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Barry’s ‘cofounder’ unwinds at his own gym—but even he admits balance is elusive: ‘Many days I have to wake up and choose who I’m going to disappoint’

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Being in the C-suite is a high-pressure job with long hours, board responsibilities, and intense scrutiny. But what is it like to be a top executive when you’re off the clock?

Fortune’s series, The Good Life, shows how up-and-coming leaders spend their time and money outside of work.

Today, we meet Joey Gonzalez the executive chairman and “cofounder” of Barry’s.

“Although Barry’s was originally founded by Barry Jay, with help from John Mumford and Rachel Coxton, I am often referred to as a co-founder as I helped scale the business from 2 to 94 units across 16 countries over the past 21 years,” the 47-year-old tells Fortune.

And it all started when, at 26, Gonzalez attended his first Barry’s Bootcamp exercise class in West Hollywood. He recalls quickly falling in love with the brand and becoming “one of its greatest evangelists.”

So much so, that he swiftly quit his pursuit of breaking into the world of entertainment—having performed from the age of 13—to pivot into the fitness world, going from a Barry’s client to one of its instructors. 

But he wanted more. Gonzalez knew the business had potential to scale, and it took him five years to convince the investors to let him buy in: “I invested every dollar I had and dedicated every minute of my life to scaling the business across multiple markets in an effort to prove its portability,” he adds.

At the same time, Gonzalez worked his way up the ranks, from instructor, to manager, to director of operations, to COO. In 2015, 11 years after taking that first class, Gonzalez became Barry’s CEO. In that time, Gonzalez turned Barry’s into a global phenomenon with 94 studios from Wall Street all the way to Dublin and Madrid, with new studios coming to Switzerland, Kuwait, and Greece next.

Now, he’s recently transitioned to executive chairman. But he still does a Barry’s workout when he needs to unwind. And even then, Gonzalez says that striking a good work-life balance can be hit or miss: “Many days I feel like I just have to wake up and choose who I’m going to disappoint.”

The finances

Fortune: What’s been the best investment you’ve ever bought?

I started to invest in real estate at 22 years old. I was able to leverage that income-producing property at around 30 to invest my proportionate share in the first few Barry’s studios. Since then, I’ve made several real estate investments, almost all of which have been very successful.

And the worst?

I once invested in a restaurant concept of which I was very passionate. (A family-friendly Hollywood hotspot with Jessica Biel, called Au Fudge in 2016.) I believed in the brand and the partnership, but think we were a bit ahead of our time conceptually. 

If you have children, what does your childcare arrangements look like? And how much does it cost each month?

My kids are 8 and 9. We haven’t had a nanny for around 3 years. School is in from 8 a.m. until between 4 and 5 p.m. and one of us always manages to do pick up or drop off. I am surrounded by so many people who help: my partner, my mom, my best friend, and more.

What are your living arrangements like: Swanky apartment in the city or suburban sprawling?

I live in Miami on a west-facing house on the water. No matter how crazy a day may be, watching the sunset over the bay seems to bring the blood pressure down and make everything okay. This home is truly what I have dreamed of all my life.

What’s in your wallet?

I never carry cash. Only cards as I use a phone wallet.

What’s the cheapest purchase that’s had the biggest impact on your life?

My food scale, which has been a game changer nutrtionally and helps me get in all the grams of protein!

Do you invest in shares?

I have a diverse portfolio which is managed by a trusted advisor. But the most exciting opportunities for me are finding entrepreneurs and new brands that are looking for investors—most notably ones where I might be able to lend value.

Most often it’s someone I’m introduced to through my network. I put myself out there often, take a lot of meetings, say yes to as many networking engagements as possible, and proactively ask for introductions. One recent investment is YALA, an incredible Greek yoghurt ice cream concept that is the best ice cream I’ve ever had (and cleaner ingredients).

What personal finance advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

Take the big risks.

What’s the one subscription you can’t live without?

Eight Sleep changed my life. Although the cost of the system isn’t cheap (they run at around $2-4k), it’s hard to imagine where you could better spend that money if you have it. I broke it down one day and if you have the mattress for 5 years, it’s like spending $2.70/night for the best sleep of your life. Worth every penny. I’ve finally gotten to a place where I’m able to sleep for 7.5/8 hours, which improves every other part of my life.

The Necessities 

How do you get your daily coffee fix?

I am not a fancy coffee drinker as I’m perfectly happy with my Starbucks Pike Place which I drink both out and brew at home.

What about eating on the go?

I mostly make my own lunch and do meal prep each week. People joke that I eat the same thing every day, but I try and switch it up a bit. I’m honestly not a foodie, so being disciplined around what I eat and when isn’t very challenging.

Where do you buy groceries?

I usually order groceries for delivery either from Publix or Whole Foods. Nothing beats a trip to Costco! And yes, my list is almost always the same: eggs, egg whites, chicken breast, low fat ground turkey, fat free cheese, olive oil, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, oatmeal, monkfruit, sweet potatoes, rice, soy sauce, broccoli, green beans, gluten free pasta, tomato sauce, pink himalayan salt, etc.

How often in a week do you dine out versus cook at home?

I probably eat out around 3-4 times/week if I’m not traveling. Based on how I eat, Mexican and Japanese are my favorite types of places to eat.

What’s a typical work outfit for you?

Obviously athletic wear. Lululemon or Vuori are amongst my favorites.

The Treats  

How do you unwind from the top job?

With a Barry’s class, of course. I actually love to work out 4 to 5 times a week in the mornings. It’s my favorite time of the day. As a family, we actually love going to the movies. I know it’s a dying art, but we are regulars and love the tradition.

What’s your take on work-life balance at the top?

Sometimes I feel like I’m striking a good balance, but many days I feel like I just have to wake up and choose who I’m going to disappoint.

How do you treat yourself when you get a promotion?

I’m more about experiences than things, and my 2 favorite things are travel and massage. A reward for me usually includes one of those two things! Alternatively, nothing screams celebration more than a fun night out with my best friends and family.

How many days annual leave do you take a year?

It’s varied, but anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks in recent years. We actually have more vacations now that we have kids, which parents have appropriately rebranded “trips.” Because a vacation with kids hits much differently. It’s actually harder than going to work in many ways so using the word vacation feels wrong. We have spring, summer, Thanksgiving and holiday breaks—so we end up traveling at least 4 times a year. We recently sold our beach house in Newport Beach, California as we weren’t able to use it as often as when we lived in LA. We like to explore different places now that we aren’t tied down anywhere. My Mom was born and raised in Southern Italy, which ends up being a place we return to often!

Take us on holiday with you, where did you go this year?

We bounced around quite a lot this summer. Starting in Miami, the British Virgin Islands, the Hamptons, Greece, Croatia, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. It was the best summer we’ve ever had together as a family.

Fortune wants to hear from leaders on what their “Good Life” looks like. Get in touch with orianna.royle@fortune.com.



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Senate Dems’ plan to fix Obamacare premiums adds nearly $300 billion to deficit, CRFB says

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December 5, 2025

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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is a nonpartisan watchdog that regularly estimates how much the U.S. Congress is adding to the $38 trillion national debt.

With enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies due to expire within days, some Senate Democrats are scrambling to protect millions of Americans from getting the unpleasant holiday gift of spiking health insurance premiums. The CRFB says there’s just one problem with the plan: It’s not funded.

“With the national debt as large as the economy and interest payments costing $1 trillion annually, it is absurd to suggest adding hundreds of billions more to the debt,” CRFB President Maya MacGuineas wrote in a statement on Friday afternoon.

The proposal, backed by members of the Senate Democratic caucus, would fully extend the enhanced ACA subsidies for three years, from 2026 through 2028, with no additional income limits on who can qualify. Those subsidies, originally boosted during the pandemic and later renewed, were designed to lower premiums and prevent coverage losses for middle‑ and lower‑income households purchasing insurance on the ACA exchanges.

CRFB estimated that even this three‑year extension alone would add roughly $300 billion to federal deficits over the next decade, largely because the federal government would continue to shoulder a larger share of premium costs while enrollment and subsidy amounts remain elevated. If Congress ultimately moves to make the enhanced subsidies permanent—as many advocates have urged—the total cost could swell to nearly $550 billion in additional borrowing over the next decade.

Reversing recent guardrails

MacGuineas called the Senate bill “far worse than even a debt-financed extension” as it would roll back several “program integrity” measures that were enacted as part of a 2025 reconciliation law and were intended to tighten oversight of ACA subsidies. On top of that, it would be funded by borrowing even more. “This is a bad idea made worse,” MacGuineas added.

The watchdog group’s central critique is that the new Senate plan does not attempt to offset its costs through spending cuts or new revenue and, in their view, goes beyond a simple extension by expanding the underlying subsidy structure.

The legislation would permanently repeal restrictions that eliminated subsidies for certain groups enrolling during special enrollment periods and would scrap rules requiring full repayment of excess advance subsidies and stricter verification of eligibility and tax reconciliation. The bill would also nullify portions of a 2025 federal regulation that loosened limits on the actuarial value of exchange plans and altered how subsidies are calculated, effectively reshaping how generous plans can be and how federal support is determined. CRFB warned these reversals would increase costs further while weakening safeguards designed to reduce misuse and error in the subsidy system.

MacGuineas said that any subsidy extension should be paired with broader reforms to curb health spending and reduce overall borrowing. In her view, lawmakers are missing a chance to redesign ACA support in a way that lowers premiums while also improving the long‑term budget outlook.

The debate over ACA subsidies recently contributed to a government funding standoff, and CRFB argued that the new Senate bill reflects a political compromise that prioritizes short‑term relief over long‑term fiscal responsibility.

“After a pointless government shutdown over this issue, it is beyond disappointing that this is the preferred solution to such an important issue,” MacGuineas wrote.

The off-year elections cast the government shutdown and cost-of-living arguments in a different light. Democrats made stunning gains and almost flipped a deep-red district in Tennessee as politicians from the far left and center coalesced around “affordability.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly smelling blood in the water and doubling down on the theme heading into the pivotal midterm elections of 2026. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania soon to discuss pocketbook anxieties. But he is repeating predecessor Joe Biden’s habit of dismissing inflation, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.

“We fixed inflation, and we fixed almost everything,” Trump said in a Tuesday cabinet meeting, in which he also dismissed affordability as a “hoax” pushed by Democrats.​

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now face a politically fraught choice: allow premiums to jump sharply—including in swing states like Pennsylvania where ACA enrollees face double‑digit increases—or pass an expensive subsidy extension that would, as CRFB calculates, explode the deficit without addressing underlying health care costs.



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Netflix–Warner Bros. deal sets up $72 billion antitrust test

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December 5, 2025

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Netflix Inc. has won the heated takeover battle for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Now it must convince global antitrust regulators that the deal won’t give it an illegal advantage in the streaming market. 

The $72 billion tie-up joins the world’s dominant paid streaming service with one of Hollywood’s most iconic movie studios. It would reshape the market for online video content by combining the No. 1 streaming player with the No. 4 service HBO Max and its blockbuster hits such as Game Of Thrones, Friends, and the DC Universe comics characters franchise.  

That could raise red flags for global antitrust regulators over concerns that Netflix would have too much control over the streaming market. The company faces a lengthy Justice Department review and a possible US lawsuit seeking to block the deal if it doesn’t adopt some remedies to get it cleared, analysts said.

“Netflix will have an uphill climb unless it agrees to divest HBO Max as well as additional behavioral commitments — particularly on licensing content,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Rie. “The streaming overlap is significant,” she added, saying the argument that “the market should be viewed more broadly is a tough one to win.”

By choosing Netflix, Warner Bros. has jilted another bidder, Paramount Skydance Corp., a move that risks touching off a political battle in Washington. Paramount is backed by the world’s second-richest man, Larry Ellison, and his son, David Ellison, and the company has touted their longstanding close ties to President Donald Trump. Their acquisition of Paramount, which closed in August, has won public praise from Trump. 

Comcast Corp. also made a bid for Warner Bros., looking to merge it with its NBCUniversal division.

The Justice Department’s antitrust division, which would review the transaction in the US, could argue that the deal is illegal on its face because the combined market share would put Netflix well over a 30% threshold.

The White House, the Justice Department and Comcast didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. 

US lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Representative Darrell Issa and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren have already faulted the transaction — which would create a global streaming giant with 450 million users — as harmful to consumers.

“This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare,” Warren said after the Netflix announcement. Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, said in a social media post earlier this week that a Warner Bros.-Netflix tie-up would raise more serious competition questions “than any transaction I’ve seen in about a decade.”

European Union regulators are also likely to subject the Netflix proposal to an intensive review amid pressure from legislators. In the UK, the deal has already drawn scrutiny before the announcement, with House of Lords member Baroness Luciana Berger pressing the government on how the transaction would impact competition and consumer prices.

The combined company could raise prices and broadly impact “culture, film, cinemas and theater releases,”said Andreas Schwab, a leading member of the European Parliament on competition issues, after the announcement.

Paramount has sought to frame the Netflix deal as a non-starter. “The simple truth is that a deal with Netflix as the buyer likely will never close, due to antitrust and regulatory challenges in the United States and in most jurisdictions abroad,” Paramount’s antitrust lawyers wrote to their counterparts at Warner Bros. on Dec. 1.

Appealing directly to Trump could help Netflix avoid intense antitrust scrutiny, New Street Research’s Blair Levin wrote in a note on Friday. Levin said it’s possible that Trump could come to see the benefit of switching from a pro-Paramount position to a pro-Netflix position. “And if he does so, we believe the DOJ will follow suit,” Levin wrote.

Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos had dinner with Trump at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last December, a move other CEOs made after the election in order to win over the administration. In a call with investors Friday morning, Sarandos said that he’s “highly confident in the regulatory process,” contending the deal favors consumers, workers and innovation. 

“Our plans here are to work really closely with all the appropriate governments and regulators, but really confident that we’re going to get all the necessary approvals that we need,” he said.

Netflix will likely argue to regulators that other video services such as Google’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok should be included in any analysis of the market, which would dramatically shrink the company’s perceived dominance.

The US Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the transfer of broadcast-TV licenses, isn’t expected to play a role in the deal, as neither hold such licenses. Warner Bros. plans to spin off its cable TV division, which includes channels such as CNN, TBS and TNT, before the sale.

Even if antitrust reviews just focus on streaming, Netflix believes it will ultimately prevail, pointing to Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime and Walt Disney Co. as other major competitors, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. 

Netflix is expected to argue that more than 75% of HBO Max subscribers already subscribe to Netflix, making them complementary offerings rather than competitors, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. The company is expected to make the case that reducing its content costs through owning Warner Bros., eliminating redundant back-end technology and bundling Netflix with Max will yield lower prices.



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The rise of AI reasoning models comes with a big energy tradeoff

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December 5, 2025

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Nearly all leading artificial intelligence developers are focused on building AI models that mimic the way humans reason, but new research shows these cutting-edge systems can be far more energy intensive, adding to concerns about AI’s strain on power grids.

AI reasoning models used 30 times more power on average to respond to 1,000 written prompts than alternatives without this reasoning capability or which had it disabled, according to a study released Thursday. The work was carried out by the AI Energy Score project, led by Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni and Salesforce Inc. head of AI sustainability Boris Gamazaychikov.

The researchers evaluated 40 open, freely available AI models, including software from OpenAI, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. Some models were found to have a much wider disparity in energy consumption, including one from Chinese upstart DeepSeek. A slimmed-down version of DeepSeek’s R1 model used just 50 watt hours to respond to the prompts when reasoning was turned off, or about as much power as is needed to run a 50 watt lightbulb for an hour. With the reasoning feature enabled, the same model required 7,626 watt hours to complete the tasks.

The soaring energy needs of AI have increasingly come under scrutiny. As tech companies race to build more and bigger data centers to support AI, industry watchers have raised concerns about straining power grids and raising energy costs for consumers. A Bloomberg investigation in September found that wholesale electricity prices rose as much as 267% over the past five years in areas near data centers. There are also environmental drawbacks, as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.com Inc. have previously acknowledged the data center buildout could complicate their long-term climate objectives. 

More than a year ago, OpenAI released its first reasoning model, called o1. Where its prior software replied almost instantly to queries, o1 spent more time computing an answer before responding. Many other AI companies have since released similar systems, with the goal of solving more complex multistep problems for fields like science, math and coding.

Though reasoning systems have quickly become the industry norm for carrying out more complicated tasks, there has been little research into their energy demands. Much of the increase in power consumption is due to reasoning models generating much more text when responding, the researchers said. 

The new report aims to better understand how AI energy needs are evolving, Luccioni said. She also hopes it helps people better understand that there are different types of AI models suited to different actions. Not every query requires tapping the most computationally intensive AI reasoning systems.

“We should be smarter about the way that we use AI,” Luccioni said. “Choosing the right model for the right task is important.”

To test the difference in power use, the researchers ran all the models on the same computer hardware. They used the same prompts for each, ranging from simple questions — such as asking which team won the Super Bowl in a particular year — to more complex math problems. They also used a software tool called CodeCarbon to track how much energy was being consumed in real time.

The results varied considerably. The researchers found one of Microsoft’s Phi 4 reasoning models used 9,462 watt hours with reasoning turned on, compared with about 18 watt hours with it off. OpenAI’s largest gpt-oss model, meanwhile, had a less stark difference. It used 8,504 watt hours with reasoning on the most computationally intensive “high” setting and 5,313 watt hours with the setting turned down to “low.” 

OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google released internal research in August that estimated the median text prompt for its Gemini AI service used 0.24 watt-hours of energy, roughly equal to watching TV for less than nine seconds. Google said that figure was “substantially lower than many public estimates.” 

Much of the discussion about AI power consumption has focused on large-scale facilities set up to train artificial intelligence systems. Increasingly, however, tech firms are shifting more resources to inference, or the process of running AI systems after they’ve been trained. The push toward reasoning models is a big piece of that as these systems are more reliant on inference.

Recently, some tech leaders have acknowledged that AI’s power draw needs to be reckoned with. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the industry must earn the “social permission to consume energy” for AI data centers in a November interview. To do that, he argued tech must use AI to do good and foster broad economic growth.



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