Anonymous wrote:I can't believe he was making $260k a year and he wasn't even one of the star instructors. Cody must be raking it in if that's the case. I'm a huge Peloton fan and love the instructors, but Cody and Robin which are their two most popular bike instructors teach maybe 2-3 classes a week at the most. They're probably making twice what Daniel was making. . This is Peloton's main problem. Those salaries are way over inflated.

I thought 260k seemed pretty modest, especially for nyc.

Also, I’m shocked that Peloton doesn’t have an arbitration clause for their employment contracts. If not, sloppy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope he wins. There’s two sides to every story of course, but the complaint puts Jen Cotter in a very bad light.

This is a complaint. You haven’t seen the response yet! Way too early to decide.

If the employment agreement required written justification within a given timeframe for terminations with cause and they didn't provide it, the case seems pretty open and shut

Said by someone who clearly isn’t a lawyer. A complaint is meant to be a persuasive document. It highlights elements of the story that are favorable to the plaintiff and omits or shades over things that are unfavorable. Without knowing the legal standard of proof required and seeing the defendant’s response, there is absolutely no way to tell that a case is “open and shut”. Just the fact that Peloton hasn’t settled with him indicates to me that there is a significant amount that he is leaving out.

Not saying that Peloton is right or that they come out looking great in all this. But the bottom line is that they wouldn’t fire a popular instructor several months after he came back from short term disability and who was actively teaching classes unless there was something else that happened.

Not a lawyer, but I thought settling was done for PR purposes and to keep the mess in-house? Even if you're egregiously wrong, it's easier to pay you to go away than to let this play out in the court of public opinion. And they may still settle before the case goes to trial.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. 100 percent they will settle before this case goes to trial. But settling before the complaint is even filed is a risk calculation that the lawyers do depending (ideally) on the nuisance value of the lawsuit and how much the company has to throw at the plaintiff if a lawsuit plays out in public. If he was a saint and the company screwed up, then the settlement money should have been sufficient to keep him from filing. So logically, they have something in their pocket that they have to defend themselves with. I mean, if they have good lawyers — maybe they don’t.

Interesting, so you think a demand letter was sent beforehand and he rejected it? I don't think the severance is a settlement, since they gave him 6 months and he theoretically can't work for the remaining 12.

It’s generally structured as a waiver of a right to sue after termination. It doesn’t have to be as adversarial as a demand letter and proffer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope he wins. There’s two sides to every story of course, but the complaint puts Jen Cotter in a very bad light.

This is a complaint. You haven’t seen the response yet! Way too early to decide.

If the employment agreement required written justification within a given timeframe for terminations with cause and they didn't provide it, the case seems pretty open and shut

Said by someone who clearly isn’t a lawyer. A complaint is meant to be a persuasive document. It highlights elements of the story that are favorable to the plaintiff and omits or shades over things that are unfavorable. Without knowing the legal standard of proof required and seeing the defendant’s response, there is absolutely no way to tell that a case is “open and shut”. Just the fact that Peloton hasn’t settled with him indicates to me that there is a significant amount that he is leaving out.

Not saying that Peloton is right or that they come out looking great in all this. But the bottom line is that they wouldn’t fire a popular instructor several months after he came back from short term disability and who was actively teaching classes unless there was something else that happened.

Not a lawyer, but I thought settling was done for PR purposes and to keep the mess in-house? Even if you're egregiously wrong, it's easier to pay you to go away than to let this play out in the court of public opinion. And they may still settle before the case goes to trial.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. 100 percent they will settle before this case goes to trial. But settling before the complaint is even filed is a risk calculation that the lawyers do depending (ideally) on the nuisance value of the lawsuit and how much the company has to throw at the plaintiff if a lawsuit plays out in public. If he was a saint and the company screwed up, then the settlement money should have been sufficient to keep him from filing. So logically, they have something in their pocket that they have to defend themselves with. I mean, if they have good lawyers — maybe they don’t.

Interesting, so you think a demand letter was sent beforehand and he rejected it? I don't think the severance is a settlement, since they gave him 6 months and he theoretically can't work for the remaining 12.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope he wins. There’s two sides to every story of course, but the complaint puts Jen Cotter in a very bad light.

This is a complaint. You haven’t seen the response yet! Way too early to decide.

If the employment agreement required written justification within a given timeframe for terminations with cause and they didn't provide it, the case seems pretty open and shut

Said by someone who clearly isn’t a lawyer. A complaint is meant to be a persuasive document. It highlights elements of the story that are favorable to the plaintiff and omits or shades over things that are unfavorable. Without knowing the legal standard of proof required and seeing the defendant’s response, there is absolutely no way to tell that a case is “open and shut”. Just the fact that Peloton hasn’t settled with him indicates to me that there is a significant amount that he is leaving out.

Not saying that Peloton is right or that they come out looking great in all this. But the bottom line is that they wouldn’t fire a popular instructor several months after he came back from short term disability and who was actively teaching classes unless there was something else that happened.

Not a lawyer, but I thought settling was done for PR purposes and to keep the mess in-house? Even if you're egregiously wrong, it's easier to pay you to go away than to let this play out in the court of public opinion. And they may still settle before the case goes to trial.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. 100 percent they will settle before this case goes to trial. But settling before the complaint is even filed is a risk calculation that the lawyers do depending (ideally) on the nuisance value of the lawsuit and how much the company has to throw at the plaintiff if a lawsuit plays out in public. If he was a saint and the company screwed up, then the settlement money should have been sufficient to keep him from filing. So logically, they have something in their pocket that they have to defend themselves with. I mean, if they have good lawyers — maybe they don’t.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope he wins. There’s two sides to every story of course, but the complaint puts Jen Cotter in a very bad light.

This is a complaint. You haven’t seen the response yet! Way too early to decide.

If the employment agreement required written justification within a given timeframe for terminations with cause and they didn't provide it, the case seems pretty open and shut

Said by someone who clearly isn’t a lawyer. A complaint is meant to be a persuasive document. It highlights elements of the story that are favorable to the plaintiff and omits or shades over things that are unfavorable. Without knowing the legal standard of proof required and seeing the defendant’s response, there is absolutely no way to tell that a case is “open and shut”. Just the fact that Peloton hasn’t settled with him indicates to me that there is a significant amount that he is leaving out.

Not saying that Peloton is right or that they come out looking great in all this. But the bottom line is that they wouldn’t fire a popular instructor several months after he came back from short term disability and who was actively teaching classes unless there was something else that happened.

Not a lawyer, but I thought settling was done for PR purposes and to keep the mess in-house? Even if you're egregiously wrong, it's easier to pay you to go away than to let this play out in the court of public opinion. And they may still settle before the case goes to trial.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope he wins. There’s two sides to every story of course, but the complaint puts Jen Cotter in a very bad light.

This is a complaint. You haven’t seen the response yet! Way too early to decide.

If the employment agreement required written justification within a given timeframe for terminations with cause and they didn't provide it, the case seems pretty open and shut

Said by someone who clearly isn’t a lawyer. A complaint is meant to be a persuasive document. It highlights elements of the story that are favorable to the plaintiff and omits or shades over things that are unfavorable. Without knowing the legal standard of proof required and seeing the defendant’s response, there is absolutely no way to tell that a case is “open and shut”. Just the fact that Peloton hasn’t settled with him indicates to me that there is a significant amount that he is leaving out.

Not saying that Peloton is right or that they come out looking great in all this. But the bottom line is that they wouldn’t fire a popular instructor several months after he came back from short term disability and who was actively teaching classes unless there was something else that happened.

While I think these instructors are pretty much priceless as I love Peloton, I have an issue with the company raising the price of their equipment (price increased on the tread by nearly $1k) and their membership (now it's $40+) when their instructors are making 7 figures. It's clearly not sustainable. I get it--they're basically fitness celebrities, but it doesn't seem to be working for their business model.
The Daniel suit does seem to expose a lot about the company--will be curious to see how Peloton responds. Clearly their PR is lacking--they should have been ahead of this. Instead, the instructors are posting IGs touting the company and doing their own PR. kind of weird for a major company.

^ my bad, I meant SEVEN figure

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe he was making $260k a year and he wasn't even one of the star instructors. Cody must be raking it in if that's the case. I'm a huge Peloton fan and love the instructors, but Cody and Robin which are their two most popular bike instructors teach maybe 2-3 classes a week at the most. They're probably making twice what Daniel was making. . This is Peloton's main problem. Those salaries are way over inflated.

I remember reading that Robin and Cody, as OGs and VPs, make six figures! Crazy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope he wins. There’s two sides to every story of course, but the complaint puts Jen Cotter in a very bad light.

This is a complaint. You haven’t seen the response yet! Way too early to decide.

If the employment agreement required written justification within a given timeframe for terminations with cause and they didn't provide it, the case seems pretty open and shut

I think they try to keep the class count low for any particular instructor to keep variety in the library and to avoid injury. They have to program each class, pick the music, set up SM posts to promote it, then they engage with fans after for pictures, then they often do a IG live afterwards, the re-post IG posts from fans about the class - the level of engagement is insane. But people seem to love that aspect so it continues.

Anonymous wrote:Hope he wins. There’s two sides to every story of course, but the complaint puts Jen Cotter in a very bad light.

This is a complaint. You haven’t seen the response yet! Way too early to decide.

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe he was making $260k a year and he wasn't even one of the star instructors. Cody must be raking it in if that's the case. I'm a huge Peloton fan and love the instructors, but Cody and Robin which are their two most popular bike instructors teach maybe 2-3 classes a week at the most. They're probably making twice what Daniel was making. . This is Peloton's main problem. Those salaries are way over inflated.

This is a crazy take. Think about Peloton's business model - they're a gym that is scaled infinitely using tech. In any given Cody class there may be 50,000 riders. In order to have that many members working out in a typical gym, they'd need tens of thousands of gyms, instructors, front desk managers, janitors, etc. Instead they have millions of members and fewer than 50 instructors, total.

Peloton may have business model problems but the issue is not spending too much on instructor salaries. They are spending an infinitesimal fraction of money on instructor salaries and overhead compared to their competitors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well he’s filing a law suit .. to be continued: https://apple.news/A7EJRMsCFQo-g9d2pv1-t8g

This should get interesting!

Here is the complaint. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23130609-peloton-suit

So fired for unknown cause, and then held to a non-compete agreement that doesn’t let him work in the fitness industry. Interesting. I hope he wins. Non-compete clauses for fitness trainers are ridiculous.

Non-compete clauses for any industry are rarely enforceable. There are many states where they are categorically illegal.