Daniel Lubetzky, the billionaire founder of Kind Snacks and the eponymous Kind Bar, says he makes every effort to stay humble despite his wild success—something his grandfather taught him. Speaking with The School of Hard Knocks, a TikTok channel co-founded by brothers James and Jack Dumoulin, both graduates from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, Lubetzky was asked if he had any lessons about money they don’t teach you in school that he would instill in everyone, if he could.
“My grandfather was a rancher in Mexico. He was a cattleman. He said, a man who is too proud to pick up a penny is not worth a penny,” said Lubetzky, who was also a recurring guest on Shark Tank. “Be humble enough to appreciate that one penny. I’m walking the street, I will bend over and pick up the penny because ego is the only thing more powerful than greed.”
Lubetzky was also asked how one can build a billion-dollar brand like Kind.
“Be consistent. Don’t try to change things because if you try to please everybody, you’re going to please nobody,” he said. “What does my brand stand for? And more importantly, what is it not? A brand is a promise; a great brand is a promise well-kept. Consistency is everything.”
When asked about his secret to getting his product into hundreds of thousands of stores across the U.S. and world, Lubetzky said it’s all about putting in the hard work—even when it’s not exactly convenient.
“I was on a date with my wife and I would ask her, before she was my wife, hold on I need to check into this bodega. And I would sell, or try to get my product onto the right shelves, one at a time. And slowly but surely, you just keep building it,” he said.
Lubetzky, whose fortune surpassed $1 billion with the sale of Kind to Mars in 2020, and who is currently estimated around $2.3 billion, has long argued that enduring success comes from staying attentive to small details—not just chasing dollars, but understanding what motivates people internally. And he says that’s his guiding principle at Kind Snacks.
“The reason the company is called Kind is I named it after my father. He was a Holocaust survivor; he was in the Dachau concentration camp. American soldiers risked their lives to liberate him. In spite of all the horrors he went through, he was kind to everybody, to every human being,” Lubetzky said.
Kind’s success story
Lubetzky launched Kind in 2004, aiming to create snacks that were both healthful and socially responsible. But it took some time, and a couple of notable pivots, to get there.
Lubetzky, who was born in Mexico City and moved with his family to the U.S. as a teenager, was a star student, graduating from Stanford Law School in 1993. But he quickly left behind legal career to launch something he felt passionate about. His new business, PeaceWorks, had one simple goal: use commerce to help people from opposing sides of conflicts—like Israelis and Arabs—work together and build peace. It sold food products like Mediterranean tapenades and spreads that were made through joint ventures between these groups, proving it’s possible to earn profits and promote cooperation at the same time. PeaceWorks was “not-only-for-profit,” meaning its aim was both financial success and social good, rather than just making money.
PeaceWorks was only modestly successful, but it was through that company that Lubetzky had his next eureka moment. While hustling to place PeaceWorks products in New York shops, Lubetzky grew frustrated by the lack of healthy snack options, which inspired Kind.
In 2004, he launched the snack company with a focus on healthy ingredients and thoughtful distribution, starting small with local upscale grocers before moving into specialty chains and, eventually, big-box retailers like Walmart and Target. In 2008, Kind received a $20 million private-equity investment; Lubetzky later bought back this stake for just over $200 million. One year later, in 2009, Lubetzky struck a deal with Starbucks to sell Kind bars in its stores. That sparked explosive growth: Kind bar sales soared from 20 million units in 2009 to nearly 460 million by 2019, according to Fortune‘s previous reporting.
Annual sales reached $1.5 billion before Lubetzky chose to sell the company to Mars in 2020. The sale was widely noted for Lubetzky’s decision to allocate equity broadly within the company, resulting in payouts for staff at all levels. Lubetzky has, numerous times, talked about his decision to give all full-time team members stock options.
You can read more about Lubetzky, and his road to success at Kind, from Fortune‘s recent interview with the founder.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
