Doug McMillon

And I said, well, I respect that.

There is a lot of change going on, but we're going to be one of the winners, and I hope to see you soon.

And that was the end of that conversation.

I've seen him a few times since then, but I would never bring that up.

But I wish he'd stayed in, because he would have done well.

We've got to keep prices as low as we possibly can, but also continuing to invest in wages.

You've seen the company do things like pay for college education and books now.

Walmart is investing a lot of money to try and help people move forward and to create meritocracy and to create opportunity for people, paying the truck drivers more, making sure store managers are really well compensated, but also making sure that hourlies have

a cash bonus, and we've also, on more than one occasion as a company, called for an increase in the minimum wage.

You know, Lee Scott did that when he was CEO.

I've done that.

Wages should go up, and we want our wages to go up, and I don't know why we can't create a higher floor on the minimum wage and then index it so that it moves over time and we don't end up in this situation that we're in.

We need a healthy middle class in this country.

I don't get up every day thinking about politics.

I get up every day thinking about how we serve customers better and thinking about our associates.

They're people, though, and these issues matter to them.

And so what happened over a period of years is there were things that occurred where our own associates were like, we want to hear something from you on this subject.

And a number of things happened in a series that led businesses to commenting more often.

And like some things, they can be taken too far.

And we don't have to comment on everything.