Ron Shaich

That's not the part that I actually feel.

That's a byproduct or manifestation of what really was exciting, which is

learning and transforming.

And so over the course of our history, and I can take you through this, but there were three or four, maybe five key learnings that broke maybe every five years that led to massive transformation.

And it was actually getting that

and figuring it out, and seeing it and tasting it, that I loved.

That, to me, was where the real work was, to understand that with empathy, what the opportunity was, and then to have the discipline to go in, not just to understand it, but actually build that into an organization and put that in place.

And we can go all the way back to...

The initiation of my career, I started with a single cookie store in downtown Boston.

That cookie store led to an opportunity to become involved in another company called Au Bon Pain.

Essentially, there were 50,000 people a day walking by that store.

The cookie store.

The cookie store.

Nobody bought cookies before 12 noon.

So we made a decision to put in French baked goods.

We became a licensee of this company called Au Bon Pain.

I didn't know at that time, but Au Bon Pain was really a French bread manufacturer.

They had opened 13 stores and closed 10 of them.

Had about $3 million in debt and were functionally bankrupt.

And I became their licensee in this one square block area in downtown Boston.