Business
Sweetgreen’s CEO on Robots, RFK Jr. and Why Salads Are So Expensive
When Jonathan Neman was a student at Georgetown in the mid-2000s, he and some friends wanted to start a restaurant. A fast-food restaurant, but it would be healthy. And cool.
The documentary “Super Size Me” had made waves, and “we were going to be rejecting the fast food of the previous generation,” Mr. Neman said.
He and his business partners, Nicolas Jammet and Nathaniel Ru, opened the first Sweetgreen in 2007, on the edge of campus on M Street in Washington. As they expanded, they decided against franchising the brand, keeping control of every new location. Soon it became a buzzy millennial lifestyle brand. It sponsored an annual music festival. It went public in late 2021.
Sweetgreen now has more than 250 restaurants across the United States. The chain is known for its endlessly customizable salads — and for how quickly the cost of all those extra toppings and dressings can add up. (A recent lunch there cost me $16.28.)
The company also runs a growing number of locations that include what it calls the Infinite Kitchen, with salad-slinging robots that assemble bowls faster than human workers.
With great fanfare, Sweetgreen recently put fries on its menu — air-fried in avocado oil, to make customers feel better about adding a side of carbs to a salad. Much of its food is sourced locally, including avocados from California, which will limit the hit the company takes on tariffs, executives have told investors.
And Sweetgreen doesn’t cater just to office workers eating salads at their desks. Mr. Neman, 40, said he had heard that teenagers were “obsessed” with the salads, which wasn’t the case when Sweetgreen started. “The fact that they think that eating healthy is cool is something that we envisioned,” he said at his office in Los Angeles, where the company is now based.
Back in Washington, the Trump administration is also thinking about what goes into food. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the standard-bearer of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, recently declared that “sugar is poison” and pushed to ban artificial dyes in foods.
Some of those aims resonate with Mr. Neman, whose company worked with the former first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. But he — like many other company leaders — is trying to talk about the company’s priorities (like eliminating seed oils) without being pulled into the polarized politics of the moment.
“We say we’re not red or blue, but we’re green,” he said.
This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.
Sweetgreen is all about healthy ingredients. Now, there is the “Make America Healthy Again” movement and R.F.K. Jr. pushing to ban artificial dyes in food. What are your thoughts on that?
As it relates to “Make America Healthy,” funny story: In 2016, during a festival, we had a campaign that was a joke, a play on “Make America Great Again.” We made “Make America Healthy Again” hats.
Wow.
We are on the team of anyone who wants to help make America healthier. Back in the days of the Obama administration, we partnered very closely with Michelle Obama.
With R.F.K. Jr., I’ll speak to the parts related to our world. I think bringing more transparency to our food system is great. I think some of those dyes are bad. Sweetgreen has never sold soda very intentionally. We’d make a lot more money if we did. A lot of people wish we did. We never have and I don’t think ever will.
We don’t like to get involved in the rest of it. So we’re not trying to insert ourselves politically, either me personally or as a brand.
Have you communicated with the White House about healthy foods?
We haven’t been directly involved at this point. But if there’s a place for us to help, we’re totally up for it.
There have been cuts at the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees food safety. Do you have any concerns around food safety in the U.S. right now?
I think some of the things I’ve seen could be a little bit alarming. Others seem great.
What are the things that concern you?
I’d want to be careful to have certain guardrails around food safety, for example. And to be careful that there are not any adverse impacts to moving too fast. But overall, I think more transparency around the food system, promoting more real food, getting rid of these artificial chemicals that are allowed in our food and removing any conflicts of interest in people that are regulating our food are all good things.
Let’s talk about the robots. Will they help with profitability?
Absolutely. So what we’ve seen is at the store level, the Infinite Kitchen adds at least seven points of margin. So if you look at our store, right now we’re about a 20 percent margin business. An Infinite Kitchen store should be at least seven points better.
So as more robots make more salads, can people expect prices to come down?
We are very conscious of making sure that Sweetgreen can be something for everyone. I think automation does give us a hedge as labor costs continue to go up, to be able to drive more value and offer that to our customer.
How much is too much to pay for a salad?
It really depends what you put in it. When you think about the cost of something, you have to sometimes think about the total cost. There’s the cost to you, but when you eat certain things, what’s the cost to your health? What’s the cost to the environment? People are paying not only for the quality of the taste in the food, but the fact that it’s made by hand, the fact that we pay our farmers and our team members fairly.
What’s your back story? Tell me about your parents and growing up in Los Angeles.
My parents immigrated here in 1979. They were Iranian Jews who came during the revolution. And that was a big part of my story growing up because I think about how fragile your life and reality can be.
I’m the oldest of four boys. Being Jewish is a big part of my identity. I’ve always been very connected to Israel and my Jewish faith and big family.
My dad has four siblings. They each have four kids, so 20 cousins. Shabbat every Friday. A lot of us Persian Jews came to Los Angeles during that time.
Entrepreneurship is really a part of the culture. Growing up, I knew very few people who worked for big companies. Everybody was a small-business owner in some way. My dad and his brothers worked together. They started a textile business.
I always knew I wanted to be in business. From a very early age my dad would take me to work with him. One of my earliest memories was that I’d want to put on a suit — because he put on a suit — and go to his factory and walk around.
You had this great network of entrepreneurs during the start-up process. Were you calling your dad?
I had a lot of mentors in the community, including my dad. Always was and still is. I always give my dad a lot of credit because I don’t think he expected me to go to Georgetown and then to, like, start a little salad shack.
What was it like to be an entrepreneur in Washington at that time?
Entrepreneurship has become a lot sexier over the past 20 years. At the time, especially at Georgetown, that wasn’t the culture. The cool thing was going to get a job in government or consulting or banking.
I got accepted to what I thought was my dream job, at Bain & Company, the consulting firm.
I would have had to leave D.C. The restaurant was up and running. I spoke to my partners, like what should I do? Should I stay? Should I go? They’re like, “It’s one restaurant now. Why don’t you go and get these skills and then see what happens?” I went and realized consulting wasn’t really for me, especially after being an entrepreneur.
Finally, it was actually a conversation with someone at Bain. I always remember this conversation because he’s like: “Listen, you have two big opportunities to take huge risks in your life. One is now. The other is after your kids are out of school. You don’t have anything to worry about right now.”
I remembered this phrase: “You can’t fall from the floor.”
Time for the lightning round. Do you have any secret Sweetgreen menu tips?
The big unlock to the secret menu is the mixing of dressings. Putting two together, like spicy cashew with a green goddess. You have this whole different experience.
Do you use A.I.? If so, what was the last question you asked a bot?
I do use A.I. a lot. The last thing I did was not a work thing. It was personal. I have two kids, a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old. I put a picture of them in and asked what they’re going to look like when they grow up. It has blown my mind because I can’t unsee it now.
What other C.E.O. do you admire?
I’d always looked up to Howard Schultz. I think what he did at Starbucks was amazing.
Do you work on a plane, or do you zone out?
I work a lot on the plane. It’s this amazing quiet time where I can do a lot of the work that I can’t do day to day.
How do you sign off your emails?
Usually just “JN.” If it’s a more inspirational message, I’ll write, “Onward.”
For the trendiest tenants in Hollywood office buildings, it’s the latest fad that goes way beyond designer furniture and art: mini studios
To capitalize on the never-ending flow of stars and influencers who come through Los Angeles, a growing number of companies are building bright little corners for content creators to try products and shoot short videos. Athletic apparel maker Puma, Kim Kardashian’s Skims and cheeky cosmetics retailer e.l.f. have spaces specifically designed to give people a place to experience and broadcast about their brands.
Hollywood, which hasn’t historically been home to apparel companies, is now attracting the offices of fashion retailers, says CIM Group, one of the neighborhood’s largest commercial property landlords.
“When we’re touring a space, one of the first items they bring up is, ‘Where can I build a studio?’” said Blake Eckert, who leases CIM offices in L.A.
Their studio offices also serve as marketing centers, with showrooms and meeting spaces where brands can host proprietary events not open to the public.
“For companies where brand visibility is really important, there is a trend of creating spaces that don’t just function as offices,” said real estate broker Nicole Mihalka of CBRE, who puts together entertainment property leases and sales.
Puma’s global entertainment marketing team is based in its new Hollywood offices, which works with such musical celebrity partners as Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, Dua Lipa, Skepta and Rosé, said Allyssa Rapp, head of Puma Studio L.A.
Allyssa Rapp, director of entertainment marketing at Puma, is shown in the Puma Studio L.A. The company keeps a closet full of Puma products on hand to give VIP guests. Visits to the studio sanctum are by invitation only, though.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Hollywood is a central location, she said, for meeting with celebrities, stylists and outside designers, most of whom are based in Los Angeles.
The office is a “creation hub,” she said, where influencers can record Puma’s design prototyping lab supported by libraries of materials and equipment used to create Puma apparel. The company, founded in 1948, is known for its emblematic sneakers such as the Speedcat and its lunging feline logo, and makes athletic wear, accessories and equipment.
Puma’s entertainment marketing team also occupies the office and sometimes uses it for exclusive events.
“We use the space as a showroom, as a social space that transforms from a traditional workplace into more of an experiential space,” Rapp said.
Nontraditional uses include content creation, sit-down dinners, product launches, album listening parties and workshops.
“Inviting people into our space and being able to give them high-touch brand experiences is something tangible and important for them,” she said. “The cultural layer is really important for us.”
The company keeps a closet full of Puma products on hand to give VIP guests. Visits to the studio sanctum are by invitation only, though. There’s no retail portal to the exclusive Hollywood offices.
Puma shoes are on display in the Puma Studio L.A.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Puma is also positioning its L.A studio as a connection point for major upcoming sporting events coming to Los Angeles, including the World Cup this summer, the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics.
In-office studios don’t need to be big to be impactful, Mihalka said. “These are smaller stages, closer to green screen than a massive soundstage.”
Social media is the key driver of content created by most businesses, which may set up small booth-like stages where influencers can hawk hot products while offering discounts to people watching them perform.
Bigger, elevated stages can accommodate multiple performers for extended discussions in front of small audiences, with towering screens behind them to set the mood or illustrate products.
Among the tricked-out offices, she said, is Skims. The company, which is valued at $5 billion, is based in a glass-and-steel office building near the fabled intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.
The fashion retailer declined to comment on the studio uses in its headquarters, but according to architecture firm Odaa, it has open and private offices, meeting rooms, collaboration zones, photo studios, sample libraries, prototype showrooms, an executive lounge and a commissary for 400 people.
Pieces of a shoe sit on a workbench in the Puma Studio L.A.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The brands building studios typically want to find the darkest spot on the premises to put their content creation or podcast spaces, Eckert said, where they can limit outside light and sound. That’s commonly near the center of the office floor, far from windows and close to permanent shear walls that limit sound intrusion.
They also need space for green rooms and restrooms dedicated to the talent.
Spotify recently built a fancy podcast studio in a CIM office building on trendy Sycamore Avenue that is open by invitation-only to video creators in Spotify’s partner program.
“Ambitious shows need spaces that support big ideas,” Bill Simmons, head of talk strategy at Spotify, said in a statement. “These studios give teams room to experiment and keep pushing what’s possible.”
The rolling robots that deliver groceries and hot meals across Los Angeles are getting an upgrade.
Coco Robotics, a UCLA-born startup that’s deployed more than 1,000 bots across the country, unveiled its next-generation machines on Thursday.
The new robots are bigger, tougher and better equipped for autonomy than their predecessors. The company will use them to expand into new markets and increase its presence in Los Angeles, where it makes deliveries through a partnership with DoorDash.
Dubbed Coco 2, the next-gen bots have upgraded cameras and front-facing lidar, a laser-based sensor used in self-driving cars. They will use hardware built by Nvidia, the Santa Clara-based artificial intelligence chip giant.
Coco co-founder and chief executive Zach Rash said Coco 2 will be able to make deliveries even in conditions unsafe for human drivers. The robot is fully submersible in case of flooding and is compatible with special snow tires.
Zach Rash, co-founder and CEO of Coco, opens the top of the new Coco 2 (Next-Gen) at the Coco Robotics headquarters in Venice.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
Early this month, a cute Coco was recorded struggling through flooded roads in L.A.
“She’s doing her best!” said the person recording the video. “She is doing her best, you guys.”
Instagram followers cheered the bot on, with one posting, “Go coco, go,” and others calling for someone to help the robot.
“We want it to have a lot more reliability in the most extreme conditions where it’s either unsafe or uncomfortable for human drivers to be on the road,” Rash said. “Those are the exact times where everyone wants to order.”
The company will ramp up mass production of Coco 2 this summer, Rash said, aiming to produce 1,000 bots each month.
The design is sleek and simple, with a pink-and-white ombré paint job, the company’s name printed in lowercase, and a keypad for loading and unloading the cargo area. The robots have four wheels and a bigger internal compartment for carrying food and goods .
Many of the bots will be used for expansion into new markets across Europe and Asia, but they will also hit the streets in Los Angeles and operate alongside the older Coco bots.
Coco has about 300 bots in Los Angeles already, serving customers from Santa Monica and Venice to Westwood, Mid-City, West Hollywood, Hollywood, Echo Park, Silver Lake, downtown, Koreatown and the USC area.
The new Coco 2 (Next-Gen) drives along the sidewalk at the Coco Robotics headquarters in Venice.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
The company is in discussion with officials in Culver City, Long Beach and Pasadena about bringing autonomous delivery to those communities.
There’s also been demand for the bots in Studio City, Burbank and the San Fernando Valley, according to Rash.
“A lot of the markets that we go into have been telling us they can’t hire enough people to do the deliveries and to continue to grow at the pace that customers want,” Rash said. “There’s quite a lot of area in Los Angeles that we can still cover.”
The bots already operate in Chicago, Miami and Helsinki, Finland. Last month, they arrived in Jersey City, N.J.
Late last year, Coco announced a partnership with DashMart, DoorDash’s delivery-only online store. The partnership allows Coco bots to deliver fresh groceries, electronics and household essentials as well as hot prepared meals.
With the release of Coco 2, the company is eyeing faster deliveries using bike lanes and road shoulders as opposed to just sidewalks, in cities where it’s safe to do so. Coco 2 can adapt more quickly to new environments and physical obstacles, the company said.
Zach Rash, co-founder and CEO of Coco.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
Coco 2 is designed to operate autonomously, but there will still be human oversight in case the robot runs into trouble, Rash said. Damaged sidewalks or unexpected construction can stop a bot in its tracks.
The need for human supervision has created a new field of jobs for Angelenos.
Though there have been reports of pedestrians bullying the robots by knocking them over or blocking their path, Rash said the community response has been overall positive. The bots are meant to inspire affection.
“One of the design principles on the color and the name and a lot of the branding was to feel warm and friendly to people,” Rash said.
Coco plans to add thousands of bots to its fleet this year. The delivery service got its start as a dorm room project in 2020, when Rash was a student at UCLA. He co-founded the company with fellow student Brad Squicciarini.
The Santa Monica-based company has completed more than 500,000 zero-emission deliveries and its bots have collectively traveled around 1 million miles.
Coco chooses neighborhoods to deploy its bots based on density, prioritizing areas with restaurants clustered together and short delivery distances as well as places where parking is difficult.
The robots can relieve congestion by taking cars and motorbikes off the roads. Rash said there is so much demand for delivery services that the company’s bots are not taking jobs from human drivers.
Instead, Coco can fill gaps in the delivery market while saving merchants money and improving the safety of city streets.
“This vehicle is inherently a lot safer for communities than a car,” Rash said. “We believe our vehicles can operate the highest quality of service and we can do it at the lowest price point.”
President Trump on Friday directed federal agencies to stop using technology from San Francisco artificial intelligence company Anthropic, escalating a high-profile clash between the AI startup and the Pentagon over safety.
In a Friday post on the social media site Truth Social, Trump described the company as “radical left” and “woke.”
“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said.
The president’s harsh words mark a major escalation in the ongoing battle between some in the Trump administration and several technology companies over the use of artificial intelligence in defense tech.
Anthropic has been sparring with the Pentagon, which had threatened to end its $200-million contract with the company on Friday if it didn’t loosen restrictions on its AI model so it could be used for more military purposes. Anthropic had been asking for more guarantees that its tech wouldn’t be used for surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons.
The tussle could hobble Anthropic’s business with the government. The Trump administration said the company was added to a sweeping national security blacklist, ordering federal agencies to immediately discontinue use of its products and barring any government contractors from maintaining ties with it.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who met with Anthropic’s Chief Executive Dario Amodei this week, criticized the tech company after Trump’s Truth Social post.
“Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon,” he wrote Friday on social media site X.
Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anthropic announced a two-year agreement with the Department of Defense in July to “prototype frontier AI capabilities that advance U.S. national security.”
The company has an AI chatbot called Claude, but it also built a custom AI system for U.S. national security customers.
On Thursday, Amodei signaled the company wouldn’t cave to the Department of Defense’s demands to loosen safety restrictions on its AI models.
The government has emphasized in negotiations that it wants to use Anthropic’s technology only for legal purposes, and the safeguards Anthropic wants are already covered by the law.
Still, Amodei was worried about Washington’s commitment.
“We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner,” he said in a blog post. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”
Tech workers have backed Anthropic’s stance.
Unions and worker groups representing 700,000 employees at Amazon, Google and Microsoft said this week in a joint statement that they’re urging their employers to reject these demands as well if they have additional contracts with the Pentagon.
“Our employers are already complicit in providing their technologies to power mass atrocities and war crimes; capitulating to the Pentagon’s intimidation will only further implicate our labor in violence and repression,” the statement said.
Anthropic’s standoff with the U.S. government could benefit its competitors, such as Elon Musk’s xAI or OpenAI.
Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and one of Anthropic’s biggest competitors, told CNBC in an interview that he trusts Anthropic.
“I think they really do care about safety, and I’ve been happy that they’ve been supporting our war fighters,” he said. “I’m not sure where this is going to go.”
Anthropic has distinguished itself from its rivals by touting its concern about AI safety.
The company, valued at roughly $380 billion, is legally required to balance making money with advancing the company’s public benefit of “responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity.”
Developers, businesses, government agencies and other organizations use Anthropic’s tools. Its chatbot can generate code, write text and perform other tasks. Anthropic also offers an AI assistant for consumers and makes money from paid subscriptions as well as contracts. Unlike OpenAI, which is testing ads in ChatGPT, Anthropic has pledged not to show ads in its chatbot Claude.
The company has roughly 2,000 employees and has revenue equivalent to about $14 billion a year.
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