Rapid Response: How Peloton keeps pushing through resistance, w/CEO John Foley

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Mm. beautiful thing about entrepreneurship is that it's very self-selecting. The people who like dynamic startups are people who love challenges and they show up to work for those challenges, they get energized by those challenges. So COVID obviously was a good year for Peloton in that we were able to welcome so many more people. We were able to provide them sanity and physical health as well as a mental escape in a scary moment. But wow, there's a lot of challenges. Yeah. I'm a proud American patriot, so it was a proud moment for me to go to Ohio and break ground with the governor and bring jobs, over 2,000 jobs to the Troy Township in Ohio. That said, we're still gonna have a great relationship with all our manufacturers in Taiwan and in other countries, and it's just part of running a global supply chain. It's smart, it's official.

Uh you have options. The systemic racism that we've seen in the states for decades and decades is not a political issue. That is a social issue that I believe every republican and democrat with a heart can appreciate. In areas where the governments are failing us, business is stepping in and you're seeing green shoots of success, so uh who knows. That's John Foley, CEO of Peloton. John appeared with Reed Hoffman on the classic masters of scale in twenty twenty, when Peloton's business was being supercharged by pandemic demand.

Since then, the company's faced a slew of new headwinds from product safety issues to investor skepticism. I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company, founder of the Flux Group, and host of Masters of Scale Rapid Response. I wanted to talk to John because rather than be derailed by the challenges, he and Peloton have doubled down on innovation and ambition. In classic entrepreneurial fashion, the hurdles have served as fuel. John talks about supply chains, regulators, and why he opened a factory in the US. He muses about whether software or hardware is more difficult to produce.

And he confesses to being intimidated by the charisma of his own instructors. He explains how Peloton approaches societal issues and how his team balances growth with responsibility. John doesn't see skepticism about Peloton as a sign of weakness. He expects it and learns from it. He sees every challenge as an opportunity to improve.

I'm Bob Safian, and I'm here with John Foley, the CEO of Peloton. John, thanks for joining us. I'm super excited. Thanks for having me, Bob. So you were on Masters of Scale Classic with Reed Hoffman last year. Thanks for a return appearance, especially this week, as we're commemorating the hundredth episode of Reed's show. Your episode was one of the team's Favourite. What did being on that show mean for you? Did you learn anything new about yourself in the process? See your own story in a new way?

Well it's funny, Bob, I'm glad you're asking me'cause I probably wasn't able to fanboy over Reed as much as I would've liked to. I've always looked up to Reed in lots of ways as one of the great leaders of tech and one of the great human beings. And so it was just a a personal joy for me to be in his orbit on his show. So it was it was a very special thing then. Very happy to be back. Thank you, Bob. Well, in that episode, Reed talked with you about converting sceptics as you grew the business. And you sort of face A new version of that at this moment. The pandemic provided a big boost for Peloton, but recently there's been some wariness about.

You know, post pandemic trajectory. How do you think about the skeptics today? Like was the enthusiasm of twenty twenty deserved? Is the wariness of twenty twenty one deserved? What should people understand about Peloton right now? Uh, I guess our resilience and and to your point, Bob, that this battling through the objections and proving the naysayers wrong has been in our DNA since the first time I pitched the business to an investor back in twenty twelve. It's wild, a lot of people think it's a rocket ship.

And I said, Yeah, obviously the pandemic. created great tailwind for us and I do think that fitness is broadly moving into the home as a secular trend that's here to stay. But there's also been incredible headwind that coming out of the pandemic, the skeptics are saying, Oh, it was a pandemic story. Well clearly it's not, but there's a lot of shade being thrown on us for this and Slight missteps through operating like we call Ad Gate where our our T V commercial at one point didn't hit the right balance and there was a lot of uh mockery and and all kinds of stuff. It just makes it feel like we're in a hurricane every day w operating Belaton. But it's what we've been doing. It's what the operators and the co founders and now the executive team enjoy we like challenges, we like to prove people wrong. We're

Yeah, have more fire in our belly today than we ever have, and so uh that's life at Peloton. And it doesn't sound like it surprises you. Like this is just sort of what you expect. Absolutely. I mean, certainly on the investor, whenever the investors or the analysts are doubting, it's like well, of course they're going to. That's what they've done for ten years. There's a term you probably know show, don't tell. There's another investor, a guy named Michael Carman up at Wellington in Boston. He'd always say, John, you worry about the E, I'll worry about the P And so we're just worried about earnings versus the price of the stocks. And so we worry about what we can control and the rest will fall in place. So last spring the consumer product safety commission CPSC issued a warning about your tread plus treadmill that led to a recall.

When did you first realize that this surprise Was coming. Yeah, when we first learned of a tragic incident involving a child with the tread plus It was a real wake up call. It's a uh horrible situation. We were incredibly empathetic and sympathetic and What happened in those days, Bob, is we realized collectively that

Peloton is an innovator in all things fitness. You know, since we brought the first bike into market, we had shot to meet the bar. of safety in the category. And certainly our tread plus did it met every safety standard that the category had. And at the moment when this incident happened.

We said wow. We need to be better than the industry. We are better than this. We can innovate on safety as well as experiences. And that was kind of the aha moment. And so we quickly worked with the CPSC. We did the recall, we got our tread back on market. We believe the tread, the lower price tread is now one of the safest products in the entire category. with hardware features, software features, and even content safety features where the instructors remind you to take out the key. But it was a real moment, but again, along the journey of building Peloton, uh these challenges come and and we rise to meet them. As you describe the situation and you think about the product development, the dealing with the regulators.

Are there lessons that you've drawn from this for the future that maybe some of the other entrepreneurs listening here can draw from? Yeah, well certainly work directly with the government agencies is something that that's critical. We We I don't want to say tried to go it alone, but we're direct to consumer businesses, you know, Bob. So I have a direct relationship with our members. And so I wanted to solve it myself with the community and with my team and for a couple of weeks we got on the wrong side of the line with the CPSC because our instinct was to just fix the situation and I think the learning looking back was uh more quickly get in lockstep with the regulators. But uh it was a rocky couple weeks. As soon as I heard about this incident, within hours we sent an email to the entire community saying it had happened and that's the type of

action and engagement and transparency that we have with our community. This one was just a little bit m trickier. Right now there's a huge focus on global supply chain. You've been managing supply stresses from the outset of the pandemic when the ban for your bikes ballooned. You invested a hundred million dollars in air freighting, you broke ground this summer on a new US manufacturing facility in Ohio. The Peloton output park, which I understand you like to call pop. Is that right? That is right. That's their term. Did you ever expect to become an expert in supply chains?

Was that always part of what you thought your purview would be? Well, it's funny, Bob. In the very early days, one of my moments of confidence was I know manufacturing. beyond what another software entrepreneur might, because I worked in manufacturing in Waco, Texas. It largely hasn't had much impact.

In fact, uh our team is way out in front of me, so it's not that my experience has helped build Peloton, but it did in small ways gave me the confidence to say, Okay, I've been in manufacturing, I get it. While other pure software entrepreneurs might be intimidated by it, I am not. And we've debated this, Bob. Is software harder or is hardware harder? And we go back and forth because sometimes it's easier to make things and and harder to write software platforms, and sometimes it's faster to write software platforms than to bring new physical products into the world. But

They're both equally hard, and obviously when you vertically integrate them and then layer on the media component, which is the third leg of the stool. Actually you could say the fourth leg of the stool then is the community and this whole vertically integrated cocktail of platforms that create the Peloton experiences in the home. But luckily, the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship, as you know, is that it's very self-selecting. The people who like dynamic startups, so to speak. Are people who love challenges and they show up to work for those challenges, they get energized by those challenges. So Covid obviously was a good year for Peloton and that we were able to welcome so many more people, the existing members that we had, we were able to provide them sanity and physical health as well as a mental escape in a scary moment. But wow, there's a lot of challenges in landing the planes, to your point, quite literally at one point. Uh

And the way you dealt with the supply chain issues A year ago. versus the way you're dealing with what the conditions are now. Is it the same or have you had to Adjust again based on where things are right now, or people just talking about it more now and you guys have been having to deal with it for, you know, a year and a half.

No, no, it's real and we are certainly dealing with it like everybody, and and I'll point out, Bob, uh that uh we deal with heavy industry and steel and commodities prices and trying to lock in you know, enough steel to make enough bikes and enough treads and the old world called dirty manufacturing where you're welding and grinding and you're making bikes and treads. We also make tablet computers akin to Apple. You know, every Peloton bike or Peloton tread has a touch screen. with scores of microprocessors and speakers and LED screens and the like. So we're dealing with the global chip shortage, and so we're trying to lock in all the chips. You know, there's I think close to two hundred chips on a Peloton bike and on a Peloton tread. And so we have to deal with the old earthly manufacturing as well as the clean room manufacturing. And so we're seeing those headwinds on both sides of the global supply chain shortage. Another interesting thing, Bob, that you know well is just the movement of these materials and these bikes and tread around the globe in containers is also in crisis and we've struggled

not just getting them through the port of Los Angeles and the port of Long Beach, but also getting them across the Pacific Ocean and what used to be a five thousand dollar container full of bikes coming over shot up to a twenty five thousand dollar container, and you know what that does to your cost of goods sold and all the business implications of your margin. Luckily those twenty five thousand dollar containers are behind us and our team has now secured contracts for much more reasonable shipping containers. But uh yeah, it's globally challenging and the things you read in the paper are real. Yeah, you you mentioned earlier that E versus P like that hits the E pretty pretty hard when those things happen. It can. Luckily, Bob, we don't have a hardware business model. Our our business model is the subscription digital content. So even if our hardware margin gets hit a little bit, we're able to make it up over time and the lifetime value of our customer. The pop park, which I understand you're very excited about, was the Plan for that sparked from

Your experiences with The pandemic and the supply chain, or was that always the plan that you wanted to do some manufacturing in the US? Yeah, I'm a proud American patriot. My dad went to the Naval Academy and fought in the Vietnam War and so it was a proud moment for me to go to Ohio and break ground with the governor and bring jobs, over 2,000 jobs to the Troy Township in Ohio. That said, we also bought a manufacturer in Taiwan and we have a a second big contract manufacturer making bikes and treads uh in Taiwan as well. That's a critical part of our business and our future. I think to your question, just having optionality of onshore and offshore manufacturing.

is a little bit of a hedge of the geopolitical risk. You think about China and Taiwan right now. to have some hedge and less exposure to the island of Taiwan over the coming years will allow us to sleep better, but we're still gonna have a great relationship with all our manufacturers in Taiwan, and we're going to probably have in the coming, you know, decade, other manufacturers in in other countries and it's just part of running a global supply chain at smart It's efficient. Uh you have options. So you mentioned

earlier all the different businesses that are part of Peloton, including being a media company, the volume of media that you're putting out. has just exploded over the last, you know, year or so. You're basically streaming daily live TV Essentially, from studios in New York and London, and now I understand your You know, you're doing classes in yoga and whatnot, and classes in Spanish and German Um w what's the plan for the media side?

Yeah, again, just like we have great supply chain people, John A, who is our chief supply chain officer. We also have a visionary world class uh leader of our content and our media business, Bob. Her name is Jen Cotter, and she is a hundred percent responsible for all of this media you see, and it is a special part of Peloton. We are platform agnostic with our media, so we stream to our own bikes and our own treads, but we'll also stream to your television via any number of OTT devices. We'll stream to your phone, whether it's Android or iOS, we'll stream to your tablet. Um we'll stream to your phone just on audio if you're outside going for a run and you want one of our instructors and our great music coaching you through your outdoor workout. We also call it interactive media where it's a little bit like performance theater where you're on the bike and the instructor might through their interface see that Bob Safian, it's your five hundredth ride. And you're gonna get a shout out. And Bob and Westchester, you know, everyone stand up and congratulate Bob three two one, you know, great stuff. And you're brought into the class in kind of a very engaging, interactive way that doesn't exist in the old world media platforms. Ours is integrated with our software, integrated with our hardware in some cases, and it's really special and it's something that we're proud of.

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Before the break, we heard Peloton CEO John Foley talk about the safety recall of the company's Tread Plus product. and how supply chain challenges have impacted finances and operations. We also learned how Peloton's vertical business model has kept the company thriving despite rising costs. Based on the lifetime value of digital subscriptions. Now John talks about Peloton's role in society, from dancing with the stars to Black Lives Matter, and what he calls the third rail in the membership community.

He also talks about the New York Tech scene versus Silicon Valley and his aspirations to eventually go into public office. Ultimately, John says how a company conducts itself matters more than any business metric. That caring has to come first. Pelotons Become

Part of the Pop culture. One of your instructors is on Network TV, Dancing with the Stars, Cody Rigsby. I I have a family member who's a big Peloton fan who wants to say, Tell John I love Leanne. Yeah. Is is this something you saw happening, like star making, culture making?

Out of Peloton? We did. We saw it from day one and the instructors who joined us see it as clear as we do. They know that they are going to be a big global celebrity based on our growth and our platform, and they're ready for it. They're deserving of it. Robin Arzon or Cody Rigsby or Ali Love or Alex Tucson. Or Leanne or Ben. These people are incredibly magnanimous and inspiring human beings and

I mean, just meeting them and talking to them at a bar, Bob, you kind of get intimidated because they're just so larger than life and such powerful presences and I joke when I'm at work and Alex T comes to my desk, I'm like, I can't wait for him to leave because I'm so nervous when I'm around him. It's uh they're they're just incredible human beings. And obviously we're building the platform and in small ways coach them and we give them tools to make great playlists and everything, but It's largely just the power of their own personalities and their own will to be fantastic instructors. Mm. Cultural

pressures on CEOs have grown. You committed Peloton to contributing a hundred million dollars over four years to fight racial injustice after George Floyd's murder, a plan that encompasses Internal wage increases in mobility efforts and partnerships with non profits. As well as content like the breathe in speak out series. I'm told you kinda mapped out this plan. On your own?

And presented us. Can you tell us how that happened? Were you at home just making notes? Well, let me say that no one does anything individually. It's always a team effort. And I have a fantastic team around me and it might have been a smaller group than usual over the weekend,'cause I'm I'm sensitive of calling people on their cell phone on the weekend, but there were lots of people involved that weekend. To your question, Bob, I do have a lot of heart and time for this subject, which is making sure that the Peloton platform and the way we do things. is having a positive impact more broadly than for our shareholders and I'll hear back to the business round table that you know Jamie Diamond is associated with where

Think it was ten or fifteen years ago uh they decided that the role of corporate leaders wasn't just to line the pockets of shareholders anymore. No, wait a second, there's more to being an executive at a company There's more people you're responsible for, your employees and your members and your communities and beyond and and the environment and ESG and we're gonna we're gonna be one of the companies that we think is gonna be something that other companies can point to and say, Peloton's doing it the right way. And recently we've been saying this term, Bob, is how matters. And we do think how matters. It's not profits at all cost and destroy the environment and not care about your communities, it's the opposite. It's how do you build something great. in parallel to elevating all members of our communities and

And helping the environment. Sometimes these issues can though. complicate your business when you're making choices about what things you're gonna do in it in a different kind of way. I mean I I I'm just thinking back even connections to Donald Trump that the CEO had to leave in the wake of that. How much do you worry about

Putting off some customers or potential customers. By the decisions you're making about The how. Yeah, that's a great question, Bob, and and that is something we spend a lot of time on. politicize our brand. You're absolutely right. We want everyone in any political walk of life to feel like Peloton is a place for them. And I'll remind you, I grew up in Texas and in Florida. I went to high school in the Florida Keys and then I worked in Waco, Texas. And I I was born in Houston and I went to Georgia Tech.

Right now I live in New York City, so I deeply understand the North Eastern elite liberalness. Not that I'm one of them, but I understand that. But I also understand the Waco conservative and I've got a lot of love for both of those people. And at Peloton, we're trying to make sure that we are a platform that everybody gets on and feels like that there's something for them. But you're right, with the social justice stuff, we made the decision that certainly black lives matter and the systemic racism that we've seen in the states for decades and decades is not a political issue. That is a social issue that I believe every Republican and Democrat with a heart can appreciate. So in the same way we celebrate Pride Month and we don't think that gay rights is a political issue. Beyond that, there are some situations to your question, Bob, where it starts to get a little more gray.

And we are issue by issue, day by day, trying to walk the right line. Yeah, I I heard that you've gotten emails from some members of the Peloton community who were in law enforcement. complaining about lyrics in some of the songs played during the classes. That those lyrics may not have been as supportive of law enforcement. Like, how do you deal with that level of You know, of scrutiny.

Yeah, I mean. There's an NWA song, F the Police, right? From thirty years ago that uh I think a lot of people know if you're in that hip hop world. And obviously that's really hurtful if you're a in law enforcement and you're a man or woman in blue, as they say. Y you might think that we shouldn't have that song on our platform and and I get it. That said

trying to suppress creative freedoms of musicians and of our instructors if they wanted to play that. It's also tricky to say, okay, what gets censored when you're talking about the arts. So you're right, Bob, you're right, you're right on the third rail where where some of this stuff happens and where these decisions get made. But where I've gotten comfortable with is Trying to figure out how we can be transparent. 'Cause when you're in the middle of a class and all of a sudden

a really offensive song that just doesn't feel good to maybe your mother is on the bike. I I don't know why I'm picking mothers, but my my my mother does not listen to hardcore hippov. Let's just go there. And she doesn't want that in her Peloton workout. And I get that. And we do get emails of hey, you know, I heard this terrible song or the words in it. Where we're trying to get comfortable with is transparency for our riders. And our runners and our members broadly is If you're gonna hear a song with a particular message or particular language, we wanna make sure that you elected into that, that you're comfortable with that, that you know what's gonna happen. You know this instructor is gonna play that type of music, you know whatever messages might be there. As much transparency as possible is what we would shoot for in that situation, Bob. What's at stake for Peloton right now?

Well, to your point about our history of People not believing. We're still on that trajectory. We still have a lot of shade being thrown at us because people don't understand us. But uh we see that what's at stake is the health of the nations that we operate in and the nations that we aspire to go into. Last quarter we talked about two point three million subscribers, but that translated into close to six million members because you and your wife Bob might be both riding the Peloton bike or the Peloton tread. Six million people that were touching their lives and they're living better, healthier lives because of Peloton. What's at stake is

Taking that to sixty million and then eventually to six hundred million where More and more people are getting fit and they're looking forward to working out in the morning through the entertainment and the engagement and the inspiration that takes place. Oh, on our platforms. Yeah, we just this summer launched Australia and and our market reception on Australia is probably our best market reception yet. And so the uh Australian communities are saying, wow, yes, we want the Peloton Pike, we want the Peloton tread, we want the yoga, we want the Pilates, we want the strength training and all that. So what's at stake is we see our responsibility one as impacting the lives of our members, people who are paying for a subscription for Peloton.

And then two, we do think that the media company we do like the idea that we can be a place Where you can meet people. And you can learn things and you can expand the way you think Beyond what other media companies are. And

coming out of the Fairness Act of nineteen eighty seven when you know media companies can just give you one Voice. From one side of the aisle. And I think that's largely unhealthy. Beyond fitness, we do think that over time, over the next 10 to 20 years, we will have an uplifting And integrating and more bringing communities together through understanding and through shared experiences. We think it's important and it's just one of the things we do and uh gets us out of bed in the morning.

You've expressed a lot of heart for the New York Tech corridor for entrepreneurship in New York. I'm curious how the scene in in New York is different than in Silicon Valley, in your perspective, and sort of what you think it's gonna take to get New York to sort of be on the trajectory, you know, it could be.

I think we're there, Bob. I read something that there were more tech startups in New York City last year than in Silicon Valley. One of the reasons why I'm proud to be a New Yorker is just the people and the energy and the pride of New York that we all have. And I think if we just continue doing what New Yorkers do, we are going to be out in front of the valley over time. I think it's a better place to live. And we have just as sexy of technology companies and uh just as great software engineering roles. And you can live in New York City where that's multifaceted and you got the arts and culture and food and diversity and all the things that I think young folks care about these days.

You and I talked a while ago about your own sort of potential political aspirations. Has your perspective on that shifted at all? I mean, given the state of the world and the politics and Yeah. Going in public office being so fractured and so

Front? It hasn't changed much, Bob. It is fractured and fraught, and a lot of our great leaders aren't going into politics. And I do struggle back to uh the fact that I'm a Texan and Florida and I spent ten years in California and Los Angeles where I met my wife and My mom's from Iowa where I spent my summers and my dad went to the Naval Academy and fought in the war and I think I'm as much of an American as anyone I know, and I'm also a moderate. So I do struggle with the polarization, the nastiness on the far left and the far right, and it just it's not good for America. I also spend time in China and Taiwan and There's drawbacks to the the planned economy of China, obviously. I'm not saying we should become that type of state, but I do struggle with the efficiency of the US government when it's becoming so polarized.

I think we need more leadership that's pragmatic and not polarizing and reaches across the aisle and the leadership of yesteryear that I romanticize the great, great leaders that are consensus builders and bridge builders and bring everyone along. And it's not about the rich or the poor, the left or the right, or the gay or the straight, or the men or women in north and south. It's about America and it's America first and I do care a lot about it. Obviously I'm focused on running Peloton at this point, but in the coming years I do

hope that I'm able to serve the country in some meaningful way and Who knows where that will take us or take me, but I do want to give back You mentioned sort of the great consensus builders. Like there's an irony that sort of the motivation and the leaders who are talking about consensus today seem to come from the business world. And the

Government leaders seem to sort of be sort of okay with driving us to the edges. Yeah. I think society, all of us need to figure out how to be better as a country because it's not great right now and it's headed in a worse way on both sides. And America is suffering.

And as a business leader, you can have impact over your community and over your workforce and your outreach, but You don't have the same kind of Reach or leverage or influence that you would have if you were in government? I'm not sure, Bob. That's a good question. And I debate that with my friends about how I spend my days on Earth is if Peloton becomes big enough and you lock arms with the Jamie Diamonds and the Mark Benioffs and the the other leaders who care who are moderate and

Wanna make a difference. Maybe the path forward is through business. And I don't know. I mean it would be uh unique and unusual because I think historically governments have been able to have more impact on more people, but You're right, in some small cases over the last five years in areas where the governments are failing us, business is stepping in and you're seeing green shoots of success. So uh who knows. Well, this has been a terrific discussion, as always, John. It's always a pleasure, Bob. I will always make time for you and for Reed, two of my favorite people. So thanks for what you do.

Masters of Scale Rapid Response is a wait what original. The show is recorded remotely using sanitized audio gear. I'm your rapid response host, Bob Safian host for Masters of Scale is Reed Hoffman. Our executive producers are June Cohen and Darren Triff. Our supervising producer is Jay Punjabi.

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