Gwyneth Paltrow x Laura Modi: Evolving the Baby Formula Industry

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0:48When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do? Yeah. Did you hear about that? I didn't find the one. I found someone I respected and we made it the one. In a sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the Goop Podcast.

1:27bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders, and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers, and seekers. Here to start conversations, because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. My guest today is Laura Modi. Laura is the CEO and co-founder of Bobbi, the first woman-owned organic infant formula brand in the U.S. Before starting Bobby, Laura was an executive at Airbnb and before that she was at Google. Today, I was curious to learn more about her trajectory and the moment that spurred the investigation that led her to Bobby.

2:08There's so much that I respect and admire about Laura as a business person and how she's disrupting the stigma in our culture around how people feed their babies. And beyond that, her work is recalibrating more broadly how we think about and value motherhood. I'll also say, unrelated to motherhood, that if you were trying to evolve in any kind of longstanding industry, Laura's insights are invaluable. So let's get to Laura Modi.

2:36I'm just going to start off by saying, well, you know how much I love you as a person and how much I respect you as a businesswoman. And I think you know philosophically how much I revere iconoclasts, women in business who come in to disrupt an existing paradigm in the cause for good. And that's exactly what you did with Bobby. I think you're also rebranding and recalibrating our ideas around breastfeeding versus bottle feeding. And I want to talk to you about so many aspects of what you've been able to do, but I just want to say you are such a baller. I can't even tell you how much that means from also such an incredible business leader, challenging everything.

3:21Thank you. This is like for the betterment of our culture and how mothers support one another and baby's health and everything. And I'm going to get into all of that. You know what I want to start with? I realized I don't know much about the little Laura Modi in Ireland. Will you tell me about where in Ireland were you born? Where did you grow up? Yeah. How did you end up getting into technology? Tell me about a little bit about your origin story. So I grew up in the West of Ireland and if anyone's been in the West of Ireland, it is literally one of the most remote cultures in the world. It's an adorable town, probably one of the bigger towns in the west of Ireland.

4:02We actually won the tidiest town in the country for about three years in a row. And it's my claim to fame when people are traveling around to go visit Westport, if anyone's listening. And I grew up there as the eldest of five in a very entrepreneurial family. My dad is second generation manufacturing business, actually. So we are the largest producers of PPE clothing. Very, very sexy stuff, hard hats and gloves and masks and all of those things. Never a dream to get into, to be honest. It was like growing up, I got to watch what it meant to be an entrepreneur. I was inspired by the growth of the company and a family business, but getting into construction clothing was, you know, not top of the list.

4:54did your dad want you to oh my god of course he did like of course there was way too many interventions in my life where I felt this is my destiny this is where I'll end up but I also remember one of the things that he felt very strongly about was that we got real world experience and especially out there in industries that were evolving and changing and being able to bring that experience back to the family business. And tech, you know, tech 20 plus years ago was just, that was the thing that was new and hot on everyone's mind. If you were leaving college, you wanted to join a tech startup, a tech company.

5:35But you went to Dublin School of Technology, right? I did. I did. So I went to DIT and it was real. It was just business and technology, straight up business. I studied accounting and marketing, and it was all taking into the future world of just technology and what that looked like. And like, even basic things at the time, it was like, what will the internet do for business? At the time, Dublin actually was becoming a hub for a lot of big tech companies for all different reasons. But anyone from the tech space knows that if you were setting up a European headquarters, you were doing it in Dublin.

6:12And Google was one of the first big companies there. And I decided to throw my hat in the ring and see if I could get a job at Google. And I did. Just right out of college? Right out of college. It was a dream. And I was working there directly in Dublin. And I thought, you know what, let me just try my hand and see if I can get a job out in California. And again, this is like a good Irish Hail Mary. Let's see what happens. So I applied and I got like a product ops role out in Silicon Valley. I'd never been to California before. I never forget telling my parents and I think everyone's just blown away.

6:49They were like, wow, she's packing her bags. That's it. So are you really close to them? Very close. Very close. And close to your siblings? Extremely. so much so I can't imagine not having as many children as what I grew up with like with my siblings so yes we're very close it's a very close family my dad was one of 13 children which Irish Catholic side of him it's no surprise and in the small town that we grew up most of them are still there and they all had four or five children okay so can you find yourself out in Silicon Valley. You're how old? No, 21, 22. Okay. Just on the cusp of turning 22.

7:35And I was just living the California dream. I thought I'm going to be here for one year. I'm going to soak up the sun, even though my skin can't take it. And I had all of these hopes and dreams for what it would look like. And what I didn't fully realize was that I would become besotted with tech and startup life and the fast growth scaling and just the energy of Silicon Valley back in 07. Like it was just a turning point. Like my energy level, just, I just couldn't imagine being anywhere else. It was incredible. Every second person you would meet would have these big hopes and dreams in life that I'd never heard anyone express.

8:19and there was just so much optimism and hope and not saying it's gone but it was something I just hadn't been fully used to and seeing and everyone who worked at Google was just they were inspiring and they're all starting their own companies and they had these projects that you wanted to be part of so I got the bug I got the real Silicon Valley tech startup growth bug and I think it just became clear I wasn't going to leave anytime soon. And so you were there for how many years before you got lured? Four years. I was there for four years. And I stumbled upon a little company while I was there called Airbed and Breakfast.

9:01I had a friend tell me that I should go stay at an Airbed and Breakfast in New York when I was traveling for work because I couldn't get a hotel. Everything was booked up. and I was like what is this air bed and breakfast situation I book a two-bed apartment in Soho and my mind was blown especially coming from the world of like hospitality in Ireland and just being bees as part of our culture I was like are you effing kidding me I can book someone's apartment stay in a stranger's apartment and have my own place I had two friends fly over from Dublin we had the most glorious week I went into work in the Google offices and I would come home to our Soho apartment and they were there and we would cook dinner together.

9:44And I left that work trip and I was like, I have to work for this company. Wow. So I reached out to one of the founders and this was in which one 11 Joe who has the most amazing things to say about you. I just had dinner with him. Stop. You did not. I did. Oh, he said when you left, it was like heartbreaking. It was a big loss the day you left. Oh my God. I'm going to cry. It was really sweet. He is. Just the heart and soul of everything about that company. And just what an incredible leader. They built something extremely special and they are all incredible leaders. I mean, what I've learned from Brian, Joe, Nate, and just watching what they've done to build an iconic brand and legacy, like true legacy.

10:28Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's incredible. So I joined and I remember joining and I called my parents. but yeah obviously we just talked about how much respect I have and we have for each other I was like so I'm leaving Google and I'm joining this company called Airbed and Breakfast my dad was like Laura I know you got the bug I know you love everything you know this whole like entrepreneur spirit in you I was like but really to start a B &B you're leaving Google and they just couldn't rack their head around leaving this big tech company like Google and joining at the time there was a lot of controversy as well around Airbnb in the news of just like some issues they needed to deal with and I was just so convinced that they would come out of it and they did so at Goop we believe the spaces we spend time in shape how we feel and how we connect that's why we're drawn to Convene a global hospitality brand reimagining work in meeting spaces centered around design and care.

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12:15Convene for the moments that move your business. It's funny. There's this pattern around businesses that are disrupting incumbent systems, getting a lot of shit, right? It's a pattern recognition that I certainly notice. And Airbnb was no stranger to it either. I mean, it's amazing, but they push through and now they're super established. But it is wild. Like any disruptor has to put up with a world of shit as you did when you started. So, okay. So tell us about that beautiful, horrible, sad, wonderful aha moment you had. I know. It's also funny. People are like, okay, tech. Yeah. Your journey, it all sounds normal.

13:01And then, whoa, powdered milk. What a shift. Where did your career take that turn? So I became a mother, a first time mother while I was at Airbnb. I also met my husband there and it was wonderful. I, you know, woke up and I still saw myself as this career woman wanting to climb the ladder and balance being a new mother and also being a career woman. But something in me changed when I had her. And a lot of it was due to the fact that I went into motherhood with these grandiose expectations of being able to do things a certain way. And feeding was one of those. I remember to my core, the feeling of I will breastfeed because I am built to do this.

13:46And society tells me that this is what you should do as a woman and as a new mother. And if you don't do it, you're failing your child. No one ever sat me down and said, Hey, by the way, this may not work. And if it doesn't, it's okay. Like there's never an honest conversation about how this might go. And five days into having her, I got mastitis. and you know I've also come to learn that I kind of brought it on myself because of bad latch and I didn't get the education I needed and all the support and all of that I remember going to see a lactation consultant trying to get help to feed and she saw my nipples and she's like oh they're ugly because they were bleeding and they were and they were infected because that's what mastitis is they were infected and I can't even tell you how badly those words played on me And, you know, I knew like it was such a balance.

14:38And I've also come to learn that they were not trying to make me feel bad. They were trying to make me realize that we can get past this and like we can make them look better. But like there was just certain things in the moment. I was like, this isn't landing for me. I'm really struggling. Yeah. And I had to go to a pharmacy to supplement my inability to feed her. And I remember going, it was quite late at night and I'm in a pharmacy. and you're walking past diapers and I'm now standing here as a new mother with five day olds asking you to unlock this powdered milk and I just felt guilty and embarrassed and all of the emotions anyway led to what we all know today which is just the inspiration to do something about it yeah yeah and the shame piece is it's incredible how pervasive that is in our culture like us, you know, judging other mothers for how they're feeding and the choices that they're making.

15:38I do think we're making progress there. And I think actually you've had a big hand in shifting perceptions around that. And, you know, I always am sort of fascinated by the degree to which we want to judge other women and judge other mothers for how they choose to do things. Like it's so deep in us. I don't know why it exists to that degree. We all think we have the right answer. And it's, it's never our first instinct to say, wow, I just respect so much that this woman is doing it her way. And I'm still guilty. And I catch myself. Why do you think we bring so much judgment? So I spent a lot of time kind of studying the psychology of all of this, because it plays so much into the narrative and how do you change a conversation?

16:30And a few things that really jump out is that as humans and especially parents, you are wired to want to share feedback and advice and help to people because if it worked for you, you believe it's going to work for everyone else. Right. And I think in the more kind of benefit of the doubt approach, we're all conditioned to want to be able to share what worked for us and the desire to help someone else. And that's kind of the hopeful side and why we end up doing that as humans. The positive light. The positive angle of it. Yeah. And then unfortunately, some of the negative side associated with specifically how you choose to feed your baby, sadly has just been a condition over decades of changing narrative, science not evolving with these products to be able to meet where we're at.

17:31And a lot of, in many ways, kind of corrupt practices of predatory historical formula companies. And I think that's been a little bit of the challenge as well I've had in this space is I fundamentally believe that women need more choices, that moms and parents need more choices. I mean, we know it. 83 % will need to turn the formula. But the predatory practices of historical formula companies has unfortunately not opened any doors for people to want to come in and do it differently. It's daunting. So we are dealing with just decades of perception and conditioning for how people perceive formula.

18:13And we're trying to change that. So you're changing it by making such a better product. I mean, you know, and this is what's so, one of the many beautiful things about what you've done is if a product is beautiful and healthy and organic, and it's got your DHEAs and your whey protein and all your good stuff that you've put in there. and it, the actual product is beautiful, nutrient dense, safe, healthy food for an infant, then you can change the culture on it because the product itself is nothing to judge. Oh, when it's so beautifully said, that's exactly it. And it has to start with that. I mean, it has to start with the product just being something that you can stand by.

18:57And in our situation, it's something you would feed your own baby. Exactly. I was able to develop this product and then went on to have two more babies. And I will stand behind it any day. And a part of this is we built a company of people, of scientists, of marketers, of operators who all feed their babies this product and have developed it because that's what they want. And this is what babies deserve. I mean, the best milk and the best nutrients should be what they get. It's shocking to think the same formula that I went to go buy my child was exactly the same formula that my mom was probably buying me almost 40 years ago.

19:38And to think that in decades of science evolving and also understanding more about nutrients and organics has grown in the last 40 years that we haven't really seen one of the most important products, which is a baby's first food actually evolved to catch up with it. Right. So you, you had the idea in that moment to say like, I, were you looking at the ingredients panel going, I want something better to put in this baby girl. So funny. Everyone's always like, so then you left the pharmacy and you started Bobby. I'm like, eh, not quite. I was postpartum emotional state. And yes, I think I was staring at the ingredients going, what the hell is a nucleotide?

20:19And I needed to look these things up. And then why is the first ingredient corn syrup? Maybe there's something I'm missing here. I know. And it's still organic. Like, so that's unusual. So then you're just dealing with this conflict of not feeling good about the products you're giving her. So I went on, and I know you do this as well, which is, I just went on a research rabbit hole. Like I almost became my own mini PhD for like the next six months and studying everything about the ingredients, the industry, why it is the way it is. why do only two companies own the whole market why have we not seen these ingredients evolve are the fda approval process and how that gets in the way and the research project just pulls me into an understanding that there actually is better out there in the world actually going back to my roots i watched my sibling after my sister and i watched my cousins feed their babies products that they were proud of in Europe.

21:24Yeah. It's like, huh, you guys openly talk about it. You're proud of the formula you feed them. I was like, but why is it that we don't feel that here in the U S and as I dug into the product quality and what it meant to evolve the nutritional standards, the European commission was just a better example for it. And across the board, You see it in so many other products. You do. So the last time the EU updated their nutritional standards was in 2019 to meet the latest science in comparison to the FDA, which was in the early 80s. So how would you kind of characterize and articulate the difference between a European formula and a standard American baby formula?

22:09It starts with the recipe and then it's the ingredients. But from a recipe standpoint, the nutritional values are at certain levels that meet the latest science. And that doesn't always mean that they're higher. Sometimes in some cases, it means that they're lower. For example, the guardrails for iron is lower in Europe because science has shown that a baby of a certain size mixed with all of these other nutrients should be careful not to consume too much iron. But there's some really interesting narratives out there where people just feel like more is better. you need more yeah that's one example dha it's my nutrient of choice like this is so so so important when you dig into the science there is a minimum requirement in europe to have 20 milligrams per dha no infant formula company here in the u.s meets that bar well one does which is and it was very important i wanted to meet the european nutritional standards and still challenge the status quo and be able to say, how do we continue to evolve this?

23:16So we are the only formula company that meets the recipe nutrient requirements set by Europe. And no other formula here in the US would pass that bar. Now, the other one is just ingredients. If the majority of the product is going to be milk, why make it conventional? Choose grass-fed organic milk. Look at the practices by which the supply chain exists. this small batch farming. And this was really, really important to look at the entire supply chain and not just come forward and say, just because it needs milk, let's go down this path. That comes with some cost trade-offs, but I will do it any day for quality.

23:54Absolutely. Absolutely. It's so amazing. So I remember when you were telling me the story about when the FDA raided your facility. I love these snafus we get into as early on. And now your product is FDA approved, which to a layman, this is not my area. Like it seems like an unbelievable feat. Will you educate me a little bit about what that process is like? You know, it's hard. It's hard. And maybe this is also just my personality. It's not impossible. You know, it's, I think it's been hard because it's been so guarded and it requires a lot of capital and it requires a lot of time. And honestly, it requires just a lot of smarts to figure out like the different steps involved to be able to get it done.

24:45What are the protein efficiency ratio studies you need to be doing on your product to make sure it meets the protein efficiency? How do you do shelf stable testing and for how long and what are all the things that you're testing for? What are the 2000 safety checks you need to go through? And maybe it's also just how I approach life. But like, once you kind of lay it all down and you create a clear plan, it's just a checklist you need to work through one by one. Validate to the FDA that this product meets the requirements that a baby needs to be able to grow and develop. And that's essentially the submission you need to make right and all that said it took years and a lot of capital and thank god I was having babies during that time because it just kept a distraction going as well but yeah this was we went through that process after having a little bit of a back and forth I don't want to say a fight but you know some disagreements with the FDA and that journey which I now call our heroin journey with the FDA was just an eye opener that when you enter a regulated space, like infant formula, which should be regulated, it's also really, really important that you work with the key stakeholders in the space.

26:05And the FDA is one of them to really make sure that if you're going to evolve the industry, you figure out how to do that together. Being defiant or trying to do things you don't like, yeah, it's finding the partnership may feel longer, but it's definitely the right approach. Yeah. But it's sort of the, you know, the Gandhi way, like peacefully.

26:30Did you have a lot of pushback? I mean, just in general, I mean, the, were the incumbents threatened by your new formulation? Like, how has that been? How has this disruption and education piece gone in terms of like the existing players yeah players you know I think oh my god now I'm totally blanking what the quote is like you know first they laugh at you or first they then they laugh at you and I I feel like that's been a little bit of our journey and in many ways I think anyone coming into an existing established industry that hasn't been changed in decades. And maybe I liken this to Airbnb too.

27:15People see you coming, you're making a little bit of noise in the press, your product's getting some attention, but there's a lot of ignoring because it's a distraction that I don't think many people want to take on. And only in the last year or two, do I think we've gotten to a place where I think we've gotten the level of attention where maybe the incumbents are saying, you know what, if we also want to keep up, then we also need to start changing our product. And we need to meet some of these standards because the reality is our growth and our velocity is the highest seen in the history of formulas.

27:48So I do think some attention is also being seen right now, but it's taken some time. Did you feel, you know, like at any point, like, wow, this is a lot of, a lot of flack I'm getting or a lot of pushback. pushback yes so much I think it might surprise maybe it doesn't surprise anyone it's funny how much pushback I even got from total strangers when I say that like I received hate mail for being in the formula industry at all wow why just I remember the first kind of like round of press that was got and it makes me proud now because I just think about how much the industry has evolved where we can talk about formula so openly but even six years ago talking about infant formula and talking about like dedicating your your life to evolving this industry if you come in with a mindset that mothers should be breastfeeding and that there's no room for alternatives and this not should be something that we should be putting on a pedestal or glorifying.

29:02It got some pushback and I still do. I receive it all the time. We push some materials out and there's a lot of opinions that come my way. But what about, you know, surrogacy or same sex couples? I mean, there, there are cases where, where when breastfeeding doesn't work, like, what are you supposed to do? not feed your child. I know. And you know, I not speaking for others out there, but I think they could point to other solutions, donor milk, other ways to try and make it work. And this is where I think the bigger mission that we have ahead of us is culture change. It's not just about the milk.

29:41I am so proud of the product that we've put out and the fact that we can feed hundreds of thousands of babies, something quality, but to be able to look back in a few years and go, it's not stigmatized and how you choose to feed your baby that conversation is not even on the table anymore because it's just about feeding your baby the best you can give them for whatever's right for you yeah the culture so much more as well than just the culture side of it it's the government has major oversight on this right now 50 percent of babies that are born in this country are on essentially women, infant, and children food programs.