The Exchanges

Q Yeah, I'm using it for the dinner party. I'm sorry. The chef's gonna go crazy. I'm like, I gotta make 12 of these? Alright, so tell me about the vision and vision. Tell me about how you will rule this out across the United States.

A Yeah. Like you said there, we started in northern New Jersey. We're moving into Westchester. Then we'll roll it out to the rest of the tri-state area, and then start exploring new cities and new, new suburbs around those cities. It's going to take probably, you know, 10 to 15 years to roll it out across the country. It's not something you do in just a couple years. But we also, you know, outside of the mobile restaurants, we do have other adjacent businesses that are Simultaneously being built. The big vision is for wonder to be the go-to solution for mealtime. Anytime you want to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, any price point, any day of the week. And so that means that, you know, it can't be just mobile restaurants pulling up to your door. We need to make meals that are ready to eat and cook in your own oven or even meal kits where on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you're not spending 70 dollars. You might want to spend 20. Um, and so we really do want to hit every occasion. And we've already got the customers on the app. And so on a marginal basis, it's very profitable to sell other things like meal kits and ready to eat meals.

AI assessment note: “we started in northern New Jersey. We're moving into Westchester.”

Q Yeah. Um, how were you at school as a kid? Were you good in school?

A No, I wasn't good at school. I, I definitely had some, you know, my parents used to fight all the time. It was like a, it was rough growing up. I didn't focus on school at all. My parents, I was the first person to go to a four-year college, and my parents didn't really know much about school. My mom went back to get her high school diploma. You know, they got married when my dad was 20, she was 19, had me less than a year later. Yeah, it was, I, I didn't do homework. I didn't pay attention in class. I was the class clown. I would, just didn't take school seriously, and there was no repercussions at all. In fact, when I was a sophomore in high school, I remember somebody asking me, hey, so where are you going to go to college? Are you thinking about college yet? I said, I don't know. I'll probably just go to Harvard. And they said, Harvard? You can't get in Harvard. What do you mean? And I said, What do you mean get in? Like, don't you just say where you want to go, and then you pay and you go? Like, no, it doesn't work like that. You have to actually get into the school. They have to accept you. This is literally the first time I ever understood a new sophomore year in high school that you had to get accepted. And so that was sort of a wake-up call, and then junior year, I did start, like, applying myself and did better.

AI assessment note: “No, I wasn't good at school. I, I definitely had some”

Q a year in, you get an offer from Walmart, an acquisition offer. Before I ask you, this is sort of strange, I'm going to ask you why, but then I'm going to say the price, which was 3.3 billion dollars. It was, it was the highest anyone had ever paid to acquire an e-commerce startup in the US at that point. So imagine that Was an offer you couldn't refuse?

A Um, it depends. So, I think we could have refused it, but Again, tying back to what I said before about mission and values, it was the conversation that I had with Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart, on a whiteboard in his office that sort of made the decision really easy for me. He basically said, listen, like, first of all, I, a lot of trust was built between us from the very beginning of every conversation. He did, always did exactly what he said, and we also shared a similar vision Of what we wanted to, to achieve in e-commerce. Walmart had an e-commerce site. Jet had an e-commerce site. And we felt, hey, if we could bring the assets of both companies together, sort of the people and technology that we had built at Jet with the capital resources, the stores of Walmart, and merge it together, wow, we could really, really become a formidable competitor. And this is where I say it's the difference between selling out and selling the company. Like, we didn't sell out. Yes, we sold the company, but the mission was, Very much intact. And everything we had set out to do was now with a higher probability of success. Um, and we had more capital to do it. We're going to get there faster.

AI assessment note: “I think we could have refused it, but Again, tying back to what I said”

Q You ended up going to Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, and I guess on a track and field scholarship, right? Like you, that was why you ended up going there, because As a kid, you were, like, a pretty gifted athlete. You were, like, a high school state champion.

A Yeah, so it wasn't, they don't give scholarships, but it was what helped me get into that school, because I didn't have the grades to get in, but, uh, When I got there, I didn't realize this, but when I got there, the coach sat me down and he said, okay, you know, you're basically on academic probation the day I got there. And they said, you know, you need to, like, get certain grades to stay on this team. And I said, well, you know, I want to be a decathlete, which is 10 events. And he said, no, you're not going to have time to train for that. You need to focus on school if you're going to stay on this team and stay in the school. I'm like, wait a second, I just got here. So that kind of got me fired up. And I told the coach, I said, alright, well listen, how about this? If I get straight A's first semester, then I'm good, right? Then you'll train me? And he laughed, and he told the team, he said, oh, Mark just made me a bet, you know, uh, I gotta train him for the decathlon if he gets straight A's. I was like, okay, fine. And then I got straight A's the first semester.

AI assessment note: “they don't give scholarships, but it was what helped me get into that school”

Q And I guess, um, you kind of recruited him to help you figure out a way to make your business more efficient, because he was like such a Smart guy. What did he figure out? What did, how was he going to make the business more efficient?

A Well, there's a little technicality on, on how you figure the price of shipping. Mostly it's based on weight, but at some point, if the box is big and it's not that heavy, you'll get charged for the actual cube of the box instead of the dimensions, not the weight, the dimensions. Yeah. The dimensions instead of the, instead of the weight. So we noticed that there was still a lot of empty space in every box. We put diapers, we put formula, we put Baby food, whatever, and then you look at what percentage of the box were those products actually taken up. It was like, maybe like, 40%. And so we thought, what if we had 20, 30 different box sizes, and we could build what we called Boxum, was basically a way to figure out exactly what box certain items can fit in. So you pick the box as soon as you knew the items, and what configuration They need to be packed in the box to fit.

AI assessment note: “we could build what we called Boxum, was basically a way to figure out”

Q head of e-commerce. And, and in that role, you did some kind of interesting things. Like you, uh, I think in 2017, you acquired Bonobos. We actually had Andy Dunn, the founder, uh, on the show a couple years ago. And, and that was a pretty big deal, right? I mean, people were like, wait, Bonobos and Walmart, but presumably that, that was part of your strategic plan around e-commerce.

A Yeah, the high levels, the most strategic part of the plan was to change the narrative. I knew that we didn't have the talent inside of Walmart at the time to do what we needed to do. We had to attract the best people in the world, and at that point, you know, honestly, that wasn't the place the best people in the world wanted to go, and so I knew we weren't gonna go anywhere unless we changed the narrative, unless the, the people Thought that Walmart was now going to be a contender, and buying Bonobos was part of that strategy because that was a cool, hip, modern brand focused on millennials that was more premium product. It basically opened people's eyes and made them look at Walmart differently, and that was certainly not one thing alone, that one move, but it was all the moves that we made together. It all started to compound, and it really, in the last couple years, it really started to come together.

AI assessment note: “the most strategic part of the plan was to change the narrative”

Q Yeah. Um, how were you at school as a kid? Were you good in school?

A No, I wasn't good at school. I, I definitely had some, you know, my parents used to fight all the time. It was like a, it was rough growing up. I didn't focus on school at all. My parents, I was the first person to go to a four-year college, and my parents didn't really know much about school. My mom went back to get her high school diploma. You know, they got married when my dad was 20, she was 19, had me less than a year later. Yeah, it was, I, I didn't do homework. I didn't pay attention in class. I was the class clown. I would, just didn't take school seriously, and there was no repercussions at all. In fact, when I was a sophomore in high school, I remember somebody asking me, hey, so where are you going to go to college? Are you thinking about college yet? I said, I don't know. I'll probably just go to Harvard. And they said, Harvard? You can't get in Harvard. What do you mean? And I said, What do you mean, get in? Like, don't you just say where you want to go, and then you pay, and you go? Like, no, it doesn't work like that. You have to actually get into the school. They have to accept you. This is literally the first time I ever understood or knew, sophomore year in high school, that you had to get accepted. And so that was sort of a wake-up call, and then junior year, I did start, like, applying myself and did better.

AI assessment note: “No, I wasn't good at school.”

Q a year in, you get an offer from Walmart, an acquisition offer. Before I ask you, this is sort of strange, I'm going to ask you why, but then I'm going to say the price, which was 3.3 billion dollars. It was, it was the highest anyone had ever paid to acquire an e-commerce startup in the US at that point. So imagine that Was an offer you couldn't refuse?

A Um, it depends. So, I think we could have refused it, but Again, tying back to what I said before about mission and values, it was the conversation that I had with Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart on a whiteboard in his office that sort of made the decision really easy for me. He basically said, listen, like, first of all, I, a lot of trust was built between us from the very beginning of every conversation. He did always did exactly what he said. And we also shared a similar vision Of what we wanted to, to achieve in e-commerce. Walmart had an e-commerce site. Jet had an e-commerce site. And we felt, hey, if we could bring the assets of both companies together, sort of the people and technology that we had built at Jet with the capital resources to stores of Walmart and merge it together, wow, we could really, really become a formidable competitor. And this is where I say it's the difference between selling out and selling the company. Like, we didn't sell out. Yes, we sold the company, but the mission was very much intact, and everything we had set out to do was now with a higher probability of success, um, and we had more capital to do it. We were going to get there faster.

AI assessment note: “I think we could have refused it, but Again, tying back to what I said”

Q Did you enjoy it? I mean, you, you're in New York City, you're on your own, you're independent, you got your own apartment, like, was it exciting? Um, or were you always working? What do you remember about that time?

A Yeah, no, I, I loved, I didn't enjoy college as much as other people. I was ready to get in the work world, start, have a job, and make money. I was, I grew up Basically a mercenary, as I call it. You know, it was growing up in a household with my dad always talking about, you know, making money, and my uncles making money, and going to Atlantic City, and trying to beat the house at Blackjack, and going to the horse track with my uncles, and trying to make a buck. It was like, everything was about making money. That's, that's what I call mercenary kind of attitude, and when I got into banking, all I wanted to do was make money. I put a, I put a sign on my cubicle that said, Goal. Six figures by 26, seven figures by 37, eight figures by 48. And that was it. The goal was to make money, and I basically worked as hard as any person could possibly work. I was always the first one in the office at the bank, the last one to leave. It'd be eight o'clock at night, and, you know, ask, what else can I do? You know, like, I was just trying to do whatever I could to get ahead, and And make more money, basically, get promoted.

AI assessment note: “I loved, I didn't enjoy college as much as other people. I was ready”

Q or Target, or whatever it is. People are used to this now. They expect it. Things are available, and it comes to your door. And you mentioned this new business that you're working on around texting. Companies for products, which seems interesting. Where do you think e-commerce is headed? Like in 10 years from now, will we be using it pretty much in the same way we use it now?

A I do think that the idea of having to go to a website and search for your product and say, I want to buy a toaster and you search toaster and you get a long laundry list of toasters and you have to like weed through and figure out what toaster you want to buy. I don't think that's the future. I think the future is much more personalized. It's much more fluid. Using artificial intelligence and texting, I think people would be able to, in the future, just text what they want, and the system would know you as well as your best friend or family member, and be able to recommend precisely what you want, and either using text or even voice to just acknowledge that and have it delivered without having to do a lot of, you know, detailed searches and things. So I do think it becomes a lot smarter and a lot more conversational in the way that it's just Back and forth. Like if you went into a brick and mortar, went into a local Best Buy or something and wanted to buy a TV, you'd have an expert there and you'd have a conversation back and forth. Does it do this? Does it do that? I'll have this. I need it for this. And, and, uh, having, imagine having all that, that knowledge already built in so that you can do that via voice or text and be talking to somebody as knowledgeable as that person, but who also knows you as well as your best friend and the merge of the two, I think is where we're …

AI assessment note: “I don't think that's the future. I think the future is much more personalized.”

Q All right, so you end up working under Topps for two years, and, um, you decide that You want to start something new. Is that, is that what happened?

A Yeah, I've, I was a little bit, it was tough. Like, I was probably, after I was there for two years, I'm now, 10 years out of school. I'm like, 32, thirty-three-ish. I had ambitious goals and dreams for my career and things, and I'm basically, one day, I remember it was like, after hours, I'm sitting, started getting into this Dungeons and Dragons and sitting around with a bunch of gamers at night, and I got this twenty-sided die in my hand, and I'm rolling it, just thinking, what happened, you know? I was like, On top of the world at 28, the fastest to EVP, making all this money, you know, and then here I am at 32, rolling the twenty-sided die, you know. It was just, I don't know, it was like surreal. It was like, um, That didn't feel right. The banking didn't feel right, but also didn't feel right just running game companies.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I've, I was a little bit, it was tough.”

Q the business. You've got to design and then outfit these Mercedes transport vans. Then you've got a whole tech vertical in your company, like people building an app that's responsive. And then you've got a whole food business, like people who are makers, understand food, how it travels. How do you like jump from one to the other? How do you organize your thinking to oversee these three different parts?

A I think it comes down to just hiring great people. You know, it's VCP, Vision Capital People. Those are the most important components that I focus on, and the vision is constantly evolving. The people piece, though, is where I spend most of my time, because it's really about getting the right organizational structure and hiring the very best people and setting the culture up in a way that gets the very best out of them, you know, so people are motivated to want to give the best they've got. And if you get the best people, and you get the very best that they've got, and they're in the right organizational structure, magical things can happen. And you can do many things simultaneously.

AI assessment note: “I think it comes down to just hiring great people. You know, it's VCP”