What do you think?
Rate this book
Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Fall of WeWork
The inside story of WeWork and its CEO, Adam Neumann, which tells the remarkable saga of one of the most audacious, and improbable, rises and falls in American business history.
In its earliest days, WeWork promised the impossible: to make the American work place cool. Adam Neumann, an immigrant determined to make his fortune in the United States, landed on the idea of repurposing surplus New York office space for the burgeoning freelance class. Over the course of ten years, WeWork attracted billions of dollars from some of the most sought-after investors in the world, while spending it to build a global real estate empire that he insisted was much more than that: an organization that aspired to nothing less than "elevating the world's consciousness."
Moving between New York real estate, Silicon Valley venture capital, and the very specific force field of spirituality and ambition erected by Adam Neumann himself, Billion Dollar Loser lays bare the internal drama inside WeWork. Based on more than two hundred interviews, this book chronicles the breakneck speed at which WeWork’s CEO built and grew his company along with Neumann’s relationship to a world of investors, including Masayoshi Son of Softbank, who fueled its chaotic expansion into everything from apartment buildings to elementary schools.
Culminating in a day-by-day account of the five weeks leading up to WeWork’s botched IPO and Neumann’s dramatic ouster, Wiedeman exposes the story of the company’s desperate attempt to secure the funding it needed in the final moments of a decade defined by excess. Billion Dollar Loser is the first book to indelibly capture the highly leveraged, all-blue-sky world of American business in President Trump’s first term, and also offers a sober reckoning with its fallout as a new era begins.
In its earliest days, WeWork promised the impossible: to make the American work place cool. Adam Neumann, an immigrant determined to make his fortune in the United States, landed on the idea of repurposing surplus New York office space for the burgeoning freelance class. Over the course of ten years, WeWork attracted billions of dollars from some of the most sought-after investors in the world, while spending it to build a global real estate empire that he insisted was much more than that: an organization that aspired to nothing less than "elevating the world's consciousness."
Moving between New York real estate, Silicon Valley venture capital, and the very specific force field of spirituality and ambition erected by Adam Neumann himself, Billion Dollar Loser lays bare the internal drama inside WeWork. Based on more than two hundred interviews, this book chronicles the breakneck speed at which WeWork’s CEO built and grew his company along with Neumann’s relationship to a world of investors, including Masayoshi Son of Softbank, who fueled its chaotic expansion into everything from apartment buildings to elementary schools.
Culminating in a day-by-day account of the five weeks leading up to WeWork’s botched IPO and Neumann’s dramatic ouster, Wiedeman exposes the story of the company’s desperate attempt to secure the funding it needed in the final moments of a decade defined by excess. Billion Dollar Loser is the first book to indelibly capture the highly leveraged, all-blue-sky world of American business in President Trump’s first term, and also offers a sober reckoning with its fallout as a new era begins.
353 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2020
1565 people are currently reading
25959 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,025 reviews
May 10, 2024
I have a soft spot for books about troubled unicorns - the corporate kind. Books on Theranos, Uber, Tesla, and now WeWork (obviously Uber and Tesla are not fallen, but have had their growing pains). Part of this is because as someone who lived through the 90s internet boom, I am more thoughtful about Internet 2.0. So I read this in 24 hours.
WeWork is not quite as awful as Theranos, but is a failure nonetheless. The book, which grew out of a NYMag piece that the author wrote on WeWork, covers the origin story, Neumann's bio, through all of its funding rounds, to its collapse.
WeWork is not a technology company. And the tension at the core of the company is that it was unwilling to admit that, as it would have cost executives and investors the billions invested in it. Real estate is a very old business, almost the world's oldest profession. So the idea that a college dropout whose last business was baby clothes would completely reimagine it should raise eyebrows. And it did. But the book does a good job at conveying Neumann's sheer charisma, which allowed him to raise successive rounds, increase the valuation, and pull out enormous riches, despite a business model that was at best, hollow, and at worse, a massive Ponzi scheme.
Neumann comes across as a New Age jackass, who claims to be interested in bringing the world together through office space, yet at the same time accumulates an enormous amount of high-end personal real estate and flies in a Gulfstream G650 that the investor-funded company bought for his use. And his profligacy, well-documented, extended to the company as well, where they spent enormous sums on offsite parties with high-end entertainment. His wife, if that's possible, comes across worse - a spoiled wannabe failed actress who's empowered by her husband's wealth and power to actualize a bunch of nonsense that belies her worthlessness. But again, underlying it is a business model that was pissing money away.
But Wiedeman is clever enough to understand all the dynamics at play here - between the company, its customers, its investors, its competitors, its employees, its executives, its bankers, and the public markets. He understands that at its core, the company was playing a game, where investors put in capital in successively increasing valuations, while executives burn through capital, competitors are beaten up by predatory pricing, and the bankers try to take the company public so that public investors would end up holding the bag when the music stops.
Fortunately for public investors, the company's S-1 was an utter travesty, invoking widespread ridicule and leading to the demise of the executive team. And the company's future remains in question.
I would say that the only area I wished the book had investigated more is how VC investors, who pride themselves on being both clever financial experts as well as technology experts, could have found themselves funding this obvious narcissistic jackass. They are backed with billions in capital, have access to some of the best technologists in the world, yet still find themselves funding into an embarrassing story like WeWork, allowing themselves to feed a beast like Adam Neumann, who is more a legend in his own mind than anybody who should be looked upon in the future as a keen businessman. Wiedeman could've asked the obvious question: is VC expertise essentially a fraud, and just a way to make money by laying off the risk on unsuspecting public investors? That would've earned the last star.
Because anybody who tells you that they lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume, is not the right horse to back. No matter how many TED talks you’ve done.
WeWork is not quite as awful as Theranos, but is a failure nonetheless. The book, which grew out of a NYMag piece that the author wrote on WeWork, covers the origin story, Neumann's bio, through all of its funding rounds, to its collapse.
WeWork is not a technology company. And the tension at the core of the company is that it was unwilling to admit that, as it would have cost executives and investors the billions invested in it. Real estate is a very old business, almost the world's oldest profession. So the idea that a college dropout whose last business was baby clothes would completely reimagine it should raise eyebrows. And it did. But the book does a good job at conveying Neumann's sheer charisma, which allowed him to raise successive rounds, increase the valuation, and pull out enormous riches, despite a business model that was at best, hollow, and at worse, a massive Ponzi scheme.
Neumann comes across as a New Age jackass, who claims to be interested in bringing the world together through office space, yet at the same time accumulates an enormous amount of high-end personal real estate and flies in a Gulfstream G650 that the investor-funded company bought for his use. And his profligacy, well-documented, extended to the company as well, where they spent enormous sums on offsite parties with high-end entertainment. His wife, if that's possible, comes across worse - a spoiled wannabe failed actress who's empowered by her husband's wealth and power to actualize a bunch of nonsense that belies her worthlessness. But again, underlying it is a business model that was pissing money away.
But Wiedeman is clever enough to understand all the dynamics at play here - between the company, its customers, its investors, its competitors, its employees, its executives, its bankers, and the public markets. He understands that at its core, the company was playing a game, where investors put in capital in successively increasing valuations, while executives burn through capital, competitors are beaten up by predatory pricing, and the bankers try to take the company public so that public investors would end up holding the bag when the music stops.
Fortunately for public investors, the company's S-1 was an utter travesty, invoking widespread ridicule and leading to the demise of the executive team. And the company's future remains in question.
I would say that the only area I wished the book had investigated more is how VC investors, who pride themselves on being both clever financial experts as well as technology experts, could have found themselves funding this obvious narcissistic jackass. They are backed with billions in capital, have access to some of the best technologists in the world, yet still find themselves funding into an embarrassing story like WeWork, allowing themselves to feed a beast like Adam Neumann, who is more a legend in his own mind than anybody who should be looked upon in the future as a keen businessman. Wiedeman could've asked the obvious question: is VC expertise essentially a fraud, and just a way to make money by laying off the risk on unsuspecting public investors? That would've earned the last star.
Because anybody who tells you that they lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume, is not the right horse to back. No matter how many TED talks you’ve done.
December 5, 2020
Come for the schadenfreude and stay because it's even worse than you think it's going to be. I think so much of the "founder myth" is marketing and fluff and most people know it, but they want to believe it. WeWork was just an intense collective self-induced delusion. I think most people were always skeptical of Neumann but also believed that if other people were duped, that they could pretend too. It's just so incredibly offensive to the majority of humans in the world who worked their butts off to not have enough money for food and shelter for this man to walk away with billions without doing shit ever and for ruining other people's livelihoods.
Want to read
October 16, 2020Ohhhh damn. Never has a hate-read looked so good!
January 7, 2023
This dude makes me nauseous. I have experience in M&A/Distressed workouts, etc. Working in those environments made so many things about this tool, Adam, ring familiar.
I'm always impressed with the ability of a CEO (salesman #1) to get in front of a group of smart business people and give a pitch of something like:
"But this is where there's a twist in the usual story. We finally just started questioning everything about the process. Is the process actually congruent with our customers desire for contentment? So this isn't about any one particular service. It's about us. It's about where we're from. It's about who we love. It's about the need to connect. This is what dictates our beliefs and goals. Believing in love is really what we do."
Haha, it's so easy to make that silly stuff up, but it's pretty much what this guy and so many others do. And they get away with it! They'll leave the meeting with a check for a new round. It might actually be a real monster that has been created - or, as the book and tech investors have called them, "Unicorns" - companies with huge valuations and promises, all without a business plan that makes it clear how the company will ever be profitable.
Oh, and usually a lot of creative accounting. In this example, it was the manipulation of what most accountants know as "contribution margin." WeWork had no problem giving investors financial data that left out critical items...like large liabilities.
When it comes to creating a revenue model, why not use the assumption of 100% capacity in your buildings? I mean, why not let the investors rely on that? Sounds reasonable.
Meanwhile, for like 8 years leading up to the cat being out of the bag, SO MANY supposedly credible, well known people of all backgrounds were fawning over this CEO and this company. The dude cashed out over $70mm of seed investment money, and did it faster and in a higher total amount of stock sold than any other startup CEO. Just jaw dropping gall.
Hope everyone is doing well, flipping pages with a favorite beverage. (waves) (runs) (laughs)
I'm always impressed with the ability of a CEO (salesman #1) to get in front of a group of smart business people and give a pitch of something like:
"But this is where there's a twist in the usual story. We finally just started questioning everything about the process. Is the process actually congruent with our customers desire for contentment? So this isn't about any one particular service. It's about us. It's about where we're from. It's about who we love. It's about the need to connect. This is what dictates our beliefs and goals. Believing in love is really what we do."
Haha, it's so easy to make that silly stuff up, but it's pretty much what this guy and so many others do. And they get away with it! They'll leave the meeting with a check for a new round. It might actually be a real monster that has been created - or, as the book and tech investors have called them, "Unicorns" - companies with huge valuations and promises, all without a business plan that makes it clear how the company will ever be profitable.
Oh, and usually a lot of creative accounting. In this example, it was the manipulation of what most accountants know as "contribution margin." WeWork had no problem giving investors financial data that left out critical items...like large liabilities.
When it comes to creating a revenue model, why not use the assumption of 100% capacity in your buildings? I mean, why not let the investors rely on that? Sounds reasonable.
Meanwhile, for like 8 years leading up to the cat being out of the bag, SO MANY supposedly credible, well known people of all backgrounds were fawning over this CEO and this company. The dude cashed out over $70mm of seed investment money, and did it faster and in a higher total amount of stock sold than any other startup CEO. Just jaw dropping gall.
Hope everyone is doing well, flipping pages with a favorite beverage. (waves) (runs) (laughs)
November 14, 2020
Maybe this says something unflattering about my character, but I am intrigued by books about the rise and fall of Silicon Valley startups, and the cults of personality that tend to build up around individual founders. I suppose it's comforting, somehow, to know that just because someone has millions of devotees, tons of wealth, and buckets of unwarranted confidence, they're not always destined for sustainable success. For those who, like me, frequently struggle with irrational self-doubt, it's bracing to know that quiet, understated talent matters, too.
"Billion Dollar Loser" reads like fiction in the best way. Prepare to stay up way past your bedtime, and to end the journey with very few answers and a whole lot of questions. You may come away still confused about how any of this was allowed to happen with so many adults in the room, but I can just about promise you'll at least have fun while you're wondering.
"Billion Dollar Loser" reads like fiction in the best way. Prepare to stay up way past your bedtime, and to end the journey with very few answers and a whole lot of questions. You may come away still confused about how any of this was allowed to happen with so many adults in the room, but I can just about promise you'll at least have fun while you're wondering.
January 28, 2022
Here is another book where I kept thinking I was reading about a cult instead of a startup. As with Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, you will marvel at how investors were so blinded by Adam Neumann's alleged charm that they were willing to sink zillions of dollars into his unproven business. Of course, the difference is that Holmes was promising something truly groundbreaking while Neumann was promising office space rentals. WeNeed to stop giving these charlatans such long ropes with which to hang themselves when short ones would work just as well and probably a lot faster. What would these people do if they actually had to work for it? Also recommended: Hulu's documentary, unimaginatively titled WeWork.
November 14, 2020
WeWorks rise reads like a coked out 5 AM conversation between two tech bros.
“So, yeah, startup idea, we just like rent all these desks”
“Desks?”
“Yeah desks. Like people pay us to give them a place to work.”
“Bro I hate work, did I tell you I interviewed at Uber?”
“Yeah bro. That’s why we make work not suck. With like kegs, and ping-pong tables”
“Dude, that’s such a good idea. Everyone would sign up. Nobody like work but everyone loves beer”
“And music.”
And music. We could bump music so hard in our offices”
“That would be sick. Everyone would love that”
“Yeah man.” Grinds teeth “and well get like so much funding. 20 million..... No wait.... 20 billion dollars to buy all sorts of new property”
“Totally, and like yearly parties man, where the whole company can come and get super lit.”
“And like, what if....” snoooorrt “what if we also have like schools-And-houses-and-jets-and-wine-and-music-and-beer-and-the-mothafuckin-CHAINSMOKERS”
“Dude, I think we’re onto something here”
The book itself is all right. Definitely interesting. But, putting this book down after reading it, I’m not sure I’m that much more educated on anything related to WeWork. I found the rise and fall pretty closely with no small amount of shaudenfraude.
Adam Newman is a charismatic founder who shucked and jived his way to an absolutely ridiculous valuation. Saudi money channeled through SoftBank artificially propped up an unprofitable business. there’s some parallels you can draw to Theranos. Lack of relevant domain experts, centralized control with obscure oversight. A lot of talk about “secret sauce” but no real independent verification of that. I’d say many of the same red flags I see in the car company Nikola.
Beware the cult of personality. There were a lot of self interested people who benefited from WeWork‘s rise, noticeably New York and other major commercial real estate people. Self interest buys a lot of silence.
Biggest frustration with the book is that besides a few personal interviews, general reluctance to buy into Adams con of hype. I’m not sure there’s much more than a decently aggregated reporting job.
“So, yeah, startup idea, we just like rent all these desks”
“Desks?”
“Yeah desks. Like people pay us to give them a place to work.”
“Bro I hate work, did I tell you I interviewed at Uber?”
“Yeah bro. That’s why we make work not suck. With like kegs, and ping-pong tables”
“Dude, that’s such a good idea. Everyone would sign up. Nobody like work but everyone loves beer”
“And music.”
And music. We could bump music so hard in our offices”
“That would be sick. Everyone would love that”
“Yeah man.” Grinds teeth “and well get like so much funding. 20 million..... No wait.... 20 billion dollars to buy all sorts of new property”
“Totally, and like yearly parties man, where the whole company can come and get super lit.”
“And like, what if....” snoooorrt “what if we also have like schools-And-houses-and-jets-and-wine-and-music-and-beer-and-the-mothafuckin-CHAINSMOKERS”
“Dude, I think we’re onto something here”
The book itself is all right. Definitely interesting. But, putting this book down after reading it, I’m not sure I’m that much more educated on anything related to WeWork. I found the rise and fall pretty closely with no small amount of shaudenfraude.
Adam Newman is a charismatic founder who shucked and jived his way to an absolutely ridiculous valuation. Saudi money channeled through SoftBank artificially propped up an unprofitable business. there’s some parallels you can draw to Theranos. Lack of relevant domain experts, centralized control with obscure oversight. A lot of talk about “secret sauce” but no real independent verification of that. I’d say many of the same red flags I see in the car company Nikola.
Beware the cult of personality. There were a lot of self interested people who benefited from WeWork‘s rise, noticeably New York and other major commercial real estate people. Self interest buys a lot of silence.
Biggest frustration with the book is that besides a few personal interviews, general reluctance to buy into Adams con of hype. I’m not sure there’s much more than a decently aggregated reporting job.
April 15, 2021
Picked this up as a potential readalike for Bad Blood, and I was not disappointed. This story of the rise and fall of a unicorn startup is extremely well documented while still maintaining a fast pace and reading like a compelling page-turner. Jaw-dropping excess and financial maneuvering abounds. Even if you know nothing about WeWork this is fascinating stuff.
February 2, 2023
Billion Dollar Loser is the story of WeWork, and about one of the company’s founders, Adam Neumann.
This was an interesting read — In addition to profiling Adam and the rise of WeWork, the book details many of its challenges including an attempted IPO in 2019. It sounds like there was a lot of talk about “world changing” in the company’s early days and the environment could be volatile as employees were often summoned to scramble in opening new locations at breakneck speed, regardless of the role they were hired for. WeWork is still in business today, though Adam has since stepped away — 3.5 stars
This was an interesting read — In addition to profiling Adam and the rise of WeWork, the book details many of its challenges including an attempted IPO in 2019. It sounds like there was a lot of talk about “world changing” in the company’s early days and the environment could be volatile as employees were often summoned to scramble in opening new locations at breakneck speed, regardless of the role they were hired for. WeWork is still in business today, though Adam has since stepped away — 3.5 stars
Read
October 24, 2020Having lived through much of the experience described in this book, it was nonetheless a thrilling trip down memory lane that revealed new insights and detail that even I, as a former rank and file employee, was not fully privy to. Well written and excellently paced, finding the right balance between detours into juicy anecdotes and higher level reflections and lessons to learn, which is difficult to pull off sometimes in these business case study books.
This is well worth the read for the general public, but I strongly encourage any current or former employee to also pick it up--so long as they can stomach revisiting the rocky highs and lows of the experience!
This is well worth the read for the general public, but I strongly encourage any current or former employee to also pick it up--so long as they can stomach revisiting the rocky highs and lows of the experience!
August 1, 2021
Click here to hear my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.
Billion Dollar Loser takes on the story of the company WeWork, but author Reeves Wiedeman chooses to focus the story - appropriately - on its charismatic cofounder and CEO, Adam Neumann. The book discusses most aspects of the story of WeWork's rise and fall, but highlights Adam's behavior throughout the saga and, given how much control he had over the company, how pretty much everything came back around to him. It's a jaw-dropping story told well here, but the author allowed even himself to be distracted by Adam's confusing and dishonest rhetoric and didn't include enough authorial asides to underline and contradict Neumann's falsehoods.
Billion Dollar Loser takes on the story of the company WeWork, but author Reeves Wiedeman chooses to focus the story - appropriately - on its charismatic cofounder and CEO, Adam Neumann. The book discusses most aspects of the story of WeWork's rise and fall, but highlights Adam's behavior throughout the saga and, given how much control he had over the company, how pretty much everything came back around to him. It's a jaw-dropping story told well here, but the author allowed even himself to be distracted by Adam's confusing and dishonest rhetoric and didn't include enough authorial asides to underline and contradict Neumann's falsehoods.
September 18, 2024
interesting story, average book
November 21, 2020
I keep referring to this book as Million-Dollar Asshole, which of course is inaccurate.
Anyway, this is the story of a tall, handsome college dropout who starts a couple of different companies. He has never worked for anyone else (though he did serve a multiyear stint in the Israeli navy), so unsurprisingly he is terrible at managing people and often cannot even be trusted to interact politely with employees.
He is a talented salesman, he marries a rich and well-connected person, he practices nepotism, and he keeps raising more and more money. He cofounds a real estate company that he insists is not a real estate company, it is a tech company.
His company becomes more and more overvalued because people want to believe a beautiful dream and don't want to spend the time and effort to find out what the company actually is and does.
Do things go badly? I think you can tell by the title, can't you?
Anyway, this is the story of a tall, handsome college dropout who starts a couple of different companies. He has never worked for anyone else (though he did serve a multiyear stint in the Israeli navy), so unsurprisingly he is terrible at managing people and often cannot even be trusted to interact politely with employees.
He is a talented salesman, he marries a rich and well-connected person, he practices nepotism, and he keeps raising more and more money. He cofounds a real estate company that he insists is not a real estate company, it is a tech company.
His company becomes more and more overvalued because people want to believe a beautiful dream and don't want to spend the time and effort to find out what the company actually is and does.
Do things go badly? I think you can tell by the title, can't you?
January 12, 2021
QUICK TAKE: ultimately this one wasn't for me. I was hoping it was similar to Silicon Valley deep dives like BAD BLOOD and SUPER PUMPED, but I think I'm officially exhausted from tech bros behaving badly. Also, I didn't know much about WeWork before starting this book, but it wasn't that interesting of a topic to me. I'd be curious what people who know a lot more about the company and the history of its rise and fall felt about this one...
January 15, 2021
i loved it!!! i loved it so much. im dwunkies so this wont be coherent review but ill write that in the mroring. anywaysss thiwas a really fun informative read. i think it focused moe on neumann's cult of personality vs hard data/logic- i wish it had gone more ito implications of softbank' s enormous investments/almost hostile advisory stratgegies for examples. but yahhh yanno it was usnfies xD
if you know me you now i hate wework. ive hated it sine i was a sophie in college. every time i passed a wework id angry vent to wheover whas in the car. it was cool to see my feelings vlaidated by this booki.
ehnnyways.z..... down with rebekah neumann!!!!
if you know me you now i hate wework. ive hated it sine i was a sophie in college. every time i passed a wework id angry vent to wheover whas in the car. it was cool to see my feelings vlaidated by this booki.
ehnnyways.z..... down with rebekah neumann!!!!
November 1, 2020
Yet another one of these cautionary tales. I consider it a third in an unholy trinity of Super Pumped (Uber), and Bad Blood (Theranos). If you watch documentaries you can add both Netflix and Hulu's documentaries on the Fyre Festival and the machinations of Billy McFarlane.
The word that stands out to me from this book is "blitz-scaling." It's a neologism that comes to us via Reid Hoffman, formerly of LinkedIn. You might guess at its meaning: world-beating growth, at whatever cost.
In this latest cautionary tale, we are told of a founder who starts with a good idea, even some profitability, before believing his own hype, bringing along Silicon Valley for the ride, and then crashing everything in an epic failure that will follow him forever (or will it?). Unlike Elizabeth Holmes, who at this moment is awaiting a trial which could put her away for many years (please, please) or Billy McFarlane (already in jail), Adam Neumann managed to cash out hundreds of millions of dollars before WeWork's epic failure. Just like Travis Kalanick, who also cashed out millions (billions, actually), Neumann also survived rumblings which could have led to a board ouster (though Kalanick finally did succumb to an ouster on the second try).
We are witnessing the Millennial reaction to Steve Jobs. He did it, so, so can we. Except, he didn't. For anyone who's read about Jobs it's clear that he destroyed many lives, including those of people close to him, to achieve what...a game-changing device. Were all those lives worth it? How do you measure "success"? These dot-com babies bought Jobs' lies and now the logical chickens have come home to roost. This is not the last we will see of these con artists spawned by the "magical thinking" of Jobs and all that came after.
The book is very much worth a read (especially for those of us who actually had a paying WeWork membership, as I did, for some time), but Reeves Wiedeman deserves extra kudos for not only getting this out only about one year after the spectacular failed IPO of WeWork, but during a pandemic as well. Great work Reeves. Can't wait to see what you've got for us next time.
The word that stands out to me from this book is "blitz-scaling." It's a neologism that comes to us via Reid Hoffman, formerly of LinkedIn. You might guess at its meaning: world-beating growth, at whatever cost.
In this latest cautionary tale, we are told of a founder who starts with a good idea, even some profitability, before believing his own hype, bringing along Silicon Valley for the ride, and then crashing everything in an epic failure that will follow him forever (or will it?). Unlike Elizabeth Holmes, who at this moment is awaiting a trial which could put her away for many years (please, please) or Billy McFarlane (already in jail), Adam Neumann managed to cash out hundreds of millions of dollars before WeWork's epic failure. Just like Travis Kalanick, who also cashed out millions (billions, actually), Neumann also survived rumblings which could have led to a board ouster (though Kalanick finally did succumb to an ouster on the second try).
We are witnessing the Millennial reaction to Steve Jobs. He did it, so, so can we. Except, he didn't. For anyone who's read about Jobs it's clear that he destroyed many lives, including those of people close to him, to achieve what...a game-changing device. Were all those lives worth it? How do you measure "success"? These dot-com babies bought Jobs' lies and now the logical chickens have come home to roost. This is not the last we will see of these con artists spawned by the "magical thinking" of Jobs and all that came after.
The book is very much worth a read (especially for those of us who actually had a paying WeWork membership, as I did, for some time), but Reeves Wiedeman deserves extra kudos for not only getting this out only about one year after the spectacular failed IPO of WeWork, but during a pandemic as well. Great work Reeves. Can't wait to see what you've got for us next time.
October 30, 2022
This is the classic tale of a super charismatic start-up founder raising gobs and gobs of money despite an extremely questionable business plan, resulting in a meteoric rise, lots of bad behavior and deceived employees, and an epic fall. Adam Neumann and WeWork is of course very similar to the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, but at least Neumann was only selling office space and not meddling in people's health care. The whole thing is just as crazy as you would expect from these types of start-up stories, but this one also has a perplexing and entertaining spiritual twist, compliments of Rebekah Neumann.
The actions of Adam Neumann and the insanity of WeWork's, or more broadly the We Company's, operations make this book a page turner, but I did find the writing to be a little dry. Wiedeman provided a very forensic account of the saga with lots of facts and financial figures. Random details were occasionally sprinkled in that were kind of awkward and the timeline jumped around quite a bit, so I sometimes had to do a little re-reading to get my bearings of where I was in the story. I've read some great books by journalists lately about start-up founders (e.g. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal), and this one didn't quite rise to the same levels as the others for me. It felt like a very long-form article to me. I don't think Wiedeman quite nailed the changes in structure and narration needed to craft a really enjoyable full-length book. However, this is his first book and I thought his reporting was very thorough, so I'm still interested to see what he comes out with in the future.
Overall, this was a quick and very interesting read, and I got the in-depth story of WeWork that I was looking for. This one is worth a read if you're interested in the topic and/or enjoy reading mind-boggling business tales.
The actions of Adam Neumann and the insanity of WeWork's, or more broadly the We Company's, operations make this book a page turner, but I did find the writing to be a little dry. Wiedeman provided a very forensic account of the saga with lots of facts and financial figures. Random details were occasionally sprinkled in that were kind of awkward and the timeline jumped around quite a bit, so I sometimes had to do a little re-reading to get my bearings of where I was in the story. I've read some great books by journalists lately about start-up founders (e.g. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal), and this one didn't quite rise to the same levels as the others for me. It felt like a very long-form article to me. I don't think Wiedeman quite nailed the changes in structure and narration needed to craft a really enjoyable full-length book. However, this is his first book and I thought his reporting was very thorough, so I'm still interested to see what he comes out with in the future.
Overall, this was a quick and very interesting read, and I got the in-depth story of WeWork that I was looking for. This one is worth a read if you're interested in the topic and/or enjoy reading mind-boggling business tales.
January 22, 2021
At the end of the day, it isn’t the ambition that sets apart the start-ups that made it from the ones that didn’t — it’s what becomes of that tenacity, once the goal starts gaining buoyancy, and is within reach.
This books tells of Adam Neumann, who in my opinion, is a real prick. Yes, he possessed drive and a pretty innovative idea (co-working spaces around the world), but at the same time, made too many empty promises with nothing to show for them. I mean, don’t get me wrong — they landed multiple offices worldwide — but they were never stringent on the finances, and were losing way more than they were earning. Neumann himself was buying multiple properties on the Hamptons, and taking regular flights on his private jet, all while his business wasn’t reaping profits — true qualities of the modern-day jackass.
It’s the classic case of a unicorn start-up that failed to deliver — albeit more successful than the likes of Theranos . I guess, what added a bit of difficulty, was how I kind of wanted it to succeed — at least initially. Pioneering co-working spaces everywhere is a good idea, and I see its application ever-so palpable with the decreasing need to actually occupy a traditional workplace. It celebrates convenience and portability, while cherishing human interaction.
That said however, I don’t think it was ever going to succeed under Neumann. Whether it was his ignorance, chutzpah, or just his overall Messiah-complex, it was bound to get out of hand sooner or later. To his credit however, his charisma was able to land so many investments in multiple funding rounds, and was actually really reminiscent of Steve Jobs. Several workers described Neumann’s presence actually akin to Jobs’ — one that creates a reality distortion field — and is able let you believe in impossible goals. It’s a trait that gets a lot of people to ride on your ideas, and fuel your objectives further. It’s probably a necessity in the entrepreneurship field, because if you’re not willing to take the risks, you won’t reap the rewards.
But for every Apple, there are probably a dozen WeWorks. Despite his reality distortion field, Jobs’ success was derived from how, at the end of the day, he kept his goals realistic, with people at the core of his product. Neumann, on the other hand, gets lost in his own visions, extolling his fantasies wherever he goes, without having any concrete profits to show for.
Pretty fun read, and in my opinion, this book attests to the importance of self-control and conscientiousness; it’s way too easy to get lost in your own fantasies — before you know it, you’ve lost all tangible links of reality.
This books tells of Adam Neumann, who in my opinion, is a real prick. Yes, he possessed drive and a pretty innovative idea (co-working spaces around the world), but at the same time, made too many empty promises with nothing to show for them. I mean, don’t get me wrong — they landed multiple offices worldwide — but they were never stringent on the finances, and were losing way more than they were earning. Neumann himself was buying multiple properties on the Hamptons, and taking regular flights on his private jet, all while his business wasn’t reaping profits — true qualities of the modern-day jackass.
It’s the classic case of a unicorn start-up that failed to deliver — albeit more successful than the likes of Theranos . I guess, what added a bit of difficulty, was how I kind of wanted it to succeed — at least initially. Pioneering co-working spaces everywhere is a good idea, and I see its application ever-so palpable with the decreasing need to actually occupy a traditional workplace. It celebrates convenience and portability, while cherishing human interaction.
That said however, I don’t think it was ever going to succeed under Neumann. Whether it was his ignorance, chutzpah, or just his overall Messiah-complex, it was bound to get out of hand sooner or later. To his credit however, his charisma was able to land so many investments in multiple funding rounds, and was actually really reminiscent of Steve Jobs. Several workers described Neumann’s presence actually akin to Jobs’ — one that creates a reality distortion field — and is able let you believe in impossible goals. It’s a trait that gets a lot of people to ride on your ideas, and fuel your objectives further. It’s probably a necessity in the entrepreneurship field, because if you’re not willing to take the risks, you won’t reap the rewards.
But for every Apple, there are probably a dozen WeWorks. Despite his reality distortion field, Jobs’ success was derived from how, at the end of the day, he kept his goals realistic, with people at the core of his product. Neumann, on the other hand, gets lost in his own visions, extolling his fantasies wherever he goes, without having any concrete profits to show for.
Pretty fun read, and in my opinion, this book attests to the importance of self-control and conscientiousness; it’s way too easy to get lost in your own fantasies — before you know it, you’ve lost all tangible links of reality.
August 27, 2023
In revisiting the Apple TV+ show WeCrashed about the epic rise and spectacular fall of WeWork I was curious to see what journalist managed to get their book on the topic published which is what brought me here...
Now maybe someone six episodes deep into a show where the book is going to have some significant overlap is not the person to fairly review the book? As far as I could tell the show was not based on this book, though the podcast the show was based on might have had some of the same sources as the reporting of the book, so by nature overlap was going to happen. It's not even the overlap that I found the least interesting. I just don't feel as though Wiedeman constructed the way they chose to relay the facts to really present something that resembled and epic rise or spectacular fall. The timeline never felt linear. There were always mentions in sentences of things to come, what would happen later that really made the reader remember that this was all too good to be true that the numbers had to be fudged.
If anything the writing here was very dry? Which as a person that goes out of my way to read novels from people that have been feature writers to see a feature writer publish a book that was this dry?
It's definitely not bad though. It does offer a complete look at the topic promised, from Adam Neumann's beginnings and the way that he was able to get people on board his vision. I can't fault the reporting. I'll also say that the audiobook narrator, Will Collyer, did an excellent job and I've already started looking into things that he's narrated so that I can continue to hear his voice reading me books.
I would recommend if only because the story of WeWork is interesting and worth looking into.
Now maybe someone six episodes deep into a show where the book is going to have some significant overlap is not the person to fairly review the book? As far as I could tell the show was not based on this book, though the podcast the show was based on might have had some of the same sources as the reporting of the book, so by nature overlap was going to happen. It's not even the overlap that I found the least interesting. I just don't feel as though Wiedeman constructed the way they chose to relay the facts to really present something that resembled and epic rise or spectacular fall. The timeline never felt linear. There were always mentions in sentences of things to come, what would happen later that really made the reader remember that this was all too good to be true that the numbers had to be fudged.
If anything the writing here was very dry? Which as a person that goes out of my way to read novels from people that have been feature writers to see a feature writer publish a book that was this dry?
It's definitely not bad though. It does offer a complete look at the topic promised, from Adam Neumann's beginnings and the way that he was able to get people on board his vision. I can't fault the reporting. I'll also say that the audiobook narrator, Will Collyer, did an excellent job and I've already started looking into things that he's narrated so that I can continue to hear his voice reading me books.
I would recommend if only because the story of WeWork is interesting and worth looking into.
November 7, 2020
Can I consider it ironic that I finished this book about a CEO with delusions of grandeur and a gross level of hubris bluffing his way through billions of dollars on the same day that we learn that Biden/Harris has won the election, displacing a CEO with delusions of grandeur and a gross level of hubris bluffing his way through four years of American carnage (which he promised in his Inaugural Address, if you remember)? The book itself is bogged down in detail that detracts from the narrative. It boils down to personality trumping all reason by SO many people who should have known better.
March 19, 2021
Wow this book is insane. WeWork and it’s founder, Adam Neumann, give me major Theranos/Elizabeth Holmes vibes. I think my favorite part is that he almost used WeWork funds to invest in Billy McFarland’s first company Magnises - an incredible intersection with my all time favorite fraud, Fyre Fest.
February 16, 2021
Wow, $9,000 a month on beer, and WeWork rents office space.
The grandiose delusions are all here. It’s Theranos but for tables and chairs.
This difference between the two companies is the core of the analysis.
Theranos was far worse since it put peoples’ lives at risk, but at least there the company’s black box technology kept a veil over just what a con the company was.
Here, WeWork was leasing office space. In other words, people should have known the company’s valuations were insane, it’s burn rate was suicidal.
What this says about modern financing, and the overheated 21st century billion dollar deal way of life is a lot.
Just more fake value, creating nothing, mired in debt.
The grandiose delusions are all here. It’s Theranos but for tables and chairs.
This difference between the two companies is the core of the analysis.
Theranos was far worse since it put peoples’ lives at risk, but at least there the company’s black box technology kept a veil over just what a con the company was.
Here, WeWork was leasing office space. In other words, people should have known the company’s valuations were insane, it’s burn rate was suicidal.
What this says about modern financing, and the overheated 21st century billion dollar deal way of life is a lot.
Just more fake value, creating nothing, mired in debt.
December 13, 2021
Hahaha that was whack
I loved reading about it!!
I loved reading about it!!
March 18, 2023
I would not have guessed I’d have room in my brain for another accounting of Adam Neumann and his spoiled, entitled grifter lifestyle, but this book was excellent. Much more detail about events surrounding this uni-con, nope he was not a unicorn, but a conman. I had no idea how in-bed he was with Jared Kushner and modeling himself after T-ump. Now I hate him even more.
January 16, 2022
Keeping expenses low was key to WeWork’s model, even if the company’s tequila budget could sometimes get out of control. “You’ve got three options: fast, right, or cheap,” Kramer said. “WeWork always picked fast and cheap.”
Unraveling the founder myth — endlessly intriguing and simultaneously mind boggling.
Unraveling the founder myth — endlessly intriguing and simultaneously mind boggling.
November 20, 2023
An outstanding story worth spreading about a leadership fiasco and the power of confidence in one's own ability. It makes me wonder about how many people (including myself) put themselves way lower than they deserve to be while others elevate themselves and hold themselves to such a ridiculously high yet unmerited status. Let this story become a powerful lesson and inspiration.
Instaread version.
Instaread version.
January 28, 2022
This is a book I've been wanting to read for a while. I love reading about these types of stories. Tales of excess and skirting the edge of what is legal and appropriate among start-up types are fascinating to me and have only become more common since the 2000s and the days of Enron and the great recession.
I knew a bit about WeWork before reading this book. I started reading about them when the company started receiving scrutiny for its attempt at an IPO. My understanding from that time was that WeWork was a real estate company trying to masquerade as a tech company and it had a bit of an unusual founder, something that's not so unusual in this space. That all is basically true and this book is really just an expansion of how all that came to be.
I liked this book because it is a really good case study about one thing that really bothers me about these sorts of start-ups. Venture capitalists and eventually even some more traditional investors are willing to be sold on an idea with very little evidence it can succeed because of the charisma of the founder. These companies operate at a loss for as long as possible to maximize growth, even if that growth is completely divorced from the realities of demand in that market. The goal being that is they can operate that way for long enough, they will be so cheap in comparison that all other similar companies can't compete and then the remaining company is essentially a monopoly and can adjust prices to whatever level they want as there is no remaining competition. These companies rely on private VC funding specifically to avoid having to go public and face actual legal, regulatory, and investor scrutiny. As long as the valuation of these companies continues to rise, people are willing to support them, even if it's all smoke and mirrors.
So many of these founders, including Adam, seem to think they are best suited to know what everyone in the world wants, with seemingly no respect for ordinary human diversity. This book does a really good job showing the grandiose thinking that goes into believing that your company is uniquely capable of changing the world. This line of thinking is ridiculous in my view. All companies that think this way are operating through normal channels. There is nothing really unique here, especially since so many can't actually deliver on their promises. All these people simply want to avoid being held accountable by the limited amount of government regulation for as long as possible, the goal of businessmen since the dawn of the industrial era.
I think the story of WeWork really well illustrates my true dislike of the new economy model of business where the most important thing is inflating your stock price as much as possible while hyping up your mediocre product beyond what it really can be. I'm reading a book called Pump and Dump right now. It's about how the current model of many businesses is essentially a pump and dump scheme. Executives and founders of companies are incentivized to inflate the companies stock as much as possible and because of their preferred stocks, they are able to cash out at the top of valuation while company employees with lesser stock options as well as investors are left holding the bag when the tower of cards begins to collapse. This book was written in 2005, largely in response to Enron and the DotCom bubble. WeWork and similar companies illustrate we haven't exactly solved the problem created by those perverse incentives.
I knew a bit about WeWork before reading this book. I started reading about them when the company started receiving scrutiny for its attempt at an IPO. My understanding from that time was that WeWork was a real estate company trying to masquerade as a tech company and it had a bit of an unusual founder, something that's not so unusual in this space. That all is basically true and this book is really just an expansion of how all that came to be.
I liked this book because it is a really good case study about one thing that really bothers me about these sorts of start-ups. Venture capitalists and eventually even some more traditional investors are willing to be sold on an idea with very little evidence it can succeed because of the charisma of the founder. These companies operate at a loss for as long as possible to maximize growth, even if that growth is completely divorced from the realities of demand in that market. The goal being that is they can operate that way for long enough, they will be so cheap in comparison that all other similar companies can't compete and then the remaining company is essentially a monopoly and can adjust prices to whatever level they want as there is no remaining competition. These companies rely on private VC funding specifically to avoid having to go public and face actual legal, regulatory, and investor scrutiny. As long as the valuation of these companies continues to rise, people are willing to support them, even if it's all smoke and mirrors.
So many of these founders, including Adam, seem to think they are best suited to know what everyone in the world wants, with seemingly no respect for ordinary human diversity. This book does a really good job showing the grandiose thinking that goes into believing that your company is uniquely capable of changing the world. This line of thinking is ridiculous in my view. All companies that think this way are operating through normal channels. There is nothing really unique here, especially since so many can't actually deliver on their promises. All these people simply want to avoid being held accountable by the limited amount of government regulation for as long as possible, the goal of businessmen since the dawn of the industrial era.
I think the story of WeWork really well illustrates my true dislike of the new economy model of business where the most important thing is inflating your stock price as much as possible while hyping up your mediocre product beyond what it really can be. I'm reading a book called Pump and Dump right now. It's about how the current model of many businesses is essentially a pump and dump scheme. Executives and founders of companies are incentivized to inflate the companies stock as much as possible and because of their preferred stocks, they are able to cash out at the top of valuation while company employees with lesser stock options as well as investors are left holding the bag when the tower of cards begins to collapse. This book was written in 2005, largely in response to Enron and the DotCom bubble. WeWork and similar companies illustrate we haven't exactly solved the problem created by those perverse incentives.
July 30, 2022
A good deep dive into what really went down with WeWork. Paints a really enlightening picture of what kind of person Adam Neumann is and just how badly he screwed all his employees over. Also gives you a good idea of how ridiculous investment groups can be, how they throw around insane amounts of money on a whim, simply because people like Neumann seem smart and innovative at first glance.
May 1, 2023
This book is not an objective telling of the WeWork story: The author clearly thinks Adam Neumann is ridiculous and so are the people who fell for his pitch, and the book is absolutely jam-packed with out-of-touch, megalomaniacal quotes from Neumann to drive that point home. I don’t think that point of view is wrong—even a handful of quotes from Neumann would be enough to make any reasonable person hate his guts—but being so obviously biased prevents this book from making observations about WeWork that help explain why versions of this story play out over and over again. I don’t think we can just write off the people who funded WeWork as being out-of-touch and blinded by greed, because while they clearly were those things, it’s not as though every person with a sky-high ego and a fancy pitch deck gets billions of dollars in funding (though to be sure, a whole lot of them did over the last decade). What is it about people like Neumann, in particular, and the specific story they tell that makes people want to believe them? I’m not sure the author of this book has an answer for that question, and maybe it’s not fair to ask for one, but I would have liked it if the author had at least pondered it on-page.
Also, while I’m sure that an extremely high percentage of the things that came out of Neumann’s mouth were ridiculous, they can’t all have been, and casting everyone who believed him as a credulous moron is the type of fallacious thinking that lets this keep happening. It’s the same as the belief that everyone who falls for a scam is stupid, therefore people who aren’t stupid (namely, every person scoffing at scam victims) never has to worry about being scammed. Smart people fall for scams every day because they play on our innate biases, beliefs, and values, and being smart isn’t enough to protect you. Books like this lead you to believe that if VC firms would just stop falling for obvious scams and do even a minimum of due diligence, we’d all be fine! But I’m not sure that’s true, and I’m not convinced it’s a complete answer to the question of what went wrong at WeWork.
That being said, this book was highly entertaining, with a succinct and easily followed narrative. You could delete everything but the direct quotes from Adam Neumann, Rebekah Neumann, and others, and you’d still have a compelling (and extremely painful) portrait of the mindset driving so many startups in the 2010s, and the extent to which capitalist ideas have infiltrated our society to the point that many people are unable to conceive of anything outside a capitalist framework. (It’s hard to pick the most poignant example from the book, but Steven Mnuchin calling Gaza a “hot IPO” is definitely up there. Rebekah Neumann calling Adam the “cofounder” of their relationship is another.)
I assume this was published so quickly after Neumann’s departure from the company to capitalize on short-term interest in his story, but the biggest failing of the book for me was the lack of an epilogue, or even much detail on what happened after things fell apart. In particular, I think telling the reader what WeWork’s valuation is now ($523 million, as of April 2023) would hammer home the absurdity of its earlier valuations—which were the driving force behind almost everything Adam did—in a way that the current ending doesn’t really do.
If you’re looking for a book that sums up the 2010s Silicon Valley/startup ethos, you probably can’t do better than this book—even though WeWork technically wasn’t a Silicon Valley company.
Also, while I’m sure that an extremely high percentage of the things that came out of Neumann’s mouth were ridiculous, they can’t all have been, and casting everyone who believed him as a credulous moron is the type of fallacious thinking that lets this keep happening. It’s the same as the belief that everyone who falls for a scam is stupid, therefore people who aren’t stupid (namely, every person scoffing at scam victims) never has to worry about being scammed. Smart people fall for scams every day because they play on our innate biases, beliefs, and values, and being smart isn’t enough to protect you. Books like this lead you to believe that if VC firms would just stop falling for obvious scams and do even a minimum of due diligence, we’d all be fine! But I’m not sure that’s true, and I’m not convinced it’s a complete answer to the question of what went wrong at WeWork.
That being said, this book was highly entertaining, with a succinct and easily followed narrative. You could delete everything but the direct quotes from Adam Neumann, Rebekah Neumann, and others, and you’d still have a compelling (and extremely painful) portrait of the mindset driving so many startups in the 2010s, and the extent to which capitalist ideas have infiltrated our society to the point that many people are unable to conceive of anything outside a capitalist framework. (It’s hard to pick the most poignant example from the book, but Steven Mnuchin calling Gaza a “hot IPO” is definitely up there. Rebekah Neumann calling Adam the “cofounder” of their relationship is another.)
I assume this was published so quickly after Neumann’s departure from the company to capitalize on short-term interest in his story, but the biggest failing of the book for me was the lack of an epilogue, or even much detail on what happened after things fell apart. In particular, I think telling the reader what WeWork’s valuation is now ($523 million, as of April 2023) would hammer home the absurdity of its earlier valuations—which were the driving force behind almost everything Adam did—in a way that the current ending doesn’t really do.
If you’re looking for a book that sums up the 2010s Silicon Valley/startup ethos, you probably can’t do better than this book—even though WeWork technically wasn’t a Silicon Valley company.
July 26, 2021
29th book of 2021: 21st Century Economy
He is 1/4 crazy, 1/4 brilliant, and the other half is a fight between his ego and genuinely caring for people.
While this sentence describes Adam Neumann, it could be said about almost any startup founder or successful venture capitalist. Every startup needs an element of irrationality when salaries of companies like Google and Facebook are enough to surpass even the lofty expectations of ivy-league millennials. The most successful VCs must make contrarian bets to stand out, and the ones who win at the casino table return lauded as geniuses. Players on both side are selected into a system of increasing bravado and ambition. Add in a 20 year bull market for technology companies and a world awash in capital, and nonintuitive results, such as plowing billions of dollars towards nice office space with a great salesman ensue.
How to summarize the surrealness of a New York real estate leasing company with an elementary school on the side becoming one of the world’s most valuable private companies thanks to a pile of Saudi oil money financed through a man in Japan who was eager to invest even more? The theme for 2018: What is real?
Reading through Billion Dollar Loser, nothing struck me as unique about WeWork compared to other fast growing startups. Like all startups: [Wework had] three options, fast, right, or cheap. Wework always picked fast and cheap. And as anybody who has attended a startup demoday can attest: Hyperbole, autocratic leadership, and a disconnect from reality were suddenly assets on the path to power. In investor presentations and financial documents, the seeds for WeWork’s collapse were sown in broad daylight, for any who did the diligence. Yet Benchmark chose to believe the vision, knowing that a failed bet was worth the potential for upside. Masa disregarded his own diligence team doubling down with billions on a troubled company. And the whole thing almost worked. If Adam hadn’t forced an IPO, or botched the roadshow, we might be discussing WeWork as a money-losing but promising stock in the same way that we talk about the numerous new SPACs hitting the market.
I wish there was an epilogue to the story, because the unfortunate truth is that WeWork worked, at least for those at the top. Adam Neumann is worth something above $500m, Benchmark’s funds are achieving record returns, even SoftBank’s vision fund has ended up in the black as of late 2020. Valuations for companies with no revenue and barely an idea are reaching above $1b. WeWork may have been the biggest venture bust of the 21st century so far, but with the incentives in place for our economy it certainly won’t be the last.
He is 1/4 crazy, 1/4 brilliant, and the other half is a fight between his ego and genuinely caring for people.
While this sentence describes Adam Neumann, it could be said about almost any startup founder or successful venture capitalist. Every startup needs an element of irrationality when salaries of companies like Google and Facebook are enough to surpass even the lofty expectations of ivy-league millennials. The most successful VCs must make contrarian bets to stand out, and the ones who win at the casino table return lauded as geniuses. Players on both side are selected into a system of increasing bravado and ambition. Add in a 20 year bull market for technology companies and a world awash in capital, and nonintuitive results, such as plowing billions of dollars towards nice office space with a great salesman ensue.
How to summarize the surrealness of a New York real estate leasing company with an elementary school on the side becoming one of the world’s most valuable private companies thanks to a pile of Saudi oil money financed through a man in Japan who was eager to invest even more? The theme for 2018: What is real?
Reading through Billion Dollar Loser, nothing struck me as unique about WeWork compared to other fast growing startups. Like all startups: [Wework had] three options, fast, right, or cheap. Wework always picked fast and cheap. And as anybody who has attended a startup demoday can attest: Hyperbole, autocratic leadership, and a disconnect from reality were suddenly assets on the path to power. In investor presentations and financial documents, the seeds for WeWork’s collapse were sown in broad daylight, for any who did the diligence. Yet Benchmark chose to believe the vision, knowing that a failed bet was worth the potential for upside. Masa disregarded his own diligence team doubling down with billions on a troubled company. And the whole thing almost worked. If Adam hadn’t forced an IPO, or botched the roadshow, we might be discussing WeWork as a money-losing but promising stock in the same way that we talk about the numerous new SPACs hitting the market.
I wish there was an epilogue to the story, because the unfortunate truth is that WeWork worked, at least for those at the top. Adam Neumann is worth something above $500m, Benchmark’s funds are achieving record returns, even SoftBank’s vision fund has ended up in the black as of late 2020. Valuations for companies with no revenue and barely an idea are reaching above $1b. WeWork may have been the biggest venture bust of the 21st century so far, but with the incentives in place for our economy it certainly won’t be the last.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,025 reviews