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We spend a ton of time debating outcomes: valuations, prices, hiring numbers, growth. This week’s headlines allude to a more pragmatic question: Who created the system that produced those outcomes?

From Anthropic’s atypical IPO governance to McDonald’s AI-assisted pricing to new disability-employment infrastructure, three conversations from the Worthy for Thirty archive provide the same lesson: values become reinforced when they’re the basis for how decisions actually get made.

💰 MARCIA DAWOOD: PURPOSE HAS TO SURVIVE THE TERM SHEET

Marcia Dawood — “Ep. 56: Marcia Dawood, Angel Investor, Author and Podcast Host” — February 12, 2025

Revisit the episode

When Marcia came on the show, she challenged one of the most persistent assumptions in business: that investors eventually need to decide between impact and returns. Her larger argument was that capital is a means to an end. Used intentionally, it can create financial value while funding innovation, broadening access to entrepreneurship and supporting companies solving meaningful problems. Worthy For Thirty

Now consider Anthropic. In IPO disclosures reported September 29, the AI company revealed a new Founder LLC structure that will give its seven co-founders 50.1% of voting control while Anthropic remains a public-benefit corporation. The structure is intended to help leadership protect its stated mission of developing AI responsibly, even when those choices could conflict with shareholders’ financial interests. Reuters

That’s a fascinating real-life test of Marcia’s thesis. Purpose and profit are easy to pair when they point in the same direction; the harder question is what happens when they don’t. Anthropic is preempting the answer to that question before public-market pressure arrives by putting mission directly into governance.

The Worthy idea: If purpose disappears the moment shareholders disagree, it was never much of a system. Governance is where values get teeth. Also, listen to my conversation with Eric Ries. We discuss this fact.

🍔 BLAKE NIEMANN: TRUST IS A PRODUCT INGREDIENT

Blake Niemann — “Build for the Consumer. Everything Else Is Noise” — December 24, 2025

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Blake’s Levels Protein playbook was refreshingly no-frills: be consumer obsessed, remove friction, and assume consumers are smarter than brands sometimes give them credit for. He explained transparency not as marketing language but as an operational discipline, from ingredients and packaging to tiny details like a clean-peel canister seal, and argued that innovation only matters when it solves something consumers actually want. Worthy For Thirty

That perspective feels particularly relevant after Reuters reported on September 29 that McDonald’s is increasingly using machine-learning tools to suggest menu prices across its nearly 14,000 U.S. restaurants. The system sifts through transaction data and estimates what customers may be willing to pay at individual locations; McDonald’s says franchisees still have the ability to set their own prices, although Reuters found that some operators felt pressure to follow the recommendations. Reuters

There’s nothing inherently anti-consumer about using better data to price a product. But there is a brand question hiding in plain sight: Does the customer understand the rules of the relationship? An algorithm can make a transaction more precise while simultaneously making the experience feel less sincere, or should I say ‘human.’

Blake’s lesson isn’t “never optimize.” It’s that every optimization ultimately lands with a human being, and trust is part of what that person is buying.

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♿ DIEGO MARISCAL + MINDY SCHEIER: ACCESS WORKS BEST BEFORE SOMEONE HAS TO ASK

Diego Mariscal + Mindy Scheier — “How Mission-Driven Founders Can Build More Inclusive Companies” — July 1, 2026

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My conversation with Diego and Mindy restated accessibility from accommodation to business design. Diego spoke about how disability can actually build unusually valuable entrepreneurial muscles: adaptability, tenacity, and creative problem-solving, while Mindy made a case for involving disabled people in the product development process before something goes to market. Their point was straightforward: raise funds for access early and build it into the company’s DNA vs. waiting until someone with a disability encounters a limitation. Worthy For Thirty

On September 30, 2Gether-International and Making Space publicized results from a Truist Foundation-supported workforce-development initiative for disabled professionals. The organizations reported 70 executive-track apprenticeship placements, 17 participants moving into full-time competitive employment, six entering freelance or contract work, and a 20% increase in cohort confidence around requesting accommodations and self-advocacy. InvestorsHub

The same idea is appearing at a policy level abroad. Singapore unveiled new measures on October 4 aimed at raising employment among people with disabilities from 34.7% to 40% by 2030, including a dedicated Employment Support Office, expanded training and work exposure, job-redesign support for employers and broader pathways into sectors including technology. People Matters

Both developments move beyond telling companies to “be more inclusive.” They start with an outcome and work backwards to build pathways, incentives, training and infrastructure.

The Worthy idea: You don’t unlock overlooked talent by asking people to work within the existing system. You redesign the system so their talent can be captured.

🚨 GUEST RADAR

• Eliza Blank / The Farmlink Project: On October 1, The Farmlink Project joined the Zero Food Waste Coalition’s Steering Committee, alongside the U.S. Composting Council, the coalition’s first steering-committee expansion since its founding. The move gives The Farmlink Project a larger role in shaping federal, state, and local food-waste policy using its experience connecting surplus farm food with communities that need it. Waste360

• Phil Schermer / Project Healthy Minds: Project Healthy Minds is heading into a major week: its annual World Mental Health Day Gala takes place October 8 at Spring Studios in New York, with fashion designer Naeem Khan serving as artistic curator; WWD spotlighted the collaboration today. The organization’s free World Mental Health Day Festival follows October 10. Women’s Wear Daily

ONE IDEA TO TAKE WITH YOU THIS WEEK

Markets tend to reward the result. Leaders have to design the steps needed to get there.

Governance settles the outcome when money and mission collide. Transparency determines whether optimization strengthens or erodes consumer trust. Infrastructure decides whether inclusion becomes real or stays trapped on a piece of paper.

The strongest organizations don’t just state what they value.

They decide where those values live when the tension arrives.

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On to the weekly business at hand.

The most interesting business shifts seldom show up all at once. They start on the periphery, an overlooked consumer behavior, an access problem, an inefficient system, and eventually the rest of the market catches up.

This week, three conversations from the Worthy for Thirty archive feel less like old interviews and more like a reflection of what’s happening in our current climate: nonalcoholic beer becoming mainstream, AI literacy becoming infrastructure, and food waste moving from a PowerPoint slide bullet into the kitchen itself.

🍺 BILL SHUFELT: LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE EVENTUAL SHIFT

Bill Shufelt — “Ep. 51: Bill Shufelt, Co-Founder & CEO, Athletic Brewing Company” — November 13, 2024
Revisit the episode

When Bill came on the show, one of the most useful ideas was bigger than nonalcoholic beer. After realizing how much better he felt during a 30-day break from alcohol, he recognized that consumers shouldn’t have to decide between partaking in the social ritual vs. pursuing their wellness goals. It shouldn’t be an ‘either or’ decision. Athletic bet that if you made the product genuinely good, nonalcoholic beer didn’t need to live in a penalty box for people who “couldn’t drink”—it could become a choice people actively pursued. worthyforthirty.com

On September 22, Reuters reported that AB InBev is adapting its portfolio to changing drinking habits and health-and-wellness demand, including more zero-alcohol offerings, smaller package sizes, and even beverages with protein or electrolytes. The company also sees nonalcoholic beer as an opportunity around casual meals and occasions where traditional beer may not fit. Reuters

That’s what category change looks like: the behavior that once seemed niche or fringe starts influencing the incumbent’s roadmap.

The Worthy idea: Don’t ask whether a new behavior is big enough today. Ask what happens if consumers no longer want to go back.

📚 MIKE CLARKE: ACCESS DOESN’T AUTOMATICALLY MEAN ADOPTION

Mike Clarke — “Reading is FUNdamental” / Co-Founder, Storyvoice and Senior Director of New Media at Scholastic — January 2, 2024
Revisit the episode

Mike built Storyvoice from his experience working with Syrian refugee communities in Lebanon, where he saw children struggling to access education and language resources. His team eventually moved from a one-to-one reading-buddy concept to a scalable one-to-many platform built to make shared reading free, safe, and accessible; by the time of our conversation, Storyvoice had reached more than 100,000 classrooms and families across 35 countries. worthyforthirty.com

Now replace “reading” with “AI literacy.”

On September 23, Verizon announced a $70 million AI-skills initiative pairing free training from organizations including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, Coursera and OpenAI with local nonprofits such as Goodwill. Verizon’s own framing is instructive: access to content alone isn’t enough, so community organizations will provide coaching and hands-on support to help people actually turn courses into usable skills. Verizon

A day earlier, Zoom Cares announced another $2.75 million in AI-for-Good grants, including support for teachers, workers, refugees, and nonprofits trying to build real AI capability—not simply tool access. Zoom

Mike’s Storyvoice journey offers the same lesson: technology scales possibility; human infrastructure turns possibility into participation.

The Worthy idea: Distribution gets a tool into someone’s hands. Design, trust, and support determine whether it changes anything.

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🥕 ELIZA BLANK: IMPACT GETS REAL WHEN IT ENTERS OPERATIONS

Eliza Blank — “From Founder to Safety Net: Eliza Blank on Building Impact That Holds” — January 21, 2026
Revisit the episode

My conversation with Eliza kept returning to a deceptively simple principle: reliability is impact. At The Farmlink Project, that means building the logistics and partnerships necessary to move surplus food from farms to communities facing food insecurity; Farmlink helped distribute 150 million pounds of surplus produce in 2025. Eliza’s insight was essentially to optimize before expanding; to make the system dependable enough that people can count on it. worthyforthirty.com

That came to mind watching what begins in New York today.

Mill’s third annual Make Food Not Waste Restaurant Week, running September 28 through October 4, brings together Michelin-recognized restaurants, James Beard Award winners and neighborhood operators with an explicit commitment to zero-waste cooking. Participating kitchens are using Mill to rethink how ingredients and scraps move through the back of house rather than treating food waste solely as a consumer-awareness campaign. GlobeNewswire

That distinction matters. Sustainability becomes difficult to abandon when it stops being a message and starts becoming the system.

The Worthy idea: The strongest mission-driven businesses don’t just communicate their values. They operationalize them.

A quick note from one of Worthy for Thirty’s newest sponsors, Gustus Vitae. Long before they became a sponsor, I had the opportunity to sit down with co-founder Frankie Scanlon to talk about how Gustus Vitae has grown from its farmers market roots into a brand built around quality, community and making cooking more accessible and fun. That conversation, and the way Frankie and his team think about building a business with purpose, made it a no-brainer to support the show. Gustus Vitae crafts small-batch, all-natural seasonings, sea salts and artisan cane sugars designed to make everyday food better. Click here to shop Gustus Vitae and get 15% off your order + free shipping—and support a brand that supports Worthy for Thirty.

🚨 GUEST RADAR

• MJ Gottlieb / Loosid: On September 23, Loosid announced an expansion of its recovery platform aimed at connecting formal treatment with everyday sobriety, including tools for treatment providers and its AI-powered Sobriety & Addiction Mentor, SAM. The move pushes Loosid further from a consumer community app toward infrastructure for ongoing recovery support. openPR.com

• Bill Shufelt / Athletic Brewing: Athletic and Graza announced Cold Off The Press on September 23, a limited-release nonalcoholic pilsner made using Graza extra-virgin olive oil. Beyond the novelty, it’s another example of Athletic treating NA beer as a platform for product experimentation rather than merely an alcohol substitute. Brewbound

ONE IDEA TO TAKE WITH YOU

Non-alcoholic beer. AI education. Food waste.

The industries are different, but the pattern is the same:

Yesterday’s edge case can become tomorrow’s OS.

The leaders worth following are the ones who see consumer behavior change before everyone else does and builds the product, infrastructure or system that makes that new behavior easier.

By the time the market agrees, they’ve already been ahead.

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This week, three conversations from the Worthy for Thirty archive seemed newly relevant for the same reason: the smartest organizations don’t just ask people to care. They meet people where they are.

🧠 Mental-health resources need to be made available yet made easy to access and use

Phil Schermer + Stephen Sokoler — “Ep. 21: Phil Schermer, Founder & CEO, Project Healthy Minds and Stephen Sokoler, Founder & CEO, Journey” — March 23, 2023
Revisit the episode

When Phil and Stephen came on the show in 2023, the main point of the episode wasn’t simply that companies should talk about mental health. They argued that CEOs and executive teams need to treat employee mental health as a company priority, normalize conversations around it, and make mental-health care an intrinsic part of how a company operates. Worthy For Thirty

That distinction feels incredibly important. On September 15, the World Health Organization updated its guidance on mental health at work, stressing that leadership commitment, manager training, employee participation, and workplace structures allow people to actually flourish, not simply post or manage benefits sitting on a portal somewhere. World Health Organization: On September 21, the U.S. Department of Labor also published new guidance determined to address insurance practices that restrict access to mental-health and substance-use treatment, with a proposed parity rule expected later this year. Axios

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The leadership question is becoming less “Do we offer mental-health resources?” and more “How can we help our employees actually use them?”

The Worthy idea: A benefit isn’t a benefit if friction keeps people from accessing it.

🪑 Cate Luzio: Belonging is something you design

Cate Luzio — “From Banker to Builder: Cate Luzio’s Masterclass on Launching a Community-Driven Business” — October 15, 2025
Revisit the episode

Cate’s approach to building Luminary has always been excruciatingly practical. She and her team removed application barriers, grew the community around the idea that there should be “room at the table,” pushed her employees to challenge her decisions, and treated the people building the company as active community participants, not just staff executing a founder’s vision. Worthy For Thirty

That came to mind this week when Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s Former COO, argued that women turning down or stepping down from senior corporate roles shouldn’t automatically be construed as declining ambition. She spoke about fewer opportunities, weaker sponsorship and mentorship, caregiving demands, and workplace structures that make advancement less attractive or attainable; Lean In’s research found that women’s interest in top roles rises substantially when they believe their employer genuinely wants women in leadership. Business Insider

Cate’s perspective is insightful and useful because it shifts the burden from the individual to the design of the environment. Instead of asking why someone isn’t leaning in, leaders should ask whether they’ve created an environment worth leaning into.

The Worthy idea: People are more likely to pursue opportunity when they can actually see themselves inside it.

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❤️ Stephen Ready: Friction is a tax on generosity

Stephen Ready — “Ep. 50: Stephen Ready, Co-Founder & CEO, INSPIRED” — October 30, 2024
Revisit the episode

Stephen’s thesis behind INSPIRED was clear: charitable action shouldn’t require consumers to stop what they’re doing, find a nonprofit, and then make a separate donation. INSPIRED was created to make year-round giving frictionless by allowing consumers to give through their existing purchases, and brand engagement allowing brands to go along the ride of supporting their consumers’ favorite causes and nonprofits. Worthy For Thirty

There was quite a remarkable real-world example of that idea this week. On September 14, the Taco Bell Foundation announced a record $32 million in grants to 700 nonprofits, with the program fueled in part by customers choosing to round up their checks. The average Round Up donation is just 43 cents; in 2025, those tiny transactions collectively generated more than $51 million! Taco Bell

That isn’t only a fundraising story. It’s a product-design story: Taco Bell placed generosity directly inside a behavior millions of people were already exuding.

For brands that say purpose is part of the business, that may be the more interesting question: Where can impact live inside the transaction rather than beside it?

The Worthy idea: Make doing good the easiest next click.

🚨 Guest Radar

• Mindy Scheier / Runway of Dreams: On September 16, New York State announced that its forthcoming Adaptive Clothing Grant Program is expected to launch in January 2027. The announcement was made at Runway of Dreams’ Fashion Revolution event during New York Fashion Week and will support designers, entrepreneurs, and researchers developing functional, fashionable clothing around the needs of people with disabilities. Empire State Development

• Leah Shepherd / Victoria’s Voice Foundation: Victoria’s Voice joined Capital Region Crime Stoppers, Louisiana Blue and Acadian Ambulance on a new East Baton Rouge youth drug-prevention campaign launched September 15. High-school students are creating peer-to-peer PSAs around fentanyl, opioids, vaping and other substances, while LSU student-athletes are helping extend the message to young people and families. WBRZ

• Phil Schermer / Project Healthy Minds: On September 18, Project Healthy Minds unveiled programming for its October 8 gala and October 10 free World Mental Health Day Festival in New York, with participants including Karl-Anthony Towns, Terry Crews, Jonathan Haidt and Nina Westbrook. PR Newswire

A quick note from one of Worthy for Thirty’s newest sponsors, Gustus Vitae. Long before they became a sponsor, I had the opportunity to sit down with co-founder Frankie Scanlon to talk about how Gustus Vitae has grown from its farmers market roots into a brand built around quality, community, and making cooking more accessible and just plain fun. That conversation, and the way Frankie and his team think about building a business with purpose, made it a no-brainer to support the show. Gustus Vitae crafts small-batch, all-natural seasonings, sea salts, and artisan cane sugars designed to make everyday food better. Click here to shop Gustus Vitae and get 15% off your order + free shipping—and support a brand that supports Worthy for Thirty.

One idea to take with you

Purpose is strongest when it becomes built into the architecture.

If you want more people to ask for help, pursue leadership, or give back, persuasion only gets you so far. Remove the friction. Make the path clear and intuitive. Design the experience around the behavior you say you value.

Because eventually, what an organization believes matters less than what it makes easier for the people it serves to do.

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Looking through the Worthy for Thirty archive, three conversations rise to the top because each guest was talking about the same thing: how values become more enduring when you build them into the system.

🤖 JONAH GOODHART: “TECH FOR GOOD” NEEDS AN OPERATING MODEL

Jonah Goodhart — Ep. 24: Jonah Goodhart, Co-Founder, Montauk Labs — May 4, 2023
Revisit the episode

When Jonah came on the show in 2023, actually in person at P&T Knitware in NYC, he made an important callout: technology alone isn’t inherently positive; it needs human intervention to shape it. He and his brother Noah founded Montauk Labs around the concept that technology could solve meaningful problems while still building sustainable businesses. In healthcare, for example, Jonah described using their background in data and analytics to improve health outcomes, not just uncovering another application for the technology because it existed. (Worthy for Thirty)

That feels particularly relevant now.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called this week for AI companies to slow the advancement of frontier models enough to create stronger safeguards, proposing independent evaluators, coordination between leading AI companies, and greater international cooperation. Two days later, Microsoft released its own draft AI “code of conduct,” including requirements that systems remain correctable, shut-downable, and under human control. (Reuters)

We’ve quickly realized AI can do extraordinary things. The question now is whether the structures surrounding it can mature as quickly as the capabilities do.

Jonah’s conversation offers a useful perspective and guide: don’t start with what the technology can do. Start with the outcome you actually want it to create.

The Worthy idea: Technology scales capability. Leadership has to scale responsibility with it.

👶 SARAH STEINHARDT: PHILANTHROPY CAN FILL A GAP. IT CAN’T BE THE WHOLE SYSTEM.

Sarah Steinhardt — Ep. 37: Sarah Steinhardt, Co-Founder, Welcome Baby USA — December 5, 2023
Revisit the episode

Sarah co-founded Welcome Baby USA around an incredibly tangible gift for indigent mothers: boxes with diapers, wipes, feeding essentials, clothing, and other basics newborns need during the first four weeks of their lives. But what stuck with me from our conversation was that Sarah didn’t devise charity as the end-all, be-all solution. She talked about hospital and clinic partnerships, learning from social workers and pediatricians, and ultimately the need for systemic government support for essential baby-care resources. (Worthy for Thirty)

This week, Americares received the largest donation in its history: $50 million from an anonymous Connecticut family as U.S. government cuts have uprooted programs ranging from maternal and child health and HIV treatment to other global-health services. Half of the gift will support Americares’ effort to reach 100 million people with healthcare by 2030; the other half will strengthen its endowment. (AP News)

It’s an incredible act of generosity.

It’s also a reminder of something uneasy: when essential services depend on extraordinary acts of generosity, the underlying system may be tenuous.

That’s what made Sarah’s perspective so useful. Donations matter enormously. Corporate partnerships matter. Volunteers matter. But mission-driven organizations can also use their closeness to the problem to help demonstrate where temporary relief needs to become part of a permanent system. Do we look to free enterprise to create it?

The Worthy idea: Generosity is strongest when it reinforces a system, not when it is forced to become one. It’s also a question of perhaps where government dependency ends, and private businesses or nonprofit intervention starts.

♿ MINDY SCHEIER: ACCESSIBILITY IS A PRODUCT STRATEGY

Mindy Scheier — Ep. 34: Mindy Scheier, Founder & CEO, Runway of Dreams & Gamut Management — October 5, 2023
Revisit the episode

Mindy’s journey began because her son Oliver, who has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, wanted to wear jeans like his friends. She created a pair herself, and eventually turned that experience into a business and nonprofit to help mainstream brands build products for people with disabilities, understanding their needs from the start. Runway of Dreams has collaborated with brands including Tommy Hilfiger and Victoria’s Secret, while Gamut Management is the consulting arm helping companies enter the adaptive-products market from concept through launch. (Worthy for Thirty)

This week, Vogue profiled Weldun, a new luxury marketplace created around functional fashion. Founder Carly Berlin founded it after a double mastectomy (perhaps she and Elissa from WeGotThis.org should chat) made her realize how difficult it was to find clothing that accommodated changing physical needs without sacrificing style. Weldun organizes products around needs like easy on/off, healing and recovery, sensory considerations, and flexible fit, and it includes existing luxury pieces whose accessible features may never previously have been marketed that way. (Vogue)

That feels like a natural growth of Mindy’s platform.

Accessibility doesn’t have to mean building a separate, clinical product for a small audience. Designing for disability, recovery, aging, pregnancy, or limited dexterity can uncover product improvements that make something better for far more people; inclusion is the strategy.

The opportunity isn’t simply inclusion.

It’s better design.

The Worthy idea: Inclusion becomes durable when it improves the product.

🚨 GUEST RADAR

Bill Shufelt / Athletic Brewing: New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott have become athlete-partners and equity holders in Athletic Brewing as part of multiyear relationships tied to the brand’s new “Athletic Fits” campaign. Athletic is now available at more than 200 professional and collegiate sports, endurance and entertainment venues; a meaningful next step in its push to make nonalcoholic beer an integral part of mainstream sports culture. (CT Insider)

Monica Yunus + Camille Zamora / Sing for Hope: Twenty-five years after Sing for Hope’s roots at Juilliard, six artist-designed Sing for Hope Pianos returned to Lincoln Center’s Hearst Plaza on September 11 for public play and programming through September 20. The activation reconnects the organization with the artistic community where its founders first began mobilizing musicians around service following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. (Sing for Hope)

Sapreet Saluja / New York Cares: To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, New York Cares partnered with 9/11 Day on a four-day service effort aboard the Intrepid, with more than 1,000 New York Cares volunteers supporting an effort to pack over three million meals for New Yorkers facing food insecurity. (New York Cares)

ONE IDEA TO TAKE WITH YOU

AI guardrails. Baby essentials. Adaptive clothing.

Very different problems, but the same leadership challenge:

Can the thing you say you care about survive growth?

Mission statements can inform and convey to people what you believe. Systems decide whether those beliefs are still important when the company gets bigger, the technology gets faster, or the problem gets more demanding.

Values become durable when they shift from the statement into repeatable action.

Until next week,
Eric

Worthy for Thirty — where leaders doing good while doing well tell their stories.

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A restaurant chain is turning surplus food into a conduit for combatting hunger. A professional-services giant is allocating $100 million to helping its workforce build distinctly human skills. And Uber is cutting thousands of jobs to remove organizational complexity. Different businesses, same question: What does your company actually reinforce every day?

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🍗 RONNY SAGE: PURPOSE WORKS BETTER AS INFRASTRUCTURE THAN A CAMPAIGN

Guest: Ronny Sage, Founder & CEO, ShoppingGives
Episode: Ep. 36 Ronny Sage, Founder & CEO, ShoppingGives
Published: November 28, 2023
Revisit the Ronny Sage episode

When Ronny recorded with me on the Worthy for Thirty podcast, he explained that ShoppingGives works through three interconnected pieces: identifying the right cause relationships, incorporating social impact throughout the consumer journey, and then managing the compliance and measurement needed to understand whether those programs actually work. He also shared examples where brands saw more than a 40% increase in customer lifetime value among consumers who participated in giving programs. (Worthy for Thirty)

That conversation came back to me this week because Chick-fil-A kicked off Hunger Action Month with plans to match up to $1 million in donations to Feeding America partner food banks (you may have heard of Feeding America through my conversation with Marcin and Amit at Mission Craft Cocktails) across more than 40 markets. But the more interesting story is the operating system supporting it: its Shared Table program now involves more than 2,700 restaurants and 1,600 nonprofit partners, redirecting surplus food into meals rather than treating hunger relief as an isolated event. (Chick-fil-A)

That distinction matters.

A donation is an event.

Repetition becomes part of the business model.

Ronny’s contention wasn’t that every company should partner with a cause at checkout. It was that when impact is linked to how a company already operates, and measured with the same seriousness as other business initiatives, it has better odds of surviving budget cuts, leadership upheaval, and changing marketing priorities.

The Worthy idea: If your mission disappears when the campaign ends, it probably wasn’t embedded deeply enough. Also a reason why we submitted an SXSW panel — to help mission-minded / focused brands on how to embed that mission into their business infrastructure and foundation.

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🧠 DAN REICH: AI IS MAKING CURIOSITY MORE VALUABLE, NOT LESS

Guest: Dan Reich, Co-Founder, Troops.Ai and TULA
Episode: Ep. 13: Dan Reich, Co-Founder, Troops.Ai and Tula
Published: November 4, 2022
Revisit the Dan Reich episode

Dan had already founded, scaled, then sold businesses, while investing in numerous other companies, when I asked him what actually sustains entrepreneurs over time. His answer pointed to passion and curiosity: Are you genuinely interested in the problem? Are you willing to keep asking why it works the way it does and whether there is a better answer? (Worthy for Thirty)

Four years later, major companies are effectively putting a price on those qualities.

EY announced this week that it will invest $100 million in employee rewards tied to skills including judgment, adaptability, business acumen, experimentation and innovation as AI changes professional services. Awards can reach $25,000, and EY’s framing is newsworthy: technology adoption matters, but so does knowing what to do with the technology once you know how to use it. (Fortune)

Shopify COO Jess Hertz made a similar argument this week when she described the ideal AI-era employee as “X-shaped”: someone capable of developing depth across multiple areas while continuing to learn quickly as the work changes. (Business Insider)

For years, we assumed automation would make expertise more valuable.

It may also make learning velocity more valuable.

Knowing something matters. Knowing how to question it, connect the dots, and pivot quickly when the answer changes may matter even more.

Dan was talking about founders in 2022.

Increasingly, he may have been describing the employee of 2030.

The Worthy idea: In a world where information continues to get cheaper by the minute, curiosity becomes more expensive.

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✂️ MIKE + KASS LAZEROW: GROWTH CREATES COMPLEXITY. GREAT LEADERS REMOVE IT.

Guests: Mike & Kass Lazerow, Co-Founders, Buddy Media & Golf.com
Episode: Unpacking “Shoveling $h!t”: Mike & Kass Lazerow’s Raw Truths on Entrepreneurship & Impact
Published: June 5, 2025
Revisit the Mike & Kass Lazerow episode

Mike made a point during our recording that is easy to agree with and incredibly difficult to practice and execute consistently: startups have limited resources, so focus has to be ruthless. He and Kass also described Buddy Media’s culture in detail: transparency, celebrating wins, and keeping people connected as one of the many things that allowed the business to survive tremendous growth and even acquisition. (Worthy for Thirty)

This week, Uber announced its largest round of layoffs since 2020: approximately 3,300 employees, the equivalent of ~10% of its workforce. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the restructuring is intended to flatten management layers, simplify decision-making, and make the company faster as it competes in an increasingly complex transportation market. (Axios)

There’s a leadership lesson hidden within the layoff headline.

Companies spend years adding people, departments, and processes because growth seems to demand them.

Eventually, someone has to pose the question:

Is all of this helping us grow, or just proving how large we’ve become?

That’s the uncomfortable side of scale.

The challenge isn’t only knowing what to build.

It’s knowing what to stop doing.

The Worthy idea: Complexity accumulates naturally. Focus has to be intentional.

🚨 GUEST RADAR

Bill Shufelt → Athletic Brewing

Athletic Brewing named Dan Kleinman as its new CMO, effective September 8. Kleinman previously spent nearly a decade at Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits, including helping build Josh Cellars; the hire comes as Athletic increases national media investment and pushes from category pioneer toward a broader global brand. (Marketing Dive)

Rob Tod → Allagash Brewing

Allagash White was inducted into the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame this week, one of only five beers selected this year. The organization described it as a benchmark Belgian-style witbier, backed by awards from 19 competitions in the U.S. and Europe. (WGME2)

Luke Mickelson → Sleep in Heavenly Peace

The nonprofit’s eighth annual Bunks Across America is now underway from September 5–12, bringing chapters together across North America to build 12,000 beds for children who currently lack one. (Sleep in Heavenly Peace)

🧠 ONE IDEA TO STEAL

Companies tell us what they believe all the time.

The more useful question is:

What does the system encourage people to do?

Chick-fil-A built giving into restaurant operations.

EY attached money to curiosity, judgment, and adaptability.

Uber decided streamlining the org chart was valuable enough to restructure it.

That’s where culture becomes visible.

What gets rewarded gets repeated.
What gets repeated eventually becomes the company.

Until next week,

Eric

Worthy for Thirty

Doing good while doing well shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

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Last week, I wrote about protecting the principle while experimenting with the delivery.

This week, something different caught my attention: some of the biggest opportunities are hiding in plain sight.

Mac & cheese. Milk. Online creators.

None are new. All three are being retinkered.

And three conversations from the Worthy for Thirty archive suddenly feel particularly relevant. Stick with me here.

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🧀 MAC & CHEESE JUST DELIVERED A MASTERCLASS IN DISRUPTION

Barilla is acquiring GOODLES, the better-for-you mac & cheese company that launched in 2021.

The price wasn’t disclosed.

The numbers tell an incredible story.

GOODLES grew from 0.8% to 7.8% of U.S. shelf-stable mac & cheese spending in just three years. Even more interesting: the company says 80% of its sales come from consumers who previously didn’t shop the category or are now buying more of it. GOODLES will continue operating independently, with CEO Jen Zeszut and all 73 employees staying on. (The Wall Street Journal)

In other words, GOODLES didn’t just steal customers from the competition.

It made an old category interesting to new ones.

And weirdly enough, that sent me back to popcorn.

💡 THE WORTHY IDEA

When I sat down with Tom Leigh, co-founder of Tommy Popcorn, we discussed entering one of the oldest, most commoditized snack categories around.

Tommy’s approach wasn’t:

How do we make another popcorn?

It was closer to:

Where is the whitespace everyone else has stopped looking for?

The company examined search behavior to discover flavors consumers wanted but couldn’t easily buy. Then it layered those insights with unconventional flavors, experiential marketing and an intentionally mysterious fictional founder named Tommy. (Worthy For Thirty)

Tom’s lesson was that data can tell you where to play, but storytelling gives people a reason to care once you arrive.

GOODLES is an apt parallel.

It didn’t birth mac and cheese.

It reconsidered who mac & cheese could be for, improved the nutritional proposition and ensconced in a brand that looks nothing like the category incumbents.

Barilla certainly noticed.

Why it matters now → Founders love talking about creating new categories. Sometimes the bigger opportunity is reinvigorating an old category everyone else assumes has already been figured out.

Don’t ask, “What hasn’t been invented?”

Ask: “What hasn’t been reimagined?”

🎧 Revisit my conversation with Tom Leigh
How a Fake Character Is Building a Very Real Brand — February 4, 2026

🥛 CHOBANI IS BETTING $1.2 BILLION THAT MILK ISN’T FINISHED

Speaking of old categories...

Milk.

Chobani announced a $1.2 billion investment in Pennsylvania this week to establish its first dairy-product manufacturing operation in the state.

At full scale, the facility is expected to process more than 3 billion pounds of Pennsylvania milk annually, roughly 30% of the Commonwealth’s current milk production, and create more than 900 jobs. Chobani is also working on traditional dairy milk with higher protein and less sugar. (Pennsylvania Government)

Think about that for a bit.

We’re living through an era of oat milk, almond milk, functional beverages, protein shakes and seemingly endless beverage innovation.

And Chobani is putting $1.2 billion behind...

cow’s milk.

That brought me back to Sam Stewart of Mad Hippie.

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💡 THE WORTHY IDEA

Mad Hippie didn’t begin with a trend report saying the world needed another skincare company.

Sam and his wife Dana had a problem.

Living in Nicaragua and surfing frequently, they began to realize what all that sun exposure was doing to their skin.

They got curious.

Then they iterated.

A lot.

Sam told me the early products went through roughly 50 versions. The company first thought surfers would be its primary consumer. They weren’t. So instead of abandoning the underlying problem, Mad Hippie changed the audience and kept refining the solution. (Worthy For Thirty)

That’s the distinction.

Being committed to the problem doesn’t require being committed to your first solution.

Chobani’s bet on milk feels similar.

Consumers haven’t suddenly stopped caring about nutrition, protein or convenience.

The product delivering those benefits can change.

Why it matters now → Innovation doesn’t always require teaching consumers a completely new behavior. Sometimes you take something incredibly familiar and rebuild it around what consumers care about now.

Mad Hippie did it with skincare.

Chobani thinks it can do it with milk.

And $1.2 billion says they’re pretty serious about finding out.

🎧 Revisit my conversation with Sam Stewart
How Sam Stewart and Mad Hippie Built a Beauty Brand With Purpose, Patience, and Persistence — June 10, 2026

📱 THE CREATOR ECONOMY MAY BE APPROACHING ITS “NOW WHAT?” MOMENT

Creators became media companies.

Then brands reallocated billions of dollars in their media budget to fund them.

Now comes the difficult part:

Is the math, mathing?

Digiday reported this week that creator marketing may be approaching an economic correction, raising questions about whether influencer economics can sustain their current trajectory. At the same time, creator-focused companies continue attracting capital: CreatorFi announced a $45 million raise this week aimed at financing independent media. (Digiday)

Those two seemingly contradictory headlines sitting next to each other:

Money is pouring in.

Skepticism is increasing.

Which sent me back to one of the people who helped build the creator economy before got that label.

Elisa Camahort Page.

💡 THE WORTHY IDEA

Elisa co-founded BlogHer around a clear mission: create opportunities for community, education, exposure and economic empowerment for female bloggers.

When we spoke, her advice wasn’t “get bigger.”

It was:

Build for the people you serve, not for abstract scale.

And she was equally adamant about monetization: mission has to function as an operating system. It should influence partnerships, hiring, pricing and product decisions, not sit in a paragraph on the About page. (Worthy For Thirty)

That feels especially relevant now.

The creator economy spent years optimizing for:

followers → impressions → reach → sponsorships.

But sustainable businesses eventually have to answer harder questions.

Who are we actually serving?

What value are we creating and extracting?

Would this community still notice or care if the algorithm stopped helping us tomorrow?

Why it matters now → Distribution can make you visible. Community can make you durable.

The next phase of the creator economy may belong less to the people who build the largest audiences, and more to the ones who establish the strongest relationships with them.

🎧 Revisit my conversation with Elisa Camahort Page
Doing Good Without Losing the Plot — June 3, 2026

🚨 WORTHY RADAR

A few alumni worth watching this week.

Bill Shufelt → Athletic Brewing

Athletic’s relationship with endurance sports continues to get stronger. IRONMAN published the story behind Personal Record, its collaboration with Athletic Brewing, a non-alcoholic beer developed around post-race celebrations. (Ironman)

The review from my conversation with Athletic’s co-founder, Bill becomes more compelling: the opportunity wasn’t simply making better NA beer. It was making alcohol-free beer feel completely normal in places where beer already belonged. (Worthy For Thirty)

Luke Mickelson → Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Sleep in Heavenly Peace’s decentralized model is showing up across the country ahead of its September bed-building efforts. Lowe’s volunteers in Wilmington are preparing to build 125 beds for local children, while SHP groups in Oregon and elsewhere are organizing additional community builds. (WWAYTV3)

One bed becomes a chapter. A chapter becomes a network. A network becomes a movement.

🧠 ONE IDEA TO STEAL

Mac & cheese.

Milk.

Popcorn.

Skincare.

Creators.

This week’s stories reminded me that innovation has a branding problem.

We tend to associate it with inventing something nobody has ever seen before.

But sometimes innovation looks like something much less glamorous:

Look at something everyone thinks they understand and ask a better question.

GOODLES asked what mac & cheese could evolve to.

Chobani is asking whether milk can resonate with a new generation of protein-conscious consumers.

Tom Leigh looked at popcorn and saw unused storytelling territory.

Sam Stewart kept refining his brand’s skincare products until the market answered.

Elisa Camahort Page helped evaluate and reevaluate what an online audience could become when you treated it like a community.

You don’t always need a new category.

Sometimes you need a new way of seeing the old one.

Until next week,

Eric

Worthy for Thirty

Doing good while doing well shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

P.S. 100+ conversations are now sitting in the show’s archive.

The best part isn’t figuring out which one is newest.

It’s figuring out which one the world just made relevant again.

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A 30-year-old brewery embraces change. A cocktail company incorporates purpose into its business model. Taylor Swift fans demonstrate how community creates impact.

I often think about conversations from Worthy for Thirty, especially when new events make discussed insights relevant again.

This week, three conversations came roaring back.

👀 A 30-YEAR-OLD BREWERY MAKES A 2026 MOVE

Craft beer is under pressure as consumers habits change while non-alcoholic and THC beverages gain ground.

Then Allagash Brewing hired Matt Place, a former Athletic Brewing sales leader, to run its 30-person national sales team.

I’ve recorded with both founders: Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing and Bill Shufelt of Athletic Brewing. Their businesses are different, but this hire connects craft beer’s past with its future.

💡 THE WORTHY IDEA

Don’t confuse growth with momentum.

Allagash has stood the test of time by protecting its craftsmanship, culture and values; not by chasing every trend. But longevity doesn’t mean resting on your laurels.

You can preserve what makes a company unique while bringing in people who understand where the market is going.

That isn’t jettisoning your DNA. It’s protecting it from irrelevance.

Why it matters now → Enduring companies understand the dichotomy of what must never change and what should.

🎧 Revisit my conversation with Rob Tod

🥒 LETS TALK ABOUT PICKLES

Mission Craft Cocktails launched a 25% ABV dill-infused Pickle-Rita as pickle-flavored products surge across snacks and drinks.

But the more interesting story is what happens after the purchase.

💡 THE WORTHY IDEA

Mission Craft Cocktails donates 1 meal to Feeding America for each bottle sold. It’s hard-coded in the brand DNA and unit economics!

For co-founders Amit Singh and Marcin Malyszko impact through combatting food insecurity is as important as making a great tasting product.

That matters as Feeding America reports that 48 million Americans, including 14 million children, experienced food insecurity in 2024.

The chain is simple:

🥒 Pickles trend
↓
🍹 Mission launches a Pickle-Rita
↓
🛒 Someone buys it
↓
🍽️ Part of the revenue fights hunger

Mission doesn’t ask consumers to choose between a great product and impact. A purchase creates both.

Why it matters now → If your mission only works when business is good, it isn’t really part of your business model.

Where does your mission show up in the math?

🎧 Revisit my conversation with Amit & Marcin

⚡ TAYLOR SWIFT FANS JUST TAUGHT A MASTERCLASS ON COMMUNITY

New York Cares received part of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s charitable giving as part of their wedding. Then the organization noticed Swift fans donating in meaningful amounts: $13, $26, $87 and $198.90.

So it created a goal of 1,989 donors and invited Swifties to volunteer.

The donations helped turbocharge ‘The Giving Era.’ More than 200 fans gathered at a Lower East Side school and packed 2,200+ backpacks with school supplies for NYC public school students. Many were volunteering with New York Cares for the first time.

That brought me back to my conversation with Executive Director Sapreet Saluja.

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💡 THE WORTHY IDEA

Build for belonging, not just conversion.

New York Cares could have treated the gift as a fundraising moment. Instead, it built a bridge from:

fan → donor → volunteer → participant

The lesson applies to businesses, too. Community originates with something people already care about. Your responsibility is to give that energy a platform.

Why it matters now → Don’t just ask, “How do we acquire more people?”

Ask:

“How do we give people who already care a reason to belong?”

🎧 Revisit my conversation with Sapreet Saluja

🚨 WORTHY RADAR

The alumni network is thriving.

Bill Shufelt → Athletic Brewing

Athletic Brewing partnered with MetLife Stadium, the New York Giants and the New York Jets, its first sponsorship covering two NFL teams and their stadium.

Run Wild IPA and Upside Dawn will be available throughout the venue.

The callback: Bill and I discussed normalizing NA beer in social settings. An NFL tailgate is about as “beer” as America gets.

Now Athletic is there.

That’s behavior change in public.

🎧 Revisit Bill Shufelt’s Worthy episode

Amit + Marcin → Mission Craft Cocktails

Mission is growing its margarita portfolio and national retail presence.

The question isn’t just whether its product line grows. It’s whether its impact model grows with it.

more SKUs → more distribution → more revenue → more meals.

Sapreet Saluja → New York Cares

New York Cares 2026 objective is to reach more than 70,000 volunteers this year.

The Swiftie activation points to a powerful model:

Don’t just find donors. Find communities and give them a way to serve.

🧠 ONE IDEA TO STEAL

Craft beer. Pickle margaritas. Taylor Swift fans packing backpacks.

They share one lesson:

Protect the principle. Experiment with the delivery.

Allagash protects its culture while evolving its business.

Mission keeps its 1 for 1 commitment while experimenting with products that consumers want.

New York Cares keeps service at the center of its operations while providing new ways to get people involved.

Eric

Worthy for Thirty

Doing good while doing well shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

P.S. There are now 100+ Worthy for Thirty conversations in the archive. I’m going back to them to uncover ideas that continue to matter.

Sometimes the best insight isn’t new.

The world just caught up to it.

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