Okay, Well, as promised, I am back, and we're going to continue on the topic of my Housewives trajectory and what took me to this point and what I think about things that are said about me and me going back, and we're going to keep getting into it. So when I left, I really left. I did not want to go back. That was not where I wanted to be. And I'm not you know, believe me, I'll rip somebody like the best of them. It just wasn't what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be doing the gotcha And you know, Bravo and the production company and all these people will say it's four months of work, and it's a lot of money for the four months of work, But anybody who's on the Housewives, no knows, it's not four months of work. It's four months of shooting. Then it's doing a reunion, but now out way more than then. Then it was more like four months of shooting. Now it's four months of shooting, eight months of defending yourself, preparing for the for the fall, talking about editing, doing press to promote it, doing press to protect yourself, doing press to trash. Are the people doing you know, it's endless. It's year round. You shoot the show, then you panic for a while and finish doing what they call pickups, which is doing those interview bites for a while, freaking out, still hardbring resentment. Then the show. Then you have to promote the show. So then you have to do all the press to promote the show. And that's a whole other ship show too. If you don't want to be sitting down promoting the show with certain people, you want to do it, you know, on your own or however, that's a whole thing. And what shows people get picked for, meaning I would get the Today's show, someone else gets this. Why do I do? Ellen? Why don't we? You know, that's a whole competition, and across the whole franchise. The competition is fierce. Now okay, I'll get to that, but I don't want to forget it all. Just say it. It's fierce now. I have had people from all of the different franchises say to me, oh, well, they sent me to hear they sent me to another country to promote it. They had me do it alone because I'm the only one doing this. Just me and this person are doing this. Cover It is cause It is competition, like you can't believe. It is not women supporting women at all. It is women supporting women on television, or women saying they're supporting women, or women pretending they're supporting women. It is every woman for themselves. It is this way across the board. There are a few exceptions. I will say that Tinsley happens to be a nice person who literally like doesn't really like to be in the fray. She's an operator. She's got her own game she's running, and she's got her own brand of games she's running. But she's not in there to like kill or be killed. Um, that's just somebody who jumps off the page. I don't know everybody from every other season. I know that on Atlanta. I respect the fact that they will go fucking all the way. It is not just the tip. They will say whatever they want there are They do not edit themselves. The things that they say behind your back are things they'll say to your back. I respect that. I've always respected that. The other end of the spectrum is the Beverly Hills Housewives. They do the opposite. I've been in a crossover episode. I was in that episode when Erica came over to my house. They were all telling sending me things ahead of time that she was in, sending me sexy videos that she was in. They were telling me about her rolling their eyes. That wasn't the caliber of person they wanted for Beverly Hills. They also thought she was boring. They brought her over to my house and they hadn't said a single thing to her face. They wanted me to be the person that said what they were thinking. I got it, and I understood from the why the producers wanted that as well. They tiptoe the most. The Beverly Hills housewives are terrified to say what they really feel. They have to say what is politically correct and what will not be taken uh, you know wrong. They are the most calculated in that regard the opposite end of the spectrum of um Atlanta. They have the big houses and the hair and the costumes and the bags and the money. Porn that that's entertainment, so they can get away with New York we had. You know, most people have small, shitty apartments, so you've got to really survive on you know, what's coming out of your mouth. You don't have the same kind of like money porn. Most people don't have the same real estate porn, you know. And you have other cities like Atlanta that do have real estate porn because their houses are much less expensive by nature of the real estate market there in the suburbs of Atlanta. So a two million dollar house there could be eighteen thousand square feet, where a two million dollar house in New York City would be could be square feet. So like you know this, these are the things that have to be balanced by by by Bravo. You know, you've got to show big houses. So in New York City that's not as easy. So you have to have people that might be really witty or willing to go there. And New York women are pretty much will willing to go there, not quite to the level that Atlanta will go there, and they're not as restricted as as as as a group like Beverly Hills. But I come from when people weren't weren't wearing costumes. I remember Andy Cohen walking into my house. It was gonna be like the eagles Hell freezes overtour. I was never coming back. I never wanted to come back. I didn't want to do it. I forgot what I was doing I was doing my talk show, I was doing other things. I just was happy with my life. I was making money. I was being paid seven figures a year just by my cocktail, even after selling it. You know, like things were good. I was writing books. It was good. You know, I'm not a person who I don't want to do it. I don't want to take every dollar off the floor. I just want to always have balance and be happy. And we'll do another show on balance. But um so I just didn't want to do it. Andy Cohen came and he came to my kitchen and I was pitching him another show, and he said, well, I'm gonna pitch you this, and he wanted me to come back. We didn't know about the ratings, and they used to not tell us ratings. There were no ratings. We had no idea what the ratings were. Once we started to realize what the ratings were, we were finding it out on our own. Bravo wasn't even telling us. I used to send emails. I used to send emails on everyone's behalf to Bravo, being like, we deserve to know what the ratings are and if we do well, we deserve to know that we've done well. You don't want to hide the rate. They used don't want to hide the ratings from us, So we want to know how well we were doing so we wouldn't ask for more money. And all the girls will will verify this. You know. We used to talk about it and finally they had to just tell us after years of me emailing them said, we'll tell you that Bravo. I've got the emails, I've got the receipt I used to be like, tell us what the ratings are and when we do well, we should be rewarded. But they won't. They won't admit that that part. Um and he came into my kitchen and he said to me, and this is something for negotiating. He said to me, Um, come back and I said, I'm coming to you with a number. And that's it. There will be no negotiating. Now. You have to understand. Any of the girls can also tell you what it's like to negotiate with Bravo. They're not playing any games. And too, I don't blame them because they are. Um, I'm the I'm the one who come up with the terminology. How Housewives of jelly Beans and a jelly Bean jar there's a bunch of them, and you could. You know when I was negotiating, when I was leaving after three seasons, there was Jersey, there was Atlanta. Things were doing well, and other they didn't. You know, I didn't have a lot of negotiating power, and I didn't negotiate, and I just took my last third season and said, fine, I'll take whatever money I took. Because I also knew I had a spin off, which, by the way, was at the time the highest rated series premiere in Bravo history. It was a very big success for three seasons, so and I wanted that to do well. So negotiating with them, you know, they've got all the leverage. All the girls need the money and the relevance, so they really don't have any leverage. They pretend they have leverage. I think they have leverage. They fight to the end, then they give Bravo and ultimatum. Bravo calls their bluff. The girls say they're walking away, Bravo starts shooting. The girls crawl back and repeat every season. Girls band together, then one girl gets scared. She walks away from the other girls she bandaged together with. Now she now everybody has less power. They literally you could write a book on how terrible Bravo talent is at negotiating, and Bravo will confirm this as well. One season, one of the girls said, I want to make one dollar more than Bethany is making and or I'm not coming back, and Bravo laughed, folded their hands as it fine, don't come back. Then the girl came begging back because she had broken away from her negotiating team and had no leverage. And Bravo knows that they all need it. They need the money, they need it, so it's just like the war. You could do a course in Harvard on what not to do about negotiating. But I said to Andy, I will give you a number. There will be no negotiating back and forth. That's my number. And actually I now know that I'm twenty five thousand dollars lower than they would have given me per episode for that negotiation. But I wanted to not go back and forth. I don't negotiate like that in general. I like to say what I need to get paid, and they don't play games. I don't say I want to give ten, but I'll want ten, but I'll take it. I say the number I need. I told the number I needed. They came back. A contract was signed. A contract was signed in the way that I could do it with regards to my excruciating, horrific divorce as it pertains to my daughter I was making. I was able to state the turns, their terms they're needed to be. I came back to the house. I was on different terms, not only legally with the other women, because I ran into one of the girls at SOHO House and she said to me, please say you're coming back. I ran into one of the newer girls between Heather, Carol and Kristen, and they said, please say you're coming back. Because Sonja will admit She's the only one that will actually admit that. She emailment to say, please say you're coming back. Everybody was saying they are asking me to come back because whether they loved me or hated me, and most it was the ladder. The show had tanked and they wanted good business. They wanted good business and they wanted me back. That made me feel good. I came back. It separated me. No one expected us to be all paid the same, treated the same. It just they just wanted a good show and it was it for me personally and Lauren. Michael said it best when he said to me, you have to sometimes make an exit to make an end. You have to make an exit to make an entrance. I didn't do any of this on purpose, but it happened. I walked away. It made me hire and demand they want to be back. I came back. This was exciting, unexpected. Um, it may seem funny to you. It's just so unique that I would be so fascinated by their story. But wow, what a fascinating story it is going to be. My guests are Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Yes, the Ben and Jerry. They share with me how a failed attempt at getting into medical school and a failed pottery career led them into the world of specialty ice cream in a way that no one had ever seen before that continues to this day. They started with just one small shop in Vermont, and their famous ice cream is now sold all over the world. I promised them we wouldn't do a gotcha interview, but I still got the dirt on the only disagreement they've ever had, and it's a dramatic one. Their success has been built around one important thing, chunks. It's a very chunky interview. I can't wait for you to hear it. Okay, So who is Ben and who is Jerry? I'm Jerry. It used to be that Ben had the beard, but we switched several years ago. Okay, So you are childhood friends? How old? Well we met in seventh grade, Jim class. We were the two slowest fattest kids in class. We met running around the track. Actually Jerry and I were walking. And you have been actual best friends ever since. Hard to believe. Huh. Unbelievable, like a like a lifelong marriage. I mean it's unbelievable. Um. And what were where? Where did you grow up? Brooklyn? Well, we were born in Brooklyn. We grew up on Long Island in the town of Merrick. I know Merrick because I lived in Rockettell Center. Merrick was I think the first or second sushi restaurant in Long Island in like the seventies. Yeah, there weren't no sushi when we were there. I can tell you that south Shore, Long Island you don't have the accent, no, somehow or other. Uh. It seemed like South Americ people had the accent. We were North American people. You were North Americ people. Okay, was that um? Because in Great Napa Long Island there's north and south and south was it's still upper middle class or middle class, but it was lower socioeconomics. So were you in were you both of means growing up or uh? Struggling? I would not scribe us as of means? Would you describe us as of means? Jerry? Not particularly? But for us, the difference between South America and North Merrick was the kids in South America were the fast kids. They were like they knew what was going on. They were hip, and the kids in North Merrick were like clueless. That's that's where Ben and I found ourselves and the clueless bunch got it. Like in gym class, it sounds like did you grow up in from similar families? Like did you have the same sort of cultural messaging around you, meaning your parents were driven? Did they say, you know, you have to have a solid work ethic, you have to always have a job, Like what about that? Well? Uh, let's see, my father was a hard worker. He was a workaholic. Uh. He was an auditor for the New York State Department of Ordered and Control. Uh. He ordered it school districts uh north of New York City. He found that, um, the person who was stealing the money was usually the little old lady who was watching the petty cash. Then he became a um, you know, kind of general manager of a direct mail printing and advertising and mailing company, and you know, he used to he used to talk about his business management issues at the kitchen table, and that was kind of an education for me. Did you want to be a business person? No? I of course wanted to be uh, you know, a policeman or a firement or a carpenter. And my parents really eventually I think I wanted to be an electrician, and they explained to me, no, you don't want to be an electrician, you want to be an electrical engineer. You know. I kind of like working with my hands. I liked photography. I was very good at extracurricular activities. But I wasn't very good at uh school. I mostly I had a hard time motivating myself to do my own work. I got it, I do get that. And so you were the there's there's in my cocktail brand, skinny Girl. I was the creative and the marketer and the vision and my partner was the operations guy. So you, Ben were the creative and not that you're both not creative, well get into that, but you were the creative in your business. I was the marketing guy and Jerry was the guy who made all the ice cream. Oh, so Jerry was operations. Ben is is is of course being a little modest. He's incredibly creative and uh he he created everything. But you know, and so going back to growing up, I think education was important for me. And the message I got from my parents was we don't care what you do. As long as you're happy, We're going to support you no matter what. You know. It was one of these we love you no matter what sort of things and very non directive, and that might have been a little different from the message Ben was getting. Yeah, I think the message I was getting was that you should be a lawyer right today was so you put, your parents are more financially focused, which is interesting. Your parents are more financially focused, and you were the creative and Jerry's parents were more just be happy and live free, and you ended up being the operations guys. So that's that's interesting to me. Um. I read something that one of you worked at Saratoga Springs Race Track for those listening, the oldest racetrack in the country. I grew up going to Saratoga and this summer because I grew up in a horse racing family. My father was a Hall of Fame horse racer trainer. My my father was Bobby Frankel. He was in the Hall of Fame as a trainer. My stepfather, John Parris Ella, was also a very successful horse trainer. So we spent every summer in Saratoga. To a separate podcast on how that place has changed. But I remember from being a kid, I guess I've always been brand aware my whole life. I've always know everything to this day. I noticed every restaurant, every sign, every font, every menu, and I remember that bench on that corner not far from Mrs London's, I think, in Saratoga at Ben and Jerry's, and that was the first time I ever saw the brand. And that was a thousand years ago, and reading the reading today, I realized, if that was early on in your brand. It started in Vermont and that wasn't far behind, right, Yeah, I think that was like the first or second franchise shop that we opened. It was owned by a friend of ours from high school, Jeff Durstuwitt's, and I was very involved personally in uh in you know, helping to construct that um that shop and design it. It was. It was in an old gas station like our original and ben us Ben used to work at Mrs London. It's a long time ago. It was one of the many jobs he got fired from. Yeah, you know, Yes, I was a pinkerton guard at the Saratoga Racetrack. Uh you know. They gave me a holster with no gun in it and a badge and a whistle and uh my job was to guard the Traverse canoe. You're probably people I've told this story too that is aware of the Traverse canoe and travers is a big race like the Kentucky Derby of of Saratoga on the third Saturday in August. So they had this canoe painted in the colors of the jockey's uniform who won the Traverse, and it was located in a little man made pond behind the toadboard. Well, you got to be a cop. You wanted to be a cop, so you've got to be a cop. So the two of you get together and how do your roles? Well, First of all, how do you come up with the idea for your business and how do your roles get to find Because people listening are working in businesses, running their own businesses, a lot of them are interested in just the food space and having an idea and it coming to fruition. I just want to kind of understand your dynamic in the fruition, the idea, how it came to fruition, and then how does everyone fall into who they are in this building of a brand. You know, it's it's funny, Bethany, because when you describe it, you're making it sound like there was a lot more thought and planning that went into it for me, and nothing like that. I mean, we we we started an ice cream shop because we were failing and everything else we were trying to do. I tried to get into medical school and got rejected from all the medical schools I applied to. Ben was trying to be a potter and nobody would buy his pot area. And we just decided to open up an ice cream shop because we had always liked to eat, and we thought we would do something with food, and we just picked ice cream. Got it could have been anything. It could have We thought about other things. We thought about bagels. It could have been bagels. We thought about a fond restaurant, We thought about a rotisseary restaurant. Well, that's a great point. I agree. I just wanted to have a lowcality margharita. It wasn't all that deep, and then exactly could have been ten other things that I care about. But do you believe that UM had it been now, knowing who you both are and how you both fell into business and you didn't know you were entrepreneurs, and you're undeniably entrepreneurs, and we'll get into that you did it in your own caring, philanthropic way, we'll get into that. But do you believe that if you had had a bagel store or a fond store or whatever these other ideas were, that it would have been successful? Now, knowing what you know that it was ice cream, not not near a successful. I think that UM America has a very deep love affair with ice cream that's way beyond whatever they've got with bagels, are fun due or rotisserie roasted foods or crepes, Thank goodness for that, right, Ben? So there could have been a luck. So that's a luck part. Look Oh yeah, It's definitely definitely a bunch of luck. And we ended up getting into an industry that was growing quite rapidly at the time, the super premium ice cream industry, and the way the way we got into our roles. You know, Ben Ben was creating all the flavors and I was making the ice cream. And it was because I think Ben knew what he wanted in ice cream. Uh he wanted big chunks of cookies and candies, and he wanted very strong flavors. And I was very comfortable with routines, you know, sort of making ice cream, doing the same thing over and over. I'm not creative at all, and so I think we just kind of fell into what we were doing based on what we enjoyed. You know, Jared keeps on saying he's not creative, But it was Jerry who came up with our best promotion of all time, which was pop Sidbiswe the penny off per celsius Degree below zero Winter Extravaganza. The colder it gets, the more you save forever degree below zero celsius, we would take a penny off the cost of a cone, and you know, at the time, a penny meant something you know. I mean the cone cost fifty cents. When it was really cold, you could get one. Forts It was a brilliant concept, I think. I think the actual execution or success of the program was it didn't live up to what it could have been. For whatever, we were not streaming in the door when it was twenty below zero. But at least left you. I know you were still around when it was twenty below zero and it was market. Yeah, you should have been around for the big January white sale that we had us off anything white we had in the store, vanilla cream. That's hilarious. Um well, but it was so you were the formulator. It sounds like you were sort of the chemist. You were formulating and then and then you were executing the duplication. It had to be you know that that it was gonna that it was gonna work. So you said premium ice cream became a big thing. And sometimes I think people wonder myself included. So I'm in the sala addressing category and some people are wondering whether they should be baking cookies and it's so crowded or salt stuff. You go to the Food and Wine Show, there's fifty types of salsa and olive oil. So how much is when things are competitive in a market good and when it's too much? Meaning you were noticing that the premium ice cream category was becoming more relevant. But in some cases that might scare somebody away because there's so much competition. But by the same toe, can you want there to be to be relevant and there to be a conversation to be had in society? So how do people know how to gauge that, like when to jump into a crowded category, but there's room for more people, room for more products. Well, we were certainly not jumping in with our eyes open. I mean we were not aware that it was a growing category at the time. I mean, I think you just gotta do something that you're passionate about and that uh, and that has a point of difference. Hopefully, the point of difference is that it's really good unusual that that it's a you know, you need to find a void in the marketplace and let that be your niche. And I think that in terms of kind of like least cost stuff or stuff that's average, it's really hard for a small company to compete with big companies in that area. Big companies are always going to do be able to produce stuff at a lower cost, but they have a hard time producing really high quality stuff. How do you honor the integrity of the brand, the initial culture of the brand when it's growing, when you need to make your margins, when you need to be competitive, how do you both manage to do that? Or how have you managed to that? How can people do that? I think Ben is uncompromising when it comes to quality. Uh. I remember in the early days when uh you know, when we were this little company that had no resources, no money, and if if the ice cream didn't come out perfect, Ben would say, we got to dump it. And people would go, we can't afford the dump it, Ben, and we can't do that, And there was no question in Ben's mind. Uh, you cannot afford to not be doing your best. So there's that element, and then you know, Ben Ben is awful, spoken very eloquently about the inexorable drift towards the main street. Uh. How you know, everything sort of pushes you to become more like everybody else and for you to lose your difference and to lose your quality not just around the quality of your product, but around so many different things well, I hear every day and all the different categories that I am, I hear, well, this is trending, and we're seeing a lot of this right now, and it literally makes my skin my hair stand up on end because I don't want to do what's trending and what you want to keep your own clear point of view, and it's not that easy to do because partners are scared, retailers are scared. Other people want you to sort of just go with the flow, and that's how you become a diluted version of yourself. When I spoke to Cameron Diaz, she and her partner were saying that in their relationships at home, if something is really important to one person, then the other person goes in that direction. So I'm wondering if that applies to business. Have you two butt heads or you literally just have always had this copasetic kumbay our relationship. I mean, if one of you is really serious about something like throwing away the batch and it's really important, does the other one just fall in because it's that much more important to that person. It's amazing you bring that up, because that was how we've operated. We we always and it was it wasn't unspoken. It was absolutely agreed that if somebody felt really strongly about something, they would get their way. I can't even think of times, well maybe one time, uh, where we both felt strongly about something, but by and large, it was extremely rare when we when we butted heads. You know that the big disagreement we've had that that we always talked about was the size of the chunks in the ice cream. Done one well, Ben one First, he was right in retrospect. It's easy to say that in retrospect hindsight right or even even better. But yeah, and and this comes back to being the creative person that Ben was, and this comes back to me being the operational person who was making the ice cream. Ben wanted big chunks of cookies and candies in the ice cream. He always said, uh, people don't care if they get a chunk in every bite, as long as they know there's a big chunk coming. And I would say, no, Ben, we need a much better distribution of smaller chunks. That's you know, so people know it's in there, and you know. At the same time, I was the guy making the ice cream, and I can tell you it is a lot harder putting big I was thinking about that the machinery for to get through the like extrusion process or something, right, I mean, Bethany, we've been making ice cream at Ben and Jerry's for over forty years. You know the hallmar Well, one of the hallmarks is these big chunks of cookies and candies. And there's still no the other ice cream company putting in big chunks. It's that hard to do that, Ben So. And back in the old days when I was doing it, you know, yes, I thought, yeah, people want more smaller chunks. But at the same time it was making my life really uh, it wasn't. Hell. I don't know what do you think, Ben, Is it more expensive putting in big chunks? It's not more expensive unless you put in more of them. Okay, I got you. The original discussion was about should we have a larger amount of smaller chunks or a smaller amount of larger chunks, And eventually what we agreed on was the larger amount of larger chunks. So these are the little This is the you know, this is the weeds that you sometimes get into. And it sounds like you could have your The advice could be the same for a marriage as it is for your business marriage. If it's important to you, it's important to me. So it sounds like Ben Ben used to go around saying a chunk is not a chunk unless it's a chunk. And you know that on the surface, it doesn't seem like there's a lot there, but I can tell you there's a lot lurking there. I love that. Okay, you are still both involved in the brand on sort of advisory levels, right. I think what we like to say is where we're employed at Ben and Jerry's, were not involved in management or operations. But if they do well, you still both do well. Actually, it's not like that at all. We I don't think, uh, we do any better. Whether the company sells a lot of ice cream or not much ice cream, we kind of do the same. So do you think that um has the brand been preserved in the way that it initially was um incubated and does it feel like the culture is still there and the quality and the way that you envisioned it. So Ben and Jerry's was acquired by this larger company, Unilever, a little over twenty years ago. Uh, and Unilever is this very large consumer brands product that has all sorts of personal care brands and food brands. So they make Hellman's mayonnaise, Dove soap. Uh. You know. We always like to joke that on the same day they bought Ben and Jerry's, they also bought slim Fast, So you know, they've got a really good sense of humor. Uh. You know. So it's been twenty years. I would say for the first half of that time, it was really difficult. I think Unilever and their leadership did not understand Ben and Jerry's. They didn't really appreciate what made it what it is. And then, you know, probably about ten years ago, there was a great CEO at Unilever, Paul Pullman, who retired just a few years ago, and he was very committed to sustainability. He understood the values of the company, and I think at that time, Uh, Ben and Jerry's started to thrive again, both in terms of the product and in terms of the social mission. Uh. You know. And one thing we haven't really talked about Bethany is the social Mission company. But but and the only reason I mentioned is because the success of the company is attributable at least as much to the social mission of the company as it is to the quality of the product, and and the flavors and the chunks themselves that you can't really separate them. They're all they're all part of the mash. Well, I agree, because it's not just because there are obviously two names attached, but there's a feeling to the brand where you feel like the brand has a soul and not every single person knows the mission and all of the philanthropic work you've done and how you treated your employees, which we can get into, and the culture, but there's something about the vibe of the brand that indicates that that it's sort of like a feel good, nice person, good person, not capitalism brand. It just always felt like that, and I just think that came through in some of the flavors, and you know, just the sort of the deadhead vibe and just giving back and the campaigns and all that. You know, a lot of that was Ben too, you know Ben Ben uh. You know, so the company started out very countercultural because I think Ben and I were kind of countercultural. But the other thing about Ben is he's completely anti authoritarian, which is part of his chure, and I think, you know that was that was built into the company very early on. How do you be non entrepreneur real type people and change with not only the times, but like you know, you have to be more corporate, more hr more. You need to grown up in the room who's smarter than you to just have these conversations that are not you're not naturally inclined to have, which I've read about both of you, and it sounds like you went through that. So how do people navigate these growing pains? Your ice cream makers? You're doing well, You're making money. People like it, Like, so how did you navigate that arc? Yeah? You know, I I think the way you're talking about it is exactly the way to do it. I mean, so for Ben and myself, I think it was recognizing the things we were good at, and almost so that means recognizing the things we were not that good at. Uh. You know, Ben and I are wonderful, caring, creative people, etcetera, etcetera. We're not managers. We were not good with policy and procedure, and and so we needed to bring in great people and a team to do that. And I think that one of the critical aspects of that is finding people not just who have those skills, but people who share the values and the culture that you bring. And I'm sure you could talk a lot about that, and you know, it's got to be a fit. So both of you are not quote unquote uh managers or those type of process oriented people, although you're more process oriented, but um do you both have a very serious work ethic, like get it done and work you know, as long as it takes to get it done. Very serious. You know. In in the early days, we were living and sleeping and eating uh at the ice cream shop we were we were sleeping on top of the freezers in the back room. So it was seven day a week, you know, ten or twelve hours a day. Well, I guess that's kind of on the shore side, but that's what I'm saying. And Jeffrey Katzenberg said on here, and he got into trouble. I think about this comment he made years ago. This is not literal, but he said, if you don't if you don't come in on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday, you know. But that's a true entrepreneur. And I just don't like to sugarcoat things to entrepreneurs because everybody now is about you know, thinking about all the time that they have off and getting our breaks and all that. You know, there's a whole new you get, you know, cancelation culture for everything not being totally perfect and in a square box of human resources. Well, that's not what I experienced coming up. And the people that I know that are the most successful, that's not what they experienced either. So however, you all want to get it done. I'm just saying true entrepreneurs work their asses off because someone else is willing to work there as well, you know, the nice the nice thing for Ben and me, uh, you know, doing it together. And I think, well, I can speak for myself. A lot of the reason I was working so hard was I wanted to keep up my end of the bargain with Ben. I knew what he was still, I knew he was killing himself and I didn't. I didn't want to be the guy letting things down. So yeah, that's the way it was for both of us. I mean, we were both trying to work as hard as the other guy. You know, people say how hard it is, you know, working with friends or whatever. I think the experience we had was completely the opposite. I mean, we felt so lucky and still do to be working with each other because I mean, you have that trust and you have that personal commitment to your your friendship, your relationship that I think for us goes much much deeper than the business, And um, how do you think that someone is supposed to determine whether they're really supposed to have a partner or be on their own, Because it's a very different dynamic. For me, it was never a question about it. There's I mean even today we're bet and I get to doing stuff together. My first thing to Ben is, yeah, I'll do it if you want to do it with me, but I'm going to do it on my own. There had to be a time when you didn't really have the money to get the management that you needed to take this thing to the next level and to scale it. How did you how do you deal with that? And did you know you were going to scale it? Like? What are you thinking in that weird purgatory time? You know, I think uh, Ben and Jerry's was always under resourced in terms of money or whatever until it popped off and you got bought. Yeah, but you know, at that point, uh, you know, there was we weren't running it. I mean, we weren't running it well before then, but you owned it. You had someone else running it well before then, but you owned it had you sold off apart to that person. I don't think it's bad to not have all the resources you think you need. You find ways to do it, You find smarter, less expensive ways to do things, and you make it work. It. It makes you think smarter about what you're doing. And uh, it certainly keeps you focused, right, I mean, you're you don't get unfocused when when you're trying to figure out how to get something done that you don't really have the resources to do. How do you know when to hold them? And went to fold them, went to sell someone to let go? Like what? Because I had my own reason for those decisions that evolved things that are not sexy, like intellectual property versus money, and street cred versus money, so or just not getting sued versus money. You know, what are the decisions when you're saying should we sell? We didn't want the company to be sold even at the point it got acquired. But what had happened was Ben and Jerry's was a public company. The company started in nineteen seventy as this little homemade ice cream parlor, and the company had a stock offering just within the state of Vermont. Why I don't I just don't understand why. Uh, well, the company needed to raise some money, and Ben found this, uh kind of obscure law in the state of Vermont that said you could sell stock in the company to vermonts. And the reason we wanted to do that was to give people in Vermont who had been supporting the company an opportunity to become owners of the business. And uh, you know, that way, the company would be owned by essentially the local community, so that as the business prospered, the owners the local community would automatically process. Wow, that is interesting and very on brand for you guys culturally. Okay, that's right. And and and then a couple of years after that, the company had a national public stock offering, so that was in about It's interesting that you say we were on brand for the company's culture. We weren't trying to be on brand. We were just trying to be what we believed in. We were trying to use this need for cash, you know, they were there was a bunch of venture capitalists that were coming to us saying we want to invest in your company, and we we instead of I mean, essentially, the way we saw that was it was essentially a bunch of people who already had a whole lot of money. You wanted more right, you would you want to do like a co op. We wanted people wanted to share the wealth. We wanted to spread the wealth. We wanted people who did not already have a whole lot of money to have a chance to get in on the ground floor. But that was the rose that I had pedal and Thorn's because that one move made you end up having to do the I p O, which made you end up having to sell. So it was like a weird journey that you didn't necessarily want to be on. I don't I don't think that one move required us to have the I p O. I mean, you know, the the national I p O. Uh. You know, eventually we did. And you know, I think that if we had been a little smarter, uh, we would not I've been forced to to sell the company. But you know, interesting we live and we learned, don't we wow? So is that I usually ask later in the conversation, is that your rose and your thorn, or that was not a rose at all? Was that a rose at the time? And you're high and you're low. Well know, one out of every hundred Vermont families bought stock and Ben and Jerry's uh totally rosy. So I don't know, I mean what you're I mean, so you're talking about roses and you're talking about Thorn's what you want to talk about? What was? What was? What was bad? Or you're you're trying to sit not meaning like a daily fight or like the thing of your careers. I usually ask it later, but it sounds like this is a complicated thing that went down. So usually the roses like the high of the career, and then you know, the thorn is the low of the career. You know, I think the low is when the company got sold. Uh, you know, both Jerry and I tried to keep it independent. And I think that's good for people to hear because people always think when they read the headlines, somebody sold that that is like their big pay day and everybody's all excited. And there are many things that make people have to do things their intellectual property issues that go on with certain people that they end up losing their name and they don't even realize it. There are issues like this that you're talking about, where things get out of your hands and people say to me, if I sold half my business, now I have a bigger dog collar on my neck, a different person to aunt driving this sleigh. Like, So, just for entrepreneurs at home, what would you say, Like, what's the message behind all of this? You can help other people because people all want a big event, you know, a big financial event, and they may be careful what you wish for. You know, It's funny you ask about the highs and the lowest. When I think about Ben and Jerry's Uh, the greatest thing for me is not that the company got successful or made a lot of money or that it Uh. The greatest things for me that I think about are the experiences, the relationships. It's all about that. It's it's not that, uh. You know, at one point the company sold X number of dollars of ice cream, owns or whatever. It's it's never about that. One of the house for us was scooping ice cream Occupy Wall Street, Uh in New York. I mean I I felt like, you know, being able to help support that movement by giving ice cream to people and by just lending the credibility of Ben and Jerry's to it. UH to me was a real high point that I felt like this, this was why we created, this is why Ben and Jerry's came to be. It's truly I say this all the time. The people that I speak to you are truly successful. Nobody is about the money. You can't. I once knew a girl who said, I have to find a product to sell. I need to find white space. I'm looking for white space. And I thought, what a moron. It's inside of you. You know what I mean? Inside you is what are you passionate about? What do you love, what do you not like? What's bothering you? It's aggregated whatever it is like. That's what true entrepreneurialism is to me, and that's what we're saying. Paul Pullman, who is the former CEO of Unilever, just came out with a book called net Positive, and it is about how corporations, businesses, what they need to do in our new world is to meet the needs of the society, to deal with the issues of racial injustice, to deal with the issues of economic injustice, and the environment, and that it is by using the power of their businesses and integrating those values into their business that they end up becoming successful, high profit businesses. So it's a win win. You're saying, your whole entire business was about what you truly felt, and the values were coming through in the brand and the products. So it was based. That's a good foundation. That's a house that's built on a solid foundation, is what you're saying. You know, it's it's it's a really interesting, uh, facet of the human experience that as you give, you receive. Yes, as you help others, you're helped in return. As you authentically give, business supports the community, the community supports your business. I mean, it's nothing more really than uh the golden rule. But you know, you you can't prove it. You can't prove that, well, we we did all this stuff to support the community, and that is why we've become more profitable. But I can tell you that we did do all this stuff to support the community. We did take all these social and political stands, and the company kept on getting more and more profitable. Well that's an amazing construct. But also from what I've read, you also did that internally in your business, like externally in the community, but in your internal community it was a great workplace. You've made that a serious priority. Whether you're good to quote unquote managers or not. You managed to make sure that the your employees were happy. You know, our company started in seventy eight. Uh. In the eighties, Uh, we were giving healthcare benefits to domestic partners. We had a compressed salary ratio so that the highest paid person didn't get more than five times with the lowest paid person got. I don't know, I just cared about that stuff. I think. I think part of it for Benning me was we had no business training. We we you know, we didn't go to business school whatever. And and the other thing was, uh, we didn't really see ourselves as bosses. We had much more of a of a worker mentality because we'd always worked for other people and we wanted to run a company the way we would want to be treated. Right. I mean that just kind of makes sense. Right. That's amazing for people listening, because it makes people think no one's an expert on I think, which you weren't and which I wasn't. Do you have any I guess you kind of said your regrets, but any regrets are big mistakes that people could learn from what what you could have done differently, that they would do differently. Well, I think we we used to and continue to make mistakes all the time. You you just referenced it yourself that you know, you have to be trying new things, you have to be taking risks, and some sizeable percentage of those things don't work, they fail, and you have you were Ben you wrote a book right above the Indeed, I did to write a book. Uh, it's about what Jerry and I are focused on right now, which is the campaign to end qualified immunity. Uh. You know, there's a there's a loophole in the law whereby if police officers break the law, they get off scott free. They're immune from prosecution. And that's the reason why you see, uh these situations where rogue cops will be brutalizing or murdering on armed black people and they get off with a slap on the wrist or a lot of times they're they're not prosecuted. It's because of this particular legal doctrine that needs to be overturned. So we are part of a coalition now of over two dozen organizations including Uh, the a c o U and Americans for Prosperity and the Cato Institute and the n a CP Legal Defense Fund, that all understand that this is not just. And you know, I think the thing that we've been thinking about lately is that, you know, so many people look at this as a black problem, that it's black people that are getting murdered and abused, but the reality is that it's a white problem. That we live in a white society. It's a majority white culture. The police who act in our name and with our money are people that we white people put in power, and when they go and screw up, we need to take responsibility and hold them accountable. And so that's that's what we're working on. Fabulous. And are you both in relationships? I don't. I didn't read anything about your personal life. I don't know if that's intentional. You don't have to tell me about you guys. You have kids? What a wife? I got a daughter, I got a granddaughter. Okay, what about you? Ben? I would say that we're very, very happily married, both of us, not to each other, but to to our beautiful wives. And uh, we we both have grandchildren. Were are your wife's friends. Yeah. In fact, we uh Ben and some other friends and his beautiful wife were over her brunch on on Saturday and we hang at we're all members of the fifty one club. Are you probably not familiar with the tift one club In Vermont, Bethany, there is a club called it. No, it's it's people who go to visit all two hundred and fifty one towns in the state of Vermont. It's the Vermont to Oh that's cool. I thought it was like that. I thought, I thought, because you guys have in Vermont. It was that like the pot smoking time that's that day. I don't know what it is a time. It sounded like, God, I'm such so stupid. Well, all right, well you're getting your number twenty vermonttown. My beautiful wife and I are actually going on a two fifty one club tour through southern Vermont UH starting at the end of this week Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Will be visiting UH near Burlington, the big city near Banton, Okay, because I love Stows, such a good mountain not that far away. And you know what's on the wage Stow, don't you don't? But it's the Ben and Jerry's Factory in Waterbury, the number one tourist attraction in Vermont. I'll now I can bring my daughter and tell her that I know you guys, and you can get me ahead to jump the line with brand for ice cream. Yeah, we're going to take really good care of you and your daughter when we come. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna take our road trip to go to the Ben and Jerry. That's amazing. I'm so excited. I was like, I think your name is probably still pretty valuable around there. Um. Wow, what an interesting conversation. I know we had some back and forth ahead of time. Wait before I just want to tell you when you come visit the factory, Bethany, you can go visit the flavor Graveyard. You can go visit some of the dearly departed flavors that are buried right there on the ground. White what Russian who was resurrected a couple of times, but they came back from the dead Halloween. It's perfect thing for you guys to do around Halloween, bring bring bring flavors back from the dead. Right, such a good conversation, and I appreciate you trusting me. So it was a pleasure. Yes, thank you for interesting conversation. Thank you. I'd like to I'd like to hear more about your ventures sometimes and then drink Skinny Girl. Yeah, they certainly can. Again, I don't. I I sold off the Skinny Girl. I owned the Skinny Girl intellectual property except for in cocktail, so I kept all the I P So imagine if you kept Ben and Jerry's in uh, you know, lip gloss and makeup and every genes and everything else. That's what I did. Uh yeah, we we we don't have any intellectual property. All we have is ourselves. We have the real Ben Jerry. Awesome, Thank you, have a great day, by bye. That was incredible. It's so great when you have a conversation where it goes so well and at the end you could tell Ben and Jerry were so happy because they're probably not having conversations like this, And that's what I want this to be, if you can have an entertaining takeaway conversation without being about just hawking products or trying to catch somebody in something. So they were amazing. I now knowing what I know, the fact that it almost didn't happen this interview, I'm so happy that I pushed through to make everybody feel comfortable. You know that I'll say, this will be the best conversation you're ever going to have. Just have it, and people love it. So I'm so thrilled and I'm so grateful to you, and we keep going and it's so successful, and I just want you to keep rating, reviewing, and subscribing because UM obsessed loving these conversations.