Gwyneth Paltrow Is All Business

Gwyneth Paltrow, the chief executive officer of Goop.CreditCreditErik Tanner for The New York TimesSupported byBy David GellesAs an actress, Gwyneth Paltrow was embraced by fans and critics, winning an Oscar for her leading role in “Shakespeare in Love.” As a businesswoman, Ms. Paltrow has received decidedly mixed reviews.Many deride her lifestyle brand, Goop, as little more than an overhyped e-commerce platform peddling pseudoscience and baubles. This abject, sometimes naïve, occasionally stupid amount of self belief.How did your mom feel about you wanting to follow in her footsteps?She always said, “Oh, please don’t be an actress.” She was pleading with me to leverage my intellectual self more than my artistic self, and I think she was just trying to protect me from a lot of rejection. It can be a heartbreaking career.So what was it like trying to get started as an actor?My first purview of management was on set, because — and I think other female actors would agree with me — part of your role is just to sort of maintain culture.What do you mean?We’re female. He was very loved for the most part, and he gave me a template for how one leads, consciously or unconsciously.So what’s the balance that you try to strike as the leader of the company?With every iteration of the company, I have to start completely at square one again.How so?When you’re in the family stage and your company has just nine people or whatever, it’s much different than trying to manage and maintain a culture of 250 people. So unlearning some of the old kind of feminine ways, trying to apply the right kind of masculinity, and seeing if it’s possible to really still lead from that feminine place, is what I think about.What is Goop all about?We want to always be moving culture forward with what we do in the content and in the offerings and also create conversations and forums to help eliminate shame. People were like, “This is insane, you’re crazy.” And now it’s sort of talked about as a thing that people think might be possible for them. Can you explain your thinking here?A lot of people hear, “Hey, you could eat a bit better or exercise a bit more.” But they don’t want to take responsibility for themselves.