Transcript

Marc Lore wants an AI superapp to plan all your meals

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1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. I'm about ninety percent of my meals are all AI derived. So AI tells me what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's based on the health goals.

1:40 It basically tells me, Okay, well then eat this for breakfast, eat this for lunch, eat this for dinner. In the future, if I go out to a restaurant for dinner. AI will be able to tell me what to order off the menu because now we have three hundred and seventy five thousand menus via Grab Hub. So that's the future. That's Mark Lori, billionaire entrepreneur, NBA owner and founder and CEO of Wonder, a food tech startup that offers delivery, takeout, and dine-in options from multiple restaurants and chefs.

2:17 I wanted to talk to Mark about Wonder's recent purchase of Grubhub, what it says about the future of the food business, and how all of our diets may be changing sooner than we imagine. Mark shares how AI is already transforming his relationship with food and with his health. Plus, he offers a full menu of lessons on what it takes to succeed in business right now. I'm Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response. I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Mark Lori, founder and CEO of Wonder. Mark, it's great to have you back on the show. Great to be back, Bob. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

2:56 So since you were last here, Wonder has evolved a lot as a business. I mean it it started with Meal delivery, aggregating multiple cuisines from well known chefs and restaurants thing you added, in person food hauls, you acquired Meal Kid Pioneer, Blue Apron, Delivery App, Grubhub, most recently media company, Taste Mate. How do you describe what wonder is? Well, there there's the bigger vision and I we can get into that, but at at the core

3:26 Wonder is a a vertically integrated food delivery platform. So think You know, Grubhub, but we actually own the restaurants. So we both do the delivery. We own the restaurants and we cook the food.

3:38 That enables us to have a superior Delivery experience. So out of a single twenty eight hundred square foot kitchen, we can cook thirty different restaurants. Across thirty different cuisines. So everything from a high end steakhouse

3:52 Uh Bobby Flee steak, Jose Andreas, Spanish Tapas, Burgers, Barbecue, Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Middle Eastern, Thai. Thirty different cuisines. With only two pieces of electric cooking equipment. It's set up more like a micro fulfillment center. All the food is fresh. And it's cooked to order.

4:11 There's that term ghost kitchen, right? Which is mysterious sounding, but the the mystery for me with wonder is that How does one kitchen offer like hundreds of menu items and operate with as few as two staffers? You're not Reheating frozen food. So are you using different kind of equipment, different kind of processes, all of that? Yeah, it's different equipment, different processes. The proteins are are C.

4:36 So they're Parcours. A tank of hot water. restaurants do something similar, but we do that ahead of time. So we're able to finish a steak in six minutes. To perfect temp every time. We're able to cook a pizza in ninety seconds. We could cook pasta without water.

4:53 We've invented. New ways of of cooking food where we can replicate the quality. But also do it. With a lot less labor. And the benefit for consumers is being able to order from multiple restaurants in a single delivery.

5:05 So you can order from five different restaurants and get it all delivered hot under thirty minutes. When I asked you how you described what wonder is, I was curious which direction you were gonna go in because Your history and part of Wonder is sort of the tech side. And there's been talk about being like a super app, which is kind of a buzzy term these days. So can you square those things for me? Yeah, so I think Like I was saying before, the Wonder First Party business where we own the restaurants and do the delivery.

5:34 Those are physical brick and mortar where you can uh sit down, ten or twelve seats, pick up, get delivery. It's like a Think of uh High end fast casual looking. Location. with the kitchen in the back. So it's not ghosty in that way. That is sort of like the core business.

5:50 We're we've got forty locations open now. We're opening we'll have a hundred locations in about nine months. So that's like sort of the core business. But as you said, the bigger vision is super app for mealtime, meaning all the ways in which a uh a consumer might want to uh consume food. Could be first party to wonder. It could be from your local restaurant. uh delivered via Grub Hub. It could be a meal kit from Blue Apron.

6:14 It could be groceries, it could be even restaurant reservation. So all the ways in which you eat. The reason why we want to capture all those occasions is because we're building this AI based platform wrapper around it that's going to in the future be able to autonomously feed you According to your budget and health goals.

6:34 autonomously feed you. So like I'm not gonna decide what it is I wanna eat. The AI or or you're gonna tell me what what I wanna eat. Or what I should eat. AI will learn your food preferences better than you do yourself and that you'll be happy.

6:51 to rely on AI. So Personally now I'm about ninety percent of my meals are all AI derived. So AI tells me what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's the oatmeal that I was explaining to you this morning. I should ask you to tell everybody what you had for breakfast this morning. You you told me the story before we started recording and I was I was uh compelled by the specificity of it. Steel cut oatmeals with five

7:17 Not four, not six, five raw walnuts. Um One uh sorry, two tablespoons of flaxseed, two tablespoons. Of Uh cheese seed.

7:27 Half a banana. And Uh half a teaspoon of of cinnamon. Yeah, that was your custom recipe. But just because that's what you had today doesn't mean that that's what AI's gonna tell you to have tomorrow. No, but I rate it very highly, so

7:41 A I does know I I do like to to eat that. So I do get that quite often. But it's back through. Yeah, but but my LDL cholesterol was was high ninety days ago. It's not anymore. And this was one of the salves was you know, the flaxseed and the uh raw walnuts. And at the same time I'm still rating it well. So if if

8:00 The banana wasn't in there. I would give a bad rating and then I would have to pull back on stuff. Uh I basically, you know, get my blood work done, I have my aura ring, my blood glucose monitoring. All the blood results, all the biomarker, all the data gets fed to AI. I said health goals.

8:18 And it based on the health goals. And based on the foods I love. It basically tells me, okay, well then eat this for breakfast, eat this for lunch, eat this for dinner. In the future if I go out to a restaurant for dinner

8:31 A I will be able to tell me what to order off the menu because now we have three hundred and seventy five thousand menus via Grub Hub. So that's the future. It's pretty technocratic though, right? Like a lot of people take joy in sort of choosing what to eat or, you know, being I don't know, trying something different that maybe they didn't know they liked, like It's a very different vision, or you think like eventually we're gonna prefer to be told what to eat.

8:57 I I mean, based on my own personal experience, I love it. I can't imagine like having to think about what I want to eat because it You know, knows the ingredients you like and so comes up with Different meals that are new, and you're like, wow, I never even thought about eating this. And then you you wind up liking it. So it's the variety's there. It remembers every great meal you've ever had. So if I rated something nine point five six months ago. I forgot it two weeks later. AI doesn't forget. And so these great dishes get rotated. If you ask leave it up to me, I'm like thinking of the same like three things. Probably what I had yesterday or the day before, and maybe a couple other things. The brain is not good at remembering all the great meals you've ever had.

9:38 But AI doesn't forget. So think about it not as like a computer telling you what to do. But it's really a better version of yourself. It's sort of like if you could You know. Capture The best

9:49 of your brain's abilities to to think about food, that's AI. And when you talk to You know, the celebrity chefs that you deal with, Jose Andres or Bobby Flay or Marcus Samuelson and you tell them this story, are they like oh that's great? Or you're like or are they like, Well wait a minute, that's that's what we bring to it. No, I mean it doesn't change. Like, think about it. You could as as an artist, as a creator, as a chef Creep.

10:14 A bunch of dishes. And that you hope resonate with people. And then each individual Person's AI is going to have different preferences, right? And it's going to prefer certain meals over others. So nothing changes. The creative canvas. It's still necessary, it's still valuable. It doesn't change that at all.

10:32 What it does change is having to go to a restaurant and having to like Spend time, look at the menu, look at everything. I mean it's just boom, there it is. Get this. A I knows you better than your partner or better than your best friend. You might have biomarkers that have issues, like I had low iodine, I had high mercury. I don't have to think about it. AI's given me kelp. to fix my iodine. I'm not getting tuna because I have high mercury. It's taking care of all these

10:58 health issues in the background without having to think about it. So it's like my personal food critic and my personal doctor sort of working together to give me what's ideal. Food you love that are gonna be healthy. And AI is able to it's kinda really Fascinating because it's able to

11:17 Like Fix your health issues. But still get good scores. So number one, it has to you have to love the food. Okay. Now given the food you love. AI you'd have to now make

11:29 Mark healthy. And so AI does these little things that I see it trying things. You know, uh that are a little bit more healthy and I give it a bad radiant like okay, that that He doesn't want to that's too healthy for him, right? And so it's found a really nice, happy medium now where I love every meal. And I've never been healthier.

11:47 And I'm not having to think about what I want to eat. I'm spending time on it. I sit down. It's a great meal. I mean, this is the future. And this the AI that you're using, is it a is it a custom AI or you're using someone else's platform? You guys aren't in the No, this is just off the shelf ALM. So it's all about the prompt and it's about the data that you Provide it.

12:09 But the the miles are Capable, very capable now. uh of doing this. It'll get better over time, but right now, like I said, I've been doing it. And I'm amazed. You can tell I'm I'm amazed too. I wanted to ask you about some of the where where Wonder is now as a business. The the the Grubhub purchase. For me was like

12:29 You know, here's a business that was bought for s over seven billion dollars a few years ago, and you scooped it up for six hundred and fifty million. Like did you feel like this this was a deal you couldn't refuse? I mean, we definitely felt like it was it was a great deal given the assets that we acquired. And the more we learn every day as we dig in, the more valuable We think the company is, even relative to what we thought when we bought it. So We're very excited about the business and

12:56 you know, leveraging the synergies between Wonder and Grob Pub we're gonna be adding uh tens of thousands of of Grubhub restaurants onto the Window platform as well. So we'll have You know, one shared delivery back end, Grob Hub Seamless and Wonder will be Front end.

13:12 uh delivery platforms with a different demographic. So they'll each target. You know, somebody a little bit different. But I mean, you haven't built businesses before

13:23 Through acquisition. quite this way. I mean you've done acquisitions before, but w why is that Different in this case. I think we've just been opportunistic, like we do have this super app. strategy of of all meal occasions. And I think one of the big missing pieces was certain local restaurants. And it would have taken us many, many years to have three hundred and seventy five thousand restaurants like Grub does.

13:47 They've got a a very impressive. College business. They've got seamless. of some great assets. Blue apron was also opportunistic. We wanted to get into the meal kit space at some point. It was really just trying to fill in the missing pieces to Bring the vision together.

14:02 Well and y you you recently bought Taste made. for ninety million dollars, which is a media company. Why is that part of the Puzzle? Yeah, so

14:11 That was really about the advertising business and the content creation capability. They've got over a hundred million social media followers. They've got a T V stations. So can really help brand some of our restaurants, some of our platforms. We like the the content studio that they've got to create content for us and then also advertising. So we believe advertising on Grubhub, Blue Apron, Wonder could be a really big business and a big part of the strategy going forward and We didn't have one. It was nascent and they do. And so we thought it was just great synergies there. So it it sounds like TasteMade allows you to amplify certain things that you're planning for Wonder already, but not necessarily as about sort of

14:52 a a classic media business. No, it's like just what you said, amplifying its content side. us as an advertising platform and then also for us to be able to build an ad business, meaning selling ads on Grub and Blue Apron and Wonder. So Um yeah, it's it's uh really about the assets and all these acquisitions, it's the assets that are most interesting to us. Mark's business strategy for Wonder and the acquisition are intriguing, but I can't get out of my head that he relies on AI to tell him what to eat. I'm not sure I'd really want someone or something to decide my meals for me.

15:29 But then again, it would be nice to be confident about the health benefits of what I'm eating. We'll talk more about that, plus some nutritious lessons for business leaders after the break. Stay with us. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There can be two types of companies. Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't how do we build a future.

15:57 That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi. On my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.

16:28 Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford's CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

17:07 Before the break, Wonders Mark Lori talked about his vision for a super app for mealtime and how he uses AI to pick his meals. Now he talks about tech's role in making meals more healthy, while also driving down the cost of eating. Plus, he shares personal lessons about motivation, goal setting, the benefits of pressure, and more. Let's jump back in. So you've been super successful in your career selling jet dot com to Walmart for over three billion dollars. You could take it easy. But instead you work all the time. I mean you talk about the sixth gear and working twenty hours a day, and you've said that it's like eating glass every day and trying not to get cut uh as it's on the way down. Like I said Why do you do this? And

17:56 And how do you do it? How do you maintain that sort of six gear pace? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I I feel like I'm in the prime of my career, so it would be You know, people say, How you know, why don't you just you made all this money, well you know, why are you doing this? But I guess like any athlete or sort of like a competitive sport. You're in the prime of your career. You've learned so much. There's so much more to to to give back and do.

18:18 Um, why stop now? And uh that's kind of the stage I'm at. Um Why stop eating that glass? Never have. Why why stop eating that glass? I'm working harder than I ever have before and uh I have more energy than I've had. You know, in a long time. So I think

18:36 Part of it is just the health routine of making sure Um, then you've got you know the right amount of sleep. And the right nutrition and exercise. But not not everybody like has the Oh no, the motivation to

18:49 To stay at it at that at that pace? Like Yeah, I'm more motivated now than I ever have been in my life. Like literally. This is the most motivated I've ever been about any startup I've been involved with. in my life. Um I I love what we're doing at Wonder. I think I think it has a chance to to really have a big impact on the world, positive impact. When you talk about, you know, health.

19:12 And and and wellness and food is medicine and what we're doing with the with with AI. I mean um imagine a future where The groceries are autonomously just sent to your house. Make this for breakfast, make this for lunch, make this for dinner. Not only are you getting healthy and eating food you love

19:28 But you're saving money. because AI will make the most efficient use of your groceries. Still thirty percent of food in America gets thrown out. Like groceries.

19:38 A I knows you had eight carrots, you used one for lunch, three for dinner, there's four left. Let's use them. Let's use every So imagine not having to think about ordering groceries, not having to think about what's for dinner, not having to think about what's for lunch. You're saving money, you're healthier.

19:54 And happier because you're Got more variety. So That's the future and that's why I'm so motivated because I I can see it. Well, we have a real shot at in helping make this happen. Yeah, and for for you, that would just give you more time that you could be working.

20:08 Right.'Cause you'cause you you love it. I can't I can't decide whether it's motivation or compulsion. Like you you just love it. I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it. I I mean, but it's it does sound like this venture means more to you in some ways than the previous ones. that you've worked does. It absolutely d it absolutely does because I I see the impact it could have on people on on health especially. It's just I think it's so sad where we are with preventative medicine.

20:37 In this country. And and there's really just no no focus on preventive medicine. You just go to your doctor each year and you couple do a couple of things. Yeah, you're healthy. And then I have friend, you know And then like Six months later dies of a heart attack, had no idea.

20:51 The artery was ninety percent clogged, right? Like we have Test now, uh you know, C T Heart scans. That can With AI, look and see your soft plank and know exactly how much of the artery is clogged.

21:04 Like That should be part of like a normal, you know, like we get a colonoscopy. You should have the heart scan. Right? There's full body MRI to see if you have You know, early stage cancer. Good friend die of cancer.

21:18 Months later. Like That doesn't That doesn't seem like the the way it should be. But that but that's not where you you've decided to put your focus necessarily on on the health end. I mean

21:30 food as a as a conduit to the health, but Yeah, so you're not yeah, we didn't get into get into this, but as part of this Wonder AI platform. It starts with health diagnostics. Which includes blood biomarkers. You know T heart scan or or MRI if

21:46 Yeah, it's it's you know, if we can make that happen for you. Um and then and then how you to use food as medicine. To basically We pair Damage.

21:56 and improve the biomarkers. So like it's all like an integrated system. Like it's not just food on its own and it's not health on its own. And that's typically the way it is today. There's like health stuff over here and there's food stuff over here. How do we bring it together and really truly use food as medicine? To heal you and see the impact. of it to an app. You know, how do you be the CO of your own health. And and you said like the app would make it Cheaper. But if I have to have all this

22:22 Medical testing as part of it. Isn't that more expensive or is My insurance would cover that or Yeah, I think the insurance would cover As much as we're able to make it Cover for sure. And then we

22:34 show you, hey, here's some things that we'd recommend. This is an extra two hundred dollars or four hundred dollars or whatever. And It'll be up to the person to decide whether they want that incremental protection. I think it's worth it. Like you know, we're not talking about Tens of thousands of dollars here. This is hundreds of dollars. If you're saving thirty percent because you're not wasting food. You can take those dollars and reinvest it in

22:56 Upgrading and getting and eating more healthier food, right? Part of the reason I'm asking about prices is everybody is obsessed with prices now in the in the face of, you know Tariffs and whatever. I know you you've said that Wonder wouldn't increase prices. This was a little while ago. Is that still your stance on Wonder's prices now? Are we rethinking where you get supplies? Yeah, no, it it's not. We're we're actually looking uh just as we speak uh as reducing some of the prices on some of the stuff. So no, we're we're definitely going in in in the opposite direction. It just means less margin for us.

23:30 So you're prepared to give up margin to be able to lower prices at the time when other people are raising prices. That's correct. Yeah.

23:40 That seems uh counterintuitive. Yeah, but let let me also say I mean it's more complicated than that because when we add local restaurants onto the Wonder platform. We're making money from that and we're able to reinvest some of that back in lowering prices. But some folks would just take that extra earnings and just Put it in their pocket.

23:58 We believe in investing back in the value crop is best for the customer and also best For for Wonder. In the long term. So I mean I I I know you you've set out these these Big Public goals, ninety five locations by er by next year, by next year at this time. IPO ready by twenty

24:16 twenty seven with a target valuation of thirty billion dollars. Does putting these goals out in the world Add pressure? Like it might be easier to just grow and announce milestones rather than set targets that, you know, maybe you won't meet. Yeah. And it's true. Th there's always the possibility you don't meet the goals, but I think The probability

24:38 Of hitting the goals goes up because you reverse engineer it and you work backwards and you get the company aligned, investor, everybody's like understands like. This is the size of the prize. This is the goal. We're working backwards from this. This is why we need this amount of capital. This is why we need to do X, Y, and Z in the next three months, six months, 12 months. So you know, being able to properly plan for it because being a thirty billion dollar company in three years, you executed at a different level. You need a different amount of capital than if you were shooting for a three billion dollar company. So

25:13 It doesn't mean like Yeah. If you don't hit it, you failed, right?'Cause we're we're but we are given us the highest probability of getting there by putting these goals out there. Adding pressure is not a problem for you. You feel like it's a it's a good thing sometimes to have a little extra pressure.

25:29 I do. I do. I mean I think the only drawback Is You know, you look foolish or people will say, Hey, you failed, or you set a goal and you didn't hit it or Okay, fine. I I can deal with all that. There's way more upside than downside.

25:42 You know, I mean I think again, I can't reinforce the the importance of the planning aspect of why are you guys looking to raise You know, five hundred million dollars or billionaire. It's like Because w we're working backwards from a very, you know. A big IPO and in order to get

25:59 To that level of sales and that level of profit. This is the amount of capital we need. Everything sort of ties together, right? So I'm I'm asking everybody I Talk to this question. If you have any

26:11 reactions or lessons around like what's happening out of the White House these days and the sort of the rapid changes that seem to be going on, you know, in our government oversight and government policies and whether that impacts the way you think about How you run your business and what The role of business and business leaders are.

26:31 I'm probably gonna be in that camp of not talking much about it'cause I'm you know, I'm just I don't Like to talk about politics and stuff, but I will say as as an entrepreneur The ability to take risk. Change things. That volatility

26:46 causes you in the worst case scenario to to learn a lot. Short term it could Be a disaster. It could blow up. I mean Startups

26:54 When they blow up? Like Incredible things are learned, right? When companies pit it. They're pivoting because something didn't work and they learned something and they so I I think

27:04 Yeah, as long as we're able to as a country move quickly Try things, learn from the failure, adjust and get better. That's kind of a healthy Way to be. It's more startupy and I think we were getting a little bit big company.

27:17 You know, as a country and so I I like to see that. Of course. You know, don't necessarily agree with with all the ways in which we're going about it, but if you take the really big zoom out big picture, it is it is good to see. That's taking taking risk and and trying things.

27:33 I appreciate you being willing to address sex. This has been great. Thanks for doing it. Glad to be here. Appreciate it. Every time I talk to Mark, I'm struck by how differently he looks at business, cutting prices when others are raising theirs. It's a bold move and statement.

27:53 Just like using AI to pick his meals, or working 20 hours a day, even though it's like eating glass. Mark's assessment of the Trump administration's multiple changes is in many ways the clearest expression of his business strategy. While he doesn't agree with specific choices the White House may have made, he embraces the philosophy of, as he puts it, Taking risks and trying new things. I'm Bob Safien. Thanks for listening.

28:19 Rapid response is a wait what original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashimaku Tonina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastanelli.

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