| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
xiii, 446 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : color portraits ; 25 cm |
| Contents |
Prologue: The summit -- The hustler -- Greenhorns -- Famous energy -- Physical Facebook -- Manufacturing community -- The cult of the founder -- Activate the space -- Me over We -- Mutual fund FOMO -- Bubbling over -- Catnip for millennials -- Banking bros -- Taking over the world -- Friends in high places -- It's tricky -- One billion dollars per minute -- Neumann & Son -- Crazy train -- Revenue, mutiple, valuation -- Community-adjusted profit -- Adam's ARK -- The $3 trillion triangle -- Summer camp -- Shoes off, souls inside -- Flying high -- Both Mark and Sheryl -- Broken fortitude -- Diseconomies of scale -- Guitar house -- The plunge before the plunge -- To the energy of We -- Twenty to one -- WeWTF: the S-1 sh*t show -- A setting son -- Paranoia -- The fall of Adam -- DeNeumannization -- Break of shame -- Epilogue. |
| Summary |
"The definitive inside story of WeWork, its audacious founder, and what its epic unraveling says about a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation -- from the Wall Street Journal correspondents whose scoop-filled reporting hastened the company's downfall. WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn't just an office space provider. It was a tech company-an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world's first trillionaire. This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank's Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people-from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite-fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong? In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion-on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in. Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country's most valuable startup, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment. Soon, however, WeWork was burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, he scoured the globe for more capital. Then, as WeWork readied a Hail Mary IPO, it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America's most spectacular meltdowns. Peppered with eye-popping, never-before-reported details, The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people-and the financial system they have made"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 403-431) and index. |
| Subject |
Neumann, Adam, 1979-
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WeWork (Firm)
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New business enterprises -- United States -- Case studies.
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Business enterprises -- United States -- Finance -- Case studies.
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Business failures -- United States.
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Business enterprises -- Finance. (OCoLC)fst00842558
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Business failures. (OCoLC)fst00842694
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New business enterprises. (OCoLC)fst01036825
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United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
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| Genre/Form |
Case studies. (OCoLC)fst01423765
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Case studies.
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| Added Author |
Farrell, Maureen, 1979- author.
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| Other Form: |
Online version: Brown, Eliot. The cult of we. First edition New York : Crown, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, [2021] 9780593237120 (DLC) 2021011991 |
| ISBN |
9780593237113 (hardcover) |
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0593237110 (hardcover) |
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9780593239759 |
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059323975X |
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9780593237120 electronic book |
|
