All language subtitles for American Greed s15e03 How WeWork Went Wild

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In this episode of American Greed, how
WeWork went wild.

The story of an office space company
with cosmic ambitions.

WeWork is using desks and co -working to
enter into the larger category of life.

A CEO with a messianic vibe.

He can manifest anything.

He can literally make things appear out
of thin air.

And the investors who gave him $12
billion and turned a blind eye.

He was like the cocaine that Silicon
Valley venture capitalists were just

waiting to snort.

American greed has the inside scoop on
how the company nearly collapsed.

The partying.

He's like jumping there, like pumping
fists, like, you know. And I'm like,

he's like the CEO and the second in
command of my job.

The promises.

You have Willy Wonka's golden ticket.

You're at the next Facebook or the next
Google.

The dashed hopes.

You expected me to be a gazillionaire,
right? And now you're basically, you got

nothing. And how some of the responsible
parties walked away richer than ever.

Adam Neumann is getting a massive
payout. $1 .7 billion while his workers

getting laid off. That hurts.

No one else in the world gets passes the
way CEOs get passes.

You, my friend, are full of...

Madison

Square Garden.

The legendary venue has hosted the
world's biggest pop stars over the

But in January 2018, the Garden stages a
different kind of star.

Here comes Adam. When he's like thick,
thick, got his long wavy hair, he's

usually got a black leather coat or a
white T -shirt. He comes out and he just

takes over the room. Hello, New York.
Hello, global citizens of this earth.

It's Adam Neumann.

The founder and CEO of co -working
company WeWork.

Newman has gathered 6 ,000 employees,
including Don Lewis, for a WeWork Global

Summit. It's a corporate retreat. It
feels a bit like a revival meeting.

He gives off positive energy.

He makes you feel alive. And he sounds
like he truly believes in what he is

saying. When you do something that comes
from the heart, when you find your

passion, you bring it together with
intention.

It's like when you turn on that TV
channel and there's like some

and they call someone up and they touch
someone on the head and like, oh, you're

cured of cancer. Like it was almost that
bad.

After a while, Lewis needs to stretch.

And I go to stand on a wall and a
security guard for the Maddox Square

place comes and stands next to me. He's
an older black man. He must have been

about. 70 years old.

Hey, you work for this company? He said,
what do they do? Like, what do you do?

And I'm like, well, you know, they give
office space to people all over the

world and they try to help companies,
you know, come together. And he's like,

well, this is quite a presentation.

And then get a little further along the
conversation. He's like, brother, can I

ask you a serious question?

And I said, sure, ask whatever you want.
Is this some kind of cult?

I actually started laughing.

Why is the security guard asking
questions that billionaire venture

are not?

Adam Neumann's story begins in Israel on
a kibbutz, where he spends his middle

school years living with his older
sister, Adi, and his mother, who is a

He loved aspects of the kibbutz life,
but he thought it was inherently unfair

because everything was shared. Even
people...

From the kibbutz days, he said he wanted
more.

He was very, even then, focused on sort
of attaining wealth and thinking really

big.

Adi, on the left, grows up to become a
famous model.

And in this Israeli TV footage never
before seen in America, Adam says he's

going to follow his sister to New York.

Rocking a look fit for Soho, Adam and
Adi shove off for the Big Apple and move

into a high -rise downtown.

Later, he will say that at first, he
finds New Yorkers self -absorbed and

unwelcoming.

and I would go up and down the elevators
with 15 floors, and I would notice that

no one would say hello to me in the
elevator. And I asked my sister, I said,

this an American thing, or do people
really not want to talk?

Adam says he challenges Adi to a game.

Whoever makes more friends in a month
wins.

Let's each find one apartment that we
can go unannounced, because being

you're used to just going to your
friends, knocking on the door and

Unannounced, and we'll have a cup of
coffee.

And for the next month, we all
introduced ourselves to different. It

floors. She got 12 floors.

I got three floors. She also was a
supermodel at the time.

And it's okay.

In the story, he's technically the
loser.

But he tells it with the je ne sais quoi
of a winner.

and thereby trumpets one of his
extraordinary talents.

He is a complete genius at connecting.

People who would be in the apartment at
the time, people who lived in the

apartment, say that, you know, Adam,
even then, was always, like, you'd come

into his apartment, he's like, let me
tell you about this business idea that I

have.

Newman launches two businesses that
fail, and he finds himself with the ball

chain of a lease at this building in
Brooklyn.

Around this time, through mutual
friends, Newman meets a young architect

Miguel McKelvey.

He and Adam would go on these long walks
and just sort of brainstorm ideas.

Adam was, you know, always just
restless, always hungering for the next

thing. Adam knew that co -working
existed.

And he started saying, what if we just
took one of these floors of this

that we're working in? We could
subdivide it. We think it could be a

business.

Newman is encouraged by his wife,
Rebecca, who will later portray Adam's

potential in heroic, even mystical
terms.

Oh, yeah. When I met my husband, he
couldn't buy me dinner or even afford a

taxi. Really? I just knew that he was
going to be the man that was going to

hopefully help save the world. He can
manifest anything.

He can literally make things appear out
of thin air.

Never seen anything like it. Wow. Yeah.

With Rebecca at his side, telling him to
shoot for the moon, Newman and McKelvey

strike out on their own. They call their
new venture WeWork.

It really felt like the start of an era.

Lisa Skye is WeWork's second employee.

That means she does a little bit of
everything.

I was the founding community manager is
what I have on my LinkedIn profile.

But that meant I was responsible for
sales, tours, billing through our

QuickBooks software system, IT because
my IT person was in high school at that

time. So I was in the data closet
connecting the wires to make sure people

get their Internet use because that's
most important. And whatever needed to

done, that's what I was doing.

It was really intense. It was around the
clock.

But people, you know, felt like they
were all together building something

WeWork signs long -term leases with
landlords, usually for large urban

Then they subdivide the space into small
glass -walled units.

They'll make money as long as they pay
less in rent to the landlord than they

collect from all their tenants, which
WeWork calls members.

Why would you take out a five -year
lease or a ten -year lease? We'll give

month -to -month lease. We're going to
take care of the receptionist. We're

going to take care of the coffee.

I used to say you have a bigger
commitment to your cell phone than you

They'll charge you a $150 cancellation
fee. We'll just let you go at 30 days'

notice and give you your deposit back.

And the second part of it was they were
selling the coolness of the space. They

were selling the vibe.

The common space, you know, kind of
looked like a rainforest.

Justin Zen runs a startup from his
kitchen, which happens to be in Hell's

Kitchen. When he needs more space,
there's one obvious choice. The place

startup dreams are made.

They did a great job just selling that
pitch, right? If you don't want to be in

a boring, you know, old -fashioned
office space, come to WeWork. We're

make your life great.

WeWork expands quickly, and a positive
buzz surrounds Adam Neumann. He starts

hanging out with titans of high tech and
seeing how well they're living.

Up next, does Adam Neumann think he's
the next Mark Zuckerberg?

The social network came out. You know,
it's like the world was changing.

Supposedly he watched that movie and was
like, this is awesome.

I want to do this.

WeWork is growing fast.

But to keep growing in the world of New
York real estate, it will need cash.

Lots of it.

So the reason why WeWork became WeWork
and why Adam Neumann became Adam Neumann

is because of venture capitalists.

Venture capitalists provide a company
with seed money in its infancy. And if

grows big, the VCs will see outrageous
returns.

That's the story of one of venture
capital's most legendary players,

Capital. And one of the very first deals
that they did is they backed a small

company named eBay.

And this thing paid out like crazy. It
ended up making $5 billion in profit.

And so all of a sudden, everybody knows
who Benchmark is.

In 2012, Adam Neumann gets word that a
benchmark partner named Bruce Dunleavy

would like to meet him and take a tour.

So Adam's very well known for giving
these tours of WeWork space.

And he loved to give these to investors.
And it was part of his sales pitch

basically to them.

You know, come walk through the space.

You'll see what this community really
is.

A lot of folks talk about how Adam used
to activate the space, and what

activating the space meant was that when
an investor would walk in to the

building, all of a sudden there'd just
be this impromptu party.

It was very calculated, but he always
sort of acted as if, this just happens

the time.

Essentially it was, get people on the
floor. We don't care how, we don't care

what you do, just get people on the
floor.

And investors in general were... odd
really walking around and that was the

with bruce dunleavy he came he flew from
san francisco to new york he was

skeptical it was a real estate company
venture capitalists would much rather

invest in tech companies because tech
can scale up a friend of mine who's in

tech refers to them as magic companies
because once you build the company once

you build a search engine once you build
a way to sell ads on a search engine it

just scales all across the world, and
you don't have to hire a bunch more

every single time it gets bigger and
bigger and bigger. You just sort of let

dollars stream in.

Real estate is just a completely
fundamentally different model.

You can't get around the fixed costs.

There's only so much scale you can
possibly have.

So we work as a real estate company,
right? There's no question about that.

Like, they're renting real estate,
they're selling real estate. It's not

a tech company.

Who's your biggest...

So we don't have clients, we have
members.

Adam didn't have an MBA. He didn't know
finance, but he somehow figured

out how to convince the top investors in
the whole world that this real estate

business was a software business.

Venture Capital likes to invest in
software as a service. So WeWork says,

too, and positions itself as space as a
service.

Newman also hypes an internal social
network designed to bring WeWork members

together.

Adam Newman is like an entrepreneur
cartoon character come to life.

WeWork is using desk and co -working to
enter into the larger category of life.

And when he talks about the world and
about his vision, he talks huge.

You can be a member of WE. And with that
membership, you have access to physical

space all over the world. You have
friends. You have colleagues. You have

customers. He's building the world's
first physical social network. I don't

know what that means. Nobody knows what
that means. But he's selling it.

And benchmarks buying.

They invest $17 million into WE work at
a critical time.

The culture of WeWork at the beginning
of 2013 was a million miles an hour. For

someone like me, I relished it. I loved
it.

The pace was frantic. It was hair on
fire every single day. But part of that

hair on fire culture, of course, is
camaraderie, right?

Something blew up, let's figure out how
to fix it.

Despite the frenetic pace and long
hours, the pay is below what many

would expect.

So the big dream, I think, for most
people was that there's going to be a

gold at the end, right? Like, you know,
this place is going to go public and

we're all going to be threats, right?

I mean, the words rocket ship to
success, I think, was actually used in

introduction meeting that that feeling
of like you have Willy Wonka's golden

ticket. You are here in the right place
at the right time.

You're at the next Facebook or the next
Google.

Up next, work hard, play harder.

What could possibly go wrong with Canoes
Full of Booze?

In 2015, Adam Neumann visits CNBC
Studios and reiterates his idea that

WeWork is not a real estate company.

How fast are you growing?

Very. What kind of numbers are we
talking about? We're talking about

one of the fastest physical expansions
that has been seen for the past 10

London, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam.

But this is about workspace, right? If I
need a desk somewhere? This is much

bigger than workspace. This is about
changing the way you work.

But Adam was saying, no, no, no, no, no,
that's not the business. The real

business is the community platform
behind it.

It had a feel of being like a startup
incubator in a way.

And WeWork knew that when you get a lot
of interesting people together, that

interesting things happen.

If I'm starting a business, I need a
great graphic designer, a good web

developer, I need a PR team, I need a
lawyer, and I need someone to help me

sales. And all of that put together is
what you can find inside of WeWork, both

physically and virtually.

I don't think the community is as close
as what they were pitching it to be.

Justin Zen is disappointed after moving
his startup into a WeWork space.

You know, there's three beer every day
at 4 .30. They literally wrote in a keg.

Well, most people would take the beer
and they would go back to the office

it.

Zen has a way to confirm or refute his
drinking alone hunch.

He applies his proprietary system of
data analytics to WeWork's highly touted

social network.

Zen finds out that almost 8 out of 10
WeWork members have never even logged

And 5 of the top 10 users, with the most
followers, including Adam Neumann, are

WeWork employees.

So it's a social network where your main
users, they're just posting a lot

because they're paid to do so.

Zen publishes his data.

Newman himself sees it and is not happy.

The community manager told us, he said,
Adam, you know, he saw the blog post and

management is upset and you have 30
minutes to leave. You're being kicked

We were called Zen's analysis inaccurate
and incomplete.

According to Zen, the community manager
says he has violated the, quote,

community happiness clause.

Obviously, they were the landlords, but
yeah, we thought it was a major

overreaction.

For Adam Neumann, commitment to WeWork
is all or nothing. And some former

employees say that's especially true for
them.

What was really sold, I think, that
energized a lot of people was this we

concept. Anybody who understands the
sharing economy and that being part of

something greater than yourself is
meaningful is a member of the we

We were all told regularly that we're
all here to serve this greater purpose.

It was we are going to do this in a way
that we're helping the world, we're

helping community, we're helping the
little guy.

They would say, like, you know, we're
like your family, your we family.

So when you're spending time with people
you consider to be like family, it

doesn't feel like work.

They put the cult in culture was a
common saying.

And that culture reaches full flower in
the woods upstate.

It felt like being a little kid in some
ways.

We all piled onto buses.

Summer camp was literally like, you
know, some people just put it in a

called like a music festival, right? But
it was just, it's literally like just

party.

People are drinking at 6 a .m. in the
morning, and I was like, oh, God, this

where we're starting?

From 4 p .m. to 4 a .m., there is
unlimited alcohol.

Ice Cube performed once, Lin -Manuel
Miranda, Florence and the Machine.

I think summer camp ultimately was great
as a marketing tool.

Hey, I went to a festival for my company
where I saw The Weeknd play.

But as an employee, I hated it. And it
was mandatory, so that was interesting.

It felt like this requirement that I
didn't need.

We were sleeping in a tent. Not that I
needed five -star accommodation, but

had five -star accommodation.

Newman's tent has air conditioning,
single malt scotch, and fine wine.

Executives would stay on another part of
the island and would take a boat back

and forth. We were essentially thrown in
pop -up tents with cots.

All of this would not be possible
without all of you, so I just want to

thank you so much.

Despite the lofty all -for -one, one
-for -all rhetoric, by 2015, some

conclude that WeWork is no kibbutz.

And I remember specifically, I was on
the road, but people at the headquarters

reached out to me and said, it's a
random Tuesday and Adam is throwing a

party. They're drinking tequila and
they're like really having a good time.

do you think is going on here?

We clearly just raised a ton of money.
Something's about to happen.

He's exactly right.

After the initial investment from
Benchmark Capital, there are many more

from other investors.

The valuation of WeWork rises
exponentially with each raise, and Adam

catches out.

He sells equity and borrows against his
stock to the tune of $700 million,

according to the Wall Street Journal.

Though not illegal, cashing out of a
startup this early is unusual, according

Maureen Farrell.

It made Benchmark and other investors
uncomfortable that Adam Neumann was

out so much money each step of the way.

But not enough to block him from doing
so.

Let's think about a certain group of
people, your investors.

Are you going to IPO in the next year?

So here's one of my investors happens to
be sitting in the front. He's a big fan

of the IPO, came in very early. Yeah. I
would never want to do the math on his

position. That might be why he smiles.
That's why he's smiling. See that big

smile?

And the crazy thing about investing is
you don't care about whether you have to

own the thing for the next 20 or 30
years.

You only care if you're going to be able
to sell it to the next guy for more

than you paid for it.

And Adam Neumann, Adam Neumann can make
you the next guy believe it's worth the

world.

Up next, enter the next guy, one of the
world's richest men, Masayoshi Son.

I mean, he's a risk taker to the
extreme, as is Adam. I mean, they were a

combustible combination.

At WeWork's corporate headquarters, Adam
Neumann is expecting a very important

visitor. It's Masayoshi San, known
simply as Masa, a Japanese billionaire

one of the world's preeminent tech
investors.

You either think that he's brilliant or
crazy or maybe both. Maybe you have to

be both to make the kinds of gambles and
bets that he's made over his lifetime.

Masa tells Neumann he's in New York to
meet the new president -elect.

And on the way to Trump Tower, he'd like
to swing by WeWork.

So Adam's planning it for days.
Everything has to be perfect.

It's the whole tour.

Adam, among other things, they asked
someone to make waffles. So it would

really good inside.

Martha keeps Newman waiting and pacing.

The two hours he's blocked off are
dwindling fast.

Turns out there will be no time for
maple syrup and whipped cream.

Masa walks in the door and says, I've
got 12 minutes. Go.

After a rushed tour, Masa tells Adam to
get in his car.

So Adam goes with him, drives with him
30 -odd blocks to Trump Tower.

Adam starts telling him more about his
plan for global WeWork nomination.

Masa poses a question in a fight between
a smart person and a crazy person. Who

wins?

And Adam knew the right answer, which is
that it's the crazy person. It's the

person willing to do anything. It's the
person willing to do what the other

person doesn't expect.

In the back of a car, Masayoshi's son
and Newman strike a $4 .4 billion deal,

one of the largest capital investments
of all time.

Newman is elated when he returns.

And he runs in and is saying, $4 .4
billion.

And everyone's kind of looking at him
like he's crazy.

It was, frankly, more money than anyone
quite knew what to do with. And it was

money that was going to make everyone
rich.

All Newman has to do is live up to
Moss's vision of global domination.

He's a risk taker to the extreme, as is
Adam. I mean, they were a

combustible combination.

Motha would literally say, you're not
crazy enough.

And people around Adam Neumann were
like, oh, no, don't call him that.

From that moment forward, any sort of
restraint that WeWork had was out the

window because Adam now had the money to
do whatever he wanted and he had the

permission.

I mean.

He was living large before the thought
bank investment.

It just amps up to such an extreme.

According to the Wall Street Journal,
the Newmans spend $90 million on six

in Gramercy Park, Greenwich Village,
Westchester County, the Hamptons, and

County, California.

WeWork buys a brand new top -of -the
-line Gulfstream jet at a cost of $60

million.

Newman and his family use it to travel
the world on surf trips.

His hairdresser would fly around with
him.

It was just like a level of
extravagance. It's kind of unimaginable,

paper billionaire.

Around this time, Rebecca Newman is
appointed as WeWork's chief brand

It all of a sudden became, oh, this is a
company founded by Adam.

Rebecca, and there just happens to be
this guy named Miguel.

But, you know, he does culture and
stuff.

Don't worry about him. And she became a
face.

We've got Rebecca Newman in the house.
Good to see you. Thank you so much for

being here. I appreciate it. I'm in your
house, actually. This is the WeWork

headquarters.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's fun.

And then it morphed into, well, I helped
co -found this company.

And as one of the first hundred people
at that company, I will tell you

up,

Now, you are, just so I got it clear,
you are a founding partner and chief

officer of WeWork, but also founder and
CEO of WeGrow.

Exactly. And what is the mission of
WeGrow, just so I understand clearly?

The mission of WeGrow and, quite
honestly, the collective we that we're

living under is to elevate the world's
consciousness.

At WeGrow, specifically through
unleashing every human superpower and

happiness.

Okay. This isn't just about work
anymore.

This is about life. This is about
education.

The curriculum focuses equally on the
mind, body, and spirit, and we're basing

bunch of different pedagogies and then
creating our own on top of it.

A curriculum that some WeGrow teachers
call whimsical.

When the family returns from a surf
trip, Rebecca suggests WeGrow should

surfing in New York City.

To me as a former educator, I was a
special education teacher before I went

the technology industry, to assume that
you could start school with no

educational background and to assume
that you could just throw money at the

problem and just change the way children
learn and live, it's kind of arrogant.

Don Lewis recalls Rebecca explaining
WeGrow, where tuition ranges up to $42

a year to a large group of employees.

I remember this almost verbatim. It was
like, the New York City private schools

aren't good enough for our children.

The need to start a school came from my
husband and I not finding the right

place to send my child.

And I'm sitting there, and I'm like,
well, you're talking to a room of, like,

,000 people right now. Some of them are
support staff.

I'm assuming that some of them live in,
like, the South Bronx, where their kids

go to elementary schools where there's
metal detectors.

You know, it's a level of, like, really
tone deaf.

Up next, why does Newman need a
Hollywood hype man?

Okay, we'll give you an interview with
him, but Ashton Kutcher has to go along

for the interview.

Want more greed?

Follow us on Instagram, connect on
Facebook, and listen to the American

Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be right back.

by a billionaire who tells him he's not
crazy enough, Adam Neumann puts WeWork's

pedal to the metal. The pace at which
the buildings were opening, right? Just

opening, opening, opening, opening,
opening, right?

Some employees are feeling burned out.

Tara Zumer is a WeWork assistant
community manager, and she says she

from 8 in the morning until 10 at night.

They used to say, like, well, you get to
stay at events. You get the opportunity

of being here as if that was
compensation.

And it's just not. I love being around
interesting people, but that's not going

to put food on my table.

Zoomers say she makes $42 ,000 a year.

It was the first time I actually started
going broke working.

And that's when I started to question
things, too. Like, how long can I keep

this up?

What payday am I actually waiting for?

And will I even be able to make it to
that payday?

Much of her job is hands -on.

Clicking button.

You know, ordering milk.

Cleaning up Taco Tuesday.

But Zoomer has manager in her title and
therefore is not eligible for overtime.

She thinks she should be.

She reaches out to other assistant
managers and consults a lawyer.

But I knew that my story wasn't really
unique either. That was the reason for a

class action lawsuit, when you realize
you're not that special, actually.

There's a lot of people who are doing
the same work that you're doing who

also want to get paid for those extra
hours.

WeWork's legal team catches wind, and
Zoomer is summoned to a room with stacks

of paper.

Everything inside of me knew that this
was not a good thing. You know, and I

them know very politely, like, I'm not
signing this. I don't know what I'm

signing, so I'm going to take some time.

Someone in the room asked, is she
allowed to do that? I was like, I better

Like, this is still America, right? Are
you going to put my hand on the paper

and, like, sign it for me? It's insane.

Zoomer's lawyer reviews the document and
says signing would waive her right to a

jury trial and to pursue legal action.
But it's too late.

Many community managers across WeWork go
ahead and sign.

My lawyer said this is going to blow.

any class action claim for everyone
forever.

So it's dead.

Her lawyer warns Tara to prepare for the
backlash.

I had a high probability feeling that I
would be fired Monday.

She's right.

There's always this crazy little thing
that tech companies say or startups say.

It's like, oh, if we stopped growing,
we'd be profitable tomorrow.

Growth at all costs.

Growth at all costs. Don't worry about
the losses because they aren't actually

losses. They're investments. I think
that's actually what WeWork told me.

But right now they're losing money.

Accounting -wise.

Because they're growing so quickly.

In 2018, WeWork loses almost $2 billion.

But Masayoshi -san still believes WeWork
will become the global juggernaut of

office space.

He and Newman hatch a plan to invest
another $20 billion into WeWork.

And it would be one of the biggest
private investments ever.

Two funny things happen on the way to
global domination.

Saudi Arabia, whose sovereign wealth
fund comprises more than half of MASA's

capital, pulls out of the deal.

Second, the Wall Street Journal breaks
news about the plan, and investors don't

like what they hear.

Masa called Adam, sorry, we're calling
off the deal. The shareholders are going

to revolt.

This could blow up my whole company. I
can't do it.

Adam was completely shocked, as were
every senior executive.

And then all of a sudden, the deal fell
apart.

And that's about when I sat down with
Adam Newman.

I had been trying to get an interview
with Adam Newman for months and months.

Finally, they said, okay, Deirdre, if
you fly down to L .A., We'll give you an

interview with him.

But Ashton Kutcher has to go along for
the interview.

I said, okay.

In addition to being a TV and film star,
Ashton Kutcher is a successful

technology investor.

But when I actually got underneath the
hood. I would describe Ashton Kutcher as

Adam Neumann's hype man.

I realized it was a technology company.
And I realized that through the

technology this company has, it has a
greater capacity than any other company

the entire world.

Kutcher argues that Moss's commitment is
still enormous by almost any standard.

It's the second largest venture capital
investment of all time.

I'm an investor in Uber, so I know what
the first largest one was.

I often ask, how will you know when
you're ready to be a public company? You

ready. We work and always ready for an
IPO. We will choose the right time to do

it when it's correct for the mission of
the company. What are you looking for?

I want to elevate the world's
consciousness.

Okay, so when you do that, then you can
go public? One or the other. When I feel

that to achieve that mission, going
public will help it, that will be the

Okay, we talked a lot about the private
market. Shortly after this interview,

WeWork does indeed plan to go public,
not because it's elevated the world's

consciousness, but because it needs the
money.

Up next, going public means WeWork's
curtain is pulled back.

I remember sitting in the middle of the
newsroom and it dropped.

And I run to the camera. I said, we have
to get this on right now.

Another tech unicorn has filed to go
public. This time it is WeWork.

As WeWork prepares for its Wall Street
debut, Adam Neumann's behavior is a bit

erratic. He's skipping board meetings to
go surfing. And he reportedly tells

several WeWork executives he wants to be
the world's first trillionaire with a

team.

He's telling his friends at this point
also that he wants to become the prime

minister of Israel or maybe the
president of the world, which there is

president of the world, but whatever.

It's the board of directors' job to
either rein in a wayward CEO or show him

door. With WeWork, neither happens.

They just wanted to get rich.

And so in the interest of getting rich,
they totally ignored what was clearly

bat -crazy because all they saw was a
payday right over the horizon.

To get there, WeWork needs to submit to
the government a document called an S

-1. Typically, these are dense and
filled with data explaining in detail

company makes money. But Adam and
Rebecca Newman take it as an opportunity

self -expression.

She treated it like the September issue
of Vogue, that this was going to be a

beautiful document.

Adam thought it was his masterpiece.

Best thing he had ever written in his
entire life.

Despite the glossy photographs, the S1
will reveal much about WeWork and

answer the question, what makes WeWork
so special?

That day, the day the S1 was released,
the place was just aflame with criticism

of everything in the document.

Scorn is heaped upon the document's
dedication to the energy of we greater

any one of us, but inside each of us.

The document is packed with jaw
-dropping revelations, some that seem

line with a royal family than a publicly
traded company.

The succession plan shocked people. I
mean, basically, his wife.

who was a co -founder retroactively,
would play a key role in shooting his

successor if he was incapacitated or he
died.

And that just seemed ridiculous to
people or just so over the top.

Newman has borrowed an astounding $740
million against WeWork stock.

Also, he is personally a partner in
several large buildings in New York,

have rented space to WeWork. So in some
cases...

Adam Newman, the man, is the landlord of
WeWork, the company. In addition to

this self -dealing, the overarching
business model of WeWork looks shaky.

It's still losing billions of dollars
every year.

He did say on television many times, we
are profitable.

Are you actually turning a profit? We
are definitely turning a profit.

But there's this like asterisk in his
mind of...

If you subtract out all these other
costs, we're totally profitable.

Once everything was in plain sight, he
couldn't keep up the facade anymore.

Everyone was talking about it, non
-business networks were talking about

the stuff that this company was doing.

WeWork's much -anticipated IPO filing
last week, raising... It just doesn't

any sense to me. The WeWork of state
parties, it is just in absolute collapse

right now. One month later, the Wall
Street Journal drops a story that

Adam Neumann was flying high, literally.

The party gets rolling on a private jet
to Israel with friends.

And then when they land in Israel, they
take this huge, huge handful of pot.

They stick it in a cereal box, right, to
try and hide it. When the crew finds

it, the plane is grounded, forcing
Newman to find another way back to New

You know, it was a potential felony to
transport drugs on an international

flight. I remember someone called me.
They're like, he won't, now that this

article's out, he's not going to be CEO
in 48 hours.

But getting rid of Adam Neumann won't be
easy. His shares have ten times the

votes of everyone else. The board will
have to pay him to leave.

Masayoshi's son, SoftBank, agrees to buy
$1 billion worth of Neumann stock, plus

a $185 million consulting fee.

The IPO is placed on hold, and more than
2 ,000 WeWork employees lose their

jobs.

For some former employees, Newman's
billion -dollar golden parachute feels

a punch to the gut.

For driving his company into the ground,
Adam Newman is getting a massive

payout. $1 .7 billion while his workers
are getting laid off. That hurts.

Yeah. This world keeps giving
opportunity to people who have been

deserve another opportunity.

And that part's really...

especially being a woman watching so
many men get these passes that others

get. No one else in the world gets
passes the way CEOs get passes for bad

behavior. All of this would not be
possible without all of you. So I just

to say thank you so much.

Adam and Rebecca Newman, SoftBank and
Masayoshi Son and Benchmark Capital

Partners all declined to speak with
American Green.

None of the actions described in this
story are alleged to be crimes.

SoftBank, as of the original air date of
this program, is underwater with its

investment in WeWork, having lost
billions.

I'm part of the responsibility of his
mistake.

So I still love him. I still respect
him. I'm sure he would come back and

do some great stuff.

Benchmark Capital has no apologies, just
profits. They pocket $300 million from

their WeWork investment.

This system completely broke down. The
guy who drove this company into the

ground, he has walked away rich beyond
belief.

The people who empowered him, they made
money. They're doing just fine.

Luckily, we have some other hit. So in
total score, we are still positive.

The people who got punished are the
employees of WeWork, people who just

up trying to do their job every day.

My biggest sympathies are for the
younger people because I will tell you,

work hard.

If you were one of the first people at
WeWork, you expected to be a

gazillionaire, right? And now you're
basically, you got nothing.

On October 21st, 2021, two years after
his initial plan for an IPO,

WeWork goes public.

Newman still owns 11 % of the company.

The Newmans have sold much of their New
York and California real estate, but

have recently purchased a $40 million
compound in Miami Beach.

Adam Neumann says he is actively
plotting his next business.

Anyone who's known him says there will
be a second act.

The predictions of people who have known
him over the years is the second act

will be crazier than the first.