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Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

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Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#241

Post by speby »

no_wizard wrote: post #13

I think we’re starting to see a bit of “post pandemic” economic factors and that explains some of the shake up on Wall Street as of late. I always felt this about Peloton more than anything though, that it was not going to be able to sustain growth numbers as the pandemic when either of these came to pass: 1) ended officially 2) waned on to the point that it became "normalized" in how to handle day to day activities…

Remote work was already a very long-term trend before COVID. COVID pumped steroids everywhere on that trend, thus making Zoom and others see tremendous growth. I suspect the growth will "slow" relative to the first 6 months of, say, March-September 2020, but as remote continues its long-term trend, including the after-effects of COVID's steroidal injection, the growth rate will probably wane but will still be strong cumulative growth regardless.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#242

Post by entropea »

lelandfe wrote: post #214
whymauri wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will also never work at a company that uses Teams as its primary form of communication. The whole ecosystem, along with SharePoint, is absolutely broken, end-to-end. Perhaps the worst user-facing software I've had the displeasure of using on a daily basis. I'm not kidding when I say that it a played a factor in me quitting. Not a single time did we have a meeting on Teams that worked properly. Not once.

That’s a pretty crazy statement - I was typically on 4-5 meetings a day on Teams and it generally was pretty smooth for everyone. Including all hands with a lot of folks on. I thought their meeting software was easily the best part of an otherwise rickety app. Guess that’s not everyone’s experience?

Meetings are smooth for me on Teams now after months of struggling but I still get near 100% CPU usage and my Macboook can't stay in a call for more than around an hour on battery. The UI is a confusing mess with too many things integrated into it. "Keep It Simple Stupid" needs to be more ingrained into Microsoft software. I do like the ability to raise hands and also the "meeting is ending in x minutes" notification however.

I would also consider joining a company in the future that doesn't use teams as a form of communication.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#243

Post by vandorjw »

curiousllama wrote: post #172
outworlder wrote: post #158

> Barry McCarthy, who served as CFO at Spotify as well as at Netflix, will take over as CEO, the company said Tuesday. A bean counter at the helm? Ok, they are done.

To be fair, their failings were almost entirely a result of bad financial projections, resulting in an unstable balance sheet for an otherwise-solid business

Then why not keep the CEO, and replace the CFO?

CEO needs to provide vision based on the financial projection from the CFO.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#244

Post by kevstev »

FpUser wrote: post #221
muh_gradle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty well versed in the fitness industry. Peloton, SoulCycle, Mirror value proposition never made any sense to me. With people going back to the office and gyms opening up again, people will want their normal fitness classes, gyms instead. EDIT: apparently some of you disagree. Change my mind.

>"Peloton, SoulCycle, Mirror value proposition never made any sense to me." To be fair Peloton was doing ok before pandemic I think. They got disproportionally hyped since pandemic and now returning back to what is realistic value. Myself, I would not touch it with a wooden pole but that's just personal preferences - I do not participate in organized activities. Do everything on my own.

The narrative around Peloton is kind of strange to me. They were doing pretty well before the pandemic, then the pandemic hits, and they spent like this hockey stick growth is permanent and not just a trend, and then went in odd directions- focusing their energy on Peloton stores that sell apparel, for one example. Using that growth to move into different fitness areas and expand on their core product- interactive gamification based fitness- would have made a lot of sense to me- heart rate monitors that actually work, maybe weights that can detect how many reps you did that show up on a weight class leaderboard, would all fit in with the brand's draw. Trying to become the next Lululemon, I mean its not the worst idea I have ever heard, but it kind of goes against the idea of a relatively low fixed cost business model that can scale infinitely with almost zero incremental cost per user.

But the narrative that they are essentially a failed company, when they are still growing their user base, and haven't even really done much of an international expansion, is so far off from the reality that their management just spent money like drunken sailors on new businesses that no one wanted.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#245

Post by twistedpair »

pc86 wrote: post #155
RHSeeger wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see I have a meeting with MS Teams, I get annoyed. - Most of the time, people don't setup a dialin number, so I can't use my phone - There's no way to display both the attendees list and the chat at the same time Those are two examples of things that just cause it to be an "also ran" in my mind. It's just missing a lot of the "nice to have" features; much the way Zoom did when it was first release... it…

This is completely personal preference and I would never enforce it, but I hate when people dial in to a video conference or other meeting. Even when the camera is off, having 10 people on a call but 15 attendees that include a bunch of random phone numbers, combined with not having any idea who is speaking if you don't know everyone's voice by heart, makes it a very suboptimal experience. If everyone had a nice came…

Really handy to dial in when you can (long drive on a Friday afternoon) so you don't break the bank on your mobile data. Unlimited free talk minutes... woo!

Oddly, various VC tools I've used with dial in properly map the caller unique pin code to the calling user.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#246

Post by RHSeeger »

manishsharan wrote: post #196
RHSeeger wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see I have a meeting with MS Teams, I get annoyed. - Most of the time, people don't setup a dialin number, so I can't use my phone - There's no way to display both the attendees list and the chat at the same time Those are two examples of things that just cause it to be an "also ran" in my mind. It's just missing a lot of the "nice to have" features; much the way Zoom did when it was first release... it…

MS Teams is well integrated within the Microsoft Windows desktop environment, which is what is used by most enterprises. I appreciate that it is integrated into my outlook and onedrive and co-authoring documents is easy in a meeting. From IT departments' point of view, buying MS Teams license is a no-brainer. edit: typo

> Pretending that the current system is as good as it can get the for the vast majority of individuals is disingenuous

That is a long standing issue in many companies; the people who buy the software aren't the people that use the software. Which results in the people that use the software being unhappy with what winds up being an inferior product for their use case.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#247

Post by r_klancer »

jimhi wrote: post #16
onion2k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All your comment really shows is how little you know about how many people it takes to run a large business, and that you don't really understand what Peleton do. Peleton design and manufacture their own equipment, they ship it globally, they have their own buyers and supply chains for that, They also build the tech that runs their business, from the customer portal to the video integration in the products. They make…

Just to clarify they are in 4 countries. They also appeared to be doing the last mile delivery in these countries themselves (at least I could confirm in the USA) which probably helped with their premium brand. That said, I still agree with the above post. Fitbit has 1,600 employees and actually ships globally. This was excessive.

Coincidentally, I was (also) going to jump in this thread to say that at Fitbit we never employed even near 2800 people.

Of course, per the standard corporate model nowadays, Fitbit in its time as an independent company didn't directly employ the people who do the manufacturing, logistics, retail sales, or front line customer support (nor of course the people who do janitorial services, security, food service, etc for those folks.)

So I don't think it was fair of GP to say:

> All your comment really shows is how little you know about how many people it takes to run a large business

Although perhaps it was more fair to say:

> you don't really understand what Peleton do

Personally, I concluded from the headline that there must be an interesting story there.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#248

Post by reidjs »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #212
llampx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Zoom here to stay or is video conferencing here to stay? Google Meets and MS Teams are pretty good and built into their respective Office suite products.

As a CTO coach I use Meets, Zoom and MS Teams. MS Teams is the worst of the bunch by far, mainly because it's not a video conferencing tool but wants to be everything. So it's hard to just schedule a call with someone in another organisation. Works fine with Zoom and Meets, doesn't work with Teams (also the HTML link in invites does not work in my calendar solution, why not just have a simple text link?) Zoom is the…

what’s a speech coach?

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#249

Post by twistedpair »

N_A_T_E wrote: post #17

Is it just me or is $40 a month too much for the content they provide? I would spend a couple thousand on fancy exercise equipment, or maybe get one as a gift for my parents but the required subscription gives me rent seeking vibes.

Schwin IC4 spinning bike $700 New Kindle tablet $40 YouTube $0

Has been working like a charm for years now. Feel fancy, just BT to connect the Peloton app to the bike if you want to attend an actual class.

Note, that's a nice bike, you can get no name bikes from Amazon for $150.

Re: Peloton replaces CEO and lays off 2,800 people

#250

Post by TillE »

mdoms wrote: post #162
dehrmann wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Peloton has pretty expensive products You can buy a set of kettlebells up to 24kg, a barbell, and enough plates to make 315 lbs for the cost of a Peloton. Completely different crowd, though.

How is a bunch of weight equipment relevant to a discussion on cardio equipment?

There's this internet nerd thing which always implicitly defines "fitness" as 99% weightlifting, which has always been bizarre to me.

Those weights do pretty much nothing for your cardiovascular health, unless you've somehow got some crazy 40+ minute routine.

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