Conversation with Julie Rice & Elizabeth Cutler — From SoulCycle to Peoplehood

Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler, the co-founders of SoulCycle, join Scott to discuss their new business, Peoplehood — a guided group conversation practice designed to help people connect. We hear about everything from the entrepreneurial journey of building SoulCycle to how they’re facilitating “relational” wellness. Scott opens with his thoughts on the role of activist investors. Algebra of Happiness: be more mammal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:17Speaker 00

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• 0:59Scott Galloway?

  Episode 283. 283 is the area code belonging to the southwest region of Ohio. In 1983, Nintendo released Mario Brothers and Michael Jackson performed the moonwalk for the first time on television during a performance of Billie Jean. What's the difference between Neil Armstrong and Michael Jackson? Neil Armstrong actually walked on the moon and Michael Jackson was a pedophile.

• 1:21Speaker 04

  Go, go, go!

• 1:31Scott Galloway?

  Welcome to the 283rd episode of the Prop G Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler, the co-founders of Peoplehood and SoulCycle. We discuss with Julie and Elizabeth why they built Peoplehood, a guided group conversation practice designed to help people meaningfully connect in real time, both in person and online. Okay, what's happening? What's going on? I am here in London where it is about 32 degrees. I do not go outside any longer. I basically sit inside and complain about the weather and wait for my sons to come home on the weekends so I can watch Premier League football. Occasionally, I leave the house, mostly for food and when I'm forced to leave. But I am depressed. I'm in the midst of a seasonal depression. I don't mind the depression. I don't mind wallowing in a little sad dog. I don't mind it.

• 2:16Scott Galloway?

  It's a little bit cathartic for me. So what else is going on? What happened? I'm trying to think, Iowa? Oh, Iowa, that's right. The oldest and widest state in the Union sets the tone for the presidential race and politics in America. By the way, why do we keep upping Social Security and transferring more money from young people to the wealthiest generation in the world, in the history of the world, old Americans? Because the entire tone for the presidency is set in Iowa and Maine, which happen to be some of the widest and oldest places on earth. So what do you know? No one ever wants to talk about entitlements or Social Security or Medicare. We just talk about, oh, the infrastructure bill. Yeah, I know, we lost the child tax credit, but you're okay, Nana and Pop Pop.

• 3:00Scott Galloway?

  Anyways, so let's look at a Trump one with 50%. You have to hand it to the guy. I think he's an insurrectionist and a weirdo, and his campaign strategy so far has been nothing short of genius. He decided to just exit the debates. He has positioned all of these core cases against him as an attempt to silence him, and it's been very effective. He is moving towards trying to lock up. He spent a lot of time and resources on trying to show up delegates before, essentially lock up the nomination. And now it's a race against the clock. Effectively, it looks like he's going to be the nominee. I would argue he is more of a lock on the nomination right now, or his party's nomination, than Biden.

• 3:42Scott Galloway?

  I think if Biden slips and falls next week, you know, hello, Governor Newsom, hello, Governor Whitmer. I think that the Democratic Party will finally come to grips with the fact that it's literally fucking insane to be having someone this old running for president. But anyways, we'll see. But you have this guy or this candidate who has put on a masterclass regarding how to turn chicken shit into chicken salad. Every charge that comes at him, he says that they're going after you, they're not coming after me, this is an attempt to silence you. The issue is, I don't think there's any way Trump can win. The kind of the fly in the ointment here, the unknown here, the X-factor is a third-party candidate, specifically RFK Jr.

• 4:26Scott Galloway?

  Because, one, he's polling in the teens, and two, we don't know who he's taking from yet. What's also interesting is that the people who decide the election, distinct of what media would tell you that these things make any difference right now, or these states are early voting, they don't. There are signals, if you will, and they signal momentum for the candidates if they have any chance. Specifically, everyone was sort of hoping, the media was hoping, that there'd be signs of life in the Haley campaign, such that people would continue to tune in to watch Chris Renacci point at a map with his supple, well-moisturized hands. But the bottom line is that this shit really doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference. If a third candidate comes in, it could swing, it could swing in one way or the other. But

• 5:05Scott Galloway?

  if it's Biden-Trump, unless Biden slips and falls, it most likely will be Biden. The base is very hardened, but the swing voters are effectively, what is a swing voter? More people identify as independents now than as Republicans or Democrats. And the thing that sort of identifies as a swing voter, or their common characteristic, is they don't give a shit about what's going on right now. They don't care. They actually don't care about politics. Not everyone is obsessed with politics and talking about it all day on social. Imagine you in your 20s and 30s. I didn't, I didn't care about politics in my 20s and 30s. That's what you call an independent or a swing voter. They'll make their decision in the last couple of weeks. And I just find it unlikely, and again, there's bias here, that they're going to decide, I know I want to go back to 2016 to 2020,

• 5:47Scott Galloway?

  that that was, that's our guy. That's the time of, that chaos, that incivility, that's where we, that's where we want to go back to. But it's going to be a third candidate here, similar to Ross Perot, who basically gave the candidacy to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton should not have won that race. Perot got about 18%. I think about 2/3 of it was drawn from Republicans and gave the presidency to this governor from Arkansas that wasn't supposed to win. Same thing happened, they believe, with Gore and Ralph Nader. So these third-party candidates just serve as, is real spoilers. It'll be interesting to see if anyone pops up, anyone else pops up as a third-party candidate. The more consequential election this week happened several time zones away, and that is, much to China's

• 6:31Scott Galloway?

  frustration, Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, better known as the DPP, Vice President William Wai took the win last weekend. And why does China not like this? The CCP does not want Taiwan to think they have any independence from China, and this is kind of a pro-independence candidate. I wouldn't call him anti-China, but definitely not someone who's looking to strengthen. Or kind of, if you will, reunite, if you will, China and Taiwan. Following the election results, President Joe Biden said the United States does not support the independence of Taiwan. That's a little bit misleading, though, because China continues to maintain strong relations and be the largest arms supplier of Taiwan. And why would you be the largest arms supplier of Taiwan unless Taiwan needed those arms in order to defend what might be an invasion from China?

• 7:16Scott Galloway?

  So the United States and President Biden are trying to walk a pretty tight rope here, and that is not piss off or directly wave the middle finger in the face of the CCP while supporting or being supportive of Taiwan, who the US sees as an ally. Okay, moving on, let's talk about activism. Billionaire Bill Ackman has been all over US business news for reasons we've discussed at length on this show. Let me ask you, everything you know about Bill Ackman, did you learn it against your will? Jesus Christ, he's everywhere right now, blasting Harvard's new former president Claudine Gay for failing to condemn anti-Semitic behavior on campus. I think he got that right. And then going after Gay's academic integrity with plagiarism allegations. I think he got that wrong.

• 7:59Scott Galloway?

  Claudine Gay, her plagiarism, if you will, I would argue that it's not plagiarism, it's citational inaccuracies, and I can't stand it when people pull up a time machine rather than actually addressing the issue that they are upset about. I believe President Gay should have been fired, but she should have been fired for an incredibly tone deaf response and for not condemning in uncertain terms calls for genocide, which none of these people did, and I'm glad that two of the three have been fired. We'll see if it's three for three. But the notion that she should, we should go back and look at her PhD dissertation, that's total bullshit. Also, also what happens, as they say in the Bible, if you decide to judge somebody, be clear, that judgment will at some point be used against you.

• 8:42Scott Galloway?

  And so he went after charges of plagiarism against President Gay, and then Business Insider... Turn the time machine back on Bill's wife, Neary Oxman, a very high-profile academic at MIT. That's entirely fair game. What was most upsetting about all of that is that Bill Ackman then weaponized his vast arsenal of PR agents, his capital, his big platforms to go after Business Insider for what he felt was unfair reporting, which, in two words, first word, bull, second word, shit. This was absolutely entirely fair journalism. And a lot of the quote-unquote plagiarism that Neary Oxman was accused of was, again, not plagiarism, it was citational inaccuracy. She handled it really well. She said, "I was wrong, I'm going back and I'm fixing it. Next."

• 9:27Scott Galloway?

  And that's fine. That's absolutely fine. But what's interesting here is that Bill Ackman appears to be going activist on the United States, or specifically, activism is an attempt to go direct to shareholders and say, "I believe this company is not making good use of its assets and is not offering shareholders, who are theoretically the owners, the returns that they deserve." Brief history lesson in the world of shareholder governance. In the 70s, shareholders decided that this had been a shitty 20 years for shareholders, and a lot of CEOs were paying themselves a lot of money, a lot of unions were fat and happy, and that effectively, the governance of these organizations was entirely for management and labor and had basically stuck shareholders in the backseat. And shareholder activism was born.

• 10:12Scott Galloway?

  And they came in and essentially, corporate governance is modeled after US governance, and that is, once a year, one share, one vote, you get to decide who the board of directors are, and the board of directors gets to decide who the CEO is who's responsible for making decisions. So a bunch of shareholder activists popped up and said, "This is a good company with good assets that is underperforming and not giving us shareholders our due. So we're going to buy some shares, show up at the election, elect a new slate of directors who will then fire the CEO, and go about basically cutting costs, or spinning assets, or de-conglomerizing, whatever it might be." The conglomeration of American business through the 60s and 70s was an attempt to de-risk by CEOs. I like having a bigger and bigger company. Why?

• 10:55Scott Galloway?

  Because bigger, if I'm overseeing an empire as opposed to a hamlet, you have to pay me more. And B, if my, if my, I don't know, my salty snacks division is down in Europe, my oil and gas division, or my security division, I just described- ITT, I believe, International Telephone and Telegraph, that made everything from tires and charcoal to peanut butter. It smoothes out the earnings and it's less stressful for me. But here's the thing. Shareholders don't need management to diversify for them. They can buy different stocks. So the deconglomeration of these gigantic conglomerates unlock value because you had management teams very focused and accountable on their specific business, which resulted in more earnings. Also, also, a lot of activists just came in and said, you're ridiculously fat and happy.

• 11:39Scott Galloway?

  You're paying yourself and everyone way too much money to go along and get along. You need to cut costs and return more money to the bottom line and shareholders. And it kicked off this era of activism. Now, what happened? The era of activism kind of died down a bit in 2008 to 2023 because stocks just continued to go up, up and up. And you could buy ETFs or just tech stocks and cocaine and champagne and disco because the stock market boomed. So there wasn't a lot of anger, if you will. And key to activism is anger, and I'll come back to that. However, Bill Ackman has been a famous activist. Some of his stuff has worked really well. Some of it has not worked out, but he's a fantastic investor. But effectively activists say, I'm going to assemble an army of proxy solicitors to contact shareholders,

• 12:24Scott Galloway?

  PR executives, communications, capital, buy shares. And it becomes sort of a war in the public sphere. And generally what happens, and I say this from experience, I was an activist investor for about five years, which was kind of from about 2003 to 2008. I ran three or four activist campaigns. Anyways, but effectively it's a war of perception. You're trying to get shareholders to believe that your directors and your strategy beat the current strategy in terms of returns to shareholders. So what's happening here? Bill Ackman is taking the same sort of aggressive, direct to consumer, public relations, fight it out in the public square, war of words, power contacting shareholders to, he's going to direct a consumer to American constituents

• 13:08Scott Galloway?

  rather than trying to pass laws or donate money to politicians and get them to say outlaw D I initiatives or pass laws saying that if a government or a university gets public funding, it can't practice this form of what Bill Ackman would say is bigotry or racism in the form of D I. He's going straight to the university and trying to get people fired with his money. His platforms, his public relations campaign. Some of this is the chicken coming to roost. One, universities have decided that their centers of political orthodoxy and social engineering are not centers of excellence. And two, they have spent so much money putting in place administrative bloat in departments that make absolutely no sense and have no accountability and the Rolex-ification of

• 13:51Scott Galloway?

  these campuses, that they've created these voracious beasts that need constant feeding specifically from donors. And when you give millions of dollars to a university, guess what? You have power. Money is power and these people have a real voice. And I find it really fascinating and it indicates a few things. First and foremost, it indicates that Time's Person of the Year should not have been Taylor Swift, it should have been money. And that is what's happened over the last 30 years. NASA's budget has been cut and NASA no longer puts rockets into space. Billionaires do, specifically tech billionaires. Now, what's happened? When NASA was in its glory days, back in the 60s, when John F. Kennedy decided to put a man on the moon, we were spending three, sometimes three and a half percent of our GDP trying to put a man on the moon.

• 14:35Scott Galloway?

  People don't recognize that putting a man on the moon back then would be similar to us trying to put a man on Pluto right now. But who's doing it now? Billionaires. Why? Because, because back when Kennedy said, "We're going to put on a man on the moon," not because we want to, but because it's hard, I think he said something like that. I love that, was because they had the capital to do it. Specifically, I think the top income tax rate back in the 60s was probably somewhere between 60 and 90%. And then Thatcher and Reagan come in and boom, what do you know? Taxes fall to kind of the 20s and 30s, if you will. And what do you know? It's no longer the government putting people into space, it's private sector citizens, specifically individuals who have amassed so much wealth because of a lower tax rate.

• 15:19Scott Galloway?

  You would not have Elon Musk if the top tax rate was 70 or 80%. Well, you might still have him and you might still have his incredible achievement. He wouldn't have a quart of a trillion dollars to spend on this type of shit. In addition, in addition... As America has kind of digressed into this war of words where government is having its least productive legislative session ever, into that void has slipped billionaires who now have the money to go direct to consumer and start tackling issues or addressing issues like DEI, whether you agree with them or not. So basically, it's non-elected, private citizens who are now filling the void of government inaction and a lack of government resources, and it all comes back to one thing. Do you want the government to put people into space? Do you want the government to decide about DEI? Or do you want billionaires?

• 16:02Scott Galloway?

  Because what we have decided through our tax policy, or you would argue through the weaponization of America, that as tax rates go down and we have more and more people aggregating this concentration of wealth, they are going to take over what have typically been roles and responsibilities and rights afforded by democratically elected officials. Is that a good thing? Is that a good thing? We argue the more innovative, the more aggressive, the more, I don't know, more agile. Okay, I can see some of that. Case in point, Elon Musk can shoot a rocket into the atmosphere and it blows up. It's like they call it a victory, and then he goes on Twitter and says this, "There was an anomaly, but this is a, this is big progress." NASA can't put rockets into the atmosphere that blow up. No one would tolerate that.

• 16:45Scott Galloway?

  They wouldn't be able to spin it, see above lie, the way that Elon Musk does. So there is an agility, there is an innovation to putting some of this in the hands of private citizens. On the whole, though, on the whole, I would argue it is a bad thing. Why? Because these individuals get to decide what issues we focus on as opposed to what issues America would focus on. And you say, "Well, that's okay, because government is so inefficient." You know what? That is just such bullshit. Government is the best, most efficient investor in history, specifically the US government. If you look at Apple, Amazon, Facebook, or Google, I don't care if it's DARPA, I don't care if it's GPS, I don't care if it's charging stations, I don't care if it's low interest loans to EV manufacturers, this has all been financed by middle-class taxpayers where the investor is the US government.

• 17:30Scott Galloway?

  So where does that, where does that lead us? I do believe tax rates have fallen too far, and the government is not raising enough revenue such that it can take back the responsibility for some of these big, kind of moonshot Projects, if you will. There's too much power, too much concentration of power in too few hands. Bill Ackman going after DEI, whether you think it's a good idea or a bad idea, is another symptom of tax rates that have plummeted and the government not having the resources. Incredible courses in Washington, D.C., which has translated to an ossification and a total standstill and into that void has slipped billionaires.

• 18:08Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back for our conversation with Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler.

• 18:13Scott Galloway?

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• 20:34Scott Galloway?

  Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler, the co-founders of Peoplehood and SoulCycle.

• 20:42Scott Galloway?

  Julie and Elizabeth, where does this podcast find you?

• 20:45Speaker 06

  We are in New York City on a snowy, slushy morning.

• 20:48Scott Galloway?

  So first off, good to see you guys. We last met, we were in my, we had coffee at my place in SoHo, which was lovely.

• 20:56Speaker 06

  It was.

• 20:56Scott Galloway?

  Which was lovely.

• 20:57Speaker 07

  It was.

• 20:58Scott Galloway?

  Was that about two years ago? When was that?

• 21:01Speaker 07

  About a year ago, actually.

• 21:02Scott Galloway?

  It was about a year ago? Okay. So before we get into PeopleSoft, I want to talk about SoulCycle, which I imagine you have no desire to talk about, but I think it's interesting. Give us the backstory on when you guys started SoulCycle.

• 21:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, look, Elizabeth and I had both moved to New York from a city where exercise was lifestyle, an idea that did not yet exist in New York City, where we all went to big box gyms and we burned calories and we competed with the person next to us. But we did not yet think of exercise as community, as joyful, as something we did to release stress and sort of improve our mental health as well as our physical health.

• 21:39Speaker 07

  And we were two people in New York looking for that. And we were taking classes with the same instructor at different gyms. And she introduced the two of us. And the next thing you know, we had this idea for SoulCycle. And, you know, I like to take you back to a time when there was no Lululemon yet in New York and no Instagram. It was really, at the time, a very novel concept to think about how exercising and an exercise community could feel aspirational and inspirational.

• 22:10Scott Galloway?

  So just sort of the, the top line, inception to exit, how long was it?

• 22:15Speaker 07

  10 years.

• 22:16Scott Galloway?

  10 years, yeah. I've always said it takes about, usually it takes about a decade if a company is really successful. People don't realize how long it takes. It probably feels fast, but, you know, what in your mind, when you saw, we have a vision for something and it needs to be more than a room with, with stationary bikes. When you describe the core of it, like the real value proposition, what is it?

• 22:36Speaker 07

  You know, I think it was, there were, there were sort of few pieces into it. One was the instructors that we were taking were so tired because the gyms, this was the, this was not a profit center. This is where they were spending money. And so we thought if we could invert the model and create real careers for fitness professionals so that they could have full-time health insurance and they could have a lot of perks that we thought they deserved and they could really focus their energy in bringing a great experience to the room that everybody would feel that. So that was sort of one aspect. The second was hospitality. We had rented a space that we found on Craigslist that had no sign at all. And so by the time somebody reached us down a long hallway, we were so thrilled to see

• 23:21Speaker 07

  them that we really wanted to feel like they mattered because they, it did. It really mattered to us that they had shown up. And the reality was that it created these seeds of hospitality, not only in each of us, but in everybody who kind of, you know, worked, not only worked for us, but who walked through the door. And then just layering in technology where it made it easy for people to join these classes. Previously, you'd have to show up to your gym an hour early to sign up on a piece of paper to a very popular class. And in this way, you could plan your week and you could fold fitness into your lifestyle.

• 23:57Scott Galloway?

  What, what in your mind, I mean, I think there's Orange Theory. I'm actually an investor in CrossFit. You guys arguably, I would argue.

• 24:07Scott Galloway?

  Built the strongest brand. I don't know about the enterprise value or whatever, but I would argue that the singular brand, aspirational brand, I remember my sister coming to New York and greatest city in the world. And the only thing they had planned was all of them had scheduled SoulCycle classes every day. And I thought, my God, this brand is stronger than, you know, Broadway at this point. You come to New York and every but wherever they go, they're planning their, their trip around SoulCycle. What part of the execution do you think you got right that others didn't get right?

• 24:40Speaker 06

  Well, first of all, I'd like, I'd actually like to backtrack and say that, you know, we kind of built the category of fitness as a community, right?

• 24:49Scott Galloway?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 06

  So of course, there's been fitness for a long time, but I do think that we reimagine it in a way that was experiential. And I do think that all the CrossFits and all the others sort of fell in line behind that. And listen, we're thrilled about it. I mean, we can, we continue to say that, you know, our purpose on this planet is to be community builders. And honestly, we build things that we ourselves need and we ourselves use. And I think at the time, we were two people that were looking for joy and community through exercise. And that was always the thesis around it.

• 25:21Scott Galloway?

  But what did you did better? Was it hiring and retaining the best instructors, picking the best real estate, little touch points? What, if you were to pick one thing that you did better than everybody else, what was it?

• 25:33Speaker 06

  We invested in people. That is it. Across the entire spectrum of our business, from the instructors who we made a home for and turned into ambassadors and paid better than they'd been paid before, to our front desk employees who we invested in training, we invested in hearing them, we invested in knowing them, we invested in them knowing each other, and in turn, they knew our customers. We invested in our customers. When they, when they had things to say, we listened. We made changes according to their, their insights in our business. We all worked at the front desk, so we got to know each other for a very long time. And at the end of it, you know, I think that this is sort of extremely relevant to what we're doing today, but.

• 26:19Speaker 06

  You know, people, people always ask us that about, about SoulCycle. And I can remember people always walking through the doors thinking, oh, it would be so easy to recreate this business. All the businesses that came into our space and thought, well, I put a bunch of equipment in the room and I get a bunch of people doing this thing. Then it'll be, you know, 50 bikes or 50 barbells or 50 rowing machines times 35 bucks a person and there you have it. And the truth is, it wasn't about that at all. And training people takes a lot of time. Investing in people takes a lot of money. It's a lot more labor intensive than people like to give it credit for. I think that people, especially these days, are looking at the digital products we create, thinking about how complex they are, when the truth is that treating people well is, is, is more complex, if not as complex, as doing something like that.

• 27:05Scott Galloway?

  So let's talk a little bit about peoplehood. Give us the, the elevator pitch on peoplehood, because I don't think most people know it.

• 27:12Speaker 06

  Sure. I mean, it is really, um, you know, we're calling it relational fitness. And, and I will say, listening to, you know, all of your amazing work and writings and podcasts, you know, it's really a new category as we're thinking about it and thinking about, you know, why is it that people understand that, you know, in order to have a healthy body, you need to move a few times a week? In order to have mental health, you need to talk or see somebody or a therapist once a week? And yet, there is this idea around relationships that they will just work out. People prioritizing their relationships or thinking about them as a practice or a priority

• 27:55Speaker 06

  or something that needs intentional time around it, seems to not yet really be in the zeitgeist. And so peoplehood is really the practice of being in relationships with other people. We've created an experience not unlike SoulCycle, which is a 60-minute guided conversation practice. And spoiler alert, and a lot of what you talk about, which, which we find so interesting is, you know, we're teaching people to listen. That is, if we could distill it down to one skill that could really change the course of human relationships, it would be people learning to listen differently to other people.

• 28:32Scott Galloway?

  And Elizabeth, what's, is the business model similar to SoulCycle? Where it's, my understanding of SoulCycle was it's not membership, it was per usage, but maybe I'm not familiar with it. What's the business model and who is the core customer? Who, generally speaking, what's the demographic or the psychographic of the person that is drawn to peoplehood?

• 28:53Speaker 07

  You know, it's so, I just want to go back to one thing, which is like, I really think, and I think Julie, this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you, is that the combination of physical health and relational health, that to me is like, we are seeing across all of the research that is coming out, that those two things really sit at the center of us being able to lead the kind of lives that we say that we want to lead. And there's so much conversation around what the problem is, and there just are not that many solutions. And so, we really have this desire to get as many people as we can into facilitated conversations with one another. Whether it is individuals coming to just be present with other people, sometimes it's

• 29:36Speaker 07

  easier to talk to strangers than people that you already know. To address like, every couple talks about how their relationship becomes a logistics meeting after a while. And we want to be able to give the scaffolding and the structure for people to be able to engage with each other in a way that is meaningful and actually leaves you feeling better than when you started and you just do it for one hour. So it's not a heavy lift. And then additionally, when you think about like, what's happening at work? One of the things that we both loved about SoulCycle is we woke up in the morning and we were so excited to go to work. The idea that you can have that kind of camaraderie in your, in the place that you spend all of your time, like in your place of business, that means so much to us.

• 30:20Speaker 07

  And even pre-pandemic, we were thinking about this because how do you create these kinds of opportunities for collisions where you really get to know the people that you work with in a different way? And that you know each other as humans so that you just have that much more propensity toward collaboration and toward really working together and getting through the tough stuff together? And so, the-

• 30:41Speaker 06

  Model itself is based on, we do paper class and we do membership. I think that what we are really, really interested in more than anything else, the headline, is just getting people into facilitated conversations with each other so that they can connect because the chemistry around this is so old. I mean, just think about like how we evolved and yet we are sorely missing this kind of activity and there's no place to put it.

• 31:09Scott Galloway?

  And Julie, how do you create the alchemy for a good guided conversation? Is the guide there to just, do they understand the semantics and the ingredients of a good conversation or are they meant to be a domain expert?

• 31:24Speaker 06

  The guide is really there to create the scaffolding. I think that so much of what happens in our conversations with each other is, you know, one person sucks the air out of the room. Of course, we all know that people, you know, think that they're going to leave the best impression in a conversation to give advice, give their opinion, you know, try to connect. I mean, that's all of our instinct, right? You tell me about your experience and rather than me validating you, I tell you about my experience because I think what's going to happen there is you and I are going to have something in common. But ultimately, most times you would have felt better about our interaction if I had listened and just validated what I heard from you.

• 32:05Speaker 06

  And so the guides are really there to create this structure that allows equity of time, that allows equity of thought, you know, allows people to really recognize themselves in others. And more than, more than actually trying to create the way that the conversation goes, they just keep things on the rails so that people can come back and continue to practice this idea of you can share and I can listen and I can share and you can listen. You know, we do a lot of active listening without reacting in the room and it sounds simple and people come and say, we're just going to listen. And then people can't help themselves, right? They have to put their opinion in or give their advice, or you should, or I did.

• 32:50Speaker 06

  And they come out of these rooms and say, gosh, that was so hard. And in the same way that we would never go for one run and think, hey, I'm ready for a marathon. Practicing this kind of listening over and over again is something that will really never get old. And so the guides also, they share their own life experiences, which really allows and permissions the room and people in the room or the screen to feel comfortable. They create trust. They create an environment where, you know, telling us your experience, which is of course, kept confidentially in those conversations, feels like the norm, feels okay, feels like you won't be judged, feels safe.

• 33:32Scott Galloway?

  And Elizabeth, when I think, I think of this as a retail concept. And I think the most successful retail concepts are generally in the business of addiction. And that is Starbucks is an addiction. Chipotle is an addiction. I'm addicted to survival and the salt that's in the, you know, the sustenance and the salt. CrossFit for me is an addiction. The norepinephrine, the high I get, I'm literally addicted to. And if I don't get it, I start to have withdrawals and get upset and depressed. How do you get people? Because at the end of the day, I would imagine, I don't know if it's the 20 rule, but at all of these concepts, I would imagine at SoulCycle, you're not making, you weren't making bank off the folks coming once every three months. You're making bank off the addicts who are there a lot.

• 34:16Scott Galloway?

  How do you turn this into something that people want to use multiple times?

• 34:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think one of the models that we looked at was AA. And we really asked ourselves, like,

• 34:25Scott Galloway?

  I was just thinking that.

• 34:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, why do we need to be bottoming out to be in the company of others? And I, we just really believe, I mean, for ourselves, like, there is a genuine.

• 34:35Speaker 07

  Thirst for this kind of activity and you feel higher when you leave. So the repetition of it and the notion that this is a practice is something that we are putting into the zeitgeist so that we can all support each other and walk around feeling better. The thing that's very cool, too, is that in that hour, you have the experience that you have. I always feel so much better. I always feel better for the next day or two. And then it's really cool to come on back because you get to, you start to see people, you start to meet people, you start to have relationships with other people. And it's, it's, there's something very powerful about that.

• 35:14Speaker 06

  You know, it's, it's interesting. I mean, of course, we've experienced designed it the same way that we did with SoulCycle. I mean, we do take you through sort of a hero's journey in the same way that we did in SoulCycle. There are definitive moments. There's breath work. There's music. So there's, you know, there's an oxytocin release. There's a dopamine release. I mean, we are, we definitely did sort of look at the way that our brain reacts to connection to kind of figure out what are key moments that we can hit for people during these gathers so that they definitely will feel better, you know, when they leave. The other thing to talk about is there are really two use cases for peoplehood. So one, when we talk about this epic of loneliness, especially with young people, digital over-usage, people that don't know how to be in this world after COVID,

• 35:59Speaker 06

  there is this idea that you can come to peoplehood and of course, meet new people. And not just meet them, but have meaningful connections with them, really feel like somebody got to know you in less than an hour. And then there's this other idea that you can come and strengthen existing relationships, which is we do couplehood in the room. When we're working with at-work teams, it's people that have relationships with each other.

• 36:24Speaker 07

  And I think people are sick of small talk, honestly. I think there's a real place for this.

• 36:30Scott Galloway?

  I mean, is there ever an opportunity, I think it's gotten to the point where we're lacking so much human connection and it's been so clearly linked to depression and bad outcomes. Is there a possibility that at some point?

• 36:46Scott Galloway?

  This might get covered by Medicaid or insurance, or a doctor might write a prescription to go to Peoplehood for six or 12 sessions. I mean, have you thought about how this interacts and does it interact with our kind of healthcare complex?

• 36:59Speaker 06

  I mean, that's our big dream, honestly, is to just make this as widely available as possible. And the thing that's so awesome is that Julie has, she comes out of a talent background. And so she just really understands how to help people learn how to facilitate these conversations and hold space for other people. And it's really not, I mean, it's complicated, but it is also, there's a lot of simplicity to it. So it would be incredible if we could do that. But that's the big dream, Scott. I like that you got there first.

• 37:26Scott Galloway?

  That's the dream. And what, what, give me a sense for the curriculum, or I imagine it's not just a group of eight or 12 people that sit down and start talking. What is, do you pick a topic? What are the most popular topics? Generally speaking, if you, if someone wanted to try this, what would you suggest that their first step is?

• 37:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's, you know, there's a lot of different ways that we people at Peoplehood, right? So you can do it by cohort. There are certain people that want to be in groups with people that have something really in common with them. So we have motherhood, we have couplehood, we have singlehood. We have a lot of different groups. You know, we have a female founderhood. We have a lot of groups where you kind of know that just by virtue of who you're grouping with, that you are going to be talking about parenting challenges, or business challenges, or, you know, the, the conversations are sort of implied in what the group is gathering around. Right now, we are doing a relational reset. It's a five-week challenge where a group has signed up to go through this program together.

• 38:31Speaker 06

  And we're learning everything from how to talk to people, to how to be a better friend, to how to be more interesting, to ultimately how to navigate conflict, right? Because isn't that kind of the hope? Isn't the hope that after we practice having conversations with each other in a new way, first we see our dinner tables change, then we see our offices change, then we see our marriages change? And ultimately, we're living in cities that are a little bit different, and maybe even countries where people can talk to each other and live with different ideas or opinions, but not have to be intolerant of each other because of it.

• 39:13Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back.

• 39:17Scott Galloway?

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• 40:55Scott Galloway?

  I got really interested when you said the term "singlehood" because I think that online dating is a disaster. I think it's profoundly bad for men, and it's just generally bad for women. And now over half of relationships are beginning online. Does that work in this context? And do you try and have a gender balance? Do you have singlehood for LGBTQ? And is that... What offering here has surprised you to the upside and the downside?

• 41:23Speaker 06

  Well, it's interesting. I mean, singlehood has been very interesting. I think singlehood has also served a couple of different purposes. I think people that are single feel lonely like all of us. And I think a lot of times, just to be in a room with other single people, whether or not you're actually meeting somebody that you're going to hook up with, I think that single people are finding other single people and their friends are introducing them to other friends if they're not themselves going out on dates. And so we've definitely started a Friday night singlehood where people can come and there's wine and cheese and there's an hour to talk and some time to socialize afterward. And that has definitely become a lively offering. And I agree with you, Scott. I think people

• 42:02Speaker 06

  are grateful to be in person, meeting other people. And then we've also done singlehood in a different way, where we do the conversation and then we do, you know, some speed dating afterward, where you get to meet a bunch of different people pretty quickly and have one-on-one conversations with them face to face, rather than swiping left or swiping right, which also seems like a really novel conversation these ways. And I think it's interesting. People also, we've also done friending that way as well. I think that young people want to meet friends in person as much as they want to meet dates in person. And we've been having a lot of success with kind of this idea of friendship gathers with some speed friending before and after, which has also been very interesting.

• 42:47Scott Galloway?

  So this is more a question from one entrepreneur to two other entrepreneurs, but it's gonna be, I don't know if I got a straight answer here, but whenever I've been fortunate enough to have a successful go at something, it's usually 10 years. And I come off it and I have some capital and some confidence and some people who want to, you know, who made money. And so they want to back me in whatever I do. And almost always, my next thing is not nearly as successful. I just, I go into it with, I'm too aggressive, I spend too much money. And also, I just think luck. I don't think you realize how hard, I didn't realize, just how many moons line up, have to line up for success. I have never had two

• 43:29Scott Galloway?

  wins in a row. And my question is, is this

• 43:35Scott Galloway?

  Harder, easier? You know, what's it like starting? I couldn't start a business again at this age. I just don't have the tread left on my tires for the bullshit and the calling people who don't want to hear from me. And I just don't have it in me anymore. What is different about starting a business this time? Are there things you forget about that were, you know, so hard? Has it been easier? And what's it like starting a business at this age versus when you started one 17 years ago?

• 44:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, this is, this is an entire pod, actually. But let me just say that, you know, tread on the tires is a great way to say it. I think that you do forget what it was like. I think actually it's much harder because when we, when we launched SoulCycle, it was kind of like everything exceeded our expectations. You know, we were so, we just caught fire pretty quickly. And when you say it takes 10 years, I mean, we became profitable in like eight months. So it was, you know, it was, it was a pretty quick win. And although obviously it wasn't a win to the scale that it ultimately became a win to, for us, everything kind of felt like a win. Now, of course, you know, you're so worried to put something out into the world for fear it won't be perfect, or people are looking at it, or people are judging you.

• 44:45Speaker 06

  And so your own ego can kind of really get in the way with that, I think, in many ways. You also, you know, the world has changed, right? And so you're constantly kind of looking around at younger people, smell testing everything to make sure that, you know, your wiser and older perspectives, although obviously completely additive and in so many ways, you know, the wisdom of years can't be replicated. I do think you also need to have a team around you that is, that is really operating in a younger world, that is using the technology that we're using today, that is consuming the way that we're consuming today. So, you know, you're constantly poking holes through your own theory.

• 45:26Speaker 06

  And the last thing I'll say is that you just go to your desk every single day and you try to turn off the periphery vision that you've learned over the years. I mean, look, I worked at a place like WeWork for a couple of years, Scott. I mean, where every day we were opening in, in India, China, and Japan all at the same time, right? And you try not to think about scale like that. You try to think about one customer walking through your door and if they would leave and tell a friend. And if you think the product is that good, if you think it has that kind of impact on people, then you just keep going.

• 46:00Scott Galloway?

  Elizabeth, let me ask you a similar question. And I'm fascinated by this as someone who's been an entrepreneur my whole life. I've never had success in something that I didn't work so hard that it impacted my relationships, my mental and my physical health. I'm just not talented enough to work 40 or 50 hours a week and have something be successful. And I've heard those people are out there. I haven't met them. And what I find about entrepreneurship and what I tell entrepreneurs is unless you're just sort of willing to go all in, it's probably not going to work. And the thing that has reduced that fire for me, quite frankly, is money. I got wealthy about 10 years ago, and I'm just not willing to call my partner and say, I can't make dinner.

• 46:44Scott Galloway?

  I'm not willing to miss the Spring concert with my kids. I shoved all of that to the side in my late 30s and early 40s because I needed money and I didn't have it. Or no, I didn't even need it. I was fine, but I really wanted it and I was willing to make those trade offs. And I no longer am. And as a result, I don't think I'd be nearly as successful an entrepreneur. You're both very wealthy now. How do you maintain or can you maintain that same sort of hunger and grit that I think is sort of the secret sauce in building a company from zero?

• 47:20Speaker 07

  It's a calling. This is a calling. It's exactly what you're doing with your podcasts. Like, your podcasts require a lot of effort and a lot of energy and a lot of vulnerability on your part and a lot of really, like, honestly, like intense introspection and permissioning hundreds of thousands of people. And that is what we're interested in, trying to understand what's going on politically, what's going on environmentally, what's going on personally, what's going on professionally. It's people have so many demands. And we really believe that if people take... A small amount of time and devote that to connecting with other people in a meaningful

• 47:59Speaker 07

  manner that we will start to be able to understand what it is that are what we actually need in this moment. We will get out of the distractions that are kind of pulling us all around. And that is a very powerful and potent thing for us individually and that we feel like it's time to like get out there into, like you said, into the retail world. It doesn't seem like anybody is really doing this and we're kind of tired of all the talk. We're doers. We just want to make things happen. And so, yes, there is a price to pay, there is a tax to pay. It happens. You never know where it's going to happen that day. It just depends. But I think that we also are good at cutting through the noise. And

• 48:42Speaker 07

  so we're able to kind of just keep moving forward.

• 48:46Speaker 06

  Let me, let me also just add that, you know, Elizabeth and I have done a lot of this work. I mean, this is the work that we started doing in our partnership back in 2006. We realized pretty early on that to be in a successful partnership, two people don't just have the same opinion, the same point of view and want to do the same thing with their business at all time. We started working with a coach very early on. We work with that same coach today. We have our conversations in two parts. The first meeting, we go in and we say what we think and we don't solve anything. And in the second meeting, we go in and we've actually heard each other and can now operate from a point of understanding somebody else's world. And so ironically, that kind of work and what we're putting

• 49:29Speaker 06

  into the world saved our relationship the first time. I've done this work in my marriage. Pretty much learned a second language. My husband and I very early on started to practice something called Amago, where we learned to talk in a different, in a different way. We make an appointment and we actively listen to each other. Also, very much saved and transformed, you know, my marriage. And so ultimately, I think that a lot of what we're putting into the world is a relationship saver.

• 50:02Scott Galloway?

  Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler are the co-founders of Peoplehood, a firm dedicated to improving our relationships. Julie and Elizabeth are also the co-founders of SoulCycle. After growing to 60 studios as co-CEOs, Julie and Elizabeth sold the company in 2016. They join us from a cold and wintery New York. I appreciate so much that you're not just, I don't know, hanging out in St. Bart's or started a VC fund to invest, or whatever it is people do after a big exit and that you're going back at it. I love, I think that you're trying to ensure our species doesn't evolve or devolve into something less wonderful. And I think that's happening with people not touching, smelling, and feeling each other.

• 50:46Scott Galloway?

  So really do appreciate your good work and enjoyed speaking with you and generally for a lot of reasons, hope that Peoplehood is successful.

• 50:54Speaker 06

  Thanks so much.

• 51:03Scott Galloway?

  Odds of happiness. I was moved by Elizabeth and Julie from Peoplehood. I think this loneliness crisis is something that people don't talk about. And unfortunately, I think it's one of the bigger, I think there are, I'm constantly talking about crises, and I think the biggest one is, is the fact that young people don't have as much money as their parents, and it creates rage and shame. And every problem we face, it's fuel that adds to it because people are just angry. It's like, it's like being hungry all the time. The second big thing that's, I think, really a threat to our society is how much we are sequestering from one another. We are losing connective tissue, we're losing touch, we're not procreating, we're not developing friendships.

• 51:46Scott Galloway?

  That makes us a less forgiving, a less productive, a less innovative, a less mammal species. And I think we need to reconnect. There's fewer third spaces, there's fewer places like Peoplehood, there's fewer parks, after-school programs, we don't go to church, we don't go to the mall, we don't go to movies. So I think people getting back together is super important. And more than just preaching, more than just preaching, I don't enjoy people that much. It's an effort for me. I'm living in London. I have, what is it called, seasonal disorder? And what I have found that I've been doing is I'm very social on the weekends, I love to hang out with my boys, it's just joyous for me, they're at a wonderful age. And then during the week, I pretty much work all day. I do podcasts. I come downstairs

• 52:29Scott Galloway?

  into my makeshift studio and gym. I hang out all day. I eat. I do a lot of writing, a lot of reading. I eat dinner and then everyone goes to sleep and I love that time at night. And I usually either watch TV, or I read, or I write. Sometimes I take half an edible. And if I'm feeling really, really good, I'll have a drink. And the half an edible and the drink and the media, oh my God, I'm just so happy. And my dogs come lay on me on the couch. It's my time and I love it. I'm doing it too much. I'm spending too much time alone. I'm saying no way too much invitations.

• 53:13Scott Galloway?

  I'm getting angry when people make plans for me where I have to leave the house. I am withdrawing to my house, my studio, my living room. And other than my boys, the people I enjoy being around is getting narrower and narrower. And I wonder or I worry that at some point, there's a point of no return. In addition to, I don't know, what could ultimately end up, if I'm not careful, digressing into low-grade substance abuse. It's pretty simple. I gotta get out there again. I gotta start making more of an effort. I gotta start saying, yes, I'm really blessed. I get invited to a lot of fun stuff and I'm finding all these reasons to say no all the time. And it's too cold. I don't want to go out. And I've always got Netflix, my email, my, you know, the reading I have to catch

• 53:58Scott Galloway?

  up to, an edible, and a Makers and Ginger, which are all awesome. All awesome in the short run. But in the long run, I want to stay mammal. The number one indicator of living a long life and a rewarding life is how social you are. And I am pulling years back. I'm going to die faster if I don't get out there more. So I want to invite you to do what I'm going to try and do, and that is say yes to more stuff and go out. Go out. We're mammals. Be that mammal. Rover baby roar.

• 54:28Scott Galloway?

  This episode was produced by Caroline Chagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prodigy Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show.

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