Daniel Lubetzky
Founder and Chairman, KIND Snacks
It's about recognizing that every single one of us can change the world and every single one of us with that power, has responsibility to recognize that we need to be part of the solution. And if we're not, then we're part of the problem.
Summary
In this week’s episode, Alan sits down with Founder and Executive Chairman of KIND Snacks, Daniel Lubetzky. Throughout the episode, Daniel shares his experience of growing up in Mexico, founding goodness-based business KIND Snacks, and what’s next for the visionary and empathetic leader in business.
Daniel shares his unique and impactful insights as the son of a Holocaust survivor, the joys of entrepreneurship, and the lessons of intersection between business and social responsibility that have led him to be one of the most respected leaders in the future of social entrepreneurship.
Most recently, Daniel has spearheaded the founding of Starts With Us an organization founded upon the principle of “empowering millions of Americans — tired of our culture of contempt and energized to foster critical thinking and constructive communication across our lines of difference.”
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
Best known as the founder of KIND Snacks, Daniel Lubetzky is a business leader, investor, and social entrepreneur working to build bridges between people and increase appreciation for our shared humanity.
As the son of a Holocaust survivor, he has made it his life’s work to help prevent what happened to his father from happening again. Daniel’s foray into food was the unexpected outcome of his work to use business to bring neighbors in Middle Eastern conflict regions together. He conceived of civic movements OneVoice and now Starts With Us to give voice and agency to the 87% of Americans who favor common sense solution-building over extreme partisanship and hateful divisiveness.
Daniel is passionate about channeling business forces to achieve social good. With the introduction of the KIND’s first Fruit & Nut bars in 2004, he created a new healthy snacking category. Daniel proceeded to build KIND from one out-of-the-box idea into a multibillion-dollar global health and wellness brand committed to creating a kinder and healthier world.
Through his business-building and investment platform Camino Partners, Daniel and his team partner with entrepreneurs to co-found, launch, and build new ventures (like Mexican food brand SOMOS) — and also take meaningful positions in entrepreneur-led ventures building through the next phases of their growth. Camino Partners operates on the principle that values-based cultures cement bonds between team members, build brands with character, and ultimately determine business success.
Daniel is a member of the Anti-Defamation League’s Inaugural Board of Directors. He has received awards from The King Center (Salute to Greatness Humanitarian Award), World Economic Forum, the Skoll Foundation, Conscious Capitalism, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and the Horatio Alger Association for his commitment to create economically sustainable and socially impactful businesses. Daniel was named a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship by President Obama. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller Do the KIND Thing and a recurring shark on Shark Tank.
Daniel holds a BA in Economics and International Relations from Trinity University and a JD from Stanford Law School. He is a proud US citizen who emigrated from Mexico at age sixteen. He enjoys spending time with his family and practicing magic.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
My guest today has spent his career seeking to spread empathy around the world, one small act of kindness at a time. Daniel Lubetzky is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Kind Snacks. And though it's only one of the many hats he wears, he is not only for someone who's brought good, and nutrition and food to our lives, he's launched a successful global snack food brand with a purpose.
He's also founded a wide variety of organizations from nonprofits, not only for-profits, that together contribute to the central mission of his career, and his life mission: increasing kindness and empathy in the world through human connection. In pursuit of this goal, Daniel has experimented with a wide variety of organizational types and arrangements. He's the son of a Holocaust survivor who grew up in Mexico, he has placed particular emphasis on cultural exchange, and its potential to create transformative change around the world, a regular guest on Shark Tank, and New York Times bestselling author himself, Daniel is an extraordinary activist, leader, entrepreneur, who's on the forefront of defining the ways business can create meaningful social change in the world.
Daniel, it is a thrill to have you here today on this show, Leadership Matters. You know, we get to have extraordinary leaders on this show. From the private sector, I don't think I've ever met anyone who set out his career to actually bring purpose and meaning, empathy, and understanding and build the for profit side and build the not-for-profit side like you have. It's really a pleasure.
Daniel Lubetzky
It's a pleasure to be with you. But it's also not like I set out to do it. I'm very blessed that early on in my career, I started finding out things that gave me meaning. I mean, I definitely since I was a kid, have been concerned about preventing what happened to my dad from happening and to others. But then on that foundation, you know, I built out different building blocks, and then looking back, it seems very logical, but it did take me a while I just, there were a few important formative influences that helped me figure that out.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, I'm a first generation American whose father fled Germany, big family and all over the world like you and family in Latin American, Argentina, on my mom's side, and I've always been focused on how do you harness power for good? How do we actually use power for good and I'm sure the shadows, you know, of that period of time that your father went through, were the shadows that actually illuminated, I guess, your journey. Tell us a little about your dad, who moved to Mexico for my understanding, educate themselves through used encyclopedias. He went on to become an entrepreneur himself. What did you learn from his journey? Tell us a little bit of your dad as well. And your mom better, I'm sure that it was both.
Daniel Lubetzky
They're both wonderful people, my dad passed away. My mom's still with us, and she's a lot of fun. And she's always friendly with everybody, and will talk with everybody. And she will be very comfortable building bridges with everybody. My dad was a rare human being like he, even today when people haven't seen him or met him in 20 or 30 years, when I find out that they talk to somebody that had known him, they stop on their tracks and say to me “Oh, my God”, you felt he was someone that made people appreciate life and feel very alive, and he made it a point in his second life after surviving the Holocaust to just bring light to other people, and he just did that very well.
He would make people laugh, even if they were having a bad day. He would make them have a good day. And he was the best storyteller, his jokes were legendary. I remember when it was my Bar Mitzvah. And they looked at this group of like 60 or 70 people gathered and they got close. It was my dad telling jokes and everybody in circles wrapped around listening to his jokes. But what most defined him was that kindness, and also he was an incredible self made human being with a very contained ego. It's incredible how he managed to accomplish so much and still be so grounded. I suppose you had to do that after you survived the horrors of the Dachau concentration camp and went through so much. You just have a lot more perspective but I find myself as a father, always wondering how my dad pulled that off. Because we're having dinner and I'm with my four children, my wife and I want to be a protagonist. And I want them to listen to me. And I have to learn to step back to let my kids be the protagonist. But for my dad, it came very easy. He's always letting other people shine. And he was always so modest, and in terms of what you said about his upbringing, he came to Mexico after being liberated by American soldiers from the Dachau concentration camp, and after being six months in a sanatorium recuperating, and another six months to a year, in a refugee status between Germany and France. Then he reunited with an aunt, an uncle that had come to Mexico before the war. And he and his father, my grandfather, came with nothing but you know, the clothes on their back. And he had a third grade education because the war had started when he was nine years old. So he only went through third grade, and he didn't speak Spanish or English. And he just built himself and what you're talking about with encyclopedias is that he would either buy or get gifted used encyclopedias, and the way he educated himself is he would read them cover to cover, go to volume A, volume B, etc. And he read entire encyclopedias, several sets of them, and we still have in my, in my mom's home, and he read, I don't know 1000s upon 1000s of books, and spoke nine languages fluently, and built a very successful business from scratch. And use a very rare, self made human being.
Alan Fleischmann
So how did he learn nine languages?
Daniel Lubetzky
Well remember in Europe, people speak many languages, so he learned German the hard way. One being in a concentration camp. He grew up speaking Yiddish and Russian and he grew up in Lithuania, but he did not speak Lithuanian well. Then, you know, Spanish and English you learn by living in Mexico by watching movies and you know, he spoke Portuguese, he spoke French. He learned them from doing business and from just being a student of languages and of people and of cultures and just loving life. And just, he was just self taught and incredibly special.
Alan Fleischmann
Wow, and then your dad, obviously, I got a very strong sense of your father, by your description, by the way, I'm sure we all do. Sounds like an amazing, optimist, entrepreneur, self-made success story. And then he, you know, and then flourished in Mexico. I understand that you also drew a lot from your mother.
Daniel Lubetzky
I want to talk about the word optimism. One second, Alan, if you don't mind. Yeah. Because I want this interview to share something that is fresh and different. And I don't think I've talked about optimism enough. But I agree that he was an optimist, and very different from me, because people think I'm an optimist. I think I call it an action-ist, because I am always worried about everything. But then I do something about it. You know, it's not whether the glass is half full or half empty. It's about filling up the glass. So I'm not. I don't think I would call myself an optimist because I'm always worried about what's ahead and I see things coming. That's I think one of my gifts is that I can see the political horizon and so then I do something to prevent horrible things from happening.
My dad was without any doubt an incredibly optimistic human being; he saw the positive in everyone and everything. And it's rare because somebody that survives the Holocaust, most people that survived the Holocaust, had to, they were just consumed with the sadness and darkness of how humanity could behave that way and he didn't have that he didn't shut it out of his life. Here he had a brother that he loved very dearly, but my Uncle Larry was a lot more consumed, and sad and embittered by it, so was my grandmother, and my dad just found a way to just see the positivity. So you were asking about my mom, and I'll tell you, my mom grew up in Tampico, Mexico. Tampico is cattle country. And my grandfather immigrated from Eastern Europe also from Lithuania, on my mom's side a generation before. And he also came with nothing. And he built a very successful cattle business. And my mom grew up with very, very modest means like she also barely finished high school. Nobody in my family had gone to college. And she lacked for nothing, but with the most modest definition of lacking for nothing like she, they, you know, my grandfather would get up at 4am in the morning and go to the ranch and come back very late. And if he had an extra shirt, he would want to give it as a gift to one of the ranch ends. And he was one of the most down to earth people and hardworking people I ever met, my maternal grandfather, and he taught all of his five children, those, those values.
So my mom, I think, if anything defines her is really being very down to earth. And, as one of the only Jewish families in a Catholic country, particularly Tampico, there were maybe only a handful of Jewish families. And she really was taught how to build bridges with people.
Alan Fleischmann
You grew up with her as a model. Obviously, I want to think about your story and how much you are about bringing people together. I imagine the combination of your mother and father are the lights around you that did that. I just saw you perform magic shows at a young age. You've actually kept up with it, I believe. And that you've performed in the streets in Europe during college, what drew you to be a magician, I love this. When I think of your father, I'm thinking of your mother, I'm thinking about this young guy in the streets of Europe, you know, as a magician. And then I think about what you magically created and continue to create. It has a great full circle here, my friend.
Daniel Lubetzky
Thank you. And that magic started with my dad. He loved magic. And you know, he didn't have a childhood. He was nine years old when he started going to you know, he went through some horrible stuff. I don't know if we need to go into that. But there's a video interviewing him on YouTube on my channel if people want to watch it, where he shares in his own words, a little bit of what that was like. But when I was growing up, he lived his childhood through mine, like he played with the toys.
For him, that was his first time playing with toys and magic. He just loved magic. And so he taught me a lot of what I learned from magic, so I started learning from him. And for me, I continue with that because it was a really great way to connect with my dad. And then eventually, I read a bunch of books and they tried a bunch of things and invented a bunch of my own things. And yeah, magic is awesome because there's a lot in it about psychology about understanding how people think and how people act. There's a lot in it about fun and the art of creativity and discovery. There's leadership elements that you learn with being you know, having to have the strength to stand in front of hundreds of people as a kid and and mess up. Make a lot of mistakes. And then you know, when I was studying in Europe, my parents came to visit and for them it was you know, you say in Yiddish “natches”.
Alan Fleischmann
The joy.
Daniel Lubetzky
The joy of seeing their son doing a magic show throughout you know, I paid for my partly paid for my college for my year abroad, doing shows in the streets of Paris and in the streets of you know, even in Germany and in other places. And it was a very interesting thing for my dad in particular to behold that I had the freedom to do that after what he had gone through in Europe.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s amazing. You immigrated to The States, right when you were 16? You went to the United States.
Daniel Lubetzky
When I was 16, we all immigrated to San Antonio, Texas. My dad had built, with four other Holocaust survivor friends, and it is almost like a Jewish joke. But five people that had survived the Holocaust built a very successful duty free platform where they had across the border between Mexico and the US different retail stores called diabete W international bonded warehouses and then they merged with others. And it became the United Export Trading Association, they had some in the airports and they had some in Cruces and this was started by you know, five survivors of the Holocaust and one was in charge of electronics and the other one on perfumes and cosmetics. My dad was in charge of timepieces, watches, jewelry, and so on.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing and they all got along and they stayed partners.
Daniel Lubetzky
Yeah, I mean, they all have passed away by now. But they were well, particularly my dad and Mo. And they were very, very close friends. And Suma was another person. He was a legendary businessman who also came from nothing and built a very big business in Mexico. But he was tough. Like people thought he was a bad person he was and he was just, you know, he saw the world very differently than my dad, like, he was never able to overcome, like most people that I know, I don't, in any way judge them for I think I would possibly like I've met very few people in life. And you know, I remember meeting a gentleman named Zyada Sali, who's a Palestinian businessman, and others that have gone through some very tough experiences in their lives. And then they see the world with a determination to do something good for the world. And I just love those people, whether they're black, or white, or Jewish or Muslim, that they take all the darkness, and they turn it into light, and they don't allow somebody else's racism to define how they're going to see the world, they decide that they're going to live life to the fullest, and they're going to make the best of it, and they're going to be building bridges. And in my opinion, that's the most authentic way to really transcend racism is to, you know, to connect with human beings and be an ambassador for humanity. To always remember that all of us as human beings, make mistakes and have, you know, heuristic forces us to generalize. And so all of us sometimes make generalizations that could be characterized as, quote, unquote, racist, but it's just our brains are wired to generalize and discern patterns. And we need to learn to overcome those generalizations and to try to treat people as human beings.
But as human ambassadors, we need to always try to be building bridges and connecting so that we don't judge people, you know, in particular, in today's day and age, it's very scary how people are very easily “othered”, and how from the far left, and from the far right. And all of us, it's happening to all us, it happens to me and to you Alan, and we're all very quick to judge very slow to forgive, we gathered information and because of our echo chambers that we're in, and because of the way social media serves and stuff, we think we have the absolute truth, because we are only seeing one set of news, it's very monochromatic, and it's very dangerous for society. For us to not learn, for businesses to thrive, through diversity of thought, it's really important for people to learn to navigate differences and to be comfortable debating differences without thinking that they're going to be written off.
Alan Fleischmann
And being exactly this little this idea that you could be canceled or thrown off the stage, if you have a conversation is the worst thing of all, we need to cancel the bad and encourage the good conversations where people may not agree they may have differences. And frankly, the only way we're going to come up with something together is that we have open authentic conversations, which is what you're talking about. I'm curious, you know, you started an organization called Peaceworks and the traveling for selling Peaceworks’ goods, you know, tell us a little bit about that. You came to the realization that you could create, and I love the way you describe not only for profit, you know, businesses, which obviously led to Kind bars and led to Kind, tell us a little bit of that journey. Because knowing you now on this side of the tunnel, and I've gotten to know you more recently, you have a very strong purpose, as I said earlier in this show, and the businesses became a great platform for you to recognize, amplify and do things not business as usual.
Daniel Lubetzky
Yeah, so when I was 12 years old, I learned about some of the very horrible stuff happening in the Middle East and I kind of started becoming very passionate about trying to resolve the Arab Israeli conflict from an early age and tried to contribute to it, but when I was around 19 or 20 By then I had started a few businesses on the side and learning from my dad and boring from my dad, I was selling watches in in flea markets, I mean, kiosks in shopping malls, and I had a student network and so I loved business, and I loved international relations. And a huge moment for me came when I was studying abroad in college and my first part was in Paris, my second one was in Israel. And as I was doing my research for what I wanted to do for my college thesis at Trinity, I was at Hebrew University, but I had to research what I wanted to choose from my doctor when I came back to the United States. And I came up with the space of economics of peacemaking, how businesses can be a force for good, and how businesses can build bridges and help fellow entrepreneurs shatter cultural stereotypes and discover one another and gain vested interests in preserving those business relationships. And so when structured the right way, because you can also do the opposite. But when structured the right way, business can be a very positive force for connecting human beings, and so I chose to write my thesis on that topic.
And then after I went to law school at Stanford, I ended up writing a legislative proposal for me, this was in 1989. I did it before the Oslo Peace Accords, between Israelis and Palestinians. And so then, these accords came, and I decided to take a leave of absence from a law firm that I was joining, to try to create something out of this crazy proposal. And he was this confused Mexican Jewish lawyer, going to Arabs and Israelis, trying to teach them how to work together. And they all thought like this guy's crazy. And so if you want, I can go deeper into it. But I came up with an idea for actually trying it myself. And I created a company Peaceworks to actually build products made through cooperation between Arabs and Israelis, and they were the sun dried tomato spreads, made through cooperation between Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Turks, right now, it sounds very romantic, and very that flows. But you know, it took me many, many years of many, many mistakes, to stumble upon the idea, to execute on the idea, to execute it badly, to have many, many difficult moments along the journey. But eventually, I created this platform, and that's what ultimately led not just to Kind, but for many other things that I did, like the one was movement, because I, I ended up learning about the power of business to do something positive and to have a social impact. And at that time, there was no language of social entrepreneurship, it didn't exist in the lexicon, you know, in the 80s, and 90s. Nobody, there was no term social entrepreneur, like, I sound really old when I say this. But that's why I coined the term “not only for profit”, to try to describe, I think it was an intern of mine, Julia, and I came up with that terminology. Julia Herr.
Alan Fleischmann
I love the term, “not only for profit”, and obviously, there's something pressing about it when you think about what the Business Roundtable did the last, you know, 18 months and what you see at the World Economic Forum, which I attend this whole idea of stakeholder capitalism, how do you make capitalism for good I've always talked about we have a new capitalism coming out in 2020. You know, because of COVID, the pandemic because of the tragedy of racial, systemic racism, we know capitalism doesn't work the way it's set up, but it can, but you well, before any of this was talking about how you need to have a profit, but it's not the only thing. And that, you know, it also has to have good assigned to it.
Daniel Lubetzky
Well, now I am concerned about the opposite issue, because you know, 30, some years ago, you're right, when these people were just talking about, make money, make money, make money, I felt that well, you know, why not make money and do something good. But I never and still today, do not feel that capitalism is inherently evil or wrong. Otherwise, there are some companies that produce products or services that are bad, but they're the exception in general, you know, you know, there's, there's a whole, you know, hierarchy, right? It's awesome if you can have a social mission where your business model advances a social good, and also you can be scalable and sustainable and profitable. But you know, even if you're just making gadgets and providing jobs for people, and you have integrity, now you do it. There's a lot of very worthwhile businesses that are doing really important work and providing people livelihood tonight. I think capitalism works when capitalism doesn't work is when people are greedy and oppressive and take advantage of people or are very narrow minded, but there's a huge amount of space in between and the one thing that concerns me is that now, it's almost become the opposite that now it's become kind of a fad word. You must have a social mission and check mark or else you don't have, like I see every company that presents to us nowadays, they have a quote unquote, social mission, but it's kind of like a marketing oddity. And I feel like unless it's going to be authentic, and really, really coming from the heart and purpose of stuff, you're almost better off just managing your business with integrity, but not like exaggerating a quote unquote, social mission.
Alan Fleischmann
Being true to your core, and making the market authentic.
Daniel Lubetzky
And, I don't judge. I think right now, we're in a very interesting time in society where there's a lot of virtue signaling, rather than authentic empathy building, you know, where we're trying to get people to be, to do the right thing through fear, rather than through authentic empathy. And it's very dangerous. As you know, in the Arab Israeli conflict, I saw when we're trying to shame people into respecting one another, it doesn't work, they will react the opposite and do a boomerang against you. And they will go more to the extremes, you need to go through authentic, empathy building and help people to put themselves in each other's shoes and really get to like one another, there's a lot to like about humanity. And we should do it that way, rather than through fear, because it's much more long lasting, if people are building those ideas up.
Alan Fleischmann
People want to be inspired to that's the other thing. They want hope and we want inspiration, at least many of us do. Most people do, I hope. Yeah. Tell us a little bit. Yeah. The origins of, of, you know, Be Kind and your, your movement there. I mean, how did that begin?
Daniel Lubetzky
So I was doing Peaceworks, I was making all the mistakes, you can imagine I was so in love with the concept that I was starting ventures in Sri Lanka, between St. Louis in tunnels and in Indonesia, between Muslim Christian and Buddhist women and in South Africa and in Mexico and all these ventures. But I was not focusing, I was not disciplined, I was not investing deeply into any of these ventures, it was a very small company and it never surpassed $3 million dollars in revenues. And for many years I, I was at a million doesn't go up and down and up and down. And I could barely, you know, make payroll or pay myself at a $24,000 salary. And sometimes I couldn't pay myself the $2,000 salary per month. And I kind of figured out the food space. And I felt very frustrated with my own snacking options.
This was like late 90s, early 2000s, I would be crisscrossing the country selling to all the different specialty shops or natural shops, or spending long days in my office without a healthy snack that he could feel good about eating. And that's how I had the idea for what became the Kind bar. And because of the Peaceworks experience I had kind of really drawn so much meaning from the socialization. So when we were trying to conceive of Kind, I wanted to find a way for Kind to fit into what I wanted to do. And we came up with a mission of her doing the kind thing for your body, your taste buds and your world. And so doing the kind thing for your body is about healthy snacking, nutritionally dense ingredients is your number one ingredient in everything you make with almonds, or cashews or whole grains or whole foods is your number one ingredient. Kind to your taste buds, it has to taste good for people to want to buy it again. And kind to the world was about trying to increase empathy in the world and about trying to foster kindness and respect with one another. And that's how the Kind movement was born, how I ended up creating Empatico and a lot of other initiatives.
Alan Fleischmann
How long after you launched Kind did you realize it was this intuition, this instinct of combining those three values that were really a strong value proposition as well.
Daniel Lubetzky
Well, it drove my team and I from day one, but we had many, many discoveries and mistakes along the way, and one of the most interesting insights about it is that at the beginning, we saw our social mission as us doing kindness to others and we were a small motley crew trying to do small kind acts to our community. So we would like one day to carry umbrellas and let people go from their cars in between the grocery shops. Another time we offered massages, you know in a random place and other times, we really were ourselves carrying groceries for people that needed that would. That's how we were manifesting the qi thing, and when it really unlocked something special is when we realized, instead of us doing this, why don't we unlock and unleash that from all of our community, because our consumers were people that were very blessed, that had a better socio economic situation.
That’s when we realized, that's when we realized that kindness is a beautiful magical force, because it doesn't just make the lives better of those receiving the kind act, it also improves the lives of those giving the kind act. It makes you, the person doing the kind that gets as much out of the experience as the person receiving the kind of you feel better, it makes your day to be able to help somebody. And when we discovered that, and we discovered the power of our community being the force for change, suddenly, we were the catalyst. And then instead of having 10, or 15, or 20, people making a difference, we have tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands, and millions being part of building a movement. And that's how the movement was born. I mean, it took many years to figure those things out.
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM Radio, I'm here with an extraordinary, inspirational entrepreneur, business leader, founder of many movements, not just Kind and Kind bars, which we enjoy at my home, Daniel Lubetzky, you are really inspiring because you, you infuse the best of good, and doing good, you know, doing well and doing good are often seen as separate things. I'm curious as an employer, myself, as someone who advises CEOs, on a regular basis, the biggest challenge is often creating a culture from within, and hiring the people that have your values, you know, understand that you're not just trying to make profit, but you're trying to make good at the same time. You had a pretty high bar, I imagine finding the people that shared your vision, and then collectively building a massive company with employees has to be one of your biggest challenges. How do you do that?
Daniel Lubetzky
Definitely, building a culture is one of the most important and elusive things because it's not concrete, you know, it's not like, Okay, this products gonna have 40 grams, and it's gonna have these colors, it's a much more intangible goal, and it is probably the most important goal that a leader can set out for themselves. And it also was a journey that took us many, many years to figure it out. I think it starts with a recognition that the founder or CEO, the leader of the company, is going to have a disproportionate impact in setting the values and tone and culture of an organization. And it's very interesting if you go and meet a founder of any company that has a founder and CEO. And then you write down what personality traits they have. And then you look at their company, and you want to write down what personality traits they have. They're the same. Like, if you look at Danny Meyer, who created–
Alan Fleischmann
We've had him on the show a few times, actually.
Daniel Lubetzky
For me, it's really interesting, because he and I liked each other from afar, but I love his restaurants. And then one day I went deep with them and started getting to know them. And it was so fascinating for him to see that the traits of his restaurant group were the traits of his personality, they really were one on the same. It's not like Union Square Hospitality was, you know, open and kind and servant mentality to really treat your guests with enormous respect. That's who he was. It literally is how his personality was defined. And you go, you know, to Howard Schultz at Starbucks, and you go to a ton of different incredible leaders that you meet, and then you get to know them, and you get to know their companies and you realize that there really are the cultures and personalities are one in the same.
And it also sometimes happens with less savory characters who are CEOs that don't have the right value set. And then you look at their companies. And you're not shocked that the way that they're conducting themselves is with amoral standards because they're the founders may have that disposition. And so, for a leader and a founder or CEO is really important for you to remember that people are like when you're a parent, they're going to do as you do not as you say, and if you handle yourself with intact equity and with humility and acknowledge that you're making mistakes like I, I hate when people call me the Kind guy because I'm a human being I sometimes make mistakes. And but if I raise my voice or I do the team member with a standard that I think was not the right one, I try to be introspective and, and apologize, and I created a culture where when they saw that I did that then other people did that and when I treated the janitor the same way that as I treated the President of the company, then everybody understood that there was what to be expected.
And the most important thing is how you conduct yourself, is the most important. or not, then you need to be more purposeful. And as we started growing, I made sure that I met every single person that joined the company. And we still have today, a quarterly meeting where any new team member that joins, we have like a couple hours an hour and a half with me and the new team members where we talk and have fun and joke around. But then we also talk a little bit about what is expected and what's different at Kind from other companies and what are our value sets and set of expectations. And you do need to have purposeful things like your set of values printed out and shared with a team and I try to continue investing. But above all, it is just leading by example, and trying your best to reflect, you know, for me what's important at Kind is curiosity, respect, encouraging hearty debate without judging others, avoiding party politics, or petty politics of backstabbing. Transparency is a very important value.
We just tried to make sure that we projected, you know, something very interesting for your listeners that are business leaders. Most of us when we're hiring, we're very purposeful about making sure that the skills match the job. And we're not sufficiently thoughtful about the values, and what I've encouraged my team is that we set out with clarity to make sure that when we're identifying people, they fit into the values that we want to aspire to continue becoming because if you start allowing, you know, okay, well, this person's not great on values, but they're really impressive on sales. It's a very dangerous path to go on.
Alan Fleischmann
That's the thing, that'd be I'm sure you've codified it, you said you have the values, you share them, you review them now, and then you at the top lead by example. But I imagine for you to create a culture that you've created, or you and your team have created, you had to you had to come up with your own codes, I guess your own, you know, you may be the most talented person in the world, but you're not gonna be the most talented or successful person here at Kind, because we know you have to be the most talented person in the world who happens to share our values as well. I'm sure that there are people who didn't make it through as you're just as you were suggesting, as well.
Daniel Lubetzky
But I wouldn't even say that I saw it that way. I think, I think in a narrow way, you're right, there were people that would have had one particular skill set but they didn't have the others. But for me, talent is all together, right? And let's talk about sales leaders. You can have a person that is super, super sweet and super, super nice. But they don't have that hard work ethic or they don't drive, you know, they're always nice to the buyer, and they give the buyer whatever they want. And they're very good at building human relationships, but they don't they're not good negotiators. Or they'll get Okay, that's fine. That's That's one side of the spectrum, then you have on the other side of the spectrum, this tough, tenacious, aggressive salesperson that doesn't take no for an answer and just goes for. But they're not that nice either. They don't build that relationship. That's also not optimal.
The magic comes when you're able to combine them and to do neither extreme and you're able to be tenacious and be assertive and beloved, that's where they really are, so for me in the space of sales, it's not it's not like we're sacrificing by not hiring that aggressive person that was also gruff and not nice. I think in the long term, the person that's able to navigate and be tenacious and persistent but be liked for it and not find not have the buyer find them annoying. That's going to be the person that outperforms and so I think you could go to a higher orbit when you demand both values and skills. And I think that it's not like we perform less well by expecting integrity and transparency and kindness, and it's a higher performing organization.
Alan Fleischmann
But would you also find if somebody didn't fit in that high performing, kind combination, if they didn't have that, that either you help them find a new place somewhere else, or in other words that everybody could fit in your culture that you were creating, I imagined we'd like everybody to fit. I mean, your goal is not just to have it work in your businesses, your goal is to make this be part of greater society.
Daniel Lubetzky
I'll say two things. First, we're about to launch something called "Starts With Us”. Starts With Us, which is about providing skill sets that are going to make for higher performing individuals, whether it's your kid in school, or you in your workplace, or a person in civil society. It's all the skills of deliberating with curiosity and relating with empathy, and collaborating with courage, which I think are very, very important skills, not just for life and for society to function better and to prevent demagoguery and extremism for reining us, but also for companies to perform better, but you're asking the question about what we will do, if things are not working out with a person. One of the things that I talk about when I do those orientations with our team members, is that the corporate culture is that you fire somebody. And for me, that word about you're fired is kind of demeaning. And so almost like us versus them talking down to people, and it's unnecessary. It doesn't mean that everybody that comes to Kind stays at Kind always, it means that we have a process. That I think, is a little bit more evolved and better for both sides, where we try to hire people like of course, if you find somebody that steals or is, you know, then you fire them, yes, you're out, get out of it. But 99% of the time, people that you hire, have good intentions, and have good values, and if things are not working out, the vast majority of times, you can actually solve them through transparency and proper communications, which for me, the values of trust, transparency, and communications are super important because they make for higher performing organizations.
Because if you are one of my team members, and you're doing something wrong, if I have the trust, built with you, to share with you the feedback and you know how to take that feedback, most likely, we're going to figure it out, and then you're going to stay and you're going to understand I'm going to want you to stay and all that. And vice versa. If you're unhappy with me, you're going to be able to give me that feedback. But if you don't have that trust, or that transparency, or that open communication thing, it only will get worse, because I won't provide you the feedback that's necessary. It's very, very hard to provide feedback, because people rather than taking it as a gift find it as an aggression. So there's a whole way that you learn to provide feedback. And then you learn to accept feedback. And, it works better in that open culture. But if you do that, most times you resolve things, but even then sometimes even with a full rack, it's not going to work, and then at that time, we explore if there's another place for you in the organization, if there isn't that we initiate a very transparent transition, where you can start looking for a job well, we start looking for your replacement. And we might even ask you to look for your replacement.
I mean, that's a culture that I like that doesn't work perfectly anymore, at Kind because neither is big. And there's other approaches also. But the culture that I follow with my team members is always that one where I expect your loyalty and your transparency. And don't give me two weeks notice ever because I will never give it two weeks notice ever again, unless somebody says for you know sexual harasser or something or a racist where they should be. But a true place is not somebody that makes a mistake. You because all of us make mistakes. But if somebody you know is a bad person, of course, but 99% of the time people are good people and you just need to give people a chance. We're living in a world that's so judgmental, you're assuming the worst intentions in people and that's not the world that any of us wants to live in. We need to teach people that if people are not working out, try to figure it out with them, help them grow. And most of the time you're gonna figure that out.
Alan Fleischmann
I love the idea. It's really about having faith in somebody else. And it's about giving people not a second chance, giving them multiple chances actually, to find their voice, to find their niche and to find their opportunities. And, again, if they're not doing something terribly.
Daniel Lubetzky
Without, without ever lowering your standards, just to be they're not tolerating mediocrity, you're not doing anybody any favors, the person has to have the right intention, and they have to truly try, if they start, you know, being bad apples and talking bad about the company or about their team members or not having the goodwill are not showing up or not trying, then no, of course, you need to take those measures. You know, kindness is not in any way equivalent to weakness or mediocrity, or, you know, kindness requires enormous amounts of strength. And a lot of people confuse being kind with being nice. And nice can be passive, but kind of requires action. Nice, you can be nice and be polite and be nice. But to be kind you need to be honest and have the strength of honesty. And to be nice, you don't bully but to be kind, you stand up to the bully. To be nice, you don't cause problems, but to be kind you solve problems. So kindness requires enormous amounts of strength. And so the personality–
Alan Fleischmann
Kind is also a verb. It sounds action oriented.
Daniel Lubetzky
Yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, when did they really result in a quote, you know, the opposite of, of love of love is not hate its indifference. Yeah. And what you're talking about is that complacency is not an option. Indifference is not an option, action is the only option.
Daniel Lubetzky
But the action for good not the action just for our world today, you sell a where all of us are being absorbed by bad habits of extremism and lack of self reflection and lack of, we're not searching for information, we're searching for affirmation. And we need to change that. And it's incumbent upon all of us to be part of that journey and build a movement. And that's why these initiatives are starting school Starts With Us. And you can learn more about Starts With Us. It's just getting started in the coming weeks and months is going to be rolled out. But it's about recognizing that every single one of us can change the world and every single one of us with that power, comes responsibility to recognize that we need to be part of the solution. And if we're not, then we're part of the problem.
Alan Fleischmann
That's wonderful. And so let's talk about that for a second too. Because a lot of our listeners are our leaders, CEOs or CEOs in the making. They're busy. They have families, you've got four kids, right? You've got a beautiful family, extended family, you have the business, which you're still very engaged in, I believe you've got the foundation, the Kind Foundation, you've got one voice, and you've got now Starts With Us. And that's one of the beginnings. I know there are many more things that are involved in philanthropic as well. How do you do that? How do you find me? How are you? How is Daniel, that you're such a high energy guy? You're very focused, as we're seeing on this show right here? How do you actually, you know, make it all work? Do you look at your world as a holistic one? Well, these are all parts of a circle? Or do you look at it as a divide of several, two or three quick thoughts?
Daniel Lubetzky
Number one, I surround myself with the most amazing people. And it's not a cliche, it's the only way you can do it. And nowadays, I want to start on initiative, unless I have a partner to build it very rarely do I start something without already knowing who I'm gonna start with anymore, because it's all about the people. And I'm a pretty good “ideas” person, but to execute, they need amazing partners that are better at what they're doing every day. And so it's really, really important that you surround yourself with incredible people that you admire and respect and give them the space, really, and trust and they're better at building that.
And so I'm surrounded with incredible people that really are better than me at what they do. I think that's the most important sec. What do I think the world needs? And, and that fuels me a lot and it is like an idol. It's not. It's not altruism. It's not that I'm doing it. Because I'm Mother Teresa. It's enlightened self interest. I want a better future for my children. I want my children to inherit a better world. I have the responsibility that my father gave me a much, much better life than what he got a much, much better set of opportunities than what he got. And right now our generation is in the direction where we're going to give our children something worse than when we got that is not fair, we need to work really, really hard to build a kinder world, a more respectful world, a more sustainable world. All these things are not because I'm a nice guy, it's because I worry about, you know, leaving behind something that my kids are going to inherit, and they're going to have. So it's really about thinking of future generations and then finding a way to invest in a way that we're going to leave a small little mark that's leaving this place a little bit better than the way we found it.
Alan Fleischmann
How much of your life is the Kind the company say that again, how much of your time and, and leadership life is around Kind of company,
Daniel Lubetzky
It's evolved a lot. You know, I used to spend 50, or 60% of my time at Kind, and now it's maybe 20% of my time, 25%. As you may know, we did a transaction in the last year and a half, where we sold a controlling stake in kind to our partners at Mars. And I'm still deeply involved. But now I'm also involved with Starts With Us with other ventures and stuff.
Alan Fleischmann
What can people who are listening right now do for you, I mean, do with you? But do with you right now. And, you know, getting them involved in other things they can do when they say go to the website? Can they sign up for Starts With Us? Is there something around some of the initiatives where you'd like to say, hey, you know, rather than create your own, join our efforts, and help us amplify and scale what we're building?
Daniel Lubetzky
Well, by the way, they can create their own because Starts With Us, it's going to be a platform, so it's a human network and movement, where we are going to be spotlighting incredible work from incredible individuals and organizations and trying to create that ecosystem. So there's a ton of incredible work going on and we're gonna try to leverage and grow. But it's all about starting a movement and starting a platform. I mean, the easiest step is send us your email, go to Starts With Us and enter your emails and we'll send you information. And there will be in the coming weeks or months we'll be providing to people different things they can do to work on themselves. Because every one of us can improve our creativity, every one of us can improve our critical thinking skills, every one of us can improve our quotient of less judgmental-ism, and more forgiveness. All the skills that are going to make us better in our daily lives. It's not like you're doing it as a favor to me, you're doing it for your own benefit, for me, for all of us to improve as a society, but also as individuals.
Alan Fleischmann
Wow. You know, the other day to my daughter, I have two wonderful daughters, as the listeners know, my older daughter, who's a big fan of you and the work that you do, didn't want me to go off the show without asking you about Somos as well, because he's heard about it. She's big on Mexican food. And it sounds like you're doing something again, with a purpose. bringing folks together. Tell us a little bit about that as we round out the show.
Daniel Lubetzky
Yeah, so most is a new venture that Miguel, Rodrigo Zuluaga and I launched, we're all three confused. Miguel was my head of marketing and Rodrigo was my partner, also in new product development. And we all used to joke around about how you know, there's some great Mexican food, nine restaurants in the US. But in terms of consumer packaged goods, it looks like the 1960s. Like, you get these fluorescent yellow hard shell corn tortillas that do not exist in Mexico. Like those hardshell, yellow fluorescent shells, they don't exist in Mexico, nobody's seen them in Mexico. They're an invention of large conglomerates to try to be able to scale. I'd sell stuff that has a good shelf life. And there's no problem with that. But it's just not authentic Mexican. There's 100 Other examples of things that people think are Mexican food, but are not.
And so we are setting out to create Somos, which means we are in Spanish, and it's about also telling the story of what Mexico and Mexican food is about and all the things that we have in common and all the things that we can bring in terms of joy and fun. And it's going to be a really fun brand and very high quality, very high standards. It's plant based, but it's done in a very, very high quality way. And we just launched The salsas and the unusually thick and crunchy tortilla chips. And we're going to launch an entire set of Mexican products. And we're really, really excited about it.
Alan Fleischmann
That's so exciting. That sounds so cool. And what a great way to, you know, to bring the real taste of Mexico to this market here in the US, but obviously even beyond that as well. So that was one of my, one of my questions for you. You're really young, you've had a long career and have success starting at a really young age. And you've got a long career ahead of you. You know, and it sounds like you've manifested it to really be around different, incredibly important platforms to make a difference. You know, if I were interviewing you 10 years from now, Daniel, and looking back on the last 10 years, would it be so much as now in a now known as a great brand? And, and, you know, Starts With Us, became a movement the way you described it, and envisioned it? What would be an indicator of thriving, hopefully involved at all, all the above? What would be the greatest? The greatest thing for you looking back after the 10 years ahead of us?
Daniel Lubetzky
I don't want to be too dramatic. But I will answer because I'm always transparent when people ask me questions. So my hope is that all of us together, can redirect the energies of American people, and the pattern of our society into one word, you know, when I came in, to the United States, in the 1980s, from Mexico, I loved the fact that I could express myself and speak up and share, like in the United in Mexico, you can criticize a president or else you could end up in jail. And I love the fact that you could share your perspective and learn from one another and be curious. I love the fact that Republicans and Democrats would debate forcefully, but then they would go to dinner together, and they were best friends, I find it terrifying, that we're entering this world where you assume the worst of the other, and it can lead to really serious outcomes. It's not a game, we cannot allow politicians to divide us and alienate us, because it's not just about their power. It's about the future of society and the United States. But future humanity, which is the most powerful and incredible country in the world, and we have so much goodness in the American character. So for me, what I would like to see 10 years from now is that we recalibrate and brought our country to all of its strengths of respecting one another and being kind to one another, and learning to work with one another and to learn to respectfully disagree, and then collaborate with courage towards building a better future for our community. I think that's what I'm very dedicated to do in the coming years.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, you count on me to help and you can count on so many of our listeners to hopefully join in this. There's nothing more urgent and that makes me feel inspired. Today, Daniel, I feel it's not just an ideal or an idea, you're presenting it, what it really is, it's an urgent matter, it's an urgent issue, it's an urgent time. And if we don't get it right, we can't look back in the next 10 years and say, we got it wrong, we'll fix it. We don't get it right now. We won't have the options of 10 years from now to make it work and, and your leadership and your sacrifice of time to make this work, it deserves partners. So just know that on behalf of those who are listening here, I can say I hope many want to join you.
You have been an amazingly inspiring guest, I knew this was going to be one of those shows where I would prefer it to be two hours rather than one. I'm looking forward to spending some time with you off the show, to figure out ways that I can be more involved in what you're doing. But your type of leadership and the way you're treating public, private and civil society life as one is a role model that we need to replicate if we want to have an empathetic and collaborative world. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Daniel Lubetzky
Thank you, Alan. I have enjoyed it a lot. And thank you for your great questions.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, looking forward to working with you and to have you back. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you