 --> 01:01:20,600
Speaker 1: on it. That's wonderful. It's so interesting to me reading

905
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: I think, as so many of us did, as you

906
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:29,800
Speaker 1: mentioned after last summer, that that letter, learning about qualified immunity,

907
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:33,960
Speaker 1: it made me so angry to learn about it because

908
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, there are people saying not all cops.

909
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: There are people saying there's good guys, you know who

910
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 1: want to just serve and protect, and I thought, but

911
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 1: then prove it. Then don't create loopholes that literally protect

912
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:57,439
Speaker 1: the bad cops. Don't create, as you said, these get

913
01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:01,360
Speaker 1: out of jail free cards for murder. You can't tell

914
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:06,520
Speaker 1: us to feel safe if you don't police yourselves. And

915
01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: I think that in the same way that we're all

916
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:13,880
Speaker 1: calling for an end to corporate money in politics, all

917
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: of these things really for me boiled down to that

918
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:23,200
Speaker 1: through line of transparency, of of a real requirement for

919
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: a base level of clarity and justice, and for rules

920
01:02:28,240 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 1: to be put in place that prevent corruption in all

921
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 1: of these arenas. And and I'm very excited by and

922
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 1: grateful for the work that you all are doing on

923
01:02:40,720 --> 01:02:44,040
Speaker 1: this and and the you know, other organizations that you're

924
01:02:44,080 --> 01:02:48,800
Speaker 1: working in tandem with. Come visit our website. Yeah, tell

925
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 1: tell the people what it is. Hold cops Accountable dot org,

926
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 1: Hold Cops Accountable dot org, account or hold cops Accountable

927
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: dot or, which you know, I feel like the asterisk

928
01:03:03,000 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: always is. And yes, we know that there are good

929
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:08,600
Speaker 1: folks on the force. They shouldn't be worried about this.

930
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:12,960
Speaker 1: They should be supporting this too. That's exactly true. Our

931
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: messages support and love the good ones, prosecute the bad ones.

932
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:23,440
Speaker 1: It's definitely not an anti police message. It's a message

933
01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:29,360
Speaker 1: of accountability. Ben and I are in the business world.

934
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:34,120
Speaker 1: You couldn't have a business, you couldn't have any organization

935
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 1: if you don't have accountability. Everyone knows the key to

936
01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:44,160
Speaker 1: achieving your desired results is to having accountability m hm.

937
01:03:44,880 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: And and when you don't hold cops accountable that have

938
01:03:49,640 --> 01:03:55,040
Speaker 1: abused their power, it's a message that it's okay to

939
01:03:55,160 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 1: abuse your power. And the other side of it is

940
01:03:59,200 --> 01:04:05,160
Speaker 1: that the people who got abused never get any justice.

941
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 1: No justice has ever served, you know, the cop is

942
01:04:09,040 --> 01:04:13,480
Speaker 1: still on the force. There was a great I thought

943
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 1: proposal in the state of Maryland because you know, what

944
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:21,160
Speaker 1: the cops say is that, well, if I'm gonna be

945
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:25,840
Speaker 1: held personally liable, I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, lose

946
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:30,160
Speaker 1: my house, you know whatever. I can't afford it. I

947
01:04:30,200 --> 01:04:33,920
Speaker 1: can't afford to pay those kinds of you know, damages

948
01:04:34,120 --> 01:04:36,480
Speaker 1: for you know, the kind of damages that you get

949
01:04:36,480 --> 01:04:39,440
Speaker 1: when you when you kill somebody. Well, and then the

950
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:43,040
Speaker 1: municipalities that employ the cops, you know, a lot of

951
01:04:43,080 --> 01:04:46,360
Speaker 1: times they indemnify the cop and they say, well, we

952
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:50,760
Speaker 1: can't afford it either. And so this proposal in Maryland

953
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:55,760
Speaker 1: was that, well, yeah, you can sue the cop, and

954
01:04:56,440 --> 01:05:00,840
Speaker 1: your payment is the cops pension. And this is what

955
01:05:01,080 --> 01:05:06,000
Speaker 1: one of the victims said was that if they know

956
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 1: that they can lose their pension, they're gonna think twice

957
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:15,320
Speaker 1: before they go and rough somebody up or worse. I

958
01:05:15,360 --> 01:05:18,560
Speaker 1: think that's really wise. And as you mentioned, the rest

959
01:05:18,560 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: of us have accountability at work. Yeah, everybody's got accountability.

960
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:26,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean this, this law is so absurd

961
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:32,920
Speaker 1: that you know, if I, as a regular human being citizen,

962
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:37,840
Speaker 1: you know, go off and assault somebody, that person consume me.

963
01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:43,640
Speaker 1: If a cop goes an assault somebody, you can't sue him.

964
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:46,600
Speaker 1: The guy who is supposed I mean this is a

965
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:51,440
Speaker 1: law enforcement officer, the guy who has charged with enforcing

966
01:05:51,480 --> 01:05:55,360
Speaker 1: the law is above the law. And that's what has

967
01:05:55,400 --> 01:05:57,920
Speaker 1: to end. Yes, And that's why we see bad behavior.

968
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:02,080
Speaker 1: I mean, to your point, we've seen we shouldn't have

969
01:06:02,160 --> 01:06:04,439
Speaker 1: to see any more videos, but we've seen so many

970
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:07,400
Speaker 1: videos of egregious behavior. I mean, I will never get

971
01:06:08,040 --> 01:06:10,120
Speaker 1: I can't remember where the school was, which is also

972
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: sad considering that they start to blur together because there

973
01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:17,600
Speaker 1: are so many. I can't remember where it happened, but

974
01:06:17,640 --> 01:06:20,360
Speaker 1: I watched a video of a cop pick up and

975
01:06:20,640 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 1: body slam this girl in the hallway of her school.

976
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:26,960
Speaker 1: I think she was twelve or thirteen years old. It

977
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:31,080
Speaker 1: was so violent, and I thought, this guy doesn't have

978
01:06:31,120 --> 01:06:35,520
Speaker 1: an excuse. But whether it's conscious or unconscious, he feels

979
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:38,080
Speaker 1: that he has permission because he's never gotten in trouble

980
01:06:38,120 --> 01:06:42,880
Speaker 1: for hurting someone. He's never faced accountability for harming someone,

981
01:06:43,360 --> 01:06:45,880
Speaker 1: and none of us exist in a world where we

982
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:49,120
Speaker 1: can do that. And to your point, I simply want

983
01:06:49,680 --> 01:06:53,520
Speaker 1: accountability for people who are allowed to carry lethal weapons

984
01:06:53,560 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 1: around to be as intense as the accountability is for

985
01:06:57,440 --> 01:07:01,360
Speaker 1: the rest of us, Say, who are driving cars? You know?

986
01:07:02,320 --> 01:07:06,880
Speaker 1: We we need a way forward to a behavioral system

987
01:07:06,960 --> 01:07:11,160
Speaker 1: where we don't see children being assaulted and we don't

988
01:07:11,240 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: see people being knelt on until they die. There's no

989
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:18,240
Speaker 1: reason for this. There just isn't a reason for so

990
01:07:18,360 --> 01:07:23,880
Speaker 1: much of what we've witnessed. And I can't imagine that

991
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:27,560
Speaker 1: it is an easy job to have. But I also

992
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:31,800
Speaker 1: from working in tandem with it as an entertainer, I

993
01:07:31,920 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 1: have heard stories about how all these guys know a

994
01:07:36,040 --> 01:07:38,640
Speaker 1: guy on the force who's just a bad apple. And

995
01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:41,880
Speaker 1: I think I thought Chris Rock put it so beautifully

996
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:43,240
Speaker 1: in the stand up. This is a job where we

997
01:07:43,280 --> 01:07:46,000
Speaker 1: can't have bad apples. This is like you can't have

998
01:07:46,040 --> 01:07:48,560
Speaker 1: a few bad apples that are airline pilots. He said,

999
01:07:48,880 --> 01:07:51,760
Speaker 1: we're not up for plane crashes, and we shouldn't be

1000
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:56,959
Speaker 1: up for this either. And to me, you know, Jerry,

1001
01:07:57,000 --> 01:07:58,520
Speaker 1: I thought you said it so well. It's not about

1002
01:07:58,560 --> 01:08:03,200
Speaker 1: being quote unquote anti police. It's about being pro safety.

1003
01:08:03,360 --> 01:08:07,600
Speaker 1: It's about being pro community for for all of us.

1004
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:10,680
Speaker 1: So I think that the work, you know, the the

1005
01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 1: awareness that you and all of these other groups are

1006
01:08:14,080 --> 01:08:18,960
Speaker 1: helping to promote his is so important. And I'm curious,

1007
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:22,439
Speaker 1: why do you think that this cause, in particular, of

1008
01:08:22,760 --> 01:08:25,920
Speaker 1: all the things you've been passionate about over the past

1009
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:28,120
Speaker 1: decades that we've been referring to, why why do you

1010
01:08:28,120 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 1: think that this cause has struck such a chord with

1011
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:35,360
Speaker 1: both of you. It's the same reason why it struck

1012
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:40,200
Speaker 1: such a chord with people all over our country and

1013
01:08:40,240 --> 01:08:44,640
Speaker 1: around the world that we had the biggest protests in

1014
01:08:44,720 --> 01:08:50,960
Speaker 1: the street that I can remember in my life. Because

1015
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:54,320
Speaker 1: you know, you've seen it with your own eyes. You

1016
01:08:54,400 --> 01:08:58,439
Speaker 1: see it on video, and you see it happening again

1017
01:08:58,479 --> 01:09:03,840
Speaker 1: and again, and you see these guys getting away scott free,

1018
01:09:04,640 --> 01:09:09,800
Speaker 1: and yeah, people just had it up to here. And

1019
01:09:10,400 --> 01:09:14,120
Speaker 1: but what I gotta say is there's a shipload of

1020
01:09:14,200 --> 01:09:17,920
Speaker 1: them that we never saw on video, most of them

1021
01:09:18,439 --> 01:09:22,000
Speaker 1: never You never hear about most of them. I mean,

1022
01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:25,880
Speaker 1: you know, I was I was working with these mothers

1023
01:09:26,240 --> 01:09:30,759
Speaker 1: of children who had gotten killed or injured for life

1024
01:09:31,000 --> 01:09:35,040
Speaker 1: by the police in Maryland, and I had never heard

1025
01:09:35,080 --> 01:09:39,599
Speaker 1: about any of those cases. There's very few that that

1026
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:42,080
Speaker 1: make it to the national news. And I think the

1027
01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:45,000
Speaker 1: thing that is so striking to me is is that

1028
01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:48,200
Speaker 1: it's undeniable that we live into America's where we won't

1029
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 1: hear about those kids. Where Tamir Rice can be shot

1030
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:56,080
Speaker 1: in you know, one point seven seconds playing with a

1031
01:09:56,120 --> 01:09:58,800
Speaker 1: toy gun on a playground, which all of us have

1032
01:09:58,920 --> 01:10:03,320
Speaker 1: done as children, and Kyle Rittenhouse, who executed people with

1033
01:10:03,360 --> 01:10:08,280
Speaker 1: an assault rifle crossing state lines, was given water and

1034
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:13,800
Speaker 1: peacefully escorted into a police car. These things should upset us,

1035
01:10:13,840 --> 01:10:20,320
Speaker 1: they should motivate us toward change. And and I think

1036
01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:24,439
Speaker 1: to circle back to the point you made earlier. You

1037
01:10:24,600 --> 01:10:30,519
Speaker 1: have proven that companies can get creative in terms of

1038
01:10:31,520 --> 01:10:34,360
Speaker 1: proving that you can do both, that you can leverage

1039
01:10:34,360 --> 01:10:39,200
Speaker 1: a platform, that businesses do have a political responsibility, that

1040
01:10:39,280 --> 01:10:41,639
Speaker 1: if you have the privilege of a platform, you should

1041
01:10:41,720 --> 01:10:46,040
Speaker 1: spend it. I I get excited about it. And I

1042
01:10:46,120 --> 01:10:50,599
Speaker 1: think about what you were saying about back then going

1043
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:52,680
Speaker 1: into the bookstore looking for a book about this, and

1044
01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:56,120
Speaker 1: there wasn't one. So many people say, well, yeah, they

1045
01:10:56,160 --> 01:10:58,479
Speaker 1: could do it. They had this big company. I couldn't

1046
01:10:58,520 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 1: do it. And and you, you guys, thought yeah you can,

1047
01:11:02,479 --> 01:11:04,439
Speaker 1: and you wrote a book about it. You you wrote

1048
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:07,839
Speaker 1: this book called Double Dip, How to run a values

1049
01:11:07,880 --> 01:11:12,040
Speaker 1: lead business and make money too. And and I'm really

1050
01:11:12,240 --> 01:11:19,000
Speaker 1: curious about in terms of being so passionate about social change.

1051
01:11:20,240 --> 01:11:23,320
Speaker 1: Obviously we're telling everybody to go and read the book,

1052
01:11:23,360 --> 01:11:26,960
Speaker 1: but is there a point or two that now, because

1053
01:11:26,960 --> 01:11:29,320
Speaker 1: I guarantee everyone listening at homes feeling fired up and

1054
01:11:29,360 --> 01:11:31,080
Speaker 1: wants to make a difference, is there a point or

1055
01:11:31,120 --> 01:11:35,240
Speaker 1: two that you would offer to the listeners about how

1056
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:39,840
Speaker 1: to begin that trajectory, about about how to begin in

1057
01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:43,679
Speaker 1: their own lives proving that they can do both. You know, say,

1058
01:11:43,800 --> 01:11:49,320
Speaker 1: if you're interested in this issue about cops getting away

1059
01:11:49,320 --> 01:11:54,320
Speaker 1: with murder, you can go onto the website hold Cops

1060
01:11:54,320 --> 01:11:57,639
Speaker 1: Accountable dot org and you can enter your email address.

1061
01:11:58,320 --> 01:12:01,800
Speaker 1: That makes it possible for or the campaign to End

1062
01:12:01,880 --> 01:12:07,200
Speaker 1: qualified Immunity to communicate with you. And so then when

1063
01:12:07,280 --> 01:12:13,920
Speaker 1: your individual voice counts, when there's legislation moving in your

1064
01:12:14,080 --> 01:12:19,200
Speaker 1: state or legislation moving nationally where we need you to

1065
01:12:19,400 --> 01:12:26,120
Speaker 1: pressure your congress person to to vote to end qualified immunity,

1066
01:12:26,160 --> 01:12:28,640
Speaker 1: we can send you the information. We can give you

1067
01:12:28,680 --> 01:12:30,800
Speaker 1: the phone number to call, we can tell you what

1068
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:34,599
Speaker 1: to say, and you can do it. You know, in

1069
01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:39,120
Speaker 1: other situations, what we need is a letter to the editor,

1070
01:12:39,560 --> 01:12:43,240
Speaker 1: and it's the same thing. We can send you the information,

1071
01:12:43,400 --> 01:12:46,040
Speaker 1: we can give you the bullet points to write, we

1072
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:48,920
Speaker 1: can send the letter into you. You don't have to

1073
01:12:48,960 --> 01:12:51,840
Speaker 1: research it. We you know we do. We do that

1074
01:12:51,920 --> 01:12:55,960
Speaker 1: work for you. You just need a you know, follow

1075
01:12:56,000 --> 01:12:59,720
Speaker 1: a few simple steps on this particular issue. You know,

1076
01:12:59,760 --> 01:13:03,360
Speaker 1: there's Black Lives Matters groups you know around the country,

1077
01:13:03,400 --> 01:13:08,519
Speaker 1: and you could get involved in those things. You asked about,

1078
01:13:08,680 --> 01:13:13,760
Speaker 1: why are we involved with ending qualified immunity? And it's

1079
01:13:13,800 --> 01:13:16,439
Speaker 1: certainly not a silver bullet there. There are a lot

1080
01:13:16,600 --> 01:13:22,120
Speaker 1: of police reforms that are necessary. One thing about ending

1081
01:13:22,200 --> 01:13:26,720
Speaker 1: qualified immunity is it's possible to do. It's an opportunity

1082
01:13:26,760 --> 01:13:32,479
Speaker 1: to turn protests into policy. Ending qualified immunity has already

1083
01:13:32,520 --> 01:13:36,200
Speaker 1: happened in the state of Colorado. It just happened in

1084
01:13:36,360 --> 01:13:42,760
Speaker 1: New York City. And as Ben has talked about with

1085
01:13:42,800 --> 01:13:48,320
Speaker 1: me so many times, it's up to people who look

1086
01:13:48,400 --> 01:13:52,080
Speaker 1: like him and me, it's up to white people to

1087
01:13:52,439 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: weigh in on this. This is not simply a black

1088
01:13:56,280 --> 01:13:59,040
Speaker 1: or brown problem. This is a problem that white people have,

1089
01:14:00,160 --> 01:14:03,080
Speaker 1: and if it's going to get solved us white people

1090
01:14:03,439 --> 01:14:06,519
Speaker 1: need to be in it all the way because it's

1091
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:10,280
Speaker 1: white people who have the power in our society. I mean,

1092
01:14:11,040 --> 01:14:15,919
Speaker 1: the reality is that the people that we have hired

1093
01:14:16,960 --> 01:14:20,840
Speaker 1: and given the privilege to use lethal force in our

1094
01:14:20,960 --> 01:14:26,640
Speaker 1: name are killing black people before our very eyes, and

1095
01:14:26,680 --> 01:14:32,439
Speaker 1: we're letting them get away with it. So yeah, and

1096
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: the other thing about this issue, as Jerry said, there's

1097
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:40,840
Speaker 1: a lot of police reforms that are needed, and a

1098
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:46,280
Speaker 1: lot of it revolves around police contracts, which the so

1099
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:51,599
Speaker 1: called Fraternal Order of Police is pretty much forcing on

1100
01:14:52,560 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 1: your city. There. I think there's something like around seventeen

1101
01:14:57,920 --> 01:15:03,680
Speaker 1: thousand individual police departments in the country. This happens to

1102
01:15:03,720 --> 01:15:08,799
Speaker 1: be an area where your local city council, your local

1103
01:15:08,920 --> 01:15:13,479
Speaker 1: town officers, the people that are making the rules in

1104
01:15:13,560 --> 01:15:17,800
Speaker 1: your local town. This is like situations where you can

1105
01:15:17,880 --> 01:15:20,400
Speaker 1: go to that meeting, you can go and talk to

1106
01:15:20,479 --> 01:15:24,639
Speaker 1: those people. You know, those people you can you can

1107
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:28,000
Speaker 1: tell them. We want a different contract. We don't want

1108
01:15:28,439 --> 01:15:33,120
Speaker 1: to have a contract where police officers, if they're accused

1109
01:15:33,240 --> 01:15:38,400
Speaker 1: of something, they get somewhere between forty eight hours and

1110
01:15:38,479 --> 01:15:40,920
Speaker 1: thirty days to make up a story about why they

1111
01:15:40,920 --> 01:15:43,559
Speaker 1: did it before you can question them. And and we

1112
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:48,240
Speaker 1: want we want their disciplinary records to be public. We

1113
01:15:48,240 --> 01:15:51,880
Speaker 1: we want to know if there's if there's cops on

1114
01:15:51,920 --> 01:15:56,200
Speaker 1: the force that are abusing people. And we don't want

1115
01:15:57,240 --> 01:16:01,680
Speaker 1: cops that have disciplinary records at you know, continue to

1116
01:16:01,720 --> 01:16:04,760
Speaker 1: break the rules. We don't want them to be promoted,

1117
01:16:05,160 --> 01:16:08,479
Speaker 1: We want them to be off the force. Well, I

1118
01:16:08,520 --> 01:16:10,600
Speaker 1: think about, you know, even as an example of the

1119
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:13,200
Speaker 1: officer Hankinson, one of the gentlemen involved in the murder

1120
01:16:13,240 --> 01:16:18,840
Speaker 1: of Brianna Taylor. After that happened, multiple women came forward

1121
01:16:18,840 --> 01:16:21,960
Speaker 1: and discussed that he had assaulted them. And I just

1122
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:24,840
Speaker 1: thought they knew that this guy was a dangerous guy.

1123
01:16:24,960 --> 01:16:28,920
Speaker 1: Why is he still working? And it's it's exactly that again,

1124
01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:34,360
Speaker 1: the transparency that we need. I wonder as you're as

1125
01:16:34,360 --> 01:16:36,840
Speaker 1: you're pushing for this kind of transparency, as you're pushing

1126
01:16:36,840 --> 01:16:41,400
Speaker 1: for this legal change, is this work? What's led you?

1127
01:16:41,479 --> 01:16:43,479
Speaker 1: I read about this and I'm just fascinated and I

1128
01:16:43,560 --> 01:16:46,320
Speaker 1: need to know. I read that you guys are working

1129
01:16:46,360 --> 01:16:49,360
Speaker 1: on a book with Killer Mike. Did did the qualified

1130
01:16:49,400 --> 01:16:52,120
Speaker 1: immunity work lead there? How did this happen? He is amazing?

1131
01:16:52,680 --> 01:16:54,880
Speaker 1: What's going on? Is this true? Or is this an

1132
01:16:54,880 --> 01:16:59,040
Speaker 1: internet rumor that I'm just praying is true? Uh? He

1133
01:16:59,280 --> 01:17:05,320
Speaker 1: is totally dazing. And yes, Killer Mike wrote the foreward

1134
01:17:05,400 --> 01:17:09,240
Speaker 1: to this book that is just coming out called Above

1135
01:17:09,320 --> 01:17:14,080
Speaker 1: the Law, How violent Police get away with It? And

1136
01:17:14,120 --> 01:17:21,280
Speaker 1: it's and it it is sixteen little stories of people

1137
01:17:21,600 --> 01:17:27,200
Speaker 1: who have been abused or worse by the cops and

1138
01:17:27,320 --> 01:17:30,040
Speaker 1: how their case was thrown out of court because of

1139
01:17:30,120 --> 01:17:37,280
Speaker 1: qualified immunity. But the book begins with this incredibly powerful

1140
01:17:37,439 --> 01:17:42,440
Speaker 1: forward from Killer Mike. I love watching him speak anytime,

1141
01:17:43,760 --> 01:17:46,240
Speaker 1: anytime he's at a rally or an event, and you know,

1142
01:17:46,320 --> 01:17:48,599
Speaker 1: someone posts a video on Instagram. I have them saved

1143
01:17:48,600 --> 01:17:54,040
Speaker 1: in a folder. I just think he's so wise and

1144
01:17:54,040 --> 01:17:56,760
Speaker 1: and he he helps light that fire that's sort of

1145
01:17:56,840 --> 01:18:00,080
Speaker 1: sacred rage fire for me. I'm really looking forward to

1146
01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:04,479
Speaker 1: reading the book. Um, we're talking about so many things

1147
01:18:04,520 --> 01:18:10,760
Speaker 1: that are important, and I feel come from learning lessons

1148
01:18:10,800 --> 01:18:15,360
Speaker 1: about community and about belonging and how to defend it.

1149
01:18:15,840 --> 01:18:20,360
Speaker 1: I'm I'm curious as you both look forward, what are

1150
01:18:20,360 --> 01:18:23,280
Speaker 1: the lessons that you really hope to pass on to people,

1151
01:18:23,640 --> 01:18:26,840
Speaker 1: the lessons that matter most to you, maybe the people

1152
01:18:26,880 --> 01:18:30,240
Speaker 1: that matter most to you, to to your children. What

1153
01:18:30,240 --> 01:18:35,439
Speaker 1: what feel like the sort of shining ideas. Uh, it's

1154
01:18:35,520 --> 01:18:39,040
Speaker 1: corny and it's a cliche, but it's all about love.

1155
01:18:39,680 --> 01:18:43,840
Speaker 1: You can rant and rave and we need to protest

1156
01:18:43,920 --> 01:18:46,240
Speaker 1: and we need to change things, but in the end,

1157
01:18:47,520 --> 01:18:52,800
Speaker 1: it's all about love. Uh. You know, Cornell West has

1158
01:18:52,880 --> 01:18:57,639
Speaker 1: this quote, justice is what love looks like in public.

1159
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:04,639
Speaker 1: I mean, I would tell my kid to stand up

1160
01:19:04,680 --> 01:19:09,480
Speaker 1: for what she believes in love that because really it's foundational.

1161
01:19:09,600 --> 01:19:12,760
Speaker 1: And then it's also you've combined it with how to

1162
01:19:12,920 --> 01:19:16,160
Speaker 1: how to exercise it, how to take it out in public.

1163
01:19:16,200 --> 01:19:19,479
Speaker 1: And I think that that's beautiful. So I do need

1164
01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:21,120
Speaker 1: to ask before I let you go? And I'm sure

1165
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:24,439
Speaker 1: everybody does, but I couldn't possibly end an interview with

1166
01:19:24,479 --> 01:19:28,200
Speaker 1: the both of you without knowing this. What are your

1167
01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:32,000
Speaker 1: favorite ice cream flavors? Well, for me, that's easy. It's

1168
01:19:32,080 --> 01:19:37,360
Speaker 1: American Dream vanilla ice cream with a caramel swirl, fudge

1169
01:19:37,360 --> 01:19:40,639
Speaker 1: covered pieces of waffle cones. It's my go to flavor

1170
01:19:40,840 --> 01:19:45,400
Speaker 1: every time, you know, for the longest time. Well, at first,

1171
01:19:45,439 --> 01:19:49,240
Speaker 1: I was really into Heath Bar Crunch, and then we

1172
01:19:49,320 --> 01:19:53,000
Speaker 1: came out with a variant, Haffe Heath Bark Crunch, which

1173
01:19:53,080 --> 01:19:55,920
Speaker 1: I got into, but I haven't really had Heath Bark

1174
01:19:55,960 --> 01:20:00,680
Speaker 1: Crunch in quite a while. Then I got into cherry Garcia, uh,

1175
01:20:00,880 --> 01:20:04,080
Speaker 1: and I was really into that for a long time.

1176
01:20:04,960 --> 01:20:10,400
Speaker 1: I haven't had that much lately either. Now I'm I've

1177
01:20:10,439 --> 01:20:15,800
Speaker 1: spent some time with Chubby Hubby chocolate covered peanut butter

1178
01:20:15,840 --> 01:20:20,200
Speaker 1: filled pretzels and vanilla malt ice cream with a peanut

1179
01:20:20,280 --> 01:20:25,920
Speaker 1: butter swirl. And I'm going back to New York super

1180
01:20:26,000 --> 01:20:31,840
Speaker 1: Fudge Chunk, which was an early classic. I guess. I

1181
01:20:31,840 --> 01:20:36,240
Speaker 1: guess that's that's where I am at these days. Just

1182
01:20:36,280 --> 01:20:39,439
Speaker 1: a few casual items. My god, I I too had

1183
01:20:39,479 --> 01:20:42,639
Speaker 1: a long phase with Cherry Garcia and then I got

1184
01:20:42,720 --> 01:20:47,679
Speaker 1: really really addicted to fish food. But like the chocolate

1185
01:20:47,720 --> 01:20:51,919
Speaker 1: fudge brownie, just it stays classic for me forever, forever.

1186
01:20:52,120 --> 01:20:55,479
Speaker 1: It's one that I can always, always, always go back to.

1187
01:20:55,720 --> 01:21:02,080
Speaker 1: So now I'm hungry. You know. Chocolate fudge brownie came

1188
01:21:02,120 --> 01:21:08,640
Speaker 1: about because we Ben and Jury's was making a brownie

1189
01:21:08,680 --> 01:21:13,560
Speaker 1: ice cream sandwich. It used two thin, chewy fudgie brownies

1190
01:21:13,600 --> 01:21:17,519
Speaker 1: that were so fudgie that they you couldn't put them

1191
01:21:17,520 --> 01:21:20,240
Speaker 1: on by machine. They had to be put on by hand.

1192
01:21:20,880 --> 01:21:26,080
Speaker 1: And we needed to find another supplier of these chocolate

1193
01:21:26,120 --> 01:21:32,320
Speaker 1: fudgie brownies. And we found this bakery in Inner City,

1194
01:21:32,320 --> 01:21:37,439
Speaker 1: New York that was run by a religious organization and

1195
01:21:37,479 --> 01:21:42,680
Speaker 1: their purpose was to employ formally unemployable people m hm.

1196
01:21:43,479 --> 01:21:47,680
Speaker 1: And so we said, well we'll use those guys. So,

1197
01:21:48,520 --> 01:21:51,599
Speaker 1: you know, we ordered i don't know, like ten thousand

1198
01:21:51,600 --> 01:21:57,000
Speaker 1: pounds of brownies. So they hadn't really filled up an

1199
01:21:57,160 --> 01:22:01,200
Speaker 1: order of that size before, and they were making it

1200
01:22:01,360 --> 01:22:03,479
Speaker 1: for you know, a couple of weeks and storing it

1201
01:22:03,520 --> 01:22:06,439
Speaker 1: in their freezer, and then they shipped it up to

1202
01:22:06,600 --> 01:22:09,800
Speaker 1: us and we opened up this you know, like it

1203
01:22:09,880 --> 01:22:13,639
Speaker 1: was a thirty pound box of brownies. And we went

1204
01:22:13,720 --> 01:22:16,200
Speaker 1: to pull out these brownies and they they had all

1205
01:22:16,320 --> 01:22:23,040
Speaker 1: solidified into one thirty pound lump of brownie because they

1206
01:22:23,040 --> 01:22:26,160
Speaker 1: had put him in when they were hot, and the

1207
01:22:26,200 --> 01:22:29,679
Speaker 1: freezer what didn't have enough power to cool it down

1208
01:22:29,760 --> 01:22:33,160
Speaker 1: quick enough. So, you know, our people are trying to

1209
01:22:33,160 --> 01:22:37,000
Speaker 1: pick these things apart, and they were falling apart. And

1210
01:22:37,439 --> 01:22:39,679
Speaker 1: you know, if it was a normal supplier, we would

1211
01:22:39,680 --> 01:22:42,120
Speaker 1: just send the load back and say, you know, it's

1212
01:22:42,120 --> 01:22:44,040
Speaker 1: not as another one, but this guy, these guys, we

1213
01:22:44,080 --> 01:22:47,400
Speaker 1: would have put them out of business. So we kept

1214
01:22:47,439 --> 01:22:51,600
Speaker 1: the stuff and we decided to use the pieces of

1215
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:55,120
Speaker 1: brownies to make chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. And that's

1216
01:22:55,120 --> 01:22:59,080
Speaker 1: how that flavor was created. And that same that same business,

1217
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:03,080
Speaker 1: that same bit. Since there was purposes to give jobs

1218
01:23:03,160 --> 01:23:06,160
Speaker 1: to formally unemployable people, they're still making it. That is

1219
01:23:06,200 --> 01:23:09,320
Speaker 1: just the coolest thing I've ever heard. I love that.

1220
01:23:10,360 --> 01:23:16,080
Speaker 1: I love that makes me feel very secure about my

1221
01:23:16,200 --> 01:23:20,479
Speaker 1: forever favorite choice. Yeah, so I have one final question

1222
01:23:20,520 --> 01:23:23,559
Speaker 1: for you both. It's probably my favorite thing to ask

1223
01:23:23,600 --> 01:23:26,639
Speaker 1: everyone who comes on the podcast, as it is called

1224
01:23:26,680 --> 01:23:30,000
Speaker 1: work in progress. I'm curious what feels like a work

1225
01:23:30,040 --> 01:23:33,280
Speaker 1: in progress in each of your lives in this moment,

1226
01:23:33,520 --> 01:23:40,040
Speaker 1: whether it's personal, professional, political, really whatever comes to mind first. Well,

1227
01:23:40,080 --> 01:23:42,040
Speaker 1: the thing that comes to mind first for me is

1228
01:23:42,720 --> 01:23:50,160
Speaker 1: any qualified immunity. Uh. For me, it is about developing

1229
01:23:50,200 --> 01:23:54,439
Speaker 1: more compassion in my life. It's an ongoing thing and

1230
01:23:55,400 --> 01:23:57,200
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to be working on it for a

1231
01:23:57,240 --> 01:24:00,120
Speaker 1: long time. Is that for yourself or for the all

1232
01:24:00,160 --> 01:24:03,599
Speaker 1: around you? I I think about it in terms of

1233
01:24:04,040 --> 01:24:07,240
Speaker 1: people around me, but I could probably fit in there

1234
01:24:07,280 --> 01:24:11,280
Speaker 1: for myself as well. Very good. I like a I

1235
01:24:11,360 --> 01:24:13,920
Speaker 1: like a personal goal on a societal bolt together. So

1236
01:24:14,040 --> 01:24:17,920
Speaker 1: you guys really nailed that answer. Thank you both so

1237
01:24:18,040 --> 01:24:20,599
Speaker 1: much for today. This has just been an absolute joy.

1238
01:24:21,479 --> 01:24:25,040
Speaker 1: I feel much more inspired this afternoon than I did

1239
01:24:25,040 --> 01:24:27,400
Speaker 1: when I woke up this morning, so I'm very grateful.

1240
01:24:27,840 --> 01:24:31,600
Speaker 1: This has been a Yeah, this has been a beautiful conversation, Sophia.

1241
01:24:31,760 --> 01:24:35,519
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. It's really really good to be

1242
01:24:35,560 --> 01:24:38,280
Speaker 1: talking with you likewise, and anything I can ever do

1243
01:24:38,439 --> 01:24:41,679
Speaker 1: to you know, support what you're up to just taller.

1244
01:24:41,760 --> 01:25:09,080
Speaker 1: I'm here. Thank you so much. Assssssssssssssss