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Nice Guys Finish Last? The Founder of KIND Snacks Disagrees | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Naiveté is one of the most powerful assets an entrepreneur can have. In fact, I think some of the most meaningful things in the world only exist because someone was naive enough to try. Daniel Lubetzky would know. In a crowded category and cutthroat industry, Daniel dared to build a company called KIND. He started with a simple question: how can we help people snack healthily without compromising their values? KIND Bars are now a household name and Daniel achieved his dream of building the culture behind the brand. A culture rooted in trust, long-term thinking, and social good. Essentially, a place where people loved to work and a company that thrived as a result. In this conversation, Daniel and I explore why entrepreneurship is less about ego and more about problem-solving, why brands are promises that must be kept, and how thinking in the short-term erodes trust in both business and society. Daniel’s story doesn’t stop at the wildly successful business he founded. The son of a Holocaust survivor, he grew up with a deep sense of responsibility to prevent hatred and division from taking root again. That calling first led him to create PeaceWorks, bringing people together through commerce, and now fuels his work with the Builders Movement. Builders is an effort to channel curiosity, compassion, and courage to reduce polarization and rebuild trust… together. Some important context, because this episode touches on peace building and polarization, is that it was recorded back in December 2025 and before recent developments in the Middle East. But this episode is about how kindness can be a competitive advantage, how optimism can be strategic, and how each of us has a role to play in building a future that’s more connected than divided. This… is A Bit of Optimism. --------------------------- If you want to learn more about the Daniel’s work with The Builders Movement, head to: https://buildersmovement.org/ Check out the products and work being done at KIND: https://www.kindsnacks.com/ + + + Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game. + + + Website: http://simonsinek.com/ Live Online Classes: https://simonsinek.com/classes/ Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/ Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek Simon’s books: The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/books/the-infinite-game/ Start With Why: https://simonsinek.com/books/start-with-why/ Find Your Why: https://simonsinek.com/books/find-your-why/ Leaders Eat Last: https://simonsinek.com/books/leaders-eat-last/ Together is Better: https://simonsinek.com/books/together-is-better/ + + + #SimonSinek

Simon SinekhostDaniel Lubetzkyguest
Mar 31, 202654mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:54

    Naiveté as a superpower for builders and optimists

    1. SS

      Where did, like, the drive for peace come from, and, and what are you doing to make that naive vision real?

    2. DL

      It started, uh, when I was-

    3. SS

      And I mean that as a compliment, right?

    4. DL

      Yeah, right. [laughs]

    5. SS

      But, you know, no, no, I mean it in a-

    6. DL

      I know. I know you do

    7. SS

      ... I do, which is, which is the ones who succeed are the ones who naiv- are naive enough to believe that it's possible.

    8. DL

      I know. I was teasing you.

    9. SS

      We often think of being naive as a weakness, something we want to avoid, but what if naiveté was actually a superpower? Naiveté describes the willingness to believe that things can be better even when the world around us suggests otherwise. I firmly believe that naiveté is essential for anyone who wants to build something meaningful in the world. My guest today is Daniel Lubetzky, and he proves this. Many people know him as the founder of KIND, the maker of KIND bars, but what really drives Daniel isn't just building a successful company, it's his belief that we can leave the world better than we found it, and he's just naive enough to believe it will happen, which I love. Daniel has since stepped away from KIND and is now working on his next naive project, the Builders Movement, an effort to channel curiosity and compassion into solutions that can reduce polarization in our media, our societies, and indeed, in the world. The conversation you're about to hear was actually recorded in December, before the recent developments in the Middle East. And because this episode touches on peace building and polarization, I wanted to share that context before you listen. I also reached back out to Daniel and asked what's been on his mind since we recorded, and he shared this message. "In this conversation," he said, "you'll hear about my life's mission to pursue peace in the Middle East and build bridges across the world, including through business cooperation and civic activism. I hope what you draw from this conversation," he continues, "are tools to navigate differences between people

  2. 1:54 – 3:46

    Founder energy and brand culture: “KIND” as lived values

    1. SS

      and even differences within us, to learn to wrestle with complex issues that have no easy answers." This is A Bit of Optimism. [upbeat music] I just met you for the first time five minutes ago, and I have to say, from the minute you walk in, you exude warmth. You know, when you meet the founder of a company, you, uh, in my world, the ideal brand is a reflection of the founder.

    2. DL

      Do you know any world where it's not that case-

    3. SS

      Oh, yes

    4. DL

      ... that the person's personality does not create the culture of the brand?

    5. SS

      It always starts that way, but success is the biggest obstacle.

    6. DL

      Yeah.

    7. SS

      And then whether it's through outside influence or poor management or any number of factors-

    8. DL

      Right

    9. SS

      ... or just taking your eye off the ball-

    10. DL

      Yeah

    11. SS

      ... or being distracted by different goals and objectives, you know, very often it starts to dilute. And so when you meet somebody who has a, literally started a company called KIND, right? And you and I have never met. All I know is you started a company called KIND, and you walk in, and you're like, and you're just like, "Yep," you know?

    12. DL

      [laughs]

    13. SS

      It's a very nice experience when it happens, and you just happen to exude warmth, which is lovely.

    14. DL

      We should just acknowledge, if you don't mind me sharing, that I came into a very warm place, and you have a lot of fun gadgets and things that made me connect very quickly with your warmth, and there's a candle that you walk in, it smells really good, and there's little tiny Meyer lemons, and there's a lot of fun things around here.

    15. SS

      I can tell you from experience that lots of people come in here, and this setting is always the same-

    16. DL

      And they haven't

    17. SS

      ... but their response is, n- it's all over the place. So-

    18. DL

      Yeah

    19. SS

      ... I'm gonna receive your gratitude and, and push it back on you-

    20. DL

      Oh

    21. SS

      ... that it's really, it's really you. [laughs]

    22. DL

      Thank you.

  3. 3:46 – 6:21

    Why KIND broke through a crowded bar market

    1. SS

      The bar category is a fricking mess. There are, it's a, there are so many players. I don't know how anybody differentiates themselves. I have friends who are trying to get into it, and it's so hard. W- was it t- luck of timing, or is it something that you did that you've become, KIND bars are one of the gold standards of the category. You know, you are one of the better-known brands in the whole category, and people, people refer to other grain bars as KIND bars even when they're not.

    2. DL

      That's a dangerous situation, but I get it. But when we were designing what became KIND, we never thought of ourselves as a bar. We thought ourselves as solving for a problem to help people snack healthfully. And even today, um, we try to think of KIND as kind, not as a KIND bar. But the deeper answer to your question is I didn't know how hard that space was, and I was lucky that I didn't think about it. And the more that I look back at life, a lot of the things that I've accomplished, I'm lucky that I wasn't fazed because I didn't know what the hell I was getting into. Rabbi Brand Lurie once told me, "Daniel, you know what I love about you, is that you're so naive." And I got furious that he called me naive, and I'm like, "Why are you calling me naive? I'm just determined and, and, uh, I'm not naive." He said, "I, I mean it as a compliment that you don't know what you don't know, and that's why you try these things out." Took me decades to take that compliment, but it's very true that a lot of entrepreneurs would not pursue the paths that they pursue [laughs] if they would know how hard it is.

    3. SS

      I think naiveté is a very undervalued asset.

    4. DL

      Yeah.

    5. SS

      And I, I fit that category also. I, I firmly believe that one of my greatest values is that I am naive. I was an, an idiot with an idea, with no following-You know, no s- commercial success of any particular note, you know, no book, no nothing, but had this wild belief that I could profoundly change the, the way that business worked, and that's all I had-

    6. DL

      Yeah

    7. SS

      ... was the naive belief that I could. And if I'd stopped to think about it for a minute, I wouldn't have done half the things I did.

  4. 6:21 – 8:37

    Entrepreneurship: puzzle-solving, luck, and the power of language

    1. DL

      But I, I struggle with, you know, every word in addition to the word itself has a connotation, right?

    2. SS

      Yeah.

    3. DL

      Like, that's why, for example, I say that we don't have employees or what I used to run KIND, I sold it recently, but I say that I, we didn't have employees, and we don't have employees in any other organizations. I don't mean that we don't literally hire people that work with us. The word employee has the connotation of a master-servant relationship.

    4. SS

      Oh, it's a hierarchy, yeah.

    5. DL

      A hierarchy that's a negative hierarchy to me. And for me, I wanna have team members where all of us are equal and are working together-

    6. SS

      Yeah

    7. DL

      ... not just because it sounds good, but because it helps empower people to challenge me-

    8. SS

      Yeah, language has power

    9. DL

      ... and to, and to debate with you and to create the structure where-

    10. SS

      Words matter

    11. DL

      ... everybody has a, a, can have an opinion. And so naive for me, I was having a conversation with Martin Varsavsky, who's a very dear friend of mine, uh, who started, like, 12 companies. He's one of the very few people that I know that have created mul- many multibillion-dollar companies from scratch in different industries. Very rare to do. And by the way, the fact that almost nobody has done it reminds me how much luck plays into it. We all think we're so special.

    12. SS

      Yeah.

    13. DL

      Luck plays so much into our success.

    14. SS

      Yeah.

    15. DL

      But he was saying when we were talking, it was, he's in his 60s and he's starting his next company, and I won't say what it is out of respect to him because it's still in stealth mode, but why does he do it? Because he's trying to solve a puzzle. And so part of what entrepreneurs do is identify a problem, identify a solution, and then try to will it into existence, and I don't think it's got that much to do with the dimension of naiveté. It's true that there's a lot that we don't know, and had we known it, maybe we wouldn't pursue it. But I think it's a greater truth that we just have the will to try to turn an idea into a reality, and it's our personality that likes to solve puzzles, that doesn't get dissuaded by hearing no.

    16. SS

      Mm.

    17. DL

      Maybe almost like you're, like, turned on, [laughs] but like, "Oh, really? Now I'm gonna really prove it."

    18. SS

      Mm.

    19. DL

      So I, I think it's a little more complex than just... It's true that not knowing s- how hard it would be helps you push through, but I think there's more to it than that.

  5. 8:37 – 12:04

    Can entrepreneurship be taught? Early rewards, risk, and cultural attitudes toward failure

    1. SS

      And I think you, you're touching upon it, which is that an entrepreneur is a problem solver, right? And I think people sometimes confuse it that an entrepreneur is a small business owner or a business owner. You know, a small business owner is a small business owner, an entrepreneur solves problems, to your point, and you can find entrepreneurs in very, very large companies-

    2. DL

      Right

    3. SS

      ... where they're mid-ranking people, but they're the ones who are pushing against the status quo, trying to solve problems, to your point, looking at the, looking at things slightly differently in- instead of just following the prescription. What I think is really interesting is, like, some universities, they teach entrepreneurship, and I've always f- found that curious, which is, is entrepreneurship a skill that you can teach, or is it a, is it a mental defect [laughs]

    4. DL

      [laughs]

    5. SS

      ... that you choose to do something with the overwhelming chance of failure, [laughs] but you think that's kind of fun, you know?

    6. DL

      It's a beautiful question that I've asked myself for so many years-

    7. SS

      'Cause I, for me, it's, it's, it's-

    8. DL

      ... and I cannot answer it

    9. SS

      ... it's my, it's, it's very much ingrained in my personality and how I approach the world, which is-

    10. DL

      Yeah

    11. SS

      ... and I still think naiveté is a compliment. You know, if somebody says, "You're naive," I'm like, "Thank you." You know, I, I don't know, and I kinda like that 'cause that means I get to start clean, you know?

    12. DL

      But going to your question about what makes an entrepreneur, can you teach entrepreneurship? I ask this question all the time because I trying to search for myself, did it come because I learned it from my father, from osmosis, from seeing him operate because he really was a consummate entrepreneur, and it sounds like you're that, too. I always ask where the genesis of that came from. I don't know if it's nurture or nature. I tend to think, if I have to come up with a theory, that along our, the way when we're having formative influences, somebody is encouraged to think creatively and that there's a reward for it. Having asked this question thousands of times of others, there seems to be something that happens in people's lives, in their early lives, where them thinking outside the box is rewarded, and they're like, "Let me do more of it, and let me do more of it, and let me do..."

    13. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    14. DL

      And it might be very little steps.

    15. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    16. DL

      And so how can we teach young kids to take risks-

    17. SS

      Mm-hmm

    18. DL

      ... to think outside the box, and to be rewarded for taking those risks? By the way, in the United States, if you look at it, the, the big picture as a culture, one of the reasons why the United States has far more entrepreneurs than the rest of the world is that we have a culture where it's okay to fall-

    19. SS

      Yeah

    20. DL

      ... dust it off-

    21. SS

      Yeah

    22. DL

      ... and stand up. In some cultures, in, in most cultures-

    23. SS

      Yeah

    24. DL

      ... if you fail-

    25. SS

      It's shameful

    26. DL

      ... it is shameful, and, and shame on you, and you're gonna bring shame not just to you-

    27. SS

      Yeah

    28. DL

      ... but to your family, and so people are like, [laughs] "Okay, I'm not gonna try." And it's so liberating-

    29. SS

      Yeah

    30. DL

      ... to be okay with trying because guess what? If you don't try, if you're, if you're not falling-

  6. 12:04 – 16:07

    America’s “declare it first” spirit—and the risk of losing it

    1. SS

      D- d- I, I love to tell this story. My... It's, you, you re- and you talk about, like, it's, it's, it's in you from your upbringing, from your childhood. That's where it comes from, the rewards of taking risks and things like that. So one of my favorite things about America, and this is historical, and it helps you understand how this country is so good at entrepreneurship and has so many entrepreneurs, which is we celebrate our independence on July 4th, 1776. Incorrect. That is when we signed the Declaration of Independence. The Revolutionary War continued for another seven years. We didn't win our independence until September 3rd, 1783.

    2. DL

      But we said we got it-

    3. SS

      Right?

    4. DL

      ... let's go.

    5. SS

      And then George Washington didn't become president and the Constitution wasn't ratified for another seven years, like 1789 or 1791. I can't remember the dates. But the point is, is, like, there's a full-on, like, you know, nearly decade, like 15 years between when we signed and celebrate our independence until we actually had it, had a Constitution, had a president.

    6. DL

      That's awesome. I had never heard that.

    7. SS

      Yeah.

    8. DL

      That's so cool.

    9. SS

      So our Independence Day, when we were recognized as an independent nation, s- is actually September 3rd, 1783.

    10. DL

      [laughs]

    11. SS

      But we celebrate the day we thought about it, not the day we had it. And that tells you-

    12. DL

      In fact, we willed it into existence

    13. SS

      ... and that tells you everything about America, right?

    14. DL

      And it's entrepreneurial spirit.

    15. SS

      It's that entrepreneurial, it's that entrepreneurial spirit with the, with the dream is, is, is ground zero, not, not the accomplishment.

    16. DL

      I love that.

    17. SS

      I love that, too. One of the reasons I think other nations don't have the, the same quantity of entrepreneurs is, is all these things, which is we're dreamers. We love people who try, even if it doesn't work out. Like, we think that's great. So then the question it raises is, like, is America as a nation, and I mean this for the past 250 years, is America naive? Does it have, does it ha- does, does the nation embody the characteristics of the entrepreneur, the risk-taking, the dreaming, the grit, but it i- is there a naiveté to the nation?

    18. DL

      And can it lose it?

    19. SS

      And can it lose it? And, and I would argue it does have the naiveté. Like, the, the naiveté that this one nation can help bring sort of, you know, democracy and capitalism to around the world, and we stood up to the Soviet Union's view of how the world should work and say, "No, no, no, we think there's a better way, and we think everybody should have this 'cause it's pretty awesome." Now, whether it's misguided or true or not, you know, and how they went about it, these are all different questions.

    20. DL

      I grew up in Mexico, so I lived in Mexico from '68 to '70... to '84, 16 years. And the narrative that a lot of Latin American people had around those times was of the United States as an oppressive regime that was taking advantage of da- da- When I came to United States, I discovered a country that I love so much, and, you know, we, we are at risk of losing some of what makes us very special. We need to not take it for granted. But still, rule of law better than in most places, democracy better than in most places, kindness, civility, respect, free markets, freedom of expression, all of them under threat, but better than in most places. And it's a gift that I don't take for granted, and I do think, to your point about naiveté, when I arrived in the United States, and most of my experience in the United States has been people that do the right thing even when people are not watching, for the right reasons. Like, which country in the history of humanity went and reconstructed all of Europe after World War II, liberated Europe? My father was, uh, liberated by American soldiers. So you had countless people who sacrificed their life to liberate another continent, and then after they sacrificed so much, they invested in the Marshall Plan in rebuilding Europe. And by the way, it paid off amazing for the United States, right? It k- helped take us to a different level. But I do believe that it was done for the right reasons, to prevent that cycle of World War I, II-

    21. SS

      Yeah, it was, it was, it was done so as to prevent them from rebuilding and becoming our enemies again.

    22. DL

      Yeah.

    23. SS

      We spent our money to make them our friends, yeah.

    24. DL

      And-

  7. 16:07 – 19:20

    Selling KIND and the founder dilemma: preserving integrity after acquisition

    1. SS

      So you, you, you're no longer... You sold KIND.

    2. DL

      I sold last December.

    3. SS

      I, so I... Are you worried that... Who bought it?

    4. DL

      Mars.

    5. SS

      This has nothing to do with Mars. This is a philosophical question. But you controlled KIND to be in your image, to maintain your values. Are you worried that it will break? 'Cause I have so many founder friends who've sold their businesses, whether they went public or they sold their companies or private equity took it over, and within a few years, the ingredients were replaced with cheaper, shittier ingredients. The culture was eviscerated, and some of them, the com- the company ceased to exist.

    6. DL

      Yeah.

    7. SS

      I know one right now, the company just shut down-

    8. DL

      Yeah

    9. SS

      ... because they get eviscerated and destroyed by these-

    10. DL

      I think about that all the time. Um-

    11. SS

      There's nothing you can do about it

    12. DL

      ... there's some things I do about it still today to try to help them, but, um, but for example, you saw I came home, and I, I came t- to your place, and I brought you KIND bars. I don't own a stake in the company, but I love KIND so much that I still give them out, and I negotiated in my contract [laughs] that I would continue being, having a allotment. That was important to me.

    13. SS

      Yeah.

    14. DL

      I care a lot about KIND. I'm slightly less worried about the product integrity because I think Mars is a sophisticated company that understands that if they do that, they'll destroy the product. But it's very difficult with the best intention-

    15. SS

      And this has nothing to do with Mars.

    16. DL

      Yeah, any company.

    17. SS

      This is a philosophical question, yeah.

    18. DL

      It, it's actually, the broader, more interesting question is the same thing that brings entrepreneurs to bring something to existence that didn't exist, where, to your point, how did you dare have the chutzpah to try to create a KIND bar in a space where-There were already so many other bars. By the way, most of the other bars are no longer in existence, the ones that were leading the way when I launched KIND. You might remember the names, but they don't-

    19. SS

      For example?

    20. DL

      Balance Bar, PowerBar.

    21. SS

      They don't exist anymore?

    22. DL

      They're, they're e-

    23. SS

      Miniscule

    24. DL

      ... I've, I haven't seen them in years.

    25. SS

      I mean, I remember PowerBar. They were kind of one of the OGs.

    26. DL

      Well, yeah, they're ... I haven't seen-

    27. SS

      Wow

    28. DL

      ... one in a long time.

    29. SS

      Huh.

    30. DL

      Every entrepreneur has that compunction to do things and will something into existence, and then they also ... I don't know any entrepreneur that does not think they can defy the laws of gravity.

  8. 19:20 – 22:03

    Brand as a promise: how line extensions and short-term incentives kill trust

    1. SS

      But, but this is part of the problem with business in the modern day, right? Which is these founders build these beautiful brands where there's very important rules of integrity and ingredients and all of these things, and these larger companies that buy these brands, they don't really care about the ingredients. They're buying the brand. I mean, we could list off the names, Aveda, Burt's Bees. I mean, Aveda was this little Minneapolis company that built this wonderful brand. It was bought by a big company, and they've changed all the ingredients, and everybody thinks because it's Aveda. They bought the brand. They didn't buy the ingredients.

    2. DL

      But they, you even ask yourself, "Why are you buying it?"

    3. SS

      You know? And so you still buy these products thinking that they're magical because they were magical, and they're not magical anymore.

    4. DL

      And you ask yourself, why would a big company pay so much money if they're not gonna preserve it? It's like this, because I noticed that upfront from other observations, we're talking about PowerBar and Balance Bar. So Balance Bar had a value proposition that they were about a balance between protein, carbohydrates, and, uh, fiber, so I think something like that. It had like a, a formula. It had the three circles, whatever. And then it got acquired by either by Kraft or Mondelez, and they gave it to a junior manager, and the junior manager needs to put their stamp, and they find out that around that time, organic is big, so they create something called Balance Organic. Now, Balance, the original bar, is a very functional bar. It looks like astronaut food, and it's very functional. And all of a sudden, Balance Organic, nobody believes it. What is a brand? A brand is a promise, and a great brand is a promise well-kept. And all of a sudden, you're doing the exact opposite because you have Balance Organic as opposed to the Balance original, and they have nothing in common. And then they launch, they see KIND coming up with ingredients you can pronounce. They come up with one called, I think it was called Balance Bare, and, B-B-A-R-E.

    5. SS

      Uh-huh, uh-huh.

    6. DL

      And then they come up with the other one because there's the keto diet, and then there's the functional diet, and this, this. And they have, like, eight different versions of Balance Bars, and the consumer stops understanding what the brand stands for.

    7. SS

      Yeah, yeah.

    8. DL

      That business went from, like, 250 million to 50 million, to my bet is that it's zero now or close to zero. I, I haven't seen w- a Balance Bar in a long time. And they trade ... Every junior manager does the same sins. Every junior manager, they don't teach you, "This is the essence that you need to respect." They teach you, "Hey-

    9. SS

      Line extension

    10. DL

      ... line extension and make a difference and be relevant so you can get promoted." And these guys get promoted by short-term results. And so whatever mess they're creating in the long term by destroying the brand, nobody notices it, because by the time it happens, it's too late.

  9. 22:03 – 27:17

    Short-termism, IPOs, and private equity: when “making money” is the product

    1. SS

      But we kind of got to this point in American business that I find a bit depressing, which is that, that companies aren't built to last. They're built to be sold, right? And, and-

    2. DL

      Well, not all. Not all companies

    3. SS

      ... uh, I mean, your company lo- how many, how many years did KIND-

    4. DL

      Question

    5. SS

      ... 'cause I would say that it was longer than most before they wanna have their, before-

    6. DL

      Yeah, but I wasn't, I wasn't being defensive about mine.

    7. SS

      Yeah.

    8. DL

      But I'll answer mine, but then we- then we should expand it. The interesting thing about my company is it, I started in 1993 what was then called PeaceWorks, and my investors came into PeaceWorks, but they didn't like the PeaceWorks aspect, so they s- we spun it off. But that same, my employer identification numbers was 13-376-6029, 'cause I used to write all the checks. I used to file all the tax forms. I used to do all the accounting. So I still remember my employer identification number from-

    9. SS

      Brilliant

    10. DL

      ... 1993.

    11. SS

      Brilliant.

    12. DL

      And I, I was doing the accounting, the bookkeeping, the collections, the deliveries, everything. Every job I was doing at the beginning, and there were two of us, then four of us, then two of us, then four of us, then two of us and four of us, then eight, and then before you know it, hundreds. When I launched KIND, I did not, I personally, I promise you, I did not think, "If only I could build something to sell." I did, it never crossed my mind.

    13. SS

      Right.

    14. DL

      And that's why KIND succeeded, 'cause KIND was just-

    15. SS

      Agreed. Mm-hmm

    16. DL

      ... trying to fulfill that vision of something amazing. But just to your question, there are gigantic companies like the Amazons of the world, they do lose their way for oth- other reasons.

    17. SS

      Yeah.

    18. DL

      But they're not trying to sell. I think the stock market has a bit of that problem when they're, you're trying to ... I, I, I think one of the bigger questions is, why do you always need to p- wanna grow, grow, grow? Because when you c- are growing, growing, growing, and you need to demonstrate that measurable growth, I don't have a better solution, but eventually you go into value optimization and things that are start destroying the brand in the, in the long term.

    19. SS

      I thi- this is the real root of the, the question, right? And I think you're articulating it better than I did, which is it's not so much about the saleIt's about you're building it to sell, or you're building it to go public

    20. DL

      Or you're building it to extract-

    21. SS

      Or you're building it to extract

    22. DL

      ... money in the short term

    23. SS

      Y- you know, and all the great businesses were built for the joy of building it, for the thrill of the build.

    24. DL

      Yeah.

    25. SS

      And if you decide to sell it or, you know, go public way, way down the road, that's a different conversation, but the number of businesses that literally, whether it's their own desire or the pressures they have from their investors, that there has to be this liquidity event, and that's the other thing that annoys me about the IPO, which is the whole reason of an IPO was it was one of the mechanisms available to an entrepreneur to raise money should they need it. You can take a loan from the bank, you can raise money from friends and family, or you can sell some of the equity of your company to the public market so that you can raise money to reinvest. But that's not what it is. Now, an IPO is a way to cash in, pay yourself and pay your investors, and it has nothing to do-

    26. DL

      Without you growing

    27. SS

      ... with a cash infusion to reinvest back in the business.

    28. DL

      Yeah.

    29. SS

      It has nothing to do with it.

    30. DL

      I completely-

  10. 27:17 – 34:00

    Capitalism’s incentive problem: Milton Friedman, ethics vs. legality, and the trust collapse

    1. DL

      That is one of the imperfections of capitalism, because free markets are very efficient, and you... Uh, the, the interesting thing for me, because I think communism, socialism, you, you see their imperfections, and they're greater than capitalism.

    2. SS

      Yeah.

    3. DL

      But capitalism, even conscious capitalism, has a lot of problems, that the free market wins, and the free market will always, efficiency will always win.

    4. SS

      I think this version of capitalism, this is not the... The capitalism that exists today is not the capitalism that made America great. This is not Adam Smith capitalism, right, where the customer is the center of the value. And, you know, what Adam Smith said, which is the candlemake- uh, the, the bread maker makes the best bread to compete with the other bread makers, and the butcher makes the best meat to compete with the other butchers, and the cheese maker makes... And you get the best sandwich.

    5. DL

      Yeah.

    6. SS

      Right? And that's not what has happened because of Milton Friedman and Jack Welch, which is they've completely changed the capitalism that we have and popularized short-termism, the metrics of, of incentivizing, um-

    7. DL

      Milton Friedman popularized short-termism?

    8. SS

      Mil- Milton Friedman was an economist in the 19th and-

    9. DL

      I know Milton Friedman. I didn't know about his short-termism

    10. SS

      ... so Milton Friedman, so it's this combi- it's this combination of theories where Milton Friedman, this is what he wrote, "The purpose of business," purpose, "the purpose of business is to maximize profits within the bounds of the rules," which means make as much money as you can without breaking the law.

    11. DL

      And your point is-

    12. SS

      And that's a very low bar

    13. DL

      ... if you're doing that, you're destroying value because-

    14. SS

      Correct

    15. DL

      ... the purpose of business should be to-

    16. SS

      To o-

    17. DL

      ... create value in the long term. That means respect the brand, respect the consumer, respect the stakeholder. That's how KIND-

    18. SS

      Correct

    19. DL

      ... became an extraordinary success. By the way, KIND created more value on a multiples basis than any company I know of. Like, from the, my early investors, like, we almost didn't need capital. We grew, grew, grew, grew because we're thinking with the right way.

    20. SS

      Yeah.

    21. DL

      We created, like, 3,000X returns for our, for the investors.

    22. SS

      So, so just, but just think about that, right? Like, the current, the business mo- and you see it all the time, make as much money as you can within the bounds of the rules. So you see these companies do horribly unethical things, 'cause ethics is a higher standard than the law.

    23. DL

      But, but I think your point-

    24. SS

      And they get dragged in front of Congress, and they all say the same thing, "We broke no laws."

    25. DL

      But to take it away from just the moral compass, to take it into the business compass, your point is right because by playing that game, in the long term, you're destroying value.

    26. SS

      Yes.

    27. DL

      By playing that game, people don't trust your brand, they don't trust your business, and they don't trust the system.

    28. SS

      And I think this is where we have to take a hard look at capitalism. And I'm not talking about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But you see the rise of populism on the left and the right.

    29. DL

      Yeah.

    30. SS

      Whether it's Bernie Sanders or, um, Mondani or, or Trump, it doesn't matter if you're on the left or right of the political spectrum. You see the rise of populism that is mistrustful of the institutionalized powers that be, right, and the status quo, and rightfully so.Because we have traded what Goldman Sachs used to call long-term greed, which was totally fine, with short-term greed. It's not so Pollyanna and idealist that there's no such thing as greed. The reason communism fails is because humans are greedy, right? But to believe in long-term greed, which is how can we build a company that will outlast us for the good of the long term, you actually make really good decisions.

  11. 34:00 – 36:45

    A debate on layoffs: efficiency vs. using layoffs as a business model

    1. DL

      May I, may I challenge you for a second?

    2. SS

      Yeah, please.

    3. DL

      I, I... We agree 100% on the fact that if you build a brand for the long term and do the right thing for the long term, that's how you create enduring value, and what you're doing for short term, you're actually destroying value.

    4. SS

      Right.

    5. DL

      We agree on that. On the thing about the layoffs, I ask myself this question all the time because I notice it happening. I get proposals for me to invest in these roll-ups, and I struggle because, to your point, there's no value being created or added. And my, my answer is, "Well, why don't we do, to the extent that we consolidate, let's make it in a positive way where we create a brand that people can trust and help empower the small business entrepreneurs for them to become stronger and be part of the family and create the culture to that." I struggle with that. But broadly speaking, unlike you, I don't oppose layoffs because I notice what happens when industries are not efficient and that doesn't happen, then your own lunch will be eaten by others. In other words, what's happening in Europe, Europe resists the layoffs and it's slowly but surely gonna die, because it, in that... That's what I, that's what I struggle with-

    6. SS

      Look, look, look, look

    7. DL

      ... a competitive market system, that at some point somebody else is gonna be, and the Chinese most likely will be, more ruthlessly efficient, and how are you gonna compete?

    8. SS

      My friend Bob Chapman would say that an over-reliance on layoffs is proof of a poor business model.

    9. DL

      100%.

    10. SS

      Right? And so it's not that I'm against layoffs, because sometimes companies are stupid and over-hire. I mean, we saw it during COVID. The number of businesses that because, you know, and they s- they thought this would survive and last forever, and so they over-hired, the numbers corrected, and there's no way you can sustain the business, right?

    11. DL

      Yeah. Your point is you shouldn't have layoffs as your business model.

    12. SS

      You shouldn't have layoffs as your business model, and to embrace-

    13. DL

      I agree

    14. SS

      ... layoffs on an annualized basis, y- y- you know, and the, my standard line is, you know, "We missed our arbitrary projections, so in order to make the numbers work, you get to lose your job."

    15. DL

      Yeah.

    16. SS

      "Our arbitrary projections. We're profitable, not as profitable as we promised."

    17. DL

      Well, you're gonna have a lot of not fun in the coming years.

    18. SS

      And the r- people ignore the ripples. Great, you got a little... One of the companies, a big tech company, made the announcement that we're gonna lay off 10,000 people, we're gonna do 1,000 people every month. How much productivity do you think there was that year?

    19. DL

      Yeah.

    20. SS

      The stupidity of the, even that strategy. And we incentivize HR leaders. An HR leader is supposed to be the voice of the people at the, at the, at the, at the desk of the C-level executives, the voice and the champion of the people. Nope.We incentivize too many HR leaders. They get their bonus for, for doing the layoffs efficiently.

    21. DL

      Yeah. Yeah, that's a-

    22. SS

      And we eviscerated even the concept of what the value from the resource is

    23. DL

      And the culture and the, and yeah, no, I think-

    24. SS

      I'm getting very heated. [laughs]

    25. DL

      [laughs]

  12. 36:45 – 41:11

    How KIND built trust internally: ownership, transparency, and replacing yourself

    1. DL

      I agree with what you said in the business world because it reminds me of why, like something that I observed, um, in the market world that bothered me and that I think we did differently that, that is connected to your same philosophy is in most of corporate America, there is no trust in the system, and they fire you, which means you're given two weeks notice, but you're shown a box, that you put in the stuff in your box, and you're shown the door 'cause you're not trusted to be there. And I observed there was a very, very big problem in that model at KIND because everybody that do- took the struggle to bring into our team and taught them our culture, and they taught us, and we worked and built together, m- maybe in my entire existence, there were three examples out of thousands of people that I hired. There were ... It actually merited showing them-

    2. SS

      Sure

    3. DL

      ... the door because-

    4. SS

      Time to graduate

    5. DL

      ... they engaged in illicit behavior, or they were, they really crossed a line that-

    6. SS

      Yeah

    7. DL

      ... really engaged in stuff that was completely inappropriate. But it's three people out of thousands.

    8. SS

      Yeah, of course.

    9. DL

      In the vast major situations, the reality is that most times when things don't work hard is because you failed to communicate with your team member, and that because you failed to create a bond of trust so that people can communicate one another. I don't know if you found this to be true, but almost always, if you share feedback early on-

    10. SS

      Yeah

    11. DL

      ... the person can course correct and fix it.

    12. SS

      Yeah.

    13. DL

      So the essence for a higher order work environment is to create trust.

    14. SS

      Yeah.

    15. DL

      'Cause if you create trust, you can create open communications.

    16. SS

      Yeah.

    17. DL

      If you create open communications, you have much less likelihood that things don't work out.

    18. SS

      Yeah.

    19. DL

      That means, for example, that instead of firing people, showing the door, we had a system at KIND where if you were planning to leave or if we were planning to let you go, first, you were required to have a conversation and let g- let the other person know with transparently. Think what that takes. Y- it takes enormous amount of trust. If I'm planning to leave, I need to trust you that you're not gonna do something bad with that information. I'm telling you, I'm leaving in one year because I wanna go study for graduate school, or I'm gonna get married and move somewhere else, or I wanna retire. And you don't want the company as a consequence to cut you off early, which, uh-

    20. SS

      Sure

    21. DL

      ... most big companies when we try to introduce this methodology to them-

    22. SS

      Yeah

    23. DL

      ... they do the wrong thing with that information. They're like, "Oh, they're leaving. They're no longer valuable to me, and they're not gonna be loyal to me, and they're gonna sell my secrets. Let's fire them within two weeks." So then the next person won't share that with them.

    24. SS

      Sure.

    25. DL

      So instead, you create a relationship of trust, and you do it both ways. It was very weird. At KIND, every single team member was an owner. Everybody that was there more than six months was given stock options. If you were the janitor or the president of the company, everybody was an owner. A- and with that ownership came the responsibility that if you chose that you were gonna leave, not only were you needing to give us notice, you needed to replace yourself. You needed to find ... We trust you enough that if you wanna leave, you need to find your replacement.

    26. SS

      [laughs]

    27. DL

      It's very hard to achieve that, but when you trust that person because you hired them in the first place-

    28. SS

      Yeah

    29. DL

      ... they are doing their great job. And it elevates the culture so that everybody's in there for one another.

    30. SS

      Yeah.

  13. 41:11 – 46:51

    From PeaceWorks to peace-building: commerce as bridge-building in conflict zones

    1. SS

      Let me change tacks here. You're fascinated by peace. I mean, the original brand name of the company was PeaceWorks, and you are committed to Arab-Israeli peace as well in the Middle East.

    2. DL

      We're working really heavily on it right now.

    3. SS

      Where, you know, where did that come from? Where did, like, where did the desire to, the drive for peace come from, and, and what are you doing to make that naive vision real?

    4. DL

      It started, uh, when I was-

    5. SS

      And I mean that as a compliment, right?

    6. DL

      Yeah, right. [laughs]

    7. SS

      But you know, no, no, I mean it.

    8. DL

      I know. I know you do. I know you do.

    9. SS

      I do, which is, which is the ones who succeed are the ones who naive, are naive enough to believe that it's possible.

    10. DL

      I know. I was teasing you. I appreciate it very much. When I was nine years old, my father started talking to me about what he went through in the Holocaust. He was a concentration camp survivor, and he shared horrible things that I think I impacted me more than I realized. Only in the last few years I've processed how much those conversations, like-

    11. SS

      Nine is young

    12. DL

      ... for me, yeah. My mom said, "Roman, why are you telling him this stuff? He's nine years old." And he said, you know, "He needs to hear this. I was nine years old when I needed to live through it. He just needs to hear through it."

    13. SS

      Wow.

    14. DL

      And so he was nine years old when the war started, and 12 when he was sent to a concentration camp, 15 and a half when he was liberated by American soldiers.And what's interesting about him is that in spite of the horrors of what he went through, he weighed 70 pounds and was six feet tall when he was liberated.

    15. SS

      Wow.

    16. DL

      And, like, there's a YouTube interview of him, Roman Lubetsky, you can look it up on, on, on YouTube, and, and it's, it's very, very interesting. But what's fascinating about him is that in spite of all of what he went through, he just saw the kindness in others. And he lived his life with kindness, and that we named the company KIND after him. He passed away the year that we launched KIND, which was a very interesting, difficult year for us, for me. Ever since I was a kid, having experienced that in Mexico, I promised myself that I would do what I can to prevent what happened to my dad from happening to other human beings. And I thought that my singular mission back then was to make peace in the Middle East. I thought that's how I was gonna contribute, that the way I was gonna build bridges was by bringing Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Turks together. And when I was in college, I stumbled upon the field of the business of peacemaking, of how you can use commerce to bring people to trade with one another, and when they trade with one another, it shatters stereotypes because they're interacting as fellow human beings. They're breaking bread together, and then they're-

    17. SS

      And they have common interest

    18. DL

      ... and their common interest. They have cementing relationships because they have vested interest in, in, in growing together. And so I decided after law school to start PeaceWorks, a company that had Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Turks trading with one another, run by a confused Mexican Jew getting all of these guys together, running a brand called Moshe Pupik and Ali Mishmukin's World Famous Gourmet Foods. I still don't know why it didn't work out. [laughs]

    19. SS

      [laughs]

    20. DL

      Um, I made all the mistakes in the world, but I, I was so enamored with the concept that I, I, I launched a venture in Sri Lanka between Sinhalese and Tamils, in Indonesia between Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist women, in South Africa, in Chiapas, Mexico, and the concept was always to use market forces and Americans as... I'm a very romantic American, to use American optimism-

    21. SS

      Mm-hmm

    22. DL

      ... to use your words, to bring people together and help them discover each other's humanity. And that's, that's been a big part of... And I still today, after this horrible, painful war, um, we're now working really hard at PeaceWorks 2.0, trying to find a way to help the people in Gaza and the people in the envelope on the Israeli side improve their lives and start building back some-

    23. SS

      Working together.

    24. DL

      Right now, the step is just give them a sustenance and a better future and help them take baby steps. I think working together today is too much of an ask. But as a, as an aspiration, I wanna align incentives so that Palestinians, Israelis, other Arabs, internationals, everybody can work towards the same goal.

    25. SS

      Well, what I love is you're taking everything that you've learned and you know about building a remarkable brand and a remarkable company like KIND, um, and you're applying that to these, to social good, and it's all the same thing. And so, you know, I think anybody who doesn't bet on you is naive.

    26. DL

      [laughs]

    27. SS

      Because, um, there is empirical data here to show that you actually know what you're talking about. And if anybody can succeed in, in actually producing a lasting peace in these conflicts that seem intractable, I, I, I think you're the one. So this is pretty cool.

    28. DL

      Thank you so much.

    29. SS

      Pretty amazing.

    30. DL

      It's, the reality is that we have no other option-

  14. 46:51 – 54:51

    Polarization, self-reflection, and everyday kindness as leverage

    1. SS

      Attack, attack, attack.

    2. DL

      You have the, you have the most popular TED Talk out there. I have one that's nothing like that. But I, I did experience something interesting when I gave mine, and I talked about how everybody in this room, when I talk to the TED community, understands this problem of growing division and, and rigidity, but they see it on the other side. They don't see it happening to them-

    3. SS

      Yeah, yeah, of course

    4. DL

      ... and their side.

    5. SS

      Of course.

    6. DL

      And that's, I think, the opportunity that we all have to understand, that this is a threat against all of us-

    7. SS

      Yeah

    8. DL

      ... and all of us need to join together.

    9. SS

      Well, we need to get over this, this ridiculous notion that I'm right and they're wrong, because everybody thinks they're on the side of right.

    10. DL

      Yeah.

    11. SS

      And everybody-

    12. DL

      And that was partly the point you made earlier

    13. SS

      ... and bo- and both sides think the other side is wrong.

    14. DL

      Yeah.

    15. SS

      And so until one can accept that, that I am part of the problem and they are part of the solution, you know, you c- the reason for, for the, the, a peace movement is you can't make peace with your friends. You can only make peace with your enemies. And so to accept that we are part of the problem and they are part of the solution is the only way to arrive at peace, 'cause you can't get to peace with one side.

    16. DL

      I, I notice sometimes that somebody that I respect a lot does something wrong, and a tool that helps me enormously that I, that I realize that it's a super good tool, every time I find that, I ask, "How am I also doing that problem?" Like, for example, I was with a person that I admire enormously, and I asked for time with him to consult on an issue, and he started talking nonstop, and I couldn't get a n- a word in edgewise. And I have very important things to share that could have calibrated his feedback to make it even stronger. But he was a little senior to me, and so I, I just listened. But I started reflecting, "Oh my God, I'm that person 99% of the time," because I'm with team members of mine, and I need to... If I only spoke 10% less, the quality of my feedback would be... infinitely greater. Every time I notice that somebody else did something suboptimal, I'm like, "Oh my God, I must have the same problem." H- And I try to detect it and find it, and it's hard. It's hard to find. It's so easy to observe in somebody else when they're doing it wrong. It takes harder work for you to find it in yourself, but that's how we grow.

    17. SS

      It's good advice for peace talks, it's good advice for relationships, it's good advice for, for corporate culture. And I'll go back to what I said before, which is even in a relationship, you know, if you want your relationship to work or you want your corporate culture to work and you want your work relationship to work, you know, I am a part of the problem and they're a part of the solution. You know, if that's your mantra, versus I'm right and they're wrong, or I know and they don't, and they need to listen and I need to talk. If you just flip all of those, it... I l- I love what you said, I could do better at that, which is talk 10% less, listen 10% more.

    18. DL

      No, you're a very good listener.

    19. SS

      Oh, you're very kind. You've never worked with me. Um, [laughs] I talk a lot. I think out loud. That's part of my challenge. And so for me to process, I need to s- say things. And very often in a meeting scenario, it comes across as me doing all the talking, which it's not. It's me thinking. And so I have to learn that it's okay to process out loud, but I can process out loud at the end of the meeting, not at the beginning.

    20. DL

      Or create the permission structure, because [laughs] I have the same issue, but I haven't processed that as well as you have. Create the permission structure for people to understand that just because you do that doesn't mean-

    21. SS

      Yeah

    22. DL

      ... like, I- I'll give you-

    23. SS

      I s- I say, I say very frequently, "I'm thinking out loud here," because I don't want people to think that I'm giving instructions or con- making conclusions. Uh, kindness isn't just one of your values, it's the foundation of everything you've built. Was there a moment when someone's kindness towards you made a profound impact?

    24. DL

      All the time. But I'm, I mean, I feel bad to come up with a really silly example right now, but just yesterday or day before, for some reason, I ha- I was having a, a kinda like not a great moment or day. I, I was in a, how do you say, in a rut?

    25. SS

      Yeah.

    26. DL

      And one of my team members, Taylor, just said something really kind to me, and it just elevated me and made me soar. And my reflection, again, to the point that's like when I notice, like, I'm like, "Oh my God, I don't do enough of that," because I'm always running, running, running, running, and I don't take the time to thank team members and to elevate them. And if it had such an impact on me, and I'm the boss, if I could do that for my team, how much more effective would we all be? And so I think the power that every one of us has in our lives-

    27. SS

      Mm

    28. DL

      ... to make this a better world is insane. Like-

    29. SS

      Mm

    30. DL

      ... and oftentimes we, we, we forget that you may be walking on the street, and just look at that person's eyes and, and give them love and smile. And at a minimum, you've given them something positive.

Episode duration: 54:51

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