Gwyneth Paltrow takes stock of 15 years at Goop, the company that diverted her from her acting career

“I don’t think anyone thinks I actually operate my company,” said Gwyneth Paltrow.

Paltrow, an actress and founder and CEO of Goop, was lying horizontally on a chair in the living room of her home in Amagansett, New York, in late July. “I think people think I’m the main figure,” she said. “I definitely operate the company, but I’ve never been a person to try to correct public opinion or a misconception. I think it’s a somewhat futile exercise.”

She gestured with her hands as she spoke and pointed and kicked her bare feet for emphasis.

In October, Goop celebrates its 15th anniversary. And Paltrow, 51, was feeling reflective, sipping tea and wearing a blue and white striped caftan that she bought from a sponsored Instagram post and that had no tags other than a size medium.

Goop began in 2008 with a newsletter she wrote from her home in London, where she lived with her two young children — Apple, who is now 19, and Moses, 17 — and her first husband, Coldplay singer Chris Martin.

“I had a very nice little life in North London with my mum, mum friends and married to a rock star, which came with its own set of complications,” she said. “If you’re married to someone who’s a touring musician, you’re home alone a lot of the time. And so I was in this little bubble with my kids and obviously didn’t want to travel and work and be on a set.”

It had been about a decade since she won the Oscar for best actress for “Shakespeare in Love.” “Wait a minute,” she said. “What year was it? I have this in the other room, I’ll see what it says.” She ran into an adjacent room to retrieve the 1998 Oscar statuette.

His Amagansett home has plenty of security, including a guard dog, a house manager and a room with security cameras. The interior smells strongly of cedar and is decorated in neutral cream tones, with Aesop body wash and a digital scale in a guest bathroom. Outside are manicured lawns and a bathtub filled with slippers.

In the beginning, Goop was mostly recommendations. “I always felt like I had the most excitement about ‘I have the answer to your question,'” she said. “‘There’s a great reflexology place around the corner.'”

Now the company has about 170 employees, Paltrow estimated, and encompasses an entire constellation of brands with a healthy wellness flavor. There’s the newsletter; a podcast with more than 100 million downloads; a line of beauty products called Goop Beauty; clothes —G. Label by Goop— made from soft fabrics in neutral tones; Goop Wellness, which sells vitamins and sexual health products; two shows on Netflix; five stores; a Southern California takeout restaurant chain called Goop Kitchen; In Goop Health, a wellness event franchise; and a cruise that was the subject of a cover story in Harper’s Magazine.

Its anniversary products and services will include a two-bedroom Goop villa to stay at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, complete with Goop products in the bathrooms and Goop x Fromental wallpaper; a limited-edition $2,500 Lobmeyr crystal vase, designed in collaboration with jewelers FoundRae; and products such as the Goopglow Microderm Instant Glow exfoliant in commemorative packaging.

“Goop is an irreplaceable provocateur in the cause of good,” is a phrase from one of its own press releases. But whether this holds true beyond its customers and fans remains to be seen. The brand is responsible for candles called “That Smells Like My Vagina” and “That Smells Like My Orgasm.” Her 2014 post about her divorce from Martin brought the phrase “conscious separation” to the world.

“If history has shown me anything, it’s that I’m always looking back, thinking, ‘Wow, that was an interesting thing to try,'” she said.

This year, Paltrow was widely mocked online for a filmed interview in which she talked about intermittent fasting and her apparently strict diet.

“About the bone broth? Oh my god,” Paltrow said. “Was I aware? Apple said, ‘Mom, you’re on TikTok'”. Paltrow said he eats three meals a day and has a wide range of what he considers healthy.

“I think a European croissant is a superfood, by the way,” she said. “Today, I had a peanut butter smoothie. And for lunch, we had an Italian chopped chicken salad.” She married producer Brad Falchuk in 2018.

Even though Paltrow hasn’t had a leading role since 2005’s “The Proof,” she’s still an actress who Puck News journalist Lauren Sherman wrote “can sell anything with conviction.”

That includes the clothes, mostly from Goop’s G. Label brand, that she wore to testify in a March trial over a 2016 ski collision at Utah’s Deer Valley Resort that injured a retired optometrist named Terry Sanderson (the jury considered that she was not guilty). She may not have consciously tried to sell her clothes, but viewers were watching every one she wore.

“I was just getting dressed and going through a pretty intense experience every day,” Paltrow said. “And the stylistic result was so strange to me. That whole thing was really strange. I don’t know if I even processed it. It was something I felt like I survived. Sometimes in my life, it takes a long time for me to look back, to process something and understand something.”

Paltrow has previously posted sponsored content online for a posture corrector. Last year, she publicly supported Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, a wealthy real estate developer and former Republican who changed his party affiliation before entering the race. “I think I’m open-minded toward everyone,” she said. “I love hearing what people have to say.”

She recently listened to an episode of the All-In podcast featuring presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose anti-vaccine rhetoric and fondness for conspiracy theories have made him a controversial figure.

“It was really interesting to hear his point of view,” she said. “Since then, he’s said some things that I think are complicated, let’s put it that way.” Later, a representative for Paltrow called me to express concerns that her political views would be the focus of this article and said that she is more of an “independent thinker.”

As an entrepreneur, Paltrow may have had more power than ever before when she was acting regularly. “I thought about it in terms of my life experience as an actress who was told to be here in that moment, wear this and stand there and do it again,” she said. “So you never feel like you have power on a film set. It was hard for me to do what I was told, but I also never had any desire to be a director or be behind the scenes in this industry. I feel like I was always breaking down the restrictions a little bit.” her.”

Her friend Brit Morin, founder of e-commerce site Brit + Co, said Paltrow’s cultural impact through Goop was different. “While the success rate of movies and startups is similar, the difference is in the outsized returns on venture capital in startups,” said Morin, whose website sometimes features Goop products.

“You can get a thousand-fold return on investment, and a box office has never seen that. Entertaining is a way to influence someone in the short term. She created products that people have in their homes, are wearing on their faces, wearing, eating .”

Goop declined to provide revenue or income figures to The New York Times and has not said whether it is profitable.

Paltrow has been CEO of Goop since 2017. “In terms of learning the lessons of how to be a leader, it took me a long time because I was learning as I went,” she said. “Especially the people aspect. If you don’t go through a corporate culture, it’s really difficult to understand how to manage people and set good boundaries.”

She did not cite specific examples. But one increasingly well-known former employee comes to mind: Elise Loehnen, who left the company in 2020 and wrote “On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good.” Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good, in literal translation), a New York Times bestseller.

In August, Loehnen spoke to the Times about her departure from Goop. “My interests were moving away from this idea of ​​self-optimization,” she said. “I think what happens in the wellness world is this desire for control and certainty.”

Goop’s strategy for long-term growth, or an exit in the form of an acquisition or initial public offering, remains to be seen. “If Gwyneth and the team want to build the business with the scale and margin structure to be a large independent company as a public company or as part of a business, we support it,” said Tony Florence of New Enterprise Associates, who invested in the company.

Dana Settle of Greycroft, another fund that invested in Goop, said: “I would love for her to take the company public and for her to do so as CEO, but it’s her life.”

Paltrow simply said, “The burden of taking money, I took that responsibility probably very seriously. And it was difficult being the person who was trying to grow but also being very conservative with financing the company. I was kicking the horse and pulling the reins.” at the same time. But I’m so grateful now when I look back and see that it took its time to evolve into what it is and that we didn’t have this crazy meteoric rise.”

Goop’s beauty brands, which represent 60% of its sales, are competing in a crowded market that includes a number of celebrity brands. “We have so many other brands that are kind of similar to us now,” she said. “I feel good about it. Competition is what keeps everyone honest.” In September 2018, Goop settled a false advertising lawsuit filed by prosecutors in California.

Even her ex-fiancé Brad Pitt has his own skin care line called Le Domaine. He sent some to her. “It’s good,” she said. “Yes, it’s really beautiful.”

Don’t expect a revealing autobiography anytime soon. “You don’t want to get too deep into the romance part and expose people, so I don’t know,” Paltrow said, adding, “Don’t put me on truth serum.”

She talked about her future in a way that doesn’t seem to involve Goop. The company was approached about possible acquisitions, she said, but she never felt the time was right. “I don’t think I can have this job forever,” she said. “I think it would be nice to give my investors their money back, and I really want to do that. That’s important to me.”

As for life post-Goop, she wants to embrace what she calls her “senior years,” “this very real sweetness I’m starting to feel about the latter part of life.” She wants to cook, be in her garden and become a grandmother. “It may reveal itself,” she said.

She remembered one thing. “I mean, I told my mom” —actress Blythe Danner — “that I was going to do a play when I sold the company.” With Danner or alone? On Broadway or in a one-man show? “She just says I have to do it, and I have to keep my promise to her.”