‘WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork’ is told by David Brown, host of ‘Business Wars’
From the host of Wondery’s hit podcast “Business Wars,” “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork” tells the story of the phenomenal collapse of a unicorn. Host David Brown explains to us, in the easy way he always does, just what caused this multi-billion dollar business to come crashing down, almost solely because of one man. As he says at the end of every episode, this podcast is what happens when idealism and greed run headlong into reality. The New York Times called it a historic case of hubris, the implosion of a company unlike any other that’s happened before.
Through six episodes, Brown takes us through the dangers of an idealistic entrepreneur wanting to become the world’s first trillionaire (like, how was that not a red flag?). Episodes are a quick 20 to 30 minutes, explaining to us how WeWork went down in flames better than any Wikipedia article ever could. And, “WeCrashed” has a bonus seventh episode that features an interview with NYU Professor Scott Galloway about the future of Softbank, a swiftly climbing company that may be the next to collapse like WeWork. Well, that was back in early 2020 when this series was released, maybe we should Google where they are now…
The birth of WeWork
If you haven’t heard of the company WeWork, it was birthed from the Great Recession in the late 2000s. The charming and idealistic Adam Neumann founded the company with his more reserved, but still impractical, partner Miguel McKelvey. WeWork, founded in 2010, was a real estate company that rented communal workspaces in buildings for startups and freelancers. Individual customers and startups could rent individual desks in New York City high rises, all marketed as a communal co-working space with an emphasis on community and culture.
The two had actually founded a similar company before that, called GreenDesk, which was a similar idea but with a focus on it being eco-friendly. Neumann actually drew up the business model in one night for the landlord whose rooms they were trying to rent out, in an attempt to make it look like they had been planning this idea for months, instead of merely a few hours.
Communes to corporate greed
As Brown tells us at the start, it was clear to many businesspeople that WeWork was all smoke and mirrors. Neumann, when speaking about his rapidly growing company, used many buzzwords that, to them, could be translated into simply BS. Brown even tells us that Neumann’s own wife, Rebekah, saw right through him on their first date, telling us that her own opinion of him would turn out to be true just a decade later.
“WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork” tells us about the rather unusual upbringings of the two founders, which involved communes in Oregon and Israel. As time goes on, Neumann, his company, and even his wife, keep getting more and more billions from investors. They buy private jets, Hampton homes, and go on million-dollar spending sprees. But Neumann’s charm and vision wasn’t matching up with the reality of WeWork.
WeWork at its peak was valued at $47 billion dollars and was ready for a huge IPO when in 2019, its business models, practices, and ability to even turn a profit came under heavy scrutiny. Neumann was ousted as CEO, but WeWork, like Icarus, was still hurtling back towards Earth with great speed. “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork” tells the full story, full of passion, impracticality, and mind-boggling hubris.
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