John Mackey
John Mackey
John Mackeyis an American businessman. He is the current co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, which he co-founded in 1980. Named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2003, Mackey is a strong supporter of free market economics, has strong anti-union views, and co-wrote the best-selling book Conscious Capitalism, which was released in 2013. He is one of the most influential advocates in the movement for organic food...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth15 August 1953
CountryUnited States of America
The world is getting more connected through technology and travel. Cuisines are evolving. Some people are scared of globalization, but I think people will always take pride in cultural heritage.
I think it's absolutely essential that the people that work for a company need to feel that they're part of something bigger - that it's not just a job.
The way most people approach business - and the way they mostly teach in business school - involves the analytical mind. It divides it up and looks at parts in isolation.
People need to eat whole food plant foods, primarily... whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. That diet supports our lives. We ought to live to be 90 or 100 without getting any diseases.
I think for leadership positions, emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence. People with emotional intelligence usually have a lot of cognitive intelligence, but that's not always true the other way around.
Food is intensely pleasurable, and people are afraid that if they change the way they eat, they'll stop having pleasure.
People in America are addicted to sugar and to fat and to salt.
I've been amazed at how quickly people can heal themselves, actually.
The way yogurt works is you take the old yogurt culture and you put it in milk. You have to put enough of the old culture in, and then that old culture will convert the milk into yogurt.
Back then, before the Internet, you had these paper catalogs that you ordered all the food from. So, we flipped through the catalogs, looked up the food we wanted, called them up, and they would show up in trucks.
Operating under the conscious capitalism model will show that businesses are the true value creators that can push all of humanity upward for continuous improvement.
If you're growing very rapidly, it doesn't matter if you make mistakes, in a way, because the growth kind of bails you out.
I used to boast that Whole Foods was sort of recession-proof. And obviously I've been proven wrong. So I'm not boasting about that any longer.
I was looking for the meaning of life when I was in college. And my deal with my dad was as long as I was taking a full course load, then he would pay. And the times that I wasn't taking a full course load, then I was off the dole and I was working.