From Building Brands to Fighting Division, With Daniel Lubetzky

Summary

From the Ground Up: Episode Summary - "From Building Brands to Fighting Division, With Daniel Lubetzky"

Release Date: April 14, 2025 | Host: Diana Ransom and Christine Lagorio-Chafkin

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of From the Ground Up, Inc. Magazine's Executive Editor Diana Ransom and Editor-at-Large Christine Lagorio-Chafkin engage in an insightful conversation with Daniel Lubetzky, the visionary founder of KIND® bars and a new permanent shark on Shark Tank. Released on April 14, 2025, the episode delves deep into Lubetzky's entrepreneurial journey, his latest venture—the Builders Movement—and his perspectives on navigating the increasingly polarized political landscape.

Daniel Lubetzky's Background and Career Evolution

Christine introduces Daniel Lubetzky, highlighting his reputation as an "idea machine" who has nurtured numerous business ventures since his childhood in Mexico City. Daniel shares his transition from leading KIND® to launching his venture firm, Camino Partners, which emphasizes not just investing but also actively partnering with founders:

Daniel Lubetzky [02:47]: "It gets in the trenches with them."

He further discusses his new nonprofit, the Builders Movement, aimed at fostering civic action and bridging political divides—an initiative born out of his concerns over America's deepening polarization.

Founders Movement: Purpose and Initiatives

Daniel elucidates the motivation behind the Builders Movement, attributing it to the increasing tribalism and lack of genuine discourse in current political affairs:

Daniel Lubetzky [03:52]: "It's about citizens coming together and finding solutions through creativity and compromise."

He emphasizes that the movement seeks to empower individuals to become better leaders, parents, and community members by cultivating a "builder's mindset" focused on critical thinking, compassion, and collaboration.

Navigating Political Polarization through Problem-Solving

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the detrimental effects of political divisiveness and how the Builders Movement aims to counteract this trend. Daniel recounts successful community-driven initiatives, such as:

Daniel Lubetzky [17:43]: "We brought together citizens across a spectrum of politics... one Inner City school teacher who had lost two kids to violence... they came up with nine proposals, five of which received 30,000 votes."

These examples illustrate his belief in grassroots solutions and the power of collective problem-solving to enact meaningful change.

The Art of Storytelling in Leadership

Christine praises Daniel's storytelling prowess, asking whether his approach to weaving personal narratives is innate or learned. Daniel responds by attributing his storytelling ability to his reflective nature and desire to connect:

Daniel Lubetzky [10:22]: "I naturally reflect and connect with my heritage and personal experiences."

He underscores the importance of stories in leadership, stating that:

Daniel Lubetzky [12:31]: "We as human beings learn from experiences or from stories that can bring us into those experiences."

Investing in Purpose-Driven Businesses

Shifting focus to his investment philosophy, Daniel explains that while he values social missions, authenticity is paramount. He differentiates between genuine purpose and performative initiatives:

Daniel Lubetzky [29:02]: "If somebody has, like you described, a fake social mission, I run away from it because it actually is going to be counterproductive."

He further elaborates on his criteria for investment, emphasizing integrity, hard work, and a clear, authentic purpose:

Daniel Lubetzky [31:11]: "If you have a purpose and that you care about not just making money... you're going to be more likely to have sustainable things."

Handling Business Challenges Amid Political Uncertainty

Daniel discusses the impact of political instability on businesses, sharing insights from his own experiences with his company, Somos, which faces tariffs in Mexico. He advises entrepreneurs to maintain focus amidst uncertainty:

Daniel Lubetzky [27:06]: "Stay focused on building your business."

He acknowledges the heightened anxiety among business leaders but advocates for resilience and strategic focus to navigate turbulent times.

Combating Hate and Promoting a Builder's Mindset

A pivotal segment of the conversation addresses the pervasive issue of hate and its corrosive effects on society and businesses. Daniel passionately argues that fostering a builder's mindset is essential to overcoming divisiveness:

Daniel Lubetzky [34:00]: "Building bridges, building jobs, building together... Hate is a very dangerous force that all of us have inside us."

He connects historical instances of hate with contemporary societal challenges, advocating for merit-based interactions and the dismantling of identity politics:

Daniel Lubetzky [36:42]: "We need to create a culture where merit and kindness and lack of racism or discrimination are how we judge one another."

Fostering Healthy Discourse in Corporate Environments

Daniel offers practical advice for entrepreneurs and leaders aiming to cultivate a healthy dialogue within their organizations. He differentiates between being "nice" and "kind," emphasizing the importance of honest, constructive feedback:

Daniel Lubetzky [36:42]: "Feedback is an extraordinary gift because if you're going in the wrong direction, how are you going to course correct?"

He outlines key elements for fostering a high-functioning corporate culture:

• Kind Feedback: Offering honest and constructive advice.
• Trust and Transparency: Ensuring open lines of communication.
• Grace and Forgiveness: Allowing room for mistakes and growth.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Christine reflects on Daniel's dual focus on empowering entrepreneurs and fostering civic engagement through the Builders Movement. She underscores the universal applicability of skills like vulnerability, critical thinking, and introspection in both business and community leadership.

Daniel leaves listeners with a powerful call to action:

Daniel Lubetzky [26:20]: "Every one of us has a power and responsibility... we need to start building together."

He encourages everyone to join the Builders Movement, emphasizing that collective action is necessary to reclaim societal agendas from divisive forces.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Daniel Lubetzky [04:23]: "It's like the ultimate, like, shock. Like, you know how, like, when you're parenting a toddler... change the dynamic of the situation. Distract and awe."

• Daniel Lubetzky [07:59]: "Vulnerability demonstrates authenticity... being introspective and to recognize your weaknesses is a great strength."

• Daniel Lubetzky [13:51]: "Being a builder is a citizen that wakes up in the morning and after they have their breakfast, they take action to unite us, to build together."

• Daniel Lubetzky [24:50]: "All of us have a responsibility... the forces of toxic polarization are strong, and the only way we're going to win."

• Daniel Lubetzky [36:19]: "A high functioning culture within our companies and within society is what's put this country on the map as the best entrepreneurial country."

---

This episode serves as both a blueprint for entrepreneurial success and a rallying cry for civic unity. Daniel Lubetzky's insights bridge the gap between building successful businesses and fostering a more connected, cooperative society. Through authentic leadership, purposeful investing, and a commitment to overcoming divisiveness, Lubetzky exemplifies the principles necessary to thrive "from the ground up."

Transcript

[Diana Ransom]

So, Christine, Diana, have you ever had a situation where you've had to defuse a situation by killing someone with kindness?

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

When I hear kill with kindness, I think of an anecdote of an almost bar fight that happened to someone I know and the retaliation, which I think is so smart to someone getting up in your face. Just kiss them.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

Just kiss him on the lips.

[Diana Ransom]

Oh, this happened.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

This is brilliant.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

This just happened. And I love it. I think it's like the ultimate, like, shock. Like, you know how, like, when you're.

[Diana Ransom]

That's like a scene in a movie. Oh, yeah, that's good. That's rich.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

And it's like when you're. You're parenting a toddler and they're having a tantrum and they say, just pick them up and like, toss them gently in the air or, like, flip them upside down. Just like, change the dynamic of the situation. Distract and awe, right? Yeah, I love it. Yeah.

[Diana Ransom]

No, that's great. And so such an unusual way to be kind to somebody by kissing them.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

It's a little kind and dickish at the same time.

[Diana Ransom]

I think after that, you exit the bar.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

Oh, yeah.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

Yes.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

100%, yes.

[Diana Ransom]

This is from the ground up. I'm Inc. Executive editor Diana Ransom, and.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

I'm editor at large Christine Ligorio Chavkin. Today's episode, from Building Brands to Fighting Division. So, Diana, I spoke recently with Daniel Lubetzky. He's probably best known as the founder of the company that makes kind bars.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

And yeah, you know Daniel.

[Diana Ransom]

You know Daniel.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

He is now a shark on Shark Tank.

[Diana Ransom]

Is he full time?

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

Full time now?

[Diana Ransom]

Very nice.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

Since season 11. I think he was a guest shark pretty frequently, but they made it official. And if there's one thing that you should know about Daniel before my interview, he is just an idea machine. He has always loved the idea of building businesses since he was a kid growing up in Mexico City. He watched his dad build his own businesses there. And I think he's kind of got a lot of ideas up his sleeve. But the last time I spoke to Daniel was, I think more than a year and a half ago, and he was launching his venture firm, Camino Partners, which not only invests in founders ideas, but, as Daniel puts it, gets in the trenches with them. So he's very involved now in a lot of other people's ideas too. In the two years since then, no surprise, he has launched another organization, a nonprofit that he calls the Builders Movement. It's a little different from his previous ventures. Not only that, you know, it's A nonprofit, but it's more focused on civic action. It's focused on getting folks from different parts of the political spectrum to come together and find solutions to big ideas and also small civic ones through compromise and through figuring out, like, what actually is motivating them.

[Diana Ransom]

That's neat. I wonder what prompted this.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

I think it is the political divisiveness in our country right now, the kind of polarization that affects so much of our political discourse. And I think that Daniel sort of sees through that and thinks, wow, people are just disagreeing for disagreement's sake and are digging their heels in on issues where they might actually be coming from the same place, finding themselves, like, disagreeing just for the sake of upholding their perceived political viewpoint. Yeah. So he's actually getting people in communities together and, you know, having them kind of start from scratch and start, you know, with even just small things in their community. We'll. We'll get to this in my conversation, but he's bringing together business leaders and bringing in money from different organizations. I was going to say, does he.

[Diana Ransom]

Does he focus on, like, economic development? Is that, like, the key to.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

Yeah, a bit. You know, he's still. It's still early days for Builders Movement, and, you know, he's sort of enlisting CEOs and big voices to just help promote it right now.

[Diana Ransom]

Is he still running Kind?

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

He's not. He's still involved enough that he carries around Kind bars and it distributes them to everyone he meets. He likes to do that, but no, not day to day anymore. Before we got into all the details on Builders Movement, I first asked him some questions. I asked him to be human and vulnerable to things that he likes his founders that he invests in to be. And I asked him to dish a little bit on Shark Tank now that he's been given a permanent place on the show.

[Diana Ransom]

Awesome. I can't wait to hear it.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

I think the highlight is the community. I mean, already five years ago, when I joined as a guest Shark, I felt a very special bond with not just the Sharks, but also the producers, the crew. It's a really cool feeling. It reminds me a little bit of Kind where everybody's there for a higher purpose, putting the whole product above the individual needs. And I think it works really well. It's a very good culture. I really love working with them.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, Daniel, I know you a little bit. I don't know you. Not to say I know you super well, but shark is not a necessarily a word prior to this that I would have Used to describe you. Yeah, most people sound more like.

More like a dolphin. I'm more of a dolphin.

So did they. Did they have to coach you? Train you to make you more sharky? What did the producers say?

You know, Barbara said I was on a show with her, and she said, look, you know, he looks like a really nice guy. Believe me, he bites hard. I think a lot of people confuse being kind with being nice. And so they're like, oh, my God. You know, either they expect me to not bite or not to negotiate or to not hold my ground. But there's a huge difference. Like, my style is to say what needs to be said, but to say it in nurturing ways. They give us a show a couple days before it airs, and we have one coming up that I took a look at. And I'm a little tough, but I do it in a respectful way. So Kevin, you know, does his shtick about his I'm gonna shoot her. Besides the barn, behind the barn, he says what needs to be said, but he has no compunctions about just going for the jugular. Lori is extraordinarily nurturing, but sometimes she just holds back from giving critical advice. I think I would take Lori and Kevin have a child. That is such a weird thought that I just shared with you. It would be a bald, blonde child at the same time. And then that child would be able to deliver in a nurturing way the critical advice. That's what I aim for in my role.

Yeah, I love it. Is there an example of a time that you did a shark bite that you really bit into someone?

I had one that I'm embarrassed about, that I still live in infamy of. And it's because they cut out a piece in the. You know, most of these segments last.

Edited, heavily edited, right?

Yeah, actually, they're very true to form. But you might be in the tank 30, 40 minutes, sometimes rarely an hour, an hour and a half, but then they need to edit them down to 8 to 15 minutes, something like that. And this one time, there was this woman that was an only mom, and she had come up with an invention. And in the tank, it came out that Lori felt that invention was not gonna hold water, that she had a patent that's not gonna really stand on its own. And so I took a flyer and I said, like, I'll buy the whole thing for you for this, but I just wanna buy the whole thing. But the way it was edited, they didn't show that Lori felt this thing was not gonna hold water. And it sounded like I was like, not just a shark, just going, but I'm not guy. This only mom trying to take her baby and like do like. I got a lot of hate for it. It's like, oh, I thought you were kind, but you're not a kind guy. You're a monster. But you know, in the world that we live in, anything can be taken out of context. And so those are not my biggest problems.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you're more known on the show for the empathetic side, for pausing to ask entrepreneurs for more of their personal history for their story. Why is seeing that kind of vulnerability or that personal side important to you?

Well, for me, vulnerability demonstrates authenticity and that's very, very important, particularly in the time because most people don't realize we really don't know, we come in cold. And so I want to see that people can be critical thinkers and independent thinkers and authentic and that can expose what they don't know. Because somebody that's a know it all for me is not going to grow and is probably going to end up not becoming entrepreneur. For me, being able to be introspective and to recognize your weaknesses is a great strength. I also try to ask unexpected questions because the entrepreneurs that come on, they prepare and that's fair. But I want to see how they think on the spot. So I try to ask questions that might not be expected in order to try to get the real self.

Like a journalist. Like a journalist, yes. I mean it's true because so many businesses, so many business owners are so over prepared, you know, they've got their lines, they don't want to step out of that comfort zone of what they. The speech that they've prepared. Like a politician. Right.

And when you interview a person, whether it's for a job or for your job or for I want your job or whether you interview somebody in the tank. If you just ask the top level question, it's very easy to fib and to just whatever, riff or whatever. But if you go one level below, double click, triple click, then it's very hard for somebody to feign knowledge, to feign authenticity like you, you get to the essence. So sometimes you need click, double click, triple click in order to really get at the unrehearsed, authentic. How does that entrepreneur thinking on the spot?

Yeah, absolutely. I do think there's an element to storytelling there too. And I want to talk a little bit more about storytelling with you because you are so good at weaving in bits of your own personal story, your own Personal journey to your business, to, you know, whether it's relating to employees or even on Shark Tank or when you're making investments, you know, you have this rich life. You watched your father build businesses in Mexico. He was a Holocaust survivor. You worked in the Middle east building bridges while building a company. Does that come naturally to you? Or is that storytelling, that bringing up relevant, you know, bits of your life when it helps instruct? Is that something that you had to learn?

Great question that I've never thought about. And I'm gonna ask you a question. Yeah, I naturally who I am. I'm very nostalgic, melancholic. I go back to my past all the time. I'm always reliving and feeling and connecting with not just my heritage, but my family's heritage. And with my childhood and with my father's experiences, my mother's experiences. That's how I experience life. And so it's very natural for me to reflect. Do you operate that way? Are you always also thinking back about your childhood?

Absolutely. Absolutely. But it is. I think, for me, it's challenging to understand when that is something that other people care about.

The problems that I don't think that we're.

I would love to tell people about my dad. I would love to. You know, I mean, I do think it helps us all relate to one another. Right. But then if I see someone's eyes sort of glazing over, I think, oh, gosh, I'm just.

I think that's more chutzpah. Mexican, Jewish. I want to tell you everything and hang out with you. And I don't. I just share whatever comes to my mind. I think that's more my ADHD brain that just has a thought and feels is a little quirky. And I just want to share. Look, when I was in law school, we had a professor, Gerald Guenther, that he was a constitutional law eminence. He had been thought about for the Supreme Court. And he would come into class, and probably 90% of the time, he would just regale us with his personal stories. And I found it charming. And also, like, man, this guy. We're not learning constitutional law with lots of fun stories, but I feel like I'm becoming Professor Gunther because I just all the time go back to all these fun experiences. But the truth is, we as human beings learn from experiences or from stories that can bring us into those experiences. So a great leader tends to be able to bring people along with that storytelling, with that connection. Because if you just tell people, do these. Do that People just. You and I were talking about our kids. My kids do not react well to me trying to tell them how to things they're just gonna observe. And so if you tell a story, might get them more engaged and maybe have a shot at them learning from it.

Yeah, yeah. And it's putting it together and making that piece of history become relevant in the current time. I mean, I tell other people's stories for a living, not my own. To the extent that I worked at CBS News early in my career for about six years, and literally no one there knew I grew up on a sheep farm. When I was leaving, when I was, I left the job and the last day they said, oh my God. Wait, you were a farm kid? I thought you were a New Yorker.

That is a fascinating thing. And how do you and your trade manage not being able to bring that in? Because for me, when I like yesterday I was with Van Jones in a conversation and he was interviewing me, but I was interviewing him too. Like, I love learning. So how do you censor yourself to not bring that chip farm experience? Cause I'm sure you have a lot of fun experiences.

Oh, absolutely.

Where did you grow up?

Oh, I grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Like Oshkosh B'gosh.

Is that where they came from?

Absolutely where they came from.

Famous even in Mexico.

Wow.

Yeah.

Amazing. So your. Your natural storytelling. One thing you've said in the past is that you have these sort of phases to your entrepreneurial journey, and having a phase of being your own worst critic is so vital to success. Do you see that in other people? And can you talk about that a little bit?

Well, I think it's essential to be able to be introspective and to self reflect and to criticize yourself more now than ever. Because at least when I was growing up, we didn't have devices clogging all our minds. Now you don't have time for self reflection. Every second you have, you go check your phone and check for your WhatsApp and your tweets and your Schmidts and your tweets, and you don't have time to process. We're receiving far more time inputting stuff rather than processing stuff. It just doesn't work well. So it's an essential skill set and it's essential for people at the beginning of their careers. But also as you grow up, you start getting a little bit more rigid. And with social media telling you that you're right all the time and feeding you what you want to hear and what you need to hear. It's really incumbent on us to develop a builder's mindset where we're being a critical thinker, a critical listener, curious, compassionate, creative, courageous. Those are the four Cs of a builder's mindset. I think that's what made Kind grow the way it grew, to create a culture that was really a high performance culture where everybody questioned critically every decision constructively, but critically. And that's what made us stronger in a society today. There's all these trends towards either cancel culture or self censorship because people are intimidated by government or by this or by that. It's very, very unhealthy. What makes the American system such an exceptional system, such an amazing entrepreneurial system, is that we're comfortable taking risks and asking questions and pushing. And we need to make sure that the government desires to serve the people and that we're not punching down at the people. Because otherwise, very quickly our culture can change into what I've observed in other nations.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, we are at this very pivotal moment right now where culture is so divisive. And I think it's a struggle for everyone daily to kind of wrap their head around that. I'm curious, you mentioned the Builders movement that you are working so hard on. What spurred the creation of that? Was there an impetus for you?

Well, partly it's connected to Kind because when I reflect and I started becoming an investor, I realized that a lot of things that we took for granted at Kind didn't exist at most other companies, including a builder's culture. And what I just described about encouraging respectful debate and encouraging critical thinking and an open culture of open communications, trust, transparency, all these high functioning aspects. And so it's about giving them. But also there's something dark also in terms of my concerns. Like when I was growing up, my father was a Holocaust survivor. He was in a concentration camp liberated by American soldiers. And he told me about what he went through and I could not connect the dots of how the hell that happened in enlightened Europe. And it terrifies me that I'm starting to see tribal extremism and violent absolutism take over our world. And Builders is a movement not just to become better parents, better CEOs, better executives, better leaders, better professionals, but also better citizens. For us to be seize back the agenda, to have a builder's mindset in how we make our communities better, there's all these forces contributing to an us versus them mentality. And we need to replace that with a problem solving mindset. And that's what Builders is about. It's a really, really good toolkit for every human being to become better. And I hope everybody that's listening will join Builders movement will listen. And follow me on Instagram Danielle Lubecki and on our Builders channels because we're not telling you what to think, but helping you with tools on how to think more critically.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

Yeah, I love that.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

I love you say that. Replace it with a problem solving mindset.

Well, in social media it's so hard to tell a story and keep it in short things, which is what sometimes robs us of the opportunity to really learn the nuance. The, the challenge with social media is that the format is such that long form is two minutes.

I know.

And sometimes if you have to constrain yourself to a 30 second beat, you cannot tell both sides of the story. So you end up thinking there's only one side and that's just not how life works. Life is complex. There's different sides to it. And if we want to be builders and solve problems, create kind bars, invent medicines, build bridges, we need to be able to understand the different dynamics in order to come up with something better. If you don't understand where the other side comes from, how are you going to solve problems with it?

Right, right. And I think it's conditioning people to need that kind of dopamine hit like within 10 seconds of watching a video, something shocking has to happen. Right. Or a revelation. And that's not how our lives really work and how our minds really work. Well, I was just gonna ask you, when someone has that kind of really dug in polarized political stance, is what you just mentioned the problem solving mindset the key how do you help someone kind of see more broadly and see step out of that borderline fundamentalism?

I think it's important to acknowledge that every one of us has this problem. It's so easy to. I gave a TED talk when I said everybody here understands the problem on the other side, but we don't see it happening to us. Every one of us is suffering from these issues because all of us are facing all of these forces of toxic polarization and social media algorithms telling us what we want to hear. And we think we're all right. And we don't develop this muscle to be critical thinkers. So I think it happens to me. I'm in a chat with friends that I. My friend Constructor has people from the left, from the center, from the right, and we engage in debates all the time. Very, very enriching debates. Super smart people. But I look back at where they were five years ago and where they are right now. Each of us still holds a role and we have evolved very little. And it's fascinating to me. So I don't think it's necessarily about changing other people's minds. It's more about understanding where people come from and then finding solutions, saying, okay, this is one side of the issue. This is the other side of the issue. How do we actually, as a society solve the problem together? It tends to be by being creative, by thinking outside the box and say, well, how can we make a kind bar that's both healthy and tasty, that's wholesome and convenient? How can we solve the problems on gun rights and gun safety in Tennessee? We brought together citizens across a spectrum of politics and we put them together. And after six months, the citizens themselves had come up with nine proposals on how to. And it included a Second Amendment absolutist and an inner city school teacher who had lost two kids to violence. And they came up with nine proposals, five of which received 30,000 votes from the Tennesseean community that received majority consensus and support, one of which already became legislation. So it's about citizen solutions and Builders. It's about unlocking practical solutions to address some of our challenges. Because what's been happening, Christine, over the last several years is that politicians more and more use this sport to raise money rather than to solve problems, to stay in power rather than to address the needs of their communities. And if you actually studied almost all of these issues, 60 to 80% of the issues have solutions that would get support from 60 to 80% of the population. But we're stagnant. We're not solving anything. That's not how we're going to advance as a society. Instead of politics becoming a game of division so that both the Democrats and the Republicans divide the spoils and just stay in power. We need to hold them accountable and demand from them and independents and others that they actually demonstrate that they're actually solving problems for the community. Builders has a methodology on how to do it, including Builders Power Rankings, where we take a look at the politicians and we try to see whether they're actually being responsive to the needs of their community and being constructive and actually solving problems, or just like throwing firebombs across the other side.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I do feel like people feel disenfranchised right now because of all that disconnect between citizens to politicians. How did this Tennessee thing come about?

It actually, it started in the Middle East 20 some years ago, I helped build a confused Mexican Jew partner with a Muslim Israeli friend, Mohamed Daraoshi. And we created a movement called One Voice. And it ended up becoming almost 1 million citizens that wanted to seize back the agenda for conflict resolution and to come up with solutions. And we developed a process for citizen negotiations with hundreds of thousands of Israelis and pastinas participated in learning about these issues and voting interactively and iteratively over a set of proposals that they presented to the people. And it was responsible, that movement, for bringing back the parties in the Annapolis Peace Accords. And that process, unfortunately, since things have gotten really bad. But we drew lessons from if we had been able to forge consensus among Israelis and Palestinians on the 10 key pillars for conflict resolution, couldn't we do that on immigration? Couldn't we do that on borders? Couldn't we do that on the most divided civil issues like life and choice? And all these different issues that politicians really have sadly concluded and seen over the last five, 10 years that I've gotten into it very oftentimes, not all, but most, they don't actually want to solve the problems because they can raise money against those problems not getting solved. And you see it on both sides of the party, and we're the ones suffering. So we need to hold these politicians accountable. Yes. We have over 300.

[Diana Ransom]

So let's pause here for a sec. Daniel's observation about the sort of political climate right now and the inertia you see with politicians is really interesting. Why solve an issue when you can campaign on it and raise money for it? Right. It's a vicious cycle.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

And you can see this as just a really bleak landscape.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

Right.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

You can't rely on leaders. And the only way that problems are going to get solved in that kind of landscape is if the community gets engaged and kind of rises up and solve them. It's a very grassroots approach, but that's a very tall order in today's climate. But I think Daniel sees so much potential in the power of ordinary people coming together and solving big issues as a community. It's. It's sort of inspiring, you know, if we learn to talk to people who think differently than us politically and use these skills like empathy and critical thinking to find solutions, maybe we can make the world a better place. That's. That's his thinking, at least.

[Diana Ransom]

Yeah. And that's optimistic. Not. Not at all cheesy. Right.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

And even though Daniel's focusing on empowering people to take civic action, he's also not letting powerful people off the hook either. Coming up Daniel tells me what responsibility to speak out. He thinks business owners have in this polarized time.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

That's after the break. Does this need to always be a grassroots movement and the end discussions at that level, or are business owners and folks who have some money have maybe a bigger megaphone? Do they have a responsibility right now at this time of so much divisiveness.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

To get out there?

[Daniel Lubetzky]

Both. All of us have a responsibility. We're not going to do this. The forces of toxic polarization are strong, and the only way we're going to win. We're the vast majority, but we wake up in the morning and are just thinking about what to have for breakfast rather than about how to address these issues. We need to start after we have our breakfast. We need to start building together. And so, yes, we have over 300 extraordinary business leaders and civic leaders and presidents of universities and former governors and incredible people across the spectrum of politics, from Erskine Bolz to Karl Rove, the former advisor to Clinton and former advisor to Bush, a huge spectrum of leaders are part of this movement. Incredible group from Will I Am to Jose Andres, from Lonia Lee to Mark Cuban, like an incredible roster of people that believe in this approach. But ultimately, we need to build a civic movement of tens of millions of people that join us and start in their daily lives demanding that the politicians be held accountable. Politicians, for the most part, are followers. That's what a politician is. I don't blame them. They listen and they try to just follow what they're told. And so if we rise up and say, this is what we want, we're gonna be able to seize back the agenda.

Yeah, yeah. It's sort of. You're kind of advocating for, like, an uprising of moderates. I mean, it's so different than the way we think about which voices get heard, who screams the loudest, right?

100%, but we stop. We used to use the word moderate, but people fell asleep and we started realizing a moderate has temperance in their mind, but they don't have a spirit of action. A builder is a citizen that wakes up in the morning and after they have their breakfast, they take action to unite us, to build together, to bring light to the world, to take action. And it's very important for every listener to understand that if they don't join builders, they're allowing that vacuum to be filled by voices that they're gonna then resent. Every one of us has that power and responsibility. And I do agree that there is leaders that have to lead us. I do think that that's part of the dynamic, but it can also be an excuse for others to not do their part. Every one of us has a role and a duty to play that role.

Yeah. Yeah. I speak to founders and entrepreneurs almost every day. And, I mean, I feel like this year so far has been so much for them. I mean, just. Just today, grappling with the new tariffs and this trade war, what seems like a trade war. Right. I mean, it's. It's so much every day. And the news changes every day for business owners and just keeping their companies running. Like, what are you hearing from the ground there and their ability to do more?

Well, we have a company called Somos that I co founded with Miguel Leal and Rodrigo Suluaga, who were my colleagues at Kind. And it makes Mexican food. And some of the stuff is facing tariffs from Mexico.

It's made in Mexico.

It's made in Mexico. And what I told them is my assumption is that this is negotiations and posturing and just stay focused on building your business. Miguel is very worried about how this will impact his business. My gut feeling is that we just need to stay focused on our work and that this stuff is going to be resolved. But it's easy for me to say because it's not going to be like my future, whether I could put foot on my kid's table. For Miguel, the stakes are so much higher. For Rodrigo, the stakes are so much higher. And so there is a lot of uncertainty. And I respect the need to be a tough negotiator, but I do also understand that when you're leading a nation, you also need to provide guidance to your people. And I think that's a very. With too much uncertainty, you can cause unwielding damage. So you have to be careful with that.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I want to talk about investing a bit. You spend a lot of your time with Camino as well as Shark Tank. You have a preference, it seems, correct me if I'm wrong, for working with entrepreneurs whose businesses have an authentic social mission.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

And I think that kind of has.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

Changed over the past few years. The idea of social mission and authentic. I mean, we're seeing a lot of kind of backlash to B Corp lately. We're seeing so many folks over social media just touting their giving back when it doesn't feel authentic. Where should we be looking for that? Like a real social missions that matter. And how do you look for social missions that matter?

Yeah, I think this is an important misunderstanding, and I get asked about this a lot. I don't exclusively invest in companies with social mission. In fact, if somebody has, like you described, a fake social mission, I run away from it because it actually is going to be counterproductive. I do look for people with purpose. I think purpose is important for everybody because it's going to be fueling you. And so purpose can be a social mission, like I had at Pieceworks, like I had at Kind. But purpose can also be I just have a great product or service that's going to address and solve a problem for my community better than others, a unique selling proposition that solves a problem better than the existing products or services. And businesses are fundamentally positive contributors to society because they provide jobs in a scalable and sustainable way. So if you don't do anything else but build a gadget or a product that's addressing those needs, you're already doing a lot of good. I do think I look for people that do it. The how matters very much to us. So that people do it with values, I think will ultimately be more likely for them to succeed in the long term. And we certainly want to align ourselves with people that are values driven, that have integrity, that are respectful, that are going to keep their word, that are going to work hard, all these things that we would want to teach our children. And I do think that if you have a purpose and that you care about not just making money, but about making sure that everybody consumes your product, service, because you see this as an incredible contribution to society, you're going to be more likely to have sustainable things. But I've never been obsessed about investing in companies with a quote unquote social mission unless it's authentic. If it's authentic, then that is your purpose.

How do you screen for purpose and integrity? Is there a way?

I think the most important is just you engage in conversations and you click double click and triple click to really understand what makes that person click. You click double click and triple click to see what makes that person click.

I've never used that before, new catchphrase coined.

And I think it's really, really important that you really get to the essence. Because when you are just staying at the superficial level, sometimes you don't get to the depth and the soul of who that person is. But if you go through a process to really understand what drives that person, how that person thinks, what really that person cares about in an authentic way, you can get a feeling for how passionate they are. I'll give you one example. I no longer have a stake in kind, but I still give out kind bars. And I was Just thinking people are like, why do you do that? Because I love giving the gift of kindness. I love doing that. And I'm looking for the next kind. I'm looking for a person that cares so much about what they're doing that it's not just because they want to make money. Not because I'm not a capitalist, I'm an absolute. I believe in the free market system. But I've in my experience, seen that when you care about more than just making money, when you're trying to build an iconic brand, an iconic value proposition, you're much more likely to have the staying power and the creativity and the hard work ethic for you to get there.

Absolutely. What areas of investment are you most excited by right now? What are you looking for this next year?

I'm looking for the next kind in the sense that I want to find a product that has a loyal following with a very authentic value proposition, with really defensible fundamentals and the potential to have mass growth and scale. And we're particularly focused on the longevity space and trying to look for. People are living longer lives and they want to live healthier lives and better lives, more productive lives. So we're looking at that space as all of us are aging and living longer lives. How do we contribute to people taking control over their health, over their eating, over their exercise, over their sleeping, over their health, over their taking care of their bodies and their brains and their hearts and being able to live more fulfilling lives? That's our core space.

Yeah, I love that as someone who is over 40, your perspective shifts and you become like very aware of your body and mind and building it rather than, you know, destroying it. Yeah, absolutely. So tell me, you mentioned seeing Van recently, you received the ADL's courage against hate award. So what's next for you this year in fighting antisemitism and fighting discrimination, fighting divisiveness?

I think the builder's movement, what I love about it is it doesn't just make you a better leader and parent and member of the community, but it also, when you become a builder and you think critically and you become curious, compassionate, creative, encouraged. In so doing, you're also fighting hate. Your goal is not just to fight hate, but you can't really build a great enterprise or a great country if you're filled with hate. Hate consumes us. And I've seen it happen in other countries where cultures where hate reigns. Ultimately that hate metastasizes. First you go against someone from the other religion, then you go against somebody that doesn't practice your religion the way you practice it, then against this one, then you resent your brother and you say, hate is a very dangerous force that all of us have inside us. Every one of us has a capacity for hate, and we can also contain that. And by the way, I'm not a pacifist. I do think we need to defeat forces of violent absolutism and we need to dismantle terror forces and we need to win against haters and against destroyers. But we need first and foremost to be builders, to build bridges, to build jobs, to build together. And to do so, you need a space where merit and kindness and lack of racism or discrimination are how we judge one another. And if you put people into identity politics where you're this or that, oh, you're forever gonna be a victim, forever gonna be an oppressor, then you rob people of agency to be defined by their actions. And so builders is about defining people by their actions. It's about creating a healthy, high functioning society. Throughout history, cultures that have engaged in antisemitism and hate against the other, against any other minority, ultimately they experience a brain drain, they experience decline. And you look at the Spanish Inquisition, you look at Nazi Germany, had it not been because Albert Einstein escaped that persecution and then helped contribute to the United States, here things could have ended differently. But you see huge declines in societies that don't prize merit and that engage in hate. And so being a builder's mindset and building a builder's movement will make us all not just overcome that hate, but elevate humanity.

Yeah, yeah. It strikes me that, that founders of companies are inherently builders. Not just that they're building the company, but they're building a culture within their own community, their company community. What advice do you give to, to folks trying to build that really healthy, like discourse, dialogue within their office? And that spirit of we can, we can do something and we are a community here.

We're at a critical time where this is really, really serious and really, really dangerous. A high functioning culture within our companies and within society is what's put this country on the map as the best entrepreneurial country. When I grew up in Mexico City, there were things you couldn't say. You knew in the 1970s, 1980s, that if you criticize the president, you might end up in jail. And when I arrived to the United States in 1984, I heard people making fun of back then, it was President Reagan on the late night news. And I'm like, oh my God, these people are gonna get jailed. You Laugh about it, but most of us across the world don't have those gifts. And we cannot take for granted those gifts of being able to speak up and not self censor. And similarly, the dangers that from the far left there was all this cancel culture and people got fed up and now they're pushing about it from the far right. But then there's also intimidation of citizens punching down. And these forces can force people to self censor themselves. And it's very, very, very dangerous. Whether it's coming from the far left or from the far right, we need to make sure that we create a culture where people are able to be critical thinkers and critical listeners. And within a corporation. What you need to do is create an environment where people learn how to provide kind advice and kind feedback. Feedback is an extraordinary gift because if you're going in the wrong direction, if people don't give you feedback, how are you going to course correct? So you need to learn how to welcome that feedback, how to give that feedback in a way that people receive it. And I've talked before about the difference between being nice and being kind. A person that's nice, you're at the party and you have a gigantic piece of lettuce on your teeth. That nice person doesn't want to embarrass you. They're just gonna walk away and feel bad for you. But guess what, you're gonna continue walking all day with a piece of lettuce encrusted in between your teeth. A person that's kind is gonna have the strength to tell you, you know what, go to thing and fix that. And it's not easy to provide that feedback because it's uncomfortable. You're making that person uncomfortable, but you're giving them a gift. Imagine all the ways in which we can strengthen one another in our corporations by providing kind feedback and help elevate each other and strengthen each other and grow. And it's not such an easy thing. You need to learn how do you give feedback that's welcoming, how is it constructive? You need trust. That's a fundamental anchor. So people know that you have the right intentions. You need open communications, assumption of possible intent, grace, forgiveness. All the things that are under threat today in society. But that made America what it is today. We need to go back to being more graceful, allowing people to make mistakes, being more forgiving. You know, there was a poll that we did with the builders movement a little bit ago where we realized that over 60% of people think that Americans are too judgmental, but only 8% thought that they were too judgmental. 60% said everybody else is too. Joe Malta, but not me. And this is a problem. We need to all recognize that all of us can, like, just be a little bit more forgiving and have a little more grace.

Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you said about it's uncomfortable to put yourself in that position of being kind sometimes, but we need to, need to learn to do that. Well, Daniel Ovetsky, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you, Christine.

[Christine Ligorio Chavkin]

After my conversation with Daniel, I've spent some time thinking about how, even though Daniel's focus at Shark Tank and Camino Partners is to help help mold successful entrepreneurs, he uses much of that same framework in his new civic venture at the Builders movement to empower everyone to know that they have a voice in their community. These ideas of vulnerability, critical thinking, admitting your weaknesses, and being able to be introspective can make you a better business leader, more successful even. But these skills are also the foundation for making us better citizens, parents, and community leaders. They don't just apply to business. What's more, Daniel believes that honing these skills are crucial in our ongoing cultural fight against polarization. Creativity, curiosity, compassion, and courage are what everyone needs to bring to the table here. And having grown up in a less free society, being the child of a Holocaust survivor has certainly made Daniel realize that these are not things to take for granted.

[Daniel Lubetzky]

From the Ground up is produced by Blake Odom and Avery Miles with Diana Ransom and myself, with help from Sam Gabauer and Hawa Ohtori. Editing by Matt Toder, Mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres. Our executive producer is Josh Christiansen. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week.

Panoply.