WeWalk: CEO Adam Neumann Ousts Himself

Each month, “Ammirati on Innovation” episodes will look at ways
that the disruptive-startup mentality is spreading beyond young
entrepreneurs to big established corporations. Serial
entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Carnegie Mellon B-school
professor Sean Ammirati, who sits at the intersection of these
high-change dynamics, provides insight.


Episode 6


In this episode, Sean and I discuss the pain and suffering at
WeWork, which had roughly a $50 billion market cap, and is now
struggling to do one-third that much. Their CEO, Adam Neumann
voted to oust himself amid various scandals, and their “community
adjusted EBITDA” he calls a made-up metric.


SoftBank, their largest investor, was poised to push for an IPO,
but Sean says WeWork was a $10 billion great idea – not a $50
billion great idea. He says this was always, at the end of the
day, a real estate business, and he compares it to CB Richard
Ellis – although with a 5x valuation. And Sean says it turns out
that beer and kombucha on tap is expensive – and there’s a lot of
that in WeWork spaces.


I tell him about my experience eating seal meat with SoftBank.
Sean says I should have moved it around on the plate and hope
something else comes along.





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