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Starting with a $45,000 loan in 1980, Mackey built Whole Foods into a 500-store, $16 billion natural-foods empire that forced the entire grocery industry to raise its standards — and sold it to Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017.
John Mackey co-founded Whole Foods Market in 1980 in Austin, Texas with a $45,000 loan and grew it into the largest natural foods retailer in the world, with over 500 stores and roughly $16 billion in annual revenue before Amazon acquired it in 2017 for $13.7 billion.
He popularized the 'conscious capitalism' framework and authored a bestselling book of the same name. He later launched Love.Life, a whole-person wellness company.
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