There was a time when WeWork wasn’t just a co-working company—it was the face of the startup boom, the golden child of SoftBank, and a tech unicorn valued at a mind-bending $47 billion. With its charismatic and chaotic CEO Adam Neumann at the helm, WeWork promised to revolutionize how we work, live, and connect. But behind the polished aesthetic and TED Talk energy was a house of cards waiting to fall.
Neumann’s vision extended far beyond renting office space. He pitched WeWork as a lifestyle brand—a movement, even—dabbling in schools (WeGrow), apartments (WeLive), and utopian living concepts that made investors nervous and skeptics raise eyebrows. All the while, the company hemorrhaged cash, burning billions without ever turning a profit.
When WeWork filed its IPO paperwork in 2019, it opened Pandora’s box. Investors and the public finally got a peek into the company's financials, and what they saw was alarming: massive losses, strange conflicts of interest (like Neumann leasing buildings he owned back to WeWork), and a business model that looked more like real estate arbitrage than tech disruption.
The IPO collapsed, Neumann was ousted with a golden parachute worth over a billion dollars, and the company’s value was slashed by over 90%. What was once a shining example of startup success turned into a textbook case of unchecked ambition, investor delusion, and the dangers of founder worship.
WeWork limped along under new leadership, cut costs, and tried to rebrand as a more conventional real estate firm. But the damage was done. The company’s fall became a global headline, spawning documentaries, books, and even a dramatized series. In 2023, it finally filed for bankruptcy, cementing its place in startup history—not as a disruptor, but as a cautionary tale.