Why true success goes beyond profit with Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Chris Anderson:
Hello there. This is Chris Anderson. Welcome to The TED interview. In this season of The TED interview, we're diving into an idea I've become obsessed by infectious generosity. So far in the season, we've learned about generosity through the lens of psychology, art, philanthropy, and online community building, but today we're focusing on the role that business might play.

Now, many people's reactions to business, certainly to capitalism in general, is that it's the antithesis to generosity. It's all about greed, about maximizing shareholder returns, but I've become intrigued by the growing number of voices out there seeing a different possibility for business, that there are compelling ways in which businesses can actually embrace generosity in various different forms and still thrive.

Our guest today has been a pioneer in this way of thinking. He's Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Chobani, a wildly successful yogurt company. Hamdi attributes that success in large part to the fact that he's anchored his company around kindness, both to his employees and to the community at large. He came and spoke at TED a few years ago outlining what he called The Anti CEO Playbook, his guidelines for turning traditional business thinking on its head, so I honestly can't wait to dig into every aspect of this.

[00:01:43] Chris Anderson:
Hamdi Ulukaya, welcome to The TED Interview.

[00:01:46] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Thank you Chris.

[00:01:47] Chris Anderson:
Now, Hamdi, it is pretty clear from your life story that you have a strong moral code. Where did that come from?

[00:01:54] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Thank you. I come from Northeastern part of Turkey, Chris, and I guess even today there's not a date that I don't go back in my mind to where I grew up.

Northeast of Turkey, mountainous rivers, Euphrates River starts up there. I'll say, if you live in the US, Colorado climate, and we are Kurdish nomad, so tribal lifestyle, we come down to town for the harshness of winter and stay in town and protect the animals. That's my background. Tribal, uh, that's where I grew up.

But in there, there was a lifestyle, meaning when you are up in the mountains, you really don't have law. You don't have police, you don't have judges, you don't have, you know, protections. So there are social norms are extremely effective on how order continues in that living. So the honor, dignity, you know.

The trust awards, you know, the, the social controls were, were very, very live and active, especially where I grew up. Really, wealth didn't matter much. What mattered the most is the respect, you know, the value that other, other human qualities that you had that collectively, everyone gave you that kind of respect.

[00:03:08] Chris Anderson:
I've noticed in a lot of parts of the world where there are harsh living conditions, that hospitality becomes an absolutely core value.

[00:03:16] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah.

[00:03:16] Chris Anderson:
I'm guessing that there, there are quite strong.

[00:03:18] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Very strong

[00:03:18] Chris Anderson:
Missions there of just breaking bread with each other and building relationships this way.

[00:03:22] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Exactly. These are very powerful. I think all throughout the humanity, everywhere you go, these are known values. Now the question is. Okay. These are ordinary people. They're farmers. They're, they're shepherds. You know, I guess there's not a capitalism alive in there, right? And I hated business, so I never thought, even when I arrived to U.S., I never thought I would be in the field of business.

I literally hated it. Living in a Kurdish community knowing that certain problems we are facing in society while I was in Turkey and knowing what's happening, you know, globally, third world countries and poverty and all that kind of stuff. It was a common belief and I think there is truth to it. That business was for us to blame.

[00:04:06] Chris Anderson:
So your story ended up taking a different approach to business. I mean, you described in your TED Talk how you were in upstate New York. You heard about this abandoned yogurt factory that had been closed down, and for some mad reason you decided you would go and check it out. Just give us a few highlights from that story that led to your founding Chobani.

[00:04:29] Hamdi Ulukaya:
I am here right now in very close to that factory. Five minutes from here. I'm, it was an ad. And the ad said, fully equipped yogurt plant for sale, and I am making a small cheese factories making some feta cheese in about an hour and a half from where the factory was for some reason, I went back to the garbage, picked it up, rid it again, called the numbers, and the next day went to the factory and I don't know what was, you know what was calling me.

I think that headline, fully equipped yogurt plant for sale. It's a sad statement. Abandoning, it's like leaving, and I have seen this before. A lot, you know, in my previous lives went in there and the sadness that sometimes I lived in in the small town I grew up like somebody died in the Euphrates River.

And there's something in the air that by for weeks, it's always there. There's this heavy sadness in the air. Some important family left. I felt the same energy when I arrived to this town. And, and so that factory, and you realize that this plant is getting closed and there are about 55 factory workers that worked in that factory used to be maybe 200, 250, but this is the tail end of it, and they're closing the factory, and that's in the air.

That's that heaviness, that sadness in the air, and I'm walking the factory. I. And it is a ruin. It is like a hundred years old, I dunno, 70, 80, and you're going through all these labyrinths and tick walls and the equipment one after another one.

And the person who was showing me is 25 years there. But the one clear feeling came out of me after that is anger. Somebody's just leaving it, somebody's just shutting it down. Now I'm not, I just got there. I'm not angry because of them, but I'm just seeing it exactly the same thing that what I would see when I grew up and making the connections and I'm living the same emotion and again, at the same time I'm looking at it.

But there are a lot of good things in here. You know, these people are still working their best in the last days to close this place in a, you know, in a dignity way. I said, wow, if these people are closing this way, what if they will start this? What would they do?

[00:06:53] Chris Anderson:
So without any experience of running a big business or really even a super clear vision about what this might be, you just felt that you wanted to go for this and you somehow raised some money to actually buy this thing.

[00:07:03] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah.

[00:07:03] Chris Anderson:
I mean, they weren't selling it for very expensively, right?

[00:07:07] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah.

[00:07:07] Chris Anderson:
'Cause it was being shut down.

[00:07:08] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah. So, so the guy said it's $700,000, as in real estate and I'm leaving from there. And the minute I left, I called the person, I called my attorney, it was an attorney in town and I said, Mario, this place I, I really wanna buy it.

I think I can do something with this. The guy said to me, the largest food company in the world is closing this place and they're getting out of yogurt business. So he says, who the hell are you? What do you think you are? Even use some harsh words that you could do something with this. The second thing is that you don't have the money.

I mean, you haven't even paid me in the last six months, and these are two crazy things, but a couple of months later, I had this key in this place. Yeah. And this is now these four factory workers in there and myself, this old broken place, quiet. And across the street there is a biker's bar and they're making all kinds of jokes.

You know, who's this crazy people are? And it's lonely. And I knew I would make yogurt, but not, not more than that. Yeah

[00:08:11] Chris Anderson:
I mean, at some point you must have had an idea that the yogurt you grew up with in your opinion tasted a lot better?

[00:08:20] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Oh yes.

[00:08:20] Chris Anderson:
Than most yogurt.

[00:08:21] Hamdi Ulukaya:
A hundred percent. They're like, this is lousy yogurt and if I make the one that I grew up with, I am a hundred percent sure they will love it. There's no way. I was very convinced that yeah, they had yogurt bad.

[00:08:34] Chris Anderson:
I mean, most American yogurt has a lot of sugar in it, right? Traditionally.

[00:08:37] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Somehow somebody made this lie that Americans won't eat yogurt unless it's very sweet.

And then that sweet went to, you know, a couple of degree deeper into some sugar palms and, and that's what introduced the country. And when I started. It was, average yogurt cup would have almost 40 grams sugar.

[00:08:57] Chris Anderson:
40 grams. That's like, that's like what? Like seven or eight teaspoons, right? Or more.

[00:09:01] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah, I mean forties, about 10 sugar cubes. It’s crazy.

[00:09:06] Chris Anderson:
You had an inkling that there might be a better way to make yogurt and you kind of fell in love with these people. It seems like a bit like you were angry that they'd been let go and started to work with them to figure out what you might do. And was there, was there a key aha moment where you suddenly thought, wait a sec, we actually can do something here.

[00:09:26] Hamdi Ulukaya:
But I got the key for the place. There was a manager and I said, if I wanted to turn this place back on, what do you think I need? He says, well, you need these four people because there's no manuals. These are the four people. They can turn this place back on because they know where the switches are. I said, okay.

So we hired those four people. I said to them, would you join us? And the first board meeting we had was, Mike is the maintenance guy who retired and came back. Rich is the production guy. Maria has been there on answering calls and getting all this needed stuff for the last 20 years. And Frank, the, the wastewater guy and myself we're sitting around the table and he said, what we going to do next?

So now I, these are the guys, it's something horrible happened to them. The community's upside down. They're looking at this Turkish guy. And doesn't seem like he's got a lot of money, doesn't seem like he has a lot of experiences and they're going to make a life decision based on how they see me doing this.

And I told them, we are going to go to the hardware store and we're going to buy some paints and we're gonna print the wall outside. And the guy said, Hamdi, we have not painted those walls for the last 20 years. And basically he was saying that. Do you have any other ideas than this idea? I think one of the biggest moments for us, we painted those walls outside.

I don't know in that moment that just came to me.

[00:10:56] Chris Anderson:
Why did that work? Was it just the bonding between you that happened as a result of the painting, or was there almost a statement of intent by saying, we are not going to be an old beaten up factory, we're gonna be a fantastic, modern, gleaming, beautiful plant, and that, that very statement in a way became self-fulfilling.

[00:11:16] Hamdi Ulukaya:
You know, that was all for me. I, I think that was all for me. You know, I wasn't trying to make a statement to those four people there. They needed to do something really dramatic for them to be convinced that this thing is gonna go in the right place. I think I was making those to myself and basically saying, I know I'm gonna make this place work.

I know this is going to work, or I'm the, but I wanna make sure that the standards of this place are in this high quality and in the second dimension of it came to me later on is I might not have all the answers, but I'm not gonna sit around and wonder and be sorry for myself and worry. I'm just gonna do something that I know what to do at that moment.

And that was one of the things that came to my mind to paint. And basically that, that became a Chobani thing. This is, let's start painting the walls. The, the challenges that we are facing is massive. The answers we don't have and the only way to go at it. The only way to start to fix it or begin to have a solution is you start from somewhere

[00:12:19] Chris Anderson:
And presumably at some point you tried using the equipment that was in there to see if you could make a different kind of yogurt, the sort of thicker, less sweet version that you liked.

How long did that take, and was there a moment there when you had people taste this yogurt where they go, we like this a lot.

[00:12:35] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah, that was 2007. Expo West. I have a timber by 10 boots and I'm showing this first time to the world and, and in March of 2007, people said, we love this a lot. Can we get it? And that moment I said, okay, product worked.

Now how are we gonna make this as a business work? So that's the launch. 2007. By 2012, we were a billion in sales.

[00:13:04] Chris Anderson:
Basically, which is, which is incredible. I mean, most people in that situation will be obsessed with one thing only, which is trying to keep that growth happening and building. But at some point you decided that key to what you were doing was to, for want of a better word, be generous to your employees to talk about who you hired.

How much you paid them and why that mattered to you.

[00:13:28] Hamdi Ulukaya:
So we are the smallest county in New York state. It's the more distance from anywhere in the central New York and half an hour away from where we are is Cooperstown. Cooperstown is Baseball Hall of Fame, you know, very important small town in America.

And when you go there, you see everything is the most beautiful form, right? The children comes from all across the country. There's baseball fields, they're all colored and nightlights and stores, and it's, everything is beautiful. And then you go half an hour east of that place, you know, the, the kids are playing in the mud these houses are for sale, businesses are being shut down.

And that's, that's the crack, that's the distance between these two places. And when I started. I always thought if the plant comes up and if people come and work, and if the income gets in, if the contractors has jobs and working around the plant, and then everything could be lifted in these places and it could get closer to the next town.

The first thing came to me. Is when Cassie, my assistant at the time, said Hamdi, the town is looking for money to fix the little league field, and she showed me some pictures. The pictures, there's no field, it's just a grass and you know, basically mud. The first project I did is I said, what if we come together and we design a field and built the little league field, maybe the one even better than Cooperstown with the lights and all that kind of stuff.

The beginning of everything was the building that field. So basically electricians, the earth movers, the construction people, everybody come together. Little businesses in the community myself, and we design, built this little league field for the children of that time. And they had all the uniforms and we had retired baseball players came in and it was the first time anyone has ever asked me to sign something for them and, and I didn't realize the kids were asking me to sign their jerseys.

And it was one of the most amazing moment of my life seeing those children playing in that field in the nighttime with the lights and their parents proudly watching. And it was the first time I realized the power of business.

[00:15:49] Chris Anderson:
So very early in the company's growth.

[00:15:49] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Very, very early.

[00:15:51] Chris Anderson:
So it wasn't like you were rolling in profits then

[00:15:51] Hamdi Ulukaya:
No, no, no.

[00:15:53] Chris Anderson:
Or anything like that?

[00:15:53] Hamdi Ulukaya:
No.

[00:15:55] Chris Anderson:
But was there something in your head of saying, look, all of this fits together, that if I'm to recruit the people I want, if they're to be motivated the way I want them to, it's all part of bringing life back to this community.

[00:16:07] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Exactly.

[00:16:08] Chris Anderson:
That it's all connected.

[00:16:09] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Then you can make sparks like this every day.

Then I believe in this business, like I was very convinced this, this was not a side things, but moment like this, you can experience large or small every day while you're making this yogurt, while you're making, conducting this business. And that was very eye-opening to me. I didn't realize until that moment that this is what I was gonna get addicted to.

And of course then it expanded into all kinds of dimensions. The employees, like for example, I always been extremely passionate about the working class to have access to wealth that has been generated by businesses like it shouldn't be only small portion of the people gets all the benefits. But I am new and I don't know if this is gonna be successful.

I don't want to give so much hope to the people, then later on become a burden on decision making, you know, on taking risks. But when I felt like it was perfect and it stayed in my head for almost five years, six years, and then finally I, no, no, no. Today is 10% of Chobani's shares is divided among all the employees in the company.

And the point I was making there is this is not a gift. This is the recognition. What, you know, what this belongs to. And the people who work with me all these times really built it with me. Of course, I was there, I was making decision. I was leading the company, but without all these people's hard work and sacrifice wouldn't be possible.

For me it was just a recognition. You know, later on when we were expanding our workforce. I think I was the second person in the community with accent after Frank, who's from Sicily and they had never exposed to anyone from outside. And then Utica is another town about 45 minutes from us here. And that's a place where the refugees being settled and they were having hard time finding jobs.

And we are expanding, we are hiring. And I went to the refugee centers and that started my journey with hiring immigrants and refugees that settled and might not have the language or transportation or job training, but yet finding a way to include them in the growth of the business. 25, 30% of the employees of Chobani becomes refugees and immigrants, and basically that human dimension, meaning all employees, all communities within Chobani's operated areas made me think that this impact can go a little bit wider and larger, and later on I start putting myself into out there too.

[00:18:43] Chris Anderson:
So for most business leaders and the kind of circumstances you are in, and in fact most business leaders in general, might argue that your hiring policy should be to pay people.

The least you can compatible with being able to hire the right people, you know, pay what the market demands, so to speak. In the case of manufacturing workers where you were, that would typically have meant paying people at almost in a minimum wage. In some cases, people got away with paying less. What was your strategy and why wasn't that your strategy?

[00:19:14] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah, the people elements in the business as an investment, because anytime you look at paying people less, you know, help business. That's not the right way to approach. You wanna pay your business people, right? Train them right? Give them, you know, autonomy to be able to make decisions.

And that's the participation in the business and that's how much it affected the business. I, I believe in that, in the number one, especially when you're making food, you know, food is, people are making with their hand the emotions, who they are and how they feel, and how much attention they pay, and loyalty and all that kind of stuff.

I really didn't do it. This is good for business perspective. If I have a job, a decent job. That should be a source of me having a good human living with my family, with my children, and I shouldn't be worrying about if I'm gonna make the end of the week or end of the month with this, it, it, it's basically that consciousness because I come from that background and every calculation you make and I made at that time is okay, but how do I retire?

How do I retire? How do I pay for my kids' college tuition? How do I take care of if somebody gets sick? Like, what, what do I do? And if you make a simple five minutes, 10 minutes calculation, there is no way, uh, you have an asset. There's no way. So you have to come up with a solution. Basically, my solution was, is if I can avoid having partners, 'cause then it's only my decision, it's not anybody else's decisions.

So for me, the board was me, myself, and I. And all that decision I made in that flash, you know, you're on the go. How I make the food, what kind of impact and work we do in society and the community. That would be my decision along with the executive team, not necessarily outside.

[00:21:02] Chris Anderson:
So what I hear you saying there is that if someone out there is listening and they, they want to build a business that is anchored in human values and is as generous as possible to both employees and maybe the community, be careful who your investors are, who your partners are.

[00:21:18] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yes.

[00:21:18] Chris Anderson:
That may make it very hard for you to realize that vision.

[00:21:33] Chris Anderson:
Many people can't build a business without bringing in other investors and partners. And it seems to me Hamdi like you created this Anti CEO playbook where if I understood it right from what you said at the TED Talk, it was that if you treat people well.

[00:21:50] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Right.

[00:21:50] Chris Anderson:
If you give them ownership, if you are fair as employer, you'll certainly get a return on that kindness.

[00:21:57] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yes.

[00:21:58] Chris Anderson:
Do you really believe that? Is that really true? 'Cause if that's true, then ultimately it should be possible to persuade other investors, for example, that this is an enlightened approach to business. How confident are you that it's true and not just true in the sort of specific circumstances of the type of business you've built here, but it can be true more broadly in business?

[00:22:21] Hamdi Ulukaya:
I believe in this wholeheartedly, in every cell in my body. And if it's done really meaningfully, I'm making yogurt. I'm providing good food for people, but at the same time, I'm making a change. I'm, I'm, I'm part of a, something bigger, something greater, and that is, I'm so proud. That is also enriching my life in all dimension.

And I can share with my family and I can share with my community. It's a belonging. And that doesn't happen. I'm going to maximize shareholders' profit.

[00:22:58] Chris Anderson:
One thing that's interesting to me is that in many ways it's a traditional business. You've got a plant, you've got people producing a product. In some ways, I mean I've, I've argued in my book that in knowledge age companies, it's even easier to make this point because value is created very clearly by brilliant minds of your people.

If they're not inspired by your company's mission, if they think your company is basically exploitative, the best of those people are likely to leave. And so.

[00:23:28] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah.

[00:23:28] Chris Anderson:
As business if you like, depends more and more on not the non-material value creation, that it should be possible to make this argument land even more powerfully.

And the fact that you've been able to make it land in a situation where many of your employees would, in other circumstances be paid minimum wage. Now, this is very, very hopeful. How have your discussions gone with other people? Have you been able to persuade what a CEO playbook should look like?

[00:23:54] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah, I mean, the biggest response usually from the distance would be, hey, it's easy to do it in a private environment.

Right? Let me see how you do it in a public company environment. The other one is, it's easy to do it when you're small. I mean, Chobani is not that small anymore, but compared to hundreds of billions of dollars company, you know, it's a smaller company. Of course. This idea of social enterprise. Generous business stakeholder, business model, not, you know, shareholders, you know, conscious capitalism.

This has been explored in the last, I don't know, maybe the last 10 years in a very high level. Just before pandemic. It was getting into the height of it and you know, it is new. You know, people are wandering around this. You know, what's the role of business? What kind of businesses should we be building?

What kind of businesses should be valuing and based on what you look at it, the stock market is good. Economy is good, everything is good, and every time you get in a tough times, this idea just thrown away. And so it hasn't survived. A hundred percent, Chris, that people are convinced as a shareholder or board member that companies committing to humanity at large or society or employees and making that is extreme priority.

And in the end, that being priority means business success, return for the shareholders and innovations and growth and et cetera, et cetera. That idea hasn't been proven yet.

[00:25:27] Chris Anderson:
Hmm. You've had a chance to test some of your thinking in another company. You've recently acquired a coffee company. Tell us about that and whether you've been able to apply some of your principles and whether there's been any sign that that has worked.

[00:25:41] Hamdi Ulukaya:
It's called La Calombe. La Colombe Coffee. It's a smaller. 30 years old. I just received it to Chobani now. We adjusted all the employees and baristas wages to Chobani level, amazing brands. Massive, massive knowledge on coffee and sourcing, and this is a another opportunity for us, something that haven't done before.

Again, you know, we are in a very luxurious place. Like we as a company today, for example, probably I would put Chobani's performance against any CPG company. From the growth, speed of innovation, we make a hundred percent of our product ourself. You know, from the economic margins and all that kind of stuff.

We would be probably in par of any other successful companies that you would think of.

[00:26:25] Chris Anderson:
Mm-Hmm. What are your total sales now?

[00:26:27] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Close to 3 billion.

[00:26:29] Chris Anderson:
Yeah. Yeah. Not, not a small.

[00:26:30] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Not not, not small anymore. And and, and basically it's very successful and all of, because of it, early decisions that we made. Let's paint the walls, let's build little league field and let's make sure that other people can come join us and let's make sure that this is company is not about maximizing profit.

And let's bring. You know, goodness to people's life.

[00:26:53] Chris Anderson:
I mean, you talk in your Anti CEO Playbook about a three-pronged strategy of doing right. With your people, with your community, and with product. And I'm, I'm guessing for, for other, some of the companies, you'd extend that idea of, of doing right by your community to things like environmental responsibility, you know, don't exploit the planet.

Those, those kinds of things.

[00:27:13] Hamdi Ulukaya:
A hundred percent. Yeah.

[00:27:14] Chris Anderson:
There's a lot of anger right now in America about undocumented workers. Are people missing something and how they should think about what they can bring to the country?

[00:27:25] Hamdi Ulukaya:
You know, I've been in this for a while with refugees, as you know. I, after I started refugee work in the company and then started Tent.

[00:27:34] Chris Anderson:
Tent is a nonprofit organization working on behalf of refugees.

[00:27:37] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah. So the basic idea is, you know, there are millions of refugees around the world. Some of them legally settled in U.S., some of them Europe, some of them, you know, other parts of the world, and. When they settled, uh, or moved to safety, they're stuck. They're basically stuck in towns and villages or in camps and encouraging companies to hire them as long as they have right to work.

So that's what happened at Chobani and that's what we started Tent and Tent is now organized about 14 countries all around the world and you know, basically about over 430 multinational big companies as members, and all we do is practice hiring, training, advocating for refugees, wherever they are.

So that's basically a topic that I've been involved for longest time. Now you have this border thing going on, which is, you know, I've been in the borders where there is conflict, like I've been in the border of lately, Poland and Ukraine, or Columbia and Venezuela, or Greece and Turkey, or you know, Syria and, and, and Jordan.

These are conflict borders. The refugees are passing to a safety. Then there is this migration or economic migration, our southern border, there are some refugees, like people are applying for, you know, asylum like Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, some Cubans, but then there are enormous amount of economic migration, that's just not healthy.

I've been in the border here too, in Texas, seeing people, mothers and children being abused, going through this harsh journey. Some of them never making it. It's, it's not good for anyone. Now that's one side of, at the same time, enormous amount of need for labor in this country. Especially, you know, if you look at farmers and, and, and service industry, basically, there is a need to reform this, that legal pathways for seasonal workforce or you know, long-term workforce, be able to come in legally under the visa humane treatment.

And then they can go back or they can stay, whichever the law is, allows or, or desire is there. But this is chaotic, this is bad from all dimensions and, and I think one of the ways to solve this is internally, there has to be immigration, you know, reform or policymaker needs to work on this.

The second one is if in the long term the businesses can go to Guatemala, businesses can go to Colombia, businesses can go to the, the, the Central America and that region and bring hope to those areas and investment, and I think post pandemic world is reemerging.

I think you'll see a lot of businesses showing a lot of interest on the southern borders.

[00:30:33] Chris Anderson:
Okay. Your story is extraordinary. For someone else who's maybe thinking of building a business or maybe they're already in a business, they're, you know, CEO, but open to some of your thinking, what advice would you give them if you just had to distill it down, what would you say to them?

[00:30:48] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Chris, I think the best thing I can do is share what I learned along my journey and in there some specifics to the entrepreneurs who are studying this. So I started Chobani Food Incubator. In that idea is basically pick maybe dozen of startup companies and founders, especially the founders, bring them to Chobani, open all the doors for four months, give them some seed money, not to take anything back and just open everything and so they can see, learn, and so they don't have to make mistakes that we have made mistakes or use the things that we have come to a conclusion that is valuable.

And I think sharing that is extremely important. And in there I come back to the couple of things and one is, look, the product you make today might change. That's no problem. That's no problem. What's the most important thing is who is that person? You know? Who is that person? What's his soul center?

What's he or she's thinking? Why are you doing this? What's bothering you? Like, what's bothering you? What do you wanna change? Something is burning inside. You can tell. What is it? There are a couple of advice I give is your product has to be right. It has to be perfect. The part is buy my product, not because I do good in the world, buy my product because it's the best damn product there is.

And then there's a richer story after, and that's where you find out, oh my God, what this company does for the employees. Oh my God, what this company does for the community, oh my God, what the ingredients the company use.

And it just gets richer and richer and richer, but product has to be right. You know, I I, I always tell them,

[00:32:27] Chris Anderson:
You can't just do all this on soft values. There needs to be an absolutely.

[00:32:31] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Absolutely.

[00:32:31] Chris Anderson:
You know, exciting, hardcore there as to why someone is in, and I loved what you said about, you know, a lot of people think maybe they, they would like to be an entrepreneur and so forth, but I mean, you, you know, when an entrepreneur is really on fire, when they cannot not do what they want to do, it's different.

[00:32:50] Hamdi Ulukaya:
It's very different. It's very different.

[00:32:53] Chris Anderson:
It's hard, it's hard to do this, right.

[00:32:55] Hamdi Ulukaya:
It's very hard.

[00:32:56] Chris Anderson:
People, most businesses don't work. It's just, it's very, very hard to get all the pieces to connect in a competitive world and all the rest of it. And I think the, the large majority people actually never do that, which doesn't mean it's not worth trying.

[00:33:10] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Yeah, a hundred percent and those hard days, you know, within days, maybe sometimes within weeks you survive or not. And those critical times comes in really time where you strength, internal strength is matters, but most importantly, who do you have around you? Because you know, good days, a lot of people around you and all high fives like truly.

What's your support system? In those critical times, and I tell this story all the time. I had my mom's scarf that traditional Turkish villages scarf, when she had it, when she passed, and I hold it under my hat. I always wear a hat. That was my support system. It's like if I do something wrong, I can always rely on that spirit.

The second part I did in early days, I brought everybody, I think it was at the time, about 200 people into conference room and all the security and people work on the floor and forklifts and everybody. Some of them are big guys and all that. Everybody came the floor. I said, I think we are in a very magical journey.

I think this thing is gonna be really big. I think this is gonna be very interesting. I'm really, really excited, but I'm also very worried that this was my exact words. I said, I don't have family, I don't have any relatives here. I don't have a lot of friends here. And I said, you guys know me quite a bit.

At any point, if you see me change, if you see me behave like a big shot or a rich guy, or something that I see on the TV, if that happens to me because I didn't trust that I could handle the success, I am giving permission to every single one of you to hit me on the face, punch me on the face in the hardest way and say, shake me up.

And I said, this is a ask, and this is a request, but this is also an order. The journey. I said, and I, I said it this, I said, because of this, five years from now, 10 years, we're gonna, now we're gonna look back and we say, we missed it, we ruined it. Or look what we have done.

[00:35:27] Chris Anderson:
Well, I can only imagine. Some people are hearing this thinking, wow, I would have liked to have had you or someone very like you as a boss.

That was a beautiful, that's a beautiful way to end this, Hamdi, thank you so much for your inspiration. Thank you for your yogurt, for that matter. But thank you for your inspiration. I really wish you well in carrying this idea out into the business world more broadly.

[00:35:48] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Thank you, Chris. I'm so honored to be with you and, and thank you for the work.

I mean, you're the champion of this idea, of this generosity on all dimension and finding solution. There's enough wealth, there's enough resources, there's enough intelligence, and most importantly, how do we bring them all together? Create a community, create a movement, and thank you so much and thanks for having me.

[00:36:10] Chris Anderson:
All right. Excellent. Hamdi Ulukaya. Thank you.

[00:36:13] Hamdi Ulukaya:
Thank you.

[00:36:17] Chris Anderson:
Okay. That's about it for today. If you like what you heard, please consider sharing with others. Voices like Hamdi's deserve to go viral and you can help consider it your own act of infectious generosity. And if you'd like to dig deeper into all of this, please consider reading my book, Infectious Generosity.

Or listening to it. We're able to offer it for free. To all TED Interview listeners, thanks to a generous donor, just head over to. ted.com/generosity and you can redeem either the ebook or the audiobook right there. One other thing you might like to try to do is to check out our generosity AI.

It's called TIGG, the Infectious Generosity Guru. You can find TIGG at infectiousgenerosity.org. TIGG will help you brainstorm your own acts of infectious generosity. Really, really fun to play with, and actually quite surprising what can come out of that creativity. All right. Well, next week we're speaking to John Sweeney, whose creative approach to paying it forward has transformed coffee shops around the world.

John is wonderful as well. The TED interview is part of the TED Audio Collective. A collection of podcasts dedicated to sparking curiosity and sharing ideas that matter. This episode was produced by Jess Shane. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Grace Rubenstein, Banban Cheng, Michelle Quint, Roxanne Hai Lash, and Daniella Balarezo.

The show is mixed by Sarah Bruguiere. Thanks so much for listening. Catch you next time.