Fast Company’s The Anarchist’s Cookbook has little to do with the underground book of the same name; it’s about John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market:
Mackey is a persistently puzzling fellow: self-effacing, but with a hint that he senses his own legacy. During 2002, in the heart of the recession, he took four months off to hike the Appalachian Trail, fulfilling a longtime dream.People who hike the whole trail end up with ‘trail names,’ a moniker that acknowledges that the Appalachian Trail is a universe unto itself, a place where the roles of the outside world are set aside. Mackey had been warned in advance to pick his own trail name, lest he be tagged with something derisive, as is the custom.
‘My trail name is Strider,’ he says. For someone tall, lanky, and energetic, it seems an innocuous enough choice. ‘I’m a great admirer of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings ,’ Mackey says. ‘Before I was in high school, I had read it five times. And one of the characters I admired was Strider.’
But as with much about Mackey, that nickname is not quite what it seems. ‘Strider isn’t his real name; it’s his nickname on the trail. He is really Aragorn, the king. But he wasn’t a king on the trail. In 2002, when I was hiking, I was certainly the richest guy hiking the Appalachian Trail. I was a kind of secret king. But that wasn’t my identity, or my role, on the trail.’