Part One: The Idiot Who Made, And Destroyed, WeWork

I don't know your last names? Wow, it's irrelevant. We're not allowed to say our last names on television sales. So Mr mixel Plick situation will to another dimension should we say our names? Oddly enough, I have a friend who's like that, and it's Mr. He said his name backwards twice though, so you got him? Yeah, you got you terrible. You can only visit him on certain occasions

for having us. You know, it's nicely in Chicago. There's so many, so many choices of people you could sit down lot, a lot of things going on in Chicago. I was surprised at the cars um as a Southerner and then and then a West Coaster. I didn't realize you had them here yet. But that's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. Once the once the city burned down the first time, we were like, well, let's wait for the second to get some cars, but we decided

against it. Well, I'm I'm proud of y'all. There's a lot going on in Chicago. Mainly it's cold, very cold. Have you been yelled out about food at all? Oh my god, Actually I have a tail. This will be dropping an episode of Worst Year Ever. But we went totally on accident. When we were covering Cody Johnson, Katie Stile and I were coming the Midwest Profest. We went to accidentally what has to be one of the fanciest restaurants.

It's one of fancies restaurants, maybe the fanciest I've been to in my life, so I'm guessing it's one of the fancier ones in Chicago. No, it was the Capital grill Um. It was a place that, like, we walked in and they asked to take our coats and we said no, and they immediately looked like, oh, you're not supposed to be here. That is just not done. But they seated us and we ordered lobster bisk which was fantastic.

The food was was phenomenal um. And as I was eating my bisk, the waiter walked by and gave me, fetched me a look of pity and said, sir, is there something wrong your soup spoon? I had used the wrong spoon, I was. I was half sure the problem was going to be that you put ketch up in the b which is frowned upon. Not quite that much an animal, but I am apparently a filthy animal because I used Yeah, you know, um, I'm I'm deeply ashamed as Chicaglan's allow us to resolve or what does that call?

Absolve you of your food since yeah, I thought you were going to double down. No, I don't give a sh about bisk. So we we have never been to a swanky I look like I've ever. It was purely by accident that we went. Jordan thought Julia Bays was a cold sup really did It's not really. This is on the way here. Every soup that's not clam chatter. I assume it is gus paco. I don't know other suits. Jordan didn't know. I did not know about Tripe. That's

a shame. I really don't think. Once I learned about Tripe, it did not bother me that I didn't know about it this long. It's not good. Um so, uh, normally y'all host a podcast, you sit around, drink novelty beverages and talk a little bit about Alex Jack. It's true. We're not doing anything like that today, nothing even vaguely reminiscent of that. You told me earlier that we're going to talk about somebody that has nothing to do within for war, couldn't be lesson. I was almost convinced it

was a trap. No, we talked about Alex Jones before. And yeah, yeah, normally I would have you on to to discuss someone in Alex Jones's universe because that's your wheelhouse. But sometimes the sausage just gotta be made. You are the sausage packers nearby. Yeah, I'll take it. Chicago has not had sausage packing for a while, but I think we'll we'll start the project again. Well, um, do you guys know the name a little fella named Adam Neuman? No, it does ring a bell. Have you heard of a

company called we Work? Yes? Is that guy? Oh boy, oh boy? And he is a real piece of ship. Okay, now that sounds right. So I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna dive into this, to dive into the ship right now. Um so well, now, I actually scrolled to the bottom of the page, very professional. This is how the sausage gets made when we don't print it out. Adam no discernible middle name, Neuman was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, on a n seventy nine,

very close to my birthday. I'm already very invested in this story. And you were also born in Televisi correct, well the American television Yes, yes, which is Van Eys, California. Yes. He gets a lot of ship about the right to return laws for California, which is you do not have them stay the funk out of California. Just too many people here. Um so yeah. When he was seven, his parents divorced and his mother moved to New York City to do her medical residency. Adam and his sister av

moved in with her. Now I found other variations about them. Story that climed to split happen when he was nine, and that they moved to Minneapolis first. I think he lies a lot on this show. Whenever it's like I've heard multiple stories about his life about like specifically when he came Like yeah, like in so consequential details, I don't know. I I ran into both. Um. We don't have a lot of granular details of his childhood, UM, like not a lot of anecdotes about him as a kid. UM,

but we know it was rough. He was severely dyslexic, still is severely dyslexic. You don't just um, is that why we work as one word? Maybe? Does that? Is that a dyslexic thing? I don't think it is welcome Behind the Beasts the podcast where we slandered dyslexia and talk about terrible people. H So, yeah, he was dyslexic, couldn't read it write at all until the third grade.

UM and his mom moved constantly, so he lived in a lot of different homes and usually didn't spend enough time in any one place to build strong attachments to people there. I get that a little bit. Yeah. Now, in nineteen ninety, when he was eleven, Adam's mom moved back to Israel his family and he settled in a kipputz. Gives no much about kipputz is ku. I know a little bit about kid butts is like, Yeah, it's like a it's like a commune essentially, right, Yeah, it's like

it's like an Israeli type of commune thing. I'm got to talk about him a little bit. The first Kipputz was founded in a place called dia Gania and you know in Palestine at the time now now the nation known as Israel uh in nineteen o nine and nineteen ten. Now, this is two complex a topic to do justice too as an aside in this episode, but it's reasonably accurate to say that the inspiring motivations behind the establishment of the first kibbutz is kibbutze Um. I'm not really sure

what's correct. I don't know yetish Um is a mix of Zionism, admiration of like literal classical Spartan values um and communism. So it's like a millity. It was like

an initially like very militant. So like when the Israeli War for Independence or war the Nakba, whichever term you prefer to use, when that happened, a lot of like the cells of like Israeli um or not, I mean, they weren't is rather at that point of like of like Jewish partisans who like we're active, we're like based around kibbutz is and stuff, and like there are kibbutz is that were like manufacturing arms and stuff and like

later wars and stuff. So there's like a militant swing to them, but also very leftist, very communist, very like like like communitary. Yeah, yeah, I assume that will never go wrong. And yeah, just a really fucking complicated thing. And I I please don't take this, like read up more on them. I I don't want to, like, and they're all different too, so I'm sure there's a lot

of kibbutz is that that are very different backgrounds. But I found like a really fun lecture on the history of kibutz is by guy named Henry Near who was a professor some fucking college, and I'm gonna quote from that now. It was governed by all the members gathered

in their weekly meetings. Meals were eaten in common in the central dining hall, which also served as a social and cultural center, and other items of consumption were distributed freely or in accordance with the principle to each according to his or her need. In its early stages, all decisions were taken in common by all the members. That's the idea of the chibuts, like pretty practical ground democracy sounds pretty pretty all right, Yeah, it sounds like every

one way to live. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know about the making arms part. I don't know if I'm going to sign up for that. Do you want to make some arms? It's not my thing. Little bit arms here, a little bit arms there. I just feel like I don't have the right kind of like dexterity in those skills. Really really want kids for making because they're little fingers getting all those holes. Yeah, pop, a little little baby fingers. H nobody makes an a k forty seven like a

couple of three month olds. They really, they really know how to start now. Women and men both worked all day in the kibbutz is kibbutz um um. Their children were cared for in small groups, looked after by individuals were a mix of teacher and nanny. Kild spent time in their parents home after working hours, but most cases slept with other kids in a children's house at night. In the early days, at least all of the kibbutz is were part of a utopian movement towards a better society.

One of the founders of the first kibbutz, Joseph Barretts, wrote this in his memoirs. We were happy enough working on the land, but we knew more and more certainly that the ways of the old settlements were not for us. This was not the way we hope to settle the country, this old way with Jews on top and Arabs working for them. Anyway, we thought that there shouldn't be employers or employed at all. There must be a better way. Very left wing, very like like utopian projects. I just

want to emphasize that. Yeah, this being this show, though I'm waiting for a hammer to drop. Yeah, it goes into not not as utopian direction. There's all around. They're not all at least the same that they were so obviously in the early days they were all about agriculture. Um, some still focus on that, but today they serve in a variety of industries. For example, Kibbutz sasa Uh serves

the Israeli military making special military grade plastics. Is two hundred members sold some eight hundred and fifty million dollars in products in two thousand tens. These are not all, These are not small, but yes, necessarily and that's a

sizeable business. Yeah, And Kibbutz near m where Adam Neuman spent his formative years, currently hosts an innovation center that seems to focus as an incubator for the Israeli tech industry and looks like literally any tech building in San Francisco from the pictures I've seen, so like these are no longer like like necessarily like rule or like like hard scrabble things like there's big businesses that are are

operated in these um Now. By the time Adam and his family arrived at Kibbutz near Am, Kibbutz has had moderated significantly from their early radical leftist ideology, and rather than being educated in a group of children on site, he went to the share Hannegev. I'm so sorry for surely pronouncing that school, which is near to Gaza Strip. His mother worked as an oncologist at a nearby hospital. Um and living in the kibbutz and taking partners communal

life was something that Adam's mom valued. He later recalled, it was important to my mother that we all do something special. So, yeah, every rite up you're going to find. This guy's life focuses on his time in the Kibbutz. It seems to be something out of himself. May has made a point of discussing with every journalist who interviewed him. Um, despite how often it comes up, you seldom here in the details of his time there. One of the few

scraps I ran into came from a Hearts article. As a child who lived in a lot of places, one of the hardest things for me was to join a new community. It was hardest at the Kibbutz, but that was also one of the most impressive communities. I remember how much fun it was to be a child in the Kibbuts. I feel like I would probably speak the same but also like, you know, not very in detail about like the time when I lived in like I

don't know, Boston. Yeah, I don't remember much of it, but I could probably be like, you know, hey, it made me who And you get the like he really drives home that it was like a formative thing for him, but you also get the the idea that was kind of painful. He talks a lot about how, um, the other kids that he that were on the Kibbitts had all been born and like grown up there, and he had moved there when he was like eleven or twelve or so. UM, so that was like obviously difficult. He

would have been something of an outsider. He says, he like made his way in and it was really rewarding. I kind of get the feeling that maybe this guy's never quite felt like he belonged anywhere. It's like a new kid in school, but the school happens to be a commune, and nobody wants you there, and nobody wants you there. Yeah, maybe I don't know. I wasn't there. I didn't grow up in that particular Israeli kibbutz um. Now. As a young adult, Adam went to the Israeli Naval

Academy and served in the Navy for five years. So he didn't do like the minimum service you need to do, Like he he made a thing of it. Um. He retired as a captain or left the service as a captain. Um. Once he'd done his time, he followed in his mother's footsteps and moved to New York. He was twenty two years old, and it was two thousand one, widely considered to be the very best year in history to move

to the game. I remember well the Blueprint three or now the Blueprint dropped, the Yes first album that was really really good, The Strokes first album that was awesome. All of those, All of those happened on on a day that I don't think anybody remembers for any reason at all. No, no, uh. Two thousand one particularly like the fall, early winter, like autumn. Great time to be in New York. The two thousand one particularly good time to be a dance punk was taken the nation by Yeah.

It was fantastic. So he moves there in a perfect time. Um. Now, his sister Avy had already beaten him to New York. She had been a former team Miss Israel and then managed to turn that into a career as a model. She was very successful model and is very famous in his room, much more famous than actually he is to this day. Um. He stayed in her Tribeca apartment while he worked to figure out what his future would be. Eventually he settled on business and enrolled at Baruch College.

In between classes, he and his own words, spent his first years in New York hanging out at clubs and quote hitting on every girl in the city. Um he looked for you know, spent the rest of his time looking for get rich quick schemes. His first months in the USA brought with them some sobering revelations about American culture. Quote, it's bullshit, yeah kind of actually yeah, yeah, it's it's propag around the world. Okay, that a lot of other people are also try and get rich quick sche people

like me. It seems like a lot of people really wish they could get rich quick. The whole thing about the American character being con artists, and it's a mix of con artists and gold rushers. Like the honest people are looking for a gold rush, the not honest people are con artists. The goal is always the same. Which has spent his little time living in the part of America that exists for people who aren't rich, Yeah, which is hard, and then filled with go fund means for insulin.

So far, the places for Americans who aren't rich are are not great. Most people want to get out of there. You know, I, for one, don't understand why you would want to live anywhere but the Pacific Palisades. But you know, my butler lives elsewhere, and he says, it's there's there's, there's, there's decent parts. You fly him in for the week days or is he a weekend butler, Like no, no, no, no, no, you split custody of the butler with your ex wife.

He takes, he takes, he takes a bus in and he's you know, there's there's a tracking chip on him when he's in the palaceine. We don't want to stay, good lord though, not after dark unless there's a party, in which case we deliver a small series of electric shocks every fifteen minutes. We didn't get too comfortable, you know, all right, yeah, ethics, Um so yeah. Adam had a rough arrival to the United States. Um and I'm gonna

quote him now. After I arrived in the United States, I realized that in the army is really had to be part of something bigger than themselves. The things that I had experienced in my life all came together in our life. We had a lot of movement and a lot of new things. So I feel sorry for someone who's having a bit of a hard time, because I know what it's like to be new. Um. He found that he was like really frustrated by particularly the distance

and kind of facelessness of American culture. Elevator rides were the things that most struck him. He recalled later to an interviewer that whenever he would travel up the elevator in his sister's apartment, he would wonder, why is nobody talking to each other? We're in the same building. How come you don't know everybody? Oh? Man, man, if somebody talked to me in an elevator, I lose my ship. Yeah, absolutely furious. To be fair, I've had those very similar thoughts.

But every time I've tried to act the opposite, it's been a disaster. No, they don't want to be to say, I look like me. Yeah, it's a it's a captive environment. There's no escape route. That's that's the issue there. I mean, obviously, until the door's open, it seems very suspicious. You strike up a conversation in those now those times when we've as a culture just decided shut it down. Yeah, yeah, start a conversation in the bathroom, the bus, the bus,

never elevators. No, I keep a tear gas grenade on me at all times. Anyone talks, I just pulled that pen. I will in the conversation that I will begin a conversation if we're stuck in the elevator, and I'm just at the place where I have to poop in the corner. Back in that situation, I'm going to start with a sorry. Yeah, this is gonna be rough for all of us. I think we'll make it through. There are different protocols for

once you get to that point. The only place in America it's okay to talk to people is in lying at the movies. That's a good one that works. That's it, really okay, that's it. Say yeah. Other than that, zip it yeah, keep it, keep it shut. Doctor's waiting room under no circumstances, no no eye contact blames. A holding cell is probably a good place. Like yeah, you in on as more like collaboration. Yeah, you're you're you're in

a holding cell. You're getting something cooking in the beginning of the movie blow, that's yeah, that's a rich scheme. In the in the works, I can say a lot of people at guns stores want to have conversations with you while you're waiting. You should not. You should not talk to those people. It does not end well. You will learn uncomfortable things about them. Um. Yeah, I imagine every conversation at a gun store starts with my ex wife and that's where it goes. Well, the government, let

me tell you about the government. Federal government. Either that or I got a lot of fucking gophers on my property. How many misdemeanors for I can't buy one of these no more. I imagine the people around there are full of trivia. It is actually it's just mostly firstly gun trivia. Yeah, very accurate. Yeah, you know they change the way the feed and ramp loads back in nineteen sixty two, so that's a yeah, it's very very boring in general. Um so, yeah.

Adam gets to the US fresh out of the military is frustrated at like the distance and the kind of soullessness lack of communication in American culture. Um yeah. He challenges his sister Abby to a friendmaking competition, uh, to see who could learn the names and established cordial social relationships with the most people in the building the fastest. This is the first time. This is the beginning of

me saying fuck this guy. Yeah, this is it. It's him trying to people like, let's have a friendship contest. Fuck that guy out. You're trying to gamify like natural interaction between people. That just seems weird. Also, his sister's name is Addie. I'm a hack and a fraud and and spelled it wrong, not added. Yeah, so is that long for something? Probably? I don't know. It's just sister. She didn't do anything wrong. Um. They get into what they get into a contest to see who can like

build the most cordial social relationships the fastest. Yeah, she's she absolutely wins this contest very quickly. They like, almost immediately. This guy seems like a creep. She's a model. Yeah, this guy is weird. He's trying to start conversations elevators. And she's one of the most beautiful. Yes, she wins. Handle. She has like six times as many friends in after a week. It is not a not a close not

a close thing, not a near run game. Um. But Adam claims as a result of their contest, the entire energy of the building changed to what what people would he be bothered, borrow, shooker from each other. He was good, he says, it was good, Okay, all right now. Is a common refrain in Adam's interviews, both the difficulty of meeting new people when you move, a lot of the

cold and informal nature of life in American society. Uh. And oddly enough, this sort of like understanding that whatever it is about our hyper capitalist world makes people not want to connect with one another was paired in Adam with a deep bone level belief in the goodness of capitalism. Um, so that's interesting. That doesn't make sense on any level. It will continue to not or maybe it will. Capitalism alienates us from each other, and damn it, it's awesome,

so good I believe in. It's more of a capitalism alienates or people in capitalist societies are alienated. What if we could find a way using capitalism to make them less alienate? You just gotta put like financial incentives for that friendship contest. See oh boy, that sounds like it's a disingenuous friendship that got to turn this into like a reality show? Are there other friendships than those based on money? Like my friendship with my butler, for example,

I don't know his name. Why would you? Yeah, of course, like why would I? It seems odd? But no, when his wife died because you couldn't afford her insulin, I did consider sending a flower, but then I thought it kind of sends the wrong message. Well, I mean, if you inject the flower of insulin. That's a real bad one, especially that. I just I didn't want him to think he could talk to me in my elevator. Right, right, that's a good call. You make him take the dumbwaiter,

of course. Oh well absolutely, I mean either that or the stairs. Yeah, I usually the stairs. Yeah now um. Adam after this, decided to drop out of college and launch himself into a frenzy of ill conceived business ventures. First, he started a business selling women's shoes with collapsible high heels for reasons I cannot quite explain. Probably one of those like uh like operations, you know, like cut Co,

the knife people. He's probably some women's shoe company he got hooked up with, right, No, No, he started, he started a business. He did, so he started there was two business. I'll give him credit for that. His first two businesses are not consum Their products just bad. They're bad, but they are He is trying to start a legitimate business that sells a product. We are three people here

who have very little use for collapsible heeled shoes. Perhaps I'm not going to speak for the women listening as to whether or not that's a good idea, but he did not execute it well, as proven by the fact that the company didn't. All right, now, I think I'm a little bit late, but here's my pitch. Put some wheels on those. Do you remember those? Yeah? I don't see. Yeah, soap shoes, collapsible high heels and expanded drop you know, perfect perfect. Uh. Next, he made the leap to selling

specialty baby clothing. Um collapses, of course, actually breakaway baby clothing. Turned out that's attracted so very well to the wrong people. Absolutely to the wrong people. Stress it's about to dance. In fact, the Vatican ordered seven million in dollars worth, which was really watch out. Um. Yeah. The ones he designed were called crawlers with a K and there were normal baby pants with kneepads sewn into the legs, which

actually meshes uncomfortably with my Vatican joke. Yeah. I don't think the Vatican has carpet though, so you don't need to what So, in order to distract us from that, whatever you like to point out, I did not take part in that. That's good. You know who else? Do you know who else is a conscience subjector? And the realm of priests in molesting baby sponsors, the sponsors and that is. That is that is an ant plug products.

And we're back. We're back, and we're talking about Adam Neuman and his so far god awful attempts to make it big in America. Women's shoes, patted knee baby to his credit, real businesses, actual things I've heard. No, Okay, are you telling me that his name is a annoy many? Yeah? It is, Okay, there we go. It is. I just needed that cleared upper hero. I just needed to be Yeah, the guy. It's the superhero whose power is talking to you in an elevator. Yeah, his power is never taking

the hint. I feel like I have a completely unfair picture of this guy already in my head, but you don't. I think I've nailed him so um. Now, Adam had started Crawlers with a hundred thousand dollar investment from his grandmother. By the time the financial crisis slammed down in two thousand eight, he'd spent every dime of that investment, and his almost shockingly bad idea for a company was nearly out of gas. He had to hire a law you're just to renew his visa to stay in the USA.

Comes from wealthier family, not like rich, but well an off off that his grandma had an extra hundred K. Yeah, so that this difficult time for Adam's business prospects proved to be the most important period of his life. For one thing, it's when he met his future wife, Rebecca Paltrow. He was twenty eight at the time, and Rebecca recalls that he was really, really thin, and he was shaking because I think he was smoking too many cigarettes, and he was engaged in a friend making contests. And then

we got married. She claimed simultaneously that when she first talked to him, she realized both that he was full of ship and that he was her soul mate. That's that's that's shocking portrait of another person. Yes, I guess that's the most self aware thing you could say. It is the most self aware thing she has ever said. Um. Now, they went out for lunch and Adam couldn't appored to pay for anything or for the cab ride because he was he was broke. You accept novelty, baby clothes, hated

not um. Rebecca insulted him for talking a big game but having no actual money, and Adam justified it by calling himself an entrepreneur whose money was all an inventory. Um, but yeah, they got to either married a couple of months later. Um, so like very very quickly. Uh. And they getting better at making friends. He's gotten a lot, but he's good, good at making this one friend now. At the time, Rebecca had done a little bit more with her life than her her paramore. She'd been a

stock trader for like a week or two. Um, She'd spent time in a Buddhist monastery and been to the Dali Lama's birthday party because she's rich as well. Um, she toured with Michael Frantie and Spearhead what not playing. She was just wandering, are you are you? Are you a Spearhead fan? No, I've actually weirdly, I was a friend of mine from high school last night and one of the things I've always accused him of is being super into Spearhead, and he claims that that is not

true at all. I literally they literally were something that I was yelling about last night. Why would that's a wild coincidence. It's because they have a line in one of those songs like there's a war on cancer, war on drugs, war on police, war on hugs. I'm like, there is not a war on hugs. There is absolutely a war on have you been in an elevator recently? Zero? People? When you try to hug someone on it, they do not appreciate it. Dan, My mind is completely blown that

this lady went on tour with Spearhead. Yeah, she went on tour with Spearhead. Spearhead. Uh. And it's here I should drop that she's Gwyn With Paltrow's first cousin. Oh I totally knew that. Yeah, yep, Now keep that one in mind. Yeah, the the goopy of it all. Now, Rebecca and Adam started dating and she helped him quit smoking, and so she said cousin first cousin, Yes, okay, gotcha. They started dating. She helped him quit smoking and soda.

She introduced him to kabbala, the Jewish mystical tradition, and worked to stop him from obsessing over money so much. I assume that worked. It absolutely Dutch. So this is the end of the is the end of the story. Good episode, guys, good good um. This is about a man who played a friend game in his building. We hate him and that is the end of his crimes play game. That's kind of endearing this episode. This episode is just about getting our fans to hunt this man down.

He lives in a small apartment in Van Nuys. Now so so grab a gun? No? Um? So yeah. She tried to make him stop obsessing of her money, and Adam later recalled Rebecca said, stop no more talking about money. We're going to talk about wellness, happiness, fulfillment, and if the money is supposed to follow, it will, and if it doesn't, it doesn't matter because we will be happy and fulfilled. That's an asshole says, that is the thing a rich asshole said. No poor asshole has ever said

if the money is supposed to follow, will know? They say, what about the insulin? Poor assholes say like food is good? Yeah? Boy ass will say like we gotta fucking make rent. Yeah. So it was clear though, that making funkloads of money was the only thing that would actually make Adam happy

being fulfilled. The baby close game was not working out, But while he was failing at a second business, Adam fell in love with the building where Crawlers had its office space, an otherwise empty former warehouse in Brooklyn's rapidly gentrifying Dumbo neighborhood. Neighborhood. Yes, I know, I every new thing I learned about New York. So many fucking racist crows in that Neighborhood's terrible. It's awful. They had to

have a warning Disney. Plus, the strangest juxtapositions of my life was as a child the racist crows and Dumbo, and then as an adult the very different but also similar racist crows in Fritz the Cat but very different. Why don't even like the Rick? Is? It really directly deals with things like police violence against the black community. Very complicated film, the most complicated film with a mouse Nazi bike? Was he a mouse? Which species was the

Nazi biker? I have no idea. I just remember Fritz the Cats, the one with the bag, right, I'm way off. I'm thinking of a completely different cat now, I remember what we're actually telling Fritz. Fritz the Cat is the one about the cat who fox. Yeah, thinking I was thinking about a different great movie. I've never seen it, not tripping um, but have seen it five or six times and remember enjoying it and also feeling confused and conflicted at certain parts. Ralph Bakshi, everybody a lot of

check him out, got really turned on by certain things. Yeah, all of the all had the same issue watching the Robin Hood Disney movie if you remember that one. Yeah, a lot of a lot of complicated feeling Dale's rescue rangers. Fritz is interesting because all of the all the black people are crows um, much like in Dumbo, but all

of the police are literal pigs um. And it's it's quite a film made in like the sixties seventies weird movie Don't Haven't Haven't Seen a good breakdown on on the Haven't Seen it sober Maybe I should maybe maybe we're talking about horrible, horrible racist propaganda. I don't think it was, though. I think it was about as woke as possible for the era. But I may be wrong on that. I remember enjoying it. This has been too long a aggression on Fritz and Cap So yeah, the

baby Clothes game, you know they so yeah. Adam falls into the building where the Crawlers had its office space, which is an empty warehouse in Brooklyn's Dumbow neighborhood. He meets up with the neighborhood Joshua Goodman and tells him give me the building. Goodman was like, no, I assume that that knife point that he told him the building, it's great. It's gonna be great to be like the kind of person who could just be like, I want

that build, get that building. So Goodman's like no and shoots back because basically Adam is not saying like, give me ownership of the building. He's saying like, let me control the space and rent it out. It's empty. Uh. And Goodman is like, why would I do that? You sell baby clothes. Goodman makes a good point here, Yeah, you know nothing about this industry point annoyment response. Your business is empty? What do you know about real estate? Good? So,

all right, what do you know about business? Asshole? Let's do this your tip for tap this all day. In an impasse, he he convinces Goodman UM, and Goodman pairs with Adam and his business partner, a guy named Miguel mckelby who had grown up in a commune in Oregon, so they both have that sort of background. Yeah. Uh, And together they found a company called Green Desk, which

was billed as an environmentally friendly coworking space. UM. Now, the idea for green guests was actually based on a failed business plan Adam had created for a competition at Burrut College before he dropped out. Uh. The idea was, in his words, community structured real estate, which would meld working in living space together in a manner reminiscent of

the Kibbutz. The plan failed to progress to the second round of the contest, and Adam complained to the dean about this, and the dean told him there's no twenty three year old or any inexperienced real estate person who will ever be able to raise enough money to do anything like concept living. So I really feel like that reminds me more of like when the railroad barons built their own cities and use their own currency and ship like that made people live on them. So that's that's

where I'm at right now. I feel like that business model has been tried before. You your heading right in the right direction. So now, Green Desk though, wasn't a whole lot like a kid, but it was basically a way for small businesses and individuals working as contractors to

least short term office space for an affordable price. Um and this one up being a really fucking smart move because in two thousand and eight the economy collapsed, uh, and there were suddenly a ton of people out of work and switching careers and businesses looking to cut costs, and Green Desk did really well. We have an overhead projector, we have a table, there's pens. None of you have money. Yeah, within a year the business was valued around three million dollars.

So they do not that very successful. Not that that's probably more successful than the other two of his business. While neither of the other two succeeds, neither of them made money. No, no, this is his first success. Um. Now, Goodman was like, we should maybe do this in more buildings. This is a good idea. Let's expand, you know, conservatively to other spaces and you know, see see how far this plan takes us continue and try another couple of spaces.

But Noman in to Kelvier like fun that we're going to start another business. So they sell out their shares in Green Desk in two thousand ten for about three dollars. Most of the money went to the guy who owned the space. Obviously, um they used this seed money to launch We Work. Now. Unlike Green Desk, which had been a modest ambition based around um compromise with an uncertain landlord,

We Work was from the beginning a bold vision. Adam Neuman wanted to create what he called a capitalist kibbutz, a global network of work spaces that would eventually extend beyond merely short term office rentals. So what he'd like to do is create a capitalist commune. Yeah, I feel like there's a contradiction there, but you can't. I can't put my finger on it. They both start with C. I guess a literation is my issue? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

they should have fixed that and host um. Now, from the beginning, they had trouble convincing landlords that they wanted to rent them space of their vision. McKelvey, his partner, later recalled, we didn't have credibility or credit. We had no business taking out of forty square foot lease. But using Adam's charisma, his ability to convince people, which is significant. Uh, they managed to board, but not for friendships. I mean, not compared to his sister, but she is a model. Uh. Now.

In that same interview, Nouman explained that the landlords needed a lot more than just a vision. In the end, they were unable to convince one person to rent them one floor in a building as a trial run. But this was a wild success and over the next five years we work expanded all over the world at an

astonishing pace. People started to invest millions, and then tens of millions, and eventually billions of dollars in the company with Adam would sell them on the idea he presented we work as much more than just a real estate company. He spoke about creating the first physical social network. All I hear is en Ron. Said, you just described Enron to me, That's all I'm hearing. Yeah, it's interesting you said physical social network, and they immediately me and Jordans

both deep inhale. Yeah. Who that sounds like bullshit. Yeah, got a lot of bells. Okay, especially knowing what we work is, you know, like and like it just absolutely it was like this. What I wanted to do was build a flag factory that only build giant red flax. That's what I'm going for right here, gotcha, Probably more successful than baby clothes. Yes, I mean I could actually use a couple of red flags. Um, I am full

of them. Um. Yeah. He wanted to create the first physical social network, and when he would like explain what that meant to people, he said he wanted we work offices to not just be places where people worked. He wanted them to be places where people could talk about their jobs, their families, their problems, and love. It's not

like an office, like like a neighborhood. I think is more the idea he was trying to recreate that like fifties style idea of a neighborhood, but condensed within specially catered and decorated office buildings that he owned and sold access to. Feel that this is the this is him rigging the friendship contests. That's what I'm hearing right here. This is this is him just being like, fucking sister, I'm gonna I'll show her my business is going to

be a friendship competition. You do feel like this was the result of him fuming over losing the friendship contest and reading like an old history of the labor movement that talked about company towns. Or he's like walking home after his sister wins and he hears that St. Peter, don't you call because I can't sold the company's store. Wait a tick light bulb exploitation. It's an absurd thing to try to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars.

A very silly idea, obviously, idea of like let's were short term office pace totally reasonable than the context of businesses people can run, will need it, why not, which is what Green Desk was. That's not what Adams trying to sell. Does Green Desk continue like through as I don't know, probably I think so. Um, But yeah, Adam, this is a dumb idea, a stupid idea to to like literally any normal person. But Adams this idea to

normal people. He was selling this idea two investors. And investors, if I know one thing about capitalism, are all super fucking dumb. The more money they have to invest, the dumber they is. Robert money equals intelligence. How many times do rich people have to tell us that there are betters and that's why is the most profitable company in the world. Of course it doesn't lose two billion dollars every six months or so. What a silly thing? People

wouldn't take money? And what kind of company could exist losing that much money on a regular basis? Oh god? So Adam sold this idea to investors and also to his employees. Um. And the answer to how he sold this very dumb idea basically boils down to the fact that he was really fucking charismatic on one on one situations. So he made friends with these investors. He more like cult members. Now there's a really good New York Times article, Adam Neuman in the Art of Failing Up, which pretty

good way to frame it. Um, I'm gonna read section of white people in America. I'm going to read a section from that article that I think in capsulates the way Adam both led and sold his company. Quote and this is from to that. Yeah, Adam Neuman stood on the fifty seventh floor of the Woolworth Building, the neo Gothic skyscraper that was once the tallest in the world.

It was late on a Friday night in two thirteen, and the wee Work founder and chief executive had just made a move to add the top thirty floors to his rapidly expanding real estate dealings. Mr Neuman and three employees had already enjoyed a few drinks when he decided to bring them to tour his latest coup. In the gutted out space, they tossed beer bottles into empty elevator shafts,

listening to them clink on the way down. Then Mr Norman told them all to follow him out to the ledge No guardrails, no enclosures, just four inebriated startup executives teetering on the edge of death. I was up there with him at the top of the world, and he said, everything is going to be amazing, recalled Harrison Webber, we worked editorial director at the time. Then Mr Norman picked up an old beer bottle, a remnant apparently from some

previous bender. He asked the employees to drink the rank liquid. Everyone took a swig except for Mr Webber. The end of lost. It felt like a loyalty thing, he said. In that moment, I felt what a deeply persuasive person he is. Man. I assumed that he would be up there the way I would, which is just screaming at them. Do it. Man, You would have to know that I'm still CEO. I'll give you one shot, right fucking now, if the balls. That is how you get investment. You

can't be too charismatic when you're doing that. I honestly feel like that behavior is very similar to a lot of people that I may have been annoyed by in past jobs. You know, like that that that does not seem far afield from some professional douches. It's just it's a real bummer. It's a it's an elevation of scale.

Like if if the shitty bosses that I've had had that kind of bullshit charisma as well as just an insane psychopathic confidence, then they would try and do the same ship Like, it's just a different level of abuse of power. And I can't even like suggest music to people lest I feel like they're going to reject me for it. Let alone, like drink this swill. Yeah, it's amazing, and it's a testament to how good he wasn't doing this to most people that by two thousand fifteen, we

workers valued at more than ten billion dollars. They rented out hundreds of properties on multiple continents, So whatever you can say about them, at least in two thousand fifteen, it looks like it's fucking working like Gamebusters. It's it's it's such like things just don't exist anymore. There's nothing, there's no money, not real, it's it's imaginary. It's entirely imaginary. This story really illustrates a couple of things. To me, One, money isn't real, and to money is like dumb, not

in the sense like odds. It's so dumb that like we have to live in our capitalisry. Know, money is dumb in the sense that like money makes bad decisions. The more you have of it, the worst decisions you make. That tends to be the truth. And and the story of We Work is the story of a lot of people with infinite resources making horrible decisions until their resources are less infinite. It's like it's like Tarantino's career, like one he got enough cash, a he makes movies that

are probably an hour too long. But when he was when he was coming up, it was like perfectly paced, right time, all that stuff. You're making the argument that like you've got to stay hungry, that kind of thing, But when this dude was hungry, he made collapsible shoes. I'm saying, you've got to surround yourself with people who are going to say no whenever you have a dumb idea. But this isn't a dumb idea, clearly. Well, at the

same time, it's a great idea. I get it. But I don't know if I've ever I think I've talked to like maybe two people who have used we Work spaces, and I've talked to a lot of people in my life. That seems it seems like a low engagement. It'll make sense. Why what's going on here a little bit later? Great question. I have a desk A desk. Now. In articles at the time around two to sixteen, we Work was kind

of hitting it's zenith. Adam and those around him tended to credit their meteoric rise on the hip cool flare. They brought to what was traditionally at the least soulful part of a person's life. The office we work spaces were decorated in like a variety of super cool like funky hip furniture, Like they absolutely have kegs. Yeah, it's it's it's situation, but it works longer than Pucci did. Um. They had funky, comfortable furniture, kombucha and beer on tap um.

I'm gonna quote now from a six article. Oh yeah, it's cool, bro, it's cool bro. We got fucking got we got briz bro. I may have actually worked at a company that supplied a couple of WE work locations with coffee. I may have actually dealt with their their their corporate structure before. Probably not talk about this. I will say that I worked in the past at an named company that had a Thirsty Thursday where they provided employees initially with unlimited beer and wine on Thursday afternoons,

and people made horrible decisions. Um, it was a really bad idea actually to give a bunch of people who are united by nothing than that they work in the same building access to unlimited free alcohol once a week. There was some of there was some of that vibe, but yeah, the group on until someone threw up in one of the social rooms and then they were like, hey,

let's uh anymore. I've always thought a lot of my inner office relationships could have been improved by less inhibitions any of the way to run an office really is once a year you just dose everyone against their will and consent with like nine to ten hits of M d M A, like enough that they're hallucinating, like not just rolling, but like really can't control their bodies. You've

got to go to nine or ten o three. We're talking about a Graham apiece at once, So really just overdose the whole Office's the elderly woman who sits at the front desk, who's going to be our our test subject there, and then friendship and then friendship contest. It's gonna be a few days after until people are ready to have a friendship contest or talk. But us um so, I found a fun quote in a two sixteen Fast Company article about when it was that made we work special,

And this was a very positive article. This is back before anyone's got questions about we work up. It has to be the beer, a co worker tells me, believing that the secret to we work success is the always on tap brewin its kitchens. But the hip, fun millennial things people most often site when they try to describe

we work are almost irrelevant. As I discover while working from two New York locations this winter, the room full of old arcade games at the two two two Broadway location is empty all day, and the controllers for a nearby and Nintendo sixty four sitting a neat line, wrapped tightly by their cords in a way that suggests they've been undisturbed for some time. At the end of the day, I see only three people pull the famous we work tap.

Mostly people inside we Work are just working. They had all this, like video games and beer, but they also had like a really strict dress code. You get the feeling that's the kind of thing like you and for a job interviewed, we work, and so we're like, yeah, you want to beer from the tap, but if you actually take it during the job interview, they'll be like, everybody's watching you out of the corner. They're just like, we'll see what you do. But there is a lot

of drinking, which we'll get too later. It's just not when you choose to now more than beer, We work

owed a success to investors. Its whole business hinged on getting angel investors in giant companies to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into its expansion, not unlike Uber and The reason so many of these very moneyed individuals were willing to trust Adam know Hman with fortunes that could have funded whole nations is that he was very good at selling them on a stupid dream up to the roof, taking him up to the roof, making drink his piss yeah,

or invest in my company, fucking. The focus of his promises sent it around his time in the Kibbutz. He would weave a story to investors of the idea that office space could fulfill the same role of the kibbutz and creating community and inspiring creativity. He invented his own buzzword term, this is going to piss you off Montere Montere that basically turned down Jordan's Mike before. The weed Generation. Yeah, the weed generation, he w W weed generation. Weed generation.

That's what he used to describe millennials who'd grown up int a world where renting and not owning was the norm and no employment in situation was likely to last more than a couple of years. Now, most people view this as a star of generation. Most people view this is a problem for millennials, but Adam Cooman viewed it as a marketing opportunity. The weed generation, he told investors, cares about the world, actually wants to do cool things, and loves working. And when he made these claims, it

was not without any kind of backing. In two sixteen, a group called Project Time Off for at Least a study on the work habits of millennials. They measured members of our demographic for habits evident of what they called work martyrdom. Now, work martyrs are more likely to forfeit vacation days, more likely to work excessive hours, and more likely to be seen as workaholics by their colleagues. Than

members of any other generation. Yeah, when Adam going the frames this as loving to work, it sounds like one thing. But if you read the statements that that Project time Off study found, millennials tended to agree with. I think you're presented with a much darker picture. And I'm going to read four of them right now. No one else at my company can do the work while I'm away. I want to show complete dedication to my company and job. I don't want others to think I am replaceable. I

feel guilty for using my paid time off. That's not healthy. Those are symptoms of deep problems within our Yeah, you might as well have just been like, I'm drowning. I am all the dying. I'm drowned. I know the bottom can fall out at any moment. Everything about my life could be on the street in three weeks. Um. That's that's what that says to me. I broke my foot,

now I'm homeless. Yeah, exactly. These are signs of panic at the reality of poverty and it's very imminent nature in most of our lives, not signs of a love of work. And I think Adam knows that. Born in nineteen seventy nine, He's not a millennial the cut offer that is usually one, but he's close enough that I think he gets what it's like for the folks in the Weed generation. But he also understands how employers think.

If you are running a company, you want your employees to spend unreasonable hours at the office and to vote themselves irrationally to the work that is great for your bottom line. Nap rooms, yoga classes, and free beer seem like perks, but the goal in providing all that is to keep you in the office longer, working more hours. I think what Adams sold more than anything was a vision to employeers of employees who made work the center of their very life. Here's another Adam Nouman quote from

that Fast Company interview. If you understand it, being part of something greater than yourself is meaningful, And if you're not just driven by material goods, then you're part of the Weed generation. All right. So I am wondering how many people have shipped him, because the numbers not no knives on the roofs. You can make a knife out of anything. That really would have been the just way for the story to end. There really was a moment where just a little trip and we would have been saved.

We work all over. This would have had to happen infinite universes. There was a banana peel up. This is actually the only universe where he wasn't shoved off that roof. Yeah, I knew we were living in the wrong one the universes where he was the police didn't even prosecute. And this is someone told them the story and they were like, you know what. No. This is also the only universe where the baby clothes thing didn't take off. Yeah, I'm surprised.

Great idea. And because babies are always complaining about their knees. About babies, as your baby had to have knee surgery, I think you need these. He made blow shop pants for babies. I retract my interaction with this bit now. So Adam is not a dumb guy. Uh. Anti materialism, like anti capitalism, has grown up among members of our generation because we've been largely cheated out of the promises that our system may do older generations. Adam's anti materialism, however,

is not a rejection of capitalism. It's a way to make capitalism more profitable. If you convince workers at their job, provides them with a variety of non material benefits. Then you can work them harder while paying them less. Now, if a potential investor needed proof that millennials could be sold on Adam Neuman's vision of the workplace as a neighborhood, they need look no further than the actual staff and we work. I'm gonna quote from the New York Times

right up here. It's actually really weird to think about. I'm sorry to interrupt you with people work at we work. I mean it's a big company. Yeah, that's that's so. I think of it as like an empty space. We work at we will, but you gotta like manage all that ship sales people got the whole Yeah. Yeah, Now I'm gonna quote from that New York times pace about sort of the culture of the company. Boy, it might

be a mike down clip for you, Jordan. Across podcasts, people have learned that Jordan to put the mic down is now the John Munch of podcast. Mr Neuman would convince employees to take shots of pricey Don Julio tequila a hundred and ten dollars a bottle, work twenty hour days at ten two am meetings. He convinced them the smoke marijuana at work, dance to journey around a fire in the woods on weekend excursions, smoke more pot, drink

more tequila. Even people who don't really seem the tequila type would go along with his act, including a pre White House Jared Kushner who imbibed while scoping out of property in Philadelphia. In his view, we work didn't simply subly office space to workers. It's supplied them with kombucha, cold brew coffee, and an ecstatic sense of community. They're coming to us for energy for culture. Mr Noyman would say, don't stop, I'm doing alright, I'm doing fine coiled spring. Yeah.

You guys want to guess if Jake Coush is going to play a bigger role in this episode. I get the sense he is. Oh, he absolutely is. He accidentally entered into a friendship contest. He did, he did, and everyone lost. You know who he's And he's getting the

people who work for him to be his friends. He's forcing them to drink and smoke at work, fine and drunk in order to break down their defenses, forced them to continue working as hard as humanly possible, while at the same time, we're shipping him as something of a charismatic guy. And it sounds familiar to me, and I don't know why it doesn't. It sounds like nothing that's ever been done before. As a loyalty test, he makes them dance around a fire to Journey, which is mathematically

the douciest thing you could possibly do. All right, now, we're not gonna be We're not gonna be attacking Journey on this podcast. You know, the keyboardist for Journey is married to Paula White Cane, Trump's spiritual advisor. That makes complete sense. Yeah, that's entirely that's entirely Yeah, Jane, that makes total sense. And I have now stopped believing. I'm not gonna hold on to that feeling. What are you

gonna do? We all in sky just stopped turning. You're gonna have to You're gonna have to switch back to Rush. Oh yeah, they did that one too. That was That's a better song that don't stop believing it. And faithfully, that's not a great song. No, it's not that great. Although in the music video there's a great shot of Steve Perry shaving his mustache looking really sad. It's like, you know, hey, man, gotta go gotta go do shows, gotta shape this mustache off. He wasn't faithful to it.

This is the most affecting moment. This is the push. It's stuck with me, stuck with now. Adam's wife, Rebecca, was a major part of the whole operation. She eventually became the chief brand Officer or and then a little bit not a job, that's not a job. Refused it pass. She was an integral part of designing the feel of we work as a brand, stop it, get the funk out. As a certified yogi and more importantly, and more importantly certified Jordan, Sorry, what's more legitimate than a certified yogi?

A certified yogi? He is the cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow. It went to the dog Le Lama's birthday. I'm doing great, so I'm doing all next, total sense. There's rigid certification for this is something you gotta do. Eight years of school, you do, five year internship. Honestly, you don't know this. It's actually easier to be an on college. Remember reading the autobiography of a yoga Big Yogi Bio three Rama Rama Krishna or whatever his name is, And he said

specifically after he learned how to float. That was when he got his certification. To me, that was it. The government regulations once he got the power of levitation now um Rebecca as a cert of ideogi and a cousin Gwyneth Paltrow was an expert at adding wui New Age nonsense to what should have been like a business um. She repeatedly claimed in interviews that when she met Adam, she was suddenly taken with a strong belief that he

could save the world. In an episode of the School of Greatness, an insufferable YouTube show, she said this, My intention was never to find a way to make the most money. My intention when I met him was just how do we expand this good vibration to the planet. I just gotta explain the vibration. I'm gonna expand Adam's good vibes. Has anybody ever defined megalomania to her? It wouldn't take. I'm gonna tell you right now, it would

not would not take. I apologize Whyneth Paltrow's first cousin. Always, every time I think of words, I assume that people understand their meaning and apply them. I'm having a really tough time because I was coming in with a fairly positive view of her, know, her cousin life, because you said earlier that like when they first met, she made fun of him, she told him, and she married him and got involved in his business. I kind of thought like, yeah,

maybe she's pretty cool. And then everything every added detail, just like Nash, she's not good. You're full of shit, like me, I can use you as a weapon now. Adam embraced the image of the guru ceo. He threw raucous, wild parties in the office where employees were all but forced to drink. He walked around barefoot and would have his personal trainer meet him in his office and then walk around afterwards drenched in sweat to lead his employees.

It seems like a good get with Doesn't Jack do a little bit of that that Twitter stuff, like maybe not forcing his employees to drink, but having like sort of a groove vibe jacket Twitter. Oh yeah, absolutely. Every time I watched Silicon Valley, the only thing I can think of is I don't know how to parody these people anymore. You can't go there, you can't go extreme enough. You know it not And it's crazy. Oh no. The products and services that support this show. I'm a product

that supports Robert. I have no downsides and should be bought immediately. That's a parody. We work, Actually, you work. Our only sponsors are coke Industries, and of course there's some cidy every nor Dine Defense Systems nor Dine. If a wedding has to be blown up at range with the thermobaric warhead, it has to be nor Dine. Oh boy, worlds in a great shape, right products, we're back. We're talking about we work, a perfect company that never did

anything wrong. And that's the end of the episode. Yeah, alright, Now, as we work expanded and opened new branches around the world, Adam's partner Miguel designed office spaces with narrow hallways and large open desks to encourage spontaneous encounters. And let me be, let me be this real quick. They are still not making any money. Correct um, their profits double or their revenue doubles every year, right, but no, they're not making any much. There we go now, so spontaneous encounters is

a real fun way to say bottleneck. Most employees also hot desk, which meant they didn't have assigned desks. They just wound up wherever they could get in the morning. Now, this was supposed to make things feel free and open, but it really resulted in employees spending huge junks of their day finding somewhere quiet enough to get some work done. It sounds like a nime, but I'm gonna go to an office. I better have a motherfucking desk, now, um, And I'm not going to go to an office, and

you can't make me. I have enough guns at this point that nobody can um. Adam attempted to cultivate a capitalist Kibbutz style culture by hosting yoga classes, wine tastings, networking panels, and all night drinking bouts that employees were expected to attend. He says, fun drinking like mandatory. Really feel like he's he's doing the Kibbutz thing, but that from each to each part he's skipping that part. We're going to come to that. There's a quirt that's that

like everything's good, but I'm exploiting you. Doesn't sound very I thought the Kibbitts was cool, but no one liked me. What if they had to have forced them to exploited the What if they'd be homeless if they didn't what if I got them all really up? Also, they're wasted. Yeah, but we Work offices were in blasted with slogans on the wall like hustle Harder and love what you do. He could be seen as either motivational or haunting, depending

on your personal attitude. It's the Cowboys locker room, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Rapid growth came with equally rapid turnover. A few employees were able to handle at them or we work for very long. The expansion was so rapid and turnover was so high that no one seemed to notice it was all built on sand. We Work would offer potential corporate clients free rent and a volunteer to buy out their

existing leases. This brought clients and do we Work properties, but required huge amounts of money, which was furnished by hundreds of millions of dollars in VC cash. Many companies began surfing through a series of free rent deals at Sundry we Work properties, doing the corporate equivalent of signing up for Uber with a burner email to take advantage of a week of free rides. So this is that he's keeping spaces open. How he's justifying the massive expansion.

You get free rent you get like will buy out your fucking lease. So the idea is that eventually they'll own so much space that everyone will have to use them. It's kind of like with Uber. Eventually, like we're gonna burn through money now, but at a certain point will be the only ones able to offer this service, and

then the money will low. They'll do the loss Leader Walmart thing, where it's like they're we're willing to take a hit on this just to make sure all the other stores in the town out of business, and then we'll raise prices. And unlike Walmart, Walmart's an objectively brilliant idea store where I can buy nine millimeter bullets Time cop DVDs in Arizona iced Tea within ten feet of each other. That's not the necessity. Were the necessity. They're

a thing that exists. Look, if you have time Cop on DVD, Arizona iced Tea and enough nine millimeter ammo, you can get all the other necessities. I can't afford Time Cop had to torrent it. It's unfortunate, it's heartbreaking. From Walmart dot Com and a two thousand and fifteen industry conference, Adam Neuman declared, we are in a consumption phase like nothing that has ever been seen mean humans

or we were we were? Yeah. He matched these words with actions by embarking on a mass leasing frenzy, committing we work to filling up more and more office space and more and more cities around the globe. One executive told The New York Times there was no discipline as to how Adam approved leases. Another recalled no one knew

what anyone was doing. Now. Empty facilities were being filled by offering businesses free rent, which kept the show game moving along and kept we works valuation rising because all the investors are seeing is how fast this ship is expanding and revenue isn't doubling every day net revenue. Different story the revenues though, so it looks like, Okay, once we get through this consumption phase, this is going to

be making a funkload of money. When you say that they're signing leases and there's clients, is this like I have a small business and I want to use the office space. Is that the lease that we're talking about or is it him having least he's leasing space from landlords in many cases paying being like I'll pay you double whatever your current tendants are paying. For the space because he just wants to have the right to all of the space. That's the idea. You you acquire all

of the space, and he's he's a brilliant appreciator. Just double whatever they're paying. Now. By two fifteen, We Work was worth an estimated ten billion dollars in monopoly money. Keeping all this going wasn't exhausting for employees. One of them later recalled, quote, we would joke that we worked like slaves. Adam would have meetings on Sunday and you could never miss those. Sometimes it wouldn't happen. It would happen hours late, and you'd be there all night. You'd

cry in the bathroom all the time. Good bit. It really feels like the lesson that tech venture people learned from Enron was we should try harder to get away with it. Only one of them died. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, we're good. We work CFO for a time. Was Aerial Tiger, one of Adam's navy buddies. He phone officer. Yeah, well not really. I'm a CONSCIENTI objector to that joke. He frequently threatened to fire people while wandering we works open

desk office from Vanity Fair. Quote every two weeks, Area would get a print out of payroll and he would go through the red and redline the ship out of it, saying he wanted to reduce people's pay. A former executive set I remember walking through the office in Area would loudly say, why do we have all these people? I could do what they're doing with two people. So I got healthy kind of like that guy healthy work. He

is actually the most reasonable person. That's a vibe. The guys shouting that in the office not a healthy vibe. That's what I'm trying to paint the picture of here, what's your what's your payroll strategy? Well, I either give a thumbs upper thumbs down and one of them die. I don't. I don't. I don't like that guy in the real world, but like in a movie, I might want to play him, you know what I mean. That's the kind of feeling. Yeah, Matthew McConaughey would be get

picked for that. In June of two thousand fifteen, We Work raised four d and thirty four million dollars more to fund their reckless growth. Right around that same time, thirty two b J's Service Employees International Union, which represents cleaners in New York launched a protest outside if we Works offices. Their issue was the fact that Neuman and mcklby used non union labor to clean their offices for ten dollars an hour, which is like half what they're

supposed to get paid in the city of New York. Uh. Now, Neuman attempted to deal directly with picketing cleaners by approaching them with a New York Times reporter behind him and talking about his own background as an immigrant. And then here with not but a hundred thousand dollars from my grandmother, free booze and kombucha for all. Uh. This didn't work. They didn't They didn't buy that ship. Did you take him to the roof? Uh? Yeah, I don't think he

got to. I think they heckled him immediately. Adam later told a reporter with Fast Company, the last thing I was going to do was work with the union because I didn't believe that it's fair to blackmail someone to do something. You're literally a landlord. Oh boy, oh boy. Now frustrating, he did eventually sit down with Hector figaroa the union president. Figaro recalled, rather than talking about the issue, itself. He wanted to have a conversation about who we are

as people? What do you think about stars? Then he got me really drunk, was off the roof. Figaro was too smart for that ship. He pressed the issue, and eventually Adam agreed to hire back unionized cleaners for eighteen forty six an hour and health benefits. Figaro was so grateful that he got his way that he gave Adam a union jacket for what it's worth. He walked away

from the interaction feeling positively towards Adam. God Less positive was the fact that, in two thousand fifteen, and San Francisco landlord kicked out two tenants rights organizations from their offices to make room for we work. Adam had offered to pay double the rent, which guaranteed him the space and ensured that San Francisco's homelessness problem would get even worse.

This may seem out of character for someone raised in the socialistic nexus of the kibbutz, but in later interviews, Adam was quick to mention that he considered the kibbutz um to be failed social experiments. Their chief law, in his eyes, was that everyone made the same amount of money that's the problem. Community was important to him, but only up to the point where you exhibited any weakness. Adam said, on one hand, community, on the other hand,

you eat what you kill. So that's where the spartan kind of culture comes in there. I got you. I don't think so, because the actual kibbitz Is would have totally ship. So this guy is just a piece of ship. Yeah, yeah, and has a real misunderstanding of what if I could evict everybody in the Kippitts. Yeah what am I going to evict them for not being cool enough or drinking

patron with me? But but I'm sure he would rationalize it like, all right, this like let's say in San Francisco, this housing organization, we take over their their lease here or whatever. But they can just use the wee work space. They just use the way work space. I'm sure that there's something like that's how you sleep at night knowing that you know you've just created value. Man, it's value.

It's good to create value. Sure, And then these people trying to help homeless people get to get funked up at work exactly guys. Anyway, In two thousand seventeen, Adam got on the phone with an executive from Blackstone, a major investment firm, to complain because it had invested money in a rival company. Do we work at work? Yeah? Working out. Adam also refused to work with landlords who lease based to other coworking companies, and he sued several

of these rivals for trademark infringement. Your work you are work, WE Labs and high Work. He said, we're all infringing on WE works copyright. Well, Adams company did not claim exclusive rights to the word work. He believed they owned the use of that word after a two letter pronoun So that was the company's argument. So you so they are saying that if you put any two letters in front of work, you are infringing. Are infringing on we

words copy right right? Okay. I feel like he might sue you or hire you to give his employees mandatory to working lessons. We're going to test this. I we got to do it now. While the company's valuation rose, there were worrying signs that beneath all the glamour, this was just a grift. And two thirteen, Neuman tried to buy a stake in a Chicago building that planned to lease space until we Work. The board rejected this idea because it would be a conflict of interest for Neyman

to personally own property that his company leased. That's a little bit, a little bit, it's called propertical integration. It's vertical integration. That's totally called stealing money from investor. Nobody's ever had an issue with it now in Dealers. In fourteen, Adam maneuvered himself into control of the board of directors so he could approve his plan of personally buying up a number of properties and leasing them back to his

company for millions of dollars. We Work eventually signed lease agreements with four buildings Neuman owned since two thousand and sixteen. They paid almost seventeen million dollars to his properties. This is essentially theft to venture capital money, funneling it directly into the owner's pocket without informing the people paying of what's happening. See if it wasn't him getting the money, I'm fine venture capital stealing money from ventual capital. Venture capital. Yeah,

but he is. It is because I have some sort of moral compass or whatever. But I'm fine with other people. Robin Hooding, Yeah, I'm not going to do it. It just it is a huge grift and an obvious one on the go. It wasn't obvious at first. This actually came out until a while later when they filed for their I p O and all the stuff became public knowledge. Now as the grift sput on, Adam continue to motivate his employees with impossible stories of where the brand was

going into this. In fifteen, he claimed, we work Mars is in our pipeline and red red flag, red flag this, dude, that's a little bad. You know, they can go to Mars in our world. Once you say my business is going to Mars, that means we're in med bed territory. Yeah, that's that's generally. When if I were in that meeting, I'd have to walk away, you know what a good ride on the chance you're talking literally have to leave.

He told his employees that he'd met with Elon Muskin, offered the company's services and prepping a future Mars mission. And I just love the thought that he thinks the company that leases office space with him anything to contribute to that. Yeah. At the same time, I completely believe him that he didn't say he met with Elon Musk. He also said that Musk turned him down. Um, which makes sense. Even Elon Musk is a little bit like

no this said Mars. I have a I have a monopoly on the Mars graft right now, buddy, don't don't try and step on my game. Now. Grand visions of the future were mixed with Adam's own growing reputation as something very much like a cold leader. I'm gonna yeah, oh yeah, you absolutely did. I'm going to experience I know a cult leader when I see one. I'm gonna quote now from New York Magazine. Within We Work, a mystique quickly developed around Neuman, who did little to downplay

it until recently. An executive conference room at we Work headquarters was decorated with a large photograph of Neuman's surfing a wave. He is bragged about working twenty hour days and regularly called executive meetings that would begin after midnight. I've had meetings that started at two am where he joined us forty five minutes late. But that meeting was worth millions of former We Work executive course. Many we

could not stand shipping ourselves in the room. Yeah, many people told me they bought into We Works Grand mission only when Neuman was doing the preaching. At the beginning of every week we work, employees were required to stay after work for a thank God it's Monday team building event that could last for hours. Okay, so they also made them exhausted and tired and less than capable of making fully realized decisions. All the things that meeters don't

heard of that before. No, it's all the things you don't do as a cult leader. Check gotcha? No, I mean would typically speak, after which employees often walked around handing out shots of tequila that people were expecting to consume every time on out. He brings me back in. Yeah. One former employee says Neuman offered her tequila during her job interview, and liquor was a constant presence at pretty much every company event, another perk for the largely millennial staff.

I'm picturing this dude like with a lamp shade on his head. Yes, many employees know the name of no Himan's favorite tequila, Don Julio nineteen forty two, and offices around the country would keep it stocked for when he came to visit. One morning. In two thousand fourteen, not long after We Work open a new location in Washington, d C. An employee arrived to find the game room trashed. There were cups lying around the room which smelled to

him like weed. When the employee reviewed the security footage from the night before to identify the culprits, he saw Neuman and Michael Gross we Works vice chairman, drinking and partying on time Crisis Arcade machine. We smelled weed and there was also like an empty cups. Yeah, I really feel like I have no problem with that. Of all of the things so far, he owns this business. He got drunken high. It's not like he was It's not

like it was tweaking on like crystal meth or anything. Yeah, I'm cool with a this stuff, the exploiting labor and that bullshit. I'm again, you do get the feeling that when he wasn't around, the people didn't really drink or party. Yeah. Absolutely. My my experience with like workplaces that have alcohol and um,

it's like most people don't. Yeah, even even it's alable now, not everyone bought the permanent party vibe of the company, and two fifteen we Work bought a fancy private jet, which Adam Neuman immediately took to using all over the world. He smoked weed and it constantly, sometimes breaking international law

to do so. His former chief of staff, Medina Barty, got pregnant and had to stop traveling with Neuman to company events because he refused to not hot box the company play and when she was in it good stuff. She wound up filing a federal complaint against Adam for, among other things, retaliating against herford getting pregnant. That's what

I was, according to the Washington Post. Party. According to the Post, Barty quote alleges that female employees were subjected to sexually offensive conduct, disparage for taking maternity to leave, and often paid significantly less than their male counterparts. According to a complaint filed Thursday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Barty had two children during her more than five years at we Work and claims Neuman referred to maternity leave

as retirement and vacation. According to the complaint, she alleges she was demoted after both pregnancies and replaced by men at higher wages and given no instruction about her new responsibilities. So cool, Yeah, now, that story didnt drop until two thousand, nineteen sixteen. The company was still right and High, flushed with billions of dollars in VC money and on its way to becoming the largest private office renter in New

York City. In the spring of that year, Neuman met the CEO of soft Bank, Masayoshi saw at a dinner. Masayoshi held the purse springs to soft banks hundred billion dollar investment fund. He was one of the biggest investors in the startup world or the rest of the world matter. Adam badly wanted his money. He invited Massa on a tour of the company offices, and Massa told him he

had twelve minutes to listen to a presentation. Ne Himan gave him the pitch and followed him out to his car when it was over, continuing to pick and then he played Massa Yoshi takanakas seven goblins, I assume for twelve minutes, right, I don't understand that joke in anyway? All right? Somehow Adam won Masayoshi Sun over. The elder businessman told Neuman that the only problem with his business

plan was that we Work was thinking too small. It should move from leasing office space to small businesses and working to leasing space to all businesses. Massa Yoshi offered him four point four billion dollars on the spot. All right, no bad. It seems like a bad idea, right, it seems like a ridiculous thing to do. What you should do is own your own country. Yes, that's kind of

where this goes. Yeah, okay, this is right. Isn't this now just becoming entirely like real estate base because like, if you're going to go to bigger companies, then you're going to need a building, an entire building that you would then rent to them. Yeah, you would rent to them instead of them renting it, because they all rent their spaces. It's a stupid idea. This is an inversion

of reality as a business model. It's it's this this thing people talk about with Steve Jobs, this reality distortion field that he had, Like Adam clearly has that ability, and he enraptures this guy and convinces him that like this dream of changing the world, changing work is more than just like what it actually is, which is we rent office space. Ya Um. I don't understand how he did it, but he did it, and he got four

point four billion fucking dollars to do it. That's that's one of those things that I've I've talked about on our podcast is like I would love to just like measure whether or not, like I want to talk to this guy and see if he can get me on his Like, I want to measure my ability to fight off a cult leader. I really don't want you to do that because I know that you'll loseta. I gotta I was, I was born in it. I need closure on my life. I have to defeat a cult leader

before I can grow as a person. I mean, we could hunt down Adam Noyman and throw rocks at him. I am that count. I don't think I trust you to go to the roof with Adam. Trust me to the roof byself. Yeah, I would. I do think that if should you know, our lives ever go in that direction. Let's say some investor gives us four point four tonight, I would to start my cult that I've been working

on for years. I feel like a nice offshoot of that would be, like maybe we make a reality show where we try and do terrible terrible cults of personality. Absolutely well, speaking of terrible cults of personality, the episodes over part one, and it's time for you to plug your own cults of personality. Sure, um, well, we do a podcast called Knowledge Fight that people can find just by I guess googling it. It's on iTunes and talk

about on Spotify. That's true, various other places around and then you know we have Twitter and all that stuff. That's a knowledge Underscore Fight. And I'm Jordan's I am somewhat of a comedian and if you're looking to book me, I'm available. Tweet tweet at go to that Jordan. That'll be that'll do it. If you run a comedy, then you and no Alaska, please force Jordan to come up. I want to try to say that's for this, not you go, I can't come. No, just Jordan's come on.

I'm gonna follow. I'm gonna send you. I want to send I want to send you to Panama. I want to get you both opposite sides of the hemisphere. Alright, Panama song the whole time they're drinking Kabba wabbo in honor of Adam Noyman. Well, I'm Robert. This is my podcast. You're listening to it, so you know what it is. You can find the sources on behind the Bastards dot com. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram and at

bastard pot. You can find me on Twitter at I Right Okay, And you can find love in your heart anywhere you also find a dollar because capitalism, my friends, is the essence of love. And that's you know, we're going to write out on h