Don't Be Afraid of Failure - Gwyneth Paltrow's Best Business Advice | Aspire Archives

I didn't finish college, let alone go to business school. Like I didn't grow up in a corporate environment. So a lot of my mistakes were around trusting people who were like, just trust me, not doing my own diligence, you know, to creating the wrong products, to, you know, like spending a ton of time on money and money on something that doesn't work. And I think we've had to, you just have to be graceful and admit defeat and refocus. And, but, you know, you just touched on something like when I've had to do reductions in force, that's the hardest thing for me. And one of my friends works at Goldman Sachs and just every year they just cut the bottom 10%. Just cut. Yeah. As a matter of excellence, right? It's purposeful. And it's like, we only want the tip of the top, the, you know, the cream. That's right. And therefore we're just going to keep getting rid of the bottom. I think they do it Facebook. They do it so many of the best in class businesses. They do it everywhere. And I think as women, we struggle to do that. I also think that when we do that, you know, it becomes a much more interesting story in the news than when men do that. Like, I don't read these stories about Google cutting, you know, doing their, you know what I mean? Never. Right. The stories don't get written. Because it's much more a story on the other side of how they've cultivated a, you know, like excellence within the workforce, right? It's written that way. It isn't about like, oh my goodness, she over, you know, she over-egged the pudding. She over-expanded the business. And now there needs to, you know, 20 people need to get fired. Have you figured out a way of, you know, I always talk about it as like killing my darlings. Like when I, when I decide like a project is over, a moment is over, we have to make a big change. Have you, how have you kind of figured out how you can do that without feeling the heavy burden? Or is it just always heavy? You know, now I feel like I've gotten more clinical about it. You know, it's like, I think it's great to try. I think it's great to take risks. And sometimes the product market fit is just not there. Yeah. And it's not your fault. You know, it's, or sometimes maybe it could have been there, but you don't have the budget to, you know, like pour tens of millions of dollars into marketing something. And so you just sort of have to let it go. And I think it's important to admit defeat early. Like that's something that I've learned too. It's like, if it, if it doesn't, if it's not working, let it go. Yeah. It doesn't get better later. It doesn't get better. It doesn't get better later, but that decisiveness can be very, very hard to come by. It takes a lot of, it takes a lot of practice. It does. But you're there now. I'm there now. And as the CEO, these things are your decision. Yes. Because you are the CEO of this company. Yep. Like that is, that is your job. That is it. You're in the office all the time. That is it. Well, now I live in Santa Barbara, so I'm here less, but I'm here a lot. Did you envisage that you would be the CEO? Like from the, from the outset, because obviously you had a couple of people, then you had an interim. How long have you played that role? I've been CEO, I think since 2016. So it's been a while. I really do love it. I think I, I have dreams of like going back to being founder, you know, and having somebody else, especially the, the parts that are harder for me. Yeah. Like anything that requires math or an Excel spreadsheet. I love the strategy piece. But like, you know, do I need to spend time on logistics and fulfillment? Like I'm getting to the point where I'm like, you know, maybe somebody else, you know, should. Could do that. No doubt. Maybe somebody else should do that. And maybe the business would be, you know, would find like, I don't know, new life. Do you envisage that there'll be a time when you can, like when you'll be out of the business entirely, or do you just imagine transitioning into founder? Did you build, did you build a company actually that you could step aside from? I think that's why I didn't name it Gwyneth Paltrow. And, you know, I, and I really want this business to be a legacy that's bigger than, you know, one person. And, you know, I think what's hard is that I am a good and a cheap asset. So, you know, so like if, if something's not working, they can throw me in a paid ad and, you know, it's like. She's like, the IRL, the IRL is working right here, right? For sure. But ideally I would like to get to the point where I'm less consumer facing and more like the heart, like the spiritual part of the place and less the face of the place. But if you could do it all over again, given what you've experienced and what's happened, would you be the CEO of Goop? I think I would for a while because again, like I've learned so much about myself and it's so fascinating. Like I love business. It's endlessly intriguing. The stakes are high. It's highly creative. It's also highly quantitative. Like I don't know how else I would ever have exercised all these parts of myself. No doubt. And you feel, I feel like you're very good at it. I mean, you have to have been to build a company to this side. What kind of leader are you? I think I am, I mean, I guess you'd have to ask the team, but I think I'm a very collaborative leader. I think I'm very warm. I think I'm very inclusive and I am learning to be, as I said, not only decisive, but I'm learning to articulate my expectations, which has been hard for me. So that's like, I'm really trying to hold people to KPIs and like have the harder conversations more frequently. Do you think that's harder because you're you, because you come into the room as Gwyneth Paltrow? Like there's an expectation that you kind of have to be like a nice lady to people. You know, I don't think anybody has that expectation of me. They expect that I'm going to be. I don't know, you know, I've never thought about that. I mean, I think that having been famous for such, you know, I've been famous since I'm like 22 years old, I'm 52. So, you know, much more than half my life. And I think you subconsciously or unconsciously adapt to be a very famous person in the world. And I think it's part of, I take it as part of my role to make people feel comfortable because it can be a destabilizing thing. So maybe there's an aspect to that that I'm not totally aware of. But there probably is. I mean, I'm sure there is. Yeah, there must be. But you've built a business that's really, I guess, incredibly sustainable in that it exists in this lane of its own. And you believe it's going to be stable with or without you. I feel like that must feel like such an achievement, no? Yes, I think we have a ways to go until I can completely bow out of the sort of consumer facing part. But I think that it would, I know it would work without me. What would happen if you walked out tomorrow? Like if you left? I think, I think the team would know what to do. Yeah. And I think they would figure it out. Yeah. I feel like it's such, there's such clarity in the purpose of the business. I don't feel like it would be that difficult. If I was at Goop tomorrow, I feel like I'd be like, okay, I've got these three verticals and I know I'm not allowed to put any ---- in the products. Well, do you want to come and run it? I mean, not now, who knows? You never know what's going to happen in life. We'll see how this goes.