Acquired / episode intelligence
Speakers in the public record
Claim mix
Evidence policy
Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.
Claim ledger
46 published records
01 / recommendation
“I both have an Olympic weight set in my garage, but I use the Peloton strength stuff more often, especially as I get a little older and the idea of squatting and bench pressing is less appealing to me.”
02 / belief
“Anyway, September of 2020. This is where, I think, things start to get a little wonky with Peloton.”
03 / uncertainty
“If you're making the decision at SoulCycle, I'm going to take our best content and instructors, dedicate them to that for this thing that I revenue split with, I don't know.”
04 / belief
“I agree with that. Maybe there will be some innovation at some point that isn't an instructor-led running class.”
05 / belief
“Yup, and I'm not sure if this was IAC or his next gig, but he ended up taking over the post-bubble Evite team that had shrunk from like hundreds and hundreds of people down to this very small group. I think he grew it from $1 million to $25 million in revenue or something.”
06 / belief
“Unlike Spotify or the radio, Peloton actually requires multiple licenses for the particular way that they use the music. First, Peloton, I think, is technically just like the radio—a live performance.”
07 / belief
“I think the other half is what he learns from this Netflix experience and frankly, going all the way back to Music Choice before that, and then compounds with Spotify that we'll get into in a sec, which he is probably the number one world expert in managing subscription businesses.”
08 / belief
“I think there's probably a case, a similar story around Nest, again, a little bit weird and some bungled M&A.”
09 / uncertainty
“I don't know, I haven't dug enough to know, but I don't think it's that expensive relative to the amount of subscription revenue they get.”
10 / belief
“FlyWheel actually got to terms on what it would look like to make this thing not only a content partner but I think also a go-to-market partner.”
11 / belief
“Selling within the next year for a nice short-term shareholder return, I think that's a C.”
12 / belief
“You can do a hack a Peloton and get some of the integrations with third-party sensors, but I think to get a similar quality bike, you're going to be spending roughly the same amount anyway.”
13 / belief
“I think there were only about 40 people at Netflix when he joined, and it was certainly pre-IPO, pre there being a real business there, which we'll get into.”
14 / belief
“The Nook product, I think, was probably a decent product but it was just too late.”
15 / belief
“The stock trades up, as we've talked about, to a peak of over $150 per share at a $49, I believe, billion market cap.”
16 / belief
“The moment in 2012, and I think even 2011 when there was ideation happening, was totally I'm John Foley, I live in New York.”
17 / evaluation
“At first, they sort of say, oh, you people aren't using it right. It's like, well, kids are dying and getting hurt here, that doesn't matter.”
18 / belief
“I think a lot of these could have been avoided with some different product decisions and some different pricing decisions.”
19 / commitment
“If you want to join us for the Zoom call tonight if you're listening to this on drop day, then join acquired.fm/lp and we will see you in the Zoom later tonight.”
20 / belief
“Now you can just record that and put it on this JV with Peloton, but I think that would be lower quality content than a full.”
21 / commitment
“Peloton and Affirm did a back-end deal where Peloton said, if you agree, Affirm, to do 0% financing, we will pay you an amount in order to make it worth your while and so tell us what that amount is.”
22 / belief
“Then did a $3.5 million round I believe also all from individuals after that. They did a Kickstarter in 2013.”
23 / belief
“We have to be honest with ourselves and with each other in order to make that happen, even when the truth is uncomfortable or inconvenient to deal with." Ben, I think you read the great part about the comeback story after that.”
24 / belief
“Yup, as of last summer, they're on a June 30 fiscal year when they reported the last full year fiscal end, I believe monthly churn was like 0.”
25 / belief
“Our friend Mario Gabriele wrote I think the best piece out there on them, which is still without insider access but shaped their strategy too.”
26 / belief
“I believe he was working on part of the city search team and then they had a business called pronto.”
27 / uncertainty
“Then Amazon, I don't know if they ever publicly announced, but word got out that Amazon was going to enter the market and compete directly with Netflix, which of course they did in a different way much later in history.”
28 / belief
“IPO'd at $8 billion, went all the way up to (I think) $49 billion, and then today is floating a little above the IPO price between $9 billion and $10 billion.”
29 / belief
“There is so much crazy lore in the building of Peloton, which I think we would have done if we gave this the three-hour treatment.”
30 / belief
“Maybe let's start with the C scenario because I think that's the more interesting one.”
31 / belief
“I think a lot of shareholders would be very happy selling this thing in a year for $20 billion.”
32 / belief
“To feather back in preview, a little Barry element here, one of the things that he talks about—to the extent he does talk publicly—and learned deeply from Netflix but has just become kind of ingrained in him and I think is now an obvious insight but definitely at Netflix and at this point in time when Peloton was getting started not obvious.”
33 / belief
“I'm going to use Soul over Flywheel, and I’m going to use I think even though Soul wasn't giving them the time of day, at the moment, that's the more interesting one.”
34 / belief
“I think that also had a huge round of layoffs before they committed to a new plan going forward when Netflix was on the ropes and about to die.”
35 / commitment
“All day, I will do that deal. It's funny how much I've thought about this for how little the actual dollars are that is marginal for me to have done this versus pay in cash, but I did.”
36 / belief
“I think what we should do is paint the A scenario and maybe a C or an F scenario for what Barry does from here and what those outcomes are.”
37 / evaluation
“I think Peloton pulled all their content down, which was an interesting move because it's basically saying, we don't want to continue to build your brand for free to compete against us, which I found fascinating because I bet that's totally case by case how they would think about whether they should leave it up or not.”
38 / evaluation
“Given what happened with the pandemic and with demand, and let's not talk about supply chain, inventory, and stuff yet because I think that made their business really not resilient—all the things that they did there—but they probably should have (easy to say in hindsight) not shipped the Bike+ and not dropped prices yet, even though they know they need to do both of those things in the longer term.”
39 / evaluation
“If you're actually using that thing every day, I assume the royalty structure is similar. It may be the case that Peloton is large enough that they've negotiated a specific revenue share somewhere between 15%, 25%, 30%, or something like that with the music labels rather than needing to pay out a fixed amount per song because if it's a fixed amount per song, then they could get underwater pretty quick on that digital-only subscription.”
40 / prediction
“While we don't know for sure, it's very likely that the majority of this goes to music licensing.”
41 / evaluation
“When I woke up this morning, I realized, because they're bragging about all their earning stuff increasing user engagement over time and having internal KPIs around, we want people to use the service, I came to the conclusion that they have to have a pre-negotiated revenue split with the music labels rather than paying per stream.”
42 / recommendation
“We should revisit Spotify at some point because when we covered their direct listing, which he architected, Barry modernized the direct listing and everything that's happening now.”
43 / evaluation
“I should look at what Netflix’s churn is, but I think that is the best I've ever seen.”
44 / prediction
“I think two years from now, the most likely thing is that it's acquired by someone. But the fun thing is, we will get to watch and see, and we both just said all that on air.”
45 / prediction
“The amount that Peloton can invest—even with the music variable cost overhang—in content and in the best instructors, I think, which is where this plays out the most relative to a SoulCycle, to a Flywheel, to anything else, and then even relative to other connected fitness companies, because Peloton has the largest member base.”
46 / recommendation
“I both have an Olympic weight set in my garage, but I use the Peloton strength stuff more often, especially as I get a little older and the idea of squatting and bench pressing is less appealing to me. I think the strength stuff is pretty good, but I can't imagine buying a treadmill or using connected fitness for running.”