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Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

blackwellscap.com

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Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#31

Post by jdrc »

auggierose wrote: post #17
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #10

So many words trying to obfuscate the simple fact that “We are a treadmill maker trying to masquerade as a tech company.”

Is that similar to a video store masquerading as a tech company? Or a book store masquerading as a tech company? Or an apple masquerading ... Oh wait, that actually IS a tech company.

I kind of agree it's time to depedestalize "tech"founders. Every company is a tech company and their bosses can be just as scumbags. The religion that worships infotech as inherently unevil and idealistic needs to die.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#32

Post by baybal2 »

What's up with a treadmill?

Is it so special because it has WiFi?

HN rules forbid shallow dismissal. I would only say, adding a WiFi to a random thingy is a weekend project for any engineering company i've worked in, in the most literal sense. Design injection molding enclosure, add relays, motor VFD, rpm sensor, wifi module, wire & screw together.

I've done few project for sporting goods makers, and even no-name village factories in China with zero marketing probably ship more goods per months than this treadmill sell in a year.

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#33

Post by rjtavares »

onion2k wrote: post #30
rjtavares wrote: post #6

> Q: Is there anything about being CEO that you don’t like, that you like to delegate? > A: Finance. Our CFO does 99% of finance. I engage because I want to know how we’re doing. But to say I don’t add value to her operation is an understatement. You can also say the same with technology. Our CTO doesn’t get any help from me. I’ll go sometimes months without talking to our CTO, which as a CEO of a technology company,…

As someone who's been a CTO at times in the past, I wish I'd worked with a CEO like that. There are few things worse than having a leadership team who don't trust you to deliver the tech that drives the company's ideas.

Of course overly managing the CTO is also bad, but would you really like to "go sometimes months" without talking to the CEO? Especially during a pandemic in which your product becomes the hot new thing?

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#34

Post by jahller »

fabian2k wrote: post #27

I get the impression they don't like the CEO very much. That was an impressively brutal attack on him, with probably the worst damage inflicted by the CEO's own statements. Blackwells is obviously not a neutral party here, there's a reason they created this thing. But on first glance it looks like a pretty solid argument that the management at Peleton is seriously flawed. I don't really buy the arguments on why Pelet…

they obviously want to get a good ROI on their stock holdings and try to convince potential buyers that the company is amazing and just held back by their CEO (which definitely is not the only problem that Peloton has)

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#35

Post by skywal_l »

willcipriano wrote: post #26
adrianomartins wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might ask, if the CEO does 1% of finance, and 0% of technology, what does a CEO do? Office, HR, comms management?

"Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

"Office Space" reference for anyone wondering[0]. Another Mike Judge's gift to us.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#36

Post by vishnugupta »

onion2k wrote: post #30
rjtavares wrote: post #6

> Q: Is there anything about being CEO that you don’t like, that you like to delegate? > A: Finance. Our CFO does 99% of finance. I engage because I want to know how we’re doing. But to say I don’t add value to her operation is an understatement. You can also say the same with technology. Our CTO doesn’t get any help from me. I’ll go sometimes months without talking to our CTO, which as a CEO of a technology company,…

As someone who's been a CTO at times in the past, I wish I'd worked with a CEO like that. There are few things worse than having a leadership team who don't trust you to deliver the tech that drives the company's ideas.

>> I’ll go sometimes months without talking to our CTO,

> ...leadership team who don't trust you ....

When did talking come to mean having trust issues!!?

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#37

Post by mschuster91 »

adrianomartins wrote: post #15
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #10

So many words trying to obfuscate the simple fact that “We are a treadmill maker trying to masquerade as a tech company.”

A treadmill maker trying to get users to pay monthly subscription to use it...

The subscribers aren't subscribing for using the treadmill, they are subscribing for fitness courses and the likes.

Which... isn't a bad business model per se IMO. With the current trend of "self improvement", there are enough people willing to pay lots of money, for everything from gym memberships to individual personal trainers.

The issue is: this is not going to be an exponential-stock-growth-style business model, as many seem to expect. There is no hope for the usual "undercut the competition in pricing and establish a monopoly that can be used for rent-seeking afterwards" VC model, no hope for a make-everyone-filthy-rich acquisition by an established market player, at best this is going to be a steady, "boring" cash cow.

(Note, I don't hold any stakes in Peloton or competitors)

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#38

Post by remus »

It's interesting but I think it's important to take it with a huge pinch of salt. It's obviously designed as a hit piece, pushing their opinion the CEO needs to go, and as such is chock full of selective quotes and figures designed to paint one picture.

ed: the top comment from yesterday says it better https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30272154

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#39

Post by olliej »

auggierose wrote: post #17
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #10

So many words trying to obfuscate the simple fact that “We are a treadmill maker trying to masquerade as a tech company.”

Is that similar to a video store masquerading as a tech company? Or a book store masquerading as a tech company? Or an apple masquerading ... Oh wait, that actually IS a tech company.

I know plenty of people who argue about whether Netflix is a tech company - certainly their infrastructure is non-trivial but are they meaningfully different from HBO?

For Amazon though, it's incorrect to refer to them as a bookstore - AWS is a huge portion of their revenue.

On the other hand you have Google and Facebook that people call technology companies, but their core business is advertising.

I think at this point "tech" in "tech company" doesn't mean technology, because otherwise surely Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc would surely be tech companies?

Re: Peloton – A call for action [pdf]

#40

Post by helsinkiandrew »

adrianomartins wrote: post #13
rjtavares wrote: post #6

> Q: Is there anything about being CEO that you don’t like, that you like to delegate? > A: Finance. Our CFO does 99% of finance. I engage because I want to know how we’re doing. But to say I don’t add value to her operation is an understatement. You can also say the same with technology. Our CTO doesn’t get any help from me. I’ll go sometimes months without talking to our CTO, which as a CEO of a technology company,…

One might ask, if the CEO does 1% of finance, and 0% of technology, what does a CEO do? Office, HR, comms management?

He's the Chief Enthusiasm Officer:

> Peloton has been horribly mismanaged, with unbridled enthusiasm taking the place of disciplined leadership

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