Sarah Nassauer

Why did you apply for that job in the first place?

And this was the summer before you started college?

Walmart had a horrible reputation.

You know, it had a reputation as being a poor employer.

The unions, worker unions were targeting it.

They were protesting on Black Friday in stores.

They were going to Alice Walton, one of the daughters of the founder's apartment in New York City and standing outside.

And it also had a reputation as a seller of cheap stuff.

And so he had to like get the basics of the business heading in a better direction.

For him and executives at the time, the idea was we have to make our stores, like the thing that we have and we make most of our money and profit on, U.S.

stores, super centers, we have to make them better.

So our workers have to be happier.

They have to stick around a little longer.

We have to actually invest in the stores.

And if we can get the store operating better, then we can do this online stuff.

So he and the company's board decided to invest in worker pay.

And there was an announcement just before I started on the beat about, you know, they were going to go up to a minimum of $9 an hour, right, back in 2015.

And eventually they would get up to $14, which is where they are today.

I remember back in 2016, Warren Buffett started to sell his Walmart stock, and I think got out of Walmart by 2018, around there, and got a lot of attention at the time, right?

And at the time, you know, Walmart sales were a little less even, and you were just at the beginning of all of these strategy changes.