“If you just want to have your ideals, you can have them, but you may not have a business. So you have to engage with the market. You can try to influence the market, you can try to educate the market, but at the end of the day, they vote every day with their pocketbooks for exactly what they want. If you’re not prepared to serve them what they want, then they’re going to go find it somewhere else and your business may end up failing. So there is that tension between your ideals [and reality]. You have to mediate between them. I always like to say we’re always pushing our ideals, but always listening to our customers. It’s like a dialogue you’re having or a dance. And if you don’t dance with your partner, your partner’s going to dance away from you, so you have to meet them where you find them.”
—John Mackey.
