In-N-Out owner Lynsi Snyder says she is leaving California
'There's a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here. Doing business is not easy here,' Snyder said during a recent appearance on the 'Relatable' podcast, hosted by conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey.
The move represents a seismic shift for the leader of the brand. Currently operating more than 400 locations across eight states — California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Colorado, Texas and Idaho — In-N-Out has long thrived on being the burger chain you couldn't find everywhere.
'I like that we're sought after when someone's coming into town. I like that we're unique. that we're not on every corner,' Snyder told Forbes in 2018. 'You put us in every state, and it takes away some of its luster.'
But times, and Snyder's position, have changed. The company announced plans in January 2023 to establish a corporate office in Franklin, Tenn., by 2026. In California, the company is consolidating its corporate operations to Baldwin Park, the chain's birthplace.
The migration reflects a broader corporate exodus from California, with businesses and some billionaires leaving. Tesla, Charles Schwab and Chevron are among the companies that have moved, citing regulatory challenges, operational costs and policy disagreements.
During the podcast, Snyder discussed elements of California policy that make the state hard to operate in, specifically referencing pandemic-era restrictions as particularly challenging.
In-N-Out started in 1948 when Harry and Esther Snyder opened their first location on a small piece of land in Baldwin Park. With little money, they created what would become the first drive-through burger chain.
From those humble beginnings, the chain grew into a part of Southern California mythology, attracting devoted fans from Michelin-starred chefs to celebrities such as Julia Child, who kept a map of all In-N-Out locations in her purse.
Harry and Esther Snyder's granddaughter Lynsi became president in 2010 at age 27, making her one of America's youngest billionaires. Under her leadership, she has largely followed the path set down by her grandparents, maintaining the company's founding principles and her grandfather's own motto: 'Keep it simple, do one thing and do it the best you can.'
Although at one point Snyder said the company wouldn't expand further east than Texas, her views have changed. She told Stuckey that 'the bulk of our stores are still going to be here in California.' The relocation of both corporate operations and the CEO signals a fundamental change in the company's center of gravity.
'It will be wonderful having an office out there, growing out there, and being able to have the family and other people's families out there,' Snyder said, though she maintains limits on expansion.
'Florida has begged us, and we're still saying no,' she said on the podcast. 'The East Coast states, we're still saying no.'
In-N-Out did not respond to a request for comment.
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The better it is integrated and actually prepared for results and insights, the easier it becomes. These people don't have time to play around with the system for half an hour to get to one insight. What's our headcount? Where's the diversity in terms of women in leadership positions? How does our projected headcount actually affect our ability to meet our targets next quarter? That needs to be really easily integrated. In terms of the detail and what they see, hopefully they'll work with the relevant IT and CHRO teams to understand: Can I have access to this and that because I need it for this and that? The collaborative aspect of all of these decisions is increasingly high nowadays because it's technically possible: Understanding and negotiating access to certain data points and certain business units is really a collaborative effort. There's a basic set of metrics that are always relevant. We need to know who is going, who is coming in the organization, particularly for workforce planning. You always need to know who is where. Engagement may not be the most important one for the CFO because it's further away from proof to say it really affects the bottom line. Closer to that would be how many people do we have? Do we have the right skills, and how is it going to affect our projected revenue next year? What are some of the bigger things that go wrong in companies because the CFO doesn't necessarily have access to good data from HR? We have a massive data set of [about] more 30 million employee records of global industry data. We look at that data constantly. Two years ago, we studied layoffs—reduction in force, turnover, resignation. Most companies have some type of a number we can see in our data. Then I interviewed six CHROs to understand what the decision making process around layoff positions look like? If there's a very short term calculation: I'm going to save this much if I let 10% go in the next three months, what's sometimes missing? Sure, you have the cost savings in the short term, but what's sometimes neglected is what the actual long-term cost is. I'm going to let go 10% now because I think we don't need them anymore, and currently I'm going to have to save some costs. Sometimes, what's not happening is thinking ahead 12 months. We want to grow again after the difficult economic times. Now, I'm going to have to rehire individuals or find new replacement employees. We know that hiring new employees is generally much more expensive than keeping existing employees and helping them either internally to find different roles or reskill them. There's a lot of academic research and also industry research that found that layoffs most of the time are not really financially making sense because the planning capabilities don't always exist. If the CFO knew how much it's going to cost their company to rehire, knowing it may cost a lot more, giving us another headache in two years time, [they may advise against it]. They had only the financial data and said, 'Oh man, we are spending way too much on wages. We're going to have to make some cost savings.' That's for lack of data integration. That's for lack of the ability to collaborate and look at the same data set and do thorough scenario planning, very much to the detriment, not only of the employees who are being let go, but even financially, it doesn't make sense most of the time. What advice would you give to a CFO who wants to make the best financial decisions in the long run for their company when it comes to personnel, and feels like they need to have more access to information? The first thing, very practically, I would recommend that they would go to their counterparts— CHRO or IT—and find out how solidly set up they are from a technology and analytics perspective in terms of what do we have? How are we set up? Are we still working on spreadsheets? What questions can you answer for me here and now—not tomorrow, next week, not in two months, because we still have to do all the calculations manually. That would be an expectation that the CFO can reasonably have, to say, 'Well, if we want to make good decisions, that's what we need.' Secondly, gauge the appetite. If it's not in place, make a business case for it and say, 'I will be able to make more solid financial decisions if I have the solid HR data behind me. I can make a decision faster and be more agile. That's a big selling point. Currently, with all that's happening in the economy, it's very hard to plan ahead. You need agility and the ability to look something up today. Find out what's in place. 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