The Cult of We summary

From its early days, WeWork hosted happy hours for its clients – most of whom were tech startups. Even as the world reeled from the 2008 financial crisis, the chatter around WeWork's offices centered around which industry would be disrupted by a tech startup next. Many of these startups were financed by venture capitalists – investors who provided critical early funding, often well before companies showed they could make a profit. Their private money helped launch transformative companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.

By 2010, most venture capitalists had given up on finding groundbreaking ideas; they wanted to invest in groundbreaking leaders – people like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or Apple’s Steve Jobs, who weren’t just great salesmen, but also founders. Neumann saw himself among them.

Within just a couple of years, WeWork swelled beyond the United States. The company opened spaces in Europe and Israel, and it began to look toward Asian markets. This was a dizzying pace of growth – much faster than the software companies whose success Neumann once aspired to. 

As the company expanded, McKelvey retreated into a more supportive role; he was already richer than he’d ever dreamed of being. As he stepped back, he agreed to hand over most of his stake in the company profits to Neumann. 

In 2015, WeWork employees were told to leave their desks and go to 110 Wall Street. Neumann was going to walk into the building with an investor – and when he did, he wanted everyone to act like they were having fun, with the Notorious B.I.G. song “Juicy” blasting in the background. 

This wasn’t the only time employees were asked to do this. As they waited for Neumann to show up, they’d often have to play the song on repeat for up to an hour. It was all to model Neumann’s next big idea: a college dorm-style living experiment called WeLive. Just as WeWork had transformed office space, it would now redefine the residential sector. 

In 2019, Adam Neumann burst onto a stage, pumping his fist in front of a crowd of thousands. The crowd was made up of WeWork staff, and the event was a three-day internal conference in Los Angeles dubbed the “Global Summit.”

Most had traveled from New York to the Universal Studios theme park, which WeWork rented out for the corporate retreat. Tequila flowed, bands played, and staff piled into the Harry Potter rides, all to the tune of $10 million. 

Over time, employees and investors worried about more than WeWork's huge losses. They also worried about the founder. 

Thanks to the lucrative deals he forged for himself, by 2019 Neumann boasted a personal net worth of $10 billion. Meanwhile, he grew more disconnected from his employees. He developed a reputation for partying hard on his private jets – and traveling everywhere with a trail of aides, including a hairdresser and a surf instructor.