- WeWork pulled its IPO after mulling a massive valuation cut to drum up investor interest. Cofounder Adam Neumann is out as CEO and chairman. Now, WeWork’s new leadership is looking to shutter or sell off businesses, and slashing jobs.
- We’re tracking how we got here, and what’s next for WeWork after it nabbed a lifeline from SoftBank.
- You can read our stories by subscribing to BI Prime.
Here’s everything we know about what’s going on inside WeWork:
Plotting a path forward
- WeWork is now paying a retainer of $500,000 a month to Publicis for crisis PR and advertising services just weeks after almost running out of cash
- WeWork just overhauled its compensation plan, and we have the full memo with details on cash bonuses, base salary changes, and new equity grants
- WeWork shutters its restaurant-based coworking subsidiary, Spacious, and lays off the entire staff of about 50 employees
- BANK OF AMERICA: WeWork and other IPO disasters could start a domino effect that sends US stocks tumbling. Here’s how.
- WeWork’s turnaround plan calls for it to stanch its losses while opening hundreds of new locations. Here’s why business and real-estate experts are baffled.
- WeWork offered about 1,000 people a surprisingly good deal to move to a contractor, but then sent some of them a letter with another deal
- Some WeWork employees believe working for the company has hurt their careers
- Here are all the people SoftBank has trusted to turn WeWork around, including the 4 new executives it just announced
- Inside WeWork’s leaked all-staff meeting: The embattled company’s path to profitability will focus on 6 pillars, and 4 men were named to executive roles
- As WeWork lays off thousands of employees, its competitors say they’re ready to hire hundreds next year as they expand
- Tishman Speyer is opening its own flex offices without go-betweens like WeWork. We got a look at the landlord’s new space in New York.
- Adam Neumann personally invested tens of millions in startups while he ran WeWork. Founders who took his money reveal what it was like.
- After WeWork’s meltdown, competitors say their investors want ‘quality’ revenue and a plan to navigate downturns
SoftBank bailout
- Read the memo WeWork’s new chairman just sent to all staff outlining its 5-year plan using the New York City Marathon as a metaphor
- Read the email WeWork’s co-CEOs sent to the troops after SoftBank brought in a new chairman to salvage the company
- Inside WeWork’s all-hands meeting, where the new chairman from SoftBank addressed employee concerns about worthless stock options and Kanye West’s ‘Flashing Lights’ played
- Read the email from WeWork’s new chairman where he confirms layoffs and says: What we are lacking is focus’ and ‘accountability’
- SoftBank likely had the Vision Fund on its mind when it decided to rescue WeWork
- Some WeWork employees say they’re outraged by the terms of SoftBank’s bailout — Adam Neumann can cash out nearly $1 billion and will also get hefty consulting fees
- WeWork CEOs tell staff layoffs are coming in leaked email ahead of decision on rescue package
Fallout after the failed IPO
- WeWork’s coding boot camp Flatiron School has laid off dozens of employees
- WeWork plans to outsource cleaning and maintenance in first step of big staff cuts, leaked email shows
- Goldman Sachs unloaded some of its WeWork shares before its investment bankers pitched investors on what it once considered a $60 billion-plus IPO
- Inside WeWork’s troubled $850 million Lord & Taylor building: A tale of outsize ambition, audacious renovations, and now financial worries
- WeWork’s school is closing at the end of the academic year as the company ditches passion projects to stem its huge losses
- WeWork is now is said to be talking to JPMorgan about a $5 billion credit line and could run out of cash next month without it
- We’re starting to get a sense of the damage WeWork has wrought on Wall Street, and it could cost Goldman Sachs $264 million
- JPMorgan has a complex relationship with WeWork. Here’s a sneak peak at what Wall Street analysts will be asking when it reports earnings.
- The WeWork fiasco is making employees wonder if their shares have been set on fire. We talked to experts who said most tech startup workers are in the dark about how much their equity is worth.
- As WeWork bleeds cash, Bernstein lays out 4 ways the struggling company can stay afloat
- Morgan Stanley says WeWork’s failed IPO marks the end of an era for unprofitable unicorns — and explains why it leaves the market’s tech kingpins vulnerable
- WeWork’s unraveling will have a chilling effect on direct-to-consumer companies, says former AOL and Google exec and DTX Company CEO Tim Armstrong
- Silicon Valley’s founder-led startups have lost their shine with IPO investors. But the obsession with direct listings won’t fix the bigger problem.
- The flopping of the IPOs: Tech’s biggest investors came to San Francisco for a major startup conference, and one topic stole the show
- Traders are piling in to short WeWork’s ‘house-of-cards’ junk bonds — and the costs of the bets are some of the priciest on record
- Uber and WeWork are being thrashed for pretending to be tech companies. But the VC whose firm bet big on both startups says that argument is all wrong.
- WeWork is planning to lay off thousands — up to 25% of its employees — as its new CEOs focus on the core business
Neumann’s personal finances
- WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann personally invested $30 million in a startup and loaned money to its CEO. Then the CEO got fired over alleged gross misconduct.
- Adam Neumann lent money to phone distributor PCS Wireless this spring, showing how his family office is investing beyond startups
- Adam Neumann spent over $650,000 on property taxes last year — that’s more than double the median US home value
- Wall Street gave Adam Neumann up to $500 million he was going to pay back after WeWork’s IPO. Now that the offering is pulled, banks are scrambling to hammer out a solution.
Neumann’s exit
- The Kabbalah Connection: Insiders say a celebrity-centered religious sect deeply influenced how Adam Neumann ran WeWork before its spectacular collapse
- Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann’s WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked it
- Governance sank WeWork from the start, a VC and Stanford lecturer says. Here’s what any founder can learn from Adam Neumann’s cautionary tale.
- At least 5 longtime members of Adam Neumann’s inner circle are out, but cofounder Miguel McKelvey will remain as WeWork revamps itself
- ‘The power of revelation’: Adam Neumann and Elon Musk show how startup founders use the same tactics as cult leaders — and why it eventually backfires
- WeWork’s board just ousted Adam Neumann as CEO — here’s who the key players are
- Adam Neumann is out as WeWork’s CEO, but that’s no ‘silver bullet’: VCs and proptech experts think it will take cutting passion projects and cleaning house to right the ship
- JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon met with WeWork’s Adam Neumann this weekend to hash out how to get its botched IPO back on track
- The relationship between WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is being tested. Here’s how Neumann cultivated it in the first place.
Tanking valuation
- WeWork’s competitors are scrambling to distance themselves from the co-working giant, but many are following the same script
- WeWork cofounders Adam and Rebekah Neumann are close friends with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and invited them to Rebekah’s extravagant 40th birthday bash in Italy
- The CEO of $1 billion WeWork rival Knotel says the idea of coworking is ‘over’
- Tech IPO injury report: Some of the biggest names in tech have taken a beating after going public this year
- 3 VC investors in flex-space startups slam WeWork’s governance and leadership as its valuation crumbles
- WeWork’s top communications executives are jumping ship as the company struggles to go public
- WeWork is doing increasing amounts of business with SoftBank, which is also its biggest investor
- The history of WeWork’s meteoric valuation rise — and fall
- Private wealth execs at JPMorgan and UBS told us they’re lending more against private shares. WeWork CEO Adam Neumann has borrowed from both.
- WeWork’s attempt to tap junk-bond investors may not work this time: ‘Their borrowing model is seriously in question at this point’
- WeWork is preparing to move into this massive, flashy Brooklyn building as its IPO plans crumble. We took a look inside.
- WeWork’s shrinking IPO will erase billions from CEO Adam Neumann’s payday, but he’ll still likely come out a multibillionaire
- Mutual funds like Fidelity’s famed Contrafund have slashed valuations on their WeWork stakes
- The CEO of coworking startup Convene is worried bad press around WeWork’s model could taint the entire flex-office industry
- WeWork says it has a $3 trillion market opportunity and has signed up only 0.2% of its potential customers. Here’s why real-estate experts say those numbers don’t add up.
- Real-estate billionaire Sam Zell just bashed WeWork: ‘Every single company in this space has gone broke’
Financials, business history, and real estate
- WeWork just released an investor presentation that offers numbers the company didn’t include in its widely-derided IPO documents
- Insiders say WeWork’s IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fix
- WeWork used massive discounts — in some cases, essentially giving away space for 2 years — to try to poach customers from rivals
- WeWork says it has 527,000 ‘memberships,’ but that’s not as straightforward as it seems
- WeWork opened 400 locations in 3 years. In some cases, it used deep discounts to convince existing customers to relocate to help fill them.
- We got a peek at WeWork’s top landlords. Here’s who is most exposed to the fast-growing, but money-losing, coworking company as it prepares to IPO.
- Here’s what we know about Fibra Uno, the Mexico real estate company that’s WeWork’s biggest landlord. It highlights how quickly the co-working company has been growing overseas.
- WeWork’s CFO says it will generate $2 billion in profit on the desks it’s opened this year, and it shows the importance of the ‘space-as-a-service’ model
- WeWork’s ‘entirely new, nonsense’ way of evaluating its profits is eerily similar to the tech bubble
- The past 4 years of WeWork’s pre-IPO financials show just how important cash flow is to the company’s growth
- WeWork reported its financials for 2018 and both its revenue — and losses — doubled
- One of WeWork’s buildings is profitable, and the company says it’s a vindication of its model
- WeWork documents reveal it owes $18 billion in rent and is burning through cash as it seeks more funding
Coworking rivals
- WeWork is the largest ‘flex-space’ operator in the US — and the real estate sector is slated to only keep its 600% boom going
- Industrious’ CEO tells us why the coworking startup is ditching leases and managing property instead. Bigger rival WeWork is eyeing a similar pivot to help erase losses
- Convene’s CEO says the $500 million flex-space startup is a hospitality company that partners with real estate, not a tech company. Here’s an inside look at the company’s financials.
- Seduced by WeWork’s sky-high valuation, coworking firms have multiplied. A shakeout could see them merge, shutter, or specialize.
- Salaryo, a startup that loans people money to rent flex office spaces, just nabbed funding. It adds another layer of financing to the world of WeWork and its rivals.
Road to the failed IPO
- WeWork might be painting itself as a tech company, but it’s facing a bunch of old-school real estate worries
- WeWork lays out its path to profitability – and most of its options involve slowing its breakneck growth
- Here are the 5 biggest questions facing WeWork as it prepares for its IPO
- WeWork is setting up a $2.9 billion fund to buy buildings that it will lease to itself
- A top WeWork executive explains why the company doesn’t have the same issues as Airbnb and Uber
- WeWork’s copresident says it’s ‘really just getting started’ on working with Fortune 500 companies, as it files to go public
Neumann’s leadership
- Adam Neumann demoted his chief of staff for being pregnant, a new complaint against the ousted CEO and WeWork alleges
- WeWork details CEO Adam Neumann’s web of loans, real-estate deals, and family involvement with the company
- Lots of extremely successful founders in Silicon Valley cash out early. But WeWork’s CEO pocketing $700 million is still far from normal.
- WeWork’s CEO says the way it rents out office space makes companies’ financials look better. Some experts aren’t sure how legitimate the pitch is.
- WeWork’s CEO explains why he thinks his $47 billion company is recession-proof and how he keeps his ego in check as a young billionaire
SoftBank’s role
- Here’s everything we know about how startups raise money from SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund
- WeWork’s CEO raised $4.4 billion from a Saudi-backed fund, but said going forward he’d consider declining investments on moral grounds
- How WeWork’s CEO grew a $10 billion relationship with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, whom he calls ‘Yoda’
- It took a day for WeWork’s CEO to recover from the shock of a $16 billion SoftBank investment falling apart
- WeWork and Uber are giving SoftBank a black eye, but that doesn’t mean Vision Fund II is in trouble, experts say
Deals
- WeWork’s tech head explains why the office provider is buying a building access app used by top landlords
- Here are all the wild things, from wave pools to turmeric coffee creamer, that WeWork’s surfing founder has invested in
- WeWork acquires $249 million office-services startup Managed by Q as it goes after larger business customers
- $20 billion startup WeWork continues its shopping spree with $200 million for Meetup
- WeWork just led a $32 million funding round for a female-run startup that’s basically a social club for women
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