Every small business will give you an entrepreneurial way of

Host: The factory floor was silent now — the machines idle, the air heavy with dust and memory. The faint smell of oil and old iron lingered, stubbornly clinging to the air like the echo of a past that refused to leave. Outside, twilight stretched across the sky, painting the windows in muted gold.

Jack stood near the center of the vast, empty room, his boots echoing softly on the concrete. A patch of light spilled through the broken skylight above him, falling over rows of unused equipment that looked like monuments to a vanished faith in labor. Jeeny walked slowly beside him, her hand trailing along a rusted conveyor belt.

Jeeny: “Hamdi Ulukaya once said, ‘Every small business will give you an entrepreneurial way of looking at things. I guarantee you that for every plant that closes, if you gave it to one small-business person in that community, he or she would find a way to make it work. The small-business attitude is you always find a way to make it work.’”

Host: Her voice was steady but tinged with something fragile — the sound of someone who wanted to believe in what she was saying. Jack didn’t answer at first. He picked up a small metal gear from the floor and turned it over in his hand, studying its worn edges.

Jack: “You think that’s true, Jeeny? That all it takes is attitude?”

Jeeny: “Not just attitude. Vision. Grit. People who still think possibility isn’t extinct.”

Jack: (dryly) “Possibility doesn’t pay the electric bill.”

Jeeny: “No, but it starts the generator.”

Host: The sunlight shifted as the day waned, cutting sharper angles across the factory walls. Shadows of beams and broken glass stretched long across the floor.

Jack: “You sound like one of those startup founders who sells hope on a PowerPoint slide. You think this place died because people stopped trying? It died because the market moved on. Cheaper labor, bigger fish. The machine doesn’t care about hope.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe it needs new engineers.”

Jack: “You really believe some local shop owner could’ve saved this place?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not saved it as it was. But reimagined it. That’s the difference between corporations and small business — corporations see what’s gone, small business sees what’s left.”

Host: Jack looked around — the broken machinery, the faded safety posters, the silence that once was motion.

Jack: “What’s left here, Jeeny? Rust and regret.”

Jeeny: “And a roof. Power lines. Skilled hands sitting at home. Empty space that could be full again.”

Jack: “You make resurrection sound easy.”

Jeeny: “Not easy. Necessary.”

Host: The wind moaned through a crack in the wall, scattering dust into the last shaft of light. The sound of it was strangely human — like a sigh.

Jeeny: “You know, when Ulukaya started Chobani, everyone told him the same thing. The plant he bought — they said it was dead. No profit, no future. But he saw what was possible in what everyone else had written off. He didn’t just make yogurt — he made jobs. Community. Pride. That’s what the entrepreneurial way of looking at things really means — to see beyond the obituary.”

Jack: “And what happens when you see, and no one else does?”

Jeeny: “Then you build anyway. Until they notice.”

Jack: “You make it sound noble.”

Jeeny: “It is. Every small business is a rebellion — against apathy, against scale, against surrender.”

Host: Her eyes gleamed in the dim light, reflecting not the ruin, but the potential hidden in it. Jack tossed the metal gear onto a table, the clang echoing through the emptiness.

Jack: “You’ve got a lot of faith in people, Jeeny. Too much, maybe.”

Jeeny: “And you’ve got too little. Faith doesn’t blind you; it gives you reason to keep building.”

Jack: “You really think one person can make a system work again? This place used to employ five hundred people. You can’t fix that with optimism.”

Jeeny: “No. But you can start with five. Then ten. Then fifty. You don’t rebuild empires; you replant gardens.”

Host: The light faded further, leaving the room bathed in orange twilight. A single bird — a sparrow, maybe — had found its way inside, perched high on a rusted pipe. It sang once, sharp and lonely, before fluttering away.

Jack: “You know, my father worked in a plant like this. Spent thirty years making machine parts. When it closed, he didn’t talk for weeks. It wasn’t just a job; it was his proof of existence. His hands had purpose. When that went, something in him… unmade.”

Jeeny: (softly) “That’s why small business matters, Jack. It’s not about the money. It’s about ownership. Not of things, but of meaning. People need to believe they can shape something — that the world can still have their fingerprints on it.”

Jack: “You sound like you’re preaching.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I am. Because somewhere between the factories and the corporations, we forgot that work was supposed to mean something.”

Host: She took a few steps toward him, her boots scuffing against the concrete. The fading light caught the curve of her cheek, softening her defiance into something like grace.

Jeeny: “Every closed plant is a graveyard for potential. But it’s also a field waiting for new hands. Someone who says, ‘I can make this work.’ That’s the small-business attitude — stubborn hope. And God, we need more of it.”

Jack: “You think hope can outbid capital?”

Jeeny: “It already has — every time someone starts small and refuses to quit.”

Host: A silence fell between them. Outside, the last light slipped behind the hills. The world beyond the factory walls was dark now — but inside, something still glowed: the faint, amber light of belief.

Jack looked at her, then at the factory — the space between ruin and rebirth. His voice was quieter when he spoke again.

Jack: “You really think someone could bring this place back?”

Jeeny: “I think someone has to try. Or else we’ll all live in the ruins of what could’ve been.”

Jack: “And if it fails?”

Jeeny: “Then at least it fails building something, not burying it.”

Host: He nodded slowly. The old machines, the dust, the silence — suddenly, they didn’t feel quite so lifeless. He could almost hear them humming again, the phantom rhythm of work returning.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we’ve been waiting for someone else to fix things when it’s always been our turn.”

Jeeny: “That’s the spirit of small business. You stop waiting.”

Host: They stood there, side by side in the half-light, surrounded by stillness that wasn’t empty anymore — just patient.

Outside, the wind shifted, carrying the smell of rain. A sign creaked above the door, the name of the factory faded but not forgotten.

Jeeny turned to him, smiling.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack — concrete, steel, people — they all have one thing in common.”

Jack: “What’s that?”

Jeeny: “They’re only dead when no one believes they can bend again.”

Host: And with that, she walked toward the exit, her footsteps echoing through the vast room. Jack watched her go, the faintest of smiles pulling at his mouth.

In the stillness that followed, something unseen stirred — not noise, not motion, but the first quiet heartbeat of revival.

Host: Because Hamdi Ulukaya was right — the small-business attitude isn’t optimism. It’s defiance. It’s the stubborn art of making what’s broken breathe again.

And tonight, amid the ghosts of labor and loss, it began to breathe.