I imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning

inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.

Now I know this is an ideal, and I'm often accused of being a crazy idealist, and sometimes I think that of myself.

Until I met Bob Chapman, he has a company, Barry Waymiller, that actually does the things that I talk about.

He's built a remarkable culture, and so I can no longer be accused of being a crazy idealist if what I imagine exists in reality.

I've known Bob for a bunch of years and he's become a close friend and so it was really exciting for me to call him up

and hear what he has to say about leadership and what it takes to build a great company.

This is a bit of optimism. Bob Chapman, I can't tell you what an absolute joy it is for me to sit down and talk to you.

You and I met 10 years ago.

I received a letter from you that you were telling me that you saw my TED Talk

and that you built a company that looks like what I was talking about.

So I said, let's meet for lunch.

And we met for lunch for an hour and we got along so well that we both cleared our

Calinders for the rest of the afternoon and here we are ten years later. Yeah, I think we we both walked in with no expectations you just tolerated meeting with me

because you were very busy and I just went because intellectually seemed kind of

interesting I had no expectation that's what it was and. And you said, I hear you, I love it, but I honestly don't believe it. You didn't believe what I said to you. And remember, Simon, you were the first external person that ever came in to look at our culture. So you opened the door of our culture to the world.

And I remember we went around the country and you said go ahead and walk around and talk to anybody you want and ask them any question you like and you didn't go with me and what I saw I was blown away I was I saw this this corporate culture where people cared about each other there There was love in the air,

and I heard the stories of how they were treated at work

and how they took care of each other.

It was just mind-blowing.

The thing that I love about your company, Barry Waymiller,

is you're a manufacturing company, good old-fashioned American manufacturing you make large

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