> In a sense, the pitch here is straightforward. Blackwells does not think that Foley is very good at running Peloton. The stock market does not think that Foley is very good at running Peloton, in that the stock is down 80% from its highs last year and spent last week below its 2019 initial public offering price of $29. (It’s up today.) And Foley does not think he’s particularly good at running Peloton, at least if you believe the quotes that Blackwells selected here. If someone else takes over the day-to-day running of Peloton, or the process of selling it to a better owner (and Blackwells is also pushing for a sale), then Foley will have more money (because he owns a lot of Peloton stock) and also more free time (because he’s not running Peloton). It is no fun to do a job that you’re not good at, particularly when doing that job costs you money. If you can get in a room with Foley, or just lob a PowerPoint deck at him, and explain “hey, everyone is mad at you, you’re not having fun and it’s making you poorer,” that’s fairly persuasive and maybe he’ll listen. He did!
Sidenote: I suggest subscribing to Money Stuff. It’s a free email newsletter, and Matt’s writing is stellar.
Why did any shareholder buy into the hype? When Peloton decided building their own personal factory in Ohio was a great use of money, their shareholders and fans cheered about how great idea it was. We're getting healthy and helping unemployment in the rust belt! Same for having a full time Peloton employee drive the bike to your home
Those decisions made absolutely no sense financially, and were immediately shut down once the CEO changed. But when they were decided Wall Street was cheering them on
The factory part aside, white glove delivery is not unheard of in premium offerings of various items. It makes perfect sense to have white glove treatment for the delivery of Peloton devices, and you can almost always guarantee the customer interaction is better when your employees are in-house instead of contracted.
Peloton is far from the only expensive product being shipped coast to coast. You let someone else do the work for you. I'm going on a whim and guessing that a Tesla being delivered to your door, is not delivered by a full time Tesla employee
And to double down on that - starting 2 days ago, Everyone receiving a Peloton will receive it from a non-employee
Peloton does not use FT employees to deliver everywhere in the US and I know for a fact that their first-party delivery is a far better experience than when you get third-party delivery.
> In a sense, the pitch here is straightforward. Blackwells does not think that Foley is very good at running Peloton. The stock market does not think that Foley is very good at running Peloton, in that the stock is down 80% from its highs last year and spent last week below its 2019 initial public offering price of $29. (It’s up today.) And Foley does not think he’s particularly good at running Peloton, at least if you believe the quotes that Blackwells selected here. If someone else takes over the day-to-day running of Peloton, or the process of selling it to a better owner (and Blackwells is also pushing for a sale), then Foley will have more money (because he owns a lot of Peloton stock) and also more free time (because he’s not running Peloton). It is no fun to do a job that you’re not good at, particularly when doing that job costs you money. If you can get in a room with Foley, or just lob a PowerPoint deck at him, and explain “hey, everyone is mad at you, you’re not having fun and it’s making you poorer,” that’s fairly persuasive and maybe he’ll listen. He did!
Sidenote: I suggest subscribing to Money Stuff. It’s a free email newsletter, and Matt’s writing is stellar.