WEBVTT - Ownership Is Key (with Sam Polk) 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.680 Hey, I'm Barraitune Day Thurston, and this is how to 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:08.600 citizen with Baritune Day in season two. We're talking about 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.400 the money, because, to be real, it's hard to citizen 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:20.880 when we can barely pay the bills. The year was 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:26.000 nine and I was about to graduate from Harvard University 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.360 with a load of debt because that place is expensive 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.840 and fancy. And when I thought about my exit plan 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.040 from Harvard, I was always conscious of what I owed 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:44.440 the federal government, the university, my own mother. I learned 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.880 about recruiters, these people from corporate America who would come 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.919 to the university, set up shop in a local hotel, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.600 and try to woo us with promises of impacts, but 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.000 mostly money. And I went to one of these events 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:04.720 at uh local hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was overwhelmed 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:07.240 by the amount of food, free food in the middle 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.600 of the day, and not just any food. Shrimp. Yeah, 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.960 daytime shrimp was not a part of my regular diet, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.720 and I devoured it, and I was kind of sold 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.720 on some of the promise. So I found myself after 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:29.119 graduation in the corporate world working in strategy consulting, which 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:33.000 is still a hard job to explain to anybody. I 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.160 wore khakis and had close cropped hair and ate out 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.280 way too much, and it helped me pay off those loans. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.560 My first year out of college, my salary was higher 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:49.240 than my mother's peak lifetime annual earning across our whole life, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.240 and that was a big deal. It was a big 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.480 deal for me to go to Harvard is a bigger 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.680 deal to graduate, and it was the biggest deal to 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:02.320 pay for it. I'm in this corporate life and I'm 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.320 making a decent living, but there's limits. I realized this 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.720 is not for me, it's not my full purpose. And 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:14.120 I found my way out and found my way in 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:18.480 many ways to you right here, right now today, we're 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.520 gonna talk to someone who's got a bit of a 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.320 parallel story. Lived the most capitalist life one can in 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.520 this economy by working on Wall Street, like for real 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.560 Wall Street, and he didn't stay like me. For him, 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:37.920 it wasn't enough, but he did keep building businesses, different 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.960 businesses though, those that try to address the opportunity. Heather 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.520 McGee laid out for us that we can deal with 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:51.560 our economy's historic exclusion by significantly increasing those who are 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.440 included in it. That we can all win and make 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.239 money too. We live in a world where the zip 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.280 code that you're born in and the color of your 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.760 skin is very determinative of sort of where you're going 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.640 to end up, at least economically, and so the idea 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.400 of social equity is balancing the scales. In order to 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.320 do that, you need to give a leg up and 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.560 give support because we're not starting all from the same 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:22.000 sort of level. After the break, we speak with Sam Pulk, 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:41.600 founder and CEO of Every Table. Yeah, thank you, it's 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:48.880 much better. Okay, so quiet on set. Sam Pulk, Save 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:54.760 in the World, episode thirty seven. Growing up, Sam Pulk 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:56.920 didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.680 but he was sure he wanted to make money. So 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.320 he at his start in Wall Street. Then he pivoted 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.520 hard to the far other side of the street and 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.640 dove headfirst into the world of nonprofits, literally the opposite 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.560 of Wall Street. One day, he realized he needed to 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:18.840 create something that drew from both worlds, that wasn't completely 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.200 extractive and dominated by profit seeking, but that also wasn't 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.800 steeped in this top down world of charity. I know, 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:32.800 capitalism and business get a bad rap. They're exploitative and 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.840 extractive and maybe just bad for the planet. But I 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.680 also know there are better ways to use these tools. 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.239 I wanted to talk to Sam because I also believe 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.159 that there were ways to do business that help people, 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.200 that help us citizen, that help us show up, and 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:55.120 that are good for our society. Hello, Sam, how you 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.840 doing good? Thanks for having me. Thank you so much 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.960 for for being head. Is that that doesn't sound right? 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:04.960 Thanks for being here. Let's just keep it normal. Thanks 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.640 for being here. Do you remember the moment you decided 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.239 you wanted to work on Wall Street? First of all, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.520 like you know, my agenda when I got out of 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:16.280 college was to figure out a life skill that would 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.880 allow me to make a hundred thousand dollars a year forever, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.840 and so Wall Street was a sort of place for that. 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.240 That's a very specific post college agenda. How did you 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.640 come up with a hundred thousand dollars as your threshold? 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.520 Hundred thousand was the number that I thought sort of 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.480 people that were, you know, wealthy or comfortable would sort 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.320 of make. But I wanted like safety and comfort is 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.000 what I wanted. Where does the Wall Street decision come 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:43.159 into that? The real sort of moment for Wall Street. 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:46.440 For me was when I walked onto a trading floor 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.919 at Credit Squeets First, Boston on the first day of 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.120 my summer internship, and it was have you ever been 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:58.320 on a trading floor? But it's it's wild. People yelling 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.440 and you know six means in front of traders and 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.680 you know, people like you know, talking and shouting into 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.760 their phones, and also like how they were dressed. You 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.279 could see that this was like a level of sort 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.880 of like elite sort of wealth and class in a 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.200 way that that I had no experience with. Hundreds of 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.200 billions of dollars are flowing through those people and their 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.960 decisions just sitting there. And you saw that, and you said, 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.400 I wanted I wanted in. It meets the hundred K 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.320 threshold that you set for yourself. What is it like 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:31.600 once you're in the life, what's it like for you? 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.919 I just worked like a maniac. I was waking up 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.200 at four thirty in the morning, and you know, getting 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:38.880 to the office of the first one on the trading 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.120 floor every day, last one to leave, you know, analysts 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.919 and the trading program lived in these sort of like 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.600 swanky apartments downtown. And I got this like six hundred 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.880 square foot apartment twenty five minutes away that I could 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.360 pay four hundred dollars a month for just so I 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.279 could sort of like save enough money. Do you feel 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.200 rich yet? Do you feel powerful? Yeah? I mean Wall 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:05.120 Street in general? Did I mean like the expense accounts, 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.080 you know, flying to see sort of traders in the Midwest? 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.280 Wall Street was really a place like even my first year, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.240 where I would like get sick of these sort of 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.240 like five star dinners because I would just go there 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:15.920 every night and I'd be like, oh God, I need 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.440 a night off from Nobu. You know. Did you just 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.400 say that for those who may not know what is Nobu? 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.679 Nobu is the fanciest, most sort of elite sushi restaurant 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.000 in the world basically, and it was like your McDonald's. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:37.640 It was totally so you're over ordering sushi, you're working hard, 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.440 you're making more money, you have some sense of power. 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.560 When does this start to turn sour? You know? By 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.440 the time I got to be thirty, I was then, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:48.960 you know, the senior distress trader at one of the 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.560 largest hedge funds in the world. This was sort of 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.840 during the crash about eight no nine. It was the 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.760 worst day on Wall Street since the crash of seven. 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.000 The Dow tumbled more than five hundred points after two 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:07.520 pillars of the Street tumbled over the weekend. Lehman Brothers, 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.840 a one and fifty eight year old firm, filed for bankrupts. 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:12.680 It was a crazy time on Wall Street, you know, 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.920 like Lehman went down, and you know, Countrywide went down. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.720 Came to the America Dream. No one was better at 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.040 selling it than Angelo Mozilla as founder of the mortgage 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.360 giant Countrywide Financial. And more and more people find themselves 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.320 at or near underwater with their houses. The propensity to 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.240 reach into their pocket, grab their house keys and leave 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.440 them on the countertop and walk out goes up. We 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:35.720 have to stop that problem. In the nobody knew what 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.679 was going to happen. But but the interesting thing about 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:42.040 it was that all of these sort of bankers, we're 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.960 not going to get their bonus that year. And people 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.920 were very very upset about that. And so I was 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.079 looking at these guys and being like, huh, this doesn't 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.560 seem right, Like, of course you're not gonna get your bonus. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.640 And we basically took the entire country down into financial 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.440 catastrophe and at the same time, I picked up Taylor 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.120 Branches three part series on Martin Luther King, and I 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.640 was sort of like struck by this juxtaposition basically about 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.840 sort of what I was dealing with on a daily basis. 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.840 And then I'd be, you know, coming home and reading 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.760 stories about the Freedom writers, and like, you know, these 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.440 are some of the most gripping stories real life that 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:25.080 you could ever imagine, right like activists on buses pulling 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:32.760 into Montgomery, Alabama, amidst mob of people, you know, ready 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.760 to beat them. And there was something that was so 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.679 jaw dropping lee courageous about that. And it wasn't that 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.439 I was, you know, pretending that I was about to 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.400 do something like that, but I was aware that at 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.319 that time in the sixties, there was plenty of guys 0:09:51.360 --> 0:10:00.320 trading bonds at Goldman Sachs, and so I just based sically, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.000 you know, took a hard look at my life and said, 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:05.920 where do you want to be fifty years from now? 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:07.120 What are you going to be proud of? What are 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.040 your kids going to be proud of? What do you 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:10.720 want your life to stand for? And at the end 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.200 of the day, being a successful hedge fund manager, it 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.040 was definitely a world where people that got a million 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.400 dollar bonus were completely devastated because they should have got 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.439 a three million dollar bonus. There was never enough. It's 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:29.559 this crazy sort of like cloistered relative deprivation amidst absolute abundance, 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.520 you know, um, and it just seemed so empty, basically, 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.360 and I wanted to figure out something else. So after 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.960 you leave Wall Street, what next? Sam My wife and I, 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.040 you know, one weekend ended up sitting down and watching 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.559 you know, all this food documentaries, you know, Forks over 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.400 Knives and food inc. Etcetera. But there was one that 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.400 was sort of like a lesser known one. It's called 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.400 A Place at the Table by Laurie Silverbush. The recent 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.600 people are going hungry is not because of a sualty 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.600 of food. It is because of politic One out of 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.280 every two kids in the United States at some point 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.000 will be on food assistance. I was one of those kids. 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.560 It was hungry. It messes with you. The average food 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:09.959 stand benefits three dollars a day. It was the first 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.840 one that really made this argument about this sort of 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.400 intersection between food and poverty. And they even described the 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.040 neighborhood South Los Angeles. I was five miles from where 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.320 I was living at the time and said that a 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:25.000 kid born in that neighborhood would live twelve years less 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.760 than a kid born in the neighborhood that I live 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.720 in right now. You know, and there's a lot of 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.080 reasons for that, but one of the core ones is food. 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.560 And I didn't know it then that that was going 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.200 to change my life and you know, become really you know, 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.880 life's work in some level, but it did. And you know, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.880 this idea that healthy food should be a human right 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.040 and not a luxury product was like self evident to 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:51.319 me on some level. Yeah, So you watch this food 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.040 documentary with your wife called A Place at the Table. 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.360 Take us from that to starting Feast. So Feast is 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.480 a it's a nonprofit that basically helps parents who are 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:06.280 living in difficult food situations who want to give themselves 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.800 and their families healthy And you know, I'll stop there 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.000 to say that most times the following things you would 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.600 hear from this would be we run nutrition education and 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.560 diet cooking classes into that. I am proud that we 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.240 did not structure it like that. There's plenty of sort 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.400 of moralizing when it comes to healthy food, which is 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.800 like if only these people knew what good food was 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.640 and what you know, how to cook, then they would 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.640 make the right choices. I knew that was not true 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:39.359 sort of from the beginning. Food is a fraught and multifaceted, multilayered, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:44.560 complicated situation for most people, no matter where you live. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.160 That is then exacerbated, you know, when you've got you know, 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.960 no options for healthy food and underserved neighborhoods and a 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:55.079 massive amount of stress. Sort of overlying that, we structured 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.040 Feast basically as almost like a support group. We're running dozens, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.920 if not not yet hundreds, but getting up there of 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:05.800 groups across now five states. And these are basically, you know, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:07.720 a group of ten moms that meets once a week 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.480 for two hours, led by somebody who has taken the 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.880 program before. Somebody that was in the group will then 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.240 go on to lead another group and then you know, 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.440 at the same sort of school or at the same 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.400 you know, community center, or at the same house and 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.360 will just sort of keep perpetuating itself over time. You 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.640 are a white man, Sam, and you are working in 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.160 a lot of communities that are not white, and people 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.360 who never worked on Wall Street. Uh a hundred thousand 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.920 dollars a year will be like an extraordinary situation. How 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.719 do you manage your own presence as a white man 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.120 going into many communities of color, working with a lot 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:50.280 of moms in particular, um and and avoid any kind 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:52.400 of savior complex you think about that? Has it come 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:54.960 up for you in some way all the time? You know? 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.040 I think from my experience with Feast and sort of 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.000 running these groups, we're just all sort of people basically. 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.480 And then how I sort of work with my you know, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.120 privilege in some sense and what I look like to 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.120 other people and is to just acknowledge it. And I 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.040 do this with my team all the time, but like 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.880 speak to it and own it and try to create 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.760 a situation where I'm standing next to people as opposed 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.440 to reaching down to lift them up. Mm hmm. It's 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:26.400 a powerful image. What does social equity mean to you? Yeah, 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.080 I've become on some sense like a reborn capitalist sort 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.440 of this journey for each person to figure out where 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.440 they sort of need to exist in the world and 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:37.240 what is right for them and how they can be 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.240 of service and contribute. That is a system and an 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:45.920 idea that works only on on the on the fundamental 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:50.920 foundation of you know, equality of opportunity, and yet we 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.120 live in a world where where you you know, the 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.240 zip code that you're born in and the color of 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.880 your skin is very determinative of sort of where you're 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.960 to end up, at least economically. And so the idea 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.680 of social equity is balancing the scales in order to 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:14.000 sort of like make you know, equality of opportunity for everybody. 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.960 But in order to do that, you need to rebalance 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.680 the scales and sort of give a leg up and 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.560 give support um, because we're not starting all from the 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:32.680 same sort of level. After the break fast food franchises, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.840 and how ownership may be the key to building wealth 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:52.240 that lasts. Ye, all right, Sam, you told us about 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:55.080 your wild West days on Wall Street. You broke down 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.080 what you're doing with feasts and this community support group. 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:00.880 Now I want to move on to your newest endeavor. 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:03.360 Tell me how you came up with the idea for 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:08.040 every table. So I was running feasts and kept hearing 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.720 from these moms basically that the reason we go to 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.360 McDonald's is because it's you know, it's the only thing 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.160 available that and so I quickly came to realize that, 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:21.400 like what people in underserver communities. It's not they necessarily 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.320 love fast food. There's just no other options basically, and 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.600 so every table is a lot of things. At its base, 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:34.720 it is a food preparation, production, distribution, and retail system 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:39.720 that includes restaurants, smart fridges, which are basically healthy vending machines, 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:45.000 home delivery. That is building a company that that is 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:51.240 making healthy, made from scratch, delicious prepared food for cheaper 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.920 than fast food, and in the in the process is 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.880 literally like building a new food system. I know that 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.040 sounds big, but it really is like in some sense, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.000 I think we're building the food system that should have 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.800 been built fifty years ago. Basically, what should have been 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.080 done fifty years ago that wasn't And how does our 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.000 current food system look in ways that aren't serving us. 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.359 The way to understand sort of how and why the 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.080 food system was built as it was. The fundamental thing 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:26.119 to understand is that people didn't understand that processed food 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:29.400 was going to be bad for you. Yes, thank goodness 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.399 for Jello instant putting the terrific busy day dessert you 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.960 can make at the very last minute. See how quick 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.840 They just didn't know it. And so if you think 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:43.040 about the decisions that were made with that sort of 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:47.120 misassumption within sort of spurred the creation of the food 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.600 system was exactly what you might guess, which is like, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.760 how do you make food really delicious and really cheap? 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.479 And so when I think about the food system, I 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.000 think that, you know, the largest food companies in the 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.320 country are what are called CpG with consumer packaged goods, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.200 so that's your cereal and chips, derritos, etcetera. CpG companies 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:09.879 and fast food companies. And the reason that they're the 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.120 largest is because they figured out how to sell food 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.520 the cheapest. So, so how is every table dismantling or 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:21.200 reimagining this system? Well, when people talk about food deserts, 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.600 I can't tell you how many times people call me 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.040 and say, hey, Sam, you know I I'm I too, 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.960 am passionate about this issue of food deserts. Let's get 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.640 a bus and put a bunch of produce in it 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.760 and then drive around sort of you know, streets and 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.000 underserved communities and what is the food So a food 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:43.440 desert is a community that doesn't have access to fresh, 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.680 healthy food. If you go to South Los Angeles, for example, 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.600 there is fewer grocery stores per capita than there is 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.040 on the West Side. But there's grocery stores for sure, 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:59.440 food for less Superior Ralph's isn't underserved neighborhoods. Like, it's 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:04.240 not that there's no grocery stores. What it is is 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.399 that there's no prepared food. There's no press juicery or 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:13.080 Tender Greens or Sweet Green or Lemonade or Creation or 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.960 flower Child. I mean, I could go on like there 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.639 the amount of sort of fresh, healthy, prepared food that 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.679 there isn't and more affluent communities is massive, and I 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.680 think that's the things that people miss. People in underserved 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.399 communities are both short on money and they're also short 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.280 on time, sort of like we all are. And so 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.280 what every Table does as we say, look, we like 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.600 where Sweet Green is going in terms of quality and 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.399 freshness of food, but can we do it in a 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.439 way that makes it accessible and affordable to everybody? And 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.480 all we do is we apply the principles of CpG 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.840 and fast food, namely centralized production and massive distribution, but 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.159 to fresh food. And so what every table is is 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.680 preparing incredibly fresh, healthy, delicious meals from scratch every day 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.400 and then packaging them and grab and go contain meiners. 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.160 And then as far as pricing goes, every table sort 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.960 of got known in the press for this variable pricing 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:10.160 model where you know, same food, same concept, but if 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.680 it's in Brentwood will charge seven or eight bucks, which 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.280 is basically half the price of sweet Green, so an 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.640 incredibly good deal. But then we open in Compton or 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.760 South l A or East l A will charge five 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.040 or six dollars for the same meal. And it's not 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.080 charity like our stores and underserved communities are amongst our 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.439 most profitable. But it is about, you know, creating a 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.280 system that works for everyone, that includes everyone, um, and 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:40.560 that respects everyone. I've heard a lot of tension in 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:45.399 the goals of running for profit business and creating something 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:50.160 that's sustainable or achieve some sort of equity goals, and 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.520 this choice that we are forced to make. It seems 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.959 you can either be a real capitalist and lower your 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.080 costs and jack up your prices to whatever the market 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.159 will bear, or where you can go do your do 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.760 gooder business and have your social equity and your social justice. 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:09.119 How do you approach those tensions? How do you see it? 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.439 You know, fifty years ago it was the norm for 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.119 companies to be focused on the good of the community 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.080 and all the different stakeholders. And now this was obviously 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:19.600 helped by the fact that we had like a real 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:23.600 labor movement, so there was collective bargaining, etcetera. But we've 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.960 sort of like developed this sort of like rapacious sort 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.880 of lobbyists supported idea of capitalism. But I don't think 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.080 that's what it has to be. And then the other 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.000 point I'll make is that actually so many sort of 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.199 quote unquote social enterprises are frankly stupid and and what 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:42.880 I mean is, you know, you know, think about like 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.360 Tom's Shoes, and Tom's invested in us, so I want 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.240 to be don't bite the hand that feeds you, so 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:50.680 to speak. I love where this is going, go for it. 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:53.199 But like so, so Tom's is a company that was 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:56.680 probably like the O G sort of social enterprise really 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.399 that basically created this model where for every pair of 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.720 shoes that they sold, they would donate one to somebody 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.399 in need. But it's basically like they were part of 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:10.840 this idea that that there's one group of customers that 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:13.760 you sell to and there's another group of customers that 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.520 you do charity for. And I don't like that Tom's 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:22.240 was about making the affluent customers feel good about their purchase. Now, 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:25.160 why is every table different. The more stores we can 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:30.320 have underserved high income, the better, and every table gets 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:32.520 the same benefit that we do with sort of that 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.119 any sort of franchising business gets. We get these royalties 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:39.320 off the top. We also get brand benefit from this. 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.440 I'm trying to design a system that works across the board, 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:45.360 and I'm sure there will be tensions along the way 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:47.760 and often make some decisions. But it also you know, 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:51.960 there's plenty of arguments for example, like Costco pays its 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.560 employees incredibly well, and they they've done that from the beginning, 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.200 and they have lower turnover and you know, lower labor 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.920 costs because of at etcetera. So some of these assumptions 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:04.760 that we made, which are sort of like spurred by 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.119 the whole private equity cost cutting, you know, things are 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:10.399 are just wrong. Like if you treat your customers well, 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:12.320 if you treat your people work for you well, if 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:14.800 you share the wealth a little bit, the company is 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:19.440 probably more sustainable over time. I want you to paint 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:22.800 a picture for our palates what some of the food 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:27.280 people can get from every table. We we have this crazy, 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:29.919 you know, very actually white sort of idea of what 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:35.080