Speaker 1: I am often asked who would be the person I'd
Speaker 1: most like to see walk through the doors of the
Speaker 1: River Cafe. I usually say Nelson Mandela, but he's not coming,
Speaker 1: so then it really depends on what I'm reading, watching,
Speaker 1: or listening to. For months, the top of my list
Speaker 1: has been Scott Galloway, whose Profgy podcast is where I
Speaker 1: go to be informed and inspired. Scott opens up subjects
Speaker 1: I hardly know about, tech, entrepreneurism, social media, AI, financial
Speaker 1: markets up and down, and yesterday actually something I do
Speaker 1: know about olive oil. But this is not just what
Speaker 1: compelled me to invite him to lunch when I heard
Speaker 1: he'd move to London. It was that this professor of
Speaker 1: marketing at the New York University Stuart School of Business
Speaker 1: gives his salary back to the university and talks about loneliness, isolation,
Speaker 1: connection and belonging. He worries about the disenfranchised and lonely
Speaker 1: young man. Scott is tough and he's direct, but he's compassionate,
Speaker 1: he's honest, and he's probing. And that is a person
Speaker 1: who I'm listening to most these days, and who has
Speaker 1: just walked through the doors of the River Cafe to
Speaker 1: sit down with me at table.
Speaker 2: Four Ruthie, so that is this is absolutely a first.
Speaker 2: I have never had my name mentioned in the same
Speaker 2: sentence as Nelson Mandela. I think you said it impossibly, hye, Bar.
Speaker 2: You don't hear Nelson Mandela and Scott Galloway a lot.
Speaker 2: But it's great to be with you. I realize that
Speaker 2: you're interviewing me, but I just have a couple of
Speaker 2: things I want to I want to get off my chest.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that you're literally the most powerful person
Speaker 2: in the world. Anyone I meet who's who's powerful. It's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm coming to London and I'm staying with Ruthie or
Speaker 2: I'm seeing Ruthie.
Speaker 3: You really know everybody.
Speaker 2: And also just a quick story. You did something that
Speaker 2: was very impactful and I don't know if you know
Speaker 2: what this is, but we had never met. I was
Speaker 2: regretting accepting the lunch invitation. I didn't know the River Cafe.
Speaker 2: I didn't know you. It just popped up on my
Speaker 2: calendar and I got there and you're lovely, and obviously
Speaker 2: I found out this is an iconic establishment. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if you remember this, but about twenty or
Speaker 2: thirty minutes into the lunch, I was talking. I think
Speaker 2: I was talking about my sons, and you just very
Speaker 2: casually held my hand and it was at first kind
Speaker 2: of shocking and a bit rattling, and you did it
Speaker 2: two or three more times throughout the lunch, and by
Speaker 2: the end of the lunch, I was not only comfortable
Speaker 2: with it, but I was really moved by it, and
Speaker 2: I thought, I wish more people had the confidence to
Speaker 2: express that sort of affection physically. And it taught me
Speaker 2: that that was the most impactful thing about our lunch,
Speaker 2: that this person who I had never met before had
Speaker 2: the confidence the affection to like hold my hand.
Speaker 3: It really sort of stilled me.
Speaker 1: I kind of do remember, because I was a little
Speaker 1: scared that you'd actually accepted the invitation and that you
Speaker 1: were coming. And I suppose I wanted to. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was like a first kit meeting, but it was
Speaker 1: over food. It was in the restaurant. I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I guess I wanted to impress you. I wanted it
Speaker 1: to be good, and I remember we talked and then
Speaker 1: I think I asked you advice, and again you were
Speaker 1: just so focused on it. You just kind of talk
Speaker 1: to me in a way that really engaged and I
Speaker 1: was very touched by that, and so maybe that was
Speaker 1: for me an important moment. And then reaching out for
Speaker 1: your hand. I don't remember doing it, but I guess
Speaker 1: I did, And if I did, it was because I
Speaker 1: at that point I felt comfortable.
Speaker 2: Well for whatever reason, very few people feel that comfort
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 3: We stood out and I loved it. I would tell
Speaker 3: you to continue.
Speaker 1: To do it. Okay, we'll come over. What are you
Speaker 1: doing this afternoon?
Speaker 3: Anytime? That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: I like that. So I don't know how food connects
Speaker 1: with you well, but we might try and find that
Speaker 1: out in this conversation, because for me, having doing these
Speaker 1: podcasts is getting to know somebody through food. And it
Speaker 1: can be a senator, it can be a footballer, it
Speaker 1: can be a rock star, it can be somebody had
Speaker 1: met on the beach in Mexico. And when you start
Speaker 1: talking about food, maybe it brings up memory. So I
Speaker 1: was thinking about you know your mother, which I know
Speaker 1: you talk about your mother, you talk about her in
Speaker 1: your podcast when you're talking at night, And I was
Speaker 1: wondering about connection as a child.
Speaker 3: So I was very I do a lot of this.
Speaker 2: I'm my guests on a lot of podcasts, and I was,
Speaker 2: I think, more self conscious about this one than most
Speaker 2: of not all of them, because the reality is ruthy
Speaker 2: is I'm not a foodie and food is almost I
Speaker 2: don't want to call it a tax. But my mother
Speaker 2: I was raised by a single mother. We didn't have
Speaker 2: a lot of money. She worked full time as a
Speaker 2: secretary and was British, so it wasn't exactly like fantastic.
Speaker 3: I joked with.
Speaker 2: Food was punishment of my household. We used to every
Speaker 2: Sunday night she'd make a big vat. She was very busy.
Speaker 2: It was just the two of us. She'd make a
Speaker 2: big vat of shepherd's pie and then freeze it. And
Speaker 2: every day or five in the next seven nights, when
Speaker 2: I get home from school, I would put a slice
Speaker 2: of this frozen shepherd's pie in a microwave that felt
Speaker 2: like it was Chernobyl before it exploded. And so I
Speaker 2: didn't grow up with what I'll call real inspired food.
Speaker 2: In addition, I think I suffer a little bit from
Speaker 2: body to small. I don't I have trouble, and no
Speaker 2: one's going to feel sorry for this. I have trouble
Speaker 2: keeping weight on, so I've always had to eat more.
Speaker 2: I was an athlete when I was younger, and my
Speaker 2: coaches I always said one thing and need to gain weight.
Speaker 2: So I think I'm probably going to win the award
Speaker 2: for the least foodie person on this podcast. And I
Speaker 2: was thinking about what if she asked me one of
Speaker 2: my favorite restaurants. I don't go to restaurants. I don't
Speaker 2: go for the food. I go for the environment. And
Speaker 2: food for me is like wine. It tops out at
Speaker 2: about thirty bucks a bottle. I just don't have that
Speaker 2: refined palate. So I go to places that have good food.
Speaker 2: But I'm more about the environment and a place that
Speaker 2: I'll enjoy being. But I'm not you know my Anyways,
Speaker 2: going back to original question on Sunday nights in college,
Speaker 2: I lived at home for the first year and I
Speaker 2: used to come home. I call it I came home.
Speaker 2: And that is when I was sixteen and seventeen, I
Speaker 2: did what most young men did, and that is I
Speaker 2: started to be a bit of a jerk to my
Speaker 2: mother or I was just rebelling and.
Speaker 3: I wasn't mean.
Speaker 2: There's a biological and an anthrological catalyst that makes it
Speaker 2: easier for kids to leave the household, and that is
Speaker 2: when they turn into teens, they become unbearable and it
Speaker 2: makes it easier for everybody. And then I kind of
Speaker 2: came home. When you're like nineteen or twenty, you realize,
Speaker 2: you know, it's me and my mom against the world.
Speaker 2: She was the only person was irrationally passionate about my
Speaker 2: well being. And I used to go home a lot
Speaker 2: and she'd always cook for me, and it'd always be
Speaker 2: the same thing.
Speaker 1: Did she make.
Speaker 2: She'd always make a roast, yeah, and a roast and potatoes,
Speaker 2: very British, and I think that's probably why I love
Speaker 2: meat and potatoes so much.
Speaker 3: But that was where food sort of turned to love
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: That was the one place now and when you were
Speaker 1: going back to the shepherd's pie that you heat it
Speaker 1: up in the microwave. And you know, I have to
Speaker 1: say that I obviously I love people who cook. I
Speaker 1: love the idea of cooking for our children. I like
Speaker 1: the idea of sitting down to a meal. But I
Speaker 1: really have a lot of respect and admiration for women
Speaker 1: who who don't you know, who have you know, they
Speaker 1: might they might have to work that night and not
Speaker 1: be able to cook. They might have not have the money,
Speaker 1: or they might not know how to, and so I
Speaker 1: don't judge. I'm not one of those people that says, oh,
Speaker 1: everything should be fresh and everything should be picked locally,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's what I do. But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's politically or socially or morally right to put
Speaker 1: that pressure on people who can't do it or don't
Speaker 1: know how to do it. Where was your mom? Was
Speaker 1: she she was working at night or did she? Was
Speaker 1: she doing something else?
Speaker 2: My mom worked pretty hard, lived and died a secretary,
Speaker 2: but obviously she was the only you know, it was
Speaker 2: just me and her. She was a sole breadwinner and
Speaker 2: she had to commute drive into the San Fernando Valley,
Speaker 2: so she had sort of an hour plus commute each way.
Speaker 2: But I did get exposure to I did get exposure
Speaker 2: to wonderful food. My best friend out of Markman, his mother,
Speaker 2: Devora Markman, was one of these people who just went
Speaker 2: into a kitchen and was like watching an F one
Speaker 2: driver get into an automobile. She was just so one
Speaker 2: with the kitchen and the way she expressed love was
Speaker 2: I would walk through the door and Adam and I
Speaker 2: would walk through the door and she'd just start whether
Speaker 2: she wouldn't ask us if you were armed, or she'd
Speaker 2: just start cooking. And it was just such obvious like
Speaker 2: affection for her, and she was so wonderful at it.
Speaker 2: And I remember for the first time thinking, wow, this taste,
Speaker 2: this salad tastes really good, Like what did she do here?
Speaker 3: But yeah, that you know it?
Speaker 1: What did she cook? Do you remember what she actually cooked?
Speaker 2: Do you remember the She would make things like I
Speaker 2: had never heard of, like salmon, you know, in with
Speaker 2: some special sauce, and she'd make like a wonderful caesared
Speaker 2: salad that would have pieces of grapefruit in it. And
Speaker 2: I never thought that, Oh, you know, when you're a kid,
Speaker 2: you don't make the connection that pieces of grapefruit would
Speaker 2: go in a salad. And she would make vegetables that
Speaker 2: were tolerable, like green beans with with with with with
Speaker 2: little shaved almonds, like you start figuring out when you're
Speaker 2: that age, when you're a fourteen or fifteen, food starts
Speaker 2: to create this notion of alchemy that's strange things, unexpected,
Speaker 2: things that come together that one plus one can equal three.
Speaker 2: But it was mostly again about affection that you know,
Speaker 2: my best friend's mom would.
Speaker 3: Just that was we walked through the door.
Speaker 2: And I didn't realize it till later in life, but
Speaker 2: that's how she expressed affection, which she would start cooking.
Speaker 1: And what about your mom did she if she didn't
Speaker 1: do it through food or do you did you maybe
Speaker 1: when she was making that huge shepherd's pie on a
Speaker 1: Sunday night, that was an act of love, you know
Speaker 1: for her kid. It was going to come home most
Speaker 1: nights and find something to eat.
Speaker 2: Always a million things, you know, Ruthie, the you know,
Speaker 2: I talk about this a lot on my podcast. I'm
Speaker 2: a fifty nine year old man whose whose mother died
Speaker 2: twenty years ago and I'm still not over it. And
Speaker 2: the you know was it was a million things I
Speaker 2: wouldn't I don't think food is one of those ways.
Speaker 2: But you know, my mom every morning used to come
Speaker 2: in and wake me up and she would be like
Speaker 2: she'd in a very hush voice, she goes Scott Scott, like,
Speaker 2: trying to wake me up gently. It's only a mother
Speaker 2: does that. And when I look back on it, I've
Speaker 2: registered remarkable success and prosperity. And the two catalysts for that,
Speaker 2: or if I look at the two reasons for that
Speaker 2: is one the generosity of California taxpayers that gave me
Speaker 2: a free, accessible education at u CLM Berkeley and started
Speaker 2: an upward spiral for me professionally. And also what any
Speaker 2: successful person has in their life, and that as I
Speaker 2: had someone in their life that was irrationally passionate about
Speaker 2: their well bang. I was more important to my mom
Speaker 2: than she was to herself, and that got expressed a
Speaker 2: million little ways every day.
Speaker 1: But how do you feel about your children? Is food
Speaker 1: something that you think about expressing love?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I have a partner in a spouse. It's an outstanding cook,
Speaker 2: and she absolutely demonstrates love for all of us.
Speaker 3: And I always say to.
Speaker 2: Her when I she wakes me up in the morning
Speaker 2: and makes me breakfast, makes the kids breakfast. You know
Speaker 2: what it's like the moments we are going to remember
Speaker 2: the rest of our lives. I think for most of
Speaker 2: us that are blessed with healthy, you know, reasonable kids.
Speaker 2: You remember those little nights at the banquet, eating dinner
Speaker 2: with them, or roaming around a foreign place with them,
Speaker 2: with them complaining, you know, but those are the moments
Speaker 2: that's what I say to my wife is I'll say
Speaker 2: to it, I'll say I feel loved, And it's usually
Speaker 2: in the context of the four of us walking around
Speaker 2: some strange city together, or quite frankly, when she cooks
Speaker 2: for me and the boys. So that is I don't cook,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's food is now a big part
Speaker 2: of our household. I'm very healthy part of ousehold. And
Speaker 2: one of the things I love about London that I've noticed,
Speaker 2: for all the grief London gets about food, A the
Speaker 2: food I've been coming here two to five times a
Speaker 2: year for fifty years, it's got much better. And two
Speaker 2: the groceries I think are actually healthier here. Less preservatives,
Speaker 2: that's my sense. My senses there's less crap and pesticides
Speaker 2: and hormones. So I've actually really enjoyed. I love cooking
Speaker 2: at home. For me, cooking at home means I'm at home,
Speaker 2: means I'm with people that I love and love me immensely,
Speaker 2: and so it's just like it feels right. When I'm
Speaker 2: eating out, it's usually because I'm on the road and
Speaker 2: it's wonderful. I did wonderful places. But cooking at home
Speaker 2: means I'm with the people who care about me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Somebody asked me the best restaurant in London other
Speaker 1: than the River Cafe, what's the best restaurant? I always
Speaker 1: say home? You know, you know, I like being home
Speaker 1: and I like cooking home and my my children come,
Speaker 1: or my kids come, there's a you know, some of
Speaker 1: my grandchildren just want the same thing that they always have. Well,
Speaker 1: there I have this restaurant. I cook all these things
Speaker 1: and it's like pasta with tomatoesos and tuscan rose potatoes
Speaker 1: and ice cream. You know, there's something that your memory
Speaker 1: and that's what I think it does. So starting out
Speaker 1: with saying that you're going to be my guest on
Speaker 1: a podcast about food, without you know, any interests, we've
Speaker 1: already talked about food and your mother and food and
Speaker 1: your kids and food and your wife and you know,
Speaker 1: and home. So it is meaningful, isn't it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it does have a place in our lives one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: I don't you know.
Speaker 2: This is something we Yeah, I think it would be
Speaker 2: impossible to ignore. It's how we spend time together. It's
Speaker 2: how we care for each other. It's moved from something
Speaker 2: we did for survival to something that's more about community.
Speaker 2: It's a way of expressing generosity. You know, I'm really
Speaker 2: into dogs, and I now see that my dogs occasionally
Speaker 2: when they first when they were first together and introduced
Speaker 2: to each other, they used to guard their food and
Speaker 2: get angry at each other. Now occasionally they share their food.
Speaker 2: It's kind of how they express love. Like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: accepting it as part of the pack or the herd
Speaker 2: or whatever the term is. But yeah, it's absolutely and
Speaker 2: anything that brings us together that we can share in
Speaker 2: it requires artisanship and skill and we're giving something to
Speaker 2: someone else and you can celebrate it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 2: there's just no getting around it. And you're going to
Speaker 2: forget more about this and I'm ever going to now.
Speaker 1: I think it also talks about culture, doesn't it. You're
Speaker 1: describing walking around a foreign city with your kids, and
Speaker 1: the image of that is keeping them safe, being together
Speaker 1: and then experience. I don't know if you do when
Speaker 1: you travel, But do you enjoy travel? Do you like
Speaker 1: going to a city that is mysterious or you have
Speaker 1: to learn about? Are you are you an explorer? Or
Speaker 1: do you do prefer home? Oh?
Speaker 3: I do, And I'm fortunate that you know.
Speaker 2: Now we get to do a lot of wonderful things
Speaker 2: with our kids, and we go to great places. I
Speaker 2: spent so much time kind of molesting the earth because
Speaker 2: of what I did professionally. I think I've been on
Speaker 2: the road probably one hundred and fifty plus days a
Speaker 2: year for the last thirty years. And I'm slowing down
Speaker 2: now since COVID. I've decided I'm not going to travel
Speaker 2: as much. But yeah, I mean it's very simple. Do
Speaker 2: I enjoy travel? Are my kids with me? That means,
Speaker 2: you know, if my kids aren't with me, it's fine.
Speaker 2: I stay nice places, I mean, interesting people, I like working.
Speaker 2: If my kids are with me, it means it's going
Speaker 2: to be a lot of highs and a lot of lows.
Speaker 2: It's but the highs are the highs are worth it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the general observation I have around people ask
Speaker 2: me what's the difference between living in Europe and living
Speaker 2: in the US. I still think the US is the
Speaker 2: best place to make money, but I think Europe is
Speaker 2: the best place to spend it. And part of that
Speaker 2: is food. There's just more of a you walk into
Speaker 2: a restaurant, people want you to slow down. There is
Speaker 2: more artisanshipping around food here. I think it's a bigger
Speaker 2: part of the culture generally speaking, but that's part of it.
Speaker 2: And I'm in a stage in my life where I
Speaker 2: want to, you know, not slow down to a ton,
Speaker 2: but I do want to slow down, and some of
Speaker 2: that is longer meals.
Speaker 1: I think that when you go to you know, I
Speaker 1: was in Paris recently and I was staying with a friends,
Speaker 1: so I bought a sea bass and I was in
Speaker 1: the taxi cab getting there and then taxi driver said,
Speaker 1: you know, what have you got And I said, I
Speaker 1: just got a sea bass, and he started telling me
Speaker 1: about the way to cook it. And I thought. We
Speaker 1: talk about cities having a culture of food and how
Speaker 1: Australia is so exciting because of the food culture, and
Speaker 1: La has a food culture. But when you get actually
Speaker 1: somebody who's just grown up with the smell of a
Speaker 1: bass and knowing to cook it and a kind of
Speaker 1: salt or talking about it, I think that person has
Speaker 1: been brought up with a culture of food. Did your
Speaker 1: grandmother was she part of your life?
Speaker 2: They weren't in my life. They're all gone by the time,
Speaker 2: and my parents and this is a good thing. Smartest
Speaker 2: Ang Aberta was being born in America. My parents immigrated
Speaker 2: from Scotland and England when they were young, and I
Speaker 2: was born in San Diego, but I didn't have any
Speaker 2: family around.
Speaker 1: Did your father cook?
Speaker 2: Oh no, My father was raised in depressionaire of Scotland
Speaker 2: and knew nothing. You know, absolutely no. I think a
Speaker 2: big part of the reason he's been married and divorced
Speaker 2: four times is that he couldn't survive without someone taking
Speaker 2: care of him. So no, there was We're the least
Speaker 2: my at least my meeting family as the least culinary
Speaker 2: adept family you're probably going to run across.
Speaker 3: So now my father doesn't cook.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe is excited to announce the return of
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Speaker 1: dot co dot k. When you left home, you're just
Speaker 1: describing very movingly coming home to your mother and her
Speaker 1: making you the roast. But when you were living in apartments,
Speaker 1: so you were, you know, just starting out or you
Speaker 1: had an independence was would you just eat out all
Speaker 1: the time?
Speaker 2: So food for me again, for me growing up, I
Speaker 2: played sports, but my problem was I was too skinny,
Speaker 2: and so, like I said, when I joined Crew at UCLA,
Speaker 2: I was put on a diet where I was supposed
Speaker 2: to eat eight packs of ramen, six bananas a day,
Speaker 2: these protein shakes.
Speaker 3: I was just over.
Speaker 2: They told me you got to massively increase your calorie intake.
Speaker 2: And I joined a fraternity at UCLA, and the fraternity
Speaker 2: was mostly young men from the San Fernando Valley who
Speaker 2: came from affluent homes, and during rush week, they would
Speaker 2: all talk about how awful the food was. And I
Speaker 2: got there and I thought the food was amazing. So
Speaker 2: it's all about your benchmark, the fact that there was
Speaker 2: someone cooking for us and it was like reasonable food.
Speaker 2: I thought it was just incredible. So I think a
Speaker 2: lot of it is just your expectations. But my first
Speaker 2: experience with food was in the fraternity where a woman
Speaker 2: in mean gene the cooking machine is what we called her.
Speaker 2: I remember thinking the food was amazing.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what it?
Speaker 3: Oh? It was really basic.
Speaker 2: I mean it was like pancakes and pastrami sandwiches. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're cooking food for one hundred and ten twenty one
Speaker 2: year old men. I mean this was not this was
Speaker 2: not this was not the River Cafe was. This was
Speaker 2: how do I get these men fed and back to
Speaker 2: school on as little money as possible? And like I said,
Speaker 2: I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I
Speaker 2: thought the food was amazing. And while all my friends
Speaker 2: from affluent households, whose mothers were probably wonderful cooks, thought
Speaker 2: it was just I thought it was amazing. They did
Speaker 2: not think. So it's all your benchmarkts, like, what's your
Speaker 2: secret to a good marriage? Low expectations?
Speaker 3: Right, So.
Speaker 1: I don't know what do you think about low expectations.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine had trouble with her mother, and
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know you're going to visit. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe she'd just lower your expectations. And she said, I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want to lower my expectations.
Speaker 1: I want those expectations to stay there.
Speaker 2: I find my relationships got a lot better, especially.
Speaker 1: When you love it them.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just so my dad.
Speaker 2: We haven't talked about my dad. My dad wasn't what
Speaker 2: i'd call and especially engaged. Father divorced four times, moved
Speaker 2: away when he and my mom got divorced. I saw
Speaker 2: him kind of on holiday. It's not that engaged in
Speaker 2: my life. But he was also a much better father
Speaker 2: to me than his father was to him, which, when
Speaker 2: you think about it, that is the basis of evolution. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you check a big box when you're better to your
Speaker 2: kids than your parents were to you, because that's your model.
Speaker 2: And I just decided at some point, rather than keeping
Speaker 2: score around whether my dad could have been a better
Speaker 2: dabd or not, imagine like what kind of son do
Speaker 2: I want to be? Yeah, and the answers I want
Speaker 2: to be a generous and loving song. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to stop keeping score. And I find that stopping putting
Speaker 2: away the scorecard with it's your friends, your mates, your parents,
Speaker 2: your relationships gets much much healthier when you decide what
Speaker 2: kind of friend, partner, spouse, son do I want to
Speaker 2: be and put away the scorecard because it's human nature
Speaker 2: to inflate your contributions and deflate theirs, and so you're
Speaker 2: always going to be unhappy, or I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people would be unhappy. And my life has just
Speaker 2: gotten so much better when I think to myself, I'd
Speaker 2: like to be just a generous, awesome friend and be supportive.
Speaker 2: And if I'm on the right side of things, that's okay.
Speaker 2: If I can contribute more than I get from it,
Speaker 2: that's nice. Now for relationship becomes abusive, you're getting nothing
Speaker 2: from it. I'm also a big believer in pairing relationships.
Speaker 2: I don't think you have to collect and always maintain
Speaker 2: every relationship. But yeah, it's the scorecard. I don't want
Speaker 2: to call it low expectations, but just deciding who you
Speaker 2: want to be in that relationship and putting away the
Speaker 2: scorecard's been hugely beneficial to me.
Speaker 1: Listening to you speak and listening you know, actually most
Speaker 1: nights or most mornings you do really do talk a
Speaker 1: lot about the importance of love and of friendship. In
Speaker 1: the restaurant, it's kind of equalizer when somebody comes in
Speaker 1: and they sit down at the table, and I always
Speaker 1: say to the waiter, just imagine that somebody might have
Speaker 1: saved uptingham here, or they might have had a loss
Speaker 1: before they walked in, or they might have gotten lost,
Speaker 1: or there's so many things that happened to in a
Speaker 1: restaurant that you watch the dynamic of people sitting together.
Speaker 1: Most people are really grateful, but being there, you know,
Speaker 1: they thank me or they thank the waiter, but it
Speaker 1: creates a kind of immediate intimacy. I think sometimes sitting
Speaker 1: down and sharing food.
Speaker 2: I think your restaurant does. And I do think that
Speaker 2: small businesses are the closest thing you're going to have
Speaker 2: to children that are inorganic, and that is you conceive them.
Speaker 2: They look, smell, and feel like you. And your restaurant
Speaker 2: is sort of a three dimensional, inorganic version of you, right,
Speaker 2: And I think people feel that. And I think the
Speaker 2: successful retail establishments and restaurants all have one thing in
Speaker 2: common and successful small companies, and that is the owner
Speaker 2: or the largest shareholder is there observing everything.
Speaker 3: And I feel that.
Speaker 2: And granted, I'm fond of you, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: air to the side of compliments here, but that place
Speaker 2: feels bright, it feels optimistic, it feels loving. You know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of you. And those are the businesses that
Speaker 2: really thrive is you can kind of get a sense
Speaker 2: for the founder in their DNA. I mean, it's the
Speaker 2: closest thing we have to kids that aren't our kids.
Speaker 2: When you start a business, because you're in.
Speaker 3: Charge of it.
Speaker 2: You decide what resources it's going to get or not yet.
Speaker 2: You decide what it's going to kind of look like,
Speaker 2: what's going to where, and then it takes on a
Speaker 2: life of its own, and some of it you can
Speaker 2: can't control. Sometimes it disappoints you, sometimes it delights you.
Speaker 2: But I didn't have kids still later in life, and
Speaker 2: I also my business is with the closest thing I
Speaker 2: had to children.
Speaker 3: In terms of that kind of reward and occasional disappointment.
Speaker 1: Which business did? Must that meaningful to you?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I started right out of business school. I started a
Speaker 2: strategy firm, and then I started an analytics company, and
Speaker 2: then I started an e commerce company. I've started a
Speaker 2: bunch of companies. Some of work, some haven't. But when
Speaker 2: you're looking back on them, they really do reflect your personality.
Speaker 2: I mean, I look at these companies and for better
Speaker 2: or for worse, they were sort of this legal corporate
Speaker 2: embodiment of my values. There's just no and I'm sure
Speaker 2: that's true of you know. I think I think Amazon
Speaker 2: still very much reflects who Jeff Bezos is my way.
Speaker 2: What do you mean, Well, I think he's I think
Speaker 2: he's very hard charging. I think he's a very demanding person.
Speaker 2: I think he's willing to take these enormously bold risks.
Speaker 2: And I think the culture at Amazon very much reflects
Speaker 2: reflects him. That Levi Strauss and Company, the Hawes family
Speaker 2: were very paternal and maternal, and the company felt that way.
Speaker 2: It was the first company to have a domestic partner benefits.
Speaker 2: They refuse to segregate their factories in the South. They
Speaker 2: used they used to get people Fridays off in the
Speaker 2: summer and try and nudge them to spend time with
Speaker 2: their family. And that was kind of a Hawes family.
Speaker 2: That was the founders. Those are the people in charge.
Speaker 1: But those values do go through, you know, they do
Speaker 1: keeping those values and how old Levi's is or you know,
Speaker 1: the River Cafe we started with six tables. And you've
Speaker 1: talked about your first business. But you do, once they're there,
Speaker 1: you really try and keep them there, don't you. You know,
Speaker 1: no matter when you grow, and it's harder sometimes the
Speaker 1: more you grow and the bigger you are. How you
Speaker 1: keep that in our place, you know, even with the staff.
Speaker 1: It's also how you feed them. And it's interesting when
Speaker 1: I talk to people, whether they're making movies or they're
Speaker 1: working in you know, hospitals or their scientists. Is how
Speaker 1: do you feed the people who work for you? What
Speaker 1: kind of food do you give them? How do you
Speaker 1: make them feel valued by the fact that you're not
Speaker 1: bringing in cheap food to give them, but you're actually
Speaker 1: one of the chefs every day in the River cafe
Speaker 1: cooks for his colleagues or her colleagues, and it kind
Speaker 1: of matters.
Speaker 2: Well, even I was thinking about this before the pod
Speaker 2: going up the food chain. When we talk about food,
Speaker 2: we tend to talk about.
Speaker 3: It in terms of.
Speaker 2: I don't know, modern societies and situations of opulence or joys.
Speaker 2: Food takes on a really important meeting in prisons, people
Speaker 2: who are incarcerated. Essentially, what they've decided is a lot
Speaker 2: of institutions penitentiaries have decided the best investment they can
Speaker 2: make them morale and also decreasing violence isn't food.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's and then in Europe they found out cats.
Speaker 2: Giving a giving a prisoner a cat for good behavior
Speaker 2: takes violent makes violent criminals much less likely to be
Speaker 2: violent because they've become so attached and it's such an
Speaker 2: incredible incentive for them, but also any incremental improvement in
Speaker 2: food in a prison I believe makes it less likely,
Speaker 2: less prone to violence.
Speaker 1: I can believe that. Understand that we've been talking about.
Speaker 1: I met Jamie Oliver. Do you know who Jamie Oliver is?
Speaker 1: I do, yes, Yeah, And he worked for the River Cafe.
Speaker 3: You're kidding.
Speaker 1: He ends a lot of his time and I'm involved
Speaker 1: in his You know, the campaign to give kids food
Speaker 1: to eat at school. Shocking that you have to qualify
Speaker 1: for a lunch by your parents. You know, we should
Speaker 1: all be thinking about how we feed our children.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you brought up a memory that I thought of.
Speaker 2: I was in the I used to leave the fourth
Speaker 2: period English in the fifth grade early to go work
Speaker 2: in the cafeteria where I'd serve the kids. You know,
Speaker 2: you put in the ice cream scooper into the potato
Speaker 2: salad and we're I don't call it a hairnet, and
Speaker 2: I get free lunch, and I would say for I
Speaker 2: would say fifty five cents a day. My mom said
Speaker 2: I could keep them money. I was very focused on
Speaker 2: money from a very young age. But yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: I mean just going to bigger, more important issues. We
Speaker 2: have government policies that basically make sure that seniors never
Speaker 2: go hungry, and I think that's important, but we're less
Speaker 2: concerned about kids going hungry. In the United States, one
Speaker 2: in five households with kids as food and secure. And
Speaker 2: we have, essentially in the US such a senior electorate,
Speaker 2: and seniors are such a powerful voting block that in
Speaker 2: a democracy, when you can vote yourself more money, you
Speaker 2: do so. In the United States, we had a nine
Speaker 2: percent increased cost of living adjustment and.
Speaker 3: Social Security recipt for Social Security.
Speaker 2: Recipients, but the child tax credit got stripped out of
Speaker 2: the infrastructure bill. So if you want to talk about
Speaker 2: capital and ensuring who gets fed, it's pretty easy. Kids
Speaker 2: don't vote and so they don't get the kind of
Speaker 2: opportunities for healthy food. I mean, they say that the
Speaker 2: one of the biggest gaps in academic achievement in the
Speaker 2: US is solely a function of kids come to school hungry.
Speaker 1: To go to a completely other thing. Your concerns about
Speaker 1: Google and about what the information that we get, it's
Speaker 1: very crucial to restaurants to have a source that we
Speaker 1: can you know, people can find the restaurant on Google Maps,
Speaker 1: but there is a relationship between that and how we
Speaker 1: book tables, how we find it. What is your feeling
Speaker 1: about how we control the monopoly.
Speaker 2: Well, look, I'm I'm a believer that there's too much
Speaker 2: power in too few hands when it comes to big tech.
Speaker 2: That the fact that you really have no choice but
Speaker 2: to be on Google and that you know the utility
Speaker 2: is amazing. Google Maps is amazing, Trip Advisor kind of
Speaker 2: honest open reviews is amazing. I think the bigger problem is,
Speaker 2: you know, your grandkids who have this incentive system to
Speaker 2: put themselves in vulnerable positions, or pose and provocative clothing,
Speaker 2: or even be on a on a social media app
Speaker 2: where they might get bullied. Yeah, yeah, I mean you
Speaker 2: know this. You have of your business, you have your
Speaker 2: your your friends, you have your kids and your grandkids.
Speaker 2: Something comes off the tracks with one of your kids
Speaker 2: and your whole world shrinks to that kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's just no denying the evidence. My colleague Jonathan
Speaker 2: Hight at NYU has done great work here. When social
Speaker 2: media went on mobile phones, teen depression exploded. And I
Speaker 2: think when we look back on the serah big tech,
Speaker 2: which is what you were asking about, I think we'll
Speaker 2: regret the monopoly power. I think we'll regret some of
Speaker 2: the abuse of corporate monopolies. I think we'll regret election
Speaker 2: and vaccine miss and disinformation. But hands down, Ruthie, the
Speaker 2: thing we're going to regret most about this aram big
Speaker 2: tech is we're going to ask ourselves, how did we
Speaker 2: let that happen.
Speaker 3: To our kids?
Speaker 2: And a little girl can afford fir teen year old
Speaker 2: girl can go into her room and her parents don't
Speaker 2: know what's going on, and she gets bullied online and
Speaker 2: the algorithms and then she starts thinking, getting really upset,
Speaker 2: really fast at a very vulnerable age. And boys bully
Speaker 2: physically and verbally, girls bully relationally, and we put these
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons in their hands, and just to acknowledge the
Speaker 2: sexes can be different is considered politically incorrect, but biology.
Speaker 3: Does affirm this.
Speaker 2: The girl gets and this happened, and this is happening
Speaker 2: all over the world. Girl gets incredibly upset, starts engaging
Speaker 2: in suicidal ideation or ideas around self harm, and then
Speaker 2: the algorithms pick up on this and no joke will
Speaker 2: start sending her images around suicide and affirming these suicidal
Speaker 2: ideation thoughts. And these organizations don't take responsibility for it
Speaker 2: because they're monopolies, so they don't have to do anything
Speaker 2: about it. They have captured our elected representatives with money,
Speaker 2: so they're not subject to the same liability when these
Speaker 2: things happen. So our youth is really paying the price
Speaker 2: for what I'll call.
Speaker 3: The big tech monopoly.
Speaker 2: Young Men are being radicalized on YouTube, girls are self harm,
Speaker 2: self cutting, have all skyrocketed's and social aeon mobile, and
Speaker 2: they will claim that these are difficult problems to represent society,
Speaker 2: which is just bs.
Speaker 3: These are problems we could solve. We age gate.
Speaker 2: I can't order a glass of wine if I'm twenty
Speaker 2: years old in your restaurant, but a fourteen year old
Speaker 2: girl can go on Instagram.
Speaker 3: That makes no sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, first time I ever saw you was it
Speaker 1: Alexander Musaviza Day's opening of her company, and you talked
Speaker 1: about I thought so well about the fact that it
Speaker 1: is a government's responsibility to control this. Am I correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 2: I think that we erroneously or naively expect the better
Speaker 2: angels big tech leadership to show up at some point,
Speaker 2: and they're focused on profits. There are for profit entity
Speaker 2: they all want, you know, the people at Altria. The
Speaker 2: people at Exxon aren't necessarily bad people, but they are
Speaker 2: going to do whatever they can to make more money,
Speaker 2: get the share price up.
Speaker 3: That's legal.
Speaker 2: That is a cornerstone of a capitalist society. But what
Speaker 2: we've decided is that a auto company shouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to pour mercury into the river, or there should be
Speaker 2: carbon limits, or pesticides should be tested by the FDA,
Speaker 2: And so we don't imply we don't apply those same
Speaker 2: standards to big tech. And to a certain extent, the
Speaker 2: person that's culpable is the man and the woman in
Speaker 2: the mirror, and that is until we elect or specifically
Speaker 2: kick people out of office that aren't implementing a fraction
Speaker 2: of the laws and regulation and deterrence we have placed
Speaker 2: across There's more regulation inside the mic you are speaking
Speaker 2: into than there is a cross Oliver tech. And I
Speaker 2: think about the regulation in your rest around fire safety,
Speaker 2: food safety, exit signs, well lit, disability, you know, accessible
Speaker 2: for people with disabilities. I think there are there are
Speaker 2: hundreds of not thousands, of laws regulating your restaurant. Because
Speaker 2: people say, we want to prevent a tragedy to commons,
Speaker 2: we want to prevent sickness. We want to prevent employee abuse,
Speaker 2: we want to prevent unnecessary dusts from fire. There's none
Speaker 2: of that in big tech, none of it. It is
Speaker 2: literally the wild West, and it's our fault for not
Speaker 2: demanding more from our elected represents.
Speaker 1: I mean, as you know, I agree with everything you say,
Speaker 1: and I also, you know, when we won't go into Brexit.
Speaker 1: But you know, I really welcomed the rules of the EU,
Speaker 1: about the rules we had to follow, about cleanliness, about health,
Speaker 1: about separation of cooked food and raw food, And why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you want that? You know, I thought, bring it on,
Speaker 1: you know, because if I was just the owner of
Speaker 1: the restaurant, and might you know, does it cost me
Speaker 1: more money? I have to throw food away, I have
Speaker 1: to hire more cleaners, I have to get better refrigeration.
Speaker 1: But that's the deal. That's what we need and want.
Speaker 1: And so I think in this world, we worry about
Speaker 1: our kids, we worry about, you know, the future, and
Speaker 1: sometimes we do need some comfort. It seems like you
Speaker 1: have a lot of places to go for comfort from
Speaker 1: your family, from your kids, probably your students, their colleagues,
Speaker 1: but maybe you also get sometimes some comfort from food.
Speaker 1: Scott so I was wondering, if you do need comfort
Speaker 1: from food, is there something that you would go for.
Speaker 2: I have spent my life pursuing financial security, which is
Speaker 2: an elegantly I'm saying money, relevance, status, experiences, affirmation from strangers,
Speaker 2: and it was really rewarding and I got a lot
Speaker 2: of it, but it was never enough. Yeah, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: at an amazing party or New Year's in Saint Bart's. Well,
Speaker 2: I wonder if there's a more awesome place. I'm dating
Speaker 2: this interesting, attractive woman. Well, is there a more interesting,
Speaker 2: more attractive woman. I just made a bunch of money
Speaker 2: selling a company. Well, is there a way I could
Speaker 2: build a medium sized company and sell it for a
Speaker 2: crazy It was always rewarding, but it.
Speaker 3: Was never enough.
Speaker 2: And the only time I ever feel like, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is enough is when I'm with my boys and my
Speaker 2: my spouse, and oftentimes that's in the context of food.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not the food that makes it. Quite frankly,
Speaker 2: I'm not a foodie. But when we're all just sitting
Speaker 2: there together, whether it's eating breakfast or at a nice
Speaker 2: place where my kids are rolling their eyes and we're
Speaker 2: trying to get them to appreciate the surroundings and the food.
Speaker 2: That is everything we do here, everything we're doing here today.
Speaker 2: You know this podcast, trying to make a living, trying
Speaker 2: to be relevant. It's all a means and the ends
Speaker 2: is deep and meaningful relationships.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: Every study on happiness comes down to this. Across every
Speaker 2: culture in geography. Do you have friends that make you
Speaker 2: feel give you a sense of camaraderie, and do they
Speaker 2: feel a sense of camaraderie from you? Amongst your we're colleagues,
Speaker 2: do you have people respect and admire and do they
Speaker 2: respect to my you? And most importantly, across your family,
Speaker 2: do you feel an intense level of love and support?
Speaker 2: And most importantly, do you know they know they are
Speaker 2: intensely loved and supported? And those moments of still where
Speaker 2: you think, okay, this might be enough.
Speaker 3: This is it? Oftentimes involve food.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Scott, thank you soon. Yeah, come and see me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll hold your hand.
Speaker 3: I'd like that. I like that.
Speaker 1: Are you okay with reading a recipe?
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's inorganic. I don't I
Speaker 3: love it.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're necessary. Yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: foreign thing into a flow of conversation. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: you're the first person in ninety two episodes who didn't
Speaker 1: read a recipe, So there you go. I like it too, Okay, thanks, thank.
Speaker 3: You, ruth By Now Ruthie's Table four is produced by
Speaker 3: Atami Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rodgers. It's
Speaker 3: produced by William Lensky. Our executive producers are Sad Rogers
Speaker 3: and Fay Stewart. Our production manager is Caitlin Paramount. Our
Speaker 3: production coordinator is Bella Selini. Special thanks to everyone at
Speaker 3: the River Cafe.