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Gwyneth Paltrow is taking Goop back to basics—and says her best source of business advice is her ‘Fight Club’ group chat of female CEOs

It’s been almost 17 years since Gwyneth Paltrow launched Goop as a newsletter—since then there have been beauty products, a fashion line, vibrators and vagina candles. But this year—after some tough restructuring—Goop is getting back to its basics, Paltrow tells Fortune in an exclusive interview.
While the brand did multiple rounds of layoffs in 2024, Paltrow says that the overall business is healthy. The company’s 2024 revenue increased 10% from 2023, Fortune is the first to report. Goop Beauty, one of three categories the company is now focusing on, was up 34%. Its fashion line G. Label grew 42% year-over-year. Goop Kitchen revenue, from six ghost kitchens throughout greater Los Angeles, grew 60%.
Paltrow called Fortune to talk about growing Goop into its “heritage brand” era, whether she’d sell and when she expects to reach profitability, and the female CEO group chat that has helped her come into her own as a founder. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Where are you seeing the most growth? What are you most excited about?
What I’m most excited about is the refining of the brand that we’re doing—our hyper focus on beauty, fashion, and food. Those are the verticals where we’re seeing incredible product-market fit and margin. Food, beauty, and G. Label all grew exponentially last year. Since COVID, we’ve had to stay so agile, and getting to the other side of that and focusing on our strengths—there’s power in that.
When you say you’re refining the brand, what made you realize that was necessary? When did you say, it’s time for us to take a look and refine what we’re doing?
There are things that have bugged me for a while—like our beauty product had different architectures, if you will. I always found them a bit confusing. I wanted to streamline that. Our design, when I did it 12 years ago, felt really innovative-looking. A lot of it was oft-copied—design, colors, fonts. It was time to refresh everything and get back to the core of this beautiful, aspirational brand that from a curatorial perspective is finding the best of the best in service of our discerning customer. The best way to put a stake in the ground around redefining your values is that the touch points look redefined. I think all brands should be doing this, even a soft rebrand, every once in a while.
What is Goop today? How are you defining the brand now?
It’s very much back to its DNA of being a pioneer in content and beauty and fashion—being that go-to place for women who trust that we do the work and research to surface and make the best of the best.
There’s been some reporting about layoffs at Goop over the past several months. What wasn’t working and needed to be restructured?
When COVID happened, it threw so many consumer businesses into instability. I was really trying to conserve all the money on the balance sheet. For that reason, I became very risk-averse and I didn’t want to make any bold changes. I felt like we just have to keep our head above water and keep growing the best we can. I got to a point about a year ago where our payroll number was high, and I needed to be fiscally more disciplined. I needed to reallocate some of that payroll into growth again. I think, because we’re Goop, it’s more fun to write about a layoff at Goop. But companies do this all the time. This is a very healthy, normal thing to do. It’s very painful, and probably why I don’t do this as often as I should. Because I love the people who work at Goop. It’s always a very difficult thing to do, but sometimes for the rigor of the business, it’s necessary. But it wasn’t coming from a place of financial need, it was coming from taking a sharp look at the business and understanding that we really needed to reallocate some of that back into growth. I hate doing that more than anything in the world, but it’s actually been very necessary for the business.
As you focus on three categories, you’ve pulled back from some others. How did you decide what to let go of?
I created a complicated business model by mistake when I started this, because I didn’t start it to start a business. I started it to send out content—I was looking for a space on the internet where I could be a reader. The product lines came later. So it’s not so much that something wasn’t working, it was that you’re spreading resources across a lot of things. Where are you getting the most bang for your buck, if your resources are limited? What are the businesses that have the best customer with the most longevity, buying the products with the most margin? I sort of let the data help me find that.
Take sexual wellness, for example. It was a really important idea for the brand and it’s an absolute important part of wellness. But our vibrators, for example, were a one-and-done customer. There’s no [lifetime value]. I’m so glad we made them, I’m so glad we are helping dispel this idea that there’s shame in sexuality. But you want to be investing in the products with [the best] buying patterns.
On the content origins of Goop, what is your content strategy today? The landscape has shifted a lot, with Substack and other publications with similar points of view to Goop.
Having the business model be a media model is not what’s interesting to us. But I do think it’s an important lever for marketing and creating community and interest.
Is the Goop customer the same across beauty, G. Label, and Kitchen, or is this a different customer in different categories?
There’s the Venn diagram—there’s overlap and distinct cohorts as well. If you’re in one vertical, you might want to check out the rest of what we have to offer. It’s an interesting way to cross-pollinate the customer.
When you see these new generations of lifestyle and wellness brands popping up, from Meghan’s As Ever to other startups, what do you think of them?
I think startups challenge the status quo. They make a Williams-Sonoma be like, ‘Wow, what is this person doing? Maybe we need to do better by our customer.’ Or a Target or LVMH brand. Quote-unquote competition—you should use that as a lever to make what you’re doing better and not rest on your laurels and to constantly assess why you exist as a brand.
Do you expect to be profitable this year?
We’re very, very close, which is incredibly exciting, and a big milestone. It depends on a couple of levers. We’re had profitable months, many of those, but I don’t want to say full profitability until we have a full year.
Do you want to exit? How are you thinking about your options?
I’m very excited to build. I’m excited to open more stores. To index into our wholesale strategies, to go into other countries. I’m in building mode and not thinking about an exit right now. I don’t even really want to think about it for another three years, or even start thinking about it.
How is the beauty business now? Are there changes you’re making?
Our product is absolutely best in class. We’re not always that good at articulating how incredible they are. I think we could do a better job at communicating the incredible quality of everything.
You want to be where the customer is, which is why we have such a good business on Amazon. We’re talked about other big wholesalers, and we are definitely exploring that right now.
Why has Goop Kitchen worked so well? Do you see it scaling beyond LA? How did you know it was working?
It’s been incredible to watch the product-market fit of that venture—the repeat rates and customer satisfaction, how quickly it’s growing, quarter after quarter. We have a very robust growth plan. We closed a round of funding for that business last year, we have another four stores opening in LA County and in 2026 we will be going into New York.
It just felt like it was intuitively working. All the hard work on Goop for all these years—you set it up so people understand intrinsically if they see Goop Kitchen, ‘Oh, I think I could make an assumption about what that food might be.’ And then we really deliver on that food. It’s been really easy from a customer acquisition standpoint, and people love the food, so they come back and back.
When you look across the landscape of lifestyle brands and competitors, do you feel like you still have some sort of first-mover advantage?
I haven’t really thought about that. Maybe I’m too close to it to know, but I do think we are the OG, and in that sense, we’re becoming kind of a heritage brand. There’s always intrinsic brand value there. When you’re the first mover, you’re category defining. So I hope so.
We’re bumping up against our 20th anniversary in the next few years. It’s amazing to me we’ve been around this long. We want to energetically own who we are and what we’ve accomplished—continue to innovate and accept our place in the landscape and lean into it.
As a founder and leader, what resources have you turned to to grow through all these changes?
I have great help. I have great coaches, mentors. I have a group of female CEO-founders I’m on a group chat with. There are some public company CEOs on there, some very nascent companies. It’s a very safe space where we can go and talk through some of the harder things. I really would not be able to do this without the women in my life who are there in that capacity. We traverse these difficult things, and you forget that it’s going to be OK. So many people have gone through this before.
Any names you can share?
It’s sort of like Fight Club. We’re not really supposed to talk about it. But it’s kind of fun at this point to be one of the women who has something to say to newer founders—like, whoops, don’t step in this pothole. It’s nice to pay it forward.
What are some of those moments you’ve given advice on? What are some of the ‘potholes’ of Goop’s journey?
I have strong feelings about ecommerce platforms and ESPs and ERPs. Don’t be sold software you don’t need. There’s a lot that happens when we outsource expertise and don’t follow our own instincts. Some of my worst decisions have been made from that place. We went on an ERP too early without the right team to implement it. [People will try to convince you], you’ve got to get off QuickBooks, you’ve got to do this and that. A founder’s instinct is really important. Sometimes we sell ourselves short by not listening to that instinct.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Tech News
In wake of tragedies, BofA tasks senior execs with overseeing junior banker workload

Bank of America, which has come under scrutiny for its treatment of junior bankers, is changing who is overseeing the workloads of its young executives. The bank is now having senior bankers—those who hold a title of director or above—monitor the nature and volume of assignments piled on lower level staff who, in an industry famous for grueling hours, often work well into the night to complete deals.
Bank of America’s efforts come after a series of tragedies involving young people that have shaken the investment banking sector. In January, Carter Anthony McIntosh, a 28-year-old investment banking associate at Jefferies, passed away from a suspected drug overdose. McIntoch was working as much as 100 hours a week, the New York Post reported. Leo Lukenas, a BofA junior banker, died in May from a blood clot. Lukenas had worked 100-plus hour weeks before his passing. BofA in 2014 instituted policies to limit young banker hours, the junior execs were often pressured into lying about their workloads, the WSJ has reported.
To carry out its oversight program, BofA has long relied on what it calls a chief resource officer model. Under this model, BofA used mid-level executives, on one-year rotations, to allocate work to junior investment bankers, according to the Wall Street Journal.
BofA has opted to shake up the model as it seeks to build the next generation of leaders, a person familiar with the situation said. The investment bank will now rely on senior bankers, working in permanent, full-time positions across sectors and regions, who will supervise young banker development as their CROs.
Bank of America is picking volunteers or assigning the role to the senior bankers, who are no longer dealmakers, the person said. BofA is seeking executives who have a very strong leadership quality, have managed teams and feel strongly about the evolution of junior bankers, they said.
“We want all of our junior bankers to have the best experience possible, learning from the teammates they work with and further benefiting from the career growth and development this role brings,” according to a BofA statement.
BofA Securities, the investment banking division of Bank of America, employs thousands of bankers. It’s unclear how many are junior bankers. Young executives typically spend several years as a junior banker, including two as an analyst and two to three years as an associate, before they move up to vice president. At that point they usually work on a sector team, like consumer or technology or industrials.
BofA also cut roughly 150 junior investment banking roles, the person. The majority of people that were reduced were “mapped to new roles” outside of investment banking like financial analysis or strategic planning, the person said. “They were given the opportunity to move somewhere else,” they said.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Tech News
Four teens charged for alleged pistol-whipping, attempted Bitcoin robbery of OnlyFans influencer

Four teenagers in Houston, Texas, were charged Thursday for assaulting and trying to steal Bitcoin and Ethereum from an OnlyFans influencer in early March. Kaitlyn Siragusa, known online as “Amouranth,” was sleeping in her home in northwest Houston when three men broke into her room and demanded cryptocurrency, reported FOX 26. Siragusa had previously posted on social media a screenshot of her more than $20 million in cryptocurrency balances, according to the New York Post.
The three men allegedly pistol-whipped the OnlyFans influencer three times before Siragusa’s husband fired shots at the suspects, who then fled Siragusa’s home, according to FOX. The Harris County District Clerk’s Office identified the three men on Friday as Demarcus Morris Jr., 17; Dylan Nesho Campbell, 18; and Bryan Anthony Salazar Guerrero, 19. Officials also identified a 16-year-old as a suspect.
“They brought duct tape and masks and were armed with handguns,” Siragusa posted on X.
The assault and attempted robbery is just one of a series of recent attacks on individuals with known crypto holdings.
In late January, French police leapt into action after a group of criminals kidnapped David Balland, cofounder of the crypto hardware developer Ledger, and his wife, demanding a ransom in Bitcoin. French authorities, however, tracked down the kidnappers and rescued the couple. Balland’s wife was found unharmed but the Ledger cofounder had his finger severed in the ordeal. The Paris prosecutor’s office said that police had arrested 10 individuals alleged to be part of the kidnapping.
And in February, six men were accused in a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit of kidnapping three family members and a nanny from a Chicago townhouse, according to the Chicago Tribune. The criminals released the victims after they forced the family to hand over more than $15 million in cryptocurrency.
Crypto executives and wealthy crypto owners are taking notice. Some are hiring bodyguards to protect themselves from would-be attackers, according to WIRED. And others are buying up “wrench-attack” insurance, or policies designed to insure individuals if they’re the victims of a physical-force crypto robbery.
“In general the best things Bitcoiners can do to stay safe is to remain private,” Jameson Lopp, a famous early Bitcoiner, told Fortune. “The goal should be to avoid becoming a target,” he said. “Don’t go around telling anyone about your Bitcoin holdings. Don’t flaunt your wealth online or in meatspace. Don’t engage in risk activities such as high-value face-to-face trades.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Tech News
A French politician wants the U.S. to return the Statue of Liberty after 140 years. But it can’t actually do that

Hey, America: Give the Statue of Liberty back to France.
So says a French politician who is making headlines in his country for suggesting that the U.S. is no longer worthy of the monument that was a gift from France nearly 140 years ago.
As a member of the European Parliament and co-president of a small left-wing party in France, Raphaël Glucksmann cannot claim to speak for all of his compatriots.
But his assertion in a speech this weekend that some Americans “have chosen to switch to the side of the tyrants” reflects the broad shockwaves that U.S. President Donald Trump’s seismic shifts in foreign and domestic policy are triggering in France and elsewhere in Europe.
“Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” Glucksmann said, speaking Sunday to supporters of his Public Place party, who applauded and whistled.
“It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her. So she will be happy here with us,” Glucksmann said.
The White House brushed back on the comments Monday, saying France instead should still be “grateful” for U.S. support during World War I and World War II.
Can France claim it back?
Dream on.
UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural arm that has the statue on its list of World Heritage treasures, notes that the iconic monument is U.S. government property.
It was initially envisaged as a monumental gesture of French-American friendship to mark the 100th anniversary of the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence.
But a war that erupted in 1870 between France and German states led by Prussia diverted the energies of the monument’s designer, French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi.
The gift also took time to be funded, with a decision taken that the French would pay for the statue and Americans would cover the costs of its pedestal.
Transported in 350 pieces from France, the statue was officially unveiled Oct. 28, 1886.
Is France’s government offering asylum to Lady Liberty?
No. French-U.S. relations would have to drop off a cliff before Glucksmann found support from French President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
For the moment, the French president is treading a fine line — trying to work with Trump and temper some of his policy shifts on the one hand but also pushing back hard against some White House decisions, notably Trump’s tariff hikes.
Macron has let his prime minister, François Bayrou, play the role of being a more critical voice. Bayrou tore into the “brutality” that was shown to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his White House visit and suggested that Trump’s administration risked handing victory to Russia when it paused military aid to Ukraine.
Glucksmann’s party has been even more critical, posting accusations on its website that Trump is wielding power in an “authoritarian” manner and is “preparing to deliver Ukraine on a silver platter” to Russia.
In his speech, Glucksmann referenced New York poet Emma Lazarus’ words about the statue, the “mighty woman with a torch” who promised a home for the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
“Today, this land is ceasing to be what it was,” Glucksmann said.
What is the White House saying?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked Monday about Glucksmann’s comments, and responded that the U.S. would “absolutely not” be parting with the iconic statue.
“My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now,” Leavitt said, apparently referencing the U.S. fight with allied powers to free France from Nazi occupation in World War II and alongside France during World War I. “They should be very grateful.”
But the debt of gratitude runs both ways. Leavitt skipped past France’s key role in supporting the future United States during its war for independence from the United Kingdom.
Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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