A biography for John Mackeyhasn’t been written yet.
“I reject the premise that liberal and libertarian values are necessarily in conflict. In fact, I often self-identify as a 'classical liberal.'”
“The great thing about a culture is that once you really get it going, it evolves on its own. It's self-organizing. It's dynamic. It just feeds on itself.”
“While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.”
“Message boards are like going to a Halloween masquerade party. Everybody has a screen name.”
“We've always tried to be good citizens in the communities that we do business in.”
“If you're growing very rapidly, it doesn't matter if you make mistakes, in a way, because the growth kind of bails you out.”
“I like games that are complex - the deeper you get into the game, the more there is to learn.”
“Use the energy that fear creates to focus the mind more intently on the present moment - where fear doesn't exist.”
“Some of the greatest businesses operating from a deeper purpose have a real commitment to service, like Four Seasons, Joie de Vivre hotels, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue.”
“At Whole Foods, we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund.”
“I've always thought the main argument for organic was more environmental than a health argument. I just don't think spraying a lot of pesticides into the environment on a routine basis is a good thing.”
“What I know is that we no longer have free enterprise capitalism in health care; it's not a system any longer where people are able to innovate. It's not based on voluntary exchange. The government is directing it.”
“I kind of have this sense of mission now when we talk about success: I'd really like Whole Foods to contribute to the healing of America, and the success of that may be measured in decades rather than in months, but I think we're on the way to doing it.”
“As a company grows, its purpose grows with it. It has the potential to evolve your purpose.”
“I would say you have an ethical obligation to pay the taxes that you owe, but you don't have an ethical obligation to pay taxes that you don't owe. In fact, you should be seeking ways to legally minimise your taxes.”
“Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter, it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges.”
“I used to boast that Whole Foods was sort of recession-proof. And obviously I've been proven wrong. So I'm not boasting about that any longer.”
“Good leaders need to be able to connect to all of those around them. This is especially true at Whole Foods, where we have a very team-oriented culture.”
“Free enterprise capitalism has been the most powerful creative system of social cooperation and human progress ever conceived, but its perception and its role in society have been distorted.”
“You have to understand: the narrative that people have about business and capitalism is that they are fundamentally selfish, greedy, and exploitative. Of course, I don't agree with that narrative.”