What do you get when you combine a major flood and near-bankruptcy? For Whole Foods cofounder John Mackey, the answer reshaped his business into a household name. He takes us back to the night his first store was destroyed, showing how shifting from a win-lose mindset to a “win-win-win” worldview helped him achieve success — and why it can work for you, too. (Recorded at TED2025on April 9, 2025)
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@rakdaseng4923
January 20, 2026 at 11:05 am
🥺
@imamusealways
January 20, 2026 at 11:13 am
✨🙌✨this mindset is pwerful💖🌎
@CAMER_21
January 20, 2026 at 11:29 am
i keep applying it from years before this video is uploaded … great sharing
@blipco5
January 20, 2026 at 11:41 am
Whole Foods? You meant Whole Paycheck. 😮
@doubleuenbeeeh
January 20, 2026 at 12:02 pm
Imagine thinking this is funny or original in 2026
@blipco5
January 20, 2026 at 2:17 pm
@doubleuenbeeeh It’s still true.
@doubleuenbeeeh
January 20, 2026 at 12:02 pm
LOL how’s that “family” doing under Amazon leadership?
@cifnik
January 20, 2026 at 12:09 pm
Americans discover socialism
@homewall744
January 20, 2026 at 1:53 pm
No, whole foods was for profit and offered customers what they wanted so they like it and helped out voluntarily. That you think state forced unity is what he’s talking about suggest a mental delusion you need to examine.
@cifnik
January 20, 2026 at 7:40 pm
Nah, the fact you mention the clients helping the business (together with banks and others) suggest you should watch the whole video.
Which actually advertise the “win win win” philosophy for which everyone has something to gain if the business capitalize into an ethical market having in mind also interactors and broader community interests.
Socialism is not for forced unity, is for private property, markets and a welfare system that implements some degrees of redistribution.
This guy is showcasing that redistribution via ethical markets can even be synergistic and make the capital thrive. Is a beautiful example of how socialism could work.
By the way the comment was a provocative exaggeration, if it was not clear. I wanted to express that I found funny this branding of a “new win win win philosophy” while it’s not really new.
@mitram-p
January 21, 2026 at 8:38 am
@cifnik Your definition of “socialism” is very influenced by the united states of america political context. Socialism *is not* capitalism with redistribution, it’s an economic system where factories/farmland/tools/intellectual property/etc (aka means of production) are owned by the workers who use them to work (aka produce goods/services), either directly (worker cooperatives) or indirectly (state companies, for example).
Socialism is strictly against private property (factories, farmland, IP, etc), but does allow the ownership of personal property (home, cellphone, toothbrush, car, bike, etc).
What you are talking about is social-democracy, where private individuals may own means of production and then pay a percentage of the value a worker creates using that mean back to them as a wage (capitalism), but are restricted by government regulations and forced to give a part of their profits to fund a social safety net.
You can have and naturally develop a social safety net in Socialism, but it’s not restricted to it.
What you describe as socialism is unironically righ-wing policy in Europe for example.
@AsifHus786
January 20, 2026 at 12:18 pm
He didn’t explain how you apply the principle in difficult circumstances
@bytextutor
January 20, 2026 at 12:21 pm
The Win-Lose Strategy
NAHHHHHH ! Its THE WIN-WIN-WIN STRATEGY ! 🤓
@MdMHasan-y4l
January 20, 2026 at 12:31 pm
I’m genuinely thrilled I watched this!
@homewall744
January 20, 2026 at 1:52 pm
Serving customer needs is WHY you had a community of people who liked it. If you offer crap or charge all wrong, you’ll never have that community
@homewall744
January 20, 2026 at 1:54 pm
Win-win is the norm of free people in free markets. Government forced unity is a cancer that causes the richest to win and the masses to lose, but demand more losses because they forget to think clearly about being free instead of forced.
@cifnik
January 20, 2026 at 7:51 pm
Would be true if everyone could be free and if markets could be free. But that’s only ideal.
@darinherrick9224
January 21, 2026 at 7:10 pm
This statement is misleading. Free markets are only created through regulation and break-up of monopolies, such as Amazon which now owns Whole Foods.
Government forced unity is the only way to FORCE sacrifice on the scale needed for a third world country to catch up to militarized colonizers.
China is a perfect example. Their government FORCED people to work for depressed wages and money worth less so that they could copy the tech of the 1st world and rapidly catch up technologically by stealing technology. Capitalism cannot do this. Protectionist mercantilism can.
Capitalism does what you claim government forced unity does, only without long-term thinking. Capitalism slaughters the geese that lay the golden eggs if not regulated and restricted to prevent destruction.
@N7spectre117
January 21, 2026 at 4:03 pm
Companies need to determine if the are playing a Infinite Game or a Finite Game; they have different win cons.
@darinherrick9224
January 21, 2026 at 7:06 pm
And now it’s time for Whole Foods to give back to all the people who can’t afford food.
@darinherrick9224
January 21, 2026 at 7:21 pm
Well I see this one as a lose lose lose.
1. Almost no one could/can afford “Whole Paycheck” food. A huge amount of people in the USA live in food deserts and are at the poverty level. They are eating chemical ultra-processed canned food. Their savior would be Aldi, not Whole Foods.
2. The success of Whole Foods with their insane high prices and ultra-premium product just widened the health gap between the wealthy and the poor, and resulted in the quality of food available to the poor being even worse, since instead of local agriculture it was taken over by big ag and international markets.
3. Amazon bought Whole Foods and wiped out all those community and employee benefits he’s crowing about. He created some beneficial things and then “sold out” and lit them on fire, and Amazon poured on the gasoline.
This TED talk is a farce.
@BusinessBankingAndBeyond
January 22, 2026 at 12:31 am
Establishing trust is key to escaping the win-lose trap. When people trust each other, they’re more likely to work towards a shared goal. By adopting these strategies, individuals and organizations can move beyond adversarial mindsets and towards more harmonious and productive interactions.🌟