So Long, Spotify + Super Fast Delivery — with Ralf Wenzel (CEO of JOKR)

Ralf Wenzel, the founder and CEO of JOKR, joins Scott to discuss the company’s ultra-fast delivery model. We learn how the company operates, the problems this business is trying to solve, and evolving consumer incentives. Scott opens with his decision to remove our pod from Spotify. Algebra of Happiness: Looking at life through various lenses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Northwest Registered Agent. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. With Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business, you start a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility, and growth. That includes registered agent service, a business address, operating agreement, domain, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy. In other words, your home address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/profgfree.

• 0:49Speaker 01

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• 1:18Scott Galloway?

  Episode 135. The first can beer debuted in 1935. I, no joke, got ridiculously fucked up last night and thought, "That's it. That's it. I'm giving up drinking." This morning, I had a beer with breakfast because I am not taking advice from a drunk. Go, go, go!

• 1:43Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the 135th episode of The Prop G- 135th episode? What am I doing? I don't remember any of this. I remember none of the- It's like, okay, where did the first 134 episodes go? It's like from 22- Well, I remember 22 a little bit. I remember moving to New York, but from sort of 27, when I got out of graduate school to 47, I don't remember anything but work. Literally, it's all kind of of a blur. I think there was a divorce in there. I think I'm pretty sure, like, I don't know, I think I had a Renault LaCarre, Honda Accord. I remember the cars I had, a Buick GT Grand Skylark. Hello, awesome. Hello, Elvis, but not nearly

• 2:24Scott Galloway?

  as good looking or talented. A BMW 318i, trying to impress the ladies. Hello. I used to hang my swimming goggles off the rearview mirror because what's the term for that? Total douchebag? And then what did I have? I had, oh, back to graduate school, another Honda. Then I got out of graduate school, started making some cabbage, bought a Lexus. Hello. Let's embrace our white privilege. Hello Lexus, Lexus of Saramontay. Then I got, and then I started going really large. I had three BMW 7 Series in a row because daddy likes the big cars. I like the big cars. Lent it out to a kid who still works with me, kid named Jason Stavers. At the time, Jason was a crisp young 25. And the

• 3:06Scott Galloway?

  first thing he did, I went on the road and I used to loan my cars out, you know, stay at my house, take care of it, take care of the dogs, you can have the car. Calls me, he crashed my brand new 7 Series, gosh, that sounds obnoxious to say, into the side of some church. And he called me and said, oh, look, I have, I've crashed your Beamer into the side of a church. And I said, well, the important thing is, how's the car? Love that. And then I lent it out to the guy, my Audi A8. I worked to work for Audi, or Audi became my largest client at Profit, the brand strategy firm. So I bought an Audi A8. Underrated car. The flagship for Audi, but didn't have the panache of the S-Class of the 7 Series, but a great car. Just kind of meh. Like, you drive up in your Audi,

• 3:51Scott Galloway?

  back then Audi wasn't nearly the brand it is now, and this is the 90s. And I lent it out to this kid in the mailroom. And the thing I remember about him is he had these sleeves or tattoo sleeves before it was cool. And then as a kid, it's like 23 decides to tattoo his entire arm to arms. I didn't quite understand that. But anyways, in addition to the tattoos. He crashed my car. So I don't think I have ever, knock on wood, been in an accident, but my cars have been totaled several times. Then what did I have? I had, oh, my best car, Mercedes. I don't know how I got into cars, but I get the sense you're fascinated with this. I had several or three Mercedes trucks, GL trucks. I think it's an amazing car. I think that's probably the best car I've ever owned.

• 4:33Scott Galloway?

  Very tight, feels like a car, but it's an SUV for dogs and kids. Anyways, that's my, that is my car history.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  This car could be systematic.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Hydro-matic. Ultramatic.

• 4:49Scott Galloway?

  Anyways, in today's episode, we speak with Ralph Wenzel, the founder and CEO of Joker, an instant grocery and retail delivery service at a hyper-local scale. It's kind of interesting. Billion-dollar-plus valuation guy who basically left SoftBank to start a business in Latin America, a German living in Sao Paulo. But anyways, interesting guy, interesting company. This notion of dispersing fulfillment, getting it closer and closer to the end consumer. They can get you your shit in like 12 or 14 minutes. Remember, remember Urban Fetch and Cosmo? And we'll ask him how this, how it's different this time. Anyways, that's coming up. But the first thing we're going to talk about is, there's all sorts of news, but first, let's talk about Spotify and Joe Rogan. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young said that they wanted their content, they were pulling their

• 5:33Scott Galloway?

  content from the music streaming platform. And the stock has taken a hit and it's caused a lot of attention specifically around what they feel is misinformation being spread by Joe Rogan. And there's been a lot of interesting dialogue, talking about whether or not this is censorship, how important the dissenter's voice is, and at the same time, how there is a need for media companies to take responsibility for the content on their platforms. And

• 6:04Scott Galloway?

  In what is going to seem like the mother of all virtue signaling, but I've talked myself into believing it isn't. We here at Prof G have decided to take Prof G down from the Spotify platform. And this is something I thought a lot about. It's quite frankly been a source of stress. I wasn't even sure if I should talk about it or just do it. But this is kind of our thinking, if you will. And that is, America is at a 65%, approximately 65% vaccination rate versus 90 in China, the UAE, Portugal. And I believe that 25% gap will result in unnecessary death, disease and disability. And part of the reason we are at 65 versus 90 is a lot of media companies have seen

• 6:46Scott Galloway?

  an opportunity, a commercial opportunity, to engage in the misinformation around vaccine hesitancy. And I don't think, I don't think it's accurate to conflate fact checking with censorship. I think what's going on here is not censorship at all, that as your audience grows and your influence grows and the gravity of the topic you're discussing, I think that compels a different level of fact checking. I know when I was writing to 2,500 people with my newsletter, No Mercy, No Malice, and I said Tesla is worth more than the entire auto industry, that was forgivable. And now that it goes out to a quarter of a million people, I have two people literally doing nothing but fact checking.

• 7:28Scott Galloway?

  And your influence and what you're talking about command a certain level of fact checking. And when you're someone as powerful as Joe Rogan, who reaches millions, if not tens of millions of people, and you're talking about vaccines, you know, the bar needs to be pretty high. Also, I don't think, while I think the dissenter's voice is incredibly important, and there's been a really valuable conversation around masking, there's been a really important conversation around the severity of lockdowns. And the dissenters, in many cases, the dissenters have been right. But I think on the left, we suffer a little bit from this both-side-ism, and that is we feel a need or compelled to give two sides of an issue.

• 8:11Scott Galloway?

  In equal proportion, even when there really aren't two sides of an issue. And Mr. Rogan gave balance, if you will, or the other side of the dissenter's voice to the Sandy Hook massacre, which I believe there were no two sides on. I do not believe this was a hoax. And to bring someone on to discuss whether or not it was a hoax and let them be heard was dangerous and caused unnecessary grief and pain for the families and friends. And I think that cancer has only grown. Specifically, I don't think this is bringing on the dissenter's viewpoint. I don't think this is balance. I think it's what I would call a false balance. And that is, I think, thoughtfully and meticulously, Spotify and Joe Rogan have given oxygen and airtime to the quote unquote "other side" in equal proportion.

• 8:56Scott Galloway?

  Now, what do I mean by that? The individuals, or many of the individuals who have come on his program to talk about edge case concerns and just blatant misinformation around the vaccines, and then to the next day, bring on in equal proportion a thoughtful person like Dr. Sanjay Gupta, creates, in my view, a more dangerous content narrative than if you're Fox and you have all kind of anti-vax all the time, despite the fact that you need to show proof of vaccination to go into the building and everybody at News Corp. has been vaccinated and boosted. I think this is especially upsetting or damaging because this notion, what happens across the 24-year-olds, which is the average age of his user base, is that they believe

• 9:41Scott Galloway?

  that there is a valid debate here, that they sense well of half the people believe that you shouldn't get vaccinated if you're healthy and 21, or that there are certain, you know, certain things are happening to your DNA, or whatever some of these false claims have been, when they are served that in equal proportion to the, what I would call, more evidence-based, peer-reviewed facts coming out of the medical community. It creates a very misleading environment that results in young people and Joe Rogan fans believing that there really is an interesting debate and two sides here. There aren't. Every piece of evidence around vaccines, every piece of evidence around vaccines across the billion-plus

• 10:25Scott Galloway?

  Vaccines that have been given out is that this is a gift from not God, but a gift from science. And that 99%, whether it's 99% of people dying are the unvaccinated. Whether it's hospitals still being taxed because people that decided have chosen not to get a vaccine in large part because of my view, or in some part, because they hear this narrative, this false balance around this issue, in my view, is very upsetting. Now, now, does he have the right to say these things? Absolutely. Does Spotify have the right to distribute his content? Absolutely. Do I have the right as a consumer and a content creator to not work with them? Yeah.

• 11:10Scott Galloway?

  And here's the thing, this is the wonderful thing about capitalism. This is why capitalism is the worst system of its kind, except for all the rest. I think Winston Churchill said that, or put another way, I think capitalism is wonderful because you can vote with your time, treasure, and talent. I'm not looking for anyone to be censored. I don't even think, I don't even want to shame them. I don't, I'm not even going to encourage other people to pull their content down. I decided as an adult man that I would never go to Chick-fil-A because I didn't like some of their social commentary. And there's a lot of competition and a lot of options. And I thought, I'm just going to have quarter pound of a cheese meal deal, or I'm just going to go to In-N-Out Burger. By the way, as an atheist, I've always found those prayers on the table mantis or the

• 11:53Scott Galloway?

  placemantis at In-N-Out a little bit, a little bit weird, but you know what? That shit, that's worth it. Okay, offend my atheism, I don't care. And by the way, two years ago, my kids basically said if I didn't take them to Chick-fil-A, they would kill me in my sleep. So wouldn't you know, and this was on Twitter, I took them to Chick-fil-A and I bragged about it on Twitter and someone reminded me that they were closed on Sunday, which gives you a sense for how long it's been, or how long I went through a non-Chick-fil-A desert. Doesn't mean they're bad people, doesn't mean that they should be censored. Like the people at Spotify, I totally appreciate that dissenters' voice is important, but I also have the option not to cash their check. And let's be clear, this is going to hurt us much more than it hurts them. Spotify is about 10 or 12% of our downloads.

• 12:38Scott Galloway?

  My guess is we are 0.00001% of their listenership. And is this performative? Maybe it is a little bit, but I think it mostly isn't. And the reason why is that I think as you get older and you're blessed with resources or some level of economic security, if you're going to rail on big tech, you have an obligation to meet with people and elected representatives at every level, or talk to bureaucrats at FINRA and explain your thinking and show them data and help them shape and craft idea solutions and legislation. If you're going to rail on big education, as we have done consistently, you have an obligation at some point to do something about it.

• 13:22Scott Galloway?

  I'd like to think that we're doing something about it. I'm very involved with universities and have voted with my time, my treasure, and my talent. And I have been very anti-vax, if you will. And at some point, you know, the music has to match the words. And so we are pulling down Prof G from Spotify. Pivot, the other podcast I co-host with Kara Swisher. Kara, who's probably more thoughtful to me, is impressed and encouraged by some of the progress they've made. And this is the wonderful thing about capitalism, their stock has declined, they've gotten some negative press. Joe Rogan's video on Instagram, I thought was a masterclass on how to handle something like this. He came across as sincere, contrite. He talked about specific steps.

• 14:07Scott Galloway?

  I think the communication from Spotify was less admirable, saying they're going to put warning labels on shit. That's like big tech when they say, "Accept all our cookies." It just doesn't, it doesn't, the net effect of it is almost, almost zero. And Spotify has tried to do this big tech, wrap ourselves in a platform blanket, like, "Oh, shucks, we're facing the same problems all these other platforms. How did we get here? What a shocker." Well, no, not really. You're not a platform, you're a publisher. And to say... That it's just like the App Store or Apple Music distributing Steve Bannon's podcast. No, it really isn't. Joe Rogan is to Spotify what iOS and the iPhone are to Apple. You own this content, you produce it, you have massive influence over it. You paid $100 million for it.

• 14:51Scott Galloway?

  Okay, so a fair question. Well, what's the ask, Scott? What would you have them do? Would you have them take down the podcast? What would you have them do? And that's fair. This is my view. Again, fact checking is not censorship. Censorship is not fact checking. I think that they are a media company and they need to occupy the space they command. And they command huge influence. And that your obligation around fact checking is commensurate or correlated to the influence you have and the gravity of the topic. Enormous influence, enormously important topic, which in my view mandates and augurs a level of fact checking that they have not deployed.

• 15:36Scott Galloway?

  So what's the ask? Simple, simple. When they have a quote unquote "expert on" who says in my view, things that are just not factually correct, that may raise the specter or increase doubt or give people an excuse or rationale to not get a vaccine, that they fact check that statement. And I think if they had done that, if their fact checking had lived up to the influence and gravity of the topic, they would have decided, as we do on this show, as we do on Pivot, that no, that's not accurate. We shouldn't say that. There is evidence and science that directly refutes what this individual has said.

• 16:20Scott Galloway?

  So we are, we are either going to disclaim it, push back on it, or not publish it. Fact checking is not censorship. That is the ask.

• 16:32Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back for our conversation with Ralph Wenzel, the founder and CEO of Joker.

• 16:39Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Superhuman. The pace of modern work can be relentless. You're getting a constant influx of messages from a ton of different apps. You haven't closed all your browser tabs in a year. Everything seems urgent and staying on top of it all feels like an impossible task. Superhuman Go is an AI chat that's always there when you need it, already aware of what you're doing and doesn't ask you to start from zero. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, help you be the best version of yourself at work. It handles the repetitive stuff so you can focus on the work that only you can do. Whether you need to summarize an endless email thread or prep for a meeting that's happening in five minutes, Superhuman Go works inside the tools and sites you already use, your browser, inbox, docs, and your project tools. And its AI chat is available on the side of your browser and it's always ready.

• 17:24Scott Galloway?

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• 17:42Scott Galloway?

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• 18:28Scott Galloway?

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• 19:03Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Ralph Wenzel, the founder and CEO of Joker, an instant grocery and retail delivery service at a hyper local scale. Let's make the jump to hyper local space. Julie, hold on. Ralph, where does this podcast find you?

• 19:19Speaker 03

  I'm in Brazil right now, in Sao Paulo.

• 19:22Scott Galloway?

  So give us the headline news on Joker. Give us the top line. What is Joker?

• 19:27Speaker 03

  So Joker, it's basically, in essence, is a platform that allows for the activation, incubation, and the build out of a new generation of online retail businesses across multiple geographies. And as such, we started the company 10 months ago. In those 10 months, we've been building out the business with a strong focus on Latin America and the United States. So we're very Americas-focused proposition, and I come to that later, that basically offers the convenience of a corner store with the availability of a

• 20:08Speaker 03

  supermarkets and catering for the increase in demand for online grocery, online retail platforms, in combination with the need for more personalization on the consumer sites, giving access to more local products and adhering to a stronger sustainability agenda. And all of that combined, we are reacting to the shortfalls of existing online retail or online marketplace propositions that are not in full control of the customer experience, that are resolving on the online payment element, or that are resolving on the online ordering element, or that are resolving on a specific level of personalization. We are

• 20:51Speaker 03

  trying to influence the customer experience end to end, from ordering to payments, up to basically procuring ourselves into our own warehouses. And most importantly, we want to make sure that by us influencing the entirety of the customer experience from the producer, from the farmer, or wherever we're getting the products, from up to delivering the goods to the customer.

• 21:18Scott Galloway?

  Okay, so this sounds a lot, or compare and contrast. In the early 2000s, I used Urban Fetch and Cosmo. And the value proposition was the stuff I order a lot of, I can get it here in 20 minutes at a really good price. It just seemed kind of crazy convenient. How is Joker different, and it doesn't need to be, maybe it was Urban Fetch and Cosmo were just ahead of their time. How is Joker different than that value proposition from 20 years ago?

• 21:47Speaker 03

  I think there's a combination of different factors. I think what we have seen also, and I personally, right? I've started, I studied computer science and I've built since the early 2000s. I've built online, and especially online consumer companies. So I could see that myself. And I have two kids as well, in the early twenties. So I could see also behavior, how behavior changed from me to them. I think the requirements, customers' requirements towards online propositions have become significantly more sophisticated. The customer itself has become more sensitive, more educated, and there are overall more customers using online services and online propositions than ever, than ever before.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  So also Yahoo believed at one point of time that they're resolving on the online search propositions sufficiently, up until Google came with different algorithms, with a better advertising product, with different ancillary services, and resolved on the need for people to search something online differently, more efficiently, with a better eye on the customer than other previous, basically, search engines out there. The other thing that has changed is our ability to deal access and evaluate data in combination with machine learning capabilities that didn't exist in the same way 20 years ago, or not even 10 years ago. I think especially over the last five to 10 years, they have seen an evolution in machine

• 23:14Speaker 03

  learning and data science capabilities that are necessary to better predict what customers want and when they want it, and how to really build a truly personalized experience. And I think also the awareness of entrepreneurs, online entrepreneurs, that the disruption...

• 23:33Speaker 03

  The technological disruption does not need to only happen on the user experience side, on the front end side, and it was about the application, the websites, or basically the payment facility would enable. But the main disruption, and that's what we're focused on, needs to happen on the procurement and supply chain side. By how we procure, when we procure, how data-driven do we procure? How do we organize the replenishment of our warehouses? How do we bring supplies significantly closer to the demand? How can we disintermediate middlemen? And as such, also build a proposition that does not only adhere to customer requirements, but that also ensures economic and ecologic sustainability.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Because I think also for me personally, these are two very important parameters that we want to ensure with this business that we're building now.

• 24:25Scott Galloway?

  My sense is that it's incredibly convenient, incredibly fast, a recommendation engine that populates what your most ordered products, the immediacy, Amazon on steroids, I don't get it here in 48 hours, I get it here in, what's the average delivery time from the moment I hit send or order? What's the average time?

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Average delivery time is now for, our instant delivery proposition is about like 12 minutes.

• 24:51Scott Galloway?

  Okay, so from the moment I press send, I can get something in 12 minutes?

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 24:57Scott Galloway?

  I mean, that's, so let me just acknowledge upfront, that's staggering. That is to think that I could have something here in 12 minutes is, I remember the value proposition for me in college of Domino's was it wasn't the best pizza, it wasn't the lowest price, but I was usually very high and I wanted pizza as fast as possible. And they could get it to me within 30 minutes. And if it wasn't there within 30 minutes, the pizza was free. It was a very powerful value proposition. So getting the majority of what people want within 12 minutes, seamlessly effectively huge value proposition.

• 25:32Scott Galloway?

  I guess the question I would have is how are consumers willing to pay enough of a premium to justify what must be additional costs? Because it strikes me that similar to Urban Fetch or Cosmo, you're losing money. The Wall Street Journal said that not your business, but businesses like this lose about 20 bucks an order. How do you get to margin power? How do you create a sustainable company? Or is it just raise whoever raises the most capital and similar to an Amazon is able to so massively invest and kind of soak up the market, get consumers, and then start raising prices?

• 26:11Scott Galloway?

  But how does this turn from something that you're basically giving $50 of service for $30, which is a great value proposition? But how do you transition to something more enduring as opposed to just who raises the most capital? Or maybe that's enough?

• 26:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. As you know, we've been operating and building one of the largest online food delivery marketplaces before. A food delivery marketplace that worked with 100,000s of different restaurants. We started off in Asia and then expanded the model across many different parts of the world. We were never in control of supply, neither of what is being offered nor where the supply is actually located. By bridging the distance between demand and supply, you're not only optimizing as an output for delivery time, but you're optimizing most importantly for assortment and for your

• 27:07Speaker 03

  ability to offer a tailored assortment to every single neighborhood. And it turns out that we have on average 50% of our assortment that is equal or comparable or pretty much the same across different neighborhoods, even in cities like New York or Mexico City, Sao Paulo. But that roughly, give or take, as an average, another fifty percent is more localized. Because we have seen that the type of people that live in one neighborhood versus another neighborhood are different. The needs are different, the demographic structure is different, the brand exposure of especially some of the smaller brands is different.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  And hence it allows us to curate assortment and be more relevant to the customers in that local neighborhood. And that plays into personalization because personalization is not only an algorithm that suggests different standard products, but personalization also has to do by, with like offering different, a different assortment. And the other thing that we are allowing ourselves, and now we come also to the sustainable, like to the economic sustainability of that proposition, is that operating decentralized, smaller warehouses with physical capacity limitations requires us to turn over our inventory very, very fast.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  In typical supermarkets in New York or any of the other bigger cities, be it in the US or be it in Latin America, in Latin America, the inventory turnover is even like over a longer period of time, requires thirty to forty-five days to turn the inventory in any given supermarket. We are rotating our entire inventory in maximum fifteen days. In some of our warehouses, even less than ten days. So we can ensure a positive cash conversion cycle of our operations by requiring us to build, to bring the supply closer to the demand, by forecasting, given the high retention rates and the access to data that we have and based on machine learning capabilities that we build,

• 29:13Speaker 03

  by proficiently forecasting and obviously with an increase in volume and, and, and, and scale, getting better and better on that on a, on a daily basis. But you have to invest in technology. You have to get to a certain scale and obviously at the very, very beginning, you have CapEx costs for building out your own warehouses. And that's why we also, as part of our basically financing strategy, we're not only able to attract a lot of financial investors to basically secure certain equity proceeds into our business, but we're also leveraging certain working capital debt facilities that allow us to refinance

• 29:57Speaker 03

  our CapEx investments and our initial inventory investments in a more strategic and in a more intelligent way.

• 30:05Scott Galloway?

  If you were to kind of point to one proprietary thing that you feel gives you a real mode here around a concept that is, I would say, novel but not new, right? Pushing out distribution, to a certain extent, 7-Eleven and bodegas are meant to disperse distribution or product, although obviously yours is much more sophisticated. You disperse it to the actual doorstep. Where do you think in your mind this is kind of our secret sauce? This is what we're going to do better than anyone in the world?

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think there are three elements, if I'm allowed to mention those three, because you were asking for just one. The first one is the predictability, using data and contextualizing the data with many different other data points. So we contextualize customer data with assortment data, with time data, hour of the day, day of the week, week of the month, and so on, and using machine learning capabilities to predict what customers will order and when they will order it.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  The second thing is our ability to efficiently procure and procure as direct as possible. And that was one of the biggest learnings for me personally when I started the business that I thought, maybe similar to you and many others, that the likes of the big supermarket companies, the convenience store chains, and many others, they might have figured it out. My thesis when I started this business as a software engineer was, there are people out there in the world that have figured out procurement and supply chain, because they're large supermarkets that are working for decades on making this work somehow.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  But I figured out that most companies in the US, in Latin America, are procuring still in a very, very manual way, not in a very data-driven way. There's so many layers in between of wholesalers, distributors, that are involved in the process of bringing goods from one corner to the other, all of them charging like a certain margin in between. Certain products are rotating the world a number of times before they end up at the consumer. So it's not even like an ecologically sustainable proposition. And that the whole supply chain and procurement environment globally

• 32:39Speaker 03

  has not seen much technological innovation, evolution, right? All of us are using the Facebooks, the Instagrams, the WhatsApps. We're using Amazon, we're using different products. And I'm sure like Amazon has done a great job themselves for a slightly different model. But the majority of offline retailers out there is relying on very inefficient, very manual, very inconvenient and very expensive global and local supply chain processes. So our ability to procure and build a new generation of supply chain processes is the second element. And the third element is indeed how we structure and operate our warehouse operations. How do we use space?

• 33:22Speaker 03

  How do we ensure efficient inflow and outflow of products? And how do we optimize for every single inch that we have in our macro warehouses to be as efficiently, as efficiently operating as possible?

• 33:40Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back.

• 33:46Scott Galloway?

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• 34:31Scott Galloway?

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• 34:53Speaker 01

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• 35:23Scott Galloway?

  If you were advising an entrepreneur that had just raised $3 million, and here she had the same contacts, cultural relevance, market knowledge of Sao Paulo or New York, but they only had the capital to start a business in one city or the other, which would you recommend?

• 35:41Speaker 03

  I would potentially advise them to go into other underserved geographies of the world, be it in Southeast Asia, be it in the Middle East, be it in basically other parts of the world where that are underpenetrated, both in terms of the offline as well as the online grocery type of proposition.

• 36:02Scott Galloway?

  Got it. And you're a German who is now living in Sao Paulo, who works for a company headquartered in Japan. You are kind of the definition of a global citizen. When I look at Germany, and it might be that I'm just not as familiar, but I look at Zalando and I look at a few other startups and I think it hasn't had the same level of entrepreneurial success as the US or even now Latin America. I look at Brazil and I look at Nubank in Argentina, I think of MercadoLibre, I think of Walla. What do you think it is about German culture that is not, I mean, I guess there's more action in Berlin, but Germany strikes me as this such an impressive business culture,

• 36:46Scott Galloway?

  so many, you know, such an impressive workforce, yet I don't think that their culture and the opportunities foot to their kind of new economy or unicorn success. One, do you agree with that and if so, why is that?

• 37:00Speaker 03

  I think Germany is obviously basically a long and complex history. There also still remain differences culturally, demographically, even in terms of like values in between the eastern part of Germany and the western part of Germany that were separated for such a long period of time. And Germany is a very saturated markets and it mainly consists of like older demographics. So we have a reverse demographic pyramid to Latin America, to other emerging markets, but even older than other Western European or other Western societies.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  So the combination of Germany being very well saturated, very well penetrated of a market that has an over proportionally older demographic, but also of like less entrepreneurial spirits because of their less problems to resolve. And especially on the western side of Germany, it's a society that has basically, it's the heritage of their more wealthier, basically older generation. So there's not as much economic needs.

• 38:12Speaker 03

  To build businesses, there's not as much, as many problems to resolve. But however, they are obviously entrepreneurs and a growing amount of entrepreneurs, not as much as in other parts of the world, that are still active and form a growing community. And personally, as someone that lived in East Berlin, literally behind the wall, in communist Germany, and that spent time in a lot of other countries of the former Eastern Bloc, other communist countries, I think I was, since the beginning of my career,

• 38:49Speaker 03

  very much incentivized personally and emotionally to basically step out of basically fixed schemes of how to do certain things, of being imposed certain things, but trying to find answers myself, trying to find solutions myself, trying to embrace freedom and the spirit of building something that is of lasting effect, that gives passion and identification for others to follow. And there's also the company culture, by the way, that we embrace on at Joker and at all of our previous companies, and that made us known and have a high reputation

• 39:33Speaker 03

  because we embrace a leadership style of ownership, of tolerance, of diversity. We're not a hierarchy. We're organizing ourselves rather as a tribe of different people, and we work together in a very collaborative, very nice, very helpful and respectful way. And that is the biggest asset that we're building, and that drives also for me the biggest passion of building this out as a business.

• 39:59Scott Galloway?

  Ralph Lenzel is a founder and CEO of Joker, an instant grocery and retail delivery service at a hyper-local scale. Prior to Joker, Ralph built three companies, including Food Panda, the largest food and grocery delivery platform in Asia outside of China, Skrill, the first digital wallet company in Europe, and Tokoro Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. He joins us from his home in Sao Paulo. Ralph, appreciate your time. Good luck with Joker and stay safe.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Thank you so much, Scott. I appreciate the opportunity.

• 40:37Scott Galloway?

  Okay, algebra of happiness. This weekend was a strange weekend for me, trying to figure out what to do around this whole Spotify thing. And it illuminated a few things for me. One, I still struggle with a lot of fear and need for other people's affirmation, and it's a little bit unhealthy. The fear around this is I thought, if I pull down from Spotify, it's going to seem as performative. I'm inviting all sorts of scrutiny that will upset me, and I'll be accused of things that I want to be accused of. And I just said, okay, I just need to put that shit aside and think, okay, is this, does this foot to who I want to be?

• 41:20Scott Galloway?

  And I think it's important to have sort of a code that you can rely on and say, all right, look at it through these lenses or different lenses. My lenses are capitalism, and I know how gross that sounds. I think it's great to make money. I think it's great to compete. I think it's great to pay people well. I think it's great to buy shit. I think it's great to vote with your pocketbook and try and use your skill and your strength to create economic security for yourself and for others. I think capitalism is a wonderful force. Two, I think it's stoicism. How do I control my emotions, focus on the things I can control, be kind, be reserved, show a certain level of grace and dignity, be generous, not necessarily feel like you

• 42:00Scott Galloway?

  need to get back into other people's face all the time, be at peace with oneself and demonstrate strength. Be a warrior, be strong, be skilled, but keep your sword in the sheath. And then finally, my atheism, recognizing that life is finite, and I think a lot about the end and how I'm going to evaluate my decisions at the end. And that's in reverse order of importance, because atheism is, I look at almost every big decision I make. It really helps me to think, okay, when I'm at the end, and I know that, and I say to the nurse that's taking care of me, or hopefully people, I'm surrounded by people who love me and who I love, and I say, okay, let's light this candle or put it out, and give

• 42:42Scott Galloway?

  me the, ramp up the fucking heroin and the morphine and anything else I can get my hands on. I would really like to trip, I mean, like, serious capital T-R-I-P, all caps, trip before I exit. But I think I'm going to look into people's eyes and know our relationship's coming to an end. And I think you will also look back, or I will look back and think, okay, Was that a good or a bad decision? And one of the things I do when I'm facing a decision, big or small sometimes, with something that's giving me pause, is I imagine myself at that moment. And when I look back, I think the things I will regret most, and I'm trying to fix this, is not the risks I took and the damage and the fallout from those risks. I think the thing I will regret most is not taking more risks,

• 43:27Scott Galloway?

  not being bolder, not being more expressive with my emotions, not taking more risks and telling people that I care about them, not, not standing up for the shit that I know is right instead of thinking, "Well, you know, you don't want to piss off these people, or this could backfire." I've said some really fucking stupid things and it's backfired and blown up in my face. And I regret that moment, but I don't regret being bold. Your regrets are a function of the risks you don't take, not the risks you take and the fallout there. That really helps. Capitalism, capitalism, that helped me make this decision. This, I don't think I'm judging or being a moral prick about this or, you know, morally indignant. You get to vote with your money. You get to vote with your time and your treasure and your talent.

• 44:11Scott Galloway?

  That's the wonderful thing about capitalism. It doesn't mean you think they're bad people. What did I also do last night? No joke. I called Kara Swisher's brother. His name's Jeffrey Swisher. He's the head of the anesthesiology department at UCSF. In addition to understanding healthcare, I find him just a very thoughtful, grounded guy. Lucky Swisher, who we talk about a lot, Kara and Jeffrey's mother, clearly did something right because these are both very highly functional, impressive people. But I wanted his take on it because it involves a decision around the spread of what I think is medical misinformation. I then called Jeff Bukas. Jeff has become a friend and a mentor. I'm very blessed to know him.

• 44:56Scott Galloway?

  He's, he's an investor and this guy ran Time Warner. And I just find him very soulful and smart. And you just know that when Jeff gives you advice, he's generally trying to do what's best for you. He's a very generous person. And then I called Preet Bharara, who I've met through Vox. And I said, "Preet, what's your view on this?" I just find him, you know, just kind of ridiculously fucking smart and thinks with a pretty clear blue flame. You want to lean on others. You want to get their view. One, you'll get a better view. And two, it creates intimacy in the relationship. People like to know their value. People want to know that you value their opinion. People want to be relevant. They want to help others.

• 45:41Scott Galloway?

  So have a set of value, have a set of lenses you can look through decisions through. You might get it wrong, but it helps. My lenses are capitalism, Stoicism and atheism. And absolutely, absolutely, I take advantage of some wonderful blessings in those relationships with people who are willing to take my calls at Sunday at 10:00 PM and give me advice on stuff. Greatness is in the agency of others.

• 46:09Scott Galloway?

  Our producers are Caroline Shager and Drew Burrows. Claire Miller is our assistant producer. If you like what you heard, please follow, download and subscribe. Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Box Media Podcast Network. We will catch you next week on Monday and Thursday. And one quick reminder before we sign off, we answer your questions about business trends, big tech, career pivots, and whatever else is on your mind every Monday on the pod. To submit a question, please visit officehours.profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours.profgmedia.com to submit a question.

• 46:45Scott Galloway?

  And then bought a Tesla, which I am returning because I spent $120,000. So the CEO of that company could call me an insufferable numbskull. Not used to that. Not used to spending six figures on a company for the CEO to start name calling me on Twitter.

• 47:01Scott Galloway?

  But anyways, but I think I got a better idea. I got a better idea. Someone I live with bashed the car, the right front fender, and I'm not getting it fixed. I'm just going to put like duct tape on it like you did when you're in college. I'm going to ruin that brand on my own.

• 47:16Speaker 04

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• 47:24Speaker 05

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• 47:46Speaker 06

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