Danny Meyer
American restaurateur, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and Shake Shack
Danny Meyer (American restaurateur, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and Shake Shack) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Enlightened hospitality, Hiring and hospitality quotient, Organizational culture.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Enlightened hospitality
Meyer describes enlightened hospitality as prioritizing employees first, then guests, community and suppliers, and finally investors.
“from now on, the first customer we have here is you. The way you treat each other with a generous spirit and with a charitable assumption”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 38:25
Meyer says a Gramercy Tavern guest complaint taught him that leaders must articulate values in words to teach them.
“If you don't have language, you cannot teach. And I did not have language and I was not teaching”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 37:23
Meyer contrasts the traditional golden rule with a golden rule of hospitality based on what others would want.
“the golden rule of hospitality is, is do unto others as you believe they would want done unto them”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 35:05
Hiring and hospitality quotient
Meyer says his own high HQ can be a liability when interviewing because his job is to assess rather than make the candidate feel good.
“when I'm interviewing, it shouldn't be my job to make you feel better”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 26:32
Meyer says he tests self-awareness by asking candidates about the greatest misperception others have of them rather than asking directly.
“I would never ask somebody, by the way, are you self-aware? Because they'll say, yes, of course I am”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 27:20
Meyer explains his hiring recipe weights technical skills at 49% and character, measured as hospitality quotient, at 51%.
“49% of what I'm looking for is how well I think this person can do the job we will be paying them to do”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 24:24
Organizational culture
Meyer argues that compromising on skills or character in hires and promotions sends a message that stated values were not meant.
“Because every time you compromise on either one of those, you're sending a powerful message, maybe unwittingly, but you are sending a powerful message to everybody else”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 10:45
Meyer says the best way to scale culture is to be explicit about which behaviors are celebrated and which are not tolerated.
“be really, really clear with everyone in the company which behaviors we are going to celebrate and which behaviors we are not going to tolerate”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 9:37
Meyer argues that a growing business needs funding and leadership but also culture, which he likens to soil.
“It needs the soil. And the soil is the culture. The culture is... what the plant is growing in”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 9:37
Madison Square Park
Meyer says the original Shake Shack pays nearly a million dollars a year in rent to Madison Square Park.
“that first Shake Shack in Madison Square Park pays just shy of a million dollars a year in rent to that park”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 48:16
Shake Shack
Meyer recounts that the hot dog cart made $7,500 in its third year after pledging profits to the Madison Square Park Conservancy, prompting the permanent kiosk.
“Wouldn't you know, in year three, just by saying that, we made $7,500. And that's when I got the idea, let's turn this hot dog cart into a permanent kiosk”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 45:49
COVID-19 pandemic response
Meyer distinguishes nice from kind and says the kind approach to pandemic layoffs was speaking with each of several hundred employees individually.
“No one got laid off by tweet. No one got laid off by a big mass email. Everyone got spoken to by their boss”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 42:01
Sales skills
Meyer says every job benefits from good sales and writing skills.
“There's no job I've ever seen that doesn't benefit from good sales skills and good writing skills, I might add”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 19:39
Entrepreneurship
Meyer describes curiosity as the crucial fuel for entrepreneurial spirit and says entrepreneurs see only what could go right.
“I think that curiosity is the crucial fuel for entrepreneurial spirit”
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk: 708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With Generosity (Sep 27, 2026) · Listen from 14:11
Appearances
708: Danny Meyer - How You Make People Feel: The Founder of Shake Shack & Union Square Hospitality Group on Culture as Soil, the 49/51 Hiring Formula, and Leading With GenerosityThe Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk · Sep 27, 2026 · 54 min
Ryan Hawk interviews restaurateur Danny Meyer about enlightened hospitality, scaling culture, the 49/51 hiring formula, and how a hot dog cart became Shake Shack.
Often appears with
- Ryan Hawk · 1 shared episode