John Mackey

Whole Foods bought 23 companies over my time as a CEO.

So I knew a lot about what made a good acquisition.

And you know what an acquiring company wants?

They don't want to hear about how good the good old times were before the acquisition.

They want to hear about the good things that are happening now and how much you like Amazon and the good things Amazon's doing for the company.

They want you to be a good team player.

So I worked hard on that.

I spent a lot of time selling Amazon to Whole Foods people and saying and pointing out like I just did to you a little while ago.

Yeah.

Why this was a good thing for the company.

And so that Whole Foods people would not be rebels, but we'd be good team players.

Right.

I also needed to work with the, you know, I knew any way you sliced it, I was getting older.

I knew at some point my time was going to end.

I always kind of thought it would end after five years.

I thought that's long enough.

Yeah.

And, you know, it was clear to me, by the way, that when Amazon didn't say, oh, John, we don't want you to leave.

Please stay.

We'd like you to have another three-year contract.