This is The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie.

My guest today is John Mackie, the co-founder and former CEO of Whole Foods, who's just

released his memoir, The Whole Story, Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism.

As befits the entrepreneur who revolutionized grocery shopping from a grim pragmatic necessity into an exciting multi-sensory

adventure. Mackey's story is far from conventional, and we talk frankly about the failures,

successes, and psychedelics he encountered while reshaping how Americans think about food, fitness,

and free enterprise. Here is the Reason interview with John Mackey.

John Mackey, thanks for talking to Reason.

Thanks for having me back, Nick.

You are the author of the new book, The Whole Story, Adventures

in Love, Life, and Capitalism. It's a personal memoir, a spiritual memoir, a business memoir. I want to

start with the subtitle. Adventures in Love, Life, I think everybody's with you, and then capitalism.

People don't think about love and capitalism together.

Can you talk about how you connect love, life, and capitalism?

That's one reason I put them together, to juxtapose them together because to me there's

no contradiction.

To me, capitalism is the greatest, along with the enlightenment values and science and reason, capitalism

are responsible, those together are responsible for the great enrichment of humanity, the great

progress humanity's made in the last 200 years.

How do you define capitalism loosely?

I mean, not technically, but when...

I mean, yes.

...