Theusualsuspectstoppedthelistof
thebest-paidexecutivesintheU.S.pub-
lishedbyBloombergNewsinJuly.No. 1
wasTeslaInc.’sElonMusk,witha 2019
paydayofnearly$600million,followed
byAppleInc.’sTimCookat$134million.
Thetop 10 alsoincludedbossesatIntel,
Alphabet,andBlackstoneGroup.
Thelistdidcontainonesurprise:At
No.5 stoodoneSumitSingh,chiefexec-
utiveofficerofChewyInc.,anonline
retaileroffood,toys,apparel,andmed-
icineforpets.SinghjoinedChewyin
2017,waselevatedtoCEOafterseven
months,andin2019,hisfirstfullyear
onthejob,earned$108.2millioninsal-
ary,bonus,andstockgrants.Thatsum
wasevenmoreremarkablegiventhat
Chewy,innineyearsofexistence,has
yettoposta profitablequarter.
ButSingh’shaulisanotherindica-
tor,amongmany,ofthecompany’srise
asa forceine-commerce.Inthefiscal
yearendedFeb.2,it soldproductsto
13.5millioncustomers,up27%forthe
year,whilerevenuejumped 37%to
$4.9billion.Thencamethecoronavirus,
andthingsforChewygotevenbetter.
About two-thirds of U.S. house-
holdshavepets,andtheircoddling
owners—“pet parents,” as Chewy calls
them—will spend a record $99 billion
on them this year, according to the
American Pet Products Association.
With these pet moms and pet dads
avoiding walk-in stores and animal
adoptions soaring in many places,
Chewy’s business has boomed. From
February to July, the company added
more customers than in all of fiscal- Its shares, which traded at about
$30 early this year, shot up to $72 in
October, valuing Chewy at almost
$30 billion.
Even the most lovable pet can soil
the carpet, though, and there’s been a
whiff of unpleasantness at Chewy. Since
PetSmart Inc. bought it for $3.35 billion
in 2017, the founders and several exec-
utives have departed, partly over dis-
agreements about Chewy’s culture and
direction. A last-minute rewrite of pre-
IPO equity awards rankled some at the
company, who griped that Singh didn’t
deserve to stand with Musk and Cook.
In some ways,
Chewyis reminiscent
ofa youngAmazon
.com Inc., with a fero-
cious focus on long-
term growth at the
expense of short-
term profits. “To me,
the story of Chewy is
one of taking a beau-
tiful startup and scal-
ing it to become a
world-class institu-
tion,” says Singh,
himself an Amazon
alumnus. “I believe
thatwehavea clear
pathtoprofitability
inthenot-so-distant
future. So we’re
building something
amazing here.”The New York Stock
Exchange opening
bell rattled Theo,
the white labradoo-
dle reluctantly occu-
pying the exchange’s
famous podium on June 14, 2019. A
Chewy executive cradled the dog and
patted him on the back. The company’s
shares were about to start trading. Singh
beamed as he clanged the bell.
Watching from the exchange floor
were Ryan Cohen and Michael Day,
friends who co-founded Chewy in a
dingy North Miami Beach office in 2011.
The night before the IPO, Cohen had
sat on the street outside the exchange,
talking on the phone with his father
and weeping about his baby becom-
ing such a success. Neither he nor
Day were with the company or owned
a single share anymore. “It was sur-
real,” Cohen recalls. “It really was the
American dream.”
Ten years ago, he and Day were
twentysomethings with a knack
for writing code and using Google
AdWords to sell stuff. They’d met in
a chatroom and decided to start an
e-commerce business. Teaming up
with Alan Attal, a friend of Cohen’s,
they settled on jewelry.Then, shortly before the launch,
Cohen had an epiphany while shop-
ping for his teacup poodle, Tylee,
at his neighborhood pet store: They
should ditch jewelry and start a pet food
retailer that could marry low prices
and fast shipping with the expert ser-
vice offered in a local shop. Attal, who
had a Chihuahua named Ruby, and Day
concurred. In June 2011, they launched
Chewy, a name Cohen had tested on pet
owners in a PetSmart parking lot. Their
inspiration and primary rival were one
and the same: Amazon.
Skeptics asked whether Chewy wasn’t
just another Pets.com, the doomed
startup that went public in early 2000
andshutdownbeforetheyearwasout.
Butby 2011 onlineshoppinghadbecome
partofeveryday American life. There
were plug-and-play options for ware-
housing,shipping,andcloudcomputing.
U.S.householdswerespendingmoreon
higher-qualityfoodandveterinary vis-
its for their pets, which they increasingly
considered part of the family.46
Bloomberg Businessweek November 23, 2020D with Singh