Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork

WeWork’s business was the fact that every private valuation of the 2010s required a certain suspension of disbelief. “The funny thing about ‘hard numbers’ is that they can give a false sense of security,”

in life, it was sometimes necessary to do “the opposite of our nature.”

the discounts made it difficult for anyone to figure out the natural demand for their product.

He told Adam that if he set his sights high enough and was willing to move quickly, the opportunity in front of him was even bigger than Adam himself could imagine.

“supervoting” shares had become popular in Silicon Valley,

“There was literally not enough real estate in these cities to reach these numbers,”

WeWork employees had been attracted to the company’s public rhetoric of Obama-era inclusivity and togetherness, Trump’s election had been a gut punch.

Massive amounts of venture capital, much of it flowing directly from Masa and the Vision Fund, were flooding into everything from scooters to food delivery to all-you-can-watch movies.

Adam ran his company with a Trumpian hubris.