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John Burke has run Trek Bicycle for nearly three decades, long enough to have lived through bike booms and busts, a pandemic that briefly made his company one of the hottest businesses in the world, and a post-COVID hangover that has left internal sales dashboards \u201call red\u201d for more than a year and a half. He\u2019s also read enough books \u2014 about 52 a year, every year, meticulously cataloged in a personal spreadsheet of 1,100 lifetime lessons \u2014 to have strong opinions about nearly everything.<\/p>\n
One of the strongest: a company\u2019s legacy is measured by its impact on the world, not its financial returns.<\/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<\/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<\/p>\n
(The actual quote was published in a New York Times op-ed in 1970 as the great University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman wrote: \u201cThere is one and only one social responsibility of business\u2014to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Just consider, Burke said, what Trek has done for women\u2019s cycling. <\/p>\n
The women\u2019s cycling moment<\/p>\n
In 2018, he recalled, someone walked into his office and told him how women\u2019s professional cycling teams were actually treated: flown in the night before races, competing on secondhand bikes, earning almost nothing. Burke vowed to add a full-scale women\u2019s team from that day onward.<\/p>\n
From that day onward, Burke said, Trek treated its women athletes the same as its men \u2014 same bikes, same resources, same investment. The team won nearly everything for three years running. And then, Burke said, something bigger happened: every other major team in professional cycling followed suit. \u201cNo Trek, no change in women\u2019s cycling,\u201d he said flatly. \u201cMilton Friedman wouldn\u2019t have approved that decision. If he was on the board, he would not have approved it.\u201d<\/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<\/p>\n
Riding through the bust<\/p>\n
Trek\u2019s current headwinds are real. After a COVID-era demand explosion that strained supply chains and pushed bikes off shelves faster than they could be built, the market reversed sharply \u2014 and Trek has been working through excess inventory and restructuring pressure ever since. The company, which generates roughly $2 billion in annual revenue and employs more than 5,000 people globally, has faced layoffs and product line reductions as it recalibrates.<\/p>\n
But even in the downturn, Trek has been rapidly moving up the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list \u2014 No. 42 in 2026, up from its first appearance at No. 94 in 2023. (It was actually No. 4 on the best places to work in retail.)<\/p>\n
Burke said he sees the two things as connected rather than contradictory. The survey, he told Great Place to Work CEO Michael C. Bush, \u201cis the centerpiece of how we run HR.\u201d And the best time to take its temperature, he argued, is when things aren\u2019t going well.<\/p>\n
Gen Z doesn\u2019t exist<\/p>\n
Burke\u2019s contrarianism extends well beyond corporate purpose. When asked what advice he would give to Gen Z workers, he nearly exploded. Burke is a no-nonsense Midwesterner, and he insisted that work has always been work, just like when he got his first job, diving ponds at a Wisconsin golf course to pick balls up off the soggy bottom. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as Gen Z,\u201d he told me. \u201cAll this generational stuff is overblown. If you go back and study the last 100 years of what\u2019s made successful people, it\u2019s all the same.\u201d He recalled being in Germany in the late 1980s as the Berlin Wall fell, listening to older Germans lament that the younger generation was lazy. \u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019re saying today in America, is Gen Z doesn\u2019t work. It\u2019s like, that\u2019s true. People want to be successful at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery generation has probably had its quirks,\u201d he allowed, but people have always had to work hard to get ahead, and that has never changed. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t work today and it didn\u2019t work 20 years ago. It didn\u2019t work 50 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
A late convert to AI<\/p>\n
On artificial intelligence, Burke said he arrived late \u2014 but he\u2019s convinced it\u2019s not hype. For most of the past few years, it felt abstract. His IT director kept telling him something big was coming, but the tangible applications weren\u2019t obvious. Then, about six months ago, something clicked.<\/p>\n
\u201cHoly shit,\u201d is how Burke describes the moment. \u201cLook at what can actually be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he thinks AI\u2019s adoption curve will make the internet and the iPhone look gradual. \u201cThe internet affected business like this,\u201d he said, gesturing slowly. \u201cThe iPhone, maybe a little steeper.\u201d Then his hand shot up. \u201cAI \u2014 I don\u2019t know if society\u2019s ready. But we\u2019re going to find out, because it\u2019s unleashed. And you\u2019re going to know here pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trek, by Burke\u2019s own accounting, is not ready. He placed the company at 13 out of 100 for AI readiness relative to its peers, but his eyes bugged out when I told him that didn\u2019t sound like a good rating. \u201cThirteen is good! It\u2019s a great rating,\u201d Burke said. \u201cOne of the things we do best as a company is take a concept and spread it throughout the company.\u201d He said he\u2019s tried to build a culture at Trek that \u201cconfronts the brutal facts,\u201d moves fast, and always seeks to learn. When people tell him he\u2019s wrong, he said, he gets curious. \u201cI\u2019m more interested in how we improve. I\u2019m not interested in proving that we\u2019re right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burke said his office has two massive whiteboards and he spends his day framing puzzles for himself and his staff, \u201cand getting the smartest people in the company to solve the puzzles. That\u2019s how I spend my time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The phone is the problem<\/p>\n
Burke\u2019s embrace of AI exists in sharp tension with a deep, personal hostility toward smartphones. His conversion on that front came from an unlikely source: a chance meeting with Dr. Richard Davidson, the University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist and founder of the Healthy Minds Center, who has spent decades studying mental health and the meaning of happiness. Burke said he was ashamed because he tried to postpone the meeting, thinking he was too busy. His assistant overruled him. \u201cShe goes, \u2018You know, that meeting with Dr. Richie is Wednesday, and you will be there.’\u201d<\/p>\n
As he got to know Davidson, he learned of a remarkable life story: graduating from high school at 14, then NYU at 16, then a PhD from Harvard by 21 years old, and a later meeting with the Dalai Lama, who told him, \u201cRichie, your mission in life is to bring joy to the world.\u201d<\/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.<\/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<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019ve Pissed Off Just About Everybody\u2019<\/p>\n
Burke is not a politician and does not want to be one. He served on the President\u2019s Council on Physical Fitness under George W. Bush and has written three books about American civic life, but describes himself as neither Republican nor Democrat. What he is, unmistakably, is frustrated.<\/p>\n
The $39 trillion national debt strikes him as a moral failure as much as a fiscal one. \u201cSomebody\u2019s all proud they just came out with a $1.5 trillion defense budget,\u201d he said. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be proud. You should be embarrassed. We can\u2019t afford a $1.5 trillion [budget]. Why not make it two-and-a-half [trillion dollars]? Well, you can\u2019t make it two-and-a-half because you can\u2019t afford it \u2026 the answer is no. We\u2019re 5% of the world\u2019s population, and we spend 38% of the world\u2019s defense dollars. It makes no sense.\u201d<\/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<\/p>\n
The root problem, in his view, is a leadership class that has confused self-preservation with public service. \u201cWe elect leaders whose primary motivation is not the success of the United States \u2014 it\u2019s to perpetuate their own jobs. And it\u2019s embarrassing. It is absolutely embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n
52 books, 1,100 lessons<\/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.)<\/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\u00a0The Infinite Game. His answer, he recalled, was \u201clame. Really bad retention.\u201d He went home, reread the book, underlined it, and built the spreadsheet.<\/p>\n
Current reading:\u00a0The Algorithm, about a former Elon Musk lieutenant now on the board of General Motors, focused on simplification and speed \u2014 themes Burke is applying directly to Trek\u2019s supply chain overhaul, which benchmarks Toyota and aims to triple the company\u2019s operational efficiency score by 2028.<\/p>\n
Still learning, still moving<\/p>\n
For all his impatience with American institutions \u2014 corporate, political, technological \u2014 Burke\u2019s worldview is ultimately an optimistic one, grounded less in ideology than in a belief that self-improvement is always available to anyone willing to do the work. <\/p>\n
At Trek, he said, the lesson applies to the company as much as any individual in it: focus on what you can control, confront the brutal facts, and keep moving. \u201c85% of the opportunities in the business,\u201d he said, citing\u00a0The Founder\u2019s Mentality, \u201care within their four walls. And sometimes you get a lot of people who want to look out the window instead of looking in the mirror, 85% of the opportunities in the business are looking in the mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Trek #Bicycles #CEO #reads #books #year #hates #smartphones #Milton #Friedman #wrong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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