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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and I’m so excited to have you with us today, Chris Harbourt. He’s a New Jersey boy like I am. He’s the Chief Strategy Officer, also of Indigo Ag, and indigoag.com you can find him at. Chris, welcome to the Impact Podcast.

Chris Harbourt: John, great to be here, looking forward to talking.

John: You’re in Champaign, Illinois, today. I’m sitting in Fresno, California, one of the ag centers of the United States, if not the world. This is a very important conversation, not only with regards to the U.S. but with regards to ag around the world and the opportunities that exist therein. But before we get going and talking about what you do as Chief Strategy Officer and how you’re changing the world and making the world a better place right now, can you share a little bit about your journey leading up to becoming the Chief Strategy Officer at Indigo Ag?

Chris: Yeah, happy to John. I’ve spent a career, and really a lifetime in agriculture. I grew up in New Jersey and I actually grew up in agriculture in New Jersey. People look at me funny when I say that, but it’s for real. It’s the garden state after all.

John: It’s the garden state, people think it all looks like Newark. It’s the garden state. Come on.

Chris: Right. I moved away. I moved to Virginia Tech, did my undergraduate in agricultural engineering there, and then came out to the University of Illinois for a master’s and Ph.D. And I grew to love the Midwest. It’s the place to go for production agriculture, and I’ve had a great time here. I started off in consulting, working with all the major ag companies, the inputs companies, seed-producing companies, and massive science studies across the country, helping those companies sell their products correctly to different farmers, that sort of thing. Then I got into the software world and really started focusing on how do I build tools that help farmers utilize all this wonderful information that’s out there in getting collected. Satellite information, weather information, how do you link all that together for a business advantage for a farmer? Had a couple of companies involved with there, exited out of those and joined Indigo a few years ago as just an opportunity. I saw in Indigo hope, hope for what we might be able to do around climate change, and really just came there for the mission and have been having a great time and are standing up some programs there.

John: Now, I’m on your website, Indigo Ag, and for our listeners and viewers, it’s Indigo, indigoag.com, indigoag.com Talk a little bit about it, and set it up. What is the mission of Indigo Ag?

Chris: Yeah, so Indigo is a company obviously rooted in agriculture, but focused on three core areas, carbon credits and the emerging opportunity in agriculture globally for carbon credits. Other supply chain programs were those groups who were already buying agricultural goods, as either inputs or ingredients to their products, how those come to life. Then also microbial and the opportunity of really modifying the microbial environment around plants in a way that’s beneficial to plants, and that’s really been the three core focus areas of Indigo on bringing that to farmers, to the first traders, the groups who are aggregating the products coming off of the farm, and bringing that value to the farm. That’s at a core what Indigo’s been focused on doing.

John: It’s an ecosystem play with regards to sustainability in every element of ag?

Chris: Every element in production, and every element in terms of connecting farmers and really working with the opportunity to connect farmers, the data, the physical grain, all of those pieces together in a way that drives value to the farm gate. New customers, in a sense, coming to the farm gate.

John: Well, Chris, sustainability. I’ve had the luck and the blessing of interviewing hundreds, if not over a thousand sustainability officers or leaders over the last 15 years. When it comes to ag and what you’re doing at Indigo Ag, what does sustainability mean for you at Indigo Ag?

Chris: Yeah, I think sustainability for me is it’s a mix. We sometimes talk about environmental sustainability and economic sustainability, maybe not being aligned. In agriculture, they’re absolutely aligned, if you are able to grow a crop with a little less fertilizer, and you’re able to maintain the yield, that is both economically and environmentally sustainable, so there’s great alignment there. I think that’s the key takeaway from agriculture overall is there is a chance if you do things right with education, with getting growers set up to succeed, there’s a lot of variability, a lot of risks in agriculture and farming for a farmer. But if you can get those aligned and you can get them over that hump of change where they do things like how dad did it, and how grandpa did it before them. If you can get them to a new way of thinking, and they see that this is both environmentally sustainable, it’s better for my operation, there’s more resilience built into it, but I’m also economically benefiting from this. That’s just the win-win that I think will really cause this to become something really sticky in agriculture.

John: Help me as a general consumer, I always thought that the movement a few years back with regards to sustainable farming had to do with less pesticides, more organic farming. Is that still a trend? Or we pass that by and we move past that onto other things now as well?

Chris: Yeah, I think the organic movement is a fantastic way to really document and track and start to expose farmers to new technologies and just different ways of thinking, that are able to really help them improve their agriculture in a way, right?What we’re seeing in recent times now is with the move across the world to decarbonize supply chains and really address that. When you think of agriculture, not as just a supply of fruits and vegetables or directly consumed agricultural goods, and you start to think of it as ingredients, there’s a whole other realm of what we would call commodity crops, corn, soybean, wheat. These traded commodities where there’s an opportunity now to bring sustainability to them in a meaningful way that’s trackable through the process, it’s auditable, all those different concepts of what you saw in organic. There’s a way to apply that conceptually to the rest of agriculture, not necessarily meeting an organic standard, because that’s not necessarily important in that world. But it is a way to drive that sustainability in supply chains for companies all the way back through.

John: Net zero has become a hot buzz term in the last three or four years, Chris, and it’s getting hotter, it seems like every day as the ESG and the shift from the linear to the circular economy seems here to stay. How does carbon credits fit in with regards to people’s and organizations’ net zero goals? And then apply that to the ag industry specifically and what you’re doing at Indigo Ag?

Chris: Yeah, it’s a great question. When we think about the opportunity there for net zero, we’re actually working towards something a little more aggressive, right? Where we’re actually saying, planet positive is the approach, where net zero is great but we actually have to go into the atmosphere and grab carbon dioxide that we’ve been emitting since the dawn of fossil fuel use here, right? The last hundred few years and really start to undo that. So, it’s not only about addressing and getting to a net zero going forward for products, but it’s also looking back into the atmosphere and saying, “What can we do to address some of the sins of the past, and pull those together?” Ag has that opportunity because of what we see and I see it every day here in the central U.S. and Champaign, Illinois. I’m looking out my window right now at a corn and soybean field. It’s absolutely flat out here, so you can see for miles, there are miles of these fields, and they’re brown right now. They are not covered in a crop. So, for only a portion of the year when they’re growing a crop, it’s about 120 days out of the 365 you’ve got something green growing on the surface. Well, the rest of the year you can plant what’s called a cover crop, and a cover crop is one of the technologies there that’s producing carbon credits. The way this works, you work with a farmer to plant a cover crop, and they turn their field from being brown to green. That means photosynthesis is happening, photosynthesis is pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, using the sun’s energy to convert it into plant growth, you’re removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using plants. So it’s something that’s immediately scalable if we can convince farmers to do it at scale. On the 3 billion acres of ag across the globe, we’re able to meaningfully reduce the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere using agriculture. And all the elements are there, the farmers are there, I call it an outdoor factory, really, it rains in a farmer’s factory. That’s the only difference, it is an industrial system.

John: That’s great.

Chris: Yeah, we can leverage that system, and produce cover crops. It’s a way of putting nutrients back in the soil, of increasing the organic matter in the soil, is ultimately the way that we store carbon in the soil. All of those have the beneficial outcome of working with the farmer to make their field more resilient. So, that’s the way it plays into the net zero claim, and even going beyond that to the planet-positive era.

John: Wait a second, so out of the 240 or so dead days, if you really are interested in doing this with a farmer who’s also interested in participating, how many days do you get to have a cover crop out of the 240? Is it one turn, two turns? Is it half of that time? How does it really work?

Chris: Yeah, it depends. I’ve got some farmer friends up in Fargo, North Dakota. They don’t have much of an opportunity. As soon as it snows, the plants are going to go dormant, and they’re done, for a portion. You get into Central Illinois, south into Kentucky areas, you can plant a cover crop actually into the standing crop, right before you harvest it. You go out with a tractor spreader, and you apply the cover crop, you spread it, and plant it into the standing crop that you haven’t quite harvested yet. It’s already sprouting as you’re harvesting, and then you terminate it by roller crimping it, right at the time you plant, so in a vast portion of the globe, you can actually turn it green for the balance of the year.

John: And that’s when you get that planet-positive situation, man.

Chris: Yeah. It gets it back, a way to think of it, John is it’s similar to the grasslands that were here for the last 10,000 years when you had the buffalo and the open prairie grass, they were green all year long. Whenever there wasn’t snow, they were photosynthesizing and taking care of carbon dioxide removal in the atmosphere.

John: If you’ve just joined us, we’ve got Chris Harbourt with us today. He’s the Chief Strategy Officer of Indigo Ag, and you can find Chris and his colleagues of all the important and great work they’re doing to make the planet more positive at indigoag.com.Chris, if the world now, if the organizations, if Larry Fink and BlackRock and all the other great institutional financial groups around the world are now demanding that their portfolio companies or want-to-be portfolio companies are net zero, are adhering, and actually reporting on their ESG behavior, and the shift from the linear to a circular economy, then you in theory and the important work you’re doing at Indigo Ag, it’s almost like the dotcom boom all over again. Because you have this unbelievable set of resources that the world is going to need to want to transact in. And you then have the opportunity to unleash that from ag in the United States, and ag around the world to the buyers, the net buyers that need these to continue to do business the way they want to do business and make the world a more planet positive and greener and better place. Do I get this right? Or where am I missing something in that puzzle or that chain?

Chris: No, you’re right. What we’re seeing right now is the emergence of this industry. This is going from something very nascent, where we had carbon projects in forests and other areas. We just been bringing this to agriculture in the last several years. This is the start of that opportunity, and there are a number of other ways in which you can remove carbon, and look, we’re going to need it all. When you think about the opportunities there, ag is part of this, but we need the forest programs, we need the mangrove programs, we need the direct air captures, like that group Climeworks in Iceland, that scale-up of technology. Where ag plays a key role in this is that it’s as I just described, that farmers are ready to do it now, if we get them the incentives right, the financing of it right to incent them to make the changes, they can implement it right now. So, in the next five years, agriculture can have a huge outsized impact on getting us to change this trend of increasing CO2 levels and rising temperatures while other technologies come on board. But make no mistake, we’re going to need everything. We’re going to need every creative mind out there working on this problem because the scale of it just blows your mind when you think about the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we’re emitting as a society globally.

John: Talk about Chris, when you launched Indigo’s carbon farming program specifically, and how has it grown and evolved since its launch?

Chris: Yeah, it’s interesting. When we started everyone was suspicious, “Can you really do this?” We’re talking about taking an invisible gas from the atmosphere, right? Sticking it into soils, and as the form of organic matter, so dead roots and other things, and microbial biomass in the soil. Can you really do that? Can you quantify it? Is it real? This question of, “Is it real?” Was the first question, we had to prove to the scientific community and to the world at large, and to farmers and to the buyers of this that this is real, this is real and achievable. We worked with a registry at the time, and we still do, Climate Action Reserve and Verra, two well-respected registries globally who are in the carbon credit world, and we follow the rule set that we put together.

John: I’m going to interrupt you, Chris. For our listeners and viewers, explain what a registry does and how they help the whole process of negotiating the new world that we live in with regard to carbon credits.

Chris: Yeah. The registries work with a group of external experts from academia, NGOs, and others, and they put together rule sets in which you can then develop projects from Indigo’s running a very large project. And that project yields carbon credits at the end, and the registry certifies those as that is a ton of carbon equivalent that’s been worked through. And they do the audit process, there’s an external verification and validation of our techniques, along with third-party audits and all those things that you would ask for of something that’s a virtual product like that.The registry really puts that all together.

John: So, the registry puts that all together. For lack of better terms does that calm or sewage the folks out there that are always questioning the quality and transparency of the voluntary carbon markets? Is the purpose of the registry to then create quality and transparency for credible, legitimate forms of voluntary credit markets like you’re trying to create in Ingo Ag?

Chris: Exactly. That’s the key step that makes it in simple terms, transactable. That a farmer can do the work and someone can buy them, and we’re the group in the middle making sure that that happens. So, in the early days, to answer your question, back to the early days of Indigo we had to go directly to farmers and say, “We’re going to ask you to do this new thing on your farm.” And they’re like, “Change is hard. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a farmer,” change is hard for everybody. We’re going to ask them to change. They’re scratching their head going, “Are you sure you really want me to do? Okay, let’s give it a shot.” Then we go all the way to the other end to buyers and say, “We know you’ve been buying forest credits. You understand what that’s like, you know you’re trying to get to a net zero. We’ve got this new form. We can actually use agricultural soils to store carbon.” And convincing them that, “Hey, that’s real, and we can actually do that.” Then convincing the scientific community, working with the registries, doing that hard sticky part in the middle that actually made it transactable, that was the early days. We had to go from one end to the other. What we’re finding now in the more mature stage, where we’re in our new third issuance of credits, so the third crop of carbon credits is coming along. We’re working not directly with farmers, but we’re working with partners. We’re working with the trusted businesses that farmers already interact with day in and day out. A farmer is not a person, a farmer is a small business. And those small businesses have relationships with other businesses on buying seeds, fertilizer, who they’re selling their crop to, and insurance. All the different needs that a small business has, they’re already in relationships, yeah. We’re leveraging those relationships and we’re adding it all the way through to the other end, which is the buyers, now we’ve got brokers and others, and talking about figuring out how to do auctions at some point in the credits in a way that we’re not having to convince an individual company that this is something of value. It’s starting to be known as, “Hey, this is a great source of really high-quality carbon credits.”

John: Great. That’s exactly what I wanted to ask next. So, the registry at this point in your evolution at Indigo Ag, is the registry not only creating the quality and transparency of your carbon credits, are they also brokering them and selling them, introducing buyers to you as the seller? Or is that happening right now?

Chris: No, the registries are just about the oversight of the creation of the credit and the rule set. As soon as they create the carbon credits, are now a ton of CO2 equivalents from the registry. Then any buyer or a broker would register with the registry as saying, “Hey, I’m about to grab that credit and pull it over into,” and they do one of two things. They either sell it on and then it gets traded, or they retire it, and they retire it into their reporting about their ESG. So, they retire it into their reporting, and then that counts against that year’s offset of whatever other emissions they were trying to get to the net zero claims.

John: Is there going to come a day as you continue to evolve what you’re doing and perfect it? Because every new industry has all sorts of zigs and zags and fits and starts. Once your carbon credits are registered and proven using the registries that you mentioned earlier, will you then be the net seller yourself or Indigo Ag be the net seller to the net buyers, and there’ll be direct trading going on with your carbon credits?

Chris: Yeah, we’ve thought long and hard about this, and the most important thing for us to be is very aligned with the farmer. Most of the dollars in a carbon credit go back to the farmer. Right now our break with the farmer, and the partners in Indigo it’s about 25%, and the farmer is 75%. They’re getting the vast amount of the revenue coming off of these credits. I think that’s fair. They’ve got a lot of work to do, it’s hard work. We want them to get rewarded, as we then think it’s less about us and what we want to do, and it’s more about how the farmers ultimately want to position that.Do they think of it as a commodity? Or are they comfortable with knowing the price upfront? And we’re approaching that in different ways. Some farmers want the dollars upfront because they’re using it as a financing vehicle to buy seed or other things in their operation. Others are saying, “You know what? I’m making enough money off my primary crop, I want to let these ride because I know that they’re going up in price. Because there’s a scarce supply of these, and the world is looking for these offsets. I want to let it ride.” We have to think about all of those different groups and say, “Look, we’re just along with them on the ride. We’re that glue in the middle that makes sure it’s real, that makes sure that this transaction can happen. But we’re leaving that option up to that ultimate producer.

John: That’s fascinating. There’s even using back, I think this is actually an old farming term, so there’s even the opportunity with regards to carbon credits and the ag market for speculative accumulation.

Chris: It could be. Absolutely.

John: That’s fascinating. Well, I want to go into next, Chris. This sounds fascinating and amazing, and it sounds like the next huge opportunity. Literally, this sounds like as big as the dotcom boom was, and the EV boom is, this has a whole other massive opportunity. One, as we’ve discussed a little bit offline before we started taping, this is not just a U.S. opportunity for what you’re creating here, this is a worldwide opportunity. Can you talk about the potential for what you’re creating and what you’ve launched and what you’re nurturing now in its pilot and beta stages, and how big this could really be for ag around the world, Chris?

Chris: Sure. The opportunity globally is, it’s really amazing, I think, and what’s different about carbon credits and this is something to think about globally of where, where is the best opportunity for this globally? You have to have really two ingredients. You need a lot of rainfall during the primary growing period of the year, and you need relatively cool winters. Because of the winters, what ends up happening, is if it’s too hot, there’s too much biological activity and there’s too much turnover in the soil, and your net sequestration is lower. So you think of an area like Brazil as being the prime spot to go, because it’s just this breadbasket of the planet almost, and it might not be the best opportunity for carbon. There are other areas that might be better. I’ll give you an example, we’re working in a couple of different areas, we’re working in South America and Europe, but I was recently over in India. We have a joint venture in India with a seed company there that’s doing carbon crediting for rice-wheat rotation farmers in the Punjab area of India. It’s in the north, up towards Pakistan, with great people. I was up there and had just a blast and a great time. We were in this town of Jaipur, and they’re just fantastic people. I tell you, I got out of a car, and I’m like, “Boy, the air conditioning in this car isn’t working so good.” You pop open the door and it’s like 120 out and you go, “Man, that air conditioning was actually fantastic.” And I’m out there in the wheat harvest with them and they’re talking about carbon, they’re talking about changing their cycle, putting a cover crop down, and it was just inspiring to see those small growers, smallholder growers, couple acres, not very large operations, but really trying to dig in and say, “I can do this better,” and they saw the benefit. They also saw an environment at risk. Those high temperatures are a big struggle for rice production. They’re looking at some of these alternate practices that we’re talking about of ways to be a little more resilient, as they’re dealing with the front lines of climate change there too.

John: When you look at our carbon emissions on a worldwide basis, and you look at this opportunity to offset them using ag, how much of the problem that we have? You said earlier at the top of the show, this is just part of the big solution, this is just part of the answer. That’s such a wise comment, but how big of a part in this? Given the net problem on a macro basis and what this net solution could be on a global basis? How much of the problem can this really solve for us in the world?

Chris: Yeah, it’s a very difficult question to answer, but in broad brushstrokes. If you imagine that globally corporations just get super responsible and say, “Look, we’re going to go into our supply chains and we’re going to on purpose remove as much carbon as we possibly can.” That’s the first step. So, if corporations and us as consumers drive that behavior in corporations, that’s the biggest most important chunk. Now, of the portion that’s left let’s take Jet Airline travel, for example. They’re not making electric jets anytime soon, so you’re going to have to continue to burn jet fuel. And as you do, if you want to get to net zero, you’re going to have to look to another area to offset that in some way. When you look to that balance of emissions that are unavoidable in supply chains, ag can handle maybe 30% of that, and when you think of the vastness of agriculture and you say, “My god, 3 billion acres globally, and if we get all of that to convert over, we can address 30% 40% of the gap after businesses have removed everything that’s possible.” So, I think some people think we’re all in competition in this carbon credit world. What about forestry? What about direct air capture? I say, and, and, and, and you need them all, and we’re not really in competition, there aren’t enough sources here. And it just shows you globally how dependent we are on fossil fuels for energy and what that looks like in terms of the load on our atmosphere, and the enormity of the problem. It’s hard. You can talk about gigatons and these huge numbers. I personally can’t get my head around numbers that large. So, I just start to think of it in percentages and say, “Everybody’s a good actor. Yeah, we can maybe do 30% with agriculture,” and that’s significant. That’s a huge opportunity.

John: So, let’s talk about that, significant and huge opportunities. Every time there are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs like you that have significant and huge opportunities, they go to bed at night and they’re not thinking anymore about the significant opportunity, what they’re thinking about as they lay down in the dark, is the barriers and the challenges that yet remain to be overcome to achieve that significant opportunity. What keeps you up at night, and what are still some of the big barriers and challenges to these amazing and important goals that you have at Indigo Ag?

Chris: Yeah, I think at the core of it, we’re really talking about all of these programs, carbon credit programs, they’re financing vehicles. They’re ways of moving dollars to incent a change, right? So, we’re really at a core talking about behavior change. I think of it like asking somebody to get off a couch and go on a diet. We all know we should, and we all know we should exercise more, but getting someone to change that behavior is difficult. It’s not ag, it’s not diets, it’s humans. Getting humans to change, takes a long time, and I don’t know that we’ve got a long time. When you look at the rate of change in our atmosphere, we’ve got to drive this change quicker than humans are comfortable with. I think that’s the biggest challenge I think as a society and in agriculture too, that we really face at this point; we’ve never experienced what could happen. So, no one’s like, “Oh, the last time there was a hurricane that was really bad, so I think I’m going to do something different.” You can’t say the last time there was global climate change, well, this is how I would react. You don’t know what’s coming, and hopefully, you never know because we’ve avoided it. So how do you incent a behavior change around that? I think for me, it comes back to sustainability in agriculture. I think it tells an amazing story to a farmer to say, “Look, there’s more money to be made here. Whether you’re excited about climate change or not, there’s a chance for economic gain, and there’s also a chance for you to improve your behavior, and we know we’ll make an impact on carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere so let’s give it a shot.” Once I get past that worry of can we get farmers to really make the change quick enough? It’s can we get companies to pay the right amount for the change? If we’re asking a farmer to put down a cover crop it’s not free. They have to drive a tractor through a field, take their time, they had to buy the seed, they had to take on the risk of doing it. Again, it’s a small business that’s barely making ends meet. We’re asking them to make a change, we’ve got to make sure it’s worth it for them. Those are the two things for me, I know we’ve got the science right, and scientists are doing a fantastic job improving the science, but it’s good enough today for us to assure the world that this is real. We know we got that piece, it’s can we make sure the financing is right for the farmers? And can we make sure that we can do it quickly enough to make the impact that I think it can have?

John: Chris, you know how big the opportunity is. You’ve identified the risks, and the risks are real like you’ve pointed out, it really are. Where do you think this goes with what you’re doing at Indigo Ag with your colleagues? How fast does this accelerate? When I have you back on the show two or three years from now, where are we then?

Chris: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think two or three years from now we’re at that stage where we’re turning the crank on a machine that can pump out carbon credits. So, we’ve proven there’s no technical barrier here. All the pieces are there. It’s more about partnering with the right groups globally, making sure that we can really start to scale this up. It’s a chicken or egg situation. Are the buyers ready to buy? Can we produce enough? We’re just slowly ramping ourselves up to that future. I think we’ve got some ideas in the works around catalytic finance of this and groups who are ready to put dollars to work to help this along and kickstart that chicken or egg situation, so that’s not even the thing we’re discussing anymore. That I think is what will be passed in two to three years and we’ll see just adoption scale. We’re already seeing scale increases. Our first issuance was about 19,000 tons of carbon sequestered, that’s a small number, it’s significant. It’s not one, 19,000 is a big number. A lot of farmers are involved, a lot of tech. But we now have over 5 million acres enrolled in our program. Just over the course of the two years we’ve been doing this, we’re talking about going from a few hundred thousand acres to more than 5 million.

John: How much of that in the United States?

Chris: That’s all in the United States. Our only program right now is in the U.S. we’re in the early phases of rolling out the global programs, so there’s no acres globally counted in that 5 million.

John: Wow. In November, you’re going to be completing your second payment to farmers, so that has to be very exciting as well.

Chris: Oh, that is. Anytime we can put dollars in the hands of farmers out in the country, that is a validation point that this is real. I think that really causes the snowball effect of their neighbors going, “Am I missing out? I got to go talk to those guys.” Or anybody who’s doing a carbon credit program.And that’s the exciting thing.

John: FOMO will work in your favor here. FOMO will work in your favor.

Chris: Absolutely.

John: In February, you’re also completing your second carbon credit issuance. What do you expect that to be?

Chris: We expect it to be more than double our first one. And that was just showing all kinds of efficiencies and everything else in the process and working with more farmers.

John: Chris, this has been amazing like I said, I sit in the middle of one of the biggest ag belts in America here in Fresno, California. And I’m going to definitely direct a lot of my friends and relatives by the way, to the great work you’re doing. To find Chris and all of his colleagues at Indigo Ag, go to indigoag.com. Chris, thank you for making the world a better place. Thank you for making the world more planet positive. Thank you for joining us today on the Impact Podcast.

Chris: Thanks, John. Appreciated it.

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John Shegerian: Hey, friendly listener, are you enjoying the Impact Podcast? Then, give us a thumbs up and leave a 5-star review on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. And, it’s the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States, with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and Impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps, and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian. Thank you very much for being with us today. We’re so honored. This is our holiday edition of the Impact Podcast and no greater person than to have Ryan Holiday himself, the author of Discipline is Destiny, his new book, which is already a New York Times Best Seller. Ryan, welcome back to the Impact Podcast.

Ryan Holiday: Yeah, thank you for having me.

John: Ryan, we had a great chat the first time. But this time, we’re going to be talking about your new book. We’re going to do a very short podcast today because time is more precious than ever. I’m going to start with one of the great rules that you laid out in the book, which I think you heard from Les Snead of the Rams. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Ryan: Yes.

John: Lay it out. Talk a little bit about that. That’s why we’re doing a really short but sweet podcast today.

Ryan: It’s easy when you don’t have much going on to decide what to do and what not to do because you don’t have that many choices. But as you become successful, as you take on more things in your life, whether that’s family or causes that you support, what happens is that you still have the same amount of time in the day, you’ll have the same amount of energy, the same amount of ability to do stuff and you have a lot of different things that you can do. Obviously, Les Snead’s the GM of the Rams. But I heard this from a performance coach in baseball as well. He said, “The major leagues, it’s all about pitch discipline or swing discipline. What pitches do you swing at? Which ones do you think are going to get you where you want to go?” And so, it becomes this difficult choice. I have here, next to my desk, I have a picture of my kids, and then I have underneath it, a sign actually that that sports psychologist gave me. It’s a picture of Oliver Sacks and behind him is just a large sign that was in his office that just says, “No.” A reminder that we have to say no. What is the important thing? What are the things that only you can do? What are the things that really move the needle for you? And then, you have to say no effectively to everything else.

John: Like I shared, this book is already a New York Times Best Seller. I’ve read it. I loved it. I’ve already shared it with many others. You were kind enough to sign some copies that we’re going to be giving away to some of our listeners. What’s your main goal that you hope that your readers or listeners on Audible take away from your new great book?

Ryan: I think it’s important that we don’t just see discipline as a means to an end. That if you eat well and exercise, you’ll be in good shape. If you work hard, you’ll succeed. But that also discipline is an end unto itself. It is a form of greatness in and of itself. Sitting down and working hard on something isn’t valuable only because it will get you to some point that you don’t have to work hard, but that by concentrating, focusing, and eliminating the inessential, by giving your absolute best to something, by learning as you do, all of the things that discipline brings out in you in that moment, which by the way, is the only guaranteed thing. The outcome is never certain. That is greatness. I want people to understand that it doesn’t all have to be professional sports, writing, or something that makes you millions of dollars. But just, again, being disciplined, committed, and in command of oneself is impressive and great by itself. The stokes are saying that look, to be in a position of leadership, you have to deserve it by being first, in command of yourself. That’s really what the book is about. It’s about being in command of yourself so that you are eligible and likely to be a good leader. But also, because, if you’re not in charge of yourself, who is?

John: Right, right. So when we look back to the greats, like Vince Lombardi, one of his great quotes was, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Again, it’s not determinative, but it’s predictive in terms of [inaudible].

Ryan: Yes. It’s determinative, but it also is guaranteed in the sense that doing those things are good unto themselves. Again, you’re not eating well so you look good 6 months from now. You’re eating well so you feel well now. What I’m really trying to say, what the book is built around and I think this is true 2,000 years ago, but it’s definitely true now, is that look, no one is really telling you what you can and can’t do. You can do anything you want. In light of that freedom, we have the opportunity, some would say the obligation to set our own boundaries, rules, and limitations about what we do and don’t do because if we just do everything that we want, whenever we want it, we think we’re getting a great life. We’re actually getting a terrible life.

John: Got it. Phil Knight, of course, I would assume is probably one of your followers. You’ve got millions of followers now. A modern-day Phil Knight wouldn’t just come out with, “Just Do It”, he would also come out with a line of clothing that would say, “Just Don’t Do It”. His new [inaudible] [crosstalk]

Ryan: Yeah. The epigraph from the book is a quote from Epictetus, the stoic philosopher who was asked to summarize stoic philosophy as a whole and he said, “It’s two words, persist and resist. Some things you should do and you have to keep doing them and other things you have to stop doing.” That’s kind of the tension. I think what’s so interesting, even about self-discipline, is it can be taken too far and become a vice. The other way the stoics rendered this virtue was temperance or moderation. When we think about discipline, we don’t just mean always doing the hard things, but we’re also talking about rest and recovery. We’re not talking about pushing yourself harder and harder and harder, but also, are you pushing towards the right thing? And just understanding that at the core, it comes down to this very important idea of balance.

John: Ryan, one thing I loved about your book that I love about all your books, frankly, is all the storytelling that you do in it, with historical figures and modern-day figures. If you were to pick a favorite story out of this book, what would be your favorite story? I know I have one but what would be yours?

Ryan: Well, I’m very curious to hear what yours is. But as I was building the book, I didn’t just want to talk about physical discipline because although that’s easy and it’s certainly something that we need the most help with, I wanted to talk about the other domains of discipline. The first character is Lou Gehrig, who I talk about as the greatest streak in baseball. But then, the next big character I talk about is Queen Elizabeth II, who died shortly after the book went to the printers. You look at someone like Lou Gehrig, who plays 2,100 games in a row. Queen Elizabeth was on the job every day for 70 years. It wasn’t so much a physical job, although she spent lots of hours shaking hands, and standing at attention, and doing all these things, lots of travel and all that. But, you think of the restraint inherent in that position- not giving your opinion, not getting involved in politics. Even though you have unlimited wealth and unlimited access- not having affairs, not spending more than… She was the picture of temperance or moderation and mostly in the emotional and verbal sense of that idea. I found her to be a fascinating and inspiring character that I wanted to spend a good chunk of the book writing about.

John: How your book ended, one of the many great stories that you related her to and depicted was how she sat alone at her husband’s funeral.

Ryan: Yes, yes.

John: As compared to governors of maybe the fair state that I’m sitting in today and that you were born in, who were living it up at the French Laundry during the pandemic and asking the public to do one thing and living a different life himself. She basically walked the walk but talked the talk, and did it the right way.

Ryan: Yeah. You can trust that even with Boris Johnson, who is having parties at the Prime Minister’s house. She could have and would have been granted any exceptions or exemptions from the rules that she could have asked for. We can reflect on whether it was actually necessary at that point and how tragic it was that COVID even happened. All of that is secondary to the fact that she felt that as a person in a position of power and influence, as the head of this thing, that in fact, the rules applied to her the strictest. I think the lesson there for all leaders- a military officer told me this. He said, “We have this acronym in the military. RHP. Rank has privileges.” But he said, “Actually, the great leaders understand it as rank has responsibilities.” Deciding how you think about that is to me, ultimately, a matter of discipline.

John: During the pandemic, you started The Painted Porch, the bookstore in your community of Bastrop, Texas. If any one person would walk into your bookstore today and asked the clerk behind the counter, “I’d like to see Ryan because I’d like to meet him and have dinner with him tonight,” what person, who you haven’t met before, would you be immediately stoked when your clerk came up to your office?

Ryan: A living person?

John: A living person, right now.

Ryan: I’d love to have dinner with General James Mattis, who I think is a modern stoic and an all-around fascinating person who’s had a fascinating life. Yeah, if he came in, I would hurry downstairs and not pretend to be busy as I often do.

John: Ryan, one thing that I love in what you do… Martin Luther King is a hero of mine. You have him all throughout your book. One of his great quotes is over the front door of our offices here for 18 years. “Everyone can be great because everyone can serve.” But you also are very balanced in your approach to the heroes and our inspirational figures like Martin Luther King. And also, you create this Hero versus Nero in almost everybody.

Ryan: Yeah.

John: How do you reconcile the paradox that all human beings truly are when they do great things and inspire us to continue doing great things-JFK, MLK, and Winston Churchill? But also, they have a little bit of Nero in them and in some of them, the little bit of Nero sometimes unravels them, and sometimes, they actually overcome that.

Ryan: Yeah, yeah. That’s a great question. King himself talked about this. He said that inside all of us is a civil war. He said there’s the north of our soul and the south of our soul. I think, perhaps, the reason that he was able to empathize and not write anyone off as being totally this or totally that, was he understood that even in himself he was complicated. Lincoln does this also. He says, “We are just what they would be in our position,” realizing that people are complicated. People are a product of their environment. People are not fully good or bad. I do try to celebrate what’s great in people, but I think one of the problems if you only celebrate what’s great in people is that you make it sound like they’re saints, that they’re perfect, that they came out of the womb better than you and I did. That’s why we’re not capable of doing the kinds of things that you’re doing and realizing that these are very flawed human beings. But that also, it was through self-discipline, courage, justice, or wisdom- the virtues that I’m talking about in this series- that they made themselves into the person we now admire. This goes all the way back to Aristotle. He says, “Look, if you want to be a generous person, start doing generous things. If you want to be a disciplined person, start acting with discipline.” It’s not this magical state that you arrive in. It’s a thing that you do. You’re a product of these actions. I think if you look at someone like Martin Luther King, did he have flaws? Did he make mistakes? Did he do some things that were shameful and embarrassing? Yes. But, if you’re looking at the totality of his actions, the vast majority of the time, he does the right thing. Sometimes, does the wrong thing. If that’s the ratio that we aspire to, we’re going to get closer to those kinds of heights and further away from the lows or the south inside all of us.

John: One last question, Ryan.

Ryan: Yeah.

John: Planning is everything. You and I would rather be the founders of Facebook than MySpace.

Ryan: Sure.

John: It seems as though, I know you had planned out this series of topics in books long ago because you said in our last podcast when we were talking about courage. It seems like this book on discipline is almost- the timing is perfect. It seems like there’s been a massive rise in these discipline gurus when you look at the guardians of the world, in the Jocko Willinks and the Rich Rolls of the world. And we’ve had a slide in society and culturally speaking, in terms of the icons that we’re so used to believing, in business icons- just look at what’s happening with FTX, political icons, January 6th, and even media, is your book perfectly on time? Is your timing that good and is it just perfectly on time for really what we need right now in society?

Ryan: I mean, I think you’re always a product of what’s happening in the world, and you try to tap into what’s happening, I got some really good advice from Robert Greene who was my mentor early on. He said the key to a great book is to be both timely and timeless at the same time or to find the timelessness in what is timely. So as I’m writing this book over the last 2 years, I’m obviously influenced by what’s happening in the world. I’m a product of what’s happening in the world but I’m also trying to root what we’re dealing with thinking about going through in ideas or people and places and things that are going to continue to be relevant and have historically always been relevant. So, I think for me it’s always about striking that balance. If you are only thinking about what’s cool, popular or trendy right now, if you’re trying to ride that wave, you’re going to miss the bigger, timeless, more important ones that are coming down in the future. I don’t know how perfectly timed it is. Certainly, it has been working lately which I’ll take. But if you ask me to choose do I want the book to be popular right now or continue to be popular for a long period of time, I would always choose the latter. I try to focus on that more than I focus on timing in the sense that you are talking about.

John: Ryan, thank you for your time today. I want to be very, very cognizant of the time you spent.

Ryan: Well, thank you.

John: I love this coin.

Ryan: It seems amazing.

John: This coin is on my desk. This is my office here where I’m taping this from and this reminds me of what’s really most important every day.

Ryan: I have a ring version that I’m wearing.

John: Nice. Is that new or is that…?

Ryan: Yeah, it’s just coming out.

John: Awesome. Well, that’s a great holiday gift. This coin is a great holiday gift. For our listeners and viewers, Discipline Is Destiny. This is a great holiday gift to find Ryan, you can find them at dailystoic.com, listen to his podcast, and read his daily ponderings at dailystoic.com. Also, Ryan, you’re on Instagram and your YouTube viewership is off the charts. So, for our listeners and viewers out there, amazon.com or go down to The Painted Porch and buy a case of these books and give them out at the holidays like I’m doing. Ryan Holiday, I thank you for everything you’ve done. You have made me a better person in the last 5 years since I’ve been following you, and you’re the reason why we’ve enjoyed having you on the Impact Podcast. Thanks, John. I’ll talk to you soon.

John: Welcome to another edition of the impact podcast. My name is John Shegerian, and I’m so honored to have with us today, Ryan Holiday. He is one of the best-selling authors that we have today in the United States. This is his 12th book. We’re going to be talking about today, Courage Is Calling. Ryan, welcome to the Impact Podcast.

Ryan: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

John: You know, I’m not only a huge fan. I read your Daily Stoic and you already have, at 34 years old, a huge body of work behind you. The Obstacles Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, The Daily Stoic, Stillness Is The Key. I mean, 4 million plus copies, New York Times bestseller. Before we get talking about Courage is Calling, where did you grow up and how did you even get on this journey of being this prolific writer?

Ryan: I grew up in beautiful Sacramento, California. Not a child of writers or really anyone involved in anything sort of like this. My dad is a police officer. My mom is a school principal. Sort of ordinary civil servant kind of family. I fell in love with books. I knew I wanted to do something around books. I wasn’t sure if I could be a writer. I just knew that I loved reading and I wanted to do something very different than how my parents’ lives were. I didn’t want to go to an office. I didn’t want to have a job and ended up here through a variety of strange twists and turns. I wrote my first book when I was 24 I think so I do have a body of work behind it, but I also got started earlier than most. So it’s a somewhat unfair advantage.

John: Right. What informed you, what made you such a bibliophile growing up, and what books informed you to say this is maybe a path I’m interested in taking?

Ryan: Yeah. I really loved books and I loved reading, but I didn’t really get turned on to the kinds of books that I like now until much later, probably 18 or 19 years old. I just was a prolific reader of anything. The Hardy Boys books and then my sister would have Nancy Drew and I’d read that too. I read literally anything that was between two covers. So I think I started just loving the printed word. I loved the experience of reading. It wasn’t until a little bit later on that I really got sort of exposed to philosophy and even this sort of genre of self-help. I remember when I graduated from high school, my aunt gave me a copy of Man’s Search For Meaning, which was probably the first book in this kind of genre that I guess I’m in now that sort of exposed me to, that a book could be more than entertainment. That a book could really not just teach you about a specific thing like a book about gardening or a book about how to use a computer, but a book about how to sort of actualize as a human being. That was probably the book that sort of opened my eyes to most, or at least at first.

John: And you wrote your first book when you were how old?

Ryan: 24. I wrote an expose of the marketing industry which I had been in for several years after college. I started writing when I was 24. I think it came out right after I turned 25.

John: Got it. You have all these books behind you. You’re a New York Times bestselling author, and you’re also seen as one of the top philosophers out there right now. I enjoy your Daily Stoic, and for those who want to find you there, they can go to www.dailystoic.com, sign up, and get Ryan’s daily newsletter. It’s so informative and actually really inspirational to get that every day. But what prompted you then to now go into this what is going to be, I believe, the series that you’re going to be writing the 4 cardinal virtues? You started with Courage Is Calling. What then prompted you to take on these 4 virtues now and start with Courage?

Ryan: My first book of philosophy was this book I wrote called The Obstacle Is The Way which I didn’t really have much in the way of plans for. I thought I wanted to talk about this sort of very specific way of thinking about stoic philosophy aimed at a very specific thing which is sort of the obstacles that life rolls in our path. It was my sort of first, I might say, my breakthrough book. I followed it shortly thereafter with another book which I’ve been thinking about before Obstacle came out, but ended up becoming more of a sequel to Obstacle than I had intended, or at least that I had planned for. So, 1 book became 2 books and then the 3rd book in that trilogy, which came out in 2019, was called Stillness Is The Key. So I sort of backed in unintentionally to this 3-book series, although none of it was planned as far as what follows each book. So they are sort of 3 independent but related books. So, as I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, I was thinking about doing a book on courage, I was interested in the topic. Then the fact that courage is the first of the 4 cardinal virtues really excited me not just because that goes to the core of what stoic philosophy is about, but I like the challenge of having to try to do a series. Obviously, philosophically, very interested in the sort of the idea of courage and its relation to the other virtues. As a writer, I was also excited by the challenge of tackling something as complex as a 4-book series.

John: So when you were going into this, you took on Courage first because you believe it’s central to the stoic of virtues?

Ryan: The cardinal virtues are the cardinal virtues of both stoicism and Christianity. It goes sort of way back, thousands of years- courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Cardinal comes from the Latin kardos, which just means hinge. So these are sort of pivotal virtues. I’ve written about them many times before. I just had never written a book about them. Could you do one book on all 4 virtues like a 4-part book on all 4 virtues, or would you decide to tackle it as 4 distinct books? I was excited about doing that. Then I started with courage. What it tends to be what is listed first like when you list them- we move the order around but typically, courage comes first. I think it’s the most essential of all the virtues in that you cannot have temperance, justice, or wisdom without courage. You really can’t have any of the virtues without each other. But I think courage is sort of the buy-in on all of the virtues. So it just felt like the right place to start. A lot of this stuff is kind of an intuition. Like when someone says, oh, why did you decide to write a book about this? You just sort of learn as an artist to trust what is interesting to you, what you’re thinking about, what you can’t not think about. That’s really what it is. I mean, honestly, my first book came from the fact that I kept talking about it and I finally thought I’m just going to write a book about this and then I won’t have to talk about it anymore, which is never really how it works. But you’re just motivated by this itch that you can’t seem to not scratch.

John: When you decided you’re going to do this series, before you started writing a word on Courage, did you already have in your mind which book you thought- you haven’t done them all yet- that was going to be the more difficult challenge to write?

Ryan: Certainly. I mean, I thought Courage would probably be the easiest. Courage is right down the middle as far as what it is, how you illustrate it, and why people care about it. There’s no society on earth, past or present that does not hold up courage as an admirable thing. There’s no society, the ancient culture of X that celebrated its cowards. That doesn’t exist. Courage felt like the reddest meat of all of them. I’m in the middle of the self-discipline book right now or temperance, which is proven to be trickier than I thought but it also is sort of straight down the middle. I think justice will probably be the hardest book, one because it veers the closest to politics. It’s the most clearly based on a sense of right and wrong, which obviously, there’s a lot of disagreement about. So that’s probably the book that I am most intimidated by. Then the one that I have the most reservations about is the wisdom book. In that writing a book about wisdom- all the books have this, but writing a book about wisdom, it still feels a tad presumptuous to be writing about that topic. So the wisdom book has its perils for different reasons.

John: In your book, and again, for our listeners and viewers out there, Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave. Ryan Holiday, he’s with us today. This is going to be actually our Thanksgiving edition of the Impact Podcast because I think this is really a real special call to action. And Ryan, you’ve really written, as you can tell, a book that I’ve enjoyed tremendously and gotten a lot out of after my 59 years, a lot that I never even learned or even understood before. You’ve explained it simply and really clearly here with illustrative stories. In the book, you mentioned that we prize courage maybe the most, but courage is in absolute short supply. What’s your definition of courage and what do you want your readers and listeners to come away with from this great book?

Ryan: The definition that I have in the book, first stipulating that we tend to see there being two types of courage, what we call moral courage and physical courage. Physical courage, pretty obvious, that’s the courage of a soldier or a fireman or something. Moral courage is more the courage of a whistleblower, a scientist, or a groundbreaking artist or something. But I think what both those forms of courage share is willingness to put one’s self on the line for something or someone. So I think that the core of courage is obviously the idea of risk. If there is no risk, if the outcome is guaranteed, courage is obviously not in play. Risk is courage. It’s predicated on there being some form of danger, reputationally to your actual health, whatever it is. If the company is guaranteed to succeed, it’s not courageous to go start it.

John: Right. One of my favorite things that you did in the book is you gave all these illustrative examples of courage and you mentioned and quoted so many great people. I made a little game of it. I started writing down just like my list of everyone that you gave some great stories and quotes from. One of my favorite stories that I relate to the times that we’re living in right now, is you brilliantly explained the Kitty Genovese story. Kitty Genovese, as you explained it, and the neighbor that came to her rescue, put herself on the line when no one else was doing anything. It’s so relatable to what we just went through in 2020 with George Floyd and just a few weeks back on that train in Philadelphia with the woman who was brutally attacked. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, history will repeat itself unless we learn from those mistakes. When you hear about or read or watch the news about those kinds of recent things, do you just shake your head? When people see something, say something, why not see something, do something?

Ryan: Sure. Yeah. I think as it pertains to that expression, the idea of saying something is doing something. I think it’s interesting when you look at the Kitty Genovese story, it is this sort of shameful story that we’ve told ourselves about the indifference of neighbors, particularly in the modern city, which it was in some ways. And then, in other ways, she was held by a neighbor as she died. A neighbor who she knew quite well, who had left her apartment and her small child inside to go answer these screams and finds her dying neighbor there, and then asks for zero credit or recognition for this experience even as she is implicated for a generation as being part of this horrible tale of indifference and inhumanity. I don’t know why that happens. I mean, you think about the girl who won the Pulitzer Prize for taking the video of George Floyd. I mean, it wasn’t just that she took the video. She stood there filming the police who clearly were not wonderful human beings or they wouldn’t have been in the middle of murdering this man. As you said, it’s more than just seeing something but doing something about it, trying to take some active step towards solving a problem. I think what’s interesting about the George Floyd thing is the woman filming who obviously sees something wrong. But you have the two other officers just standing there or kneeling there as their boss does this horrible thing right in front of them. There’s a line from Marcus Aurelius where he says, “You can commit Injustice by doing nothing also.” It’s of course easy to say this isn’t my problem, this isn’t my fight, this isn’t up to me, I don’t care about this, but you are complicit in the outcome of what happens.

John: What makes it worse to me is in that situation, in the recent Philadelphia train attack situation, is back in the Kitty Genovese days, people could have said well, I didn’t hear her, I wasn’t at home that night. This is now a world of we all become sort of

democratized reporting and all people have cell phones. We know people were there and people were watching. They were filming it. So that to me decompounds the complicity, like you said, of an action.

Ryan: Yeah. I think that’s right. Maybe that should remind you that, hey, people are always watching and that one ought to go through the world acting as if someone is watching. So you mentioned the Daily Stoic email, the email today that we sent out to the list. Obviously, I write them in advance, but the point of today’s email was talking about how your children and your grandchildren are going to ask you about what you did and what the pandemic was like. And so, just in the same way that I ask my grandfather about D-Day and I asked my grandmother about the depression, they’re going to ask you about this historical event. And what are you going to be able to say? Are you going to say, well, I posted a lot of misinformation on Facebook about it, or are you going to say, hey, I volunteered in a vaccine clinic or we did X, Y, or Z. We kept you guys home. What are you going to be able to say? When your kids ask you and you start to describe your experiences in this time, are you going to seem like you were part of the problem or you’re going to seem like you’re part of the solution, or you’re going to seem sort of wildly out of touch? There’s a famous exchange with John F. Kennedy, where John F. Kennedy sort of admits that he’d learned about the Great Depression in Harvard. He was rich and his life was so sheltered that he missed the Great Depression. He wasn’t 5. He was 15 during the Great Depression. So you’re like, oh wow, okay. So this person, they weren’t part of the problem, but they were also part of the problem. This is exactly the kind of out-of-touchness that probably caused the Great Depression to begin with. So as we kind of think about how history is going to judge us, both the larger scale of history, but just also your future self. What are you going to think about yourself in 10 years? Hopefully, society will have progressed in 10 years. Hopefully, we’ll be kinder and gentler and more equitable, all these things. And when you look back at where you were, you’re going to be like, oh, you know what I mean? I didn’t do everything that I could.

John: You talk about in the book, you give some great examples, and of course, you mentioned one of my heroes, Pat Tillman, and how we’re all going to be called, different times in our lives. But we have to be ready to answer that calling, and the calling could be, as you pointed out, and you gave so many brilliant examples throughout the book. One of the great examples was the 6-second example with our brave troops that prevented many more people from dying over in the other side of the planet. But with Pat Tillman, he answered his calling and he said you know when you get called. You can feel it. Can you explain to our listeners and readers what do you mean by that, and how can we get better in tune with ourselves? Someone we know we have to exhibit courage. We could actually get over our fear and over ourselves.

Ryan: Everyone gets the call, but almost everyone refuses to call. If you’re familiar with the idea of The Hero’s Journey which Joseph Campbell puts forth, one of the steps in the hero’s journey is the refusal of the call. So this is part of it. We have this sense or we hear this voice or we see this inspiration that calls us to do something and almost invariably, we come up with reasons why we can’t do it or we can’t do it right now. Steven Pressfield calls this the resistance. We don’t say I’m never going to do it, we say I’ll start tomorrow. Understanding that this sort of tension, if it was obvious, everyone would do it. It’s not obvious, it’s hard and we wrestle with it. For me, when I dropped out of college to become a writer, when I decided to go from writing marketing books to philosophy books, these were not easy or obvious decisions. I went back and forth about them. I had a lot of doubts about them, but you sort of have to go toward that scarier thing. So the call is there. The call is usually- we’re coming up on Halloween here- the call is coming from inside the house but you have to answer it. You have to decide to act on it because what would a world look like without the Pat Tillmans, the Florence Nightingales, the Winston Churchills, or the Martin Luther Kings? Martin Luther King is just an ordinary pastor in Montgomery. He doesn’t have to get involved. There were other black preachers in major black churches that didn’t step forward. And there were some that just step forward but not as far as King did. I think he’s 25 years old. You think of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington as old men, but they were in their early 20s and 30s when this happened. They weren’t certain about it, it was scary as hell, but they proceeded anyway. They answered the call.

John: Answered the call. You talked in the book about your own fear. And as you just pointed out, switching from the marketing guy to a philosopher, dropping out of college- I dropped out of law school. It wasn’t an easy decision. Of course, the abyss is always scarier than where you are today. What do you want? There are so many amazing quotes in this in this book, and as you can see, I’ve marked it up. But anyone who can quote both Martin Luther King and Frank Serpico in a book is someone that I’m a huge fan of. I took out so many quotes and I wrote down so many. What would be your favorite 2 or 3 quotes in the whole book that you want people to sear in their brain and keep in front of their brain every day as they work through their journey?

Ryan: One of the ones I love, it’s often attributed to Andrew Jackson although he probably didn’t actually say it. It’s this idea that one person with courage makes a majority. The whole world depends on people who stood alone on a certain issue and brought other people around. Again, to go to Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King was I think at a 60 or so percent disapproval, disfavourable opinion at the time of his death. Not even a majority of African Americans were a fan of Martin Luther King. But this is what happens when you are ahead of your time is that you often upset people or your hard to wrap your head around so the idea that it’s going to require standing alone. It’s not always as high-stakes as civil rights. It might just be, hey, this is the direction that I think my industry is going to go in and everyone on your team might be convinced you are completely wrong and that may be why you have to break out on your own or why you have to put in more of your own money on it or whatever it is. But the point is being okay standing alone, having the courage to do that, and the perseverance to understand that this is how change happens from a person who takes a position and convinces other people to come along with them. One of my favorite ones though, and I think we’re in the middle of this right now, is although courage is rare even amongst people who think they understand courage, we have trouble understanding what it’s about. So there’s a quote from the poet Lord Byron that I have towards the end of the book. It says, “Tis the cause makes all that hallows or degrades courage in its fall.” Is it courageous that Kyrie Irving is willing to risk $400,000 a game to not get vaccinated because he’s protesting vaccine mandates or whatever? I mean, it’s certainly risky. It’s certainly a scary thing to do. You’re betting millions of dollars on a thing you believe. The problem is when we’re talking about courage as a virtue, it has to be in the pursuit of what the stoics would call the right. To courageously protect your right to be a vector of a deadly virus is not what we’re talking about when we’re talking about courage. Was it courageous for Robert E. Lee to break with the country that he had served honorably for years to side with the state of Virginia? Was he courageous under fire many times? Of course, but we also understand and this is why we’re having this debate now about these statues, that there’s something empty and hollow, not hallow, hollow about this courage because it was in the pursuit of a monstrous injustice, a monstrously incorrect cause. So, when we think about the virtues, we have to understand that they’re related to each other. Not only does courage have to be balanced by justice, it also has to be balanced by wisdom. So if you’ve courageously decided to jump off a cliff that everyone told you you’re going to die when you hit the ground, this is where wisdom comes in. The wisdom to accept information and integrate it is really, really important. Yes, you can courageously resist vaccines as much as you want, but if the reason you’re doing that is because you’re also, again to go to Kyrie Irving, a person who believes the world is flat, you’re an idiot. You’re not brave. That’s an important decision.

John: The book and on the Kyrie Irving story to me is Muhammad Ali. He was a hero because he had the courage to push back against the war that he didn’t believe in. It turned out that history was on his side and he lost a lot of his career because of that.

Ryan: Yes. And look, even if he was wrong, there were conscientious objectors in the Second World War. I think we go like, look, the cause itself was not bad but we understand there’s a sincere religious conviction behind the resistance. So, even if Vietnam was not a travesty or a tragedy, in Muhammad Ali there is a sincere religious conviction that is motivating the decision that he’s making. It’s just important to say that courage is truth-telling, but if you’re just rudely telling truths to hurt people’s feelings, that’s not what we’re talking about.

John: Right. Again, we’ve got Ryan Holiday with us. This is the Thanksgiving Special. We all should give thanks for Ryan and his new book, Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave. We could all use wisdom on how to be more courageous in our lives, every one of us. You know, Ryan, one of the things I love about the book is you talk a lot about the stoics, obviously, which you’re a philosopher. What do you think if the stoics were here today, they came down for just 2 days here on this planet and saw everything that was going on, what would they be intrigued about and be fascinated by, and what would they be totally turned off about what’s going on right now?

Ryan: Let’s say you dropped Marcus Aurelius into 2020. Here you have a guy who is head of state during the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire, who’s also the majority of his reign is made up of what we now refer to as the Antonine Plague. So, I feel like he’d have looked around and accepted some of the technology, being like, “This is very familiar to me.” He would understand. Actually, that’s one of my favorite quotes and meditations and it certainly became more so over time, but he talks about how during a plague he says there are two types of plagues. He says there’s the pestilence that destroys your life and he said there’s another that affects your character. And I think we’ve seen this also during the pandemic where people who whether they got CoVid or not, also got some sort of character infection that made them sort of deeply selfish or susceptible to conspiracies. When you watch a video of some lady screaming at a supermarket clerk who asked them to put on a mask, you’re like, you might not have CoVid but I’m pretty sure you got something worse. You caught something. So, that Marcus was familiar with that 2000 years ago I find to be really interesting. I said accepting the technology. I do think they would be appalled by our dependency on these devices. That our inability to focus for 5 minutes on the simplest of tasks, I think they would struggle to comprehend that. I mean, obviously, human beings have always struggled with attention and focus and whatever, but I think they’d look at our dependency on these devices and ask why we’re doing this to ourselves.

John: Got it. You know, one of the things I loved about your journey- and you’re only 34. You know, my 2 children are above me here with this and this was up on my walls for years before this pandemic ever hit, but it turned out to be a nice background for all my Zoom calls. My daughter’s 34 and she’s a lawyer and I’m so proud of her. She’s 35 and I’m thinking, oh my gosh. I mean, at such a young age, you’ve done so much and now during the pandemic, you are called again. When all of retail shut down or virtually all of retail, you decide to go counter to the absolute trends that are existing in 2020 which was literally a silence that I’ve never seen in my 59 years in the United States and around the world. And you opened up a bookstore called The Painted Porch in your hometown now, where you live in Bastrop Texas. Explain where that calling came from, why you decided that 2020 during the pandemic was the right time to answer the call, and how has it gone since you launched this. I’ve been online. I’ve seen the books and all the photos, and it looks just gorgeous and beautiful and something out of a Norman, Rockwell painting. Why?

Ryan: Well, to be fair, I started before the pandemic. I just decided not to quit during the pandemic. I didn’t decide in March that opening a bookstore would be a good idea.

John: Okay, fair enough.

Ryan: But I did stand in the empty bookstore in March and go, I can’t believe we have to do this now. It was a long journey. It was an exhausting, expensive and terrifying journey in many ways, but it was a really good experience. I love books. You can see books behind me. I love physical books most of all. That’s how I read. But now even as an author, something like 60% of my book sales are digital, either ebooks or audiobooks. Obviously, I’m very grateful for that, but something about the physical experience really means something to me. As we were looking for some office space for our company, we sort of came up with this hybrid idea of office space plus there was a storefront involved. So it worked out somewhat accidentally as an opportunity to do both and it’s turned out to be very cool and fun. It was harder and took longer than expected, but it’s been a really cool experience and there’s something about being part of a community and doing something in the real world. I could hear right now like little kids running around excited. There’s just something I love about that.

John: Hey listen, I love it. I grew up in New York City and one of my favorite places of peace and enjoyment was Fifth Avenue and 18th Street, the big Barnes & Noble, their flagship store. So opening up a bookstore sounds wonderful. Just during a pandemic, maybe not so much, but how [inaudible] [crosstalk]

Ryan: It was not the best business decision, but it’s been a fun personal experience, to say the least.

John: Talking about personal experiences, you’re married with two boys, and I know you take that seriously. I’ve read what you’ve written about fatherhood and being a husband. I know you really lean into it. How do you find time given how busy you are, how much you loved to read, and also you’re writing? You’re already writing the second of this 4 series, the book on temperance. Where do you find time to get into your flow and actually still continue to be at the peak of your abilities?

Ryan: I mean, it’s kind of an unfair profession. I mean, if I was a professional baseball player, I would be away a lot more. One of the benefits and probably why I chose it, but your sort of a lone wolf as a writer as far as doing your actual thing and so you’re able to kind of squeeze it in into different pockets but I’m a big creature of habit. Part of the reason we did the bookstore, part of the reason we live where we live was kind of setting up a system to optimize for those things that allowed all of them to be possible. If I had a fire at a 90-minute commute or something, obviously, that would eat up large chunks of the time in the day. So I’ve tried to sort of design my life around the things that are important to me. But it also means saying no to sort of stuff that maybe would ordinarily be perks of the profession to a single writer my age or something. I’m not experiencing but that hasn’t been something I’ve particularly missed.

John: Right. One of my favorite quotes in your book is, “The world is a narrow bridge and the important thing is not to be afraid.” Explain why you put that in the book and what that means to you or why that was so important to put that in your book.

Ryan: Yeah. It’s a little Hebrew prayer. There’s actually a great novel called The World Is A Narrow Bridge by a guy named Aaron Thier, which I love as well. But to me, the wisdom of that prayer is it’s like when you’re walking… Have you ever been on a narrow rope bridge or something over like some Canyon? Just keep walking, don’t look down,

don’t look over the edge, don’t stop, don’t look behind you, just get across the bridge. And any of those other things, as tempting as they might be, are very dangerous because you slow down, you lose your heart to continue, and suddenly you get really nervous. You just got to get across.

John: Got it. In a lot of your writings that I’ve read before, before he even Courage Is Calling, you talk about the stoics’ virtue of controlling their response, and how we can all learn to be better at controlling our response. What do you want people to learn when you write about controlling their response and how the stoics held that in high esteem and how we can all get better at practicing that and actually exhibiting that kind of behavior?

Ryan: Well, I think, look, at the core of Stoicism is the idea that we don’t control what happens, we control how we respond. That’s life, right? So I think if you think about it just as a resource allocation issue, are you going to spend time on the things you don’t control, or are you going to put all that energy towards the parts of it that you do control? So I think the stoic just tries to say what part of this is up to me, what can I do, where can I move the ball forward? I’m not saying I’m perfect at it. On the contrary, I just know that sometimes you get all worked up at something then you’re like, what am I really saying here? And what you’re really saying is I wish that it hadn’t happened this way, but it did. And so are you going to spend time litigating that or you’re going to focus on what comes after?

John: Yeah. You made a point in the book where you said or in your book or somewhere else when I read one of your passages, you said, “Really, do you ever feel excited or do you look back favorably on a time where you got mad or got it exploded at somebody or something?” It’s not fun to look back at those moments.

Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever lost my temper and then been proud of myself after. Are there certain moments where I’m glad I stood up for myself? Yeah. But even in those moments, I say I wish I’d done that without saying X, Y, or Z, .

John: You get to meet a lot of people like you said because of the over 4 million copies you’ve sold, Ryan. You’re a New York Times bestseller. Many times over, athletes, entertainers, and so many military leaders around the world read your books. So you have great access to so many people. What I’d love to know is if tonight and tomorrow night, you had two chances at dinner. One, tonight with someone who’s still living- not a family member- go to dinner with somebody, and tomorrow night with someone who’s passed, anyone who’s passed, who would be your 2 favorite people to have dinner with, past and still alive?

Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I’d love to meet General Mattis. I’m a big fan of and I know a little bit but we’ve never met in person. So if I had to pick a living, maybe I’d go there. And then, I feel like I would lose my stoic credentials if I didn’t choose Marcus Aurelius, but if I had to pick, let’s say you’re limiting it to an American, I think Lincoln, probably Lincoln.

John: It could be anyone. No, no, [inaudible]

Ryan: No, I’m just saying, just so I could choose 2, I’d say Marcus Aurelius is number 1.

John: You got a bonus one in there. I see what you did.

Ryan: Yes, exactly.

John: You self-limited it.

Ryan: Yes.

John: I got it. Again, Courage Is Calling. You can buy this book not only at The Painted Porch but at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and every other place you can buy great books. This is just really one of the favorite books that I’ve read in 10 years. You can see how much I’ve marked it up. You know, you talked about David Brooks in the book. You talked about The Second Mountain. Can you share a little bit about what you mean about what Brooks meant by The Second Mountain?

Ryan:: Yeah. The Second Mountain is sort of once you climbed the top of the first mountain, that’s your career success. What is the second mountain for you? Giving back, what is the other thing that you’re doing? It is a great book. [inaudible] by that title. Look, it’s up there? Anyways, I’m going to talk about that more probably in the Justice book. The bookstore was part of the second mountain. It was like, hey, I’ve had this success. This is the thing I’m good at. What is a cool thing I could do in a place that I live? What’s another project to tackle that might not be as financially lucrative, but might be richer in meaning or purpose, and it’s certainly been that. So I think The Second Mountain is sort of what is it that you are doing after you have achieved the thing that you wanted most in the world.

John: Got it. Well, first of all, you share some stories that I’ve never heard. I mean, I love the story that you shared- and if you want to just hit the high notes on it, I think it would be fun for our listeners and viewers- on the relationship between Martin Luther King and Richard Nixon, which I had never read that or heard that anywhere, and the relationship between JFK and Martin Luther King, and how 2 phone calls could have probably turned that whole election.

Ryan: Yeah. So Nixon and King were actually friends because Nixon was in charge of Eisenhower’s civil rights platform so they met each other many many times. And then, Kennedy did not really know King until the 1960 election. King is arrested in Georgia on these sorts of trumped-up charges and there’s a real concern that he’s either going to do a long prison sentence or he’s going to mysteriously disappear while in police custody. It’s going to be murderer Lynch. And so Coretta Scott King who’s pregnant I think with their third child at the time, calls both campaigns and says, “You guys got to do something, you can’t let my husband die.” Both parties had some civil rights plans in their campaign. Nixon decides not to get involved. He doesn’t want to be seen as grandstanding. He wants to wait until after the election. He also doesn’t want to lose some of the southern votes. It’s sort of razor-thin there anyway. He doesn’t want to lose the southern vote. So he doesn’t get involved. Kennedy on the other hand, decides mostly at the prompting of his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, to place a phone call, one to Coretta Scott King and then he and his brother both called the judge in Georgia, and they ultimately sort of applied enough pressure that King is released. Martin Luther King, when he gets out of jail, he’s like stunned. He would have sworn that it would have been Nixon who would have helped him, not Kennedy who’s a Democrat, who is more dependent on Southern Democratic support. So, he just puts out there what happened. He’d been planning to vote for Nixon and he changes his mind. I think Kennedy goes on to win the presidential election by like 30,000 votes across 3 states. Almost entirely people think due to the swing in the black vote due to these 2 phone calls that he makes. I think it’s an important example of how a single but 30-second burst of courage can change one’s life, and conversely, that a momentary lapse of courage, a moment of cowardice can change your life for the negative as well. Nixon doesn’t get involved because he doesn’t want to hurt his re-election prospects and ends up costing himself the election. So, when we have these moments, when our conscience is telling us what to do, when we feel that pit in our stomach, you just got to do it.

John: You got to answer the call.

Ryan: Yes.

John: You’re very self-reflective, Ryan. I really enjoyed the afterword. I have to tell you, the afterword was really interesting to me. I never heard that story, never read all that, I had just seen the business side of that story, never understood the underpinnings. It’s the American Apparel, you’re involvement with American Apparel, and as you said, you’ve already pointed out during this interview and other places, complicity is just as bad as [inaudible].

Ryan: Sure.

John: But I love when you write about yourself like 34 Mistakes on the Way to 34 Years Old. Do you enjoy the process of being so self-reflective and on varnish? Is it a cathartic experience for you, or do you find it informative to the platform that you’ve created, or is it a duality of both?

Ryan: I think it’s both. I mean, I do think as far as counter-programming goes, most people celebrate their successes and show a very selected picture of who they are and how things are going. I certainly understand this for branding purposes, but it’s also kind of boring because everything’s positive, everything’s going well, nothing feels particularly real. So I do try to consciously make an effort to show how things actually are and I think people appreciate that. But I also feel like it’s just really easy to buy into your own crap. So I try to sort of consciously look at things like I did in this story. I could have told some sort of narrative that presented myself as a particularly courageous person or I could have shown all the things, but I don’t know. It just didn’t feel right. I talked earlier about intuition. There’s just a part of me that said, the best way to wrap up this book would be with a story of cowardice or a failure of courage as opposed to somehow trying to ride on the coattails of these people whose stories you’ve just told. So it just felt and I certainly benefited from the experience of reflecting on it as well. But part of it also, it just felt like the honest thing to do.

John: Before I let you go today, Ryan, I want to talk about 2 fascinating shows that really hit it big during this pandemic. One was The Last Dance with Michael Jordan, the 10-part series. I believe it was episode 8, the last part of it, the last 4 or 5 minutes was the only time he got emotional during the whole interview. He had a quote and this is when he literally started breaking. I’ve never seen him break. He said at the end of episode 8, “Leadership has a price and winning has a price.” If we replace the words leadership and winning with the words courage, do you find that analogy is absolutely spot-on?

Ryan: Yeah. When you look at whistleblowers, I had- what’s-his-name? Who was the whistleblower? Oh, I had Lieutenant Colonel Vindman on my podcast, the White House whistleblower. You look at what that decision cost that guy. It cost not only him, his military career, but it cost his brother his career as well. So these things don’t come for free. They come at a cost. I think that’s right. But that’s what makes it so impressive. Again, if it was free, if it was easy, everyone would do it and there’d be a lot more Michael Jordans and thus, there’d be no Michael Jordans.

John: Especially during this pandemic, Moderna became one of the great brands now that we all know about because they had a breakthrough technology with Pfizer to come up with the great vaccination, but we all look back then to Jonas Salk and you mentioned Jonas Salk in the book. Now, I always knew him for, of course, creating the polio vaccine. I never knew until I read your book that he didn’t patent it and he didn’t, again, personally take advantage of that great breakthrough.

Ryan: There’s another woman, her name is Dr. Katalin Kariko, and she had been working on mRNA research for 30 years. She came to America as an immigrant from Hungary with $900 in her pocket. She never made more than $60,000 a year. She constantly had to fight for funding. She was constantly having to fight for her job. Everyone thought this was this sort of scientific dead end. And then lo and behold 2020 comes around and suddenly it’s the ticket and it’s the invention of a lifetime or the breakthrough of a lifetime. That wasn’t easy for her, right? I’m sure it took a lot out of her, and I’m sure it took a lot out of her family, but we need people like that. Where would we be without people like that? It’s almost unfathomable.

John: My last question for today and then I’m going to leave you of course because you’ve been so generous, is about the new hero of the world, Ted Lasso.

Ryan: Yes.

John: So, Jason Sudeikis, he was being interviewed the other day and they said, listen,

how did you come up with such an amazing idea to execute this series when your life was sort of falling apart? You and your wife had split, you were separated from your children and stuff. He talked about it. He said, listen, you have a choice, and you talk about this choice in the book. He said you have a choice. You could either- become when the world crushes you and it’s going to crush you, all of us are going to somewhere somehow get knocked down or beat up or crushed. He goes, “You can become a pile of 206 bones and broken bones, which means,” he goes, “All your bones are broken. If we all have 206 bones,” he goes, “That means you’re a pile of 400-plus bones, or you can put yourself back together, get up, and move forward every day and if you do it right, the bones come together and heal even stronger than when you started.” You talked about the Japanese art called kintsugi, I think. It’s K-I-N-T-S-U-G-I. Can you talk a little bit about how all of us in some way, shape, or form are broken and how we can either decide that death is the option or we’re going to come back stronger and smarter?

Ryan: What I love about Ted Lasso as a show and I’d start to talk about this a little bit in the book is I loved his earnestness. It’s a positive show. He actually sincerely tries to be a decent human being instead of this sort of action hero or antihero or whatever you want. And I love that. I think hope is probably the most courageous thing that there is or just earnestly trying because it’s one of the most courageous things you can do in this life. So I love that. The art form you’re talking about, it’s a Japanese form of art where let’s say a piece of pottery breaks. Instead of gluing it back together, they attach it either via gold or silver. So the thin becomes not just more valuable as a result, but it becomes more beautiful as a result. It’s a fascinating form of art. And I think it’s a good metaphor for the human experience. You can break and become stronger as you heal in the broken places, or you can become weaker and more vulnerable in those places, but that’s your choice. And I think, look, the last year has been really hard. The last year and a half has been really hard. Some of us are going to emerge from this better and some of us are going to emerge from this broken shells of a human being. Again, you look at some of the ways that people [inaudible] now. The things they say, you understand where it comes from. It’s been a rough year and a half. But the choice is are we going to be better, kinder, more loving, more connected, more appreciative, more generous, as a result of what’s happened, or are we going to become bitter and angry and aggressive and anti-social as a result of what’s happened? That’s ultimately to go back to the question about what do you control. That choice is on you. You didn’t choose what happened the last year and a half. No one would have chosen it. If they did but it did happen, and so what are you going to emerge looking like? That’s the question.

John: Got it. That’s why you’re here with us today on this Thanksgiving special. We want people to emerge better with more courage. Ryan, my lifelong friend since I’m 5 years old, so that’s 54, 55 years now, Greg Saffer first told me about you and he’s still of course my good friend, and he told me about your coins.

Ryan: Oh, lovely.

John: And this coin sits underneath my speaker here. So when I do all these interviews at my business desk, I’m always able to remember. But can you just share with our listeners why Memento Mori, and, “You could leave life right now,” means so much as something that we all should keep in mind as we move through this journey?

Ryan: Well, I think the point about the pandemic stands. It put in stark relief how fragile life is, how you really can’t take anything for granted, and how things can change in an instant. And the stoics wanted us never to lose sight of that. To remember that we’re mortal, to remember that we’re not in control, to remember that life has a definite end. Every single person who’s born will die. When that is is an open question but it could be 5 minutes from now, it could be 50 years from now. But how are you going to spend that time, who were you going to be, and what decisions are you going to make while you’re still in control, again, those are the important questions.

John: For our listeners and viewers who want to buy these coins, they can go to thedailystoic.com, and sign up for Ryan’s newsletter to buy this book. You can buy it of course at The Painted Porch, or you can buy it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all great bookstores, both physical bookstores and online in the United States and around the world. Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave. Ryan was kind enough to sign a bunch of copies for us. We’re going to be giving them out during our Thanksgiving special. Thank you, Ryan Holiday. You are making a huge impact on this planet. You also made a huge impact on me and my family. Thank you for this time. We’re really grateful for all that you’re doing.

Ryan: John, thank you so much.

John: Thanks, Ryan.

This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage as a digital booking platform, revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage, or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

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John Shegerian: Do you have a suggestion for an amazing Impact guest? Go to impact podcast.com and click Be a Guest to recommend someone today. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry with thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and I have a very special guest with us today. We’ve got Adam Langton. He’s the US Energy Services manager for BMW of North America. Adam, welcome to the Impact Podcast.

Adam Langton: Thanks for having me, John.

John: It’s so great to have BMW on the show. It’s an honor. I’ve owned BMWs during my lifetime. Our families owned them. They’re wonderful automobiles. And we’ve had the other car companies, many other car companies, auto companies on our show over the last 17 or so years or 60 or so years. This is BMW’s first turn at the wheel so we’re so grateful for your time today, Adam.

Adam: Great. Well, yeah. Again, thanks for having me.

John: Yeah. And before we start talking about all the important work you’re doing at BMW with your colleagues, can you share a little bit the Adam Langton story? Like how do you even get here?

Adam: Sure. So I’ve been with BMW since 2015. And prior to joining BMW, I worked for the state of California and I worked on state energy regulations. At the time that I was working for the state, we were working on carbon regulations to hit the state’s carbon targets for 2020. And we also started electric vehicle programs and policies to support electric vehicle adoption and that was my first kind of exposure to the EV space. And I thought it was a really exciting area and really enjoyed my time working for the state. But I was also interested in kind of exploring more on the technology side, opportunities to innovate more. And so I had the opportunity to join BMW and join the electric vehicle team here and it’s been great so far. Prior to joining the state of California, I went to grad school at UC Berkeley. I went to the public policy school and I studied energy and environmental policy. And prior to that, I studied economics at Boston College.

John: Wow! So you’re a bear. A part of your life, you’re a Berkeley bear.

Adam: Yes.

John: Now, this grew up on the East Coast or West Coast?

Adam: So I grew up in St. Louis Missouri.

John: Wow! Right in the middle. So, when you were growing up, was this something that you ever envision up not the EV thing so to speak? But was your family environmentally minded? Was the environment a big deal in your in your household? And then someone or some people in your family or friends or schooling inspire you to get involved with this really Green Revolution?

Adam: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think for me it really started probably around sixth grade. When I was in sixth grade, I started a paper recycling program for my school and so that was a kind of my first experience dealing with environmental issues. And so I set up the recycling bins all around the school, and I collected them and I work with the collector to recycle paper. So that’s my first kind of experience of how you can make a difference in the environmental space.

John: Wait a second Adam, so you’re really an environmentalist, environmental? I mean, you’re back in sixth grade shifting the linear to circular economy in sixth grade? You are one of the real. You were doing this way before it was ever cool to do in the environmental thing. That’s amazing! That’s huge! That’s awesome!

Adam: Yes, so it was something, I’ve always been passionate about and it’s really exciting that I’ve had the opportunity in my career to what I think is have an impact on these issues. And and I’m really excited about where we’re headed in California and in the rest of the world to make a cleaner Planet.

Adam: Yeah. And then so, California of course just like the United States has its inherent challenges and and paradoxical issues that sometimes make us all little nuts but as the green economy goes, as California goes so does great parts of the United States. So we actually get to be a leader in these things, so thus the fun part. You get to be really as both a public policy person and now as a corporate executive, you get to really shift the change.

Adam: Exactly.

John: That’s exciting.

Adam: Yeah. So it’s nice to be on the kind of the bleeding edge of that… [crosstalk]

John: Yeah.

Adam: … And it’s a great learning experience. So, I think we can have a real impact.

John: So talk a little bit about you know, unwrapped your title, US Energy Services manager from BMW of North America. What does that specifically mean? What falls under your bucket of duties and things that you’ve been tasked with accomplishing?

Adam: Sure. So what we’re trying to do, what my role is to look at our Electric Vehicle products and figure out energy services and products related to our electric vehicles that can help create sustainability benefits or creates savings for our customers making their energy usage cleaner and also making it less expensive for them. So, looking at these kind of things right around the Electric Vehicle, things like smart charging, we’ve explored stationary storage renewable energy partnerships. So those kind of areas where the vehicle touches the grid, the electric grid. How can we help use our Electric Vehicle products to make the grid more sustainable and reduce costs for utilities and our drivers as well?

John: Got it. So, talk a little bit about one of the greatest problems, but in terms of the adoption of the whole EV revolution has been this whole thing about distance anxiety? Range anxiety? Are we improving with regards to both the cars range limitations? And also more, more charging stations? So are those two trends coming together to give people more comfort on this range anxiety or where are we in that whole evolution of range anxiety lessening and lessening and more people adopting these wonderful EV cars?

Adam: So, one of the biggest challenges for EV adoption is range anxiety from car buyers. So we’re seeing two things happen. One thing is that the vehicle range is increasing for a lot of the vehicle products being offered. For example, here at BMW, we released two vehicles this year that have over 300 miles of range… [crosstalk]

John: Wow!

Adam: … For there EVC, RIX, which is our SUV and also RI 4, which is a Sedan, and both of those have over 300 miles range. So, this is now, as the batteries get larger customers, get more and more comfortable that they can meet their trips, their travel requirements using vehicles that were selling, that’s part of it. The other part of the equation is getting more and more infrastructure available, out in our communities, out on our major travel corridors so that people have the opportunity to make longer trips. But also a big part of that is that people feel more comfortable purchasing the vehicle in the first place, knowing that, that infrastructure is out there, gives people more comfort to say, I’m going to, I can now buy this vehicle because I know that I’ll have a place to charge. Well, we often find is that, there is the perceived need for infrastructure is higher than the actual need. So the sense of what people think they’re going to need before they buy the vehicles, a lot higher. So they need to see that infrastructure out on the roads in their community before they buy the vehicle. And then when they actually to buy the vehicle, well, what they find is that they can meet a lot, most of their trips by charging at home and that they actually don’t need infrastructure out in the community as much as they think they’re going to need. But because this is something that impacts their decision to buy the vehicle, it becomes really important to support EV adoption to get that infrastructure out on the roads.

John: And this is where I have abject ignorance, Adam. And I wish I didn’t because this is such an important issue. Who is in charge and how much are the auto manufacturers involved with the infrastructure build out of all these EV charging stations?

Adam: So, most of the infrastructure build out is happening by third-party companies that are building infrastructures through their networks. They set up a network of charging stations. For our part as an OEM, what we do is we partner with different network providers, so that we can offer our customers access to those charging stations. Many cases for free or at a discounted rate. And so we offer that when somebody buys a new vehicle and that’s something that then helps give them confidence that they’ll be a lot of charging stations available to them.

John: Understood. So it’s almost like the beginnings of times when one of the vehicles force hit the streets and gas stations were set up, these charging stations are now being set up, similarly by third- parties, who then your interconnecting with.

Adam: Yes. And there’s an important role in this, is funding from the State and Federal Government in California. The State of California has funded a lot of infrastructure both directly but also through utility partners, who helped grow the infrastructure network. And at the Federal Government, there’s new money available to States to build their infrastructure. So that funding, which is commonly available in the past year, is going to be really critical for this next wave of EV adoption. Where looking at more and more drivers and they are more sensitive to range anxiety than the early adopters who were

excited about the technology and maybe very excited about the environmental benefits.

John: And again, this goes back to just my voids of knowledge. If I own 10 gas stations here in the Central Valley of California, why wouldn’t I take one or two of my pumps and make them electric pumps now electric stations so in that way I could service my gasoline customers and also my EV customers? Is that not also happening? Or is there any hybrid stations evolving as well?

Adam: We’re seeing things like that. People are exploring that model. There are challenges to that, though. The challenges, if you’re a gas station, you’re cool. And you want to build a charging station. You’re probably going to need to build a fast charging station, something that can charge a vehicle at 100, 200, 300 kilowatts, which is a pretty high rate, that’s equal to dozens of houses, that consumption from dozens of houses. So what you’re going to need to do then is that utilities going to need to have a service to your gas station, that can power a high power station, that can be expensive, that can be changes to the electric grid that need to happen. So that’s one part of it that we need to address, that’s not easy. And it can be a significant investment, that investment could be paid for by the utility, could be paid for by the gas station. Some of that, in that split is something that needs to be sorted out over time. That’s part of it. The other challenge is that, a gas station is used to serving in a customer in under two minutes. So, I guess… [crosstalk]

John: Like, why?

Adam: … Somebody pulls up and they’re able to charge their vehicle in a minute or fuel their vehicle with gasoline in a minute or 2. EV charging takes longer than that. Even the fast charging stations that I’m describing would still take 30 minutes or more in many cases to get a vehicle that’s completely empty. So now it’s a different experience. It’s not somebody just pulling up a couple minutes and on the way, they’re going to be there for a longer period of time. So now the question is, what are the expectations for somebody while they’re park someplace 20, 30 an hour long to charge their vehicle? What are their expectations for what they’re going to do? How they’re going to spend their time? And so I think that model is still evolving.

John: Interesting. You know, I said at the top of the show, you know, we have the curse and the blessing of being in California. One of the real blessings, it is our very Green State and we do get to lead on so many of these important issues when it comes to the environmental revolution or whatever, it’s going to be cold in the months and years ahead. But one of the funniest stories of this summer given that I live in Fresno California was probably the hottest summer. I remember, we moved here, Adam in 1996 and this summer we had at least 90 days where was over 105 to 107 degrees, some days that 115. And I remember specifically when it came down in California, that the legislature passed the new regulations when it came to EV cars, that all EV cars in California where going to have to be EV by 2035, if I’m not mistaken. And we were going through one of those summer surges of power and then the Governor came out two days or three days, four days later, I don’t know. It was all, on every tonight show that’s out there. All the pundits had fun with it. And that he said, “okay, now everybody stop using your EV chargers right now, because we’re going through a big surge.” So, we had the paradox that sometimes happens to California, where we’re going through growing pains and living through, and being the leader with regards to EV cars and EV charging stations. But then also having a massive pole on our energy grid. How are we going to eventually, how will this calm down? Or how should I say it, even in a more intelligent way? How will this eventually reconcile itself out? And what do you see? The future? Because you’ve lived on both sides of this equation. Both as a policymaker in California, which isn’t easy because you’re dealing with a lot of people with a lot of opinions, obviously, and also now at a very prestigious and great brand, we’re doing great things to push this EV Revolution, forward being BMW. How was this all going to balance out and lead to a better greener, cleaner future for all of us with less interruptions in power supply?

Adam: Yes, that’s a really important question. First part of it is that I think people asked is like, well, do we have enough energy? Are we generating enough electricity [crosstalk] to support [crosstalk] every vehicle becoming electric vehicle? [crosstalk] And the answer to that is, we can support every vehicle going electric, based on our generation now and the generation that we’re going to be adding over the next few years. [crosstalk] With an important caveat, the important caveat is that, there will be certain times when the grid does not have access capacity, when demand is exceeding supply for electricity and we need vehicles to not charge. So this was an issue particularly at the beginning of September here in California, Northern California, where we had a number of great emergency events for several days in a row, where it was very hot. And when it’s very hot, people are turning on their air conditioning. So, demand for electricity goes up but there’s only so much supply and the demand was great, was getting close to the amount of generators, generation that we had. And what we saw then, we made it through that event without having any blackouts or brown outs to rolling power outages in Northern California. And one of the ways we did that was that the State directed certain entities to reduce their electricity consumption at certain times. One of the partners that helped make that work was BMW. We have a smart charging program that we make available to our Electric Vehicle drivers. Smart charging is where you try to align electric vehicle charging with times when the grid has more clean energy or when an energy is cheaper. But and also avoid charging at times, when the grid has more dirty power or when the grid is congested. And so we have this program that’s in place. And when those events happened, we were able to automatically, digitally direct our vehicles to reduce their charging during those times when liquid was congested. Kind of a way to think about how this works. Just to give you an example, to think of a typical EV driver, who drives home from work. They get home from work, let’s say around 6:00 and they plug in their vehicle. What normally happens is, your vehicle would start charging immediately and then we get full.

John: Right.

Adam: It typical EV based on its typical driving behavior in California, only needs to charge two or three, two to four hours per day, [crosstalk] but if it’s plugging in at 6 p.m. and it’s not leaving until 8:00 a.m. the next day. It’s got 14 hours with which to charge, it only needs to charge during four of those. So we do in our smart charging program, is we actually shifted to the best times to charge. Turns out that in the evening hours, when that person’s coming home at 6:00, that’s one of the worst times to charge your electric vehicle. [crosstalk] The reason for that is that, it’s in the evening, so the solar energy has decreased as the sun is starting to go down but home energy consumption is starting to increase. People are coming home from work there, they’re starting to cook, they’re starting to maybe turn on there air conditions again, using lighting. So their home energy demand is increasing.

John: Right.

Adam: At the same time that our supply of renewable energy is decreasing. [crosstalk] So one of the first things we do in a case like that is we want the person to stop charging in the evening. And so that’s creates a benefit for the grid but then what we also do is we move that charging into the nighttime hours where there’s more wind power available, when power is available more at night in California. So we can identify the hours where there’s more wind power and then get our vehicles to charge during those hours. And so not only is this helping the grid by avoiding the times that are bad. Well, we can actually use this to help the grid accommodate more renewable generation in the future, utilities want to add more wind power. But most of that wind power is available at night and there’s not a lot of new load you can trigger at night. There’s not a lot of shifting that you can do, but electric vehicles are really good at that, because the example I just described where somebody would be very comfortable shifting their power to the late night hours because they know that they can still be full by the time they leave in the morning. So in our program, we actually do all this digitally. We direct the vehicle when to charge by directly communicating our BMW energy cloud communicates directly with the vehicle, directs it when to charge. The driver doesn’t need to be involved in that, they don’t need to wake up in the middle of the night and turn on their vehicle or anything like that. We do that all automatically.

John: So, wait a second. So let’s just talk about this practically and for those who just joined us, for our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we have Adam Langton in here with us today. He’s the US Energy Services manager for BMW of North America and to find Adam and his colleagues at BMW and all the great work they’re doing with regards to energy and EV’s, you can go to www.bmwchargeforward.com. So, let’s talk about a real life, practical situation. I drive home, my wife’s cooking dinner, TV’s on, the air conditionings blaring. And as you said, there’s a large pull now on our home. So I plugged my BMW in but it doesn’t start charging until later that night when I go to bed and all the energy pull is much reduced in my household and the wind power is coming up. So through your network and through your, is it AI technology or is it other type of of data technology? Then you decide when to turn on the charging situation in the homes of the BMW charging the BMW’s that you’ve sold over the course of the years, that’s fascinating. It makes so much sense.

Adam: Yeah. So, how we do that is we partner with utilities and one example of that is we’re partnering with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) in Northern [crosstalk] California [crosstalk] and they provide us with a projection of renewable energy for the next day. And throughout the day different [crosstalk] times of the day. So we know when there’s more renewable energy and less and we can then use that to figure out the best times to charge our vehicles. We also get customer their rate data from our customers, they provide us with that and we also get information from the wholesale market about conditions in the wholesale grid. So we take all of that into account and then figure out the best times to charge.

John: And Adam, let’s just go through this, just to make it real simple for layman like me. So my friend who owns the BMW in San Diego when he plugs his car in, it might be charging at a different time based upon his utility in San Diego, versus me and Fresno versus you in Northern California.

Adam: Cracks. It’s all specific to where you’re located, the region that you’re located because it has different renewable energy conditions in those different areas. We actually work with five utilities now throughout the United States and the conditions are different with every single utility but having a system like this, the driver doesn’t need to understand that. And our commitment to the drivers, we’re going to have their vehicle full by the time they need to leave on their next trip. So we asked the driver to provide their departure time and then we make sure that their vehicle is full by that time so they don’t have to worry about, you know, whether they’re going to get full or not or what the best times to charges. We take care of all that in the background.

John: Got it. And let’s say, you cover every zip code. So if I own a BMW in Boston I’m cool, have one in Fresno I’m cool, one in Idaho, I’m cool. It doesn’t matter. You cover the whole country right now.

Adam: Well right now we cover five utilities. So five different areas and [crosstalk] so we’re not on across the country yet… [crosstalk]

John: It’s coming?

Adam: … Yeah, it’s coming as we get more utility partners that are interested in working with us, we can start to grow this to more drivers.

John: Got it. And that’s going to be, that’s your goal and that seems to be the trend, right? [crosstalk]

Adam: Yes.

John: People are going to be used this successful and this is what your consumers want, and this is what the utility’s want and the state’s want?

Adam: Yes, we’re planning on rolling out several new utilities early next year. So this is something that’s growing and well we’re seeing that utilities can be great partners on this and they’re starting to see more EV adoption at other parts of the country away from just the West Coast and the East Coast. So we’re looking at adding more utility partners all throughout the United States.

John: And this seems like one of those triple win situations where every stakeholders winning the purchaser of the BMW, the owner, the utility wins, the State wins, everybody wins in this situation, I think so, so they [inaudible] upside here.

Adam: Yeah. So as part of that, utilities can save money and operate their grid more efficiently because we’re able to do this. And what we do is, that savings gets shared between the utility which keeps part of it. And part of it goes to us which we give to the drivers. So we use this to create incentives for our drivers to participate in these programs. And we think that, that then helps motivate them to participate in also rewards them for going electric.

John: Well, so, Adam again, I don’t, I’m embarrassed to say even though I’m in the recycling in the green industry, my home has solar on it, and we’re very green in terms of most of what we do, when I own a hybrid car, not a full EV car. When someone buys a full EV car now in California, BMW like, say, is there an app that gives me to help me with my range anxiety, because I have that same thing that range anxiety that we talked about at the top of the show, is there an app now that our listeners and viewers can download that shows all the EV charging stations throughout the State?

Adam: So as part of the BMW experience, we provide an app to our customers and my BMW app.

John: Great.

Adam: And that app along with the vehicle head unit identifies where the vehicle console and the vehicle identifies can show you on a map where the nearest charging stations are. And so you can use that to figure out where you might need to charge where there’s an opportunity to charge. So that’s all available to our drivers.

John: And where are we in building out that infrastructure now? Are we at the top of the second inning, the bottom of the fourth inning, how is the California EV charging station infrastructure build out going? Because you’ve worn both ads. Now as a corporate executive at BMW but also as a policy maker, are you happy with the trajectory and the velocity of charging station growth or is it’s going slower than you would have thought it would have gone three or four years ago?

Adam: So we’re making progress. I’d still say we’re in the early innings. And we’re starting to get the funding out, to really build this out. There’s still a view specific challenges that we need to figure out how to address. One of the most important I think that we’re going to have to figure out is, how do you get infrastructure into apartment buildings? [crosstalk] If you own your own house and you built by an EV, you can buy an electric vehicle charging station, put it in your garage, you can hire an electrician and they can install it… [crosstalk]

John: Right.

Adam: … That process is pretty straightforward. The processes for permitting that and working with utility on that, I think are pretty well-developed. They work pretty well. [crosstalk] It’s a challenge if you’re in apartment building where you can’t just go into your apartment building garage or parking lot and install a charging station. You need to work with your building to get access to that. In some buildings. You don’t have a dedicated parking spot. So they may just have a lot where everybody parks and they can park wherever they want. That makes it a big challenge for where you would build the charging station. Not also becomes a question of who pays for that, at that charging station and who has access to it. It’s particularly, we end up in that case with a chicken and egg problem. The challenge is somebody in an apartment buildings says, well, I don’t have access to charging so I’m not going to buy the vehicle. An apartment building owner or manager of the building looks around their parking lot and says, well I don’t see any electric vehicles here. So there’s no need for me to build any charging stations. So this is a big challenge that we haven’t exactly figured out how to address. I think we’re going to need to figure out ways that get infrastructure into an apartment buildings before people buy the vehicles or immediately after they buy the vehicles. And that’s going to be a tough challenge to address.

John: That’s fascinating. So either with economic insensitives, being cash or with other tax breaks or other things, apartment buildings owners going to have to be the first movers to then further incentivize the car drivers, your auto drivers to switch over to EV so they can calm down on the ease of access to to the EV chargings grid. Wow! I never thought of that. [crosstalk] Wow!

Adam: It’s particularly significant here in California where I think 40 to 50% of people are renters. [crosstalk] So you have a significant part of the population that doesn’t have the ability to just go home, hire an electrician install a charging station in their garage. They just don’t have that opportunity.

John: I didn’t realize that. That’s a fact. So 40 to 50 percent of California citizens are renters. Wow! So, it does become a huge problem in terms of EV adoption. That’s fascinating. Is it predicted that as California went with 2035, legislation with regards to- all autos will have to be EVs. Do you predict many States? If not all States will follow with a similar mandate?

Adam: It’s a good question. We’ll see how they address this. California’s been kind of ahead of the curve on EV adoption. The adoption rates are much higher here in California than the rest of the country. So I think other States are going to look at their EV adoption rate, their mix of vehicles as well and see what makes sense for them in terms of future targets.

John: How much more is the EV going to be interconnected in terms of supporting the grid and power things in a home in the future? Is it all going to be related to the AI and the utility paradigm that you laid out a few minutes ago? Or they going to be other uses for EVS in terms of home support and the power grid as we evolve?

Adam: That’s a great question. So, the technology that you’re referencing is we call it vehicle to grid technology, where you’re discharging or v2g is the term we use. When you’re discharging the battery of the vehicle onto either to your home or to the grid. [crosstalk]

John: Wow!

Adam: So instead of just charging it, you’re actually discharging it and powering other devices. This is an area that is starting to- we’re starting to see more development in it, and it’s something, we and BMW are exploring right now. The opportunity is that as a homeowner, if you ever had a power outage, you could simply then turn on your vehicle and discharge the vehicle and start powering your home appliances. [crosstalk] So there’s a great opportunity there to help people that are maybe live off the Grid or camping on a camping trip or that they have unreliable power available to their house. Another opportunity you could have is that, if you had solar panels on your roof and you had an electric vehicle that could discharge, you could in the future imagine that you could power up your vehicle during the day, when the sun’s out and then at night, your vehicle could be used when it’s parked overnight. And in the evening, it could then power the rest of your devices after the sun goes down. So, there’s a really interesting opportunity for this. There is a lot of challenges to this, but we’re starting to explore. How does that technology work? How could it fit into somebody’s life? What are their expectations for how it would be used?

John: How far away are we from something like this.

Adam: So, I think we’re still learning about how far we are away. I think one of the big questions is, what are the customers expectations for how this will be used? When you’re discharging your vehicle for your home or for other appliances or devices, you’re reducing the range that you have for travel your mobility range. [crosstalk]

John: Right.

Adam: And so what we need to understand then, is the user needs to understand that. They need to understand that as they discharged their vehicle, they’re going to have less ability to travel, at least until they charge their vehicle again. So this creates some challenges for during a blackout or something like that. Where you lose power to your home, your vehicle now has a certain capacity at that point, and as you discharge it, you’re reducing your range, your ability to travel. If you have solar, that maybe just a limited problem until the sun comes up the next morning, but if you don’t have solar, you’re going to have to make decisions about how much power to use at your home and how much to save in your vehicle so that you can travel because you don’t know when you’ll get to charge that vehicle again. So there is a lot of customer education that goes into this. We’ve got to make sure that the customer understands exactly of how the impacts of discharging their vehicle battery onto their home. And I think another factor here that we need to understand is, how does discharging your vehicle battery impact the battery life [crosstalk] of your battery? As you cycle it more and more that where’s the vehicle battery down, any vehicle, any battery for that matter as you cycle it more and more it impacts the health in the long term life of that battery. So I think what we want to understand is what are the expectations from the driver for how they would be using it, and how they want to use their vehicle transportation in that line? And also understanding from the grids perspectives, from utilities perspective. How often are they going to be cycling this battery in order to get value out of it because we can then look at that and figure out how to approach the battery life [crosstalk] from that perspective and then be able to work with the driver, so that their investment in an electric vehicle is protected. And it can be used in a way that serves their mobility needs.

John: Simply put, this is really- you’re creating a whole another- your amortizing the use of the EV BMW and that it’s really becomes backup generation system for the house.

Adam: It can. Yes. [crosstalk] That’s it. We think there’s a really exciting opportunity. We launched a pilot in summer of 2021 in Germany, where we were testing these vehicles on the road, testing our I3 electric vehicle on the road [crosstalk] in Munich, doing this by directional v2g capable vehicles to test how it works. How the electricity full is work from a technical perspective to understand that. And we have committed to working with PG&E to start testing. Doing more testing in that area and learn more about how that works. The utility also place an important role in this because they need to make sure your home is ready to discharge electricity from a device at your home, and there’s also safety issues that need to be addressed. If a utility is working on the lines in your neighborhood, they need to know that there’s not going to be a device that’s going to be putting electricity on to those lines. So there’s safety issues that we want to make sure that we’re coordinating with utilities on as well.

John: You know, switching topics now, besides the five utilities that you have partnerships with across the country, I heard you have other partnerships as well, such as the Agricultural Industries with Straus Organic Dairy Farm. Talk a little bit about other partnerships BMWs put together in other industries.

Adam: Sure. So with smart charging, our goal there was how do we get the EV charging to align with renewable energy on the grid? That was [crosstalk] our specific gold there… [crosstalk]

John: Yeah.

Adam: … But we also wanted to take that a step further and said how can we bring more renewable energy to the grid that will help our drivers in the long run? If there’s more renewable energy on the grid, we’re going to get more clean charging in the future. And so we looked at different technologies that were available, technologies that could produce electricity and help reduce carbon emissions. And one technology really stood out for us. And that is biodigesters, that generate electricity at Dairy Farms. A biodigester, the way it works is, that you collect the manure at your farm and then the biodigester takes the methane from the manure and it converts that into electricity and puts that on to the grid. And we were excited about this technology because

not only is it renewable energy, is creating a new renewable energy source but it’s also reducing methane emissions at the farm. So it actually creates a double emission benefit. And because of this, we think it’s one of the cleanest renewable energy technologies available and it’s also a technology that can really benefit from additional investment and additional opportunities to grow, especially in the state of California. So what we’ve done in the State of California is partnered with Dairies, our first one was the Straus Organic Dairy Farm and we partner with them to generate what’s called low carbon fuel standard credits, which are an environmental credit available in California. And when we generate those credits, we share the value with the farm, and then the value that comes to us, we use it for our smart charging program to create more incentives for our drivers in our smart charging program. So, we started with Straus, that was the first farm where we demonstrated, how this could be done. And then we’ve done two other farms, as well. And one of those farms that we partnered with, our partnership was really critical in demonstrating to their Banks and other lenders, that this was going to be economically viable for them because this partnership enabled them to generate more revenue and that helped make the business case so that they could get the funding in ultimately fund. This was the Bar 20 Farm, which is looking to kind of close to the Fresno area.

John: Yeah.

Adam: It’s in Kerman California. So it’s in the Central Valley. [crosstalk] So that was another one of our partners and it was critical, that we were excited about was, we were able to help drive the investments in this technology at the Bar 20 Farm. So, not only is this reducing, creating a renewable energy, creating this double emission benefit, but it’s also bringing more revenue into our agricultural communities and helping them be part of the clean energy revolution. So we’re excited about growing this and we’re looking for

ways to start growing that beyond California in the near future.

John: That’s huge. You know, this is such an important topic, Adam and I’m so glad you covered it. What’s next for BMW and sustainability and the green driving realm as a whole, what are you so excited about? That gets you out of bed in the morning, besides the smart charging stations and everything else you’re doing that’s making us a much better in Greener World? What about sustainability and green driving. What’s coming next?

Adam: So at BMW, our sustainability mission is really looked holistically… [crosstalk]

John: Yeah.

Adam: … At the vehicle and our processes. So we’re not just looking at reducing gasoline consumption to reduce emissions. We’re actually looking at our production processes, the inputs that, the resources, the water we’re using and making our vehicles more efficient and then well, where my component of this is the smart charging. How do we make? Not only is it using electricity, but how do we help it use more clean electricity? So, we’re looking for more and more opportunities like that, that are engaging for the driver, that are meaningful to our customers as well, that we can help make our vehicle the cleanest most sustainable electric vehicle available in the market. So you’re going to continue to see from BMW more innovations than this, where we bring this to more of our drivers. Expand these programs more of our drivers and then look at where we can create even more benefits for our drivers going forward.

John: Well, I want you to come back on the Impact Podcast and share all the new releases that you have, and all the new updates as you evolve with BMW and building out this smart charging grid and doing more to make the world a better place for our listeners and viewers to find out them. And all of these wonderful colleagues at BMW, that are truly making the world a better and greener place. Please go to www.bmwchargeforward.com. Adam, It’s just a delight to meet you. It’s really important that these so many inspiring people like you doing this kind of critical and important work. And I’m so thankful for your time today on the Impact Podcast. And I’m also thankful that you are making the world a better and greener place. Thanks again for joining and I can’t wait to have you back on again in the future.

Adam: Great! Thanks, John. Thanks for inviting me.

John: This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts and impact partners. Closed Loops platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closelooppartners.com. This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by CO2.com. Companies today are trying to figure out how to achieve high quality climate credentials. CO2.com is the easy button for any business to go beyond offsetting and find truly impactful projects, across carbon, nature and community. CO2 provides verified metrics that can be used in reporting and messaging. Have confidence in demonstrating your climate leadership, go to CO2.com to access quality climate credentials, you can trust on the road to net-zero and nature-positive.

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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m John Shegar and this is a very special edition because we are so honored to have you with us today. Mr. David Carey, he’s a Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications at Hearst. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, David.

David Carey: Thank you, John. What an honor is. I’ve listened to so many of your episodes and people have been so articulate about what they’re doing with their companies and leading into the future. So there’s a high bar for me to be here. So I’m a little anxious, but thank you.

John: Oh, David. Well, listen. We got to chat a little bit off the air and you have a fascinating background before we get going and talk about all the important things you’re doing in sustainability with your colleagues at Hearst, can you share a little bit of your background and the David Carey journey?

David: Yeah, thank you, John. I grew up not that far from you in Long Beach, California. It’s probably a five-hour drive four-hour drive and a great loving and supportive family. My father was a cashier in a grocery store and my mother was a homemaker. So needless to say, we were not summering in the Hamptons every summer, but my parents gave me such love and support, and confidence. When it came time to go to college, though there was no plan and no money for me to go to college. But fortunately, the UC system and UCLA were just outside our door UCLA is one of the great economic elevators the UC system is in the country in terms of changing outcomes for individuals and I figured that I could pay my way through school because the tuition wasn’t that high, it’s even not that high today through a combination of work and I live with relatives. So I moved in with cousins and when I first got to school, I needed a job.

And someone had very, fortunately, told me that the job selling media for the campus newspaper. The UCLA Daily Bruin was a good job and so I started selling media to the local companies in Westwood Village it turned out, I was kind of good at it and the next year, I was the sales manager. In my junior year, I was the publisher of the newspaper which was a paid role. Sixty people staff Daily Newspaper got my deep experience in Media. And in my senior year, I had my own small Media company. So I often speak to young people about often that your greatest advantage can be your disadvantage. My parents cannot pay for my college. I needed to fund my college. I found a career track that, I then spent the next 37 years doing and so and so if my parents had paid for my college, we might not be having this conversation. My career would have been a lot different because when I finished UCLA, I moved to New York, so I wanted to work in the media business. I thought I had a reasonably good story for a college kid in terms of real-life experience. And I was hired by a gentleman named Chris Widow who owned Esquire magazine at the time, very successful, a young entrepreneur who was a college media on media executive as well. And then two years later, Esquire was sold to Hearst. And so, I ended up at Hearst and I was at Hearst for straight eight years, doing a variety of different roles. So again, fortunately, I came to the company through acquisition and had my first look then at what a special place this is. Then I spent fifteen years at Conde now. So really these two great publishing companies, family-owned businesses, half of my time at Conde Nast was spent running the New Yorker as published in the New Yorker for also about eight years. And then in 2010, I was very fortunate to get a call to come back and join the company as the President of the Global Magazine Group which I did. So a company I kind of first joined via a position as a licensing coordinator. I think that was what my title was at the time of the acquisition. I came back as the president of the group and I did that job for eight years and we did several acquisitions. We doubled the size of the company but I knew as we shared in our brief kind of chat before I knew that some jobs require constant travel, always being out there that if you did them for twenty years, they’d be tough. But if you did it fast through eight or nine years, that felt like the right time. And I was aware of this program that Harvard has called the advanced leadership initiative. It was then about ten or eleven years old, and it was a chance for executives who had the good fortune to accomplish things in a business setting to spend a year on a college campus as a cohort, looking at solutions to really complex long, kind of entrenched societal issues. And so I retired from that job. At the end of the magazine, drop the end of 18. I spent a year on a college campus.

I didn’t wear a single suit the whole time. It was a kind of jeans and a hoodie. I was trying to fit in, but the days were super interesting, and you arrive in the allied program. There are 50 Executives 40% from outside the US. So it really interesting cohort that’s together for a year, but everyone has a thesis in my thesis was business, as a force for good in a divided world. And I wanted to learn the mechanics of this quote-unquote, double-bottom-line, strategies of all the jobs that many companies are doing that are not only good for society but also strengthen their organization kind of out of enlightened self-interest. And so I spent that year focused on those examples, there’s a lot of expertise on the college campus at Harvard. And then, on the completion of that, I started a new role that has great meaning to me, which is overseeing not only our Communications but also our public affairs practice. And I guess I sum up in terms of, you know what I spent the year in the fellowship, what we’re doing now is there are three big questions that people have about their employers and companies of stature, like, cursed. One is, what is the company doing to help heal the world following this endless pandemic, which only kind of widens economic inequality? Two is, what are you doing to address long-standing inequality in terms of diversity in your halls and society at large? And three, what are you doing to lessen your impact on the environment then the employees want to know, how can I get involved, companies need to be articulate and employees want to be proximate to the solutions. And so that’s kind of a shorthand overview of what we’ve been spending our time building out over the last couple of years. The last point I’ll make is that private companies historically have not been as good at some of these things as public companies. Public companies have investor pressure, and Larry Fink writes them letters. There are regulatory issues, of course, but private companies have an opportunity to lead because you get a chance to run the company with your moral compass, you don’t have activist investors or Wall Street, putting pressure on you, and in general, you can run a more principled organization. But private companies historically don’t like to disclose data, they like the benefit of being private. So I’m, you know, thankful for the support of the company and our CEO Steve Sports because they saw that opportunity for Hearst to mix the best of public and private for us to be much more articulate about diversity now about sustainability. But to be able to do all of this within this kind of moral compass, which guides so much of what we do.

John: So fascinating, first of all, I just want to say it’s unbelievably inspiring and a huge egoless move on your behalf to become go from leadership at Hearst to then come back after the Harvard Education and experience like just call it and take on this role at Hearst, that’s both egoless and fascinating but is also unbelievably inspiring. Secondarily, Stephen over now, who is now in the leadership role at Hearst was he a line human being as well? Did he come up the line at Hearst as you did, or was he hired from outside of Hearst?

David: Yeah, the executives at Hearst tend to grow up through the organization. So, Steve Swartz our CEO. He was the founding editor of smart money in 1992, thirty years ago, and I was the founding publisher. So I’ve enjoyed a close working relationship with Steve for many years and have enormous admiration for him and how he leads the company. And he succeeded a gentleman named Frank Bennack who led the company for thirty years. So again, this is the benefit of a company that has a lot of talent and a great bench overall.

John: And you’re also working among friends?

David: Yeah. It’s a very collegial culture. We operate in nine different business verticals, but the politics at Hearst are, there never zero, but they’re as low as they can be for a multinational company and our culture is very collegial and very forward-focused. And so that makes work that we’re doing in public affairs / ESG. It makes it a little easier to advance because we don’t have to fight against the fiefdoms or anything like that. People are really on board and supportive.

John: David, what year did you come back to the Hearst after Harvard? What year…

David: [inaudible]. I was in Harvard for calendar 19 and I came back with a full head of steam, ready to rock and roll and start laying it out, and then, on March, whatever, 16th, we shut our offices. And, so we continue to do our planning, but we didn’t get as much implemented during the pandemic and partly because the business leaders were understandably distracted by everything that was happening. So, we had a quicker pace of introductions of our initiatives, and 2021, but so 2020 was really a, let’s get ready for when the world is going to be receptive to us. And then we were able to move pretty fast once, once that year changed.

John: Our listeners and viewers, if you just joined us, we’ve got David Carey. He’s the Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications at Hearst, David and his colleagues, and all the great work, they’re doing in sustainability and other important things, you can go to www.hostgator.com

David, today, we’re going to be talking primarily about sustainability. This is the sustainability report that you just publish. This is your first one ever, and I read it. Thank you for sending it to me in advance, but now it’s been published and I want to get into that a little bit. But why upon your arrival back, was this one of your premier initiatives? Why now? Hearst never published anything like this before. Why now?

David: Well, I think four factors are driving, everyone’s interest in this phase. The first is the level of reporting among peer sets companies is now really good. Big companies are being transparent about where they are and where they’re going their goals for renewable energy and reductions and so on. So these are now things that companies are very skilled at communicating and kind of no BS terms. The second is there is a lot of brewing kind of regulatory focus, of course, on carbon disclosure, and admissions. Certainly at the federal level, the proposed SEC guidelines, which who knows what path they’re going to take, but they do require private companies to disclose and as they said, they want to narrow the public-private disclosure gap around this. And so historically you know only companies that filed 10ks that are public entities have certain reporting responsibilities. But the SEC has been explicit in impossibly including private companies because they don’t want companies to be incented to go private or to stay private to avoid any carbon emissions disclosures and California, as you say, a trend starting California, California has its bill moving, it’s moving through the, through the government, in Sacramento. That also requires companies of size to disclose regardless of ownership structure.

And that’s already the case in the UK. So the regulation is coming likely and again, large private entities will be held to the same standard as public entities. Then with the course, we have talent in that, looking at the green credentials of future employers is a very common thing for people, especially for younger individuals, who for good reason, have a lot more concern about the environment. I’m 61 years old. So, I’m unlikely to see the year 2100. Likely, however, some of our employees that are in their 20s today could easily see that. So, they’re going to have a much longer life around this, and then the final point that makes this an imperative. I think, for companies of all sizes and that is, you know, our business partners are going to be pushing more and more. And so, as we start to create, and we map our emissions, first, focus on scope one and scope two, and then focus on scope three. But of course, we are a scope three supplier to everybody.

John: Right.

David: And so we’re going to be we already being asked questions by national advertisers who want to be able to map the carbon emissions connected to a media by. So anyone that we do business with across our B2B and B2C franchise increasingly is going to ask us questions about the carbon emissions associated with the goods and services, we provide them. So if you add all that up that says you have to start this complex journey. So, that answer is why it’s the confluence of these four factors.

John: Right.

David: Of course, it’s the right thing to do, but at the same time, there are important, self-serving interests around talent around regulation, that we’re going to need, and we and others, of course, to develop a real competency, not only of course, and managing our missions, but also the reporting back to the stakeholders that are so important to us.

John: That’s fast and as I read more and more about Hearst before this interview, I didn’t know that much, except I knew the great publications that you have. I enjoyed it so much and I’m you, I’m your age. I’m going to be sixty in a couple of weeks and so I’ve enjoyed your publications from Esquires Smart Money and everything else that you have broken me, the entirety of my life. But what was fascinating, was that I learned more and more about your portfolio of companies, It’s there the obvious is the B2C, but you also have B2B businesses. So your sustainability strategy has to be not just parochial, it has to be diverse. Can you share a little bit about how you create a sustainability strategy that fits the type of business that falls under the macro Hearst umbrella?

David: Yeah. So and you’re right that you know our company is best known for our consumer media businesses. We started with newspapers in San Francisco one hundred thirty-five years ago. How many companies are you speaking with that is one hundred thirty-five years old? We know that we are in the rare company on that. And then, of course, the magazine business was built out by William Randolph Hearst our founder, and then it really in the last twenty-five years has been a real focus on diversification of businesses and specifically buying data businesses and transportation healthcare and now financial services. And so the company is brilliantly diversified across so many areas and so what we wanted to capture in our first sustainability report was the truth is, we’ve been doing a lot of things that have been focused on sustainability, but we’ve never kind of packaged this complex story altogether. One of the most interesting features of our company is we have over two hundred thousand acres of Timberland forest and ranches in the state of California. Now, this much of this was the original land, when Senator George Hearst, who is William Randolph Hearst’s father became wealthy in the 1860s. If you’ve ever been to Hearst Castle, in between Big Sur, and guess it’s San Jose is the next big city if you’ve ever been there all the land that you can see from on top of the castle, with the tassel itself, as a tourist attraction, all the land is still owned by the Hearst Corporation. Most of the land was acquired in the 1860s. We don’t have a scientific account in terms of the number of trees on our property, but some estimate it could be as high as twenty million, okay? So lots of companies announced tree planning initiatives, we have like twenty million trees and we’ve managed the forest and the ranch land and a highly sustainable manner now, for decades. And then, many of these initiatives that we talked about in our first report I would say 80% of them, we’ve been doing this for five-ten or in some cases, a hundred years, and some are newer. And so what we wanted to do initially was to help people understand everything that’s happened at the company because most companies do two or three things as the nature of their business and we do nine things. And so sometimes it requires us to walk through and so our B2C businesses are now on par with our B2B businesses and what they’re doing. And so really our sustainability strategy which we talked about is we tried again to educate our stakeholders, current employees, future employees, business partners, and every journalist is broken into three areas. The first is, you know, educating the public about environmental concerns and our newspapers are magazines, and our TV stations, reach most of the country when you add them all up together.

John: Well, David, I just want to give a little plug here on what I learned in preparing for this interview. Hearst has an audience of over sixty million digital and print newspapers/readers and reaches twenty-six media markets in thirty-nine States across, it’s just television stations. That itself is massive. That itself is massive.

David: And we do a lot, there’s a lot of content that is produced by those teams around these topics. And then the second part of our strategy, of course, is lowering our Admissions and the signature in the piece of this. And the reason we’ve been doing much of this for so long is today I sit in the Hearst Tower. The Hearst was constructed in the foundation of the original magazine building erected by William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s. And then, you know, just after 9/11, the company approved building the tower 44 stories by Norman Foster is the great architect, but the decision made and I guess the planning I wasn’t at the company them but the planning for this tower was probably 2,000, maybe 1999 and the company and the board made the decision they wanted the tower to be the first Leed certified, new build in New York City. It was designed to be the greenest building at the time when it opened. And of course, we then have a double Leed certification with and platinum certification. So you know when you make that decision that this twenty-two years ago or twenty-three years ago.

John: Yeah.

David: It’s a little less visible that you’re going to ask Norman Foster to build the greenest building in New York. That’s a really expensive statement about the values and vision which the company and, hopefully, I’ll have a chance to visit. It’s a spectacular building. Not only how it was constructed but how it’s run and how efficient it is. And so we have a great story of course, in our Global headquarters here. But we have more to do across our 500-plus facilities, some of our facilities are in great, shape, and others we have to replace electronically, replace the HPAC, we know that’s a long path. But we wanted to stick to that claim that lowering our emissions. Our emissions are an essential part of our strategy. And then finally shining a spotlight on these B2B solutions that help other corporations achieve their climate goals that are part of our suite of B2B businesses. We have a business called drop counter, that helps it’s a data product sold to municipalities that allow individuals to measure their water usage at their home and to see it on their phone, on the app. And I don’t know, we know, I don’t I’m not sure if it’s implemented in your community, John. But things that you measure are important and the data suggests that when people know how much water they’re using their better conservation than when it’s a blind number that only hits you when you get billed, once a quarter, or whatever the frequency is. We have businesses that help with Aviation and trucks that help identify when there are fuel efficiency, problems, and challenges, and how to repair those. And so we have this great kind of product Suite of products that are helping really important companies achieve their goals. And so, that’s our story. Educating the public focused on our own house, our emissions out of our 500 and 500, 500 for facilities, and then helping other companies achieve theirs. So year, one is a lot of Education about all the things we’ve been doing in some cases for a long time, and then we’re going to build on that for the future.

John: Understood. So, about the last item, the tools that you have to help other corporations achieve their climate goals. So what you’re saying is, if one of the trademarks of good ESG or circular economy, behavior is radical transparency. What you’re giving them, are these tools to help them manage their behaviors. You can help them measure their behavior. So what? Because what are measurables manageable? So that’s what you’re giving the corporations overmanages that you serve on a B2B basis.

David: Yeah. So we provide a range of solutions to our clients and increasingly more of those solutions are related to sustainability. And so it’s perfectly fine that again coming back to what I mentioned, enlightened self-interest, if you do things that are both good for you and good for society, that makes them kind of durable parts of your strategy. And so whether it’s the new Sustainable Fitch effort from our large Fitch Global rating agency, that is helping companies, that’s helping evaluate how companies do against their ESG goals. Whether it’s the information that our health business provides or the education around the proper disposal of use of old medication which you don’t want to jump into the water system. And so they’re all of them are increasingly weaving in the sustainability solutions as part of what they offer, their many clients.

John: Understood. So when you started back in early 2020, how big was the group that you were now leading? Was it just you? And then, you were then tasked with building out this group that would create this wonderful and important report and strategy, or where there are people there already working on this and you came in to lead them.

David: Yeah, so the group that I came into to work with was our long-standing corporate communications group and so we’ve added some new members in some of our areas, but I think for everyone that we’re working with their purview has widened now from what had been a more traditional corporate communications function, the advancing of corporate reputation and other media related, things to now are kind of ESG reporting. And so we produce our diversity report now our sustainability report and then our third leg of the stool will be in 2023 will publish our corporate citizenship report. And so those will be the ways that we express all the things happening across the company. So we’ve added a few members, but mostly we found so many. There were so many existing creative individuals that we had a chance to align with kind of the urgency for us to step up in this area. And we did so with the strong support of the leadership of the company.

John: Going back to talking about your younger employees, this initiative that you’re now leading, is this great, not only a great way to recruit a recruiting tool, but also a retention tool? Is that seen by leadership as the two-prong approach to employees in the future?

David: The answer to that is yes to both sides. Until I think what we found so far in the things that we’ve already built is that for those for whom it’s important. It’s a great retention tool. So we rolled out a global employee giving and company match program and we use it to tune against the new cycle. So, you have to imagine employees when they show up in our offices, they’ve read in the news of sadly of, political division, Ukrainian challenges and refugees and natural disasters, and on it goes, and then they’re supposed to come to the office and let’s be gung-ho and positive and let’s take that help. And so at times, all of us can feel a little helpless against this backdrop of so much, tumult and chaos. And so we use our Hearst back platform against the new cycle and so, following the hurricane in a few weeks that we put out to our employees. If you want to give to organizations on the relief effort there, you can do it. So, we’ll match 100%. And here are the organizations that we can recommend or follow sadly we put out notes after, the recent mass casualty shootings, at Buffalo and Uvalde, and people appreciate it when they give money and then the company doubles it. And so what we found, John is that when we looked at attrition levels, you talk about retention between those who are active on the platform, which is about 30%, after a little over a year, which were pretty happy with the attrition levels, among those who are active on Hearst Gives Back and those that are not the in terms of the people who donate their time and their money, it’s about one-third of the non-donors. And so the big question, of course, is everyone wants to know, what does the company stand for beyond just making money? And if you can be again, articulate, what is that answer? We believe that people will reward you with their engagement and their loyalty. Of course, not everyone for some people this is not a factor as to how they pick companies and and and and and how they derive pleasure from their work, but increasingly again, companies need to be pretty articulate about what they’re doing. And so I think we’re now pretty good in terms of communicating our efforts around the diversity area. Now we’re going to become better at sustainability and these are things certainly going to among younger individuals, but not exclusively that people are wanting to know. What does my company stand for? What are those values and how do I align with them? And if you can find that match, then it’s again in your self-interest to invest in to advance those programs.

John: David when you were thinking about envisioning the creation of this wonderful sustainability report, were you looking at your peer’s reports and what they’ve produced historically, or were you looking outside the industry to other industries, that you were inspired by or in the lighted by for other reasons to try to envision what you wanted to create and how you wanted to communicate it.

David: Yeah. So that’s a good question. Well, being as there are lots of companies that focus on this for a long time.

John: Right?

David: With lots of resources and companies, we admire. And so it started for us really by a pretty comprehensive review of what’s out there, right? And, where we could, we try to find debut reports of who kind of started their journey. And now when we made ten years from now for the 10th anniversary that will be further along. But we recognize or are not there yet and so and we see so much good work that’s out there. And so that was kind of job one but we wanted to have something that was an educational tool, you know again because of the unique and broad mix of Hearst businesses. We wanted to be very clear about our three-prong strategy and all of the examples. For us the win is and we’re not there yet, but we’re just a little into this journey, but imagine on a weekend night, when one of our team members goes out with friends and then a friend asks, “What’s your company doing relative to the environment?” Yeah, boy, our dream would be, well, there are three areas were focused on, and here are some examples and so we wanted to create an introduction in kind of a narrative that was understandable to its audiences and that could be then related by them to others. And I think we did that and I think we have a clear narrative Arc to this. I think that we have good examples that are memorable to people because listen, we have a small group in the center, and we have 23,000 employees. And so, the win for us, is that they become advocates for our story as well, but they can defend us among those who might have criticism or for those that are uninformed, they can then educate them. And so that was kind of job. Number one is having something that could be a tool to broaden. Those people are advocating for our positions, but also, as I mentioned, most of the content in this in this first report are things we’ve done for years and years and years, but we’ve never put them into one easy-to-understand, kind of package. And so, the good news is we started with great substance and so it was more of an editing process, we didn’t have to invent anything. And so, I think we had it easier than most companies given that we’ve done a lot, but we haven’t communicated it and so that therefore the effort was let’s make sure that we can tell the story in a way that people can understand and appreciate.

John: What do you make of the, your soul will travel because of your historical leadership roles and you’ve been around the world in so many different countries and you’ve gotten to see how far Europe was ahead of us on sustainability and ESG issues and even other countries in Asia, such as South Korea and Japan, again, they were geographically challenged, it couldn’t be in the linear economy as long as we hung out in it. So they were able to almost a generation and a half ago, start moving from a linear or circular economy and they made it part of their DNA, but now that it’s come to America, there’s it seems like an undeniable, unstoppable trend, but they’ve been recently a little bit of backlash with some states and other Pension funds, say, hey, we’re not, so all in on this, he is the stuff, is that just normal fits and starts of new trends coming to life and taking over pushback is just part of that process or is that something that concerns you on a macro basis?

David: Well, we live in some of the most politically divisive times John that, you and I have seen in our lifetime. So it’s, anything that is done in California, or New York is bad in other states, and conversely, anything done in, big red States will be considered bad in the blue States, right? So there’s no easy answer to that.

John: Okay.

David: The end is when these things are good business…

John: Yeah.

David: With these things have strengthened a company that cuts through politics.

John: That’s right.

David: And so that’s why, we set aside any virtue signaling, any spin, purses, a company where we mean, what we say, we plan our work, and we work our plan. I do think as companies are looking at opportunities, the things that are done or just for spin purposes and press purposes.

John: Yeah.

David: Those things will fall by the wayside those things that become integral parts to driving profits and performance organization. They be, that’s great, and there’s nothing wrong with that and so I think that will triumph over all is that the companies who are skilled at, this will be stronger entities than those that are not. And so I know, the Business Roundtable, redefined the statement of corporate purpose and the fall of 2019 about other stakeholders. But if you go back to this debate around Milton Friedman and the company’s role is to make money. Well if you just think that companies can use this to be profitable and to attract better talent who can contribute more, I put a lot of chips on that bet that that’s what will net out and the politics will recede when it’s clear that it’s in a company’s economic self-interest to be articulate and to execute well against this.

John: Understood. How about the voluntary carbon market sees? You know you are excited about carbon emissions trading in terms of as so many now corporations are racing to their net zero goals, is that something good for the marketplace and how do you perceive that? And how do you value that? And what your goals and your efforts are?

David: Well, John, so many of the other guests are so much more sophisticated about cap and trade policies, and are they being an effective tool? I can say that for us one of the things which we haven’t fully measured we mentioned in the report is again the carbon sequestration benefits out of our 200,000 acres of land in California.

John: Dude.

David: That’s so be double-checked, and triple-checked between now, and next year, we’ll talk about it more. So we potentially have a fairly meaningful offset that happened to be acquired in 1868.

John: (laughing) [inaudible] trees potentially, that’s huge.

David: Yeah, so that’s an interesting part of our future story is how these ancestral properties were acquired by the father of the founder of the company, will provide valuable mitigation in the current world and no one can say that I can tell, you know, when you’re in talk to, you can say, one of the original assets of the company, almost 200 years ago.

John: David, that’s one of the most impressive stats I’ve ever heard. But you know, I like to think of myself as a young sixty, you’re very young, sixty-one, I know you have a lot of gas in the tank left. Yeah, I know you’re also a planner. You don’t get to do what you’ve done your whole life and not plan. What does Hearst’s sustainability journey look like in the next year, two years, and three years ahead? What are you most excited about the tackle in twenty-three, twenty-four, and beyond?

David: Yeah, good question, John, thank you. Well, as I mentioned, job one for this year is to educate our broad employee population and beyond to get everyone on board with what we’re doing as well as what we’ve done. We also are we retained a firm called corporate citizenship that helped us obtain the underlying electricity and gas usage across our offices. And we learned a lot, 500 plus facilities. Everything from the warehouse is the TV studios to offices to television towers. We ended up with what’s in our report as we have actual data for about sixty-five percent of electricity usage, and about seventy-five percent for gas. Not a bad place to start, but we need to build more infrastructure in terms of direct metering. So that taught us a lot. And so as we know, there’s a multi-year progression to move into lower your amount of estimated data. And so there’s that piece of it and then it also involves this really kind of looking at the high emitters in our portfolio. So you want to begin any project, where can you get the biggest return on your initial investment we’re still getting through all that, and this will be how we’re going to spend the next year. We’re looking at every individual facility. We’re going to compare it to others. And then where do we go in the future? Will you know that every grid has its different carbon emissions factors, right? Sometimes we make decisions about where to locate a facility. We’ve historically paid no attention. Is this a drill? Going to draw electricity from an area that has a lot of hydro and maybe some nuclear so, therefore low or is it an error that’s mostly coal? So we’ve never had any of these kinds of environmental factors enter into our decisions around real estate. We now start that journey. So we’re beginning a lot of new initiatives. So, we hopefully will accomplish a lot of our education objective now but then we have to start drilling into the details, hopefully, a year from now we’ll be in a better position. If you asked me today, what’s our emissions reduction target by year five, we don’t want to make it up. We said that we’re not going to enter into the vs world, we have to set that but we don’t know what that is yet and so that’s one of our goals for next year. As we’ve looked what can we do meaningfully in a short period? And we want to answer this between now and next November or December.

John: That’s awesome. David, it’s just so incredible. What you’re doing again for our listeners and viewers out there to find this amazing sustainability report, the first one, ever, by Hearst, you can go to www.hearst.com. David Carey, it’s just an honor and a joy, and a pleasure to meet the young guy from Long Beach who was a broom who now became one of the leaders in sustainability on the planet. And Hearst thanks for joining us on the Impact Podcast and thanks for making the world a better place.

David: John, a real honor to be here to share our story. We look forward to checking in from time to time and telling you how we’re doing and how we’re progressing.

John: This episode of the impact podcast is brought to you by closed-loop partners. Closed-loop partners is a leaving circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of fortune five hundred corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors industry experts, and impact partners. The closed Loops platform spans the Arc of capital from Venture Capital to Private Equity, bridging gaps, and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed-loop partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: This edition of the impact podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. A marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: Get the latest impact episodes right now in your inbox each week. Subscribe by entering your email at impactpodcast.com to make sure you never miss an interview. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: This edition of The Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform, revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders engage as the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit let’s engage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of The Impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and I’m so honored to have with us today, Simon Mulcahy. He’s the CEO of co2.com and the president of Sustainability of Time. Welcome Simon to the Impact Podcast.

Simon Mulcahy: Thanks very much, John, delighted to be here.

John: First of all, it’s just unbelievable the two very important hats that you wear. We’re going to go into both of them in a little bit. But before we get going, Simon, I want to say thank you for your time today and also can you share with our listeners a little bit about your background, where you grew up, where you got educated, and how did you even get to these two very important positions to start with?

Simon: Well, first of all, John, thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I love your work and I love this podcast so very excited to be here. My background, as you can probably tell, my accent is not American. I’m British. But although 14 years in the US. I grew up in England, but I officially grew up in the Middle East in Iran until the revolution and then we moved to the United Arab Emirates, boarding school in England. Then I ended up basically doing university and then joining the Army. I was an Army officer for five years in Bosnia, Kosovo and in other places, Northern Ireland.

John: Wow.

Simon: Then after that I went into consulting. Hated it. My wife and I, or girlfriend at the time, did a heads or tails flip for where we wanted to move. Canada or Switzerland. Switzerland won. Moved there, got a job at the World Economic Forum, which is incredible. Did that for a number of years, which opened up all types of opportunity. Then Marc Benioff, the CEO, founder of Salesforce, recruited me in out of the forum into Salesforce. 14 years ago, Salesforce was a 2500 person company. It’s now 75,000.

John: Whoa.

Simon: Then last year said, “How about you leave Salesforce and work for him directly building a new business called co2.” As of January this year, I’ve been virtually an entrepreneur building this new business, but also being the president of Time because Marc also owns Time Magazine.

John: First of all, on the heads or tails flip, who had Switzerland and who had Canada? That’s what I want to know.

Simon: Well, we both decided.

John: Oh.

Simon: We were like, okay, well, it was just a discussion of what heads or tails would be.

John: Oh, it wasn’t you chose one and your wife chose the other? Okay.

Simon: We were both like, okay, let’s see what fate decides.

John: Okay. I love it. By the way, I think fate was good to you. Switzerland sounds really good. I think that sounds wonderful, by the way. That’s what…

Simon: Life is half chance. I really believe that.

John: It is half chance. I think that’s so important. That’s such a profound comment in that it’s half chance and you sort of really have to learn. Really the people that I found, I’m almost 60 years old and I found the people who get through this journey the best are able to deal with the chance that actually then comes up, the half chance that they’re dealt.

Simon: Totally agree.

John: Nothing’s for sure.

Simon: Yeah.

John: Nothing’s for sure.

Simon: Absolutely.

John: Let’s go in first, before we get into this very important topic, and as your life as an entrepreneur at co2.com and for our listeners and viewers to find co2, go to www.co2, the number two, .com. We’re going to get into that in a second. But as an employee and as a fiduciary and the leader, the president of Sustainability of Time, sounds like an unbelievably big position as well. What is your role there? What are you doing in that role before we get into the co2 and at your life as an entrepreneur at launching and scaling co2.com?

Simon: Well, Time is an incredible organization with an amazing history of guiding people on their journey as the world evolves. I just joined that team to help, really bolster the focus on sustainability. You’re going to see some really cool things happen to Time and around the construct of climate over time. But obviously first things first is what’s Time’s climate footprint and what does time do to be an ever more sustainable business itself? So we’ve been focusing very much on that. Then also using the resources and capabilities of time to help build this this new business, this new division co2.com.

John: Got it.

Simon: That’s really where I’ve spent my time.

John: Got it. We’re going to go into that right now. But before we go there, is it a classic chief sustainability officer position where you think, you have a team underneath you, you’re not only creating an algorithm of markers along the way and in terms of emissions and net zero goals and things of that such, and then creating an impact report at the end of the year, so you guys can track that. Is that a Time, that hat that you’re wearing?

Simon: Yeah, that’s one of the hats I’m wearing.

John: Okay, so how did that evolve then? Where and at what point did you and Marc have that, “Ah ha,” moment to now take your fascinating and important background, really fascinating World Economic Forum and everything else you’ve done, and then make you into an entrepreneur launching and leading co2.com? Where was that discussion and how did that actually happen?

Simon: Well, back at Salesforce, it’s fair to say, if you take Salesforce, this is a business that it not just provides technology, but helps companies understand how to bring technology into your business. You don’t just bring technology in and sprinkle it over your business. You’ve got to look at the core of what you’re doing and re-imagine what your business should be fueled by technology. You’ve got to, you’ve almost got to go back to some fundamental basics. As companies digitize, that’s what you have to do. You don’t just take old analog processes and make them digital. You have to re-imagine them to be digital. We’ve been helping companies like that for a long time. Along comes Brexit, sorry, Brexit, along comes COVID, and suddenly all of these businesses are finding all of their employees are at home. Everybody’s going, “Oh my God, we need to be a lot more digital.” Salesforce is really helping these companies understand how to respond to the realities of COVID and serve their employees while they’re at home and become evermore digital, very quickly. As we’re going on that journey, COVID turns into a long experience. As we are serving these companies, we start to realize it’s not just being better at being digital that these companies have to be. They also have to reinvent themselves to be more relevant to the world that’s evolving around us as well. We said it was like, wow, companies have got to not only reinvent themselves to be digital, but also reinvent themselves to be more sustainable. Suddenly that becomes a double helix. That is now on the front of these CEO’s minds is, “I’ve got to reinvent my business, otherwise I am no longer relevant to my customers and employees and investors, and being digital’s not enough, I’ve also got to be sustainable.” That was a really big, “Ah ha,” moment. In Salesforce we started making lots of change and I was all over that. Then it just became really clear that this was really difficult for not just the biggest businesses that Salesforce was serving, but all of these other businesses that didn’t have those capabilities. How could we serve that market? How do we make it really easy and how do we make it really trustworthy? How do we really inject trust into this? That was a trigger to say, okay, we should do this outside of Salesforce as well.

John: Got it. Were you drafted? We’ll talk army talk here. Were you drafted?

Simon: Drafted. Yes.

John: Were you drafted or did you raise your hand or was it a little bit of both?

Simon: It was a little bit of both.

John: Okay, I got you. Explain, now, I’m on the website. Again for our listeners and viewers, www.co2, the number two, .com, I’m on the website. Beautiful website, lots of great information here. Explain, first of all, what’s this differentiator? Was there a paradigm for this before or is this really white space that you and Marc and other leaders saw at Salesforce at a time that you were going to be filling? Or was there some sort of paradigm that you said, “Ah ha, that’s that, we could do that better and that’s what we need to do?” What was the original vision and mission here with co2.com in terms of the space that you’re filling exactly?

Simon: Well, let me start with the problem.

John: Okay.

Simon: You’ve got the climate crisis.

John: Yeah.

Simon: But you’ve also got a nature crisis and a justice crisis. Everyone can just look out the window and see the damage that we’ve done to our climate, what is causing the impact on human lives, the impact on nature. Interestingly, if you’re a 40 year old and your child says to you this evening, “What’s the biggest impact that your generation has had on the planet?” The only real answer should be, “Well, since I was born, we’ve wiped out over half of all the biodiversity on our planet and we’re on track to wipe out the other half of it by the end of the century.” That’s really the contribution. We’ve got to fix this. You can understand why gen Z and millennials are angry. These older generations are really stealing from the younger generations and leaving the world worse than when they found it. We’ve got to turn that around. That’s the climate, the nature, and the climate justice crises. Then on top of that, we’ve got really what I describe as a trust crisis. What any company does and what any company says about what it’s doing, that combination has grown to be a major determinant of how they’re trusted. Now I think, and it’s really becoming clear that companies and their leaders are being judged on the gap between what they’re saying they’re doing, and what they’re actually doing.

John: Right.

Simon: That for me is the problem. We need companies to do and we need them to talk about it. Because if you’re not doing either, then you’re not in any way engaged in the climate problem and it’s like you must be deaf and…

John: By the way, Simon, let’s throw in there the gap between what politicians say they’re going to do and what they’re actually doing as well.

Simon: Yeah, it’s a really handy framework. You’re right.

John: Yeah.

Simon: There’s a lot of people who are doing nothing and saying a lot.

John: Correct. That trust gap Exactly. It’s this thing everywhere across leadership in the world right now called political, but of course, as you said on the business, which is the area where you’re tackling, which I love. Because I think business transforms politics nowadays. We’re past Camelot, we’re past that era where politics really had a great role in society. In many ways, business really is the transcending force now that exists. I love that you’re attacking it on the business level first. I love that.

Simon: Crazy. If you do that, then there are a whole number of really clear benefits. Let’s face it, society gives business the license to operate. If you are justifiably waving a flag saying, “Hey, I’m a business for the planet,” customers will reward you, better talent will come to you, investment will be easier. We know that there are real benefits. The problem is, I think, is that when it comes to the actual doing, it’s super difficult for most businesses to get it right. That’s not because they’re dumb or anything, it’s most don’t have high powered PhDs, big scientific teams running around. Instead you’ve got really well meaning CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, trying to figure out, trying to make head or tail of what is basically a really confusing topic. One that’s also changing all the time. What we saw is that, very quickly people find themselves buying offsets. That is where we hit a major problem. Because offsets for most people means buying cheap carbon credits. That seems super convenient but the problem is that according to Berkeley, and according to a number of really carefully reviewed scientific studies, about 80% of the carbon credits in the carbon market are junk.

John: Really.

Simon: We have a major quality issue. I’m not hyping it, this is just scientific fact. Buying a $10 carbon credit is the equivalent of driving down a road, throwing tree seeds out of a window and expecting that to solve the deforestation problem.

John: Right?

Simon: We’ve got that major problem. The second thing is that buying cheap carbon credits leads us into really only supporting a small number of climate solutions, basically cheap nature solutions. Don’t get me wrong, we need these, but our climate is like a system and we need a lot of solutions. If you speak to many of the world’s best climate experts, there are over a 100 different climate solution categories. The carbon markets only sold for a small percent. We need businesses to be serious about solving this, and they need a portfolio of programs. You can’t just solve this by a company just supporting planting trees. It just doesn’t work. That’s the second big problem. Really having a verifiable impact, a real high impact is hard. It means you’ve got to do your homework, you’ve got to understand the science, you’ve got to weed out the good stuff from the bad stuff, which is really difficult and you’ve got to build a portfolio of things that you’re focusing on, an array of things. That was really our inspiration. How do we make it really easy for the average company to do the right thing, especially when they don’t have a big climate team or even frankly have one at all, to find the best projects and make it easy for them to communicate that they’re doing something that’s having a verifiable difference. That was what we were really targeting at fixing.

John: Got it. When you formulated this, what year are we talking about and when did it actually launch?

Simon: We started in January this year, and we launched it about three weeks ago.

John: Wow.

Simon: We launched and if you go to co2.com now…

John: Right. I’m on it.

Simon: …it’s good. It’s a little locked down at the moment and we’re opening it up more and more as we roll out functionality over the course of November and December.

John: If you were to say, though, take your competitors in this space, your favorite top three differentiators from your competitors, what, Simon, if you’re in a big pitch meeting today and you’re pitching against whoever your competitors are, and we’re not here to vilify anybody, I’m using them as a proxy, your differentiators, why co2.com should be the go-to space for what you laid out for the mission that you said in terms of creating measurable, manageable, radical transparency to creating a better world for all of us, environmentally speaking? What are your three major differentiators that you’re most proud of and excited about that co2.com offers?

Simon: It’s trust a portfolio approach and the ability to communicate. I can run through each of those.

John: Let’s do it.

Simon: Really great question. The truth is actually, John, we didn’t set out to build something to look at the market and go, we can do a better job than that.

John: Okay.

Simon: We didn’t set out to compete. We set out to make the old way, the old cheap way irrelevant.

John: Got it.

Simon: Actually, our competition is basically doing nothing.

John: Yeah.

Simon: Right all the people out there, we actually want to succeed. There are not enough people focusing on fixing the climate. Every single one of them matters and counts, and we are in the corner supporting all of them so long as their values are right.

John: Right.

Simon: But I’m digressing. What, okay, the differentiator which makes…

John: Right.

Simon: We set out to make it easy for companies to both say and do. The first step was trust. The last year has really been spent running around building relationships with the world’s leading climate scientists, the world’s leading climate experts, the influencers, top people in the world, senior leaders. These people passionately want the carbon markets to be way better. Building that trust platform was the most important thing. That basically meant we had to build effectively a combo. We brought together the best of the world of science, the best of the world of financial asset management, and then the best of the world of marketing. We took the world of science, we built partnerships with all sorts of interesting scientific bodies to really understand what the planet needs. We built an incredible advisory team and really used the latest thinking to shape our approach. That led to this really detailed seven-step vetting process, including scientists and third-party consultants and all types of people on our team. As we went through that, we realized this wasn’t just about solving for carbon and for CO2 which is in our name, we have got to solve for nature, for community and for things that fall even outside of the carbon market. But that science thing was a big first step for us. Then we combined that with the best of the world of asset management and portfolios. If any of you are investors then a portfolio approach is by far the best for allowing you in your investment world to spread risk. You don’t invest in one company, you invest in many. For us that means not just supporting one project, but many. If one fails, which it may do…

John: Right.

Simon: …and if taken care of you know your impact is still strong.

John: Right.

Simon: The other thing that we found is that fund managers really manage that portfolio for performance. They don’t just look at the business on its technical capabilities. They look deeply at the management team. Do these guys have the chops to deliver what they say? They monitor performance on an ongoing basis. Report back in a really rigorous way, dashboards, reports. That was really the world of asset management, world of science, world of asset management. We were like, oh my God, this is amazing. But that wasn’t enough. For the climate action platform to really work, it can’t just be about doing. Because if it fails to generate momentum and others, we needed to make it easy for companies not only to do, but also to talk about it. There’s a really big deal going on now. People are doing good but being green, but going dark at the same time. They’re calling it greenhashing now. What we wanted to do was make people confident to communicate what they’re doing. As we did that, we found, wow, people that don’t even know the words to use. Then we’re giving everybody all of these tools to multidimensional dashboards and summaries, reports, super cool project stories that they can share with their team or their customers. Then the marketing tools for communication and actually marketing and PR tools. That basically became the DNA of what we have.

John: That’s so fascinating. Couple of things, obviously in terms of wind at your back, it seemed like for the last two to three years, the shift from the linear to circular economy was an undeniable unstoppable trend. The shift to ESG institutional investing led by Larry Flint Fink and BlackRock, and so many other great leaders like him, seem to be also a massive and undeniable trend. Just recently, the last 6 to 12 weeks, we’ve seen a little bit of splash back, a little bit of some states in the United States saying, “Oh, we don’t want, we don’t believe in our state pension funds investing in ESG. We don’t think that’s the right way to go,” etc. Is that just a little bit noise and just push back to some very big trends that are really here to stay? Or do you see the feedback and their push back as something to worry about that could trip up the desperate need for products like yours and services like yours as we move forward and really try to tackle this in a meaningful way?

Simon: That’s a great question. I think sometimes the challenge with looking at what’s in the news, it leads you to… Well, you hear a lot of the noise but it’s not necessarily the signal of actually what’s happening.

John: Absolutely.

Simon: That, I think, is a problem. There is some push back against woke capitalism. There is some push back against ESG. But when you look at the realities of what’s happening, the carbon markets, all the data around the carbon markets show that price of carbon continues to rise. That more and more companies, more and more leaders of companies are increasing their focus on sustainability and bringing it into the core of their business. More and more politicians are talking about it, and some of them are reacting, but it’s only because this is a real and present conversation. But we’re seeing the SCC move forward. We’re seeing the London Stock Exchange move forward. We’re seeing the European Union, we’re seeing Australia, all of these governments are legislating and putting more and more pressure on big business to move. Big business is moving. The world of capital is moving. Now it’s going to be squeaky and noisy because you’re asking a lot of people who are making a lot of money in the old world to break from the old world. Of course, they’re not going to go quietly.

John: Right.

Simon: That noise of them not going quietly might be perceived as a push back.

John: Well, it is.

Simon: But there is undeniable direction and if anything, this is going to accelerate. What this means is, are you a business who’s part of the old world, or are you a business part of the new world? If you’re part of the old world, then just be careful because there comes a point where you are no longer relevant to your customers, employees, and investors. Already we’re seeing the cost of capital for businesses who are going slow on this, go up.

John: Got it. For our listeners and viewers who just tuned in, we’ve got Simon Mulcahy with us today. He’s the CEO of co2.com also the president of Sustainability of Time. To find Simon and his colleagues and all the great work they’re doing at co2.com, please go to www.co2, the number two, .com. Simon, okay, the client that you’re looking for, your team is out pitching a client, I want to understand a little bit more specifically, is it BlackRock and Larry Fink and those kind of huge fund managers and Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffet that you’re pitching? Are you pitching, and I’m not singling anybody out, but I’ll make this up just for fun. Are you pitching Exxon Mobil and Amazon to be a client? Or are you pitching a company like mine, ERI, which is one of the world’s largest, if not the world’s largest responsible electronic waste recycling company? Who are you looking to pitch to be part of your consortium so that you can move the needle forward? I want to understand that a little bit. I want our listeners to understand that a little bit more.

Simon: Let me tell to start with who I’m not pitching. I’m not pitching to companies who’ve got large teams of PhDs and scientists hanging around who are dedicated to climate. Those companies have got deep pockets and know what good looks like and know what bad looks like, and is up to them to do the right thing and hopefully they are.

John: Got it.

Simon: I’m talking to ERI, I’m talking to 99.9% of all businesses who are not the very few large corporations. I’m talking to every one of those, the leaders of every one of those who’s realizing that they actually want to be part of the future. Their kids on the weekend are saying, “Dad, are you part of the problem or the solution? Is what you are you doing real or greenwashing?” I’m speaking to those people. Those people who work in small or medium sized companies who want to grow, who need to attract this gen Z and millennial population who’s pissed that we’re not doing enough around climate. I’m talking to those people because they want to do the right thing, they just don’t have a big team. We are their team. We are the back office of all of those, ERI, your company, John.

John: Got it.

Simon: You can’t do it well, but that’s okay. We’ve got your back. We are your easy button.

John: That’s right. Like you said, I don’t have PhDs and other great scholars and leaders like BlackRock does, and like Amazon does and other great companies do that can help us score card the effort that we’re putting forward to make the world a better and greener place. I love that. Let’s talk about the voluntary carbon markets. Are you going to intermediate and disrupt the voluntary carbon markets which we talked about earlier or positively be a creative to what they’re already doing, or some combination there of?

Simon: The voluntary carbon market is expected to grow enormously over the next few years according to McKinsey 15 times growth by 2030 and 50 times by 2050.

John: Okay.

Simon: Whatever the real numbers, I don’t know what the real numbers are.

John: Right.

Simon: It’s a lot of growth.

John: Right.

Simon: There’s a lot of money that companies are going to the voluntary carbon markets to basically buy credits as part of their climate action plan. Our aim basically is disrupt any move towards that money going towards greenwashing, going towards projects that are not helping the planet. We need real money, proper money, money from companies, these CEOs and these CMOs and CFOs of these companies we were just talking about, we need that money to flow to projects that are really having a verifiable impact solving for carbon removal, for solving for nature, and solving for community and doing that in projects that are solving for that now, but also innovating and funding innovation that will create the right conditions for the future. We know that the fact is the carbon markets are about 20 years old and the carbon markets have been flawed for about 20 years. People have talked about it, but nobody’s fixing it. The only way for us to fix the run on cheap, low, or no-impact carbon offsetting is to make going beyond it better, easier, and more valuable for businesses. We want to fix the carbon markets from the inside, partner with all of the people that want to do that but basically make it so that people don’t run to cheap offsets. Instead, they pay a fair price to projects that have a demonstrable impact. That means that we are and want to be the very best partner to the voluntary carbon market initiative, the VCMI, to the Integrity Council of the Voluntary Carbon Market, the ICVCM, and every other acronym that comes up like the exponential roadmap. Universities are doing amazing things like Potsdam or Oxford University, Cambridge University, ASU, Berkeley, Stanford. We are all over those universities. We’re also working with incredible leaders like, well, Marc Benioff himself, but Feike Sijbesma, Paul Poleman, Christiana Figueres, Hiram Zumo, and the bazillion ecopreneurs, who are out there waking up every morning, leaping out of bed and spending every ounce that they have of their energy on trying to fix our planet. We’re helping all of them.

John: I love it. Simon, you’re still a young man and you’ve had a fascinating career, but now, you’ve left the dark side of the corporate world and you’ve joined the entrepreneurial world that I’ve lived in my whole life. How is it? This is a relatively new venture. You just launched it this January, so this is as brand new, this is your year-old baby, it’s 10 months old now as the CEO of co2.com. Where are you in the journey? Are you happy where you are the first 10 months in? Give us a little bit of a snapshot on your vision, where you’ll be a year from now when we have you back on the show to tell us all the success and to share all the wins you’ll probably bring some of your portfolio companies on to share. Where do you want to be five years from now?

Simon: Actually Marc Benioff asked me this, he keeps asking me this exact question.

John: If he’s asking you, I’m glad I asked as well. I’m asking you a good question then that’s good.

Simon: I felt I left a big SUV with really plush seats, really amazing suspension, air conditioning. I’m now in a go-kart where every tiny little pebble I go over I feel. I’ve got these goggles on, but I can feel the wind in my face. Any small movement of the steering wheel, I can really flip this over quickly so there’s a really interesting difference in, let’s call it the ride.

John: Hey, let me tell you something, you’re explaining entrepreneurship better than I can. That’s beautiful, what you just said. I love it.

Simon: I’m loving it. Oh my God, I’m working with the most incredible, passionate, gifted people that I’ve had the privilege ever to work with that I’ve been able to recruit into the CO2 team. I’m working with amazing professionals at Time. Every single person really cares about the planet, really cares about doing the right thing and I cannot honestly think of a better place to be a more meaningful problem to solve that means that when I turn around to my kids and say, let me tell you what I’m doing, they are not like, “Seriously dad.” It’s actually a passionate use of my time. I’m loving it from that human perspective, selfishly. In a year’s time when we will be massively bigger, this is not a normal startup.

John: Right.

Simon: This is a startup with incredible backing…

John: Right.

Simon: …enormous funding and Marc Benioff’s interest in growing this really far. We have to have an impact as quickly as possible. We’ve got some of the best leaders in the world who are supporting us. We are going to be a widely trusted partner to all of those climate leaders, to companies on their way to being climate leaders themselves. We are building an incredible team of passionate change agents. We’re going to be operating all over the world. We are a distributed team where we don’t have an office. But we know that we’re going to be big in the US, we’re going to be big in Europe, and big in Asia and very quickly. We are going to be working very closely with top experts in the world to build these climate portfolios. In five years time, oh my God, in five years’ time, we’re going to be two years away from 2030.

John: Right.

Simon: That is a big line in the ground.

John: Right.

Simon: I really hope that by that time we’ve made a really big difference.

John: It’s fun to just use as benchmarks, when you joined Salesforce and where Salesforce is today, 2500 people when you joined them, 75,000 today. How many people now at co2.com do you have as part of your consortium that’s working with you to move the needle to make a difference?

Simon: We’re a team of just under 20 now. We will be doubling that very quickly. But that’s small when you think of the scientific advisors that we have…

John: Yes.

Simon: …who are effectively a part of our team.

John: Yes.

Simon: When you think of the incredible very senior CEOs and world leaders that we have who are our independent advisors. Then you’ve got all of the people who we are working with at universities and climate institutions. The number grows enormously, that’s well over a hundred people who are spending material time with CO2, like world-class people. Then on top of that, you’ve got the full power of Time Media as well. This is a startup, but it’s not a startup.

John: That’s right. Well, all kidding aside, Simon, really, I just applaud everything you’re doing. I love what you’re doing. This is the reason we created this show years ago to highlight great people like you with this vision backed by amazing people like Marc Benioff. I know you’re going to change the world. I really would like to invite you back on a year from now and bring some of your star pupils, your great example of what you’re doing. That way we could have a group discussion while you get to highlight some of the huge wins you’ve had in that first year and a half or so because I think you’re just set up for massive success to change the world. For our listeners and viewers to find Simon and his great colleagues at co2.com, please go to www.co, number two, .com. Simon Mulcahy, you are making an impact. You are making the world a better place. You are the reason I do this show. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Simon: Thank you very much, John.

John: This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital, from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To fined Closed Loop partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: Listen to the Impact Podcast on all your favorite podcast platforms, including Apple, iTunes, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, iHeart Radio, Audible, Spotify, Stitcher and of course, at impactpodcast.com.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT in electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian. This is a super special edition of the Impact Podcast because we have Joanne with us. The Korean Vegan she’s known as. Welcome Joanne to the Impact Podcast.

Joanne Lee Molinaro: I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

John: I started following you years ago because I have such a love for Korea because I have so many business partners there and I go there so often. I’m going my fourth time in another week or so. I’m going my fourth time just this year. But also I’m a plant-based eater and I’ve been a vegetarian since I’m 17 and I’m going to be 60 in a couple of weeks. So what you were covering back then was fascinating to me and this was actually before you wrote this beautiful book, The Korean Vegan, which I highly recommend to all of our listeners and viewers out there and you became a New York Times bestselling author in the last year. You just passed your one year or so anniversary, a James Beard Award winner and you’ve taken your life in so many directions. So I don’t even know where to start, Joanne, I’m on your website for our listeners and viewers who want to follow Joanne and sign up for a newsletter and also for her social media platforms, which are massive. They can go to the koreanvegan.com. So welcome, Joanne and before we get going, we’ve mentioned a couple of the awards that you’ve won. How big are your social media platforms now? Because I’m not a TikToker. I’m an Instagram follower and I get your newsletter, of course, and I listen to your podcast every week, which is very different than reading your newsletter, by the way. It’s a whole different experience, which is super wonderful. How big is TikTok now? How big is Instagram? How big is YouTube?

Joanne: Sure. So I have about 3 million followers on TikTok. I have about an inch and closer to a million subscribers on YouTube. I have about 670 some thousand followers on Instagram and maybe 50,000 on Twitter and 60 on Facebook. Those are kind of smaller ones. And we’ve got a growing audience on our podcast. We get roughly like 200 downloads per episode, which is really exciting since I just started it.

John: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I was listening. It’s so crazy. I read your newsletter and your newsletters are written so wonderfully, but you also have such… how do I say it? This is only flattery because my wife has a friend from college that she went to school with that became a very big broadcaster in LA, Sylvia Lopez. So Sylvia has a broadcast voice. You have a broadcast voice and so this morning, I’m in the gym listening to your most recent podcast, which you dropped this morning and it’s so funny. I was in the middle of just doing a part of my workout and I could just tell someone was giving me a hard stare from somewhere and I have earphones on while I’m in the gym and I look over to the guy and he’s a big hulking guy giving me a hard stare and I don’t know him. I’m trying to understand why he’s giving me a hard stare and I realize which you’ve done to me before, I’m crying in the middle of the gym listening to your podcast about your mother at the end with your mother Sonny and the end with your grandmother and I was relating to it so much. I’m like, “She got me again. I’ve got to read her newsletters and pay attention before I listen because I’m not prepared for what you’re doing to us all.”

Joanne: I’m sorry.

John: It’s just funny people staring at me because I’m crying in the middle of a very full gym this morning.

Joanne: That’s my specialty, John.

John: One of your podcasts, I can’t even claim to know which one because I’ve listened to all of them. In one of them, you claim that your mother’s superpower was making people cry. You said you weren’t, but that’s actually not true. You’ve inherited that skill very well.

Joanne: She’ll be happy to know that.

John: Trust me, you’ve said to me all the time but let’s go back. You are classically educationally trained as a lawyer?

Joanne: Yes.

John: And you practice law for 17 or 18 years or so?

Joanne: Correct. Yes, that’s correct.

John: Talk a little bit about the decision to give it up and to go really take your shot on this planet.

Joanne: Yeah. I love the way you put that. “Take your shot on this planet” because we only get one shot at this planet. Right?

John: It’s true.

Joanne: My story is very typical in many ways in that I was getting close to 40 years old and I was starting to ask myself many of the same questions that I’m sure a lot of people ask themselves at that sort of midpoint, which is, is this it? Is this what I’m going to do for the rest of my life? And I was a practicing lawyer. I had a fantastic job with a fantastic firm. I was making very good money. I had done all the things that my parents wanted me to do, which was own a house, have a car, pay car insurance. These are very adulty things and I was very proud of that, but at the same time, I was starting to wonder, was there something out there that I was capable of that I hadn’t yet tapped into? Now, at the time, I had the Korean Vegan as an Instagram account. You probably were following me back then. It was an old account and I was just posting recipes and stories here and there. I was working on a book because I had been asked to write a book from a publisher and I was like, “Sure,” I don’t really know what that would look like, but okay, I’ll try it. Nothing was very committed when it came to the Korean Vegan. It was always a hobby but when I started asking those questions and I started to realize how much joy the Korean Vegan was bringing to me, I started to think about, “Well, could this be something more than a hobby?” And that was really the road that I started to walk down at that time. That was 4 or 5 years ago. What really made the difference for me, John, was that a couple of years ago, when my TikTok blew up, I started to see that there was a financial path for me, and that’s really important. It’s not the most glamorous, sexy part of dream chasing, but it is a very practical part of it and one that’s necessary to at least consider. And for me, as a lawyer and as someone is so risk averse, I was like, “I need to see a track record of some sort that this thing can at least let me earn a living” and I was able to do that for about… I would say 7 months before I said, “Okay, I’ve seen enough. I can do this and I deserve this chance to be happy with what I do.”

John: That’s wonderful. What went into the decision to leave Chicago, which is your hometown where you were practicing, where you were married with your husband Anthony and pick up both of you and move to California? What was the geographic change about?

Joanne: There were a couple of things that really preceded that sort of decision and number one was the fact that, well, now that I’ve withdrawn from partnership, there’s really nothing tying me to Chicago anymore. I didn’t need to go into the office every day and work with my colleagues. I could pick up and go anywhere we wanted and at that point, literally, the world was sort of like, at our feet we thought about going to Rome or even Sardinia or Milan because Anthony’s family is in Italy and we love Italy so much. We thought about Boulder because we’re both very athletic and we love the community there. I have to say, we kind of fell on not just California, but this current area, which is sort of the Valley in California, which is a little bit odd but we fell into this because I was out here for a podcast and I had my Zillow open because at that time, I was looking for a new home in the suburbs of Chicago because the space that I was living in just was not conducive to creating videos. There wasn’t enough natural light. So I needed a home that had lots of windows and had a lot of space and I had the Zillow open and we were driving through somewhere by Pepperdine University and you know how your Zillow just knows where you are and starts showing you all the different homes, like where you are? And I was like, “Well, these homes look lovely.” They’re not so outside of my price range that I can’t afford them and that’s what really sparked a thought like, “Well, I could maybe look at homes here” and what really nailed it for me was going to Joy Cafe, which everybody knows, like, one of my favorite restaurants. It’s a vegan, gluten free restaurant here and I went to not just eat their food, but I got to meet with the owners of that restaurant. I got to meet with the investors of that restaurant and all of a sudden, it became very clear that there was just this beautiful community of people here who valued health, who valued compassion, who valued fitness and athleticism and all the things that I love personally. But unfortunately, we’re not always well dressed in Chicago. It’s not there. It’s not like that in Chicago and so I was kind of like, “I’m sold. I want to come live here where I can just walk out my front door and know that there are vegan options just like that, where people are riding their bicycles and running and doing things that I can really vibe with.”

John: That’s awesome. I did hear the episode where you interviewed the owner of Joy Cafe as well. That was a wonderful episode.

Joanne: She’s amazing. She is such an inspiration. She always told me, I found everything that’s the most important things in my life other than her children after she turned 49. That’s incredible.

John: But it just goes to show you when you look back on history, some of the greatest artists and creators on this planet did the most in the fourth quarter of their lives.

Joanne: Absolutely. They totally Tom Brady themselves.

John: Tom Brady themselves. We’re going to get into Michael Jordan in a little while. As I was reviewing your book and I just loved this book, and again, for our listeners and viewers out there, the Korean Vegan Cookbook, it’s a New York Times bestseller. I highly recommend it. Not just because of the amazing recipes that Joanne, you have put in here and created but also, the more I review your book and the more I listen to your podcast, one of the beautiful things is this is almost like an ongoing and your podcasts are almost like an ongoing love letter to your mom, dad, grandparents and your husband. And there’s something just beautiful and how you’ve done that and how you weave. In one way or another I sometimes think you’ve now just used food as a platform for much bigger discussions and it’s just fascinating how you’ve done that. Talk a little bit about the evolution from… let’s go back to plant-based eating. You started eating plant-based food with Anthony back in 15 or 16?

Joanne: 2016.

John: Okay. It’s because he started and you wanted to follow?

Joanne: That’s exactly right?

John: Along those line is true?

Joanne: Yes. It’s so funny. I was just talking to someone yesterday. She makes just the most divine vegan croissants like I’ve ever had in my life. And I was like, “Well, what inspired you to start making vegan croissants?” And she was like, “I had a really big crush on the sky.” I was like, “You know what? I’ve been there.”

John: It’s so funny how you broke, broke down you and Anthony. On one of your podcasts, you said, Anthony eats to survive and I just love people like that and I envy them. But for you, food is your language of love.

Joanne: It is exactly right. Everyone has their own relationship with food. It is true, though, that many children of immigrants like food is a little bit more than functional just because it is one of the few things that many Americanized families have retained from their native cultures. So, for example, my mom, as I’m sure you know, is very Americanized. She’s very assimilated. She does a lot of things that help her to fit into America and she did that out of a sense of survival and safety. She wanted to make sure that she gave her children every chance of success but we had to eat Korean food every day. So it was like one of the few things that she was very strict about keeping in our house that was still very Korean.

John: Right. Of course, in the book, which is dedicated to your mom, really, and in your podcast, you talk a lot about your mom Sonny. Is your favorite story about your mom the story of her life being saved with the Hershey bar or meeting the psychic beggar on Lake Michigan when she was studying to take the nurse exam the second time?

Joanne: I would say both are great, great stories and just really quick recap for your listeners. The Hershey bar story my mother was less than a year old when the war broke out, the Korean War and as a result of that, my family was born… my mom was born in what is now known as North Korea. That’s where my grandparents lived and they had to flee in order to get to South Korea but unfortunately, there was no food and very little water and it took them a very long time to get to the beach, which is where there was a U.S. navy ship that would take them to safety and as a result of that, my mom, who was an infant, was starving to death and at the time, in Korea, in a country of destitution that is now saddled with war, mercy killings is not something that was crazy or atypical. Unfortunately, it probably happened a lot more than we would like to think and that’s exactly what my grandparents were thinking of doing. They were thinking of throwing my mother overboard on a ship and drowning her as a mercy killing but luckily, an American soldier figured things out through sign language and my mom crying her eyeballs out and pulled out a Hershey bar from his pocket and gave it to my mother and my mom always says that Hershey bar saved her life. I do love that story, but I’d have to vote for the psychic story. My mom always had these weird dreams and encounters throughout her life and that one was certainly just the most unreal and part of the reason I love it so much is because it occurred on Lake Shore Drive, which is… I’ve run that path on Lake Shore Drive. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds I’ve probably run thousands of miles on that very same path where my mom she had just failed her nursing boards here in the United States. She had very little money left and she was very much thinking of going back home to Korea and calling quits on the whole American dream and her father said, “No, no, you need to study and you need to try again.” My mom was like, “I have no money and I can’t speak English and I don’t think I will succeed if I try again.” And so she was very sad. She was very depressed. It was one morning she found out she had failed and she was walking along Lake Shore Drive when an old vagrant came up to her and asked her for a dollar for a cup of coffee because it was so cold that day and my mom had almost no money but she, for some reason, took out all the change that she had in her pockets and she poured it right into this old woman’s hands and before she could leave, the woman grabs her by the hands and holds her and says, “You’re going to pass that test.” I always get tingles every time I share that story.

John: Come on, that’s just ridiculous.

Joanne: It is.

John: Every time I hear it, I still can’t believe it and you tell that story many times in many different situations because it’s so important to hear, but it’s almost a wakeup call that when the universe speaks to you, you have to listen.

Joanne: Oh, absolutely. It’s magical. It’s beautiful. This is one thing that I really tried to open myself to over the past few years is exactly that idea, John, is that the universe is talking to us but sometimes we’ve gotten so bogged down with social media, with the news, with their own introspection and everything that’s going on that we just drawn out the universe and sometimes the universe is trying to tell us the very most important things we need to hear.

John: You started building your social media platforms and the numbers you gave out earlier, Joanne, when did you decide after the book was written and it went to become a New York Times bestseller and you won the James Beard Award, unbelievable achievements for any one life but you’re so young. When did you decide then to take it into a different direction? The law was behind you now, which is fascinating, so that you got back a big chunk of your life. Where was the podcasting? Where did that idea come to you? And then curating it to be… at the top of the show, how to live a purposeful and more empowered life. Where did that all come from and what do you really want to do with that?

Joanne: That’s such a great question. Thank you, John. As you say, the book was a love letter to my family and that was very intentional. That project started all the way back in 2017, which was before I had the book deal when I just had a very small Instagram account and I really wanted the world to be better acquainted with the immigrant story. Hey, there’s a lot of stuff going on in the news about immigrants and their role as Americans or non-Americans in the United States and I just wanted the world to see… can I just share with you my own story and my parent’s story and what they contributed to this American dream and that’s really all I wanted to do. That continued in the book. I was very purposeful. I wanted the book to have the stories of my mom and dad along with their food because I feel like they go so well together. It’s like, “Oh, well, you want to know my dad’s favorite noodle dish? Here it is.” And let me tell you a little bit about my dad, right? I just think it makes sense. With the podcast, it was totally accidental. I had been writing this newsletter and honestly, the only reason I did the newsletter at first is because my publisher was like, “This is how you sell books.” I was like, “Okay, fine, I’ll start a newsletter” something like that. I didn’t like doing the same old newsletter that everybody else is doing, which is like, “Here’s a link to 15 things including my book.” I didn’t want it to be that. I was like, here’s an opportunity for me to send a letter to every single person that’s on my list once a week and make them feel better. Make them feel better about that day, that week, that month. If somebody’s struggling with their job or raising their kids or having a tough conversation with their spouse or their parent, here’s a chance for me to maybe lift their burden just a little bit and so that’s what I started to do with the newsletter. Now, I proofread really terribly, but you can ask my assistant, you can ask any of my colleagues is my big Achilles’ heel. I always have typos. One thing that I started getting into the routine of doing was reading my newsletters out loud so that I could proofread better. That’s how I catch my errors. And one day I was reading it out loud and I thought to myself, “Man, if I were a recipient of this newsletter, I would love an Audible version just in case I don’t have time to sit down and read it. That way I could just listen to Joanne reading it and it really does that sound like a letter from her and I could be washing the dishes or doing the laundry or running errands or driving in the car.” So I was like, “Okay, I didn’t know anything about podcasting. I just knew that my email didn’t have enough bandwidth for me to literally embed an audio file.” So the only way that I could create an audio version would be to put it on a free podcasting host and so that’s what I did. I just… I was like, “Okay” and literally the first podcast episode is toxic productivity and I’m just reading the newsletter. That’s it.

John: Literally, that’s what it sounded like. That’s what you just said.

Joanne: And I have the heading, just reading out loud and then I looked at it one day and I was like, “Oh, wow. All I have to do for this to be distributed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify is to literally press this one button.” That’s what I started doing and then I was like, “Well, okay, now that it’s on these podcast platforms, maybe I should have introduction or something” and that’s basically how it came to be but the idea has always been about injecting purpose into people’s lives and to help them discover what I talked about today, which is this reservoir of agency that we so often neglect. We don’t think we have the power to do all of these things whether it’s to leave a job or to start a new one, to heal a rift between yourself and your child or your parent, to walk away from a toxic relationship. These are things that we trick ourselves to thinking that we cannot do, but we absolutely can. It’s just a matter of tapping in to that agency that we have neglected.

John: I forgot who it was. It came up in one of your podcasts and again, in your great storytelling form but the story, regardless of who it was, it’s such a powerful story where you said when you were deciding to leave the law firm, I believe it was one of your mentor partners but it could have been somebody else who not only encouraged you, but said something this kind go because a lot of people can do what you’re doing here in the law. Nobody else could do what you’re doing as the Korean Vegan.

Joanne: Yes, that was very illuminating to me. That was actually one of my closest friends, Kim Julie. She’s the author of another really great vegan cookbook called The Vegan Reset and she’s coming out with a new one called Best of Vegan, too and she has always been one of my biggest cheerleaders and she’s also a writer. She has a master’s degree in poetry or something like that. When she said that to me, that was such like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s so true. What am I doing with it? Am I really bringing the best value that I can to people in this world?” Now, again, I’m very practical, so it’s like, “Yes, it’s so empowering. It’s so inspiring and all of that stuff.” But there is also another side to that that needs to be investigated, which is sure, always, it’s important for you, John, and for anybody who’s listening to look for that thing that they are uniquely equipped to do but you also have to ask yourself, is that uniquely equipped to think something the world needs, something the world desires. That was the other piece that I really needed to figure out and that was the journey that I went down starting in 2020 to figure out, “Hey, is there a space for my unique talent?” The most important thing is that we not assume that there isn’t. That’s what a lot of us do is, “Oh, that’s such a weird niche strange thing, there’s no space for that. People don’t want.” The best story that I can tell on that. The other day, we had a whole bunch of people over for Anthony’s 50th birthday party and one of his running mates comes up to me. He’s like, “Oh, you’re doing the cake? Okay, I’m a streamer guy. Can I do the confetti for the cake?” And I was like, “Okay, sure.” And he’s like this cute little nerd. I mean, he’s just such a nerd about confetti and streamers and there’s this whole confetti thing and then after the party, I found out he’s the confetti guy for BTS, for the Super Bowl, for every major world event.

John: Oh, he is the confetti guy?

Joanne: Exactly. I have the most important confetti person at my party and that’s what I mean. He took his thing and he went all in and I just think that’s so cool.

John: Wow. I want to get back to that in a second. I want to talk about timing. And again, for our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’ve got Joanne. She’s also known as the Korean Vegan. You should buy or look at this wonderful book she’s written to New York Times bestseller. It’s only about a year old for a select group of our listeners and viewers, we’re going to be giving out signed copies. Joanne was kind enough to sign a bunch of copies for us and we’ll be giving some away as well. To find Joanne and sign up for any of her social media platforms such as her podcast, which I listen to every week and her newsletter, which I received or her TikTok or Instagram, please go to the koreanvegan.com. As a serial entrepreneur, Joanne, you’re so right about timing. Timing is really, really important. My space didn’t come that far ahead of Facebook and there’s lots of stories like that. Why do you think not only what you were doing was so unique, but why was the timing so perfect? I have my own ideas, but I want to hear you yours, of course, first.

Joanne: The timing was in large part due to the pandemic whether we want to acknowledge that as being bad or good. It was a situation and there was a reckoning that many people had to undertake not because they wanted to or plan to, but because they were alone and they had to confront their isolation and in so doing, grapple with what emerged from that isolation. Social media… there are a lot of problems with social media. I can talk for endless amounts of time about that, but at that time… oh my god, thank goodness, there’s social media because I couldn’t see my parents, I had to call off Christmas. There were just a lot of things that were really awful about the pandemic and luckily, we had things like Facebook. We had things like Instagram and for me, TikTok, not just to divert me and distract me from the anxiety and sort of the isolation of the pandemic, but also to prove that, “Oh my god, I’m not alone.” There are a lot of people out there who feel the same way that I do and that what I try to do with the Korean Vegan is to create safety and to remind people that that feeling that you have, that wonderful, cozy, warm, loving, comforting feeling of safety, is one, ultimately, that you can provide to yourself when necessary. That message was needed very much at that time and it was one that the Korean Vegan was already very good at providing in the form of food. It’s like, “Oh, these beautiful, comforting looking dishes along with this woman’s voice telling me everything’s going to be okay.” That had a lot to do with the timing. Also, of course, John, and I’m sure you’re very familiar with this, is that this idea that you got to know everything and do everything right in your 20s is just totally ridiculous. It’s absurd. It adds a complete unnecessary level of toxic pressure on people to figure out their lives in two decades. You’re practically an infant when it comes to life experiences at that time, and so you can take your time. I wish more people could feel the comfort behind those words, which is, if you haven’t figured it out by the time you’re 40, that’s okay. You still have so many decades left in your life to figure whatever it is you need to figure out and for me, there were a whole bunch of things that happened. I got a divorce that very much informed my toughness and mental metal, if you will. I met Anthony would not have gone vegan if not for him. There are all of these things that sort of converged when they did and I wouldn’t be the person that I am today had it done anything differently. You have to be mindful about what you’re doing at the same time going back to that idea of that the universe is speaking to you. One of my favorite quotes from Richard’s[?] book is the universe conspires to take care of those who act in its service. And I truly believe that and there is some component of having to just wait and not in that anxious way, but in the okay, my time will come way.

John: Right. I know you’re also a fan of David Epstein as well.

Joanne: I love him.

John: When I first started following you and again, it was plant-based and done what you were doing in terms of the plant-based thing and also the Korean thing. I veganized Korean food, I Koreanize everything else. It could be a third line there. I posit that you give truth to power in an unvarnished way that’s very unique and authentic way that I find to be both so unvarnished that it touches your soul when you listen to, you read the words. Like I said, if the medium is the message and reading your newsletters is wonderful because you’re a great writer, you’re obviously an English major in college. So you’re a great writer and you’ve honed that skill with the legal profession and everything else. But also, how you read them your words and emphasize certain points is unbelievably unique. You don’t find that out there and I listen to a lot, I take in a lot of product on other people’s… what their creations and your creation is. I constantly see the juggling act and I always wonder what’s really winning in the race? Is the plant-based, the Koreanizing base or just her unvarnished authenticity and the truth to power that she gives to her own voice and to her own experiences and that’s a fascinating. It’s just fun to watch you evolve that and push it to new limits and things of that such. It’s just been a joy and it honestly inspires my life and informs me in many, many ways, in many, many ways. Even though I seem that I’m a white guy and people think I’m a white guy, I’m an Armenian immigrant. I happen to be third generation and I know… let me just say this. As I’ve read and reread your book, I keep hearkening back to one of my favorite people that we’ve lost, Anthony Bourdain and I keep thinking, “This is Joanne’s kitchen confidential. She’s going to do so much more.” And one of the things that you’ve done so beautifully already, which I don’t think Anthony did that well is you talk about mental health and wellness and that’s such an important topic to both open up and normalize. As you said, it became a much bigger topic and it is a much bigger topic during the pandemic and post pandemic because he’s struggling.

Joanne: Yeah. It’s so sad because I love Anthony Bourdain, too, and the reason he was so beloved was because he also brought this unvarnished truth to the table, to the kitchen table and that in a world that is saturated with everything being perfect and polished and presentable and duh, duh, duh, it was nice to have at least one voice say, “Yeah, no, F that.” I’m just going to bring what I bring and that was really important. What his death, as well as Robin Williams death, for me, really signified, was just how deceptive mental illness can be. We trick ourselves into thinking, “Everything’s okay. We’re all good. That person who seems a little sad, he’ll be fine. Rub some dirt into it, he’ll get over it.” This sort of mentality but at the end of the day, there’s nothing more final than death and the regret that must come with it. If we at any point thought, maybe I could have said something, maybe I could have done something and then when you put that mirror up and you look at your own lives and you start to wonder, is there something inside of me that remains unaddressed? Is there some hurt, some injury inside of me that I’ve been ignoring for a very long time because I need to pick up the kids, I need to put the cast rolling, I need to pay the electricity bill because of these sort of daily exigencies that I start to ignore, the one big fundamental one that’s been lurking inside of me then what can happen? It’s so scary how mental illness can really sort of creep up on you without you even knowing it, until it’s become such a problem that it’s almost unhearable[?].One of the things that I try to do is to peel things back and say, “Hey, let’s look at some of these wounds that are scary and that are hurtful and that may have been sitting there for far too long because if we don’t look at them, we’re never going to heal from them.

John: It’s so true in terms of timing. The other two interesting parts about timing on what you’ve created is what I’ve seen is the Koreanizing of America. I grew up in Queens, New York, Little Neck, which is two towns [inaudible] Flushing and Bayside. So many of my childhood friends were coming over were Koreans [inaudible] and building out this wonderful immigrant infrastructure of hard work and education and I just saw the whole transformation of that community and rise of that community on the East Coast similarly on the West Coast. Now, when I started becoming partners in South Korea with some of the tribal families that exist and one of them are still partners of mine and sit on my board, the Koo Family, the LG Family. Back in 2008, my generation of business people were all about dinner and who can drink more soju or makgeolli. What’s fascinating is I’ve become very close with their children, which is now your generation and they are so health-minded and health-conscious and those dinners have become almost a thing of the past. Wonderful dinners are still happening. For instance, the last time I was there was during Chuseok and I was invited to so many wonderful events and dinners with 40 different things on the table but it was no longer about just how much meat you could have at the table or pork. There was tons of vegetables and you don’t have to drink anymore to prove that you’re their friend and they are also helped by this. The rise of the health and wellness culture in Korea plus the Koreanizing of America are two great trends that are also wined at your back, not only now and not only two years ago when you started making your big move but in the years to come, they’re going to serve you very well. Do you see that as well?

Joanne: What people sometimes forget is that Korea has a very proud history of two things and that scholarship and activism. So one of the things that my father told me about was during Korea’s very nascent democracy, the protests that occurred in connection with the very first president of Korea and what ultimately ended up happening was that Korea’s first president was exiled for corruption. There is this great heart and soul of justice inside of Korea and when it comes to this rise of activism, when it comes to health, wellness and climate change, these are things that are so very important to the young people of Korea and it does not surprise me at all that these are things that are now having maybe not yet its moment, but cresting, it’s a way that is on its way to cresting and the more we can see some of the [inaudible] getting behind that and capitalizing on it. That’s a good thing for everyone, right? It’s not just a good thing for the activism, but it’s a good thing for the businesses as well and the institutionalized families of Korea. That’s very important. The other thing is scholarship. There’s millennia of scholarship behind Korea’s infrastructure, behind its culture and behind its soul and the more people dig into the science behind plant-based eating, it becomes undeniable that it’s healthier for them and it’s also healthier for the planet. And again, these are things that are so important to young people that my hope is that whether the Korean Vegan me, whether I’m part of that in some way or not is that we start to see a full circle moment where Korea starts to shift back to being the sort of plant centric country that it always has been. When you talk about Korean food, all we think about is Korean barbecue now but when you think about it, Korean Buddhist food…

John: Temple cuisine.

Joanne: Temple cuisine, exactly. It’s plant-based. We have this rich culture that’s centered on plant-based eating and I think when we shift towards that and the country starts seeing that compassionate eating can be cool, it can be science-based, it can be better for the environment and better for their health, the better off we’re all going to be.

John: People haven’t eaten a real fruit until they’ve had a Korean pear or Korean [inaudible].

Joanne: Oh, my gosh, the Korean Persimmon, my husband had never had one before and I gave it to him and he’s like, “This is literally the best thing I’ve ever…”

John: Korean Persimmons the bomb.com and so in Korean pears. I don’t know which… again, when you listen to all your episodes, they all sort of come together as one narrative and they’re wonderful but I know you spoke about your mom’s love of sweet potatoes and that touched my heart because my grandmother was… again, she escaped the genocide as well. She ate a sweet potato every day and she raised us some sweet potatoes. So to me, I could eat a sweet potato and some vegetables and that’s the best meal I could ever have on the planet because sweet potato just reminds me of just not only my grandmother, but the struggle that they went through. The struggle that they went through. You’ve talked so much and you’ve talked so eloquently about the importance of mental health and wellness and being our own best cheerleader and supporter for all of us but as an immigrant, talk about being now the entrepreneurial journey, I believe and so many of other friends of mine believe, that entrepreneurs make… immigrants make the best entrepreneurs. How did that inform you in terms of so far, your entrepreneurial journey because obviously, immigrants and immigrants especially that have historical relationships with escaping genocide or war, either one, whether we were the escapees ourselves or our parents or our grandparents, were. When you read, whether you read or you’re familiar with the body keeps the score. The trauma comes through in the DNA, whether it’s verbally, genetically or whatever. There is a trauma that’s imputed to all of us from our parents and our grandparents from the immigrant experience. How do you think that’s helped you as an entrepreneur in terms of resilience, courage and all the other great things that make up the immigrants that made it here and have thrived like your parents?

Joanne: That’s a really tough question because I feel like I’m very… I feel like I’ve only been an entrepreneur for less than a year because that’s when we went with the Korean Vegan going full-time and I had a cushy full-time job with the steady paycheck for so long and I’m only now just discovering goodness, how much resilience is necessary in order to just go from day one to day two. I feel like there’s a lot of that. I feel very proud, number one, of being able to call myself an entrepreneur. I think some people have very differing ideas about, “Oh, she’s just an influencer or content creator” and that’s fine. People can say that but at the end of the day, I’ve always viewed the Korean Vegan when I decided to withdraw from partnership and take it full-time as a business and I’ve always viewed myself as an entrepreneur and that in some ways that does distinguish me from the average influencer or content creator or however you want to look at that.

The other thing is that there’s always this push and pull. I don’t know if you’ve read… I think his last name is Prestman, Pressfield. Is it Steven Pressfield? He’s an author who wrote, The War of Art and he talks about this idea of the bigger your dream is, the bigger the resistance is going to be. There’s this countervailing force that’s trying to make you not do the thing that you want to do. I feel like that is every single day. I’m fighting off this voice of saying, “You’re never going to make it. This is going to fail. You don’t know what you’re doing. The basic rules of economy, supply and demand are not in your favor.” All of these little voices in my head saying, “You’re just never going to make it” and fighting those off and learning to trust myself is very hard. As a child of immigrants, there two different things that are going at it. Number one is the anti-risker. “What are you doing? You had a full-time job, a nice paycheck of 401(k), all of the things that we’ve ever always wanted for you and you threw that away for this.” So there is that voice that I have to contend with and I try very hard to be compassionate with that voice and say, “I know where you’re coming from. I know that you have suffered all kinds of things that I never had to because of your sacrifices and I appreciate that.” But I think the other voice that I like to listen to are those of my grandmothers, the ones who were so tough, who were so resilient, who had to grapple with every shred of self-doubt that any human person could ever have to deal with and still said, “You know what? I’m going to trust my own voice. I’m going to trust myself here. I’m going to trust my instincts.” Knowing that those women are inside of me, that helps me every day to say, “Joanne, you got to stop with the noise and you got to just pay attention to what’s inside of here.”

John: That’s fascinating. You had the real genius and this is a compliment because I try to tell this to entrepreneurs in waiting and entrepreneurs in the making all the time. Sometimes you don’t have to jump all in to start. Straddle it, don’t turn off the lights and stop paying your bills and not have much food on the table and go all in on your dream until you start getting an inkling that your dream to work that you did that, that was really sheer genius that you kept. Your law firm, the law profession going why you started dabbling in this… really, there’s an argument to be made that you became an entrepreneur in waiting 5, 6 years ago.

Joanne: Yes.

John: Really? You then knew… there was a point where, as you said, the universe was speaking to you and you walked through the door and you did it and that’s beautiful but I also go back to the stories that you told about your mother telling her parents that she would be the boy of the family and then be coming here to America, a very strange land, by herself, to get her nursing degree and then staying here. In so many ways, as an entrepreneur, you’re not only honoring your grandparents absolute hand to hand combat to struggle and survive, but also your mother’s journey as well in terms of making the most of what you were really given, because you could have stayed a lawyer to… you’re 72 years old and beyond even now, of course, because people are living much healthier and much longer and you’re under that year, of course, in that category that probably will do so. And you could have had a very safe life and a really great life with your husband but you took now the more difficult road, which I find fascinating and interesting, but also very exciting.

Joanne: It is exciting. And I will say… I was at breakfast this morning and I was waiting to get some water and there was a woman ahead of me and she was with her son and she was clearly on her Bluetooth and she was talking to somebody about some court case and how they had to submit evidence and they hadn’t done it and the paralegal hadn’t done it on time and they were figuring it out and I was like, “Man, she’s trying to get water.” Her son’s poking her on the shoulder behind and saying, “Mom, when’s it my turn to get the water?” And then she’s got a client on the phone and she’s not even in her office and I was like, “I do not miss any of it at all.”

John: Wasn’t that a great feeling at that point?

Joanne: It’s a great feeling. It’s a great feeling. I have so much gratitude for where I am in life that I get to wake up and create beautiful things as part of my job. That’s so nuts that that’s my life but at the same time, there were so many forks in the road where I decided I’m going to do the hard thing here because I know it’ll pay off some point in the future and I think sometimes that’s what we need to do is we need to recognize those forks in the road and we need to tell ourselves, “I have the strength to do the hard thing this time because I know it will pay off.” Maybe not this year, next year, or two years from now, but it will.

John: There’s two types of payoff I see in that decision making. Payoff both the money that comes from that and also the notoriety that comes with that. Put that together is also the respect that you have for yourself for never having that regret.

Joanne: That’s so true. That’s a really important point, is if you want to talk about confidence, you really want to know how to derive confidence. It is at least partially going back and saying, “Yeah, there was that time I did that hard thing. Maybe there are all these voices in my head saying that I couldn’t, but I didn’t listen to them and I decided to go with it.” Talk about a confidence builder is knowing that you’re that person. You’re that same person who did that really, really hard thing and now look where you are, you’ve earned this place. And that’s really important.

John: You talked about activism a couple of minutes ago. I want to talk about activism in a second about in the United States and the role that you’re playing in activism. Before we go, let’s talk about Korea activism. There’s a show that came out this year that… probably my favorite show this year and it’s no great secret than Netflix, outside of Hollywood, is spending more money for original content out of South Korea than any other country in the world. They’ve announced that and they’re going all in. The show Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

Joanne: I love that show.

John: My wife’s and my favorite show of 2022 [inaudible]. And to me, there’s a form of activism… besides just being a great show that we just love to watch and rewatch. There’s a form of activism in there with regards to folks that have autism and their role in society and it’s interesting Korea has tackled… Korea… in that platform… and that show became very popular both, I believe, in Korea in terms of downloads and also around the world in the United States as well. In the United States, we have 62 or 63 million handicapped people that are swept under the rug. We do not. It’s unbelievably shameful how challenged or handicapped or whatever we’re going to call them in a correct sense, how we treat them in this society but it’s unbelievable… Korea tackled that and went after that issue in that show in such a beautiful way. What’s your thoughts on that?

Joanne: I love how you pointed that out because they think that was one of the things that stuck out to me was, wow, I haven’t thought about this issue myself, and I’m a lawyer and I never really thought about this. And you’re so right. The writers tackle that issue in such a graceful, beautiful, but still very challenging and thought provoking way. It pushed you without even knowing that you’re being pushed. You’re like, “Oh, I’m thinking about things that I’ve never really thought about.” Korea’s writing, its cinematography, its filmography has always done that. That’s been very historical from a film and movie perspective because a lot of the movies in Korea, they were not controlled by big companies that had their own political or social agendas that the artists had a lot more freedom to talk about the things that they wanted to talk about but with Netflix, one of the great things that we’ve seen as a result of Netflix is this complete proliferation of storytelling that was not seen before in Korean dramas and I think what you’re seeing is a movie like Parasite, which says so much about the world that we live in. Now you can see that in Korean dramas, which was not the case 15 years ago and that’s so beautiful. You see it in Extraordinary Attorney Woo. You see it in Our Blues which is another great Korean drama that talks about teenage pregnancy, it talks about gay marriage, it talks about all of these other things that typically taboo in Korean dramas and what that reveals to me is, like I said, there’s always been a heart that is engulfed in the pursuit of justice in Korea.

And now these Korean dramas and other forms of media have been given this platform to speak their heart in just these beautiful, beautiful ways. I’ve been a fan of K-Dramas for decades so to see this new evolution, even with Squid Game and things like that, it’s just so exciting.

John: How about Pachinko?

Joanne: Pachinko is beautiful. The book is probably one of my favorite books of all time. Although I was going to say because you mentioned you grew up in Queens, you have to read Free Food for Millionaires, which is Min Jin’s first book and it is all about a family in Queens and it is just… that’s how I became introduced to the Korean diaspora in Queens and what a special pocket of this country that place is.

John: And they’re still there, Flushing and Bayside. It’s huge. Your minor in college, if you don’t mind me saying, in Asian studies and let’s talk about the activism, your thoughts about the activism in America, especially when it comes to what we’ve seen as Asian hate and I’m going to book end this by saying what I’ve heard you discuss in such an emotional and compassionate way about your relationship with the Atlanta murders. The tragic Atlanta murders that happened was my version at almost the same age range of the Rodney King riots. I lived in L.A. at that time with my wife and children and very young family and the Rodney King riots have been whitewashing down there now they’re called the L.A. riots but it’s not talked about a lot, in fact, ever that I hear in mainstream media was the abject attack on the Korean-American community during those riots that were not only unprovoked, but were unprotected by law enforcement back then in Los Angeles. It’s a very hard time and it’s not talked about a lot, but it was, I believe, the beginning of my understanding, greater understanding of how Americans treat Asians and it goes way beyond, of course, xenophobia. It’s the hate crimes that they evolve into and it’s the behavior that our politicians show that then of course get embedded into the media and into our society. Where are we now and where are we going? What’s your thoughts on this?

Joanne: That’s a very tough question, but I think that your reference to the riots is a really important one and one of the things that I learned about the riots was there was this one gentleman and I’m ashamed, I don’t know his name, but he was a Korean-American activist and he was much older. He’s probably a lot older now, but at that time, he was already, I would say, in his 50s and he had this short speech directed at young people and said, “Your parents, who can’t even speak English, they’re the ones out there in the front lines. They’re the ones who are out there protesting and demanding recognition for what’s happening to them. Where are you? You young people who speak perfect English, where are you? It’s time to protect your parents.” And I remember when I saw that, I actually just saw that during the… I can’t remember… it was like an anniversary of the riots and I remember seeing a video clip of that and feeling, how prescient, how important that message remains today. Again, this instinct to just don’t rock the boat, don’t cause trouble, don’t be the one that’s making too much noise. That instinct, which is that assimilative instinct that our parents sort of taught us because it was a survival instinct, that instinct can definitely get in the way of us being that voice for our parents. That’s lesson number one that I continue to take from the experience of anti-Asian hate and the hate crimes that have been happening to our community is, look, young people, we are very specifically equipped to be the voice for those who don’t have the tools to speak on their own behalf but the other thing that remains unaddressed is even geographically, from my understanding of the riots, was that we had two historically oppressed communities, which is the black American community and the Asian-American community basically pitted against each other. They were thrown at each other so that we could stay out of the other people’s way and I feel like a lot of that continues to happen. One of the reasons that the Atlanta murders stuck out to me so much was because it was just this other version of hatred, which is the dehumanization of Asian women, which is, I’m just going to objectify them for whatever reason and dehumanize them and once I’ve dehumanized them, it becomes so much easier to off them in the way that he did. That was so personal tome because I am an Asian woman. My mom’s an Asian woman, my aunt’s an Asian woman and we’ve had to deal with that sort of objectification and dehumanization basically our entire existence and then to see it materialize in the way that it did was just so traumatic. There’s so much that could be said about this topic and it’s a complicated one. It’s one, though, that, as you so astutely point out, his not being very well addressed at the most important corridors of power in our government. Politicians are just ignorant about it.

John: Absolutely true. I’ll give you two quick examples, too. I’ll tell you one from the ground up and one from the top down. One from the ground up, during what was then the Rodney King riots. In the aftermath, I created with Father Greg Boyle Homeboy Industries. We co-founded Homeboy Industries. That gave me an opportunity as a very young person to meet a lot of the leaders in the city at the time. In all the different communities Asian-American community, African-American community and things of that such. When I sat down with leadership in the African-American community I said, “What was going on? What was on people’s minds? And one of the African-American leaders pulled me aside and said, “John, there’s this unbelievable sense of jealousy and hurt that we don’t understand how other groups, races or ethnicities have come here after us and have a bigger piece of the American pie now before us.” And then that manifests itself in mob like situations with what was going on during the riots. And that doesn’t excuse it, he said, “It’s just one of the things that I’m picking up from the leaders of the gangs and others. What’s going on?” Secondarily, during Chuseok when I was in Seoul the last time now it’s very easy to look at a high male Donald Trump and how he referred to, of course, the China virus and everything else that he was saying that fan the flames of xenophobia and Asian hate or whatever you want to call it in America but I was sitting in my hotel room watching Nancy Pelosi very dangerously push her way into her trip to Taiwan and whether the trip was right or wrong is a sideshow but she actually… when she was given the microphone, all she could do was denounce China and talked horribly, negatively on the worldwide stage of China and China, unfortunately, or has already been cast as the boogeyman here in America, number one and number two is very misunderstood and there’s a great interdependence needed between U.S. and China and other world leading type countries that is absolutely, desperately important to the future of democracy and the safety of this world and to go on that platform and do that, to me, it’s just a backhanded way of fanning the flames. Trump did it very forward facing and overtly, of course, but she did it in a very covert way and I just thought that it just was a poor use of her platform at that time and not needed now during the time that we’re living through, it’s still ongoing. It’s not a day that goes by or a week that goes by that we still don’t see horrible instances of this.

Joanne: It’s a tricky issue. There’s this one syndrome called… it’s like a body of large… it’s called like the egghead syndrome and it’s this idea that if you hurt somebody who has this eggshell skull, are you held liable then only for what a normal person would incur as an injury or are you going to be held liable for the fact that you’ve now killed this person simply by maybe knocking their head? Any other person, they would survive. That no problem. But the person with the syndrome is going to die from that and that’s a very interesting question and when you think about this, when you know that the world is plagued with xenophobia, when you know that the United States has a lot of racial hate directed at Asian-Americans and members of Chinese diaspora, I do think that politicians need to be aware of that and need to keep that in mind when they’re talking about their policies as vis a vis China. I’m not a geopolitician. I don’t begin to know enough about foreign policy to be weighing in on the actual policies themselves but I agree with you. When you are so visible and when you are making such a visible trip and you’re on such a huge platform, you do need to be mindful of the people who are going to be listening to that and maybe not hearing the thing that you want to say, but be hearing something that they’re already predisposed to hearing, which is all Chinese people are bad and China is bad and are basically incapable of making the distinction between Chinese government and the Chinese people.

John: That’s the sad part and I know you’re a numbers and a science space person, so I’ll leave you with this. Here’s where we go. This is the shocking science and numbers behind this all. Only 37% or so, give or take a point, of Americans have a valid passport. Out of that 37%, 7 or less percent of that have been to Asia. The rest have been gone to Canada, Europe or Mexico. Think about how many folks that are not part of your family that are just part of the general population that you’ve come across and said, “I’ve been to Seoul, I’ve been to Tokyo, I’ve been to Shanghai.” Very few. And it goes back to the holy Anthony Bourdain theory. Why was his journey so successful? Because he used food as his platform to show that we’re more similar than we are. Imagine if the numbers were turned and that 30% of America had actually been to Asia, whatever part of Asia doesn’t matter and they came to understand not only are their cultures wonderful and their history amazing, but the people are just unbelievable and they’re more like us and they’re similar for us. I don’t think this xenophobia and this issue of hate would exist, but they’ve been made into one big boogeyman on that side of the planet, unfortunately, and then we’re scared of what we don’t know.

Joanne: The boogeyman thing has been around for, I would say, over a century. That’s just something that became convenient for… it was a straw man for so many different things and you’re right, though. I think that with the ambassadorship that’s been embodied by things like BTS and the creators of shows like Squid Game and Extraordinary Attorney Woo the sort of blow up that we’re seeing in modern day digital and other media of Korean culture and even Korean food. All of those are really just rife with potential for spreading that message, John, that you just described so beautifully, which is that we’re so much more alike than we realize.

John: And don’t discount Roy Troy, David Chang or yourself, by the way. Do not do that because you are unbelievably humble and kind but we’re not going to do that. We’re going to end the show on a couple of great topics. First of all, let’s go back to… I’ve been a vegetarian for 43 years and a vegan for about 12 and I’ll tell you what, there’s more vegan opportunities and plant-based opportunities than ever before. Talk a little bit about the plant-based industry where it’s going, what’s your thoughts on it? Beyond just the Korean vegan, the greater macro trends of plant-based eating that we’ve seen with beyond meat, impossible foods and all the great plant-based food that now exists, that didn’t exist when I became a vegetarian, that’s for sure and even a vegan. Talk about what’s your thoughts on where we’re going in that world.

Joanne: I’m a Sci-Fi nerd, as I’m sure you know and I love to read Sci-Fi and I always think about this show called Battlestar Galactica. I love that show. And I always remember how they were eating kelp, literally, that’s all they were eating. Because that’s all they could and it was just like, “Oh, I guess kelp is really good for you.” But I just read this headline of an article that said, “If we moved away from meat and started eating more kelp, we could solve world hunger in less than a century.” While I’m not a big fan of eating kelp for every meal, what I do think is happening is that people are starting to realize that we have two massive existential threats that are bearing down on us. One of them is climate change and the other one is one that we’ve suffered through pretty much our entire existence, which is world hunger. The idea is that science is now starting to reveal that plant-based eating and the eradication of big egg and agricultural farming, these are things that can contribute to fixing these two existential crises and so where I see the world headed and I’ve seen this at the very lowest level, I’ve seen influences who literally just do meat posts all the time one day say, “Hey, I bought this dairy free yogurt because I don’t know, I think it’s better for the environment.” It’s like, literally at that level now where it’s seeped into our consciousness. When I see companies like Impossible Meats or Beyond Meats or any others that are really forging ahead and progressing that conversation, that’s so exciting. That needs to happen not just here in the United States, but in places like Korea and Japan and Asia. They are in many ways, the natural leaders of those types of innovations, especially in food. I’m excited to see what they come up with but also in Europe, we desperately need that. In Italy, in France and Germany, obviously, they’re already really doing a good job. There are a lot of other pockets of the world that need that.

John: Being that you’re a child of Chicago. Let’s talk about Michael Jordan and the Bulls. I assume you and Anthony watched the last dance.

Joanne: Yes. Oh my God, we loved it.

John: Okay. So now I want to talk about a topic that you recently hit upon in your podcast and in your newsletters, the topic of leadership and even winning. It was the end of the 8th episode of The Last Dance. It was the only time that Michael Jordan got emotional during the whole taping of the show and he said that leadership has a price and winning has a price and there were tears in his eyes because you could see the pain and the emotional toll and even someone as successful and as wealthy and the amount of rings that he won at the end of the day, he’s still a person and the toll that it took on him and on his family, it was there all on his face and in his eyes. Talk a little bit about your thoughts on leadership having a price and winning having a price because let’s be honest, Joanne, you are extraordinary at what you do. You’re very special. There’s not a lot of you, if any, and you’re as unique as a human being comes, but your voice is really so unvarnished and has risen above the din. So you are now, like it or not, a leader and you are winning in a game that’s science-based and numbers based. When you think about the price that comes with that, share some of your thoughts.

Joanne: I talk about it in this most recent podcast. I mentioned that for my mother, she did all of these things as a leader, however lonely it was at the helm and I really think that’s important and there’s this really wonderful story about Michael Jordan and I don’t know if it’s true, but literally, I did go to church in Chicago. So we were all obsessed with Michael Jordan, including my pastor and he in the beginning of one of his sermons so many years ago, he was talking about how Michael Jordan met his first wife and they had gone to a huge dinner, very sumptuous, very fancy dinner, very expensive and there were a lot of people at this dinner. There’s this huge table full of all of Michael Jordan’s friends and family and guests as well as this woman who he was dating and of course, the bill comes out, and I’m sure it’s many thousands of dollars because there are many people at this dinner table. He reaches for his wallet and the only other person who reaches for the wallet is this woman is his ex-wife and that’s when he knew, “Oh, this is the woman for me.” That speaks to the level of isolation and loneliness that leadership and being a winner can unfortunately entail and one of the reasons he fell in love with this woman was because she was willing to join him, in that very small gesture and I think in terms of that cost, we’ve told ourselves, “Oh, I’m tough enough. I can deal with being alone. I can deal with being lonely” without even really understanding what loneliness actually feels like and just how harmful it can sometimes be harmful or costly, to use the word that you were using and for me, currently, my job is very lonely compared to what it was. I used to work in an office full of hundreds of people every single day and now I work in an office of one. That can be a little bit lonely but also it’s just knowing that I have to be so intentional with everything that I say and that I do because there are so many people who are not just watching me, but who are depending on me, who are relying on me now to say the truthful thing and to say the thing that will uplift them for a moment. That can be a lot, that can be a big burden and I only say that with, again, immense gratitude that I’m in the position and I know that Michael Jordan was saying the same thing, but when I see him crying or when I see him in pain like that, I can only think that it is because he feels so isolated and alone in his struggle. There’s really very few people who can help him in that.

John: Yeah. Every entrepreneur that comes to me for mentorship or any type of learnings with regards to being an entrepreneur, I tell them, just be prepared, be prepared. It’s soul crushing lonely, whether at the beginning and even at the end, as you say, it’s a lonely journey. You have to learn to be comfortable being in that uncomfortable spot of loneliness.

Joanne: Totally. Yeah. There’s no safety net. That’s what I discovered. It’s like, you’re the safety net. You’re the safety net.

John: Two things I’ve been dying to ask you then we’re going to talk one last time about the future of the Korean Vegan. How long did it take you after you left the law firm to you to stop thinking out of 6 minute increments?

Joanne: Oh, my gosh. It still takes me some time. I’m still like, you just took 1.2 hours of my life. [Crosstalk]. I do still think in increments. You should see my calendar. It’s all blocked because I require that structure. I can’t get away from it. Everything is built into blocks in my day and I feel like that’s a really… for me, it’s a very productive way of managing my time. I’m not necessarily over.

John: You have a beautiful house in California that has the right type of light. How many people… because I’m going to just tell you, your podcast, first of all, your book is just beautiful in terms of the artwork and the photos and everything else in this. But in terms of your podcast, the music that you play… how many people are producing this with you, is it… please don’t tell me it’s just you. That’s just not fair if you’re that talented on everyone.

Joanne: It is just me. I write the podcast. I will say my husband edits my writing, my husband edits my writing and then after that, it is me. I produce everything. I do the audio engineering, I do all the music and I record, obviously, and I edit everything at the end. My husband does the website for the podcast. That’s also very helpful but from a production standpoint of the podcast itself, it’s pretty much just me.

John: By the way the music is beautiful. Is any of the music your husband’s music?

Joanne: It is especially the episode about him, the one called A Love Story, that’s entirely sourced from all of his music and my husband is unspeakably talented when it comes to piano and I’m very proud of him but sometimes they get so annoyed that people don’t know. You don’t know how amazing my cousin is at piano. He’s literally among the best.

John: That’s why I said in the beginning that this book is a really love letter to him and your mom and your dad and your grandparents. What’s next? Joanne, I want you to leave. What’s next besides the growing of the podcast, which means somewhere within 20,000 an episode, you’re probably 2 years away from Joe Rogan money with regards to the podcast. Okay. But in terms of… obviously you’re so prolific, and I mean that only, of course, in the sweetest and the most complimentary way. What’s next in terms of… I’m sure your publisher is excited about your next book. What are you thinking about your next book? I’ve heard you talk about sauces and other things. What is in your mind for your next wonderful love letter?

Joanne: The next book is actually going to be called Eat This at least that’s what we’re…

John: Is it great?

Joanne: Yeah, Eat This. It’s an homage to my grandmother and she would always say, instead of I love you, she would say, “Eat this.”

John: That really meant I love you, like you said that was love language.

Joanne: Exactly. That was her love language. It’s this idea of extending love through food, but mostly extending love to yourself, being kind to yourself through food and kind of dismantling this notion that there’s only one way to eat for each human being and so each chapter is really going to be about, this is what I like to eat when I’m training for a marathon. This is what I like to eat when I hate my job and I don’t know what else to do and so I just need to eat something delicious. This is what I like to make for my nephew. This is what I like to make for my husband. So each chapter is sort of going to be a facet of me, but designed to compel you to explore a little and say, “What are the kinds of food that I like to eat when I’m feeling down? What are the kinds of food that I like to eat when I’m on a fitness kick” and things like that.

John: That’s wonderful. Is there any upcoming public appearances that you want to mention or promote before we have to say goodbye for today?

Joanne: I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Our big travel is… Anthony’s got a marathon in December, so everything is pointed in that direction. So it’s all about him right now.

John: Which marathon is he running?

Joanne: It’s CIM. It’s a fast one and I think he definitely wants to PR[?]. He’s very focused on it.

John: Are you running a marathon at any time in the near future?

Joanne: No. I was supposed to run the New York City Marathon, but I got out of training for three weeks because of COVID. Unfortunately, I can’t. I’m going to be running a half marathon in a couple of weeks, just for fun on a lark in Santa Barbara but other than that, hopefully setting my eyes on a marathon for next spring.

John: When does Eat This come out?

Joanne: That’s not going to come out probably until fall of 2024.

John: Perfect. So fall of 2024?

Joanne: Yeah. Next year, the following year.

John: Wow. All right. A lot of things will happen and you’ll have at least 10 million subscribers to your podcast. Let’s put that out there but also I want to have you back when you’re coming out with Eat This, I want to get a copy in advance this time and I want you to come back on and we’ll promote the new book and everything else. We’ll have some fun.

Joanne: We’ll cook.

John: Yeah, we’ll cook. I will literally come to L.A. and I’ll bring a crew with me.

Joanne: It would be so fun cooking with you.

John: Done. Totally done. Cook and we’re going to eat. We’re going to cook and eat.

Joanne: Of course.

John: Of course. Let’s do that. Eat This. We’ll cook and we’ll eat and we’ll promote your new book when it comes out in the fall of 2024. How does that sound?

Joanne: That sounds amazing.

John: In the meantime, the Korean Vegan, you please buy her book. It’s a great Thanksgiving gift or a Christmas gift coming up, the Korean Vegan. You can find Joanne at the koreanvegan.com or of course on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and all the other social media channels are out there. Subscribe to her newsletter. Listen to her podcast. Joanne, you are beyond inspirational. You are just one of my favorite people and I just wish you all the continued success and blessings on this planet and I’m grateful for the amount of time you spent with us today.

Joanne: Thank you so much. It has been such a pleasure to chat with you, John.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry with thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams and much more. For more information on Engage or to book Talentoday, visit letsengage.com.

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Green Sports Alliance edition of Green Is Good in beautiful downtown Chicago. We are so honored to have with us today Charlene Wall-Warren. She is the Sustainability Director for BASF. Welcome to Green Is Good, Charlene.

Charlene Wall-Warren: Thank you.

John: Before we get talking about all the great green and sustainable things you’re doing as BASF, I want you to please share your own journey. How did you even come to this place professionally and personally, where you have become the sustainability director at BASF? What was your journey like in terms of green?

Charlene: I’d love to. So I started as a chemical engineer working for BASF.

John: OK.

Charlene: Basically, doing project design, process design and for about 10 years. So I said, “So it’s really great to design pumps and equipment and make stuff.”

John: Right.

Charlene: “But I want to know where it goes. I want to know what happens to it.” I’m a bit of a geek so I like to know kind of what’s in the car, what’s in the furniture, what’s in the clothing, etc.

John: Got you.

Charlene: So about 15 years ago, BASF started a lifecycle assessment group, so we actually measure and quantify sustainability. It was a brand new job in North America and coming in as an engineer I said, “I think I can do this. It’s numerical, it’s quantitative, it’s cool. You’re looking at environmental and social” and once I tried that I got hooked.

John: Got you. And how long have you been the sustainability director there?

Charlene: I’ve been the Director of Sustainability for about two years now.

John: Got you. So you worked your way up. You are now the Director of Sustainability. Talk a little bit about – for our listeners that don’t know BASF – and our listeners and viewers who haven’t heard or want to learn more about BASF, please go to www.BASF.com. What is the mission and what does BASF do?

Charlene: So BASF is the largest chemical company in the world.

John: Wow.

Charlene: We have 110,000 people working around the world, €75 billion of sales and over 380 manufacturing facilities. But those are the numbers.

John: OK.

Charlene: We have a company purpose that is we create chemistry for a sustainable future.

John: Got you.

Charlene: So it’s a really interesting place to work because we’re making chemistry and science that goes into everything from houses to cars to pharmaceuticals to vitamins. We have natural and we have fossil-based products. And it’s all about creating chemistry for a sustainable future, so you get to learn how lots of stuff is made and you get to learn how everything could be made better.

John: Wow. So what were the – coming in to be the director of sustainability, what were some of the opportunities? Given that you became a lifecycle geek, what were some of the low hanging fruit, or “fruit on the floor,” let’s just say, that you were excited about tackling when you came in two years ago, and how has that journey gone?

Charlene: So I would say one of the things we’ve been really good at for a long time – low hanging fruit.

John: Yeah.

Charlene: Is operational excellence.

John: OK.

Charlene: So a lot of companies are talking about greening their operations.

John: Yeah.

Charlene: How do we use less energy? How do we generate less waste?

John: Right.

Charlene: Use less resources? And we have something called “Verbund” – so we are a German-headquartered company.

John: Right.

Charlene: And it’s all about taking the byproduct from one process and using it more efficiently in another process. So that was kind of the low hanging fruit.

John: Right.

Charlene: The really cool stuff, though, is when you get out into the marketplace and you kind of look at what is going on in the building space or fuel efficiency and hybrids for vehicles.

John: Right.

Charlene: And those are the areas – I think – where people often don’t appreciate what chemistry can bring and that is the really cool stuff.

John: Well, so you have all these people around the world and buildings and also all these amazing products. Where do you start? I mean, it sounds so daunting in terms of coming in as a director of sustainability. Where do you start? Where did you start your journey? Where did you choose to start, and how is it going? And talk a little bit about then engaging with GSA, then coming here today, too. So before we get talking about GSA – where did you start and where are you in your journey in sustainability at BASF?

Charlene: Sure. Yeah. So in my particular role-

John: Yeah.

Charlene: When we started, we were working with a group called “The Sustainability Consortium.”

John: OK.

Charlene: And those are consumer goods.

John: OK.

Charlene: So if you think of big retailers and kind of the products you and I might go to the store and buy-

John: Yes.

Charlene: There was really an interest in how could we make those products more sustainable – smaller footprint, less energy, less water, better toxicity aspects – and so that was kind of where we started.

John: OK.

Charlene: What landed us in the Green Sports Alliance and the sports space is because it’s about way more than just those kinds of products we may buy off the shelf.

John: Right.

Charlene: If you think about the stadium environment, I think about what is the stadium built out of? Are the products durable? Is it energy efficient? What is happening in the stadium? Are they managing food and food waste? Are they managing waste coming out of the stadium? Are they composting and recycling? All those kinds of things. And chemistry plays a role in each and every one of those areas.

John: Wow. So how many years has BASF been involved with the Green Sports Alliance?

Charlene: So we are, actually, this year part of their leadership council.

John: Right.

Charlene: And it’s a relatively new relationship for us, but it builds on over five years of work where we started out with the Seattle Mariners Safeco Field.

John: Right.

Charlene: Working with them on their zero-waste goals about five years ago.

John: Got you. So you started – so BASF saw the opportunity in sports and entertainment and got involved back then, and now you’re taking this leadership role with other global leaders.

Charlene: Yeah. Yeah, because for us it’s not about just putting a name up there.

John: Right.

Charlene: It’s really about saying, “We want to partner with a venue. We want to understand what their goals are.”

John: Right.

Charlene: We want to understand how chemistry can help them achieve their goals, and the most exciting thing – and this is, I think, for BASF, why we’re thrilled about this-

John: Good.

Charlene: We’re a science company.

John: Yeah.

Charlene: And if you look at the average person out there 70 percent or so are interested in sports.

John: You’re right.

Charlene: And it’s a much lower percentage interested in science.

John: Great point.

Charlene: So it gives us a chance to go in. Fans are interested, they’re engaged, they’re passionate. You can kind of let them know what chemistry and science is all about and build more awareness when it comes to sustainability, so it’s a great space.

John: It’s a great platform for BASF then.

Charlene: Yeah. Exactly.

John: Wow. Talk a little bit about the culture of the company. You’ve been there now quite some time. How do you take all the great work you’re doing in sustainability and message it both ways and get engagement and get engagement from your employees, and then how do we appreciate – now that you’re getting involved with the sports industry – but how did I know that when you came in and you lowered the footprint of all your great consumer products, how has that messaging typically gone? So how do you message both ways – employee engagement and then consumer engagement?

Charlene: Yeah. Sure. So in the stadium what we actually do – we have done things like Sustainable Saturdays.

John: Oh.

Charlene: So we’ll actually partner – this is one of the things we did in Seattle – we’ll go in and say, “Let’s help teach the fans about composting and zero-waste” and things like that.

John: Cool.

Charlene: What we do internally – and this is also one of the most exciting things – is we actually leverage our BASF team – and we’re doing this with the New York Yankees this coming July. We’re saying, “Guys, come and join us. Let’s go to a game, and you can watch the game, and you can have a good time, but we’re going to make you work for a little bit and we’re going to ask you to help us just hand out some awareness and messages about sustainability, about zero waste,” and we get so much enthusiasm from the employees. I mean, I have had employees just reach out with an email and say, “Hey, wow, I saw BASF’s sustainability moment up there during the Yankees game.”

John: That’s awesome.

Charlene: That’s awesome. So people get really excited about it.

John: Wow. And it’s great for the fans and your consumer fans, and it’s great for your employees the same way.

Charlene: Absolutely.

John: Wow. That’s so great. Well, it looks like you have a long relationship in front of you with the GSA, obviously, because it’s great for – as you said – you get to take your core business science and platform it using sports, where more people are definitely interested. And it’s so nice to have a chance to interview you, and we would like you to come back on and keep sharing the journey as you continue growing all the sustainability efforts at BASF. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Charlene: Thank you. I’d love to. Appreciate it.

John: For our listeners and our viewers out there, you’ve been enjoying Charlene Wall-Warren. She is the Director of Sustainability for BASF. To learn more about what Charlene and all her colleagues are doing in green and sustainability at BASF, please go to www.BASF.com. To learn more about the Green Sports Alliance, please go to www.GreenSportsAlliance.org. We thank you for being with us today, Charlene. Thank you for doing all the great work you do with BASF. You are making the world a better place. You are truly living proof that Green Is Good.

John Shegerian: Get the latest impact episodes right now in your inbox each week. Subscribe by entering your email at impactpodcast.com to make sure you never miss an interview.

John: This edition of The Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of The Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and this is a very special edition of the Impact Podcast. We’ve got Lindsay Androski with us. Welcome to the Impact, Lindsay.

Lindsay Androski: Thank you, John.

John: I know you’re in San Diego today and I’m in Fresno, but you’re on the road. You don’t live in San Diego, but you’re on a business trip. I want to talk a little bit before we get going, talking about all the great things you’re doing at Roivant Social Ventures, Lindsay. How did you even get to this position, you have a fascinating background. Where’d you grow up and what was your classic education before you founded Roivant Social Ventures?

Lindsay: Yeah. I had an unusual path. That’s usually how I start when people ask me about it.

John: Fair enough.

Lindsay: If you go back to the very beginning, I grew up in Duluth-Superior, the Twin Ports of Northern Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, right on Lake Superior. I was the first person in my family to go to college. My dad works on the railroad to this day. My mom actually worked at Target and had a long career there. How did I find MIT? That was actually because I knew from a young age that I wanted to go somewhere pretty intense. I was always really nerdy and that was not common in the area where I grew up. I wanted to find my people…

John: You are straight A’s, valedictorian.

Lindsay: Totally, yeah. Since the day…

John: The highest sense of Peace Corps.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: Oh my God.

Lindsay: Yeah, that was me, which made me super weird because public schools are big classes and a lot of kids who live in rural areas and a lot of blue-collar workers. I was an anomaly for sure but somehow I knew my people were out there. I was trying to find them for college. I ended up going to Boston for Harvard Model UN because my school had that club and we did that. I toured MIT at that time because one of my classmates and someone on the Harvard Model UN team really wanted to tour MIT and asked me to go with him and so I did. I thought I love this place. This place is for me. I applied and I was lucky enough to get in. Now, I could never get in today, the acceptance rate is 4%. It’s so crazy because I sit on the board of trustees there now, so I get to see all this stuff.

John: What was it when you got in? You still had to be a…

Lindsay: It was 25%.

John: Oh.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: Oh, wow. Wait a second.

Lindsay: Much higher.

John: When you went there, what were you thinking of studying?

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: What was your work-study?

Lindsay: There’s an interesting piece of background there. Also, in high school, I did Model UN. Sorry, Mock Trial. Our mock trial was super competitive. We won states almost every year. My year we came in second in the nation, which is weird for a little I guess a big public school in the middle of nowhere. But we were very good and I found that to be both amazing and extremely stressful. I remember before we went into court, I had a pit in my stomach and I felt so nervous I thought, I can never do this for a living, this is way too stressful for me. Then I had settled on, I wanted to help cure diseases. That was my loose goal when I went to college. I thought maybe I’ll do an MD and a Ph.D. and I could help advance research. One great thing about MIT is it’s very easy for undergraduates to get jobs in labs. I got a job in a research lab and I hated it.

John: Wow.

Lindsay: I thought, this is way too boring. I do not have the right personality for this at all. Maybe I should be a trial lawyer after all.

John: It’s great that you learned what you hated up that early, that young, right? That’s…

Lindsay: Totally, I have a 10th-grade daughter. This is amazing. She got the chance to go to a neurology camp program at Georgetown this summer. She had the same realization. She was super interested in neurology, but she came back and said, I don’t think I want to do the lab work part. She got that opportunity even younger than I did.

John: Do you think in terms of neurology is her aspiration than to become a neurologist?

Lindsay: Maybe. But now she’s thinking neuropsychology or neuropsychiatry because she likes the intersection of the brain, and people’s behavior too.

John: The greatest podcast, I’m sure you already know this, but I’m just going to share this with you. My favorite podcaster on that topic is Andrew Huberman.

Lindsay: I don’t know him.

John: Literally, he is a neuroscientist and he also got either a master’s or a Ph.D. in ophthalmology as well. He’s one of the most revered neuroscientists in the world right now. I bet your daughter would totally nerd out and love his podcast. He just launched it about a year ago. It’s already one of the top five podcasts in the world. It’s fast.

Lindsay: Wow.

John: Anyway, just a little…

Lindsay: We will check it out.

John: … side. How many children do you have?

Lindsay: I have five children. Yeah, I didn’t tell you that beforehand.

John: Oh my gosh. You’re a single mom, a professional mom.

Lindsay: Yeah. Now, I am.

John: Oh my gosh. What the age range is on five?

Lindsay: Two in high school. One in middle school. Two are in elementary school right now.

John: Where are you got…?

John: How do you do this? What vitamins do you take in the morning? You’re going to be fantastic.

Lindsay: Yeah. I just do lots of self-care. Lots of sleep.

John: That’s great.

Lindsay: Whenever I can do it.

John: That’s awesome. All right. You’re an MIT and then you decide no lab for you, you’re going to become a trial lawyer.

Lindsay: Yeah. But recognizing that I really had no sophisticated world experience at that time, I didn’t grow up in New York or LA.

John: Mom and Dad were lawyers or had no role background.

Lindsay: Right.

John: Okay, got it.

Lindsay: Yeah, almost everyone at that time was becoming either a banker or a consultant. I chose the consulting route. I did that for three years. That was great exposure because it was a strategy firm that had spun out in McKinsey called Mitchell Madison Group.

John: Okay.

Lindsay: I was embedded with Fortune 100 companies for various projects and got to see the world and got to learn about different industries and it was a really good experience. I applied to the JD MBA program at the University of Chicago. I went there knowing that I was likely to practice law as the first step out of there.

John: Wow. Good for you.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: After you got out of the JD MBA program, what was your first job out of there?

Lindsay: Clerkship. It’s pretty common out in law school to work for a judge for one or two years as their assistant. You’ll prep them for the cases, and draft the opinions for my judge, he had us prepare suggested questions for him for the oral arguments and would cross-examine us on them to train us to think on our feet. It was good. I did that for the chief judge at that time of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals in the United States as well as a variety of other topics. They’re mostly known as the Patent Appeal Court just right below the supreme court. My Judge is Paul Mitchell, who’s now retired, but he was amazing to work for. Then I joined a firm in DC a small firm that did lots of trials and appellate work, supreme court work I got to do, didn’t ever argue before the supreme court, but I got to became a member of the bar and was on several briefs, and then I did some trials too. That was my first taste of trial work, which I loved. The group I work for the firm is Kellogg, Hansen.

John: Yeah.

Lindsay: Most of the guys who had founded it were former federal prosecutors, former assistant US attorneys. I heard every day, the best job I ever had. Do it if you ever get the chance and then lo and behold, Alexandria Virginia, Eastern District, right across the bridge from Red Cross Potomac was launching cyber and national security so unit cybercrime. I knew that I would at least get an interview with my MIT background so I did, and I was lucky enough to get the position. I was one of the first assistant US attorneys in the cyber unit there, which was amazing.

John: That’s fascinating. Talk a little bit about education. Is this ongoing debate, Lindsay, now with the next generation, is classic education that you and I knew from growing up and going to college and into grad school? Is it necessary anymore or unnecessary and what are your feelings on that? You have five kids that you have to inform and guide on that important issue. Then talk a little bit about, specifically MIT, you have a theory on what goes on at MIT and why people end up they do when they get out of MIT. Share a little bit about that with our audience.

Lindsay: Yeah, sure. The bigger question on education and its purpose of it.

John: Yeah.

Lindsay: I have a couple of thoughts on that. First, I have very smart friends who are in their young 30s who don’t have kids yet who have said to me,” I doubt my child will go to college.” They went to great colleges, that sentiment is definitely out there.

John: Yeah.

Lindsay: What I can say from what I’m seeing in the workplace, but also just thought leadership I’ve been listening to on the topic is and also, this is very consistent with my government experience, which is the structured programs, which would be laws regulations would also include degree programs are really behind. They’re usually behind but it’s becoming even more behind when you’re looking at how quickly things are evolving in the tech space. AI, Quantum. It’s impractical for a curriculum to be cutting edge given the pace of change. I have been hearing a lot about, certifications rather than full degrees. Someone takes training in this area, they have their credentialed in some way, but it’s a much more abbreviated and focused credential if they know they’re going into the AI space or the quantum space or something like that. MIT I think it’s different. I think there are certain educational opportunities that are just really valuable for me, law school was definitely one of those because I spend a lot of time thinking about incentive structures and why people do what they do. I think the law is one of the ultimate creators of incentives. They really teach you that a lot in Chicago where I went to law school. They teach you to think about, “Okay, here’s the law now. What are different players going to do when they are acting in a self-interested way given this legal structure?” That training I think is very valuable just to operate in the world. At MIT, what I think they’re amazingly good at is teaching you not to be overwhelmed with huge problems. What you are taught, you’re given enormous problems from day. I’m talking about problem sets that are really hard. But also students there tend to think about big global issues. Big harms facing society need to be fixed. You are taught to stay calm and break it down into manageable chunks and then attack them one by one. And I think when you are trained in that way over and over again it just becomes habitual. It is certainly habitual to me. I have noticed in my career that I get overwhelmed less than other people do. I credit the MIT education for that almost entirely, plus because you are humbled immediately at MIT.

John: Right.

Lindsay: The students there don’t have big egos. They don’t realize how great they are for the most part, but they certainly don’t go around telling everyone how great they are because you fail a lot there all the time.

John: Well, a lot of my friends that have gone there also tell me, and I just love what you just said about, I never heard that before in terms of the ability to take on big problems and stay cool and then you said, methodically, sequentially attack that problem. That makes a ton of sense. But what a lot of people also tell me is someone like you who was the high achiever in Duluth, and you were the superstar that come out of Duluth and you end up at MIT. But what you realize is, “Ah, there’s other smart people in this world.”

Lindsay: This is actually something my children tease me about because they were like, “You must have thought you were so smart when you went to college.” I was like, “Oh, I did.” They were like, “And then you realized you weren’t.” I was like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Was that tough?” I was like, “A little.” Actually, it’s just the truth when you grow up in a small pond.

John: Right. You’re the big fish of the small pond.

Lindsay: Yeah. There’s no way around that you have to adjust.

John: Yeah.

Lindsay: They did a good job when I was there, at least of helping you with that. First of all, I remember that Killian Court is the big open grassy area where graduation is held and they have a convocation at the beginning, the first day of all the freshmen there and a speaker. My speaker said all the valedictorians stand up, and it was at least two-thirds of the incoming class.

John: Oh.

Lindsay: He pointed at us and said, “You’re all going to get bees.”

John: Wow.

Lindsay: That happened on day one.

John: He democratized a humble beginning for everybody.

Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. But then also, one thing that was particularly helpful for me, coming from an objectively less prepared background than many of my classmates, and to give an example, my first class 9:00 AM on Monday chemistry, I’ll never forget it. The professor says “Chapters 1 through 8 should be reviewed for all of you, so we’re going to start at chapter nine.” I looked through and I was like, “Okay, 1 through 7, I get it.” I’ve never seen Chapter 8 before, and we’re skipping it. That’s literally how my career started there. They had no grades my entire freshman year, they’ve now changed that there allow students to have no grades, but it’s more spread out and you can pick the classes. But for me, when I was there, the entire freshman year was passed with no record and so they would always say A equals B equals C equals F, I mean equals P. That was entire to get rid of the competition and to allow people to just all acclimate together and it was extremely helpful for me.

John: That’s fascinating. Now, you look back, Lindsay. Was MIT the harder experience or Georgetown Law?

Lindsay: MIT. Well, no. This is really funny that you say that. It was Chicago, but Chicago law was the hardest for me.

John: Yeah, Chicago law.

Lindsay: Because it was the first time in my life there were no right answers.

John: Oh, okay.

Lindsay: I was used to math, and science, and you figure out genetics, right? It’s we know what’s going to happen there and then I get to law school and we can argue from what…

John: You were used to the black and white. All of a sudden you were now living in the gray.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: Wow.

Lindsay: That was part of the appeal because I wanted to develop that skill. I also wanted to become a better writer, which is not something that came naturally to me. But I definitely felt a little bit out of the water my first semester. I’d never taken a philosophy class before. We have a very famous class in Chicago called Elements of the Law that you take in your first quarter. It is all about the philosophy of law and I absolutely love that class. Cass Sunstein taught it. He’s amazing. But I was completely this idea of just picking aside and arguing and we never know who’s right. We’ll just debate it was really foreign for me and uncomfortable at first.

John: Wow. Now, you are a trustee at MIT and also an executive resident at Duke?

Lindsay: Yes. I’m teaching at Duke this semester. Well, my partner roped me into it. He’s teaching a class there too in the Pratt School of Engineering and I’m teaching in the School of Economics Quantitative Analysis of ESG investing for juniors and seniors. It’s a seminar class for finance and economics majors. It’s really fun.

John: Well, law, is it really fun? Talk about timeliness. 24 months ago, ESG investing was a hot topic. It still is a very hot topic. But ESG investing now from the great institution start right at the top with Larry Fink and BlackRock is, which seems to be here to stay. But recently there’s been a backlash with some states. And I’m not besmirching this backlash, but I want your thoughts on it that some states are divesting themselves from pension funds and other public funds that are going all in on ESG investing because they’re saying, “This is not what we want in this state. We don’t want to support in red states in particular ESG investing.” Is this a trend that’s just a response to the huge wave of moving from the linear to a circular economy and the ESG wave that seemingly is unstoppable and here to here to stay or do you see this as a possible deal Keller in this whole ESG revolution?

Lindsay: Yeah, good question. One thing we do at the beginning of each class is the students take turns picking an ESG in the news, and it’s something from the past week that is a timely topic. This is almost every week’s discussion, right?

John: Oh, wow.

Lindsay: The students are very concerned about the politicization of ESG.

John: Right.

Lindsay: I’ve actually, I’m not pessimistic about it in the long run. I think primarily because Europe is doing it no matter what, and they are going ahead.

John: Right.

Lindsay: Their regulations and rules are going to hit a lot of US companies as they get phased in over time. There’s really no avoiding it. I’ve talked to what I would have said, ESG-focused investors, and some of them are starting to call themselves just sustainability investors focused on sustainability.

John: Right.

Lindsay: Explicitly, to get out of this ESG debate. Also, my chartered financial analyst, CFA. When I think about it with that hat on my end, my prediction as to where this all ends up is that it is simply one more factor that you take into account as an investor when you are constructing a portfolio that is ideal for your client, whoever the client may be. Right now you do what’s the risk tolerance? What are the cash demands? What is their time horizon and what is their ESG preference? I think should just be another one of those. I think that the reaction of some of the states saying, “Okay, well, the one topic we talked about in class is banks that have ESG funds that don’t invest in oil and gas. Those banks are entirely barred from our state. Now, in Texas, the comptroller said that’s pretty extreme.

John: Right.

Lindsay: Actually, first of all, the banks have argued that’s not quite precise. But even if it were they obviously also have investments that this ESG is a product, right? To boycott an entire company, for a state to boycott an entire company based on a product offering is something I’ve not seen before and I hope doesn’t last.

John: Obviously, you have a tremendous classical education and now you’re a practicing federal prosecutor practicing also now in the cyber division, Cyberlaw. Where did you fall in love with Social Ventures and the ESG space prior to founding Roivant Social Ventures, where did that love of environment and ESG come from for you?

Lindsay: Yeah, okay. When I finished practicing law, I left the government, I joined Irell & Manella a great firm out here in California.

John: Great firm.

Lindsay: I launched a cyber and data security practice group there. I was doing that and it was not as dramatic as my former assistant US attorney job, but it was responsible and I was helping companies. Then one of my friends from MIT called me out of the blue and said, “Hey, we are launching this new biotech that’s going to try to be more efficient in the way that we develop drugs. Come and join us, build and run our deal team.” At first, I said, “Okay, you know I don’t do that, right?” He said, “That’s okay, You’ll learn.” One great thing too, I like learning all the time and it’s a special opportunity when people know you and trust you and are like, “We don’t care if you haven’t done this before, just come and learn how to do it,” so that was fantastic. I thought you don’t get a lot of these calls and something that was never public as they had just closed the largest ever private raise in biotech. I knew they were going to be around for a while. I say, “Yes” to that.

John: That’s a call right there, but that’s such an important point that young people have to really hear. We obviously all as humans want to be comfortable unless it’s neurosurgery or heart transplant surgery, or almost everything else, when you take a super committed, great person who’s brilliant, of great character, and has great energy, you can take that person. Of course, in this situation we’re, I’m referring to you in the phone call you got from your colleague at MIT and your fellow alumni, and you can put yourself into a situation where you don’t really have those skills that day one, everything’s learnable.

Lindsay: Yeah, some people like that and some people don’t. When I would talk to people, Roivant grew rapidly. When I was there, there were five of us, right? Then…

John: This was the beginning of Roivant, right there?

Lindsay: This was the beginning of Roivant. Right.

John: Okay, so that was Roivant.

John: Oh, wow.

Lindsay: Yeah. 800 people. We launched 16 biotechs under my tenure running the deal team, have five approved medicines now from that, did several IPOs and…

John: What year was that?

Lindsay: That was the beginning of 2016. The end of 2015 is when they did that big private raise I mentioned.

John: Got it.

Lindsay: Yeah, when I would talk to potential candidates, one of the things I would say is to succeed here, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable because we are trying to do things differently and you will not be given a roadmap. You will be given a goal and you have to figure out how to get there and how to navigate it.

John: Let’s pause. Did you start with five people?

Lindsay: Yeah. They had one company they had launched. I’m not counting to people who are at that company.

John: Right. How many people are now involved?

Lindsay: Well, I don’t know the exact date today because it was 800 at its peak and then we sold five companies. We’re less than that, maybe 500 now.

John: Got it.

Lindsay: I would say if I guess.

John: For our listeners and viewers who’ve just turned in, we’ve got Lindsay Androski. She’s the founder president and CEO of Roivant Social Ventures. You can find Roivant at www.roivant.com. Lindsey, before we go further, share a little bit about the meaning of the name.

Lindsay: Oh, yeah. ROI is the return on investment, just as you would expect, and then for some reason that has not ever been fully explained, every company ends with Vant. All of our companies are Mayavant, Dermavant, and Urovant. If you see Vant at the end of a biotech name, it means that we launched it. It’s just a habit. It was controversial. Some people loved it, some people hated it, but it’s stuck. All the companies have that at the end.

John: This is the end of 15, the beginning of 16.

Lindsay: Yep.

John: You launched then and the incubator and the offices were at MIT, were they in New York?

Lindsay: No, New York City-based. There was an MIT cohort in a Harvard cohort because our founder and CEO were from Harvard. There were those two and back then no one knew who they were and no one knew what they were doing. It was really only friends who would work for the company, people who knew the people were smart. We had a little bit of competition. I think the MIT cohort eventually lost, which I was a little bummed out about. But it happens.

John: Am I correct to say that a fellow alumnus of yours at MIT is Noubar Afeyan? The…

Lindsay: No. Noubar’s on the MIT board of trustees with me. But he has a flagship, pioneering and no, my friend is Mayukh Sukhatme, who’s Roivant Chief Investment Officer.

John: Well, but Noubar is co-founder of Moderna.

Lindsay: Yes. But that’s not a Roivant company that came out to flagship.

Lindsay: Yes.

John: But it’s great to have someone like that in your…

Lindsay: Yeah, I know Noubar. He’s awesome.

Lindsay: He’s amazing too.

John: I’ve had a chance to be with him on a couple of occasions. He’s larger than life, isn’t he?

Lindsay: Yes. Absolutely.

John: What a brilliant guy. This is, again, my whole thing about MIT people.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: Talk about now becoming an entrepreneur.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: You’re an entrepreneur, now that you’re putting on a whole new hat, you’re incubating, you’re entrepreneurs, you’re coaching, you’re mentoring. How was that change and shift in your life? How’d it worked?

Lindsay: I think it’s funny that you asked about the meaning of the Roivant name because that had something to do with why I decided to launch Roivant Social Ventures.

John: Okay.

Lindsay: As time went on and we were getting bigger, and we had more money to deploy on our projects and companies, it’s the curse of success. We started saying no to programs, meaning potential drug treatment. That’s what we were doing.

John: Oh.

Lindsay: When our diligence and our analysis said, “This can be meaningful to patients, but it wasn’t a big enough money maker.” I started because we had ROI, and return restrictions that we had promised to our investors. Some of these programs are just amazing. The day one there I was given two deals to close. One turned into our company, Mayavant. One turned into our company Enzyvant. Mayavant is a large market, for women’s health and is now a prostate cancer, men’s health company. Enzyvant is a rare disease that we actually took the program out of Duke, 20 to 25 kids a year, born without a thymus. The thymus is the school where your white blood cells go to learn which germs to fight. If you don’t have one, you die by age two. That is not a big money maker. It was a program that we said, yes to at the beginning, and is now one of our approved drugs, which is amazing. It’s called Rethymic. But that’s an example of the type of thing where we wouldn’t even think of doing something like that today. Frankly, it wasn’t expensive enough. We weren’t going to make enough money. It was not worth the resources. I thought to myself, how can I set up a structure that focuses on… Is there an unmet need? Will patients benefit from this? Will traditional venture and investment funds not go after it? I can say yes to that. I settled on Roivant Social Ventures, which is a non-profit so that’s the only difference.

John: When did you launch Roivant Social Ventures?

Lindsay: I launched that in mid-2020.

John: Mid-2020. For our listeners and viewers to find Roivant Social Ventures. It’s Roivant, again, roivantsv.org., roivantsocialventures.org., roivantsv.org. Now, this is set up. Where did the funding come from for this?

Lindsay: Yeah, the funding came from Roivant Sciences. This is our answer to corporate philanthropy. This is our version of this. We are trying to do something that’s more active. Meaning not necessarily just feel good stuff, but let’s take our skills and expertise that we have in this sector and let’s deploy them in a charitable manner to things that we wouldn’t invest in in a for-profit way. It’s also, a really important thing for employee morale and really just company culture because all of the employees can volunteer their time pro bono on my projects. That’s where my staffing comes from, my project-specific staffing.

John: They come right from the parent company, Roivant. You could reach up and, and get anybody from there that you need.

Lindsay: Yep, for the companies that we’re helping or the academic research institutions we’re partnered with for development and diversity, we’re trying to improve diversity in our industry. I can say, “Oh, we have a regulatory question. Let’s get a regulatory expert who can weigh in on this.” It’s really exciting, I think for the employees too to be able to, usually, when you’re doing charitable volunteer work, you’re not using your professional expertise. It’s really fun for them, they have a day job still, right? I don’t get them full-time, but we have really good feedback from the volunteers who get to work on some of our projects and help. I think it makes them feel more connected and more directly impactful.

John: Your model at Roivant Social Ventures is to invest, incubate and educate.

Lindsay: Yes.

John: What’s your main goal given that you’re a cyber expert? Obviously, you’re a legal expert, obviously, you definitely have huge background now from Roivant in the medical world, plus also now you’re running this incubator. What kind of ventures do you want to be incubating and where does ESG fit into this as well?

Lindsay: Yeah. Okay. I’ll tackle the ESG part first. We are actually trying to be thought leaders in how can we embed into ESG principles and also get impact investors, and other impact investors to sign onto this thing that is important for global access to medicines, data transparency, and diversity in clinical trials. Those are the three pillars of what we have selected that we’re trying to push forward and it’s embedded into all of our programs. When we will invest in something, we will require a company to commit to those conditions if and when a drug is approved, or I guess in the case of clinical trials when the trials are run but we’re in the process now. One of our efforts is to build a consortium of like-minded investors who will go along with this because we’re just one person and we don’t write big checks. We go in very early and it’s for this to stick and have the results we want, which is medicines once approved, getting to the world, we want study results published or made available publicly, not necessarily published so that others can benefit from the data that was collected, whether it’s positive or negative. We want to do it at a time that doesn’t pose a risk to the business. Meaning the profitable drug development venture. We want drugs to be tested on patients that actually reflect the real disease state. Not just patients who attend wealthy white centers of excellence so for some diseases that might be appropriate, but for a lot of them, it’s not. Those are the areas that we’re focusing on with ESG.

John: Is that different in terms of taking the published studies and democratizing them and making them open source? Is that different than historically what happened in the testing in the medical world?

Lindsay: Yeah. I think you’re talking about the recent White House directive to make that no paywalls basically is what the White House said. That’s a subset, right?

John: Okay.

Lindsay: Most data generated never get published, never even gets submitted for publication. There’s some amazing statistics out there on even when FDA approval is sought like only 75% of the information is published. No one publishes their negative data. Even if they tried the journal might say thanks, but no thanks, right? When I think about this with my data hat on, I think of like, “Oh my gosh, all the lost learnings.” Especially, as we are moving into computational biology, big data, and machine learning, it’s what kind of solutions or what kind of subsets of populations or dosing. You name it, what could the sophisticated computing systems find that would make people healthier, make development faster, and discover things that we already have that would work that we just didn’t realize? So it’s, I think it’s really important for companies even with historical data, this is all siloed in biotechs and pharma to make it available. But we’re not focused on the past. We’re focused on going forward with our ESG and investing work. But I would also love to see, past data made available publicly.

John: Talk a little bit about those two translators that you just brought up Big data and AI. Noubar professes that the application of Big data and AI with regards to the creation and testing and socialization of new breakthrough medicines such as the Moderna vaccine for COVID is really the future.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: Is that how you guys see it as well?

Lindsay: It absolutely is so Roivant Sciences has itself moved away from the past model, which was taking drugs that someone else had invented and bringing them through to commercial approval and commercialization and has gone all in on computational discovery, AI-enabled discovery. We purchased a company, and Roivant purchased a company, Silicon Therapeutics, that is now Roivant Discovery. We’ve spun out a couple of vants from that group, but we’re all in on that type of drug discovery going forward.

John: Talk a little bit about, Lindsay the issue of the future of personalized medicine and how does that inform you with regards to what you’re trying to do and what your goals are to invest, incubate and educate?

Lindsay: Yeah, I tell my children, I think we are still in the primitive days of how we treat medicine basically, and how we treat diseases. To me, we will no longer be as primitive once everyone is being tested and dosed and prescribed based on their personal genomic data and epigenetics whatever you want. But my partner and I joke like, “We need to carry a little a USB type thing that just has your genetic code.” When you go to the doctor that they plug it in and they’re like, “Okay, yeah, you’re not at risk for this but here’s the dosing you should have.”

John: Isn’t that really the database of 23andme and what they’re going to be able to the doctor’s office…

Lindsay: Yeah, I’m a big fan of that.

John: Yeah. Aren’t you going to be able to sign the HIPAA away to 23andme when you’re at a certain doctor’s office and they’ll be able to access your genomics?

Lindsay: Yeah, probably, that would be fantastic. But there’s a lot of other hurdles along the way. One thing, certainly when I was even with my deal team hat on at Roivant Sciences. I was very attracted to companies that were pursuing individualized medicine. Meaning we run a screening to see who is the subset of patients that we know will benefit from something. There’s a lot of sophisticated platforms out there that can do that high throughput screening. Then we look for those patients only to treat. I am well aware anyone in this industry is well aware of big drug trials that have failed, not because the drug didn’t work, but because the company running the trial wanted the broad label, which means they put people in a trial knowing that they were not in the subset of the patient population that would benefit most from it. But we’re hoping to be able to have it prescribed to everyone which I think is bordering on an unethical business practice today. Certainly, as we become more knowledgeable about subpopulations and genetic predispositions and things like that.

John: You launched Roivant SV. Again, for our listeners and viewers to find your new venture, it’s roivantsv.org in 2020. How did the pandemic affect the trajectory of what your vision was, now, God willing, we’re in a post-pandemic stage. Where are you now in terms of your entrepreneurial journey running Roivant Social Venture now?

Lindsay: It was amazing timing for us, and I was influenced by the pandemic in the directions that we went early on. Two of our earliest projects were both focused on simplifying the manufacturing of advanced treatments so that they can be locally manufactured all throughout the world. It was to get low and middle-income countries off the supply chain because they were very low priority. We invested in a company called Sunflower Therapeutics, which is out of MIT, and about the size of a galley kitchen, you can make vaccines, and then you can switch to other biologics, eventually insulin. This is something that someone with a GED-level education can operate.

John: How are we doing? How’s it doing?

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s great. We funded the build-out of their commercial prototype, which has now been built and sold, and they are in discussions with buyers and purchasers in other countries to try to start deploying it there. It’s very exciting stuff, but everyone was paying attention to that, right? I no longer have to explain to people that it’s dangerous if countries can’t make their own vaccines, right? Everyone gets that because we all saw that COVID vaccines are available only in the wealthiest countries where they’re being manufactured, and good luck if you’re in Sub-Saharan Africa or some other places. That’s one way COVID was helpful because it just showed light everyone on health discrepancies and access to medicines discrepancies that have been around for a long time, and then we have a similar program. We co-launched a group called GGTI, the Global Gene Therapy Initiative, basically doing the same thing a simplified device to manufacture gene therapies that can be done by a hospital worker at a center of excellence. It still needs to be right now. We’re partnered initially with Uganda and Indian top hospitals and sickle cell and HIV gene therapies to start. But those types of advanced therapies will never get to patients unless you can make it in a more simple way. That’s one bucket and then I’d say the second bucket is diversity issues. Diversity in leadership in our industry, but also drug treatments and patients in clinical trials. Noubar can tell you that it was hard for them to get a good representation of the population in the Moderna, the COVID vaccine trials. They got it done but it was a hurdle. It really made a difference when doctors were then in real life trying to persuade people to take the vaccine because you could say in people who look like you, here’s what happened. Those statistics were really good, no one was going to the hospital. That data, it’s good business to have that. I think a lot of our efforts today and why I’m in San Diego today is we’ve partnered with several academic research institutions to embed drug development training into existing graduate programs so that students, we want to focus on women and minority students can get hands-on experience developing real drugs for underserved patient populations, it takes years to acquire that type of experience in the real world. If you go to biotech and can both actually help move these treatments forward because these again, are the things that are not super attractive right now to traditional venture investors. Then they can go out and if they choose to go into the drug development industry or elsewhere, they will have a broad base of knowledge that they were able to get in a very condensed amount of time.

John: You’re only two years into this. What kind of impact do you see RSV making in the world over the next five years now that we’re hopefully going to be able to travel more like you’re doing on this trip and get it out and about and spread the word? When you go to bed at night, what’s your real goal and mission for the next five years ahead in terms of the impact you can make with RSV?

Lindsay: Yeah, with the global access initiatives I mentioned like the one in the gene therapy one, we hope to dose the first patients with local knee gene therapy by the end of next year. Five years out, I would like to see that adopted in many different locations around low-middle-income countries. For academic and research partnerships, I’m talking about five years is a good amount of time. We have some ramp-up periods, but let’s say four years of actual students working on this. I would like to see drugs advanced to the point where they are approved or close to approval through these training programs. Because what it’s been six years at six years since I joined, well, six and a half years since I joined. Five of the drugs we took in and that time have been approved. I think in five years we can certainly, I expect to be able to point to a few drug approvals that came out of the training programs that we’re putting together.

John: Does Roivant SV run out of DC or run out of New York City as well?

Lindsay: Our headquarters are in New York officially.

John: Okay.

Lindsay: Yep.

John: Got it.

Lindsay: My back and forth weekly to New York stopped when COVID hit.

John: That’s when Zoom took over, which is great.

Lindsay: Yeah.

John: Yeah, which has connected us all and made our travel burden somewhat better. In terms of our audience getting involved. It’s always great to give calls to action in terms of getting involved and supporting what you’re doing in Roivant Social Ventures. How can that happen, Lindsay?

Lindsay: Yeah, I think two ways. People who are knowledgeable in this field can volunteer. Most of our volunteers come from Roivant Sciences, but we have outside volunteers too who are just experienced in biotech and want to work on our projects so that’s part one. Part two is academic research institutions that like the sound of an embedded drug development program for their students. We need to scale this model at many institutions. We are working with two so far to see the impact that we want in changing the faces of the leadership and really making a dent in getting drugs for underserved patient populations approved. Then part three is we need financial support. Roivant covers all of the employee costs and the overhead. But any project expenses come from outside donors, so we will need that type of support as well.

John: For those donors, Roivant Social Ventures is a 501(c)(3)?

Lindsay: It is a 501(c)(3), Yes. Public charity.

John: Got it. Any last words because I want you to have the final word before we have to say goodbye for today.

Lindsay: I guess, I’ll circle back to my observation about MIT students and I will encourage your listeners to not shy away from the largest problems that we have, and instead, focus on how you can change even parts of that. Because we all can make a difference in making the world a better place. It’s very important to focus on that rather than the complexity or scale of a particular issue.

John: Lindsay, we had you on Impact today, the Impact podcast today because you are making a difference in making the world a better place with all the impacts that you’ve made throughout your career, especially now at Roivant Social Ventures, people can find you and your colleagues at www.roivantsv.org. Lindsey Androski, you’re always welcome back to share your journey. I know you have a long way to go. You’re a young woman and I wish you continued success and continue to make the impact that you’re making and making the world a better place.

Lindsay: Thank you, John. It’s been great to be here.

John: This episode of the Impact Podcast has been brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. The closed loop platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy, the fine closed loop partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Green Sports Alliance edition of Green Is Good, and we’re here in beautiful downtown Chicago, and we’re so honored to have with us today Jackie Ventura. She is the Head of Operations and Sustainability with the Heat – the Miami Heat that is. Welcome to Green Is Good, Jackie.

Jackie Ventura: Thank you so much for having me.

John: Jackie, before we get talking about all the great things green that you’re doing at the Miami Heat, can you share a little bit about the Jackie Ventura story?

Jackie: That’s a great way to put it. Well, I always found as a child I loved being outdoors. I really enjoyed being – and being from Miami, obviously, we have a lot of beaches and a lot of beautiful places to visit.

John: Right.

Jackie: And I always loved being surrounded by green. As corny as that sounds, it kind of made my heart sing when I would be outside and partaking of nature. So it started when I was younger, and then as I grew up I wasn’t very involved in a lot of the sustainability movements. Life goes on. You kind of grow up out of certain things.

John: Right.

Jackie: And then, eventually, when I started working for the Miami Heat, I worked on the operations side, so it was all about maintaining the building, running the building, making sure things were efficient, that we were being responsible consumers, because before the green movement it was all about the bottom line, right?

John: Right.

Jackie: Not consuming too much is good for your bottom line and that was what originally spiked it. And as this movement became a little bit more prevalent, things trickled down to me, and I already had this love for nature and the environment, so it kind of made sense that I took it over a little bit and kind of started leading us down the path of sustainability.

John: How many years ago did you start with the Heat?

Jackie: I started a very long time ago – 2001.

John: Wow. Fourteen years ago.

Jackie: Yes. Fourteen years ago.

John: So you were working on the operations side.

Jackie: Yes.

John: And then that evolved into being both operations and sustainability.

Jackie: Yes, because if you think about it in the terms of a venue, all the things that contribute to sustainability – your energy consumption, water consumption, landscaping, all these contracts that take care of the facility – they all tie back to operations, to the back-of-house part of the facility.

John: Right.

Jackie: So we’ve all taken charge over those issues and kind of led the way.

John: Isn’t that interesting. And that is why so many people from operations or supply chain management end up in sustainability.

Jackie: Yes. Exactly. Housekeeping reports to us, Levy Restaurants – our concessionaires – report back to the arena division and the ops division so we really do the waste stream. The contract goes through us for all of our waste removal and our recycling efforts, so operations really has their hands in all of the different aspects that contribute to sustainable initiatives.

John: So talking about sustainability initiatives, you then basically manage the American Airlines arena where the Miami Heat play.

Jackie: Their sustainability efforts. Yes.

John: All their sustainability.

Jackie: I am not the GM.

John: Right.

Jackie: I am glad to not have that job.

John: Right. But their sustainability efforts.

Jackie: Yeah.

John: And their sustainability efforts can be seen on their website www.AAArena.com.

 Jackie: Yes. We have some of our efforts listed up there for our fans to see and try to replicate at home hopefully.

John: So talk a little bit about your decision with the Miami Heat to pursue LEED certification at the AmericanAirlines arena.

Jackie: Sure. So back in about 2008 the NRDC – National Resources Defense Council.

John: Right.

Jackie: With our favorite, Allen Hershkowitz.

John: Right.

Jackie: Dr. Allen Hershkowitz.

John: Doctor.

Jackie: He had done a great program with Major League Baseball, and they had created this whole sustainable platform for baseball and the NBA wanted to do something similar and launch it league-wide, so they teamed up with the NRDC and made a greening advisor for all the teams. They sent it out to us the summer before. They wanted to launch Green Week in 2009, so we got it the summer of 2008 for all the teams to review and see what we could do each in our own venues. How could we contribute to this movement?

John: Right.

Jackie: And that trickled down to operations – as it usually does – from the owner to the president to our GM down to ops, because we are the ones that take care of all of those different areas. And as we were going through all of these recommendations from the NRDC and the greening advisor, a lot of light bulbs started going off and we were like, “Wow, we are doing so much of this already.”

John: Right.

Jackie: Because it’s just efficient to run the building this way. And at that point, there wasn’t an NBA team that was LEED certified that played in a LEED-certified building, so we – none at all.

John: You were on fresh ground here.

Jackie: Yes.

John: Wow.

Jackie: Groundbreakers.

John: Wow.

Jackie: And once I took the LEED checklist, and I started going through it, and I was like, “Wow, we can really do this. Let’s get this third party certification. Let’s get this validated. Let’s show that a building of this size, this age” – because in 2009 we were already hitting almost the 10-year mark – “that we can do this.”

John: No kidding.

Jackie: We can be efficient. We can meet these standards. And it didn’t hurt that we would be the first, because, you know, everything in sports is about competition.

John: Right. Great point.

Jackie: It never hurts to be first.

John: That’s right.

Jackie: So we pursued the certification and it was successful, and in April of 2009 – just before the NBA’s first initial Green Week – we announced that we were the first NBA facility to gain LEED certification, closely followed by Atlanta.

John: Wow. And so when you say “LEED certification,” what kind?

Jackie: Existing buildings operation and maintenance.

John: Got it.

Jackie: Or “EBOM,” as I like to call it.

John: That’s amazing. So you’re the first. So AmericanAirlines arena – which our listeners and viewers can go look at their website, www.AAArena.com – was the first to become LEED certified with regards to an NBA team?

Jackie: Yes.

John: Wow. And this is back in 2010?

Jackie: This was 2009.

John: 2009. So what are some of the key sustainability features that you are the most proud of that you got accomplished there that exist today that you put in place then?

Jackie: Well, they existed back then and they exist today still because we got a recertification November of 2014, and that one is a little bit more exciting because we were the first sports facility to get recertified in the world.

John: Wow.

Jackie: So the USGBC had never had a sports facility recertified under a new level of certification and achieve a higher standard because we received Gold Certification for our recertification – it’s a mouthful I know.

John: Wow.

Jackie: And a lot of the things that helped us in 2009 continue to contribute in 2014, which was – our energy consumption is a big one, and the hard part is that it’s so hard to illustrate this to our viewers and to our fans and make them understand what these concepts means, but we powered the building so efficiently compared to other venues of our size.

John: OK.

Jackie: When you compare us to existing data of venues of like-size, like-occupancy in 2009, we were 57 percent more efficient than those venues.

John: OK.

Jackie: Now, fast-forward to 2014, where we can only cut so much and other venues have kind of jumped on board and they’re trying to curb their consumption.

John: Sure.

Jackie: So now we’re about 24, 25 percent more efficient. Still great numbers.

John: Amazing numbers. Jackie: And if you take into consideration how much energy a building of that size consumes, just that reduction could power hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of homes in our state, in the country.

John: That’s incredible. And how did you achieve that? How did you even get over that big energy hurdle?

Jackie: Our VP of Ops who is my boss – Jim Spencer – he has been with the building since construction.

John: OK.

Jackie: And he has always been very big on historical data and tracking data and that is also a passion of mine, because I was – originally, in a former life my degree is in Forensic Anthropology, so it’s a lot of statistical analysis, a lot of regression analysis and that kind of blends well with data monitoring and energy monitoring and trends and all these things that go into tracking our consumption.

John: The bottom line is you’re comfortable with numbers.

Jackie: Yes. Exactly.

John: Right.

Jackie: I love numbers. So when we paired up – I started with the Heat in 2001, but he and I paired up in 2003 under the umbrella of operations – it was something that we were both passionate about, tracking our consumption and understanding how the building functioned. Because the building to a certain extent is a living organism, right?

John: Right.

Jackie: So we created all these different spreadsheets and data trend lines monitoring our consumption, our demand, our kilowatt hours, water and natural gas, chilled water, everything that makes the building run and started comparing it and trying got understand it. What time of the day do we consumer more? Less? Where can we scale back? What has an impact on our consumption? Is it attendance? Is it when a concert ramps up and kick off?

John: Right.

Jackie: Or is it static? Because sometimes there is not too much fluctuation from one day to the next. So really understating all of this helped us understand where we can scale back and where we can control our consumption. And our CFO loves it because less consumption is not only good for the planet, but it’s good for his bottom line.

John: So let’s stop there for a second. Back in the day when sustainability was just starting to rise as a big issue in the United States back in – let’s just say – 2003, 2004, 2005….

Jackie: Yes.

John: A lot of people used to throw eggs at it and say, “Wait a second – it costs more to be green?” And here you’re saying, “When you do it the right way, the truth is it actually saves money.”

Jackie: Yes. Green equals green.

John: Green equals green. Love that. So you were able to save money.

Jackie: Yes.

John: Both for not only getting Gold LEED Certification in 2014, but you were able to save money for the organization.

Jackie: Yes.

John: That’s amazing.

Jackie: And money that can be used towards other projects or other initiatives. Helping out the community. We have a lot of projects with schools and working within our own community, so it helps loosen up those dollars that would go into unnecessary consumption and have them reallocated to something that is of more value.

John: Now that you were the first, you were really the torchbearer on this issue.

Jackie: Yes.

John: Do other arenas come to you now? Do other operations and sustainability managers come to you and say, “Jackie, how did you do this?” And have you become sort of the person that disseminates this information to help people learn how to get their arena LEED certified as well?

Jackie: Yes. I am very open to helping the other teams. A lot of it has been in conjunction with the Green Sports Alliance. I’m also on the Board of Directors for the Green Sports Alliance.

John: Well, let’s talk about that. We’re here today at the Green Sports Alliance Green Is Good edition, and for our listeners and our viewers out there that want to learn more about the Green Sports Alliance, you can go to www.GreenSportsAlliance.org. Explain how you got involved with GSA, because that is also very important to the whole story.

Jackie: When we got our first certification in 2009, there was a lot of excitement around that and there was a lot of excitement around the fact that it was all due in part to the greening advisor and the work that Allen had done with NRDC.

John: And for our listeners and our viewers out there, you and I refer to him as “Allen,” but say who was Allen back then to you.

Jackie: Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, PhD.

John: With the NRDC back then.

Jackie: The senior scientist for the NRDC – the National Resource Defense Council.

John: Right.

Jackie: Put in place a lot of great programs. So passionate about using the sports and the platform and the access that sports give you to kind of forward this movement and bring sustainability home. He’s got a great line about how many people follow science versus follow sports, and I can’t remember the percentages….

John: But it’s big numbers.

Jackie: I’m sure you’ll hear it, but it’s big numbers.

John: Big numbers, right.

Jackie: A lot more people follow sports than follow science, so it’s a great avenue to get this information out there. And with the NRDC, they were doing some case studies on sports venues to launch one of their publications. The name escapes me right now but it was a big publication.

John: I remember that.

Jackie: And they did a few case studies on key venues that were kind of leading this movement in the sports realm. And we talked for a little bit, had a conversation, an interview. We put the report together, and then they invited me out to the White House for their Sustainability and Sports panel.

John: And which year was this?

Jackie: Back in 2012.

John: Got it.

Jackie: Back in 2012.

John: After you were already LEED certified?

Jackie: Yes, after the LEED certification. A lot of it – this movement snowballs kind of. That’s what it feels like.

John: Sure.

Jackie: So it was a couple years before it really started taking ground and people started recognizing our efforts. So at the White House panel, we became a little bit more familiar. They invited me out to Seattle later that year to speak at the second Green Sports Alliance summit, and that’s where a lot of these relationships started happening with Scott Jenkins, Justin Zeulner, Allen Hershkowitz – all great people with the GSA. And last year, they invited me to join the board so I can have a little bit more of a hands-on effort and offer my knowledge.

John: How exciting.

Jackie: Because I am really speaking from the operator’s point of view. I’m not a marketing person. I’m not a communications person. I understand how the building functions, and that’s where the real meat is for sustainability.

John: Sure. So now you sit on the board at the GSA.

Jackie: Yes.

John: And you’re seen as really the “green guru” when it comes to LEED certification of sports venues.

 Jackie: Yes. “The Green Monster,” that’s what I’m called back home.

John: Wow. That’s exciting. So now you’re on the board. You’re here today. Are you speaking today?

Jackie: I am. Workshop panel “How to Benchmark and Baseline Your Data,” so I’ll be speaking on energy. We have someone speaking on waste, someone speaking on water. and it’s led by Stephanie Young with the USGBC.

John: So it’s great. It’s all about what is measurable.

Jackie: Yes, what’s measurable.

John: It becomes manageable.

Jackie: Exactly. That’s a great line.

John: Wow. So talk a little bit about some of the benefits. You were mentioning community. Now that you’re LEED certified twice and now that you’re Gold LEED certified, when you sit with leadership from the Miami Heat, what are they so excited about in all the efforts that you’ve made in terms of sustainability? What is ownership and leadership really excited about? What have you been able to accomplish? Sustainability has then equaled what kind of other accomplishments? You mentioned community a couple of minutes ago.

Jackie: Yeah. The community effort is one of our big ones. Going back to our environment, we do a lot of beach sweeps. We bring out the players and bring out some of the schools that we work with and do beach sweeps a few times a year, clean them up, replant dunes, leave picnic tables, build picnic tables for them, environmentally friendly picnic tables. We started the Reheat Program about five years ago, which takes all of our hot food at the end of a game that has not been sold or put out to the public and it donates it to shelters in Miami, so they alternate coming to pick up the food afterwards.

John: Wow.

Jackie: We’ve donated about 5,000 pounds a season of food. And the one that’s most exciting to me is we implemented a challenge with Broward County schools. So we’re based in Miami-Dade County.

John: Sure.

Jackie: But this challenge in particular is with Broward County schools. Linda Gancitano, who is a teacher there at Driftwood Middle School, approached us learning about our sustainability efforts. She approached us to try to help their students and help their schools learn about how they can become more efficient and try to curb their consumption and save dollars, because our schools are suffering.

John: Wow.

Jackie: A lot of our schools are suffering.

John: Sure.

Jackie: Budget cuts. There is not enough money to go around.

John: Right.

Jackie: So the same kind of concept. If you can save this money and not spend it on wasteful consumption, we can take it and put it into these programs. So 2013-2014 season, we did a pilot, launched it, did it only for a month; about 60 schools participated and the county ended up saving roughly $140,000 more or less in energy consumption just in one month over 60 schools.

John: Wow.

Jackie: If you put it across the entire county, over 200 schools, those are some real big savings you’re talking about. And just one month.

John: That’s incredible.

Jackie: Yes, it is. 2014-2015, we did it again – challenged them for three months now, almost a quarter of a million dollars in savings over three months for the 80 schools that participated.

John: Wow.

Jackie: So next year we’re hoping to maybe stir up some healthy competition and get Miami-Dade County involved and maybe have the schools challenge each other. We tell them, “It’s easy, turn off the lights. Have a group of students make a green team and make sure the lights are off at the end of the day. Check the thermostats, make sure they’re at a reasonable temperature. It doesn’t have to be sitting at 65 degrees all day. Check your irrigation. Plant a garden.” It’s very easy manageable steps. It’s overwhelming when you think of it.

John: Right.

Jackie: In the grand scheme of things. But when you take it down and you break it apart and you see what you can do, it makes it that much more manageable.

John: Not only that, your influence on those kids.

Jackie: Yes. And they get recognized. They get brought to a game during Green Week – the first, second and third place winner – we do a little recognition ceremony for them on the court. They get plaques, they get banners, they get a pep rally at their school with Bernie and the Heat dancers – everyone loves our Heat dancers. Sometimes a player will make it out depending. That’s kind of a rough time of the year because it’s the end of the season going into playoffs.

John: Right.

Jackie: And all that stuff. So if we can get a player, we’ll get them a player too.

John: Wow.

Jackie: But it’s a lot of fun, and it’s a great incentive to get them to really rally around this movement and see how they can implement it in their daily lives.

John: And that’s going to make them think about sustainability for the rest of their lives.

Jackie: Yes. And take it home and barrage their parents into complying.

John: That’s amazing. Well, sustainability – as you and I both know, Jackie – is a journey.

Jackie: Yes.

John: What’s next with regards to your journey with the Miami Heat and the AmericanAirlines Arena? What are your goals in the future, now?

Jackie: Well, we are looking to partner with sponsors that have a similar viewpoint that we do.

John: OK.

Jackie: So we will be installing – hopefully, by the end of the year it will be visible – a canopy with some solar panels, solar rays that will convert one of our plazas into a more functional space and also educate people as to the value of solar panels. Being so far down south in Florida, we don’t have access to a lot of the other renewable energy sources. We can’t harvest wind really. The sun is our renewable energy.

John: Right.

Jackie: So solar panels are something that is feasible for people in Miami to do, and there are certain grants and rebates from the government to help you implement, if you choose to do that. So hopefully, if they see it at our place and are like, “Wow. These are cool” – and they’re very beautiful circular panels.

John: Right.

Jackie: They’re not like the grid that most people see and are like, “I don’t want that on my house.”

John: Right.

Jackie: There are different options. The technology has advanced so much in such a short amount of time and it has made it cost-neutral, so you’re not really going to be spending that much more money on something that is more efficient than on its counterpart. We’re really trying to bring that message home to our fans and are hoping that they can see that, if we can do it and implement it on such a large scale – I’m talking 1,200,000 square feet – you can do it in your 2,000-square-foot home. It’s not that hard for you to implement it.

John: And speaking of “you can do it at home,” how many other arenas have you convinced, or have come to you for advice that have now become LEED certified in the last five or six years?

Jackie: There are not too many LEED NBA facilities. I think we’re only at about nine. I might be mistaken.

John: Still. You were the first, and you got nine to follow. That’s amazing.

Jackie: We were the first, so we always try to act as an educator, as a facilitator and try to break it down and make it manageable steps. If you just monitor your data, if you just do a handful of things that we can lead you down, then you can potentially pursue it. Some people don’t want the third party certification. I think it’s a great validator, and it shows people that you are living by a standard.

John: That’s awesome.

Jackie: Instead of just saying, “Hey, I’m doing this, I’m doing that,” it gives it that validation.

John: Absolutely.

Jackie: So we try to convince them that the processes can be overwhelming, it can be difficult, but the USGBC is there to help, the GBCI is there to help, I’m here to help.

John: That’s amazing. And we thank you so much for joining us today. Nine other arenas since you’ve done it. Nine other arenas. If you’ve just been listening today, this has been Jackie Ventura. She is the Head of Operations and Sustainability for the Miami Heat, and to learn more about all the great work Jackie and her colleagues at the Miami Heat have been doing, you can go to www.AAArena.com. Is there a Miami Heat?

Jackie: It’s through the NBA, www.NBA.com/Heat.

John: www.NBA.com/Heat. And also this is the Green Sports Alliance edition of Green Is Good. You can learn more about the Green Sports Alliance at www.GreenSportsAlliance.org. Jackie, you’ve been so inspirational today. We thank you for your time. You are truly living proof that Green Is Good.

John Shegerian: Do you have a suggestion for an amazing impact guest? Go to impactpodcast.com and click be a guest to recommend someone today.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. And is the largest fully integrated IT in electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices. Please visit, eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian, this is a very special edition. I’ve got it with us today, Tammy Sun. She’s the CEO and co-founder of Carrot Fertility. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Tammy.

Tammy Sun: Hi John! Thank you so much for having me. Hi.

John: Hi, and I’m so excited to have you on. This is such an important topic in your vision and your mission. And the business that you’ve created is covering such an important topic that needs to get more coverage and visibility. You’re making the world a better place. You’re making huge impacts, but before we get to all that, and we’re going to get to that, I want you to share a little bit about your background, Tammy. Your work today is in Bentonville, Arkansas. And before we find out how you got there, where did you start this whole journey?

Tammy: Yes. Well, I am in Bentonville. Hello, from Northwest Arkansas, and I’m excited to talk about Northwest Arkansas as well. I didn’t expect to be an entrepreneur. I didn’t plan to be a founder or CEO. I spent a lot of years and the earlier part of my career in politics, policy, and government. I moved to Silicon Valley many years ago and started working for a tech company called Evernote. I think one of the things that are interesting but not, I think talked about enough is that both governments as a platform for doing important and good things at scale. It’s not that different than technology as a platform because you can reach a lot of people through products and services, filling important gaps in the market. Not that dissimilarly from thinking about passing a new law or an important election. So, the transition wasn’t that challenging for me. Once I sort of started thinking about doing my fertility treatments and engaging in my fertility healthcare, I came up with a lot of challenges. It was very expensive. It cost tens of thousands of dollars for me to get access to that type of care. And I was just really inspired to think about if I’m having this problem and I was privileged enough to have enough money in a savings account, right? That could pay for the type of care that I wanted and that I needed. What happens to other people? Most people in this country don’t have $500 or a full paycheck in savings. So, that means that if it’s not covered as a part of your healthcare at work, you just won’t have access to it. That’s what we saw.

John: You got involved with politics, and you’re very, very, very humble. You are a presidential appointee by President Obama on the FCC. You held roles at the Clinton Foundation as part of the White House. First of all, where did you grow up? Where were your formative years?

Tammy: I was born in Taiwan, in Taipei. I spent a few early years there, and then my parents moved over, and we lived in New Jersey for most of my childhood and grew up there. So, I’m an immigrant.

John: When you were going to school, I’m from an immigrant background also. I’m Armenian, 3rd generation. I’m a true believer that some entrepreneurs have a huge leg up when they’re immigrants. Because we end up somewhat more resilient than just other people that have everything afforded to them and aren’t as a little bit as tough and resilient as flexible as others. Growing up, though, when you were going to college, what was on your mind then? Did you have any dreams to be an entrepreneur? Or is it all politics and policy then?

Tammy: It was mostly politics. And, I do say that with the caveat which is I don’t think I was exposed to entrepreneurship until much later in life. If I knew that that was an option for me, I might have decided differently. Although, again, I think people who are attracted to politics and government, and policy work in many ways have the same DNA as people who are attracted to Silicon Valley and technology and building products and services. You’re trying to do something that can impact the world in a really large way as quickly as possible.

John: Correct. Your mom and dad, were entrepreneurs, or what professions that they hold? And how did that work? And how that informs you as to your ability to jump over from government and policymaking to the fun world of entrepreneurship.

Tammy: So, you know, we were pretty you know, when I was very young, we were pretty poor. My dad was still in school at the time he was getting his Master’s and Ph.D., and he wasn’t until he got a job at AT&T Bell Labs in New Jersey. I mean, we started to enter the middle class. And, you know, I saw both of my parents, you know, really exhibit a ton of grit. Sort of building the life that they did for their two daughters. You know, I have one sister, and I think just observing that and understanding the sacrifices that they made to give us opportunities was a big part of how I thought about my career.

John: That grit, frankly speaking. Given that they did the immigrant journey and you got to be a percipient witness to that, that grit is imputed upon you and forever leaves you marked, for better and worse sometimes too, but for better in this situation. So, now you see this white space, you have a direct personal connection to this problem now that you want to fix. So, what then informed you to say, “Hey, I can be the one that does this, I can be the one and I’m going to get the right people around me and also the right dough”, and what gave you that ability to have the guts to do both, find the right people and to find the dough. Both, are not easy things by the way. Entrepreneurs have fascinating wonderful visions and great intentions but finding the dough and the right people to make it a reality is not an easy trick, magic trick, or let me say hat trick, to borrow a hockey term, to make it a reality. So, how did that go for you?

Tammy: Well, look, I think, you know, I saw, you know, the latest status at what two percent of venture funding or venture dollars goes to female founders. And I think at its height, that number had crescendo at 3%, and it’s back down. So, I won’t lie. It was hard.

John: Well, I bet you the number gets further, parse time, interrupting you, but I bet the number even gets further parse when it’s also a woman of color.

Tammy: Yes. Absolutely. Numbers are not good.

John: You are facing much bigger odds than a guy like me walking in with a great vision in a DC office or anywhere else. So, I just want to make sure that the audience realizes the odds that you were facing on the mountain you were climbing.

Tammy: It was tough and even back. I mean, today, I’m so excited. We’re on the show, we’re talking about fertility, we’re going to talk about menopause. Back then, it was still very early- five to six years ago- and it was tough sometimes to talk about these issues and get people to understand that this is a human health care issue, not just for a specific type of woman, and frankly, not even for women, it’s for men too. And so, it was an uphill battle with regards to, as you say, the dough and the funding. But I think the one thing that got me through, of course, the resilience and the things we talked about in terms of traits that, you know, I have my parents were, I’m grateful, my parents were able to give to me growing up. But the thing that was differentiating was, even as investors were saying, no. And a lot said, no. A lot of my potential customers were saying, yes. So, you know, I go from a meeting where an investor says, “Egg freezing, that’s never going to be a thing, that’s just for a tiny group of a specific type of woman.” Like, that’s not everything. I’d go from that meeting to an HR leader or somebody who buys benefits at a company, and I would sit down, and they would be like, “Thank God you’re here.” I was just talking to an employee who came into my office and said they couldn’t get access to the IVF through our insurance or, “Oh my gosh, I’ve been wanting to talk to you, I have women coming in talking about egg freezing, and I don’t know how to do it.” And so, I think the thing I would encourage people to do is like really listen to the customer, stay connected to the customer, and then and then the money and the venture dollars, and the financing all of that stuff will follow. If the customer if you have a strong customer base.

John: I love that. You know, being customer obsessed. A lot of people forget that that’s what we’re in business to be, servicing, and serving our customers. Who wrote the first check, who wrote the first? Who is the first believer of Tammy Sun?

Tammy: Oh, my gosh. Okay. So, there were, I think it was all on the same day but there’s a group of female angel investors in Silicon Valley called hashtag Angels. So, they were phenomenal. Jonna, hi. Everybody, Chloe, hi.

John: That’s right.

Tammy: And then, Charles Hudson from a precursor. Charles is one of the most successful, prolific, precede, venture capitalists now in Silicon Valley and I believe I was in his first fun. Just as he was launching the fun and he is fantastic. He happens to be a black BC and I think that is just like, something that I am also very proud of.

John: So, this year, the day and year that you got those first checks, which year are we talking about?

Tammy: Oh gosh. 2017, I think.

John: 2017.

Tammy: And I had not even really started. I was just coming up with an idea. We had tried all of these sorts of consumer angles. You know, we did a Y combinator in 2018. Finally, it started selling in 2018, but those were early days.

John: When you started though, where were you working? Your home, or out in a garage? Silicon Valley style, and where was this? Where was home for you, then? Where was your [crosstalk]?

Tammy: Oh, my gosh. It was a coffee shop called Max fields in San Francisco, that was connected to a laundromat.

John: I loved it.

Tammy: It was next a bunch of [crosstalk], for her for almost a year. I did my work on a laptop at a coffee shop with two dozen washers and dryers of being surrounding it.

John: When you first came up with this and you just wrote the business plan, did you have partners or was it, did you start building a team after you got the first checks in the door?

Tammy: I did have some early partners, and, you know, right now, one of my co-founders, Doctor Asima Ahmad. She’s our chief medical officer. So, she’s the co-founder. She’s my chief medical officer. She is a double board-certified OB-GYNE, as well as a fertility doctor. And we met at a fertility conference, sitting in a workshop for a low cost. How to get more people to be able to access IVF?

John: Wow. So, now you start raising money, and what happens next? How do you start honing your vision and your mission and what are your next steps then?

Tammy: Well, I started raising money and I think the thing that nobody prepared me for was how rapidly you would be rejected and as somebody who was pretty used to working hard and achieving a goal or being successful, I think that level and that velocity of rejection can be very challenging for somebody who doesn’t know that they’re walking into an expectation, where that’s normal. And so, you know, went through the process of raising precede round, raising a seed round. We ultimately ended up doing Y combinator, which is a startup thing in Silicon Valley.

John: Sure, you can beat it.

Tammy: Yeah, exactly. And went on from there.

John: You raised a bunch of money and by the way rejection never feels good, no matter how successful, or not successful you are. Mean, it’s hard, it’s hard to deal with rejection. You know, especially when it’s your baby.

Tammy: Yeah.

John: It’s all your baby, it’s one thing to be rejected, personally. It’s another thing when your beautiful baby that you’ve put a lot of thought into your life and what in your guts is.

Tammy: You think it’s beautiful, but someone just said your baby is ugly.

John: Exactly. And Coke for you in my house.

Tammy: Yeah.

John: It’s enough. Now you’ve raised some money. Where do you start, with your talking to clients? I mean, your client list today is just incredible for our listeners and our viewers out there that want to learn more about Tammy and her great company, carrot fertility. You can type in carrotfertility.com or get-carrot.com. I mean, your client list now is ridiculous. Clif Bar, Variety, Zoom, Plantronics, Eccentric, Etcetera. But how, who were the first two to five clients, and how that works?

Tammy: Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, we had a really small cohort of early Customers Palantir was an early customer. You know, we’ve been privileged to have several great, great, early customers. And I think, the timing is also really important here, the customers that were available to us, were able to make buying decisions because the culture had evolved just enough to that point to make this possible. So, what does that mean? That means for example, that you know, finally, the Supreme Court said, same-sex marriage, that is legal, right? We’ve decided on same-sex marriage. So, once marriage was decided, you could sort of see that the conversation would naturally over the next several years turn to “Okay, well, how are LGBTIQ people going to think about forming families?” What is the type of healthcare that they’re going to need to do that? Is it going to be adopted? Is it going to be IVF? Is it going to be surrogacy, right? So, there are a lot of things that come as a consequence of a big cultural, and legal shift like that. You know, we were just sort of coming to a point where more and more people were talking about infertility in the public. You know, some of the earliest companies like Meta formerly known as Facebook had just said, “Okay, we’re going to offer egg freezing as a part of our, as a part of our benefits at work.” And so, it was this sort of magic moment where all the stars aligned, and it brought this issue to the front of the pack, as something that we should all start to think about and care about more. And finally, the timing was right where you could build something, to service it.

John: So, I bet you start building carrot fertility. There’s a lot to talk about here on the macro, in terms of menopause, mental health, and wellness before we get into that. What was the first part of- You know, they always say, don’t eat the elephant, don’t try to deal with one bite. You know, baby steps along the way, no pun intended. Where did you start in terms of the white space that exists in this broken system?

Tammy: Well, there’s still a lot of white space as you said, nowhere near being able to say that we’ve accomplished our mission, which is fertility care for all people, regardless of age or sex or gender. But I think in the early days what we wanted to do was, we wanted to reframe the first lady conversation so that it wasn’t only about opposite-sex couples who were challenged with infertility important group. Very, very important that they have high-quality access to fertility treatments, but we wanted to change the expectations and the conversation around. Who else could have access? What about single intending parents? What about gay couples? Who needs access to a gestational carrier, who needs access to a donor egg, who needs access to adoption benefits? What about women and couples? And men who want to preserve their fertility, whether through egg or embryo, or sperm freezing. We want to just sort of set a new normal around what fertility was defined as, and what the new modern expectations are of employers when people say, “I want a comprehensive and inclusive fertility benefit.”

John: Understood. So, you’re going after this whole ecosystem of fertility.

Tammy: Yeah, exactly. We think fertility is life-long. We don’t think just starts and stops at one specific treatment. We think it involves the course of a person’s entire life and there are changing goals and changing clinical needs all along the way.

John: It’s 2022, now. You’ve been in this for six years, seven years.

Tammy: Yeah, exactly. Long-time feels like [crosstalk].

John: Long, it feels. Of course, it does. Are you where you want to be? And where are you right now in the journey?

Tammy: You know, really proud of where we are. You know, I always want more, always want to be farther. I’m proud of where we are. We have, I think the world is different. Just as I was saying before, in terms of having a new normal. I do think that the world is different today than it might have been if Carrot didn’t exist. I think that we have been an important voice and an important tool. that has shaped and reshaped people’s expectations around what human fertility healthcare means. There’s a lot more work to do and we’re continuing to push the envelope to serve our members and our customers all around things, like post-reproductive fertility healthcare, age-inclusive fertility healthcare, which includes menopause as well as low T. But I’m proud of where we are today. We have you know, 380 or about 400 just under 400 employees. We are a global company that’s available in 120 countries and we’re in 45 states in the US.

John: How many clients and how many people are you serving right now?

Tammy: Today. So right now, we’re about 400 [crosstalk].

John: Wow.

Tammy: Yeah, and about a million lives. But when we go, when we move in by the time, you know, q1 rolls around, we will be many millions of covered lives and double the number. Almost double the numbers.

John: How did covid change your business and how employers look, it is seeming a trend of better benefits being important for retention, and not only for employee retention but for employee attraction as well.

Tammy: Yeah, I mean. Look, covid put a spotlight on how important healthcare, the health, the strength of the healthcare infrastructure is in this country [crosstalk].

John: And maybe the weak and, maybe the weakness of it as well.

Tammy: The weaknesses of it. Weaknesses and how we can build resiliency.

John: Right.

Tammy: And I think part of it is really through Telehealth, right? And through telemedicine. You know, for us we double down on Telehealth during the pandemic.

John: Wait, what do you mean? Explain what you mean by that.

Tammy: So, a couple of things, you know, the fertility clinics during the pandemic were shut down. So, anything that was, I don’t know if you remember, “non-essential.”

John: Yeah.

Tammy: Was closed.

John: Right.

Tammy: So, there’s a lot of interrupted IVF Cycles, adoption processes that had been forgotten because people needed to travel to do things. So, there was just a massive, massive disruption in care. You know, we really sort of invested in building, you know, features and tools for members to be able to get as much care through Telehealth as possible. So, that includes, access to a fertility doctor, but it also included access to emotional and behavioral, and mental health experts with specializations in fertility family forming grief, and so on. The mental health and emotional health aspect of managing and dealing with fertility healthcare is something that we feel very passionately about, and we think it is an integral part of the fertility healthcare experience. Not just your physical body but also your emotional wellness. And so, we saw, over a 3X spike in the utilization of those types of experts on our platform.

John: What’s the carrot RX brand that you built?

Tammy: Yeah, we also release that during the pandemic, which was, when you do fertility treatments, if you’re doing IVF, you’re doing everything. The medications are very expensive, and they are pretty invasive. So, you have to give yourself, you have to get this medication, it’s free, and a lot of it needs to be refrigerated, comes in an Inno-Pak. You have to mix medication and then, you know, load a syringe and then give yourself multiple shots per day, for up to two weeks. May be small. So, it’s complicated invasive, and complex. When I first did it, you know, my hands were shaking because, you know, I had never given myself, any kind of, you know, medical wrong there are

John: Right.

Tammy: Not a shot. But each little vial of medicine was like several hundred dollars. So, if you mess up, it’s a pretty expensive mistake.

John: Right.

Tammy: Right. So, sometimes people will, you know, have friends come over and do it or if you have a partner that they can help you do it, but it doesn’t matter because none of us are doctors. And so, we’re just sort of figuring it out on our own. And so, the carrot RX product makes this experience a lot better. So, it arrives at your house. You know, well-labeled, well-marked, fully branded, full instructions. One of our carrot experts will get on the phone with you to do an unboxing. So, you unbox all of your stuff. We tell you what has to be refrigerated, we give you specific instructions on how to store your medications. You can book a video appointment with a fertility nurse and that nurse will help you, over the video, mix the medication, okay? And then, coach you on how to do this shot and that that stuff matters when you’re in the high-stakes world of fertility treatments.

Tommy: High-stakes world, by the way, for our listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us. We’ve got Tammy Sun, in the station. She’s a CEO and co-founder of carrot fertility, to find Tammy and her great company and her colleagues around the world. Please go to carrotfertility.com. Talk about the cultural differences between the United States serving the United States population and corporations here and the citizens of this country versus the other countries that you service. What are you seeing in terms of cultural differences and how do you have to adjust your business model for Asia, Europe, South America, and other parts of the world?

Tammy: So, such an interesting question. You know, there are so many differences between the US and countries around the world. Where the leading provider of global fertility benefits. We are the experts in this space and the thing that I am always just so struck by when it comes to the global landscape is every country has something about it. That is good, right? So, for example.

John: Yeah.

Tammy: In the UK they are making a lot more progress on menopause and from a policy perspective, from a cultural perspective than we are in the US. In Israel, there’s a ton of public funding for fertility treatments. So, when you go around the world there’s like there are good things in many countries but the tie that binds the thing that is the same is that there are things that are deeply broken as well. So, while some groups may have great access to fertility healthcare through the Public Health Care system in country X, other groups are prohibited from that access based on sex or marriage or sexual orientation, or gender, right? So, single women might not be able to get access to fertility treatments because they’re not married, right? Or same-sex gay couples will not be able to get access to IVF because they’re gay. So, while there are good things, the common thing is that it’s broken everywhere.

John: Right, right, right, right.

Tammy: We come in and we fill in all of those sorts of critical gaps. We work with some of the largest US multinational employers.

John: And you have employees in many countries around the world? Or is it mostly American-based employees, servicing the entire planet?

Tammy: We have teams everywhere.

John: Teams everywhere. Do you have one office somewhere? I mean, talk about how you ended up from Silicon Valley to Bentonville. I’m fascinated by that, I’m sure our listeners and yours will say, how did Tammy Sun go from Silicon Valley to Bentonville Arkansas?

Tammy: It is wild. I never thought that this would happen to be honest. It was a covid move and, you know, I lived in large cities almost my whole life. I lived in London. I lived in New York. I live in Silicon Valley. And you know, during the pandemic, it was just so challenging to be that isolated and to be in the Bay Area where there were really bad forest fires. I couldn’t breathe the air that year. I don’t know if you remember it was like, red, right? It was like the [crosstalk].

John: That was Armageddon.

Tammy: You know, what’s the movie that everyone was in? It was like Mad, Max.

John: Right.

Tammy: Like, it was the red sky.

John: You’re right, I agree with you.

Tammy: And there was no, it’s just small things but, you know, there was these goes not set up with air-conditioning like it’s not, it doesn’t have air conditioning the way that New York has air-conditioning built-in everywhere. So, it was just very, very challenging. So, you know, Phil and I decided that we were just going to sort of try Bentonville. It wasn’t that random insofar as my sister and her husband also live here. So, we have to excuse to come down, we thought it would be temporary but we’re building a house now.

John: That’s wonderful. I’ve been to Bentonville many times, and it just feels like just American good old mom apple pie and the girl back home. It feels like it’s just a wonderful part of the country that people sort of fly over most of the time, but it’s wonderful that you’re there.

Tammy: Yeah, it’s a great part of the country. Northwest Arkansas is, you know, teeming with talent. It’s got incredible art crystal bridges here. I mean, I would say it’s in the top percentile of art museums in the world, and it’s just a really interesting dynamic community. So, happy.

John: So, talk about running a company from Bentonville. Do you have one set of offices? And certain parts of the United States, where the majority of employees work out, or does everyone work dispersed?

Tammy: So, you know, we thought about this question a lot. As you know, people were starting to come back as vaccinations were happening, and what we were, you know, what was our policy going forward. At that point, we had hired employees, I think, in 38 states. Now, it’s like more than 40, but, you know, we have, we have folks in Ohio, and Iowa and North Carolina and Arkansas and California and New York of course. But we decided that we were going to be permanently fully distributed, and so that meant that we were not going to reopen a headquarters because we wouldn’t know where that headquarters should be. But we were going to take, you know, you’re going to take those, we can take the money that we would have. Otherwise, spent on like really expensive rent in New York or San Francisco or Chicago and we were going to reinvest it, and so many times a year, we bring teams together to be together physically. Not necessarily to work next to each other, John, because we all know that we can sit anywhere and work now.

John: Correct.

Tammy: But connect, right? To build those relationships and maintain that trust, put social capital in the bank. And then, as we are distributed, we can use that capital to work. Folks get together a lot accurately.

John: I had the opportunity. Thanks to your great team, to learn so much about you and carrot fertility before this podcast. How are you getting the word out there? And what’s the future look like? This seems like the opportunity is limitless and the sky is the limit for you, and all the trends are in your favorites. Am I reading that right, or where am I missing something here?

Tammy: No, you’re right. I mean, look where, you know, we’re in a tough, sort of challenging economic environment now, and there’s a lot of discussion about the macroeconomic environment, and what I like to remind people about our industry and our business is that you know, the secular trends that drive the expansiveness and the growth of fertility, it’s bigger than whatever this economic moment is, however long it lasts. It’s permanent, right? People, both men, and women are going to continue to have kids later and later.

John: True.

Tammy: Whether it’s starting a family, or earning their families. You know, tens of millions of people are going to enter post-reproductive fertility health care, which includes menopause, perimenopause, and menopause. That’s permanent. Well, pregnancy, right? These things are larger than any specific economic moment. And so, we talked about, you know, how we can be of service to a really important constituency in this country, which is health plans and employers, who are the payers of healthcare, right? You and I, I don’t know about you, but I get my health care through my job.

John: Me too.

Tammy: That’s just how it is in this country. You can like it, you cannot like it, you can pay for it [crosstalk]

John: It doesn’t matter. It’s the way it is.

Tammy: It’s the way it is, right? Like, more than half of all Americans, 150 million- we get our health benefits through our jobs. And so, we put these employers and these customers at the center of our universe at carrot, which is how can we be of service to this vital group in this country, which is very much on the front lines of healthcare delivery.

John: How does such an important topic become such a misunderstood and taboo topic? Even talk about over in our culture and society? When you’ve been during doing your journey and learning from so many great people that you’ve been exposed to, what have you learned as to why the nature of this is such a misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and taboo topic to even be out there?

Tammy: You know, there are a lot of aspects about how women, in particular, engage in healthcare and how they are served or unserved in the healthcare system that I think can answer that question.

John: Okay:

Tammy: You know, there’s a lot of bad news. But the good news is that you know, we’re in this really important moment where we’re able to sort of bring these topics to the table as a first-class citizen in healthcare, not at the side table. You know, not like it’s at the table as a first-class citizen, and you’re seeing it being baked into the healthcare stack at work, with gentle, with vision, with medical people who are looking at mental health benefits. They’re looking at fertility benefits, and I think you know, unfortunately, a lot of the health care system historically over time has not been designed by and designed for women. You know, you see it in every aspect of the health care system in terms of clinical trials and all sorts of parts of the system. But I think, you know, we are excited to sort of be engaged in the process that is reimagining and reinventing important parts of it for people.

John: Today, when you’re talking to our listeners, who are leaders of their company, their CEOs or CFOs or directors of HR and HR directors, you have 400 plus clients. You have lots of information now and a lot of evidence that you’ve learned over the last seven years. It’s good business to get involved with fertility benefits like Carrot that Carrot shares and offers the people in terms of retention, in terms of attraction of employees, and just employee happiness. Is this the proven science now on the facts that you can say and look at any CEO or director of HR and say, “It’s just playing good business for you to bring on our service to your company.”

Tammy: It’s just math [crosstalk].

John: [laughter] Tell me, share the math.

Tammy: You know, I think one of the things that are a double whammy here is that number one, you know, people love, love announcing and delivering care to their employees. You know, people cry. It’s life-changing, right? And you’re a benefits leader or you’re in HR. You know there are lots of parts of the role that can be challenging, and you know that are draining. This is a part of the job that a lot of our customers just love giving their employees, right? So, it feels great, but it’s not just that it feels great for them and their employees. It’s just math. So, you know, if you care about saving costs if you care about retaining employees, this just makes sense, the average cost of replacing an employee ranges, depending on the kind of role and where they are ranging between 50,000 and $200,000. You know, when you’re talking about women in the workforce in their 40s and 50s, many of whom are leaders, executives, and managers, $200,000 doesn’t begin to express how expensive it would be to lose a leader at that level and replace her. So, from a retention perspective, carrot works 98% of our members for more than three years, and we survey them every single week. 98% tell us that they are more likely to stay at that company in that job because they have access to Carrot.

John: That’s awesome.

Tammy: We pay for the house, just on that, right? And then you talk about the healthcare side like that’s a whole other story.

John: Let’s go back to the entrepreneurship thing. You were facing a huge mountain, not only as a woman, which is hard when you’re a woman entrepreneur in this country, there’s no doubt. There’s a lot more discussion of them, mark Cubans in this world than the sets our Blakely’s and a woman of color, nonetheless. Share with us what you were expecting that happened along the journey. And what were you not expecting that also happened along the journey, and how hard is it to be an entrepreneur? And would you ever go back to public service again? Where you were now smitten in this, is it for you?

Tammy: You. Oh my gosh. Well, I don’t know if I have another company in me after this is all done [laughter]. It might’ve taken everything that I possibly have [laughter].

John: I don’t think so. I think you have a long way to done here. So, I think you have a long journey [crosstalk] anyway. So, let’s not worry about what would happen.

Tammy: You know, one of the things that I was expecting is. It’s kind of a weird thing to say, but I knew that it would work.

John: Awesome.

Tammy: I knew that it would work. I knew that it would be very hard. I knew that there would be so many problems to solve, but I knew that it would work, and the way that I knew that was because I was just constantly listening to the customers. My connection to the customers was so strong that I could read what was going on. So, I always knew that it would work, even though I knew it’d be hard. The thing that surprises me, and it continues to sort of surprised me every day is like, I am just so, for a while I was doing many, many jobs. I was in customer service. I was in sales. I was in the product. And so, I sometimes wake up, and I just cannot believe that there are hundreds of people who are more talented than me at these jobs who get up every day and they make this their life’s work too, and they are just so relentless and, so smart, and so energetic, and they’re just doing such great work to move this forward. Sometimes, I wake up and I can’t believe it.

John: Awesome. When you started, are you are your parents still alive?

Tammy: They are, yeah.

John: So, when you started this and you first called it and said, “I’m leaving the FCC or leaving the Clinton Foundation,” or all the great things that you were doing and evolved within your previous career, earlier in your career, how were they with this whole journey when you were just embarking on it?

Tammy: So, as we discussed, my parents are immigrants.

John: Yeah. Yeah.

Tammy: And, you know, engineer, lawyer, or doctor like, that’s easy to understand.

John: Yeah. Very acceptable stuff for all the [crosstalk] lawyers.

Tammy: I agree.

John: I get it. I get it.

Tammy: These three things, pick up, pick one. I think, you know, entrepreneurship has been a learning experience for them as well. I don’t think they think that I’m unemployed anymore. I think they think that I have a real job, but you know, it’s ideas. It’s been fun for them too.

John: That’s awesome. That is so awesome. Any final thoughts about the future of carrot fertility before I let you go for today, I’m going to have you back on because I want you to continue to share this important journey. But Tammy, any final thoughts before we have to sign off for today?

Tammy: Fertility is for everybody. It’s for, you know, anyone who’s listening. It’s for you if you’re married if you’re single if you’re a man if you’re a woman, if you are gay, if you are straight, it doesn’t matter who you are. If you are of reproductive age, if you post-reproductive age, fertility healthcare is for you. And we are building a product where everybody can feel at home.

John: Tammy, I just want to say thank you for making the world a better place by affecting millions of people not only in the United States but around the world with all the future impacts you’re going to make on infertility and lives around the world. For people who want to find you, sign up, or learn more about the great benefits that you have, please go to carrotfertility.com. Tammy Sun, you’re always welcome back on the Impact Podcast, and I thank you for making the world a better place.

Tammy: Thank you so much for having me, John.

John: This episode of the impact podcast is brought to you by closed-loop partners. Closed-loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. The closed-loop platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find closed-loop partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.