OP: So what have you been doing during your time off, if you can call it that,
and what led you to come back and start NextFoods?
or the longest living generation in history to date. Our bodies are going to
change as we age and the only way
that we’re going to maintain quality of
life as we age is by supplementing. I
wanted to do this through natural
sources as much as I could. I also
wanted to learn more about the specific systems and prioritize the most
important area to work on. When I
discussed it with the doctors and
lifestyle professionals I had around
me, they were all very adamant that if
you really want to help people, start
with the digestive system. That’s where
all the nutrition is absorbed into the
body and that’s where the immune system is established. And the fact is,
after age 40, your body stops making
certain digestive bacteria. I saw an
opportunity to create a right livelihood business to address these needs.
Demos: When I left White Wave, I needed to take a big deep breath and see
what I wanted to do going forward. I wanted to go full circle and re-inspire
myself, so I took off traveling around the world with my wife. We went to 20
countries. The most meaningful of all of it was a revisit to India because almost
exclusively all of the inspiration for White Wave came out of the time I spent
there as a young man.
“…if we don’t couple our
disciplines and our skill sets up
with science, then we’re going to
lose our first mover advantage; we’re going to
lose our visionary leadership position.” On that trip, I hitchhiked on the top of trucks visitin”g gurus with a college
buddy, Pat Calhoun, who ultimately became the CFO of White Wave. During
that time, we became deeply immersed in Eastern philosophy and the concept
of right livelihood. It was here that I reconciled a conflict inside myself. I was a
product of the late 60s when business was “bad” and profit was even uglier; the
headlines were of exploitation and unethical business practices. However, I
had been raised by an entrepreneur and capitalism was imprinted in my DNA.
My father was hardworking, honest and was sharing profits with his employees
back in 1962.
When I went to India I discovered this concept of right livelihood and had
the epiphany that there’s nothing wrong with capitalism, there is something
wrong with people. If I was to fulfill my own destiny I needed to reconcile what
I really knew I was supposed to do and that was to create a positive or enlightened form of business. I left India in 1974 to demonstrate a higher form of
capitalism because I think economics and free enterprise are probably some of
the most powerful forces on the planet and if we can only redirect all this in its
totality toward a positive contribution to society, then we’re establishing a role
model for other businesses out there.
Because India is where the deep inspiration and motivation to start a right
livelihood business came from, I wanted to go back to that spot. One of my
goals I never fulfilled when I was younger was to go to the headwaters of the
Ganges, a place called Gangotri. Here, I realized that business and right livelihood are still deeply ingrained in my being. I had a lot of opportunities during
this time period to run larger businesses or buy businesses, but those don’t
really intrigue me so much as the process of creating, so I guess I’m your
proverbial serial entrepreneur who doesn’t know any better than to rub two
sticks together and hope they burst into flames.
During this nice little hike through the Himalayas, I also realized that biologically I was changing. My body was starting to have a conversation with me
and I really didn’t like what I was saying. We’re probably going to be the oldest
OP: So how do you personally define
“right livelihood?”
Demos: Oh it’s very simple, in fact it’s
often dismissed because it’s so simple.
I can quote it in ten seconds: good for
me, good for you, good for everybody
who touches it. The product has to be
good for society. It can’t take life, be
violent or enslave animals. It must be
sustainable in the deepest sense, so it’s
going to be organic and an environmental steward. During my entire
career we’ve only manufactured
organic material. Some of it was transitional, but first and foremost we are
about right livelihood and that
embraces all of the environmental
stewardships that are part of an
enlightened sense of commerce.
It’s got to be socially responsible
because good for “everybody who
touches it” means that you have to be
giving back to the society from which
you’re extracting the wealth—
including the employees who work on your
project, the vendor chain and the consumers who are buying and giving you
