Transcript

Building bridges to scale, w/Kind’s Daniel Lubetzky

The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet When it comes to their own wealth. Most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them.

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In 2017, a dream was hatched. A dream for a better, brighter future. Come. Picture it with me. Hello, where would you like to go?

Uh take me to Massy Hall. You got it. Shuttles instead of cars. Beautiful tall buildings on the waterfront.

Mm. Underground garbage robots. Jetson's like vision was being imagined for the waterfront in Toronto, and our guide to this glorious future is public technology advocate Bianca Wiley. There were these beautiful renderings, and this sort of idylic. looking neighborhood on the lake with someone in a little paddle boat and it was the sun is setting. And it was quite powerful because people would see those images and think, Oh yeah, that looks great.

Waterfront Toronto was designed by the Google Affiliate Sidewalk. which was invited by the city to help create a new neighborhood, but there was a very important question that didn't get asked properly at the outset. Okay, hold on, who wants that? The reason it didn't get asked was that at first it felt like everyone wanted this new development. Sidewalk.

had reached out to lots of community groups for input. It was kind of like well we'll just Talk to everybody and we'll have events and we'll signal that we care about the same things that people here care about. It seemed inclusive. But there was a problem.

There was opposition coming. from every angle, just because it wasn't coherent. It was it was too much at once. It was really too many things going on at once, so you couldn't satisfy The public. Across the board at least.

Sidewalk Labs had painted a grand vision. But in the face of so much scrutiny, it began to look more like a mirage. They were almost surprised that we were asking questions, like why weren't we just happy? You could feel them sort of being like We're here to do a good thing, like could you just get out of the way?

Sidewalk in Toronto Took a leap into the future with underground waste sorting robots. But they failed to build the most important part of their project. A bridge of understanding between them and the community they wanted to help. This is a trap so many nonprofits and aid groups fall into.

They build extraordinary futuristic visions to solve the world's problems. Without consulting the people they're trying to serve. The projects are inevitably dead on arrival. and companies fall into those very same traps. The nature of scaling a business is that you're always expanding.

New customers? New products. New markets. If you don't develop that vision with the people you're building for, that future will be very short-lived. That's why I believe that to scale a business, you'll always need bridges.

To new customers, new verticals, and new markets. But for a bridge to last. It must be built from both sides. You gotta have incredible talent at every position.

There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. We haven't made it. Just how you do it. This is masters of scale. I'm Reed Hoffman.

Co-founder of LinkedIn. Partner Greylock and your host. And I believe to scale a business, you'll always need bridges. To new customers? New verticals.

And new markets. But for a bridge to last. It must be built. From both sides. I hope it doesn't need repeating, but.

Just in case. Masters of Scale is all about Scale. And we mean that in the positive sense of scaling up. But part of scaling up is scaling out.

Expanding into new verticals, new markets. And if you want to get fancy about it. New realms of endeavor. And when you do this you're going to hit gaps in terrain that you will need to work harder to cross.

Some will be small frows, but Others will be Grand Canyons. And each time you hit one, you'll need To bridge it. A bridge is a strong structure.

Built to stand the test of time. It's also a statement bringing two places. And two groups of people. Closer together. But a bridge is also an investment.

And if no one wants to cross it. That investment. has been wasted. When it comes to building Metaphorical bridges the same is true.

You need a strong foundation. А стронг струк. But most importantly, a strong desire from both sides to come together. Without that, then all the effort that was put into building the bridge.

Was pointless. I wanted to talk to Daniel Lebetsky about this because his whole entrepreneurial journey has been deeply tied to his drive. And he's learned the right and wrong. Ways to go about doing this.

As the founder of Hell Food Brand Kind. He's created a product range loved by millions. And the driving force behind it is his desire to bring people together. This desire is rooted in a glimmer of hope. Drawing one of the darkest.

Points in history. The Holocaust. So my dad was nine years old when the war started and around eleven and a half or twelve when he was sent to The Daho concentration camp. He used to talk to us about how

When he was in Dachau and he was barely surviving when nobody was looking a German soldier took a potato and threw it by his feet. And the way he describes it was kind of like a rotten potato, but it was like gold to them. My dad used to tell me that when they would find insects

Like cockroaches. They would eat them. 'Cause they were starving. They had nothing. It was very subhuman.

And then this man risks his life or certainly his well being because he could have been to throw this potato by my dad's feet and Mind you, my father at that point. He's already looking very subhuman. He's like six feet tall and

Weighing something like seventy or eighty pounds. And The fact that this man looked into his eyes and recognized his humanity at that time. It probably gave my dad

The ability not just to in his decision and determination to to not die. This story is the bedrock of Daniel's passion for bringing people together. I started when I was eight years old.

First by watching my dad do a few magic tricks. I started doing magic shows for birthday parties and for weddings and bar mitzvahs. Soon. Daniel's ambitions went beyond card tricks and sleight of hand. When I was

twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, I remember really well Putting on a Walkman. Listening to Aba songs. And Daydreaming that I was gonna use my magic powers

to have actual real magic powers to force the Arabs and Israelis to make peace. I would imagine that I would have powers to fly and I would throw fire and I would tell them behave or else And then they would start getting along. Daniel never quite mastered. The tricky art of throwing fireballs of righteous indignation.

But he did work hard to hone his skills as a magician. Eventually, Daniel got a chance to perform his magic in the Middle East. Doing a magic show for the kids there, and it was in a very, very tough time where there was a lot of tension and a lot of bombings. And I'm a Jewish Mexican

with some Israelis by my side, surrounded by Scores of Palestinian kids who's eyes are bedazzled and full of delight and wonder. Unfortunately Creating world peace.

Can't be done with a single wave of a wand. So although Daniel kept up his interest in magic, he decided to explore other ways of bringing people together. А рот майціс он де інфлунцов економікс. In resolving the Arab Israeli conflict. And then when I was in law school, I tried to translate that theory into a legislative proposal for how businesses. could invest in joint ventures, Americans be catalysts

Two. build bridges between Israelis, Turks Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, etcetera. After college, Daniel was awarded a fellowship to write about how building business ties between Arab and Israeli communities could help promote peace. While doing research in Tel Aviv, he had a realization.

It was sparked by a sun dried tomato spread that Daniel happened to try. It was delicious. And I went back for more and there was no more in the store. And so I started asking the manager where I could get some and they told me the company had gone out of business.

Daniel's obsession soon led him to the founder of that failed company and to unravel why that spread had failed. A fractured supply chain. And the problem was that they were buying their glass jars from Portugal. And they were buying their son dried tomatoes from Italy.

All their raw materials were coming from far away lands. And I happened to be doing research and I knew that you could buy glass jars from Egypt or Turkey less expensively and you could buy sun dried tomatoes from Turkey and olives and olive oil they were already buying from Palestinian farmers. Daniel went to the business owner told him his idea. He could save his business by building bridges with closer suppliers. Even if that meant crossing barriers that had been built up by decades of enmity.

He looked at me and said okay, here's this Confused Mexican Jewish lawyer. That has no experience in the food industry And wants me to Build a vengeance base that are Arabs and Israelis together.

And like let's go because he had another option he had gone bankrupt. The plan worked, and not only did it save that sun dried tomato paste, It also helped forge connections among suppliers across the Middle East. Daniel had unexpectedly hit upon using food as a way to fulfill his mission of bringing people together. And the thing that's interesting about food is food is one of the ultimate bridge buildings in humanity. Because you know, like breaking your fast together.

Breaking bread. Yeah. Literally. You're totally right. It is a very important but it's not like I knew that when this venture started. It sounds very romantic and it makes a lot of sense, but that's not how it happened. It was just That I like that damn spread so much. Daniel had found a way to combine scaling a business with scaling his mission.

He called it Peace Works. А на профит. It focused on connecting food producers and manufacturers in the Middle East and then exporting their products. It was a success. At least when it came to proving Daniel's theory about building bridges through business.

When people have an economic incentive, a vested interest In preserving the relationships then They work harder at doing it and when they not just break bread, but shatter cultural stereotypes by interacting as equals with respect towards one another, they discover each other's humanity. And it's much

harder to hate someone that you've gotten to meet. It's much harder to hate somebody that you've had Dinner with. But although succeeded in building bridges, it wasn't so successful when it came to selling its products. And Daniel is up front. About the reason.

I was full of grit, but not enough wit. We've talked about the importance of grit. Plenty of times on this show. Grit is essential for every entrepreneur. But is not the only quality an entrepreneur needs.

And this is a point that can be too easily lost. One of the things that we talk a lot to entrepreneurs is you need to have grit. You need to have grit But you also need to have width. There's grit and there's width.

And If you're saying I'm gonna go through that Pounce through that Whoa, no matter what Okay, that's pretty good, but what if there's a door next door and you just need to move the knob? What if there's a window that you need to open and jump through? What if you can just walk around and so

It's really important for entrepreneurs to not Be so in love with the grit. And not put enough strategy, discipline, and creative thinking, resourcefulness To see if you can do it.

Grit and wit are not the only two qualities that founders must balance, and they are qualities that inexperienced entrepreneurs often get wrong. Another is risk versus intelligent risk. Managing intelligent risk means taking risk, but working out how to do so in a structured and limited way that maximizes upside. Then there's persistence versus flexibility.

Persistence is parallel to grit. where you have a vision and you're determined to make it a reality. But flexibility has to come into play. Maybe your product isn't quite right. Or the goal has slightly shifted.

And if you don't adapt. You'll fail. This is why when I'm considering making an investment, I give the entrepreneur pushback. On their idea. I don't necessarily want the idea to change.

I just need to know that the entrepreneur is open to making changes when they need to, that their persistence won't negate their ability to be flexible. Daniel admits that in the early days of Peace Works, he himself was a walking example of the danger of having too much grit. And not enough wit. He traps across New York, visiting delicatessens, bodegas, and small food stores, trying to get them to stock his sun dried tomato spread.

I would wake up in the morning at seven AM in the morning and walk down the street at the very top of Hundred and Twenty Second on Broadway. all the way door by door, store by store, and I would finish at seven or eight PM in Wall Street. Or I would maybe get to make my way back up, cross the street and then go on the other side of Broadway. And I would not leave a store.

Till I got a purchase order. Daniel's combination of naivete and grit made him the scourge of Deli Owners, the length of Manhattan. He was convinced that if only the deli owners would give his product a shot. They and their customers would magically fall in love with it. But to the deli store owners, he was an annoyance.

Occasionally. One of them would buy a case or two of tomato spread. Just to get rid of him. I was so proud of myself once when I went into these shop owners convenience store and I walked in and say, Oh, let me tell you about Peace Rooks and the Sunder Tomato Spring and cracked it open and forced some down his mouth and say, I'm don't no no try it, try it and

And then he wanted me to leave, so he went downstairs in his basement and I followed him. You know, I'm twenty-seven years old, twenty-six years old, I'm right out of law school, full of energy, but no strategy. I come down into his basement and he's like tell me why he can't carry a specialty product that's four ninety nine that's a sandwich to my spread because he carries toilet paper or conveniences and people come in for milk they don't come in for so I'm like no but you don't understand this is made through cooperation between Arabs and Israelis and all that And After literally

Two hours He relented and he gave me an order for one case for twenty four dollars. And I walked out of that store and I'm like Yes, this is what I'm gonna win in life because I do not give up. To the inexperienced Daniel, convincing that Delhi store owner to buy seemed like a victory.

But it was the opposite. And then I walk back. To the store a week later, and not one of those jars had sold. And then I walked one month later and not one of those jars had sold. And then I walked Six months later and not one of those jars had sold and I started thinking wow

Maybe in addition to grit, I need to have a little bit of strategy in here. This is a classic mistake that Daniel made. He put so much effort into building a bridge with that deli on her. Hours and hours of persuasion. And though he got the win of getting that sauce onto the deli shelves.

Ultimately, it was a wasted effort. And this is a key thing to remember. If you put in enough effort, you can build a bridge between any two points. But if no one wants to use it. Your time would have been far better spent.

Elsewhere. Another misstep that Daniel made with Peaceworks was moving too fast. Like with the Deli owner, he wasn't letting people meet him halfway in his bridge building. And those bridges that he did build were fragile. And easily broken.

We went from three flavors of Peace Rocks to seven flavors. And then eventually because we were Чест дам. We went from seven to fifteen flavors, which included the bane of my existence. It was called Moshe Pupikanalish Munkens. Sweet and spicy teriyaki pepper spread. So why Arabs and Israelis would be making a teriyaki sauce?

It makes no sense, right? And if you opened it It was like a glob of stuff. It had Xanthem gum, which is natural, but it was just very gelatinous. It was just nothing like the original flavors. It broke the most delicate bridge of all. I said, you know what, this one more flavor. For some people they might like it. I just rationalized myself with this stupid short term greed

And what happened, Reed, is When people tried that product is because they had trusted my brand because I had delivered them a delicious on dry tomato spread and a delicious basel pesto. And then I betrayed their trust. I destroyed something beautiful that I built with them. My brand is a promise.

And a great brand Is a promise well kept, but I was not keeping my promise. The first tentative bridge you build with your customers is fragile. If you immediately try to drive a convoy of trucks over it. It is liable to collapse.

Almost every product in consumer product goods Can benefit from more support and more patience. But we as marketers are so in love with new products and new ideas that we try to launch too many things and don't Invest

to provide enough attention to our existing products. But hold on. You may think you're hearing a contradiction. Especially if you're a particularly engaged masters of scale listener. There's slightly different rules in consumer software because you can kind of experiment and revise and so forth.

Long as you don't destroy trust. Кіпін the trust is essential. You can kinda eh, this is all right. And you can kinda ignore it. That'll work fine in software. But in the physical world. Much more challenging.

In particular in the food world, and I find a lot of tech friends start investing in the food world and trying to apply the tech rules. and they just lose their shirts because like you said, in the tech world you can innovate and you're giving them free gadget and the free thing and you're learning and there's that expectation that they're learning. And like you said, as long as you don't betray their trust People are more forgiving of getting the block quicker, faster. But in the consumer produce

People will give you a shot and they will try it once and if they don't like it, they will not buy your brand ever again. So you have to be much more obsessive. Also, in the tech world. The next digital product you sell has a marginal increased cost for you, close to zero. But in the physical world You can't

Play Tech Rules. A lot of my friends in the Physical world. Follow the technology and say, I'm just gonna grow into profitability. I'm like, that doesn't work in our industry. If your gross margins are wrong. you still are gonna be spending that dollar making that same gadget. Maybe the cost will go down a little bit or somewhat or significantly, but not to the point where if your gross margin structure is wrong you can't grow your way out of a bad business model.

You have to be very careful. No, exactly. It's very well said, and it's part of the reason why It's funny, people sometimes take things I say about the consumer internet world and apply them all around like don't do that. This is a consumer internet lesson. For example If you're not embarrassed by your first product.

Release you're released too late. True in Consumer Internet. Not true. And food. If the MVP of your consumer internet service is an underwhelming webpage, it won't be as stomach churning.

As a goopy sauce. People are much more willing to give that lackluster webpage a second chance. The awful sauce? Not so much. In the world of physical goods, you really only have one shot at making a positive brand impression.

Despite those mistakes, Peace Works kept going for a decade. And Daniel. puts much of that down to his grit. And in that decade, he also built up his wit to grit ratio. Relentlessness is good when it's strategically sound, but

I spent so much of my time at Peace Works. Hitting walls and just breaking through those walls and I broke through them but it took me ten years. So you I think You need to have

not just that conviction of perpus But also creativity Ресурсфульнее And look back and analyze and think through these issues. Yeah, completely agree.

Part of the thing that I emphasize in that is also learning. 'Cause part of getting that wit is learn. And adjust and learn and adjust and having a fast learning curve is one of the most essential things. For entrepreneurs. I'm still very, very

long on not being afraid of failure. As long as you Then take the time to incorporate the lessons to analyze why did it not work and what can I do about it. Failure in and of itself is not

Good enough. But if it's gonna help you plant the seeds of knowledge, then you will build some really nice trees. It was knowledge that he would put to use in the next chapter of his journey. When you build substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position. The upside is real, but so is the risk, and knowing when to act isn't always obvious.

Creative planning works with business owners to build a strategy around concentrated equity. When to diversify, how to manage tax risk, and how to protect what you've spent years. Building. Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale.

Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There can be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi.

And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Before the break, we heard how Daniel had learned some hard lessons with Peaceworks.

Daniel took these lessons to heart with his next venture. Kind. Although it was driven by the same ideals as Peaceworks. Daniel knew the product had to be the star. When you're building a bridge, you don't just focus on where you want it to take you.

You focus on the bridge itself. Making it the strongest it can be. But Daniel nearly gave up. Before laying a first stone. Personally, I had a very tough time because my dad passed away that year in 2003, and he was my best friend and my mentor and so much to me, and so I w I had

A very difficult time with that. I was trying to launch the one voice movement, this nonprofit organization to bring Israel and Palestinian moderates together, and that was taking a toll on me. It was very hard getting it off and running. And Our business was struggling. It was barely eking by and I couldn't pay myself a salary. I barely could pay my team members salaries.

And it was exhausting. Daniel was excited by his idea for a new product. A snack bar. That was as good for you as the most nutritious health food. But is enjoyable.

As a candy bar. But the burnout was real. I remember sitting down with my six team members and saying guys do we do this or Should we just throw in the towel. And we went around the table and I remember so well

each team member getting to vote on whether each of us goes back to look for jobs elsewhere, or whether we give this one last shot. They voted, discussed, and eventually agreed this new product was worth the shot. They made the decision to wind down peace works and focus on kind. All the things that we had done wrong with Peaceworks, we applied discipline, focus, obsession with quality, obsession with brand. Your brand has to be true. You cannot try to be everything to everybody, or else you'll be nothing to nobody.

It's no use trying to connect to everywhere. Your bridge has to go between two specific points. The point you go to needs to make the strongest sense. Just as a bridge has a clear direction.

For a company. That is its brand. Very very Strong focus on defining what the kind promise is, what it means literally.

having in each of our desks a description of what that crank promise is and keeping that crank promise, not deviating from it. Not Trying to go down some other green pastures because there's something sexy going on in this industry in that industry. Just staying focused, focused, focused. That promise to make healthy food that brings people together was still at the front of Daniel's mind. but he knew he had to find a better way to market the kind bar.

Then taking it. From Del to Delhi. Because I was barely making ends meet In the Peace Rock's years. I had trained myself that giving out products was a cost.

Rather than an investment. So we had an$800 budget in 2008 for all samples. That includes samples we gave to the buyers. And we saw It has an expense to be avoided. Then in two thousand nine are Sampling budget became from eight hundred dollars eight hundred thousand dollars.

А налова сан осел ту ковкразі, коз ви лен. That Our product was really good. Nine out of ten people to try a kind bar. come back and recommend it to others. Daniel had discovered that the most effective way to build bridges with his customers wasn't by trying to sell them on his mission.

But by letting them try his product. It set them on the road to massive scale, and it got them the attention of Walmart. We went into the Walmart stores. But we didn't know how to do the supply chain logistics. And you better know supply chain logistics when you're doing Walmart. We didn't have a team member that had that knowledge about how to manage the backend. Walmart had reached out to Kind.

It was a potential bridge to massive scale. But Daniel and his team simply weren't ready to meet Walmart. Halfway. And so we were going to stores and the product wasn't on the shelves. And Walmart wasn't actually managing it. They had a sub distributed for that particular segment.

and the product was often in the warehouse and it was in the wrong set with the wrong type of products and it was only two SKUs so it would get lost on the shelves. So for a variety of reasons it didn't Last. Daniel was bitterly disappointed. But he was determined to get kind in order so they could try again.

A big part of this was when former PlayTex executive John Leahy joined his president. He had come From a billion dollar company when he joined us. And he had had a couple of

Tough years. He had had an incredible career. But then had had a couple of years where things had not worked out. And I'm very lucky that that happened because he had something to prove and he gave me a shot because otherwise someone of his caliber would have not joined me. So sometimes

If somebody has a great trajectory and then they have A tough moment. It's a very smart thing to invest in that person because they They have something to prove and they have incredible track record overall. And John proved to be one of my best

mentors and friends and partners. He also had a key piece of advice for Daniel. John said we need to be patient, as it John, we need to get into warms like Daniel We're not ready. We're not ready. We're not ready. And he built the different pieces that he needed to build in terms of improving awareness, in terms of improving our supply chain and logistics. And then when we got in, it became a very strong partnership till today.

The patients paid off, and kind eventually won back that Walmart distribution. But out of the blue a chasm opened that everyone told Daniel was impossible to cross. It came courtesy of the US government regulator, the Food and Drug Administration. Or FDA.

And there was uh obscure to me, because I'd never heard of it. uh provision In F D A. That Apparently.

treated all types of fats, even the ones that are healthy fats from almonds or avocados or Olive oil or olives. Salmon. As fat. And they sent us a letter saying you can't label these four products

As healthy Because they contain All these ingredients like almonds Coconut that have Too much fat.

Kind's identity as a maker of healthy snacks. was foundational to the bridge it had built with his customers. And now it looked like that foundation was going to be taken away. The FDA ordered them to remove the word healthy. From the rappers.

It was a very tough day for me, Reed. I don't wanna overdramatize it, but he was really A tough, tough day because You went to the essence of who we are. And we immediately complied with a request. But then

Daniel made a move that could have burned the bridge between Kind and the FDA. Well we complied immediately in the short term. We then went back And We

filed a citizen's petition. Telling the FDA that they're regulation It was a move that many saw as risky.

But you go back to the day when it happened and our consultations We were talking to our board and to people far smarter than me and they're like Daniel, just lick your wounds and move on. You will not get Any good out of rehashing this thing out. And you know, the conventional wisdom is

Don't bring stuff up that's not pleasant because you're just gonna Let it be aired again. And they were like The FDA is never gonna reverse itself. That doesn't happen in government. They're never gonna listen to you.

But Daniel forged ahead. So we filed the citizens petition And We got enormous amount of support from consumers, from scientists, from doctors. And even DFDA eventually

Reverse itself. Daniel also had his suspicions that the FDA had been alerted by a competitor to kind, hoping to tarnish the reputation they'd established. But instead, the attack rallied Kine's fans to the cause who lobbied the FTA. It was like the gift that kept on giving because First, when they came out with this, the consumer community was like, What? Why are you doing this to kind? People understood that it made no sense.

This reinforced the bridge that Kind had built with its fans. And then was the big Announcement where they said, Kind was right.

definition is not current with science And they reverse themselves and suspended it. Kind could once again describe their snacks as healthy. And there was another upside. Daniel had built a valuable bridge with the FDA.

After that happened we developed relationships that were cordial with the FDA. I mean to their credit the FDA was very responsive and respectful, and we developed a very good cordial relationship with them. And to this date now we actively consult with them on stuff on where we think they're wrong, we let them know and where we have a question we ask them and We now have that relationship which we didn't even have then. But I think one of the lessons there is

Anyone who knows you, anyone who knows kinds that the principles, the mission and the ethics go all the way down to bedrock. And when those are there. kind of adhered to

That creates natural Bridges. to oh actually in fact if the A we should collaborate. We should make sure this is The right thing for society. creates the right kind of trust and responsibility with consumers, with suppliers.

Kind and the FDA had a common goal. To improve overall health and keep bad stuff out of food. Just as you have customer and client relations teams, Kind now has a team dedicated to maintaining that hard won bridge with the FDA. Anytime you have to build a valuable bridge, You need to maintain it.

If done correctly. Confrontation can help build bridges. As long as it is combined. With kindness. Uh

A lot of people confuse kindness with weakness. And Being nice. are synonymous, but they are very different.

Co you can be nice. And be passive. You can be nice and just not cause trouble. But to be kind, you need to solve those problems. You can be nice and be polite, but to be

Kind of. You need to be honest. And to be honest. You need to have the strength and the courage to say what needs to be said at the right time. And in a lot of corporate cultures.

People are too afraid to disagree. I've seen this very close. From a lot of companies that I respect that I'm friends with. Where they don't want to have that debate, and then consequently, sometimes the CEO doesn't hear what she or hidst to hear. People are afraid to give them bad news, they're afraid to disagree with them. And they end up like the Emperor with no clothes.

Making a lot of mistakes. Creative conflict. is not Being unkind.

And it helps build stronger bridges. Daniel's focus and core belief in his brand has led to the Kind Foundation. He's achieving the large scale bridge building he always believed was possible. Through business. The most important thing

We do with kind today and there's many things I'm proud of, but The most important is we created the kind foundation which has incubated what we created which is called empathico Which is a Programming.

to try to enable class to teach their children empathy and kindness by connecting them to other classrooms. So using the power of the internet for good. And enabling kids in Northwest Arkansas who have never met a kid in New York to do so, or kids in Memphis, Tennessee, that are all black kids. Connect with kids in southern New Jersey that are all white. And develop friendships through this

interactions kind of like a very modern version of pen pals, but where the classrooms are the hubs to connect the children and there's A classroom in Delaware they're connected to teachers in Nigeria and it's a really cool program. The real magic behind these bridges is their unbeatable return on investment. Kindness is magical because

It's one of those few forces in nature that I call A net happiness aggregator. When I do a kind act to somebody They feel better, but I feel better too.

And I actually think In my many years of thinking about this that the person doing the kind act actually gets the more Positive feeling that the person receiving it.

In November twenty twenty, Kind was acquired by Mars, with Daniel planning to stay involved with the company. I'm Reed Hoffman. Thank you for listening. Masters of Scale is a Wake What original. The show is recorded remotely with sanitized audio gear. Our executive producers are June Cohen and Darren Treff.

Our supervising producer is Jay Punjabi. Our producers are Chris McCloud, Adam Skuse, Jenny Cataldo, Jordan McCloud. Catherine Clark Gray. Halibondi. Christina Gonzalez and Ben Manila. Our editor at large is Bob Safian.

Original music and sound design by Ryan Holliday. And Daniel Nissenbaum. Audio editing. by Keith J Nelson. Mixing and Mastering by Brian Pugh.

Special thanks. Chris Elisa Schreiber. David Sanford. Say it's up. Adam Heiner, Emily McManus.

Kelsey Capitano. Tim Cronin. Sarah Sandman. Charlie Menesis. I'm Colin Howard. Visit.

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