WHO'S a good business model? It's YOU! Yes it is! You're SUCH a good business model! Yes you are!

Locked-down Americans are pampering their pets like never before, and Chewy is reaping the benefits

- By Anders Melin and Bryan Gruley

The usual suspects topped the list of the best-paid executives in the U.S. published by Bloomberg News in July. No. 1 was Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, with a 2019 payday of nearly $600 million, followed by Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook at $134 million. The top 10 also included bosses at Intel, Alphabet, and Blackstone Group.

The list did contain one surprise: At No. 5 stood one Sumit Singh, chief executive officer of Chewy Inc., an online retailer of food, toys, apparel, and medicine for pets. Singh joined Chewy in 2017, was elevated to CEO after seven months, and in 2019, his first full year on the job, earned $108.2 million in salary, bonus, and stock grants. That sum was even more remarkable given that Chewy, in nine years of existence, has yet to post a profitable quarter.

But Singh’s haul is another indicator, among many, of the company’s rise as a force in e-commerce. In the fiscal year ended Feb. 2, it sold products to 13.5 million customers, up 27% for the year, while revenue jumped 37% to $4.9 billion. Then came the coronavirus, and things for Chewy got even better.