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> 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 kn

> 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, that’s kind of rare. Wow...

adrianomartins 5y ago
One might ask, if the CEO does 1% of finance, and 0% of technology, what does a CEO do? Office, HR, comms management?
- helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  He's the Chief Enthusiasm Officer: > Peloton has been horribly mismanaged, with unbridled enthusiasm taking the place of disciplined leadership
- skrebbel 5y ago
  Marketing and sales
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    How can you do Marketing without looking at the curre t development to Merker the new features? How can you do sales without feeding customer feedback back into development? How can you do all that without looking at the numbers to see what you can afford?
    - pmontra 5y ago
      I've seen many times sellers selling things that didn't exist yet. Maybe a term describing that is Market Development. It doesn't end well every time but there is usually time to cope with customers after they signed a contract.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      > How can you do Marketing without looking at the curre t development to Merker the new features? Marketing shit that’s not out is just barely better than marketing shit that’s not even planned. > How can you do sales without feeding customer feedback back into development? Surely you have normal channels for doing that and it doesn’t require the CEO to talk to the CTO?
    - skrebbel 5y ago
      I don't know anything about Peloton, but my impression is that they're selling a way of life much more than a device with a particular set of features. On the CEO level, marketing and sales might very much be all about mood, positioning, culture etc and very little about the display pixel density or the logistics. I'm not saying that this is sensible, I'm just saying that lots of companies are run this way and a CEO saying they don't sync with tech nor finance every day doesn't necessarily disqualify them. This guy built a pretty big company pretty fast so he's gotta have done something right. Maybe let's not go all-in with an activist investor's cherry-picked quotes of an uncommonly honest/humble CEO.
  - andi999 5y ago
    Isnt that called 'business development' at the C-level?
- willcipriano 5y ago
  "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?"
  - skywal_l 5y ago
    "Office Space" reference for anyone wondering[0]. Another Mike Judge's gift to us. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo
    - Salgat 5y ago
      It's funny, before I starting working as a developer I thought this guy was useless, but now I understand how valuable not having to deal with the customers actually is.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - spookthesunset 5y ago
        It’s also one of those jobs that is hard to measure the performance of.
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    As much as we make fun of the new Agile/Startup/SV world, it looks like I'd absolutely dread work on a 90's Software company (though granted this is exagerated for comedic purposes).
- indigochill 5y ago
  In the startup I worked at in college, one of the most visible jobs our CEO did was talking with investors to get the next round of funding. He was also the top-level business strategy guy (for an example in a more mature company, look at the difference Nadella made to Microsoft's strategy relative to Ballmer), although implementation details were delegated to other roles (that he was responsible for hiring).
- anthony_r 5y ago
  The main job of the CEO is to manage the board of directors (i.e. the shareholders). And the main job of the board of directors is to decide when to fire the CEO.
  - ansible 5y ago
    > The main job of the CEO is to manage the board of directors (i.e. the shareholders). Uh, no. Dealing with the board is indeed part of the job for the CEO, but a relatively small part unless you're doing poorly. The CEO is also managing the direction of the company, and managing the top-level managers of the various departments. The CEO has to fight the fires, and allocate limited resources to where they are needed across all departments.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      You're right, but I think parent was joking
      - anthony_r 5y ago
        Half-joking, but yeah. "Managing the board of directors" of course means keeping the board happy, which is done by what ansible wrote. Not just directly trying to talk them out of firing the CEO.
        darkerside 5y ago
        Of course. Jokes aren't funny if they aren't at least a little bit true!
- tootie 5y ago
  The deck also calls out another interview where he said he does very interviews (meaning hiring decisions). The deck also calls out that he gave an executive role to his wife.
eigart 5y ago
Amazing. I just hope Matt Levine (of Bloomberg’s money stuff) has seen this deck today.
- hhmc 5y ago
  It was in the newsletter 2 days ago
  - eigart 5y ago
    Thanks, I missed it. Here it is: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloton-s-ceo-has-had-enough https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloto...
- 0898 5y ago
  He covered it a couple of days ago.
- EMM_386 5y ago
  It's here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloton-s-ceo-has-had-enough https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloto...
onion2k 5y ago
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.
- rjtavares 5y ago
  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?
  - nraynaud 5y ago
    yeah, on the surface it is a bit weird, Peloton has capital intensive hardware, there should be some interaction as to how much capital is allocated to the technology, product releases etc.
  - parkingrift 5y ago
    It would be absolutely alarming to go even a week without speaking to the CEO in some capacity. How can you have a strong leadership team if they aren’t communicating?
- vishnugupta 5y ago
  >> 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!!?
- wink 5y ago
  I mean I get the sentiment but months? Which kind of company size are we talking? I'm not saying you should talk to your CEO every week, but twice a year sounds really weird to me.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    At a tech company? Definitely the CTO and CEO should be talking every week. Months is VERY weird.
baxtr 5y ago
I am not so sure why this sounds odd. All successful startup that I have seen, had a great builder and a great seller. A CFO/COO running internal operations and finance is great to have. So since he is not the builder and obviously not the CFO/COO, he could still be a very successful CEO by being the seller, who is advocating for the company on the market. Think Steve Jobs. Wasn't the CEO of Peloton not that kind of guy?
- Aromasin 5y ago
  Steve Jobs was one of the most micromanaging CEOs I've read about. He overruled many CTO decisions during his time at Apple, both at the founding of the company and upon his return to the company years later, so I wouldn't use him as a comparable example. You'll rarely find a good CEO that isn't intimately aware of the current actions and goals of each other executive. What you're describing would be the role of a CMO, which Foley is not.
  - quesera 5y ago
    > He overruled many CTO decisions during his time at Apple That is not micromanaging. That's the CEO's job. Take input from whatever valuable sources you have, and decide on behalf of the entire organization. Steve Jobs was a lot of things over the decades. But a micromanager, he was not.
mizzao 5y ago
I can't tell if this is just humility / delegation coming off poorly or an actual disengaged CEO. I also think it can be helpful to self-deprecate a bit as a leader but I'm not sure why all these statements got published in public.
- ansible 5y ago
  At the very least, it shows poor communication skills. If you have a fantastic CFO, that's great. Just say that. "I'm very confident in person X." or "We have a great team who's been doing a great job." Things like that. You don't say: "I don't add any value." That makes you sound like an empty suit. Also the "I haven't talked to my CTO in months" sounds really bad. How the eff are you planning new product launches? Shouldn't the CEO at least be aware of any ongoing issues with current products? Talk about the plan to reduce hosting costs? Anything? WTF
  - q-big 5y ago
    This might be a cultural bias, but for me (being German) what the CEO said sounds much more honest and trustworthy than what you suggest.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
kumarvvr 5y ago
To me, that seems to give off the vibe that he was confident in the business, basically striking a golden goose. And wants to not interfere with it. It could also show apathy and lack of concern because he wants to cash out.

adrianomartins 5y ago

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

helsinkiandrew 5y ago
He's the Chief Enthusiasm Officer: > Peloton has been horribly mismanaged, with unbridled enthusiasm taking the place of disciplined leadership
skrebbel 5y ago
Marketing and sales
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  How can you do Marketing without looking at the curre t development to Merker the new features? How can you do sales without feeding customer feedback back into development? How can you do all that without looking at the numbers to see what you can afford?
  - pmontra 5y ago
    I've seen many times sellers selling things that didn't exist yet. Maybe a term describing that is Market Development. It doesn't end well every time but there is usually time to cope with customers after they signed a contract.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > How can you do Marketing without looking at the curre t development to Merker the new features? Marketing shit that’s not out is just barely better than marketing shit that’s not even planned. > How can you do sales without feeding customer feedback back into development? Surely you have normal channels for doing that and it doesn’t require the CEO to talk to the CTO?
  - skrebbel 5y ago
    I don't know anything about Peloton, but my impression is that they're selling a way of life much more than a device with a particular set of features. On the CEO level, marketing and sales might very much be all about mood, positioning, culture etc and very little about the display pixel density or the logistics. I'm not saying that this is sensible, I'm just saying that lots of companies are run this way and a CEO saying they don't sync with tech nor finance every day doesn't necessarily disqualify them. This guy built a pretty big company pretty fast so he's gotta have done something right. Maybe let's not go all-in with an activist investor's cherry-picked quotes of an uncommonly honest/humble CEO.
- andi999 5y ago
  Isnt that called 'business development' at the C-level?
willcipriano 5y ago
"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?"
- skywal_l 5y ago
  "Office Space" reference for anyone wondering[0]. Another Mike Judge's gift to us. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNuu9CpdjIo
  - Salgat 5y ago
    It's funny, before I starting working as a developer I thought this guy was useless, but now I understand how valuable not having to deal with the customers actually is.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - spookthesunset 5y ago
      It’s also one of those jobs that is hard to measure the performance of.
- raverbashing 5y ago
  As much as we make fun of the new Agile/Startup/SV world, it looks like I'd absolutely dread work on a 90's Software company (though granted this is exagerated for comedic purposes).
indigochill 5y ago
In the startup I worked at in college, one of the most visible jobs our CEO did was talking with investors to get the next round of funding. He was also the top-level business strategy guy (for an example in a more mature company, look at the difference Nadella made to Microsoft's strategy relative to Ballmer), although implementation details were delegated to other roles (that he was responsible for hiring).
anthony_r 5y ago
The main job of the CEO is to manage the board of directors (i.e. the shareholders). And the main job of the board of directors is to decide when to fire the CEO.
- ansible 5y ago
  > The main job of the CEO is to manage the board of directors (i.e. the shareholders). Uh, no. Dealing with the board is indeed part of the job for the CEO, but a relatively small part unless you're doing poorly. The CEO is also managing the direction of the company, and managing the top-level managers of the various departments. The CEO has to fight the fires, and allocate limited resources to where they are needed across all departments.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    You're right, but I think parent was joking
    - anthony_r 5y ago
      Half-joking, but yeah. "Managing the board of directors" of course means keeping the board happy, which is done by what ansible wrote. Not just directly trying to talk them out of firing the CEO.
      - darkerside 5y ago
        Of course. Jokes aren't funny if they aren't at least a little bit true!
tootie 5y ago
The deck also calls out another interview where he said he does very interviews (meaning hiring decisions). The deck also calls out that he gave an executive role to his wife.

eigart 5y ago

Amazing. I just hope Matt Levine (of Bloomberg’s money stuff) has seen this deck today.

hhmc 5y ago
It was in the newsletter 2 days ago
- eigart 5y ago
  Thanks, I missed it. Here it is: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloton-s-ceo-has-had-enough https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloto...
0898 5y ago
He covered it a couple of days ago.
EMM_386 5y ago
It's here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloton-s-ceo-has-had-enough https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-08/peloto...

onion2k 5y ago

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.

rjtavares 5y ago
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?
- nraynaud 5y ago
  yeah, on the surface it is a bit weird, Peloton has capital intensive hardware, there should be some interaction as to how much capital is allocated to the technology, product releases etc.
- parkingrift 5y ago
  It would be absolutely alarming to go even a week without speaking to the CEO in some capacity. How can you have a strong leadership team if they aren’t communicating?
vishnugupta 5y ago
>> 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!!?
wink 5y ago
I mean I get the sentiment but months? Which kind of company size are we talking? I'm not saying you should talk to your CEO every week, but twice a year sounds really weird to me.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  At a tech company? Definitely the CTO and CEO should be talking every week. Months is VERY weird.

baxtr 5y ago

I am not so sure why this sounds odd. All successful startup that I have seen, had a great builder and a great seller. A CFO/COO running internal operations and finance is great to have. So since he is not the builder and obviously not the CFO/COO, he could still be a very successful CEO by being the seller, who is advocating for the company on the market. Think Steve Jobs. Wasn't the CEO of Peloton not that kind of guy?

Aromasin 5y ago
Steve Jobs was one of the most micromanaging CEOs I've read about. He overruled many CTO decisions during his time at Apple, both at the founding of the company and upon his return to the company years later, so I wouldn't use him as a comparable example. You'll rarely find a good CEO that isn't intimately aware of the current actions and goals of each other executive. What you're describing would be the role of a CMO, which Foley is not.
- quesera 5y ago
  > He overruled many CTO decisions during his time at Apple That is not micromanaging. That's the CEO's job. Take input from whatever valuable sources you have, and decide on behalf of the entire organization. Steve Jobs was a lot of things over the decades. But a micromanager, he was not.

mizzao 5y ago

I can't tell if this is just humility / delegation coming off poorly or an actual disengaged CEO. I also think it can be helpful to self-deprecate a bit as a leader but I'm not sure why all these statements got published in public.

ansible 5y ago
At the very least, it shows poor communication skills. If you have a fantastic CFO, that's great. Just say that. "I'm very confident in person X." or "We have a great team who's been doing a great job." Things like that. You don't say: "I don't add any value." That makes you sound like an empty suit. Also the "I haven't talked to my CTO in months" sounds really bad. How the eff are you planning new product launches? Shouldn't the CEO at least be aware of any ongoing issues with current products? Talk about the plan to reduce hosting costs? Anything? WTF
- q-big 5y ago
  This might be a cultural bias, but for me (being German) what the CEO said sounds much more honest and trustworthy than what you suggest.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago

kumarvvr 5y ago

To me, that seems to give off the vibe that he was confident in the business, basically striking a golden goose. And wants to not interfere with it. It could also show apathy and lack of concern because he wants to cash out.