Hi welcome to the show. Meet john mackey. Hes the coceo of whole foods market. Whole foods has grown into a successful supermarket chain. He authors capitalism. John welcome good to have you here. Thanks good to be here. First of all people are going business, ethical. You say thats a misconception. I think the narrative about business has been basically captured by the enemies and critics of business who business is oftentimes disliked flu out history. Commerce has been seen as dirty. Business itself and capitalism has been the greatest creator of value. If you look back 23200 years a go people lived on less then 1 a day. 90 they were e lit unambulance to unable to read. We had a great prosperity and its due to business. For it eats suppliers and investors. Business is good but we can make it better. Lets talk about some of the better you talk about. I think what you said just makes sense. If you didnt have a business to go to you wouldnt have a place to apply for a job. Its easier to do the demon nighing. Nigh demonizing. Conscious capitalism is a philosophy about business about how business can be, should be, and is all ready. There are many conscious businesses out there. We highlight a few in the book. Like google, trader joes, starbucks, whole foods market. What i discovered for a long time i thought we were a by our selfs come over ourself business is not just about making money. Its not the purpose of making money. Just like doctor make money but the purpose is not to make money. Journal list journalist can reveal the truth to the world. Thats the story thats drew about business. Talk to the average, not the average person. What about a person with a medium company. They turn a corner and they can see the light at the end of the corner. You dont remember the line from wall street greed is good. If i was in that position why would i change any thing. What will pot elevate me to change my business to do Something Better rather then keep making money. Greed is not good. Business has been judged by its examples of its worst practical tigs practitioners. Why do you think that is . The critics dont like commerce and they never have. If you look at the history of business they have been persecuted. Whether minorities like jews in west or chinese in the east. They have been persecuted. It could be envy Business People make more money. I tendonitis dont really know. Business has never been loved by either the elite or the intellectual. There is another quote i waned you you wanted you to address if they lose ajob. Its not personal its business. That goes back to the man it will mentality we believe business exist to make money. Business has to make money. It cant survive or exist. My body making red blood cells. I cant live without red blood cells. My purpose in life is not to produce red blood cells. You will never recapture the narrative unless we stop talking about it being about money. Doctors have to make money and they are welcome sate second degree. Thats not their purpose. Business is a great value creator. It creates value for every body who trades with it. We need to focus on purpose and value creation. We need to create chul cultures were humans the strive. Lets take whole foods. You do what you say as you say. Is it true you only take a dollars salary a year. Yeah. I havent taken money from whole foods since 2006. Why . I made enough money. Im one of the founders of the company. Thats why i believe you are different. Most with a mom and pop Grocery Store have to take payment. There are people who are also doing well who say why should i take a dollars. Im not suggesting people to do this. Im trying to walk the talk. Im talking about servient leadership. Servient to the customer or employees. Servient to all of the stakeholders. Servient to help the business flourish. Do you mean shareholder . I mean the customers, the employees, the suppliers, investors, Community Business is part of as well as the lagger envier larger environment. Well ask john the kinds of things you should look for in a company that does practice conscious business decisions. When we return. Welcome back. My guest is john mackey. He is the cofounder of whole foods markets. How many stores is it . 350. You are in the u. S. And canada . And uk. We have so much opportunity in the u. S. Sm conscious capitalism. We are saying its not like a trade off were you do good. You do both. Okay. Let me ask you about something. This turned my head when i saw it on 60 minutes. Remember molden mills. The police burned down. All of a sudden they didnt have a place to go. The guy that owned it said ill keep you on the payroll and continue paying your salary. I thought i dont own aniening like that i i i went out to buy something from that company is that conscious capitalism. Yes. They had to declare bankruptcy the guy who did the good stuff was out. If i have a business and i say i reads you book and i should do better as far as well. Look what happened to him. What do you tell some one like that . Well, one thing we point out the conscious business is preform preform preform preformed better. Tragedy occurs. In general the businesses we document by the s p 500 over the last 15 years. This is a good strategy its not a trade off between doing good or well. Its the businesses that have the consciousness including the investor investors. One thing you dont like unions. Its not a question you like unions. Our team members havent echossen to chosen to do that. Because . They dont feel like they need union representation. If i were working for a con any and some one said lets union yawn unionize what should i look at to decide if i need to have a yonon. Yonon union. One thing is if you are happy with your workplace. If you have a opportunity to get promoted. If you feel like you have been treated well. Why would you want representation. We care about our team members. We want them to be happy. We apply ourselves to be happy and fulfilled. Do they have a voice . They are very important. Our company is decentralized. We are deindividual divided into regions. Our team members are in teams. They vote on membership of new team members. They have to be selected by a 2 3 vote. You get the exact same benefits. We have equal benefits across the company. Our team members are covered. We take care of them. 75 of our team members are full time. We know from our survey if they love our plan and love our benefits and company. You dont like the president Affordable Care act. Im not a big fan of it because im a fan of capitalism. I believe we are moving away from that. Okay. So if you walk through whole foods. There are many in the area while you are visiting the area. You walk through there you have a good company. You only take a dollars a year. You have 350 stores. What do you work for. I assume the product you are comfortable with. What do you look for in the moment and dynamic. Well first of all retail is detail. There are so many things that happen in the retail store. I use to Pay Attention to that a lot. I dont have to do that any more. When i go in the stores i can feel the over all moral of the store. I can sense whether the team members are happy in their work or not. Im very sensitive to that. I sense if there is a disturbance i want to look at that more closely. Okay. All right. The book is called conscious capitalism. We want to mention whole foods and cbs 5 have been partseners partners doing the food for families. We are very proud of doing the work with your ocean organization. Every body should look at where they are working. Thanks for being here. Stay with us more ahead. 5 years a go my life was in rue inns rue bad. I started shooting drugs. The program was offered to me after being incarcerated. They set us up in a career center. Thats what life was about was getting a sense of direction having some one reach out to me when i was in need. When i first started i worked the press. I stood there for 10 hours my first day. It was fine with me. Im not afraid of work. I never thought i would be a manager of any thing. It was so enpowerring to have have enpowering. It makes you want to do good and better yourself. Over the 3 past 3 years we worked hard to meet our customers need. We helped lots of people restart their lives. We are now close to 100 employees. I hope we can help many employees and as many customers. Im a mother and grat mother grandmother. Im proud of myself. We had a great impact on my life. Coming out of homelessness into the companies family has been the best thing to happen to me in my life and it let me progress in my skills. The people, the fun, the family environment has been great. They gave me that opportunity. They gave me to opportunity and the Second Chance i needed in life to get my life together. I dont know any one else who gives people chance like this. Welcome the companies owner. Just to be clear this is a organization that helps people who are homeless, drug addicted, homeless. They had a backry that bakery. They came to you and said. We are losing the back baker bakeries. Even throw you have a background in business you are not a person that sells others businesses. You did this as a favor. Yes. It was as a favor. You bought the business. I did. I fell in love with the bids and employees and mission of the backry. Backry bakery. You knew the reason they had to get rid of it is because they were losing money. How did you figure you would fix this. I saw where they were struggling. I thought i could fix those problems. What did you do when you went in . The first thing i tried to do isry reduce cost. I wentd to went to our suppliers and said we need a better deal. We got better deals. They were willing to lower their price. There are a lot of suppliers. Just ask. You have to ask. Did people lose their jobs . I made a promise when i purchased the backry bakery. I walked into the small Conference Room and promised them no one would lose their job. Every body clapped. They were worried ability about their job. People who are homeless are grateful to have a Second Chance. If they have been using drugs and have a background were they have been incorporated did it make your nervous. I had no experience doing this. How did you get over it. I fell in love with the backry. Bakery. Over time i came to trust them. Trust seems to be very important. We all trust one another. What is their work ethic . Its amazing. These are people who are have never been given a Second Chance. They koim to the bakery and here is a business that wants to give them a second challenge r changes chance to restart their life. They appreciate that and they work hard. Is the hiring process process different . Its different because we dont ask where they have been. We just want to make sure they are ready to work. You cant just go out and pick up a cake. You do it business to business. Thats correct. All of this stuff is carried in whole foods. Yes it is. Quickly making it a wholesale item did that change with you . No. I resen fored reinforced that aspect of the business. Thank you for being here. This smells wonderful. It if you want to check out their program get the information from the screen. We leave you know with recording artist one giant leap. ,,,, good morning, im anne mako. Im phil matier. Im mark kelly. There s a lot to talk about in our ne hour good morning. Its 8 30. Thanks for joining us. We have a lot to have talk about in our next hour. Well be speaking with congressman congressman eric about a verity of issues. More then just a website. There are still more challenges. Well talk to him about that gun control control ad. Well take a look at San Francisco exploding skyline. Its like