Free-enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to something even greater. – John Mackey
The stakeholder approach to business sees integration rather than separation, and sees how things fit together. – John Mackey
I think it’s absolutely essential that the people that work for a company need to feel that they’re part of something bigger – that it’s not just a job. – John Mackey
Amazon is certainly not a perfect company. However, doctors, teachers, engineers, journalists, politicians, and labor unions are also on a continuum of consciousness, and none are perfect either. It is easy to judge and find fault with any company if that is what one’s ideological biases wish to see. – John Mackey
My dad for a long time was an accounting professor at Rice University. And then he went out on his own, and he got hired by a client. He ended up being CEO of a hospital management company before he retired, called Lifemark. – John Mackey
When we start a new store, we make sure that we transfer enough starter culture from other stores that are already Whole Fooders, who’ve already incorporated our values and our culture within themselves into the… into the store. – John Mackey
When I’m hiring leaders, I pay a lot of attention to what their peers and what people who report to them say about them. We want people who relate well with their peers and cooperate in an exchange of information rather than being overly competitive. – John Mackey
The original entrepreneur may initiate the initial purpose, but, in a sense, like a parent that has children, the children have their own destiny, and at some point, that can veer off away from the wishes the parent might have for it. – John Mackey
I’ve always thought the main argument for organic was more environmental than a health argument. I just don’t think spraying a lot of pesticides into the environment on a routine basis is a good thing. – John Mackey
If you have a mental model that says big corporations are fundamentally greedy and selfish and exploitative, you don’t really want to have an exception to that model. It’s much easier to say, ‘Yes, Whole Foods has been corrupted.’ – John Mackey
Shopping for groceries for most people is like a chore. It’s like doing the laundry or taking out the garbage. And we strive to make shopping engaging, fun and interactive. – John Mackey
Your typical business just measures the metrics that have to do with the profitability of the business one way or another. But you can have metrics that measure employee happiness and the morale. You can also do direct customer surveys; you can track it over time. You can do supplier satisfaction scores as well. – John Mackey
Libertarians are constantly arguing with each other who is the most pure libertarian and who is most ideologically pure. – John Mackey
Starting my own business was kind of a wakeup call in a number of different ways. I had to meet a payroll every week, and we had to satisfy customers, and we had competitors that we had to compete with in order to have those customers come into our stores, and we had to compete with other employers for our employees. – John Mackey
I believe that all forms of socialism have been proven over time to result in a loss of both economic and civil liberties, with increasing poverty. – John Mackey
You can’t live if you don’t eat, but you don’t live to eat. And neither does business exist primarily to make a profit. It exists to fulfill its purpose, whatever that might be. – John Mackey
I really think people should live to be 100 years old pretty much disease-free. I think that’s our genetic potential. – John Mackey
I’m a huge NBA fan and watch many games each year. Following any sport is kind of bringing us back to our tribal roots. – John Mackey
We do take seriously our responsibility, and growing ability, to educate people about healthy eating and giving them greater access to nourishing and affordable fresh food. – John Mackey
Food is intensely pleasurable, and people are afraid that if they change the way they eat, they’ll stop having pleasure. – John Mackey
The way yogurt works is you take the old yogurt culture and you put it in milk. You have to put enough of the old culture in, and then that old culture will convert the milk into yogurt. – John Mackey
A healthy society rests on three pillars: business, government and civil society, or non-profits. Each has a distinct and important role to play, and all three need to work together synergistically to create the most value for society. – John Mackey
I was in my early 20s and open to alternative lifestyles. I thought, ‘I bet you get a lot of attractive, interesting women in a vegetarian co-op.’ – John Mackey
To me, you make a tradeoff. It might be a little bit more expensive. But you’re getting a better tasting, higher quality food that’s going to be better for your health and better for the environment. – John Mackey
The right actions undertaken for the right reasons generally lead to good outcomes over time. – John Mackey
I sometimes think that unions don’t understand that we live in a free society, and people have the right to not select union representation if they don’t want it. – John Mackey
Back then, before the Internet, you had these paper catalogs that you ordered all the food from. So, we flipped through the catalogs, looked up the food we wanted, called them up, and they would show up in trucks. – John Mackey