Analysis Of John Mackey's Views On Whole Foods Market

John Mackey, cofounder and co-chief executive officer of Whole Foods Market, and Thurman John Rodgers, founder and chief executive officer of Cypress Semiconductor, both successful businessmen, but have very different views on their responsibility to their stakeholders. John Mackey believes in the importance of customer-centered business, while T.J. Rodgers believes that John Mackey’s views are altruistic and only to boost public relations. Though both plans have made their businesses successful they are quite different and T.J. Rodgers strongly opposes the views of John Mackey. John Mackey strongly believes in putting customers in the center of business at Whole Foods Market and calls himself a free market libertarian. He goes on to say …show more content…
Rodgers strongly opposes the views and business model of John Mackey. He says that the philanthropy done by Mackey is altruistic and done for the public relations aspect. An economist from the University of Thessaly said that “motivation for corporate philanthropy is to reinforce the CEO’s profile (Science Direct Source). Rodgers continues on to say that Mackey’s philosophy is that something that Karl Marx would describe. Rodgers says that his company has won the Second Harvest Food Bank competition for the last 13 years. He says that the competition creates competition among divisions in the company, involving all employees it has social events and boosts the morale of the employees. The question that why Whole Foods is looked at different for giving money to a worthy cause it is seen as something wonderful, while a small return to investors is seen as greedy and selfish. Though the money that is returned could actually be going to college funds of children of small investors or their own retirement …show more content…
Though Whole Foods has a more publicized philanthropy program in place, it is pleasant to know that there philanthropy programs in other corporations that do give back to the community. Many of these other philanthropy programs aren’t advertised or heard about by people as much considering not everyone looks at the daily business functions of industries of that like semiconductors. Overall, Rodgers opposes Mackey’s views for how he makes it seem that other corporations aren’t doing enough because they aren’t doing the same as Whole Foods. Both men will continue to run their businesses and philanthropy programs as they did before, especially considering the extreme difference in