Good morning.
The last few years have been tough for restaurants. But Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol turned adversity into virtue, engineering one of the great business turnarounds of our times. In 2015, Chipotle became the punchline of jokes after a heavily publicized E. coli outbreak. But since Niccol took over in 2018, the company’s revenues are up 77%, and the stock price is up almost 400%. One of his pro moves: a second kitchen for takeout, to preserve the in-restaurant experience as takeout boomed.
Fortune’s Phil Wahba does a deep dive into Niccol’s success, and looks at the challenges he now faces, in the new issue of Fortune magazine. You can read his story here.
And since it is Friday, some feedback. J.J. writes in response to yesterday’s post on layoffs:
“Your focus in today's letter is on HOW you fire people, but really I believe the how isn't nearly as important as the WHO. In my experience, layoffs can actually have a positive effect on morale if you target the people who are not pulling their weight and/or are toxic cultural detractors.“
And this from S.M.:
“For the last 23yrs, Tech has been ‘potential led.’ The ultimate measure for whether you are truly a ‘potential led’ tech company is hiring. As a result, they hired like drunken sailors and they were rewarded by the stock market.
Now we have entered into the ‘performance led’ world and in this world nobody cares about moon shots anymore. In fact, even sling shots are evaluated for some return.“
More news below. And here’s an interesting take on tech layoffs, from someone who’s been in the game.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
