The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - So Long, Spotify + Super Fast Delivery — with Ralf Wenzel (CEO of JOKR)

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

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

Join Capital Group CEO Mike Gitlin on the Capital Ideas Podcast. In unscripted conversations with investment professionals, you'll hear real stories about successes and lessons learned, informed by decades of experience. It's your look inside one of the world's most experienced active investment managers. Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Support for PropG comes from NerdWallet.

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cards, savings accounts, mortgage rates, and more. NerdWallet, finance smarter. NerdWallet Compare Incorporated. NMLS 1617539. Episode 135. The first canned beer debuted in 1935. I no joke, I 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! Welcome to the 135th episode of the Prop G Podcast. 135th episode. What am I doing? I don't remember any of this. I remember none of them. 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 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 Le Car, a Honda Accord. I remember the cars I had, a Buick GT Grand Skylark. Hello, awesome. Hello, Elvis, but not nearly as good looking or talented. A BMW 318i, trying to impress the ladies.

Hello. I used to hang my swimming goggles off the rear view 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 Ceramonte. 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, a kid named Jason Stavers. At the time, Jason was a crisp young 25.

And the 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'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 or the S-Class or the 7 Series, but a great car.

Just kind of meh. Like you drive up in your Audi. Back then, Audi wasn't nearly the brand it is now. And this is the nineties. And I lent it out to this kid in the mail room. 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 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. Very tight, feels like a car, but it's an SUV for dogs and kids.

Anyways, that is my car history. This car could be systematic, hydromatic, ultramatic. 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 Urban Fetch and Cosmo? And we'll ask them 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 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 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 PropG have decided to take PropG 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 an opportunity, a commercial opportunity to engage in the misinformation around vaccine hesitancy. And 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. 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 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 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. 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 an 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 that there is a valid debate here, that they sense, well, if half the people believe that you shouldn't get vaccinated if you're healthy and 21, or that there are certain

things are happening to your DNA or whatever some of this, these false claims have been when they are served out 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 in two sides here. There aren't. Every piece of evidence around vaccines, every piece of evidence around vaccines across the billion plus 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 have decided, have chosen not to get a vaccine in large part because in my view, or in some part, because they hear this narrative, this false balance around this issue, in my view, is very upsetting. 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. 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'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 pounder with 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 mats or the place mats in and out 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 the dissenter's voice is important, but I also have the option not to cash their check. And let's be clear, this is gonna hurt us much more than it hurts them. Spotify is about 10 or 12% of our downloads. 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 ideas, 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. I'd like to think that we're doing something about it. I'm very involved with the universities and have voted with my time, my treasure, and my talent.

And I have been very anti-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 than 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. I think the communication from Spotify was less admirable, saying they're gonna 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. 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. 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. So we are either going to disclaim it, push back on it, or not publish it. Fact-checking is not censorship. That is the ask. We'll be right back for our conversation with Ralph Wenzel, the founder and CEO of Joker. You'll discover what differentiates their investment approach, what learnings have shifted their career trajectories, and how do they find their next great idea. Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy? Marketing. And when you're starting your small business, while you're so focused on the day-to-day, the personnel, and the finances, marketing is the last thing on your mind.

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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? I'm in Brazil right now in Sao Paulo. So give us the headline news on Joker. Give us the top line.

What is Joker? 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 have been building our business with a strong focus on Latin America and the United States.

So we are very America's focused proposition. I come to that later. That basically offers the convenience of a corner store with the availability of a supermarket and catering for the increase in demand for online grocery, online retail platforms in combination with a need for more personalization on the consumer side,

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 trying to influence the customer experience end-to-end from ordering to payments up to basically procuring ourselves into our own warehouses 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, wherever we're getting the products from, up to delivering the goods to the customer. Okay, so this sounds a lot, or to 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? I think there's a combination of different factors. I think what we have seen also, and I personally, right, I've started 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 20s.

So I could see also behavior, how behavior changed for 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 before. So also Yahoo believed at one point of time that they're resolving on the online search proposition 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 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, the technological disruption does not need to only happen on the user experience side, on the front end side, in terms of what 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 supply 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 it also ensures economic and ecologic sustainability? 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. My sense is that it's incredibly convenient, incredibly fast, a recommendation engine that populates 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? Average delivery time is now for, our instant delivery proposition is about like 12 minutes. Okay. So from the moment I press send, I can get something in 12 minutes? Exactly. I mean, that's, so let me just acknowledge up front, 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. I guess the question I would have is, 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 an order. How do you get to margin power?

How do you create a sustainable company? Or is it just 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? 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. 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 hundreds of thousands 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 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 50% 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. 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

with offering a different assortment. And the other thing that we are allowing ourselves, and now we come also 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. A typical supermarket 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 turnovers even like over a longer period of time, requires 30 to 45 days to turn the inventory in any given supermarket. We are rotating our entire inventory in maximum 15 days in some of our warehouses, even less than 10 days. So we can ensure a positive cash conversion cycle

of our operations by requiring us 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 built, by proficiently forecasting and obviously with an increase in volume and scale, getting better and better on that 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 our CapEx investments and our initial inventory investments in a more strategic and in a more intelligent way. If you were to kind of point to one proprietary thing that you feel gives you a real moat 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?

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. 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 there are large supermarkets that are working for decades on making this work somehow.

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 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? 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 operating as possible. We'll be right back. Hey, it's Scott Galloway. And on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, Thank you. sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts.

Think about those businesses that grew their sales beyond their forecasts. Companies like Momofuku or Feastables by Mr. Beast, or even a legacy business like Mattel. When you think about them, sure, you think about a product with demand, a focused brand, and influence-driven marketing. But part of their secret is actually the business behind the scenes. As in the business that makes selling and buying simple. And for millions of companies, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. With their shop pay feature, they can boost conversions up to 50%,

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Shopify.com slash voxbusiness. If you were advising an entrepreneur that had just raised $3 million and he or 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 oneies of the world, be it in Southeast Asia, be it in the Middle East, be it in basically other parts of the world that are under for a company headquartered in Japan. You are kind of the definition of a global citizen. have the same level of entrepreneurial success as the U.S. or even now Latin America. I look at Brazil and I look at New Bank and Argentina. I think of Mercado Libre. 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, 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? I think Germany is obviously basically a long and complex history. They also still remain differences culturally, demographically, even in terms of 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 market. And it mainly consists of 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. So the combination of Germany being very well saturated,

very well penetrated of a market that has an overproportionately older demographic, but also of less entrepreneurial spirit 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 to build businesses. There's not as many problems to resolve. But however, there 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, 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 at Joker and at all of our previous companies and that made us known and have a high reputation 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. Ralph Enzel is the 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 Tokorodo 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. Thank you so much, Scott. I appreciate the opportunity. 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, 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 of 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 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, you know, 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 me the, ramp up the fucking heroin and the morphine and anything else I can get my hands on is 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 gonna 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, not being bolder,

not being more expressive with my emotions, not taking more risks and telling people that I care about them, not standing up for the shit that I know is right instead of thinking, well, you know, you don't wanna 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. I don't think I'm judging or being a moral prick about this or morally indignant. You get to vote with your money. You get to vote with your time and your treasure and your talent. 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. 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. And 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 they're valued. People want

to know that you value their opinion. People want to be relevant. They want to help others. 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, and that is relationships with people who are willing to take my calls at Sunday at 10 p.m. and give me advice on stuff. Greatness is in the agency of others. Our producers are Caroline Shagrin 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 Prop G Pod from the Vox 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.profitingmedia.com. Again, that's officehours.profitingmedia.com to submit a question. 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. 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. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. You know that feeling when your favorite brand really gets you. Deliver that feeling to your customers every time. Klaviyo turns your customer data into

real-time connections across AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond. Make every moment count with Klaviyo. Learn more at klaviyo.com slash BFCM. Support for the show comes from Alex Partners. Did you know that almost 90% of executives see potential for growth from digital disruption? With 37% seeing significant or extremely high positive impact on revenue growth. In Alex Partners' 2024 Digital Disruption Report, you can learn the best path to turning that disruption into growth for your business. With a focus on clarity, direction, and effective implementation, Alex Partners provides essential support when decisive leadership is crucial.

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