How Did I Get Here?

Daniel Lubetzky

Founder and chief executive officer, Kind
from
  • Education
  • Robert E. Lee High School, San Antonio, class of 1986
  • Trinity University, San Antonio, class of 1990
  • Stanford Law School, class of 1993
  • Work Experience
  • 1993–94
    Haas Koshland Fellowship
  • 1994–Present
    Founder, president, PeaceWorks
  • 2002–Present
    Founder, OneVoice Movement
  • 2004–Present
    Founder, CEO, Kind
  • 2010–Present
    Co-founder, Maiyet
  • Life Lessons
  • “Don’t allow yourself to believe it’s not gonna happen.”
    Tweet this
  • “Show your humanity in commerce, business, and life.”
    Tweet this
  • “Take time to reflect on what gives you meaning and purpose, or you’ll end up answering e-mail and letting life carry you away without a direction.”
    Tweet this
  • With his parents in Mexico City, late ’70s
    “My dad survived Dachau. Around 1984, when I was 16, there were anti-Semitic incidents in Mexico City, and he decided to bring us to San Antonio.”
  • “I started selling watches in flea markets at 16, then graduated to mall kiosks. I thought I was going to have kiosks across America.”
  • “PeaceWorks’ first venture was Arab-Israeli. I tracked down a bankrupt sun-dried-tomato spread maker and said, ‘Why don’t we partner?’ We still exist under the brand Meditalia.”
  • At Kind’s first New York office, 2004
  • “I was dissatisfied with my snacking options. Everything was artificial—I thought there was a need for snacks that you could feel good about eating.”
  • “It’s high-end stuff you’d find at Barneys, made by craftsmen in developing countries or where there’s been conflict.”
  • At his grandparents’ ranch in Northern Mexico, 1978
  • “I went to Israel to write a legislative proposal encouraging American companies to be catalysts for Arab-Israeli ventures. No one wanted a Mexican-Jewish American lawyer telling them what to do.”
  • At a OneVoice meeting with Shimon Peres, president of Israel at the time, and actor Jason Alexander, 2011
  • “It’s an NGO for people who are fed up with terror and determined to seize back the agenda for conflict resolution.”
  • “We just announced the Kind Foundation. The inaugural program, Kind People, looked for people transforming communities through kindness. We got 5,000 nominations. We also recently became the first national snack brand to publish the added sugar content in our snacks.”