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Billionaire WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann is back in the entrepreneurship game with Flow, and he says he\u2019s determined not to repeat the mistakes that led to the coworking startup\u2019s monumental $47 billion collapse. This time, he says, he knows exactly why he failed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think society has taught us that once we gain that success, once we gain those material things, we get to this number, suddenly that hole that we all feel inside of us will be full,\u201d Neumann said on The Diary of a CEO podcast in an episode released Sept. 28. Of the most successful people he knows, he added, \u201cI have not seen one that got happy or fulfilled from attaining a number or a material thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
At WeWork\u2019s height, Neumann lived large. The company peaked at a $47 billion valuation after SoftBank invested $2 billion in January 2019, and Forbes estimated Neumann\u2019s net worth at $4.1 billion that March. WeWork bought a roughly $60 million Gulfstream G650ER that Neumann used extensively, and he and his wife, Rebekah Neumann, amassed a residential real estate portfolio the Wall Street Journal valued at around $90 million. WeWork also launched WeGrow, a for-profit private school led by Rebekah Neumann. Meanwhile, the company was losing billions.<\/p>\n
Neumann now says he can pinpoint the moment he lost his way: a meeting with SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son in late 2016. The night before, Neumann said, WeWork\u2019s board had agreed he would raise $300 million to $400 million, slow the company\u2019s growth, turn a profit, and take it public. Son, pressed for time ahead of a meeting with then\u2013President-elect Donald Trump, spent just 12 minutes in WeWork\u2019s lobby before inviting Neumann to keep talking in his car. By the end of the ride, roughly half an hour all told, Son had offered about $4 billion\u2014\u201d$4.2 to be exact,\u201d Neumann recalled\u2014and both men signed the terms on an iPad. SoftBank\u2019s investment, announced the following year, ultimately totaled $4.4 billion.<\/p>\n
Son got out around 54th Street, and Neumann walked the 36 blocks back to WeWork\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy that sat in the car was a mission-driven entrepreneur who really believed in creating a world where people make a life and not just a living,\u201d Neumann said. \u201cEvery step that I take, it goes higher and higher. And by the time I walk into HQ, 18th Street, I forgot what we were all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt suddenly became about the money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Neumann says the root problem was how he defined success. \u201cIf one of us defines success by making the most money and the other person defines success by being the most fulfilled, the most happy, the most light that they can be, then [we\u2019re] playing two different games,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 47-year-old now measures success by how he expects to feel at the end of his life. \u201cIn that last moment, right before you go, how do you feel? Do you feel full and surrounded by love, and like life has been this amazing journey? Or is there regret?\u201d he said. As he put it, \u201cthe one thing that happens right before we pass away: the ego goes away completely.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the helm of WeWork, Neumann became known as a messianic leader whose company\u2019s IPO prospectus declared a mission to \u201celevate the world\u2019s consciousness.\u201d Former employees told Business Insider he had a taste for $140 bottles of Don Julio tequila, and Neumann told Bartlett he worked 18- to 20-hour days, seven days a week, in WeWork\u2019s early years.<\/p>\n
The company also signed long-term leases in expensive cities around the world while renting space to members on short-term commitments, a mismatch Neumann acknowledged on the podcast. \u201cWe were taking long-term commitments against short-term commitments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
WeWork had disclosed a $1.9 billion net loss for 2018, and when it published its IPO prospectus in August 2019, investors balked at its mounting losses and Neumann\u2019s outsize control. The offering was shelved, and Neumann stepped down as CEO that September. He told Bartlett he went \u201cfrom 13,000 employees to 3 employees in 1 week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pandemic, which emptied offices in 2020, deepened WeWork\u2019s troubles. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2023 with nearly $19 billion in debt. Neumann tried to buy it back in early 2024, reportedly assembling a financing package of more than $500 million, but WeWork emerged from bankruptcy later that year without him.<\/p>\n
Still, Neumann insists he has no regrets. \u201cI am so much happier today,\u201d he said. Of the hardest parts, he added, \u201cI am so happy that they happened because they made me exactly who I\u2019m meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s bringing those lessons to Flow, the residential real estate startup he launched in 2022 with a $350 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz. \u201cFalling is not bad,\u201d he said. \u201cThe thing that\u2019s bad is not when you fall, it\u2019s how you get up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you fell, you look around, you\u2019re like, \u2018Wow, everybody saw.\u2019 You clean up, you get up, and you say, \u2018Let\u2019s do it again.\u2019 If you have that in you, nothing will stop you.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Adam #Neumann #car #ride #Masayoshi #Son #WeWorks #billion #collapse #began<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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