I am often asked who would be the person I'd most like to see walk through the doors of the River Cafe. I usually say Nelson Mandela, but he's not coming, so then it really depends on what I'm reading, watching, or listening to. For months, the top of my list has been Scott Galloway, whose Profgy podcast is where I
go to be informed and inspired. Scott opens up subjects I hardly know about, tech, entrepreneurism, social media, AI, financial markets up and down, and yesterday actually something I do know about olive oil. But this is not just what compelled me to invite him to lunch when I heard he'd move to London. It was that this professor of marketing at the New York University Stuart School of Business gives his salary back to the university and talks about loneliness, isolation,
connection and belonging. He worries about the disenfranchised and lonely young man. Scott is tough and he's direct, but he's compassionate, he's honest, and he's probing. And that is a person who I'm listening to most these days, and who has just walked through the doors of the River Cafe to sit down with me at table.
Four Ruthie, so that is this is absolutely a first. I have never had my name mentioned in the same sentence as Nelson Mandela. I think you said it impossibly, hye, Bar. You don't hear Nelson Mandela and Scott Galloway a lot. But it's great to be with you. I realize that you're interviewing me, but I just have a couple of things I want to I want to get off my chest. I didn't realize that you're literally the most powerful person
in the world. Anyone I meet who's who's powerful. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm coming to London and I'm staying with Ruthie or I'm seeing Ruthie.
You really know everybody.
And also just a quick story. You did something that was very impactful and I don't know if you know what this is, but we had never met. I was regretting accepting the lunch invitation. I didn't know the River Cafe. I didn't know you. It just popped up on my calendar and I got there and you're lovely, and obviously I found out this is an iconic establishment. And I don't know if you remember this, but about twenty or
thirty minutes into the lunch, I was talking. I think I was talking about my sons, and you just very casually held my hand and it was at first kind of shocking and a bit rattling, and you did it two or three more times throughout the lunch, and by the end of the lunch, I was not only comfortable with it, but I was really moved by it, and I thought, I wish more people had the confidence to
express that sort of affection physically. And it taught me that that was the most impactful thing about our lunch, that this person who I had never met before had the confidence the affection to like hold my hand.
It really sort of stilled me.
I kind of do remember, because I was a little scared that you'd actually accepted the invitation and that you were coming. And I suppose I wanted to. I don't know. It was like a first kit meeting, but it was over food. It was in the restaurant. I wanted to. I guess I wanted to impress you. I wanted it to be good, and I remember we talked and then I think I asked you advice, and again you were
just so focused on it. You just kind of talk to me in a way that really engaged and I was very touched by that, and so maybe that was for me an important moment. And then reaching out for your hand. I don't remember doing it, but I guess I did, And if I did, it was because I at that point I felt comfortable.
Well for whatever reason, very few people feel that comfort with me.
We stood out and I loved it. I would tell you to continue.
To do it. Okay, we'll come over. What are you doing this afternoon?
Anytime? That's right, that's right.
I like that. So I don't know how food connects with you well, but we might try and find that out in this conversation, because for me, having doing these podcasts is getting to know somebody through food. And it can be a senator, it can be a footballer, it can be a rock star, it can be somebody had met on the beach in Mexico. And when you start
talking about food, maybe it brings up memory. So I was thinking about you know your mother, which I know you talk about your mother, you talk about her in your podcast when you're talking at night, And I was wondering about connection as a child.
So I was very I do a lot of this.
I'm my guests on a lot of podcasts, and I was, I think, more self conscious about this one than most of not all of them, because the reality is ruthy is I'm not a foodie and food is almost I don't want to call it a tax. But my mother I was raised by a single mother. We didn't have a lot of money. She worked full time as a secretary and was British, so it wasn't exactly like fantastic.
I joked with.
Food was punishment of my household. We used to every Sunday night she'd make a big vat. She was very busy. It was just the two of us. She'd make a big vat of shepherd's pie and then freeze it. And every day or five in the next seven nights, when I get home from school, I would put a slice of this frozen shepherd's pie in a microwave that felt like it was Chernobyl before it exploded. And so I didn't grow up with what I'll call real inspired food. In addition, I think I suffer a little bit from
body to small. I don't I have trouble, and no one's going to feel sorry for this. I have trouble keeping weight on, so I've always had to eat more. I was an athlete when I was younger, and my coaches I always said one thing and need to gain weight. So I think I'm probably going to win the award for the least foodie person on this podcast. And I was thinking about what if she asked me one of my favorite restaurants. I don't go to restaurants. I don't go for the food. I go for the environment. And
food for me is like wine. It tops out at about thirty bucks a bottle. I just don't have that refined palate. So I go to places that have good food. But I'm more about the environment and a place that I'll enjoy being. But I'm not you know my Anyways, going back to original question on Sunday nights in college, I lived at home for the first year and I used to come home. I call it I came home.
And that is when I was sixteen and seventeen, I did what most young men did, and that is I started to be a bit of a jerk to my mother or I was just rebelling and.
I wasn't mean.
There's a biological and an anthrological catalyst that makes it easier for kids to leave the household, and that is when they turn into teens, they become unbearable and it makes it easier for everybody. And then I kind of came home. When you're like nineteen or twenty, you realize, you know, it's me and my mom against the world. She was the only person was irrationally passionate about my well being. And I used to go home a lot and she'd always cook for me, and it'd always be the same thing.
Did she make.
She'd always make a roast, yeah, and a roast and potatoes, very British, and I think that's probably why I love meat and potatoes so much.
But that was where food sort of turned to love for me.
That was the one place now and when you were going back to the shepherd's pie that you heat it up in the microwave. And you know, I have to say that I obviously I love people who cook. I love the idea of cooking for our children. I like the idea of sitting down to a meal. But I really have a lot of respect and admiration for women who who don't you know, who have you know, they might they might have to work that night and not
be able to cook. They might have not have the money, or they might not know how to, and so I don't judge. I'm not one of those people that says, oh, everything should be fresh and everything should be picked locally, and you know, it's what I do. But I don't think it's politically or socially or morally right to put that pressure on people who can't do it or don't know how to do it. Where was your mom? Was she she was working at night or did she? Was she doing something else?
My mom worked pretty hard, lived and died a secretary, but obviously she was the only you know, it was just me and her. She was a sole breadwinner and she had to commute drive into the San Fernando Valley, so she had sort of an hour plus commute each way. But I did get exposure to I did get exposure to wonderful food. My best friend out of Markman, his mother, Devora Markman, was one of these people who just went into a kitchen and was like watching an F one
driver get into an automobile. She was just so one with the kitchen and the way she expressed love was I would walk through the door and Adam and I would walk through the door and she'd just start whether she wouldn't ask us if you were armed, or she'd just start cooking. And it was just such obvious like affection for her, and she was so wonderful at it. And I remember for the first time thinking, wow, this taste, this salad tastes really good, Like what did she do here?
But yeah, that you know it?
What did she cook? Do you remember what she actually cooked?
Do you remember the She would make things like I had never heard of, like salmon, you know, in with some special sauce, and she'd make like a wonderful caesared salad that would have pieces of grapefruit in it. And I never thought that, Oh, you know, when you're a kid, you don't make the connection that pieces of grapefruit would
go in a salad. And she would make vegetables that were tolerable, like green beans with with with with with little shaved almonds, like you start figuring out when you're that age, when you're a fourteen or fifteen, food starts to create this notion of alchemy that's strange things, unexpected, things that come together that one plus one can equal three. But it was mostly again about affection that you know, my best friend's mom would.
Just that was we walked through the door.
And I didn't realize it till later in life, but that's how she expressed affection, which she would start cooking.
And what about your mom did she if she didn't do it through food or do you did you maybe when she was making that huge shepherd's pie on a Sunday night, that was an act of love, you know for her kid. It was going to come home most nights and find something to eat.
Always a million things, you know, Ruthie, the you know, I talk about this a lot on my podcast. I'm a fifty nine year old man whose whose mother died twenty years ago and I'm still not over it. And the you know was it was a million things I wouldn't I don't think food is one of those ways. But you know, my mom every morning used to come in and wake me up and she would be like she'd in a very hush voice, she goes Scott Scott, like, trying to wake me up gently. It's only a mother
does that. And when I look back on it, I've registered remarkable success and prosperity. And the two catalysts for that, or if I look at the two reasons for that is one the generosity of California taxpayers that gave me a free, accessible education at u CLM Berkeley and started an upward spiral for me professionally. And also what any successful person has in their life, and that as I had someone in their life that was irrationally passionate about
their well bang. I was more important to my mom than she was to herself, and that got expressed a million little ways every day.
But how do you feel about your children? Is food something that you think about expressing love?
Well?
I have a partner in a spouse. It's an outstanding cook, and she absolutely demonstrates love for all of us.
And I always say to.
Her when I she wakes me up in the morning and makes me breakfast, makes the kids breakfast. You know what it's like the moments we are going to remember the rest of our lives. I think for most of us that are blessed with healthy, you know, reasonable kids.
You remember those little nights at the banquet, eating dinner with them, or roaming around a foreign place with them, with them complaining, you know, but those are the moments that's what I say to my wife is I'll say to it, I'll say I feel loved, And it's usually in the context of the four of us walking around some strange city together, or quite frankly, when she cooks for me and the boys. So that is I don't cook, but you know, it's food is now a big part
of our household. I'm very healthy part of ousehold. And one of the things I love about London that I've noticed, for all the grief London gets about food, A the food I've been coming here two to five times a year for fifty years, it's got much better. And two the groceries I think are actually healthier here. Less preservatives, that's my sense. My senses there's less crap and pesticides and hormones. So I've actually really enjoyed. I love cooking
at home. For me, cooking at home means I'm at home, means I'm with people that I love and love me immensely, and so it's just like it feels right. When I'm eating out, it's usually because I'm on the road and it's wonderful. I did wonderful places. But cooking at home means I'm with the people who care about me.
Yeah. Somebody asked me the best restaurant in London other than the River Cafe, what's the best restaurant? I always say home? You know, you know, I like being home and I like cooking home and my my children come, or my kids come, there's a you know, some of my grandchildren just want the same thing that they always have. Well, there I have this restaurant. I cook all these things and it's like pasta with tomatoesos and tuscan rose potatoes
and ice cream. You know, there's something that your memory and that's what I think it does. So starting out with saying that you're going to be my guest on a podcast about food, without you know, any interests, we've already talked about food and your mother and food and your kids and food and your wife and you know, and home. So it is meaningful, isn't it. I mean, it does have a place in our lives one hundred percent.
I don't you know.
This is something we Yeah, I think it would be impossible to ignore. It's how we spend time together. It's how we care for each other. It's moved from something we did for survival to something that's more about community. It's a way of expressing generosity. You know, I'm really into dogs, and I now see that my dogs occasionally when they first when they were first together and introduced to each other, they used to guard their food and
get angry at each other. Now occasionally they share their food. It's kind of how they express love. Like, Okay, I'm accepting it as part of the pack or the herd or whatever the term is. But yeah, it's absolutely and anything that brings us together that we can share in it requires artisanship and skill and we're giving something to someone else and you can celebrate it. Yeah, I think there's just no getting around it. And you're going to forget more about this and I'm ever going to now.
I think it also talks about culture, doesn't it. You're describing walking around a foreign city with your kids, and the image of that is keeping them safe, being together and then experience. I don't know if you do when you travel, But do you enjoy travel? Do you like going to a city that is mysterious or you have to learn about? Are you are you an explorer? Or do you do prefer home? Oh?
I do, And I'm fortunate that you know.
Now we get to do a lot of wonderful things with our kids, and we go to great places. I spent so much time kind of molesting the earth because of what I did professionally. I think I've been on the road probably one hundred and fifty plus days a year for the last thirty years. And I'm slowing down now since COVID. I've decided I'm not going to travel as much. But yeah, I mean it's very simple. Do I enjoy travel? Are my kids with me? That means, you know, if my kids aren't with me, it's fine.
I stay nice places, I mean, interesting people, I like working. If my kids are with me, it means it's going to be a lot of highs and a lot of lows. It's but the highs are the highs are worth it. But yeah, the general observation I have around people ask me what's the difference between living in Europe and living in the US. I still think the US is the best place to make money, but I think Europe is the best place to spend it. And part of that is food. There's just more of a you walk into
a restaurant, people want you to slow down. There is more artisanshipping around food here. I think it's a bigger part of the culture generally speaking, but that's part of it. And I'm in a stage in my life where I want to, you know, not slow down to a ton, but I do want to slow down, and some of that is longer meals.
I think that when you go to you know, I was in Paris recently and I was staying with a friends, so I bought a sea bass and I was in the taxi cab getting there and then taxi driver said, you know, what have you got And I said, I just got a sea bass, and he started telling me about the way to cook it. And I thought. We talk about cities having a culture of food and how Australia is so exciting because of the food culture, and
La has a food culture. But when you get actually somebody who's just grown up with the smell of a bass and knowing to cook it and a kind of salt or talking about it, I think that person has been brought up with a culture of food. Did your grandmother was she part of your life?
They weren't in my life. They're all gone by the time, and my parents and this is a good thing. Smartest Ang Aberta was being born in America. My parents immigrated from Scotland and England when they were young, and I was born in San Diego, but I didn't have any family around.
Did your father cook?
Oh no, My father was raised in depressionaire of Scotland and knew nothing. You know, absolutely no. I think a big part of the reason he's been married and divorced four times is that he couldn't survive without someone taking care of him. So no, there was We're the least my at least my meeting family as the least culinary adept family you're probably going to run across.
So now my father doesn't cook.
The River Cafe is excited to announce the return of our Italian Christmas gift boxes, our alternative to the traditional hamper. They bring you all of our favorites from the River Cafe, kitchen, the vineyards and the designers from all over Italy. They're available to pre order now on shop the River Cafe dot co dot k. When you left home, you're just describing very movingly coming home to your mother and her
making you the roast. But when you were living in apartments, so you were, you know, just starting out or you had an independence was would you just eat out all the time?
So food for me again, for me growing up, I played sports, but my problem was I was too skinny, and so, like I said, when I joined Crew at UCLA, I was put on a diet where I was supposed to eat eight packs of ramen, six bananas a day, these protein shakes.
I was just over.
They told me you got to massively increase your calorie intake. And I joined a fraternity at UCLA, and the fraternity was mostly young men from the San Fernando Valley who came from affluent homes, and during rush week, they would all talk about how awful the food was. And I got there and I thought the food was amazing. So it's all about your benchmark, the fact that there was someone cooking for us and it was like reasonable food. I thought it was just incredible. So I think a
lot of it is just your expectations. But my first experience with food was in the fraternity where a woman in mean gene the cooking machine is what we called her. I remember thinking the food was amazing.
Do you remember what it?
Oh? It was really basic.
I mean it was like pancakes and pastrami sandwiches. I mean, you're cooking food for one hundred and ten twenty one year old men. I mean this was not this was not this was not the River Cafe was. This was how do I get these men fed and back to school on as little money as possible? And like I said, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I thought the food was amazing. And while all my friends from affluent households, whose mothers were probably wonderful cooks, thought
it was just I thought it was amazing. They did not think. So it's all your benchmarkts, like, what's your secret to a good marriage? Low expectations?
Right, So.
I don't know what do you think about low expectations. A friend of mine had trouble with her mother, and I said, well, you know you're going to visit. You know, maybe she'd just lower your expectations. And she said, I don't want to. I don't want to lower my expectations. I want those expectations to stay there.
I find my relationships got a lot better, especially.
When you love it them.
Well, it's just so my dad.
We haven't talked about my dad. My dad wasn't what i'd call and especially engaged. Father divorced four times, moved away when he and my mom got divorced. I saw him kind of on holiday. It's not that engaged in my life. But he was also a much better father to me than his father was to him, which, when you think about it, that is the basis of evolution. Yeah, you check a big box when you're better to your kids than your parents were to you, because that's your model.
And I just decided at some point, rather than keeping score around whether my dad could have been a better dabd or not, imagine like what kind of son do I want to be? Yeah, and the answers I want to be a generous and loving song. So I'm going
to stop keeping score. And I find that stopping putting away the scorecard with it's your friends, your mates, your parents, your relationships gets much much healthier when you decide what kind of friend, partner, spouse, son do I want to be and put away the scorecard because it's human nature to inflate your contributions and deflate theirs, and so you're always going to be unhappy, or I think a lot
of people would be unhappy. And my life has just gotten so much better when I think to myself, I'd like to be just a generous, awesome friend and be supportive. And if I'm on the right side of things, that's okay. If I can contribute more than I get from it, that's nice. Now for relationship becomes abusive, you're getting nothing from it. I'm also a big believer in pairing relationships. I don't think you have to collect and always maintain
every relationship. But yeah, it's the scorecard. I don't want to call it low expectations, but just deciding who you want to be in that relationship and putting away the scorecard's been hugely beneficial to me.
Listening to you speak and listening you know, actually most nights or most mornings you do really do talk a
lot about the importance of love and of friendship. In the restaurant, it's kind of equalizer when somebody comes in and they sit down at the table, and I always say to the waiter, just imagine that somebody might have saved uptingham here, or they might have had a loss before they walked in, or they might have gotten lost, or there's so many things that happened to in a restaurant that you watch the dynamic of people sitting together.
Most people are really grateful, but being there, you know, they thank me or they thank the waiter, but it creates a kind of immediate intimacy. I think sometimes sitting down and sharing food.
I think your restaurant does. And I do think that small businesses are the closest thing you're going to have to children that are inorganic, and that is you conceive them. They look, smell, and feel like you. And your restaurant is sort of a three dimensional, inorganic version of you, right,
And I think people feel that. And I think the successful retail establishments and restaurants all have one thing in common and successful small companies, and that is the owner or the largest shareholder is there observing everything.
And I feel that.
And granted, I'm fond of you, so I'm going to air to the side of compliments here, but that place feels bright, it feels optimistic, it feels loving. You know, it's kind of you. And those are the businesses that really thrive is you can kind of get a sense for the founder in their DNA. I mean, it's the closest thing we have to kids that aren't our kids. When you start a business, because you're in.
Charge of it.
You decide what resources it's going to get or not yet. You decide what it's going to kind of look like, what's going to where, and then it takes on a life of its own, and some of it you can can't control. Sometimes it disappoints you, sometimes it delights you. But I didn't have kids still later in life, and I also my business is with the closest thing I had to children.
In terms of that kind of reward and occasional disappointment.
Which business did? Must that meaningful to you?
Oh?
I started right out of business school. I started a strategy firm, and then I started an analytics company, and then I started an e commerce company. I've started a bunch of companies. Some of work, some haven't. But when you're looking back on them, they really do reflect your personality. I mean, I look at these companies and for better or for worse, they were sort of this legal corporate embodiment of my values. There's just no and I'm sure
that's true of you know. I think I think Amazon still very much reflects who Jeff Bezos is my way. What do you mean, Well, I think he's I think he's very hard charging. I think he's a very demanding person. I think he's willing to take these enormously bold risks. And I think the culture at Amazon very much reflects reflects him. That Levi Strauss and Company, the Hawes family were very paternal and maternal, and the company felt that way.
It was the first company to have a domestic partner benefits. They refuse to segregate their factories in the South. They used they used to get people Fridays off in the summer and try and nudge them to spend time with their family. And that was kind of a Hawes family. That was the founders. Those are the people in charge.
But those values do go through, you know, they do keeping those values and how old Levi's is or you know, the River Cafe we started with six tables. And you've talked about your first business. But you do, once they're there, you really try and keep them there, don't you. You know, no matter when you grow, and it's harder sometimes the more you grow and the bigger you are. How you keep that in our place, you know, even with the staff.
It's also how you feed them. And it's interesting when I talk to people, whether they're making movies or they're working in you know, hospitals or their scientists. Is how do you feed the people who work for you? What kind of food do you give them? How do you make them feel valued by the fact that you're not bringing in cheap food to give them, but you're actually one of the chefs every day in the River cafe cooks for his colleagues or her colleagues, and it kind of matters.
Well, even I was thinking about this before the pod going up the food chain. When we talk about food, we tend to talk about.
It in terms of.
I don't know, modern societies and situations of opulence or joys. Food takes on a really important meeting in prisons, people who are incarcerated. Essentially, what they've decided is a lot of institutions penitentiaries have decided the best investment they can make them morale and also decreasing violence isn't food.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, that's and then in Europe they found out cats. Giving a giving a prisoner a cat for good behavior takes violent makes violent criminals much less likely to be violent because they've become so attached and it's such an incredible incentive for them, but also any incremental improvement in food in a prison I believe makes it less likely, less prone to violence.
I can believe that. Understand that we've been talking about. I met Jamie Oliver. Do you know who Jamie Oliver is? I do, yes, Yeah, And he worked for the River Cafe.
You're kidding.
He ends a lot of his time and I'm involved in his You know, the campaign to give kids food to eat at school. Shocking that you have to qualify for a lunch by your parents. You know, we should all be thinking about how we feed our children.
Yeah, you brought up a memory that I thought of. I was in the I used to leave the fourth period English in the fifth grade early to go work in the cafeteria where I'd serve the kids. You know, you put in the ice cream scooper into the potato salad and we're I don't call it a hairnet, and I get free lunch, and I would say for I would say fifty five cents a day. My mom said I could keep them money. I was very focused on money from a very young age. But yeah, it's not
I mean just going to bigger, more important issues. We have government policies that basically make sure that seniors never go hungry, and I think that's important, but we're less concerned about kids going hungry. In the United States, one in five households with kids as food and secure. And we have, essentially in the US such a senior electorate, and seniors are such a powerful voting block that in a democracy, when you can vote yourself more money, you
do so. In the United States, we had a nine percent increased cost of living adjustment and.
Social Security recipt for Social Security.
Recipients, but the child tax credit got stripped out of the infrastructure bill. So if you want to talk about capital and ensuring who gets fed, it's pretty easy. Kids don't vote and so they don't get the kind of opportunities for healthy food. I mean, they say that the one of the biggest gaps in academic achievement in the US is solely a function of kids come to school hungry.
To go to a completely other thing. Your concerns about Google and about what the information that we get, it's very crucial to restaurants to have a source that we can you know, people can find the restaurant on Google Maps, but there is a relationship between that and how we book tables, how we find it. What is your feeling about how we control the monopoly.
Well, look, I'm I'm a believer that there's too much power in too few hands when it comes to big tech. That the fact that you really have no choice but to be on Google and that you know the utility is amazing. Google Maps is amazing, Trip Advisor kind of honest open reviews is amazing. I think the bigger problem is, you know, your grandkids who have this incentive system to put themselves in vulnerable positions, or pose and provocative clothing, or even be on a on a social media app
where they might get bullied. Yeah, yeah, I mean you know this. You have of your business, you have your your your friends, you have your kids and your grandkids. Something comes off the tracks with one of your kids and your whole world shrinks to that kid.
Yeah.
And there's just no denying the evidence. My colleague Jonathan Hight at NYU has done great work here. When social media went on mobile phones, teen depression exploded. And I think when we look back on the serah big tech, which is what you were asking about, I think we'll regret the monopoly power. I think we'll regret some of the abuse of corporate monopolies. I think we'll regret election
and vaccine miss and disinformation. But hands down, Ruthie, the thing we're going to regret most about this aram big tech is we're going to ask ourselves, how did we let that happen.
To our kids?
And a little girl can afford fir teen year old girl can go into her room and her parents don't know what's going on, and she gets bullied online and the algorithms and then she starts thinking, getting really upset, really fast at a very vulnerable age. And boys bully physically and verbally, girls bully relationally, and we put these nuclear weapons in their hands, and just to acknowledge the sexes can be different is considered politically incorrect, but biology.
Does affirm this.
The girl gets and this happened, and this is happening all over the world. Girl gets incredibly upset, starts engaging in suicidal ideation or ideas around self harm, and then the algorithms pick up on this and no joke will start sending her images around suicide and affirming these suicidal ideation thoughts. And these organizations don't take responsibility for it because they're monopolies, so they don't have to do anything
about it. They have captured our elected representatives with money, so they're not subject to the same liability when these things happen. So our youth is really paying the price for what I'll call.
The big tech monopoly.
Young Men are being radicalized on YouTube, girls are self harm, self cutting, have all skyrocketed's and social aeon mobile, and they will claim that these are difficult problems to represent society, which is just bs.
These are problems we could solve. We age gate.
I can't order a glass of wine if I'm twenty years old in your restaurant, but a fourteen year old girl can go on Instagram.
That makes no sense to me.
Yeah. Yeah, first time I ever saw you was it Alexander Musaviza Day's opening of her company, and you talked about I thought so well about the fact that it is a government's responsibility to control this. Am I correct?
Yeah, I don't think.
I think that we erroneously or naively expect the better angels big tech leadership to show up at some point, and they're focused on profits. There are for profit entity they all want, you know, the people at Altria. The people at Exxon aren't necessarily bad people, but they are going to do whatever they can to make more money, get the share price up.
That's legal.
That is a cornerstone of a capitalist society. But what we've decided is that a auto company shouldn't be able to pour mercury into the river, or there should be carbon limits, or pesticides should be tested by the FDA, And so we don't imply we don't apply those same
standards to big tech. And to a certain extent, the person that's culpable is the man and the woman in the mirror, and that is until we elect or specifically kick people out of office that aren't implementing a fraction of the laws and regulation and deterrence we have placed across There's more regulation inside the mic you are speaking
into than there is a cross Oliver tech. And I think about the regulation in your rest around fire safety, food safety, exit signs, well lit, disability, you know, accessible for people with disabilities. I think there are there are hundreds of not thousands, of laws regulating your restaurant. Because people say, we want to prevent a tragedy to commons, we want to prevent sickness. We want to prevent employee abuse, we want to prevent unnecessary dusts from fire. There's none
of that in big tech, none of it. It is literally the wild West, and it's our fault for not demanding more from our elected represents.
I mean, as you know, I agree with everything you say, and I also, you know, when we won't go into Brexit. But you know, I really welcomed the rules of the EU, about the rules we had to follow, about cleanliness, about health, about separation of cooked food and raw food, And why wouldn't you want that? You know, I thought, bring it on, you know, because if I was just the owner of the restaurant, and might you know, does it cost me
more money? I have to throw food away, I have to hire more cleaners, I have to get better refrigeration. But that's the deal. That's what we need and want. And so I think in this world, we worry about our kids, we worry about, you know, the future, and sometimes we do need some comfort. It seems like you have a lot of places to go for comfort from your family, from your kids, probably your students, their colleagues, but maybe you also get sometimes some comfort from food.
Scott so I was wondering, if you do need comfort from food, is there something that you would go for.
I have spent my life pursuing financial security, which is an elegantly I'm saying money, relevance, status, experiences, affirmation from strangers, and it was really rewarding and I got a lot of it, but it was never enough. Yeah, Okay, I'm at an amazing party or New Year's in Saint Bart's. Well, I wonder if there's a more awesome place. I'm dating this interesting, attractive woman. Well, is there a more interesting, more attractive woman. I just made a bunch of money
selling a company. Well, is there a way I could build a medium sized company and sell it for a crazy It was always rewarding, but it.
Was never enough.
And the only time I ever feel like, Okay, this is enough is when I'm with my boys and my my spouse, and oftentimes that's in the context of food. It's not it's not the food that makes it. Quite frankly, I'm not a foodie. But when we're all just sitting there together, whether it's eating breakfast or at a nice place where my kids are rolling their eyes and we're trying to get them to appreciate the surroundings and the food. That is everything we do here, everything we're doing here today.
You know this podcast, trying to make a living, trying to be relevant. It's all a means and the ends is deep and meaningful relationships.
That's it.
Every study on happiness comes down to this. Across every culture in geography. Do you have friends that make you feel give you a sense of camaraderie, and do they feel a sense of camaraderie from you? Amongst your we're colleagues, do you have people respect and admire and do they respect to my you? And most importantly, across your family, do you feel an intense level of love and support? And most importantly, do you know they know they are
intensely loved and supported? And those moments of still where you think, okay, this might be enough.
This is it? Oftentimes involve food.
Thank you, Scott, thank you soon. Yeah, come and see me. Yeah, I'll hold your hand.
I'd like that. I like that.
Are you okay with reading a recipe?
I think it's I think it's inorganic. I don't I love it.
I don't think you're necessary. Yeah, I think it's a foreign thing into a flow of conversation. Yeah, all right, you're the first person in ninety two episodes who didn't read a recipe, So there you go. I like it too, Okay, thanks, thank.
You, ruth By Now Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atami Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rodgers. It's produced by William Lensky. Our executive producers are Sad Rogers and Fay Stewart. Our production manager is Caitlin Paramount. Our production coordinator is Bella Selini. Special thanks to everyone at the River Cafe.