John Mackey

And then the next thing they needed me to do was get involved in real estate so we could get really good real estate decisions.

And part of, as the business would grow and I'd let go of things,

One of the things that's difficult to do is let go of things that you really enjoy doing and you're really good at.

But if you keep asking that question, what does the company most need me to do?

It's like, okay, like at one point it needed me to do something I wasn't very good at and didn't want to do, but I knew I needed to do it, which was I needed to be more public facing.

I needed to speak publicly more often.

I needed to tour around to the stores, connect with the team members, connect with suppliers.

I

connect with Wall Street, just be sort of the face of the company.

Hence the media training days.

That's, and I flunked the media training days, exactly.

But nevertheless, and I wasn't very good at it initially, but I practiced it and I got better at it.

Ten times.

Now I'm a very good public speaker.

I'm very relaxed in front of crowds and audiences and stuff.

So anyway, the point is it's changing and evolving over time.

So what was the company most needing me to do?

Well, the last year it most needed me to do was have a really good farewell and hand the reins of power over to my successor with not dropping a baton but doing it in a very skillful way.

Before that, so you might say after Amazon bought the company, what was my most important job?

My most important job there was to, A, protect Whole Foods' culture from Amazon, while at the same time integrating as closely to them as we could to make the business more successful and efficient.