Cycling is not wanting for characters, and one of the more entertaining is John Burke, CEO of Trek, who is our dorky little world\u2019s answer to the high-powered \u201cWalk with me, talk with me\u201d corporate archetype<\/a>:<\/p>\n Unfortunately, like much of the bike industry, Trek is having its share of financial trouble<\/a>, but Burke wants you to understand that\u2019s not what\u2019s important:<\/p>\n \u201cMaking a profit is the lifeblood of a business,\u201d he told me in Las Vegas, backstage at the Great Place to Work For All Summit. \u201cBut the success of the business is not just measured in how much money you make \u2014 it\u2019s in the impact that you make.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Spoken like a guy whose company ain\u2019t making any money!<\/p>\n Burke said he couldn\u2019t speak for other companies, since he\u2019s \u201cbeen playing for the same team for 42 years,\u201d but when he looks out at corporate America, he said, \u201cthere\u2019s been a decay in the purpose of companies over the last 25 years.\u201d And then he got historically minded. \u201cIf you go back, an economist once said that making a profit is the only responsibility of a company \u2026 and that\u2019s not Trek.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n As for Trek\u2019s impact on the the world, if you want to know what that has been you\u2019ll have to wait for the coffee table book:<\/p>\n It\u2019s the kind of story Burke returns to when people ask what Trek\u2019s 50th anniversary is really about. The company is marking the occasion with a coffee-table book cataloging 50 ways it has changed the world and a 43-minute documentary premiering June 18 at the Orpheum Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, with author Jim Collins in attendance. \u201cWhat I\u2019m most proud of at Trek is how we\u2019ve changed the world, not what the financial results have been. When I\u2019m gone, I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s gonna make note of that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I wonder if the book will celebrate the Y-Foil<\/a> or pretend it never existed:<\/p>\n Both scenarios seem equally likely.<\/p>\n Same thing goes for that guy who won-but-didn\u2019t-win the Tour de France seven times.<\/p>\n As for the thing in the headline about Burke hating smartphones, this was apparently born of one of those weird private meetings CEOs have where they summon some brain genius to lecture them about something, after which Burke concluded smartphones were responsible for all the ills of society\u2013which, to be fair, is almost certainly true:<\/p>\n \u201cNow I\u2019m kind of slithering under the table as I blew this guy off,\u201d Burke told me in his typically blunt fashion. But he had a question for Davidson: he asked where mental health in America stood today, on a scale of 100, relative to 1984. Davidson\u2019s answer: 23, down from 100 in 1984. \u201cIt\u2019s in the toilet. Unbelievable.\u201d The culprit, Davidson said, was the phone.<\/em><\/p>\n Out of respect for Burke I\u2019m going to leave the line about him slithering under the table as he blew a guy off alone. I mean we\u2019ve all been there, right? Still, I do find it odd that the CEO of a company that makes bicycles says something like this\u2026<\/p>\n Consider the Masters golf tournament, Burke said, one of the last major public events where phones are banned from the grounds. \u201cWhat\u2019s everybody doing? They have a smile on their face. Nobody\u2019s trying to take a picture of somebody else. No selfies. They\u2019re talking to each other.\u201d He estimated the happiness level is three times what it is at a comparable phone-permitted event. \u201cIt\u2019s the greatest experiment in the world.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026yet doesn\u2019t make the connection between smartphone overdependence and bikes like his own company\u2019s $14,999.99 Supercaliber<\/a>:<\/p>\n Which is equipped with all the latest electronic components from SRAM, including their Flight Attendant suspension system<\/a> (which I tried back in 2021<\/a>):<\/p>\n Care to guess which now-ubiquitous happiness-eroding device you\u2019ll need to tune all this stuff? Hint: it ain\u2019t a multitool, and you\u2019re not allowed to use it at the Masters Tournament:<\/p>\n Though in his defense, once it is tuned the algorithm will take it from there:<\/p>\n All of this does lead me to wonder if perhaps Burke secretly understands that the reason people watching the Masters Tournament are so happy has less to do with the fact that they don\u2019t have access to their smartphones and more to do with the following two factors:<\/p>\n The platitude about money not buying happiness notwithstanding, when you\u2019re engaged in recreation and you\u2019ve got money in the bank you\u2019re generally in a pretty good mood. Next time you\u2019re out for a ride on a beautiful day take a life satisfaction poll of of people on bikes that cost $15,000 and above. Not only do I suspect the numbers will be better than average, but I bet more than a few of them were at the Masters.<\/p>\n Plus, you might even make a new friend, and friends are important:<\/p>\n On trade and geopolitics, Burke was equally unsparing. Trek manufactures globally and has navigated years of tariff disruptions, but it framed America\u2019s current isolation as something deeper than a supply chain headache. \u201cTo accomplish things in life, you need to have friends. To accomplish things as a country, you need to have friends. And we\u2019ve pissed off just about everybody.\u201d He ticked through the list: Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you why we\u2019re pissed off at Canada,\u201d he said. \u201cI genuinely cannot tell you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Wait.<\/p>\n Seriously?<\/p>\n You can\u2019t tell why we\u2019re pissed off at Canada<\/em>!?!<\/p>\n It\u2019s called CLOYING SMUGNESS, Burke!<\/p>\n [Note to Canadians: You don\u2019t need to bother with the patch. If you\u2019ve got a North American accent and you have time to travel across Europe everyone knows there\u2019s a 97% chance you\u2019re Canadian.]<\/p>\n Jeez, read the room!<\/p>\n Hey, I do my best not to assume everyone<\/em> with a maple leaf patch on their backpack is cloyingly smug. After all, you can\u2019t judge a book by it\u2019s cover. Instead you should judge it by the first few words of every paragraph:<\/p>\n Burke said he reads 52 books a year, almost exclusively nonfiction. His reading system, refined over the past four years, is rigorous. He reads the first sentence of every paragraph. If it grabs him, he reads the rest. If it doesn\u2019t, he moves on. \u201cI\u2019ve never read a bad sentence to start a paragraph which turns into a good paragraph,\u201d he said. \u201cDoesn\u2019t happen.\u201d (While this might imply that he\u2019s a skimmer or speed reader, this method suggests that he starts roughly 100 books a year, and only finished around 50.)<\/em><\/p>\n What is wrong with me that I\u2019ve always been content with simply reading, and never felt the need to implement a rigorous system in order to do so, much less refine it over a period of years? <\/p>\n Probably a lot, though it mostly sounds like a way to make both reading and<\/em> riding equally un-fun:<\/p>\n When he finishes a book, he goes back through his underlines and enters only the lessons he wants to carry for the rest of his life into a personal spreadsheet \u2014 now more than 1,100 entries deep. The system was inspired by Jim Collins, who visited Trek in 2018 and suggested writing down one lesson per book. Burke took it further. The impetus was a bike ride with his wife, during which she asked him to summarize the lessons from one of his favorite books, Simon Sinek\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>The Infinite Game. His answer, he recalled, was \u201clame. Really bad retention.\u201d He went home, reread the book, underlined it, and built the spreadsheet.<\/em><\/p>\n That sounds like the worst bookclub ever.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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