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mastersofscale.com slash response. Again,

1:17

that's mastersofscale.com

1:19

slash response. I'm

1:22

about 90 % of my meals are all

1:24

AI -derived. So AI tells me what to

1:26

eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's

1:28

based on the health goals and based on

1:31

the foods I love. It basically tells

1:33

me, okay, well, then eat this breakfast, eat

1:35

this lunch, eat this for dinner in

1:37

the future. If I go out to a

1:39

restaurant for dinner, AI will

1:41

be able to tell me what to

1:43

order off the menu because now we have

1:45

375 ,000 menus via Grubhub. So that's the

1:47

future. That's

1:56

Mark Laurie, billionaire entrepreneur, NBA

1:58

owner, and founder and CEO of

2:00

Wonder, a food tech startup

2:02

that offers delivery, takeout, and dine

2:04

-in options from multiple restaurants and

2:06

chefs. I wanted to talk

2:08

to Mark about Wonder's recent purchase of

2:11

Grubhub, what it says about the future

2:13

of the food business, and how all

2:15

of our diets may be changing sooner

2:17

than we imagine. Mark shares how

2:19

AI is already transforming his relationship

2:21

with food and with his health, plus

2:23

he offers a full menu of

2:25

Lessons on what it takes to succeed

2:27

in business right now. I'm Bob

2:29

Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

2:36

I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Mark

2:38

Glory, founder and CEO of Wonder. Mark,

2:40

it's great to have you back on the

2:42

show. Great to be back,

2:44

Bob. Thank you. Thanks for having

2:46

me. So since you were

2:48

last here, Wonder has evolved a

2:51

lot as a business. I mean,

2:53

it started with, Meal delivery,

2:55

aggregating multiple cuisines from well -known

2:57

chefs and restaurants. Then you added

2:59

in -person food halls, you acquired

3:02

Meal Kit Pioneer Blue Apron,

3:04

delivery app, Grubhub, most recently media

3:06

company, TasteMate. How do

3:08

you describe what Wonder is?

3:11

Well, there's a bigger vision, and we

3:13

can get into that. But at the

3:15

core, Wonder is

3:17

a vertically integrated food delivery

3:19

platform. So think. you know

3:22

grubhub, but we actually own the

3:24

restaurants. So we both do

3:26

the delivery, we own the restaurants and

3:28

we cook the food. That enables us

3:30

to have a superior delivery experience. So

3:32

out of a single

3:34

2800 square foot kitchen, we can

3:36

cook 30 different restaurants across

3:39

30 different cuisines. So everything from a

3:41

high -end steakhouse, Bobby Flay

3:43

steak, Jose Andrea, Spanish

3:45

tapas, burgers, barbecue, Chinese, Mexican,

3:47

Italian, Middle Eastern, Thai. 30

3:50

different cuisines with only

3:52

two pieces of electric cooking

3:54

equipment Set up more like a

3:56

micro fulfillment center all the food

3:58

is fresh and it's cooked to

4:00

order There's that term ghost kitchen

4:02

right which is mysterious sounding but

4:04

the mystery for me with wonder

4:07

is that how does one kitchen

4:09

offer like Hundreds of menu items

4:11

and operate with as few as

4:13

two staffers you're not reheating frozen

4:15

food So, are you using different

4:17

kind of equipment, different kind of

4:20

processes, all of that? Yes,

4:22

different equipment, different processes. The

4:24

proteins are sous vide, so

4:26

they're hard -cooked. They sit

4:28

in a tank of hot

4:30

water. Restaurants do something similar, but

4:32

we do that ahead of time. So,

4:34

we're able to finish a steak in

4:36

six minutes to perfect temp every time.

4:38

We're able to cook a pizza in

4:40

90 seconds. We could cook pasta without

4:43

water. We've invented new ways of cooking

4:45

food where we can replicate the quality

4:47

but also do it with a lot

4:49

less labor and the benefit for consumers

4:51

is being able to order from multiple

4:53

restaurants in a single delivery. So

4:55

you can order from five different restaurants and

4:57

get it all delivered hot under thirty minutes

4:59

when i asked you how you describe what

5:01

wonder is i was curious which direction you

5:03

were gonna go and because. your

5:05

history and part of Wonder is sort of

5:07

the tech side. And there's been talk

5:10

about being like a super app, which is

5:12

kind of a buzzy term these days.

5:14

So can you square those things for me?

5:16

Yeah. So I think, like

5:19

I was saying before, the Wonder first

5:21

party business where we own the

5:23

restaurants and do the delivery, those are

5:25

physical brick and mortar where you

5:27

can sit down, 10 or 12 seats,

5:29

pick up, get delivery. It's like

5:31

a think of a high end, fast,

5:33

casual looking location. what the

5:36

kitchen in the back so it's not

5:38

ghosting that way that is sort of

5:40

like the core business where we've got

5:42

forty locations open now we're opening while

5:44

a hundred locations in about nine months

5:46

so that's like sort of the core

5:48

business. But as you said the bigger

5:50

vision is super after meal time meaning

5:52

all the ways in which a consumer

5:54

might want to consume food. could be

5:56

first party through Wonder. It could

5:58

be from your local restaurant delivered via

6:00

Grubhub. It could be a meal kit

6:02

from Blue Apron. It could be

6:04

groceries. It could be even restaurant reservations, all

6:06

the ways in which you eat. The

6:09

reason why we want to capture

6:11

all those occasions is because we're

6:13

building this AI -based platform wrapper

6:15

around it that's going to, in

6:18

the future, be able to autonomously

6:20

feed you according to your budget

6:22

and health goals. autonomously

6:24

feed you. So like I'm not

6:26

going to decide what it is

6:28

I want to eat. The AI

6:30

or you're going to tell me

6:32

what I want to eat or

6:34

what I should eat. AI will

6:36

learn your food preferences better than

6:38

you do yourself and that you'll

6:40

be happy to rely on AI.

6:42

So personally now I'm about 90

6:44

% of my meals are all

6:47

AI derived. So AI tells

6:49

me what to eat for breakfast, lunch,

6:51

and dinner. That's the oatmeal that I

6:53

was explaining to you this morning. I

6:55

should ask you to tell everybody what

6:57

you have for breakfast this morning. You

6:59

told me the story before I started

7:01

recording and I was compelled by the

7:03

specificity of it. Because it was steel -cut

7:05

oatmeal with five, not four,

7:08

not six, five raw walnuts, two

7:11

tablespoons of flaxseed,

7:13

two tablespoons of chia

7:15

seed, half a

7:17

banana, and half a

7:19

teaspoon of cinnamon. That was your custom

7:21

recipe. But just because that's what you

7:23

had today doesn't mean that that's what

7:25

AI is going to tell you to

7:27

have tomorrow. No, but I rate it

7:30

very highly. So AI does know I

7:32

do like to eat that. So I

7:34

do get that quite often. But

7:36

it also comes back through. Yeah, but

7:38

my LDL cholesterol was high 90 days

7:40

ago. It's not anymore. And

7:42

this was one of the solves was,

7:44

you know, the flaxseed and the raw walnuts. And

7:47

at the same time, I'm still rating it

7:49

well. So if the banana wasn't in there,

7:51

I would give a bad rating and then

7:53

I would have to pull back. I

7:57

basically, you know, get my blood work

7:59

done. I have my aura ring, my

8:02

blood glucose monitoring, all the

8:04

blood results, all the biomarker, all the data

8:06

gets fed to AI. I set health

8:08

goals and it based on the health goals

8:10

and based on the foods I love,

8:12

it basically tells me, okay, well then. eat

8:14

this breakfast, eat this lunch, eat this

8:16

for dinner. In the future, if

8:18

I go out to a restaurant for dinner, AI

8:21

will be able to tell me what

8:23

to order off the menu because now we

8:25

have 375 ,000 menus via Grubhub. So

8:27

that's the future. It's pretty

8:29

technocratic though, right? Like a lot of

8:31

people take joy in sort of choosing

8:33

what to eat or, you know, being,

8:36

I don't know, trying something different that

8:38

maybe they didn't know they liked. It's

8:40

a very different vision. Are you think

8:42

like eventually we're going to prefer to be

8:45

told what to eat? I

8:47

mean, based on my own personal experience,

8:49

I love it. I can't imagine like

8:51

having to think about what I want

8:53

to eat because it knows the ingredients

8:55

you like. And so it comes up

8:57

with different meals that are new. And

8:59

you're like, wow, I never even thought

9:01

about eating this. And then you you

9:03

wind up liking it. So it's the

9:05

varieties there. It remembers every great meal

9:07

you've ever had. So if I rated

9:09

something nine point five six months ago.

9:11

I forgot it two weeks later. AI

9:13

doesn't forget. And so these great dishes

9:15

get rotated. If you leave it up

9:17

to me, I'm thinking of the same

9:19

three things, probably what I had yesterday

9:21

or the day before and maybe a

9:23

couple of other things. The brain is

9:25

not good at remembering all the great

9:27

meals you've ever had. But AI doesn't

9:29

forget. So think about it not as

9:31

a computer telling you what to do,

9:33

but it's really a better version of

9:35

yourself. It's sort of like if you

9:37

could capture the best of

9:39

your brains abilities to think

9:41

about food. That's AI. When

9:44

you talk to the celebrity chefs that

9:46

you deal with, Jose Andres or Bobby

9:48

Flay or Marcus Samuelson, and you tell

9:50

them this story, are they like, oh,

9:52

that's great? Or are they like, well,

9:54

wait a minute, that's what we bring

9:57

to it. No, I mean,

9:59

it doesn't change. Think about it. You could,

10:01

as an artist, as a creator, as

10:03

a chef, create. a bunch of

10:05

dishes and that you hope resonate

10:07

with people. And then each

10:09

individual person's AI is going to

10:11

have different preferences, right? And it's going

10:13

to prefer certain meals over others.

10:16

So nothing changes. The creative canvas is

10:18

still necessary. It's still valuable. It

10:20

doesn't change that at all. What

10:22

it does change is having to go

10:24

to a restaurant and having to like spend

10:26

time, look at the menu, look at

10:28

everything. I mean, it's just, boom, there it

10:30

is. Get this. AI knows you better

10:32

than your partner or better than your best

10:34

friend. You might have biomarkers that have

10:36

issues like I had low iodine, I had

10:38

high mercury. I don't have to

10:40

think about it. AI has given me

10:42

help to fix my iodine. I'm not getting

10:45

tuna because I have high mercury. It's

10:47

taking care of all these health issues in

10:49

the background without having to think about

10:51

it. So it's like my

10:53

personal food critic and my personal.

10:55

doctor sort of working together to

10:57

give me what's ideal. Foods you

10:59

love that are going to be

11:01

healthy. And AI is able to,

11:03

it's kind of really fascinating because

11:05

it's able to like fix your

11:07

health issues, but still get good

11:09

scores. So number one, it has

11:11

to, you have to love the

11:13

food. Okay. Now, given the

11:15

foods you love, AI, you'd have to

11:17

now make. Mark healthy and so i

11:19

does these little things that i see

11:22

a trying things you know that are

11:24

a little more healthy i give it

11:26

a bad radiance like okay that that.

11:28

He doesn't want to that's too healthy

11:30

for him right and so it's found

11:32

a really nice happy medium now where

11:34

i love every meal and i've never

11:36

been healthier and i'm not having to

11:38

think about what i want to eat

11:40

i'm spending time on it i sit

11:42

down it's a great meal i mean

11:44

this is the future. And the AI

11:46

that you're using, is it a custom

11:48

AI or you're using someone else's platform? No,

11:52

this is just off the shelf ALM. So

11:54

it's all about the prompt and it's

11:56

about the data that you provide it. But

11:59

the models capable, very

12:01

capable now. of doing this.

12:03

It'll get better over time, but

12:05

right now, like I said, I've been

12:07

doing it and I'm amazed. You

12:09

can tell I'm amazed too. I wanted

12:11

to ask you about some of

12:13

the where wonder is now as a

12:15

business that the Grubhub purchase for

12:17

me was like, you know, here's

12:19

a business that was bought for

12:22

over $7 billion a few years ago

12:24

and you scooped it up for

12:26

$650 million. Like, did you feel like

12:28

this was a deal you couldn't

12:30

refuse? I mean, we definitely felt

12:32

like it was a great deal given

12:34

the assets that we acquired. And

12:36

the more we learn every day as

12:38

we dig in, the more valuable

12:40

we think the company is even relative

12:43

to what we thought when we

12:45

bought it. So we're very excited about

12:47

the business and leveraging the synergies

12:49

between Wunder and Grubhub. We're going to

12:51

be adding tens of thousands of

12:53

Grubhub restaurants onto the Wunder platform as

12:55

well. So we'll have...

12:57

shared delivery backend, Grubhub

13:00

Seamless and Wonder will be

13:02

front -end delivery platforms with

13:04

a different demographic, so

13:06

each target somebody a little bit

13:08

different. I mean,

13:10

you haven't built businesses before

13:12

through acquisition quite this way.

13:14

I mean, you've done acquisitions

13:16

before, but why is that

13:18

different in this case? I

13:21

think we're just being opportunistic. We

13:23

do have this super app. strategy

13:25

of all meal occasions. And I

13:27

think one of the big missing

13:29

pieces was certain local restaurants and

13:31

would have taken us many, many

13:33

years to have 375 ,000 restaurants

13:35

like Grubbub does. They've got a

13:37

very impressive college business. They've got

13:39

seamless, some great assets. Blue Apron

13:41

was also opportunistic. We wanted to

13:43

get into the meal kit space

13:45

at some point. There was really

13:47

just trying to fill in the

13:49

missing pieces to bring the vision

13:51

together. Well, and you recently

13:53

bought taste made for 90 million

13:56

dollars which is a media company. Why

13:58

is that part of the puzzle? Yeah,

14:01

so that was really about the

14:03

advertising business and the content creation

14:05

capabilities. They've got over 100 million

14:07

social media followers that go to

14:09

TV stations, so can really help

14:11

brand some of our restaurants, some

14:13

of our platforms. We

14:15

like that the content studio that they've

14:17

got to create content for us

14:19

and then also advertising. So we believe

14:21

advertising on Grubhub, Blue Apron, Wonder

14:23

could be a really big business and

14:25

a big part of the strategy

14:27

going forward. And we didn't have one.

14:29

It was nascent and they do.

14:31

And so we thought it was just

14:33

great synergies there. So it sounds

14:35

like TasteMade allows you to amplify certain

14:37

things that you're planning for Wonder

14:39

already, but not necessarily is

14:41

about sort of. a classic media

14:43

business. No, it's like just what

14:46

you said, amplifying its content side,

14:48

us as an advertising platform, and

14:50

then also for us to be

14:52

able to build an ad business,

14:54

selling ads on Grubb and Blue

14:56

Apron and Wonder. So, yeah,

14:59

it's really about the assets and

15:01

all these acquisitions, it's the assets that

15:03

are most interesting to us. Mark's

15:06

business strategy for Wunder and the acquisitions

15:08

are intriguing, but I can't get out

15:10

of my head that he relies on

15:12

AI to tell him what to eat.

15:14

I'm not sure I'd really want someone

15:16

or something to decide my meals for

15:18

me, but then again, it would be

15:20

nice to be confident about the health

15:22

benefits of what I'm eating. We'll

15:24

talk more about that, plus

15:26

some nutritious lessons for business leaders

15:28

after the break. Stay with

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at brex.com slash grow Before

16:46

the break, Wonders Mark Laurie talked about

16:49

his vision for a super app for

16:51

mealtime and how he uses AI to

16:53

pick his meals. Now, he

16:55

talks about tech's role in making meals

16:57

more healthy while also driving down the

16:59

cost of eating. Plus, he

17:01

shares personal lessons about motivation,

17:03

goal setting, the benefits of pressure,

17:06

and more. Let's jump back

17:08

in. So

17:10

you've been super successful in

17:13

your career, selling jet.com to Walmart

17:15

for over $3 billion. You

17:17

could take it easy, but

17:19

instead you work all the time. I

17:21

mean, you talk about the sixth gear

17:23

and working 20 hours a day, and

17:25

you've said that it's like eating glass

17:27

every day and trying not to get

17:29

cut as it's on the way down.

17:32

Like, why do you

17:34

do this? And

17:36

how do you do it? How do you

17:38

maintain that sort of sixth gear pace? Yeah,

17:41

I mean, first of all, I feel like I'm in the prime

17:43

of my career. So it would be, you

17:45

know, people say, how, you know, why don't you

17:47

just you made all this money? Well, you know,

17:49

why are you doing this? But I guess like

17:51

any athlete or sort of like a competitive sport,

17:53

you're in the prime of your career, you've learned

17:55

so much, there's so much more to give back

17:57

and do. Why stop now?

18:00

And that's good at the stage of Matt. Why

18:03

stop eating that glass? Why

18:05

stop eating that glass? I'm

18:09

working harder than I ever had before

18:11

and I have more energy than I've

18:14

had, you know, in a long time.

18:16

So I think part of it is

18:18

just the health routine of making sure

18:20

that you've got, you know, the right

18:22

amount of sleep and the right nutrition

18:24

and exercise. But not everybody,

18:26

like, has the kind of the

18:28

motivation to to stay at it

18:30

at that pace? Yeah, I'm more

18:32

motivated now than I ever have

18:34

been in my life. Literally, this

18:36

is the most motivated I've ever been

18:38

about any startup I've been involved with

18:40

in my life. I love

18:42

what we're doing at Wonder. I

18:45

think it has a chance to really

18:47

have a big impact on the

18:49

world, a positive impact when you talk

18:51

about health and wellness and food

18:53

as medicine and what we're doing with

18:55

AI. I mean,

18:57

imagine a future where the groceries

18:59

are autonomously just sent to your

19:01

house. Make this for breakfast, make this

19:03

for lunch, make this for dinner. Not

19:06

only are you getting healthy and eating

19:08

food you love, but you're saving money

19:10

because AI will make the most efficient

19:12

use of your groceries. Still 30

19:14

% of food in America gets thrown

19:16

out at groceries. AI

19:18

knows you had eight carrots used one

19:20

for lunch, three for dinner, there's four

19:22

left. Let's use them. Let's use everything

19:24

that you've bought. So imagine not having

19:26

to think about. ordering groceries, not having

19:28

to think about what's for dinner, not

19:30

to think about what's for lunch, you're

19:33

saving money, you're healthier and happier because

19:35

you've got more variety. So that's the

19:37

future. And that's why I'm so motivated

19:39

because I can see it. We have

19:41

a real shot at helping make this

19:43

happen. Yeah. And for

19:45

you, that would just give you more

19:47

time that you could be working,

19:49

right? Because you love it. I can't

19:52

decide whether it's motivation or compulsion.

19:54

Like you just love it. I love

19:56

it. I love it. I absolutely

19:58

love it. I mean, but it does

20:00

sound like this venture means more

20:02

to you in some ways than the

20:04

previous ones that you've worked on.

20:06

does. It absolutely does because I

20:09

see the impact it could have on

20:11

people, on health especially. I

20:13

think it's so sad where we

20:15

are with preventative medicine in this

20:17

country. And there's really

20:19

just no focus on preventative medicine. You

20:21

just go to your doctor each year

20:23

and you do a couple of things.

20:25

Yeah, you're healthy. And then I have

20:27

friend, you know, and then like six

20:29

months later does or heart attack had

20:31

no idea the artery was 90 %

20:33

clogged, right? Like we have tests now,

20:35

you know, CT heart scans that could

20:38

with AI look and see your soft

20:40

plaque and know exactly how much of

20:42

the artery is clogged. Like that should

20:44

be part of like a normal, you

20:46

know, like we get a colonoscopy. You

20:48

should have the heart scan. There's

20:50

full body MRI to see if you

20:52

have early stage cancer. I had a

20:54

good friend die of cancer. He found

20:56

out randomly and then died months later.

20:59

That doesn't seem like the

21:02

way it should be. But

21:04

that's not where you've decided

21:06

to put your focus, necessarily, on

21:08

the health end. I mean, food

21:10

as a conduit to the health. We

21:13

didn't get into this,

21:15

but as part of this

21:17

Wonder AI platform. it

21:19

starts with health diagnostics, which

21:21

includes blood biomarkers, T

21:23

-heart scan or MRI, if

21:26

we can make that happen

21:28

for you. And

21:30

then how to use food

21:32

as medicine to basically

21:34

repair, damage, and

21:36

improve the biomarkers. So it's all like an

21:38

integrated system. Like it's not just food on its

21:40

own and it's not health on its own.

21:43

And that's typically the way it is today. There's

21:45

like health stuff over here and there's food

21:47

stuff over here. How do we bring

21:49

it together and really truly use food as

21:51

medicine to heal you and see the impact of

21:53

it through an app? You know, how do

21:55

you be the CEO of your own health? And

21:57

you said like the app would make it

21:59

cheaper. But if I have to have all this.

22:02

medical testing as part of it, isn't

22:04

that more expensive? Or is my insurance

22:06

would cover that? Yeah, I think the

22:08

insurance would cover as much as we're

22:10

able to make it cover for sure.

22:12

And then we show you, hey, here's

22:14

some things that we'd recommend. This is

22:16

an extra $200 or $400 or whatever,

22:18

and it'd be up to the person

22:20

to decide whether they want that incremental

22:22

protection. I think it's worth it. We're

22:25

not talking about tens of thousands of

22:27

dollars here. This is hundreds of dollars.

22:30

If you're saving, 30 % because

22:32

you're not wasting food you can take

22:34

those dollars and reinvested in Upgrading and

22:36

getting and eating more healthy of food,

22:38

right? Part of the reason I'm asking

22:40

about prices is ever everybody is obsessed

22:42

with prices now in the in the

22:44

face of you know Tariffs and whatever

22:47

I know you you've said that wonder

22:49

wouldn't increase prices. This was a little

22:51

while ago Is that still your stance

22:53

on wonders prices now or are you

22:55

rethinking where you get supplies? Yeah,

22:57

no, it's not we're actually looking

23:00

just as we speak as reducing some

23:02

of the prices on some of the

23:05

stuff. So no, we're definitely going in

23:07

the opposite direction. It just means less

23:09

margin for us. So you're prepared

23:11

to give up margin to be

23:13

able to lower prices at the time

23:15

when other people are raising prices?

23:17

That's correct. Yes. That

23:20

seems counterintuitive. Yeah,

23:22

but let me also say, I mean, it's

23:24

more complicated than that because when we add

23:26

local restaurants onto the Wender platform, We're

23:29

making money from that and we're

23:31

able to reinvest some of that back

23:33

in lowering prices But some folks

23:35

would just take that extra earnings and

23:37

just put it in their pocket

23:39

We believe in investing back in the

23:41

value prop is best for the

23:43

customer and also best for for wonder

23:45

in the long term So I

23:47

mean, I know you you've set out

23:49

these these big public goals 95

23:51

locations by or by next year by

23:53

next year at this time IPO

23:55

ready by 20 27 with a target

23:57

valuation of $30 billion. Does

23:59

putting these goals out in

24:01

the world add pressure? It

24:03

might be easier to just

24:05

grow and announce milestones rather

24:07

than set targets that maybe

24:09

you won't meet. Yeah,

24:12

and it's true. There's always a possibility

24:14

you don't meet the goals, but I

24:17

think the probability Of hitting the

24:19

goals goes up because you reverse engineer it and

24:21

you work backwards and you get the company

24:23

aligned investor everybody's like understands like this is the

24:25

size of the prize this is the goal

24:27

we're working backwards from this this is why we

24:29

need this amount of capital this is why

24:31

we need to do x y and z in

24:33

the next three months six months twelve months

24:35

so. Sort of part manifestation

24:37

of it you know by putting it

24:40

out there and then part you know

24:42

being able to properly plan for it

24:44

because being a thirty billion dollar company

24:46

in three years you. execute at a

24:48

different level, you need a different amount

24:50

of capital than if you were shooting

24:52

for a $3 billion company. So it

24:54

doesn't mean like, if you don't hit

24:56

it, you failed, right? But we are

24:58

giving us the highest probability of getting

25:00

there by putting these goals out there. Adding

25:03

pressure is not a problem for you. You

25:05

feel like it's a good thing sometimes to have

25:07

a little extra pressure. I do.

25:09

I think the only drawback is... know

25:11

you look foolish or people say

25:13

hey you failed or you set a

25:15

goal you didn't hit it or

25:17

okay fine i can deal with all

25:19

that is way more upside than

25:21

downside you know i mean i think

25:23

again i can't reinforce the importance

25:25

of the planning aspect why are you

25:27

guys looking to raise you know

25:29

five hundred million dollars or bill it's

25:32

like because we're working backwards from

25:34

a very you know big ipo and

25:36

in order to get to that

25:38

level of sales and that level of

25:40

profit. This is the amount of

25:42

capital we need. Everything sort of ties

25:44

together, right? So I'm asking

25:46

everybody I talk to this question.

25:48

If you have any reactions or lessons

25:50

around like what's happening out of

25:52

the White House these days and the

25:54

sort of the rapid changes that

25:57

seem to be going on, you know,

25:59

in our government oversight and government

26:01

policies and whether that impacts the way

26:03

you think about how you run

26:05

your business and what the role of

26:07

business and business leaders are. I'm

26:09

probably going to be in that camp

26:11

of not talking much about it

26:14

because I'm, you know, I'm just, I

26:16

don't like to talk about politics

26:18

and stuff, but I will say as

26:20

an entrepreneur, the ability to take

26:22

risk, change things, that volatility

26:24

causes you, in the worst case

26:26

scenario, to learn a lot. Short -term,

26:28

it could be a disaster, it

26:31

could blow up. I mean,

26:33

startups, when they blow up, like

26:35

incredible things are learned, right? When

26:37

companies pick it. If everything because something

26:39

didn't work and they learn something

26:41

and so I think you know as

26:43

long as we're able to as

26:45

a country move quickly Try things learn

26:47

from the failure adjust and get

26:49

better. That's kind of a healthy Way

26:52

to be it's more start -upy and

26:54

I think we were getting a

26:56

little bit big company You know as

26:58

a country and so I like

27:00

to see that of course You know,

27:02

don't necessarily agree with all the

27:04

ways in which we're going about it.

27:06

But if you take the really

27:08

big zoom out big picture, it is

27:10

good to see us taking risk

27:12

and trying things. I appreciate you

27:14

be willing to address that. This has

27:16

been great. Thanks for doing it. Glad

27:18

to be here. Appreciate it. Every

27:23

time I talk to Mark, I'm

27:25

struck by how differently he looks at

27:27

business, cutting prices when others are

27:29

raising theirs. It's a bold move and

27:31

a statement, just like using AI

27:33

to pick his meals, or working 20

27:35

hours a day, even though it's

27:37

like eating glass. Mark's assessment

27:39

of the Trump administration's multiple changes

27:41

is in many ways the clearest

27:43

expression of his business strategy. While

27:46

he doesn't agree with specific choices

27:48

the White House may have made,

27:50

he embraces the philosophy of, as

27:52

he puts it taking risks and

27:54

trying new things. I'm

27:56

Bob Safian. Thanks for listening. Convert

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