Seth Godin: All His Food & Drink Strategy Secrets in a 57 Min Conversation

0:00Hello, hello, you are in for a treat. This is absolutely banging. um so seth and i were speaking on email he sent me his new book what's an excerpt from his new book this is strategy and then we were like let's let's jump on a podcast and do a part two rodeo um and with seth i mean i've read read his books kind of since i finished university purple cow this is marketing i think seth out of everyone else his words he's so fucking wise and intelligent his words are like i like wine they get better with age the more you read them the more you listen to them the fourth time i read this is marketing the better it got um and i think that's like this podcast i'd highly recommend listening to it once and then giving it a few days listening to it again i've actually listened to it three times because ideas are massive compared to every other book he sent me the experts of this strategy and i was expecting kind of similar stuff to this is Purple Cow, but it's all about nature, about rivers, about trees, about elegance, really massive ideas.

1:03And it took me a while to digest them. And probably the same for you, this podcast, I highly recommend listen to it once, couple of days, listen to it on 1.5 speed, but there is so much in this. And he tested so many of my ideas about food and drink brands, challenged them, provoked them. And I loved it. We talk about how picking strategy is a choice. You choose your customers, you choose your future. The link between storytelling and strategy, it's a symbiotic relationship. And actually, storytelling isn't words. He goes on this beautiful kind of passage talking about apple pies and buying houses.

1:39We talk about the strategy of Nespresso and how they disrupted the coffee market. He talks about time, empathy, games and systems in strategy, which was just it blew my mind. he talks about the solar system and strategy um we go deep into blank street coffee blank street coffee what are the games they're playing um how are they disrupting the market you basically pick your game you pick your customer and you pick the change you want to make uh he has this massive idea called the circle of us versus the circle of now which is just huge but the more i think about it it's just it's insane i've been applying it to the podcast loads and i think you can apply it to your food and drink brand too uh we go into and this you know i always say brands don't talk about how tasty they are and actually if you focus just on how good you delicious you tasted you'd be in the chance of winning he completely debunks that um and tests that and he basically says every if you're a food and drink brand trying to say that your product tastes the best you've lost and he goes into examples of how to actually get people to buy your product um there's tons in this We talked about the role of marketing and human nature.

2:46I absolutely loved it. It blew my mind. As I say, I'd listened a couple of times to it. He's just so wise. He's so fucking wise. And I absolutely loved it. And yeah, please, as always, give us a review, share it. And I hope you love it as much as I did recording it. Thank you. Seth, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast, mate. I'm so grateful. I spent the last couple of weekends reading excerpts from your book, This Is Strategy, and it just absolutely blew my mind. And I'm so excited for this to be kind of blossomed into the world. What I'd love to start with, and there was one part in the book that really kind of tickled my curiosity, I should say, and it's the four threads woven together.

3:34and in that you say time because strategy plays out over time the way a garden grows games because there are multiple players in different possible outcomes trees compete for light and only grows to be the tallest but all of them are part of the forest this is just insane i love this empathy because people don't see see what you see or even want what you want plant your seeds in places where the conditions are right. And finally, systems, because whenever we work together, a system is created and that system often lasts far longer than we expect. The swamp isn't the same as the plains, but each is a complex web of interactions.

4:20And what I'd like to start with is, I think last time I kind of learned everything exclusively in analogy. And that really got me thinking that kind of building brands is very analogous to kind of growing trees. You know, trees fight for attention of water and light. Brands fight for attention of consumers. If tree saplings grow too quickly and get too much light, the bark is weak and they break. Brands like trees have to weather depressing winters and bullish kind of hot summers. I think a niche market is like finding a little pool of light uh that the tree can just blossom upwards and um yeah grow quicker and then actually i suppose this is a little bit of a weird one but if you were to to get look at a tree and flip it upside down it looks a bit like a organizational chart but that may be pushing it a little bit too far um but before we get into strategy I would love to understand what is the difference between marketing brand storytelling and strategy and I think if we use the tree is the kind of the analogy to begin with and feel free to kind of blow this over but let's let's say the seed is kind of the founder the founder's vision the strategy or the brand values of the roots the product is the trunk the marketing the storytelling of the branches and i suppose yeah as i said light water consumers attention consumers uh money and then that little moment of magic almost i don't know kind of that starbucks writing on the cup is that moment when when the tree uh and and the flowers on the tree kind of flourish and blossom but i would let's say feel free to tear that down but what is the difference between yeah strategy brand marketing storytelling and where would they sit on that on that tree wow you've had your coffee today all right i've already had three seth first it's great to be here i learned so much when i talked to you uh analogies are how we learn but if the analogy gets too labored we get caught we get stuck on the tree, right?

6:34I want to start by talking about customers because I am fascinated by food brands. I'm fascinated by bespoke things, by founder-driven organizations. And where so many of them get into trouble is they don't choose their customers. And the thing about trees is trees, if all their seeds actually germinated and grew, there'd be nothing but forest all the time. Almost all seeds fail. The only ones that grow are the ones that land in the right soil, in the right spot. And too often, because the entrepreneur in the food industry begins with, well, everyone eats and then they move on to, and what I make is delicious, they follow that with, so everyone should want what I make.

7:33And so the tree I want to talk about, the smallest tree you can imagine pretty much tree-wise is a Brussels sprout. Now Brussels sprouts, they grow on these stock things and they were one of the first items on David Chang's menu at Momofuku. We used to go to Momofuku, my two kids, my wife and I, on Saturdays. It's a 25-minute, half an hour drive for me in the electric car down to Manhattan. We would get there when they opened, before they were famous, before the reviews, and we would sit at the counter. And I'm pretty sure it was David at the griddle. I'm not confident, but I'm pretty sure it was.

8:13And I haven't eaten meat in 35 years. and I would say, I would like the Brussels sprouts, please leave off the bacon. Now, this is a good offer because now he doesn't have to pay for the bacon and I can eat the item and not leave anything over. And the first three times I ordered it, they made it for me the way I wanted. And it was delicious. The fourth time we went, David turned to me and said, you know, we make it with bacon because we think it tastes good with bacon. And there's a vegetarian restaurant three doors down that someone else owns. I think you should go there. And that was the day that David Chang became David Chang and that Momofuku became Momofuku.

8:59Pick your customers, pick your future. That's a strategy choice. That is how you actually build a brand. You stand for something for someone. You are not trying to make everything for everyone. And if you have principles and you are willing to politely and respectfully send someone somewhere else, now you stand for something. If you're not willing to do that, then you don't have a brand. You're just a commodity provider. So is strategy a bit, so strategy is more like actually selecting which field to plant your tree in. Correct. And that's saying no to all those fields over there. those fields will do brussels sprouts with bacon.

9:48This field specifically is where we're going to plant this tree. Okay, interesting. And then on the difference between, and I appreciate we can get hung up on analogies, what is the difference, just to kind of set the scene on this, between brand, marketing, strategy, and storytelling? Because I speak to so many different food and drink founders. Some lead with storytelling. It's all about the storytelling. another guy another friend of mine alex smith it's all about the strategy the storytelling is a thing on top like where how are they different i think first and then we can kind of really jump into the roots and weeds let's get rid of let's get rid of brand first there are two ways to think about brand the wrong way is to say it's your logo that we're going through a rebranding exercise this is nonsense you're going through a re-logoing exercise have fun but it doesn't matter right Starbucks logo is terrible.

10:43It's just terrible. It would get you kicked out of art school. That doesn't mean they don't have a good brand. It means they have a bad logo. Brand is simply the story people tell themselves about the promise you are making. So the simple example that I've used before is this. Hyatt has a logo. Nike has a brand. The way I know this is if Hyatt announced they were coming out with a new line of running shoes, no one would have any idea what it was like. But if Nike said they're opening a hotel, we know exactly what it would be like. A brand is the promise and expectation you have that allows you to command loyalty and a premium price.

11:33If you don't have those things, you don't have a brand you have a logo so that's brand storytelling is not once upon a time it doesn't have to be words if you go to an open house they have those in the uk when they're selling a house i think and you're walking around um and you smell apple pie baking that is a story it is a story that reminds you of your mom it is a story of all these complicated emotions that have nothing to do with a roof, but everything to do with buying a house. And strategy and story have to go together. So Patagonia. Patagonia is one of the most valuable brands in its category.

12:18Patagonia sells clothing to people who already own clothes. It sells clothing to people who could buy something much cheaper from someone else. Their strategy is to stand for something, for a certain group of dirtbag outdoor people or people who want to feel like they're aligned with those folks. And the story, they live it in every way. Their store is made out of bricks. They will go out of their way to rent a store made out of bricks because that's part of their story. What they do with their profits, how they're owned, what they make, what they don't make, these are parts of their story. So go ahead, please.

12:58Is there an example of a food? Because firstly, I can almost imagine if Starbucks created a trainer or sneaker tomorrow. In my head, I kind of know exactly what it looked like. But is there an example of a food and drink brand specifically where the story hasn't linked up with a strategy or the story has veered off piste from the strategy and the customer's been left thinking, what the hell? Okay. So I care a lot about chocolate. Some of the poorest people in the world make it. There's a lot of slave labor. Don't buy cheap chocolate. Nestle's and Hershey and Cadbury are consistent. They're saying for people who don't care about child labor and people working in poverty, we have cheap chocolate for you.

13:45It might be good. It might remind you of being a kid. But if you're going to buy Tony Chocoloni or Askinosie or Original Beans, their story is a different story. Their story is consistent. Well, one of the early bean to bar makers was a company in New York called Mast Brothers. And Mast Brothers were two guys with huge beards in Brooklyn, all bespoke-y feeling, etc. And then it turned out that some of their chocolate, they weren't making the way they say they were making it. And there was all this controversy about what were they melting down in the back and blah, blah, blah. All of a sudden, the truth undermined the story that they had been telling.

14:27and their trajectory completely was transformed because they lost the thread. Hershey's bought John Scharfenberger's company, Scharfenberger. Scharfenberger was one of the first bean-to-bar makers in the US. Well, once Hershey owned them, they had a problem, which is, what are you? Are you a craft business or are you a giant corporation? And now the Scharfenberger products that Hershey is selling are way crappier and middle market, more sugar, more crunch, because that's what Hershey's good at. So again, they have a muddled story that makes it hard for them to charge a premium because it's inconsistent.

15:11hmm so when you would when i think the symbiotic relationship between story and strategy do you say there's someone listening to this has got a food brand would they you said strategy is picking your consumer and saying or customer and saying we're not we're not for these people we're for this person how does the story then blossom out of that that moment well if i'm at uh the union Square Farmers Market in New York City. And the farmer is standing right over there. They are living their story, the color of the tarp on their thing, whether they have free samples, how much they charge, what they wrap things in.

15:53So there's a company, ironically, called Windfall Farms. And their story is, when you're ready to pay$60 a pound for lettuce, that's what we have. And the lettuce is all hand-picked, et cetera. And it comes in an expensive Ziploc bag. So there's this consistent story here, right? For people who think lettuce at any price is a bargain, we got the coolest, weirdest lettuce. And it's not, you know, you won't find any dirt here. And two booths away is the ornery formerly organic farmer who says the organic standards in the US aren't high enough. So he has new standards and there's dirt crusted all over everything and you're seeing vegetables you never heard of the price is lower the story is different and they're right next to each other right so different stories for different people you talk about times game empathy and systems as part of strategy and i'd love to use nespresso the coffee capsules i put yeah like a machine gun nespresso i've had loads of them today But I'd love to, yeah, kind of first to find time games, empathy and systems.

17:07And then how did Nespresso kind of come in obliquely and disrupt, yeah, maybe the coffee market or the at home coffee consumption occasion? Right. Okay. So what's the system? Yeah. The solar system is the most famous system, partly because of the whole Pluto controversy. But everyone knows what the solar system is. And the Earth doesn't rotate the sun because it wants to. It rotates the sun because of gravity, an invisible force that keeps it in place. The system of higher education in the UK is buried deep into class and status and your career. If you don't go to a fancy place with a fancy tie, you're unlikely to end up in the House of Lords or whatever it is, right?

17:53So there's all these things that are built deep into our world. And just to give you an example, there is a giant power plant in the UK. I can't remember the name of it. That's two lakes filled with water. And they had to build it because so many people were turning on their kettle to make tea at 8 p.m. because of the BBC that the entire power grid of the UK was put under stress. because UK has more amps than the typical homes in North America. And it just put this big drain on the system. So I had to build an entire power plant to support the tea that was being made because people were watching television at the same time.

18:36That's a system, right? Yep. Okay. So what we need to think about is coffee. Coffee is a complicated system that starts with poor farmers growing beans in mostly the Southern Hemisphere, and then they're processed, and then they're shipped, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And very few people were extracting, no pun intended, significant profits, because most of coffee is a commodity. If you don't like these beans, we got these beans, they're all the same, just buy the cheap beans. Nespresso said, if we put them in these capsules, and those capsules only work in our machine, if we can sell a machine at a loss, once someone has that machine, they're going to keep buying our capsules day after day after day after day.

19:26So Nespresso didn't start minting money for years, but that investment at the beginning in building an installed base, a network effect, so that once someone starts serving you Nespresso, they want validation. So they tell you what they're making and you think it's good. So you go get one, et cetera, et cetera. And it spirals and spirals and spirals that's a systems strategy choice that has very little to do with coffee and that i suppose the system is is the selling of the of the machine and making it impossible to that because you talk a lot about elegant systems and and how businesses or brands can either work with with the flow or the system or kind of push against it so that's a that's nespresso kind of as you say linking into that system and making it hard to replicate with the IP, where does the empathy games and time come into the Nespresso genius?

20:23Okay. So Nespresso had to make a choice, right? And that choice is, are they going to be able to get enough money to be able to get as many of the things that they need to get to build the system? Well, they happen to be owned by a little company called Nestle. And so Nestle has unlimited money to invest in building this edifice. That is a really different challenge than a little company would have. So they took on a huge obligation in order to build. If you're a challenger brand that's absolutely killing it in D2C, but you're struggling to crack retail, then you've got to listen to this. maybe you've got an ocado listing maybe you've got a whole foods listing maybe you're absolutely killing it in selfridges maybe you're absolutely killing it in your farm shop and your indies but my friends making the leap crossing el chasum crossing el rubicon to grocery retail is not easy it's the champions league of fmcg it's super hard it means playing at a higher level and that's where some of your amazing brands sadly stumble look retailers want stories backed by data not dreams and a pretty pitch deck.

21:40And let's be real, supermarkets are not just going to magically make a space for you and your little brand. They need data. Something's got to go for you to get in, for you to get on shelf. And that is why I've got to tell you about Northstar. They are the team that's helping purpose-led FMCG brands go from gut instinct dreams to unstoppable pitch decks that actually unlock retailers. Northstar are not like another data company that force-feed you data like foie gras that act like a nasa space mission it's super super simple to use their team are amazing and they actually get the challenger mindset northstar are your shortcut to smarter decisions stronger pitches and investor confidence all built specifically for challenger brands like yours you don't need a massive sales team you need northstar link in the show notes click that link and you'll be able to book a free demo with northstar highly highly recommend that and thank me later this thing but they knew there were very few other companies that would spend that money so there was a matchup between what they needed to build the system and what the rewards would be later right you can't do that if you're a startup of six people you're not going to be able to build a new kind of web browser that requires a totally different way of using the internet because you don't have enough money to pull that off and then and then the games and time not necessarily let's okay let's use let's use games in time to uh to explore how a kind of an upstart coffee company uh i think you've got blank street coffee in in new york like that's that's swooning over to our little sardonic shores as we speak but um yeah let's talk about blank street as kind of a more rambunctious challenger to that to that thread okay so what are games games have nothing to do with monopoly or scrabble or whist or cribbage games are any situation where there's a limited number of resources a limited number of players rules and outcomes so i'm going to make some moves you're going to make some moves it's worthwhile to call them games because we understand game theory and because you don't have to take it so seriously when you're thinking about your moves it's not you it's the move the move didn't work it's not because you're a bad person.

23:57It's because you didn't make the right move. So here's Starbucks. There is the game of how am I going to get$6 from someone this morning who's in a pre-caffeinated condition to help them become caffeinated when Starbucks has this huge market share? Well, one way to play the game is to have an independent cafe that has loyal following. And throughout New York, we see these cafes. They're doing fine. The reason they're doing fine is because Starbucks has established a high price point. So as long as they're near it and they don't have to pay off all the corporate overhead, they can do a fine business with one store.

24:42Blank Street looks at this and they say, well, there might be room in between those two for someone who is not Starbucks, maybe a little cheaper, but at scale. So there's lots of places you can see one, so you trust it more. But in order to pull this off, they need to play a different game. And the other game is this. In New York, there are a bunch of people with billions of dollars to invest and not enough things to invest it in. So if they can walk into that game and say, look what Starbucks is worth, we're going to raise$60 million to be able to build a low overhead, fast moving alternative to Starbucks, put your 60 million in, you'll get 6 billion back.

25:27That's a different game. So they've got the fundraising game, which they won, they raised a fortune. And now they're trying to play the retail game, which is there's a limited number of stores, there's a limited number of locations and Starbucks has unlimited time and money. So it's not an easy game to play. I hope they're enjoying it because I'm not sure it's going to work, but that's the game they're playing. It's so interesting. I spoke to Rory Sutherland and he said, hipsters raise the ceiling and chains raise the floor. And it's like a virtuous circus. So like the Starbucks and other chains over here and cost is a massive one.

26:06They set the floor and they say, right, this is our minimum standard and then the hipster places like your blank street and there's loads in london these little 10 15 shop chains it raise the coffee raise the coffee raise the coffee in terms of the blank street piece in terms of the strategy and of which customer do we say no to essentially how how are they doing that different to um to starbucks because i get the game as in you know vc raise a bucket load of money but in terms of the customer piece and i think that's is that Ultimately, what strategy is, is it's you choose your customer. Do you say that is step numero uno or, you know?

26:40Well, yeah, I mean, I think the first two steps are what's the change we're trying to make and who are we trying to change? Sure. Who's it for and what's it for? Sure. Okay. So what Starbucks has found every single time Howard Schultz has tried something else, he keeps coming back to two things. One, don't make lousy coffee. Every time the coffee quality goes down, they realize they have to recalibrate and make it go back up. It doesn't mean they have to make the best coffee, but they bought Slayer. Not Slayer. They bought that other company that made a really expensive coffee machine. I can't remember what it was.

27:17They tried to get into instant coffee each time trying to raise the standard of coffee. And the second thing they try to do is build the third place. Free Wi-Fi, comfortable place to sit, clean bathroom. No one's going to ask you to leave. It's like a pub, except they don't serve beer, right? Those are the two things that are at the heart of their story. Blank Street, and I'll confess, I don't drink coffee and I haven't been to a Blank Street, but I've walked past it many times. Blank Street seems to say, please come here and take your coffee and leave. they don't look like they're trying to build a warm hospitable large place for you to hang out with your friends for three hours this place is you're gonna get an espresso it's gonna be delicious cheaper than starbucks see ya tomorrow and they can buy they can rent smaller places have higher turnover and compete with starbucks without any of the costs that starbucks has That seems like an interesting game to play.

28:22The challenge you have is most people think they care about coffee quality, but past a certain level, they can't tell the difference. And that means that blank has to create enough momentum that people get hooked on the process of buying coffee from them. Because in a blind taste test, they probably cannot taste the difference. and is that is that where the time element comes into this is is it the literal time with the consume is that where you're going with that that's not what i mean by time time would you like the like the forest idea is this the first month of nespresso's uh p &l was terrible sure it took five ten years when i was at yahoo yahoo had the chance to buy google for 10 million dollars, the whole company, because it wasn't worth anything for the first year.

29:17They had zero revenue. They were planting seeds. So what are you doing today that you will be really glad a year from now that you did? And so, you know, if we think about peanut butter, which in my country is mostly a commodity, what would you have to invest today so that three years from now, it's paying off a hundred times, right? And that's not an easy question to answer. If it was, the people at Nestle's would have already figured it out. But the food business tends to have moments of inspiration followed by long stretches of commodity. And I promise, If you're a small food entrepreneur and you get into the commodity mindset, you will lose.

30:08But by commodity mindset, unpack that a little bit more. A commodity means that you can buy this if you want this, but there's one over there that's just like it. You only make a commodity if you think you're making a commodity. Do you think there's a commodification of strategy and storytelling in that almost a founder is looking in the same field as every other tree that's being planted and thinking, I want to be a bit like that. And that's where you're kind of trying to choose the same customer. Does that make sense? A little bit. I guess what I'm getting at is this. If someone offered me cell phone service like I have now for half the price, I would switch instantly.

30:52AT &T has no brand. Verizon has no brand, et cetera, et cetera. They're all the same. Just give me the cheapest one. And anytime I have four hours just to waste, I could go buy a cheaper cell phone alternative, right? What I'm talking about is some customers will cross the street for a better jar of peanut butter. Most of them will not, but some will. what makes it better that is the key question right because it's probably not in a blind taste test the journal of wine economists has shown that sommeliers and other people who are fancy prefer hundred dollar wine over ten dollar wine unless it's a blind taste test in which case they prefer$10 wine over$100 wine.

31:45So what are you buying when you buy a$100 bottle of wine? You're buying the story of a$100 bottle of wine, not what it tastes like. So the challenge you got to hear is you need to build a story that people who want a story will pay for. Totally. The other part that really struck me was, can you see the river? And it's that kind of that flow and I suppose that links to working with the system or as you say kind of digging a little bit on the left hand side which you could maybe argue is what Nespresso did but I'd love to know in terms of this flow I love the Bruce Lee quote be like water and I try to embody that whereas we just kind of move with with things but in your illustrious career in marketing like I'd love to know what's been the biggest unforeseen change like cataclysmic change and how did you adapt like water to that so let's talk about what i mean by the current i live i can see out my window the hudson river the hudson river is a tidal estuary means 12 hours it goes one direction 12 hours it goes the other and how does that work it's a few it goes with the tide sure sure sure sure but when you look at it from a distance it looks like a lake there are no waves on it.

33:04The difference between a lake and a river is there's a current. On a lake, it doesn't matter which way you go because the water's just sitting there. But if there's a current, it's totally different to paddle your canoe upstream than downstream. So what makes someone a good surfer is they pick good waves. That's it. That's the key, picking good waves. So in my career, I have been buffeted by my unwillingness to see waves when I should see them. The most expensive moment was when I wrote one of the first five books about the internet. In that moment, I could have, I had enough resources and skill.

33:52I could have built Yahoo. but instead of building a search engine i wrote a book about the internet and the book ended up selling you know 12 000 copies or something and yahoo went off to be worth 80 billion dollars so i have this t-shirt that i sit right over there to remind me that doing what i think i'm supposed to do is not my job my job is to see what is going to happen next where is the current flowing and it's very easy to dismiss things that are happening and saying that's not real like ai but it's also easy to get caught up and say nfts nfts nfts when they're junk right so it's not easy to tell where the current is flowing but it flows and if we can see it and dance with it the wind is at our back as opposed to fighting to insist to the world that we are right let's talk about in terms of seeing this wave i can almost imagine a founder being in the water and kind of just putting their hand and feeling the wind and the zephyr kind of tell them where it's going one thing that's massive in the states and is slowly getting over here is this sort of functional uh mushroom coffee four sigmatic all those brands new tropics it's massive in the states and i don't know i'm going next year actually that um show in la or uh i don't know what it is but huge expo and kind of in the uk brand you guys are kind of in the water three years ahead of us your your waves are three years ahead of us and it usually comes over here and either works or it doesn't you know hard seltzer flu in the states absolutely bombed here what in terms because to get people to drink mushroom coffee right this to me sounds crazy is what i suppose the first question is how are they in the way of seeing this movement come and then what is the strategy in the story of that because you know 20 years ago saying right let's drink some mushroom coffee people think you're a bit bonkers but it's beginning to work do you know what i mean all right so when you're in la say hi to my wife she goes every year to the food expo because her bakery now has 100 whole foods and 80 plus employees um i'm not talking about fads and what i mean by current in this case using the the mushroom thing is.

36:12Since 1970 something, so it's been 50 years, there has been a movement for placebos in food, functional food that comes with a story that begins by being sold in alternative places like health food stores or farmers markets or online, and then moves through the masses and ends up at Target or Walmart or wherever. That just keeps happening over and over and over and over and over again. So what the mushroom coffee people did is just simply say, oh, people are keep asking questions about what could they put in their body to make them feel better. And people are really into coffee and have been for a long time.

36:58Let's put them together. But if it's not mushroom coffee it's going to be the next thing but they're all related in that they are about our quest for safety and long life and control the doing that for 29 or seven dollars is a bargain the i was speaking having a conversation the other day with with someone who's got a big brand over here and we are talking about this obsession with with fads and trends and everyone's always asked the question what's the next trend in food and drink is it going to be functional mushrooms or is it protein or is it nootropic and i actually think if you kind of invert it like sort of charlie munger inversion rule and say what's not going to change in 300 years and i think the only thing that i think everyone's forgetting in food and drink is does it taste yummy does it taste absolutely this is a trend that's going to you know heinz ketchup tasted delicious 100 years ago whenever it came around and it's still going today because it tasted delicious on that kind of on that theme what what are some of the principles of strategy that will that you don't will never change say this podcast is played in 200 300 years time what are the what are the things that will never change despite the the waves and the winds of fad kind of blowing from the left and right i will answer your question in a second but first i need to insert something about delicious and about heinz it's very easy as a food entrepreneur to think that there is a deliciousness shortage There is not.