The Exchanges

Q Yeah, wow. But that year, something pretty pivotal happened. A property came, came up for sale, I guess, not too far from there. What, tell me the story of, of how, what, what, how'd you find out about this property? What was it?

A So here's the thing. I'm really a messy person. Even today, I'm pretty messy in my office and my desk. Um, so once maybe a month, maybe every couple of weeks, I decide that I'm going to organize my desk. I'm just going to go through all the documents, all the papers, all the letters, you know, and you open the envelope. Sometimes you don't even open the envelope. You look at the Where is it coming from? And you know, this is, somebody's trying to sell cars, somebody tried to sell mortgage, somebody tried to sell credit card, whatever that is, you know, those junk mails, and you just tear them off and put them in there. And every once in a while, you see an interesting envelope. So I come to this one, and I open the envelope. I don't know where it comes from, of course, so it's interesting. I open it, I look at it. It's literally an ad. Um, it says, fully equipped yogurt plant for sale.

AI assessment note: “It's literally an ad. Um, it says, fully equipped yogurt plant for sale.”

Q for people like you, for ethnic Kurds, and, and you became a bit of a, of a political activist at the time. You, you were, I guess, even involved with some, uh, left wing and, and socialist groups, um, which I, I guess made you feel like, like Turkey at the time, um, Wasn't the right place for you to live, and, and so you decided to leave the country?

A Yeah, exactly. I thought, okay, I'll go to Europe just because everybody else did at the time, and I had a passport, luckily, so I was thinking like I would go to France, I would go to Germany, or somewhere around in Europe, and I was talking to my friend, a stranger, who, I shouldn't say stranger, it's a person, when I helped my brother in his stores, he would come every evening around five, 36 o'clock, this guy with a glass, serious looking guy, You know, maybe in his fifties, um, he would come and buy small things like eggs and tomatoes and some meat and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. That guy heard me saying to my friend that I'm going to go to Europe. He just said, don't be stupid. Go to America. Hmm. And I remember telling him, why would I ever go to a capitalist, imperialist, you know, country that has done all these bad, you know, that typical, you know, the language. Um, he said, you think Europe is good? Go to America, and if you don't like it, you can always go to your Europe. So I dismissed him. I said, get your eggs and meat and go to your place, and I'll see you tomorrow. Um, That night, I couldn't sleep. I, I thought about what that guy said. Now, I had no knowledge of America, other than what I saw in movies and TVs. So I waited that day, the next day, until that guy showed up. And I put him on the side, and I said, tell me more. Um, how do you know America? How …

AI assessment note: “Yeah, exactly. I thought, okay, I'll go to Europe just because everybody else did”

Q Yeah, it's not possible. You can't scale that, right?

A Yeah. So, the first eye-opening for me was, I called this distributor in Syracuse, and he says, can I come and show you some fat? I said, sure, come. And I go, and I show him, he says, okay, I'll buy it from you. And I'm like, wow. You know, I feel like, ah, this is cool. Um, I said, how much you buy is, is two pallets. A week? No. Every other month? Oh God. I mean. Two pallets every other month is nothing. Fraction of, it's nothing. It's basically, so how many of these people I have to have to be able to even pay for my expenses? It is, at this point, I'm saying, what an F I did now. Like, what'd I get myself into?

AI assessment note: “Two pallets every other month is nothing. Fraction of, it's nothing.”

Q So you basically came to the U.S. under this, uh, on this program to learn English, to study, and you, and where did you, where did you land? Where did you arrive to?

A So I go to this lady, and she said, okay, so you want to go learn English? I said, yes, and she says, where do you want to go in America? I said, I don't know. So she opened this map, and she was telling me, and I remember like yesterday, oh, I have school in Boston, I have a school in Delaware, I have school in New York, and she was going on, I said, ok, stop New York, New York is good. And then she opened up another map and says, where in New York? I have few schools in New York. And that was the first time I realized New York is not a city, it's a state.

AI assessment note: “I said, ok, stop New York, New York is good.”

Q take stances on hot button issues because they just want to focus on their brand. And oftentimes that's a good Decision, right? You just, like, we just want people to buy Coke and Pepsi. Like, don't, don't ask me what our politics are. But you decided we're going to actually stand for these things that there's lots of people in America aren't happy about. So why? I mean, it's risky.

A Um, I look at from the human perspective side of it. I said, why can't we do things that is good for the society and community? And yet, I can prove the only reason Chobani is extremely successful, if it is, is because of those angles. I didn't follow the craft route. I followed the, the kid from, you know, from Kurdish mountains, I believe, mixed with the farmers in that community, and say, you know what, let's open the doors, let's open the windows, let's open the walls that people can come in and participate. And be part of the success that you built. But never ever in my statements, I have said something that I have not implemented into my own place for years and prove that this works before I go, I have a credential to go out and talk about it.

AI assessment note: “the only reason Chobani is extremely successful, if it is, is because of those angles.”

Q So you basically came to the U.S. under this, ah, on this program to learn English, to study, and you, and where did you, where did you land? Where did you arrive to?

A So I go to this lady, and she said, okay, so you want to go learn English? I said, yes, and she says, where do you want to go in America? I said, I don't know. So she opened this map, and she was telling me, and I remember like yesterday, oh, I have school in Boston, I have a school in Delaware, I have school in New York, and she was going on, I said, okay, stop New York, New York is good. And then she opened up another map and says, where in New York? I have few schools in New York. And that was the first time I realized New York is not a city, it's a state. Right. So she had a school in Albany, she had a school in Manhattan, and I remember saying that, you know, those big buildings and big town, big city, not in there, but Not too far from there either. So she said, okay, I got you, and two weeks later I had received the acceptance form, and this whole thing happened within a month, and I went back to my hometown where I grew up, and my mom was there, and I spent a week there with my mother, and probably one of the hardest Goodbye of my life. Um, my mom was old now, she couldn't go up in the mountains anymore, that this is the time where you start seeing snow up in the, you know, summits of the mountains in a, in a, and you know this is the time that the families are coming back. And, um, and I dropped her in the hospital where she needed to have a checkup in, in, in the town…

AI assessment note: “stop New York, New York is good. And then she opened up another map”