This was quite a long book of Adams fortune and almost detailed every deal and Loan he had through career , it showed his eitos for people, work and money . His skill in persuading anyone to lent him money continues ly.

The Cult of We by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell is a very detailed account of the rise and fall of WeWork and how it was tied to its "visionary," Adam Neumann. I was interested in this book because I had previously listened to the two episodes of Behind the Bastards on Neumann ([Part 1](https://www.stitcher.com/show/behind-the-bastards/episode/part-one-the-idiot-who-made-and-destroyed-wework-66057111) [Part 2](https://www.stitcher.com/show/behind-the-bastards/episode/part-two-the-idiot-who-made-and-destroyed-wework-66106341)) and wanted more detailed content. This is a deep dive into Neumann and his effect on WeWork, so if you don't want all the nitty gritty on the investments by SoftBank and Neumann's relationship with the Saudi Royal family, just listen to the podcast episodes.

The underlying theme of this book, as well as other books about the tech industry and adjacent businesses, is that the lie of meritocracy allows unhinged maniacs to accrue wealth and power on a sand foundation of "innovation." In that way, it is extremely depressing, especially when discussions on maternity leave and other necessary accommodations for working people – Neumann has called maternity leave "vacation" on multiple occasions and regularly demoted women after coming back from leave.

The details of the day-to-day atmosphere at WeWork seem to me almost too bananas to be true:

> A small subset of its staff, though, were wary. One former manager recalled being told to "drink the Kool-Aid," in a positive way. He was confused: Did these millennials not know about the 1970s cult and ensuing mass suicide that had inspired the term?

At this point, I would like to state that I, a millennial, am aware of the Peoples' Temple, Jim Jones, and the poisoned Flavor Aid (not Kool-Aid).

This book has the feel of a soap opera but is also deeply maddening. The bananas behavior of Adam Neumann is particularly maddening and I had to take breaks while reading. It's pretty clear that someone like Neumann should never have had this much influence in the first place – he suggested himself as the ideal candidate for the first president of the world – and that his reign at the head of WeWork did a lot of damage to a lot of people.

To anyone else with low self esteem about to embark on their first management job, I commend this toxic-tech-bro-meets-Wall-Street horror story: an extraordinary tale of hubris in which nobody seems to learn any lessons and from which all the people with money appear to emerge unscathed, as if 2008 taught them nothing. (WeWork’s innocent employees being the equivalent of those of us who lost our jobs in the the last market crash in this analogy.)

The book charts a similar course to John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood, albeit not as compelling; the tequila-and-marijuana-fueled exploits of a rich, young white dude with a massive ego are not especially interesting to me, even if the sheer scale of the excess recorded in these pages kept my jaw on the floor throughout. It’s probably unfair of me to shave a star off because Adam Neumann, Rebekah Neumann, Masayoshi Son, every overpaid banker who should know better and a veritable army of enablers did not end this book strapped to the back of a nuclear-fuelled rocket on a collision course with the sun, but it’s a gorgeous, sunny Saturday and I should not be this consumed with my own rage right now.

I am grateful to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The subtitle of this book is “WeWork and the Great Startup Delusion”. This sets the scene for once again another spectacular downfall of an American company. Written by two reporters from the Wall Street Journal, it tells the story of Adam Neumann, a co-founder of WeWork; essentially an office rental-space company.

Due to the hubris, arrogance and salesmanship of Neumann, WeWork was instead portrayed and promoted as a technology company. Not just the next Amazon or Facebook, but something much more significant. A potentially world-changing entity. It was no such thing, and this engaging book recounts the rapid rise and even faster fall of yet another billion-dollar ‘Unicorn’. WeWork, once valued at nearly $40 billion, lost almost all that value it's rapid downfall in 2019 and 2020.

The book is focussed on Neumann, an Israeli by birth and upbringing who sets out to make his fortune in the US. There are numerous others involved in WeWork who share the responsibility for it’s growth and blame for its demise. Along the way we are introduced to colleagues, co-workers, competitors, Neumann wife, family members, Hollywood connections, and Silicon Valley movers & shakers. Of course there are numerous bankers, financiers and investors who enable Neumann and his WeWork strategy. They are mostly American of course, but also a notable cast of characters from China, Japan and the Middle East.

The authors, in well researched book, ask how this could happen. How an office rental-space company could be valued at close to $40 billion after a decade of growth with little, if any, profitability. How this company could then lose almost all that value in a relatively short space of time.

The authors discuss and document how Neumann co-founded of the company. It’s rise, expansion, funding, and of course it’s downfall. They do an excellent job of describing how such startups are funded and valued; how they survive with early investors who demand expansion and growth.

WeWork was for many years a private companies (owned by founders, employees and early investors) and was not subject to regulator or financial scrutiny to the same extent as a publicly listed company. They authors explain the need for startups to become public companies which then allow value to be more easily released to early investors. Valuation is closely related to growth and these are shown to be the main criteria for investor interest in WeWork. Profits and risks seem to be either ignored or downplayed by those who stood to gain most from exorbitant valuations. Anyone questioning company strategy or Neumann himself, was dismissed as “not getting WeWork”.

Greed, hubris, arrogance and nepotism all play a role in so many of the people throughout the book, not just co-founder Neumann. Very few emerge from this sorry saga with their reputation enhanced. Although some of these same people no doubt, made significant amount of money at the expense of unwary investors or those with a pooper understanding of the WeWork business model. The authors explain how supposedly sophisticated International as well as American investors and bankers were entranced by the WeWork vision and its unconventional co-founder. In the search for the next Facebook, Amazon or Apple, it seems that the basic fundamentals of business and finance no longer counted in companies like WeWork. That is until they do.

This is a long book, over 800 pages, excluding footnotes, notes and index. Nevertheless it is a book easily read being subdivided into 36 relatively short chapters. Financial and other technical details are well explained for those outside the business world. But it is more than a story of numbers and valuations. It is a story of people, their character, their beliefs, their desires. And what they are willing to say, do and believe to reach or justify their goals in life. A fascinating book. Highly recommended to anyone who has enjoyed reading about the rise and spectacular downfall of other companies, such as Enron and Theranos, to name just a couple from recent history. I wish the authors great success with the publication of this important book.

Fascinating book about how one charismatic man charmed the Private Equity markets so much that they would throw money at his loss-making enterprise that, when it came down to it, was nothing more than a real estate play. Did they learn nothing from the dot-com boom and bust?

I love reading about businesses and finance, I remember doing a full-on nerd dive into a 600+ page book on the life of Goldman Sachs bank…for fun, so when I saw this one pop up I knew it would be right up my street.

I’d heard of WeWork and its co-founder Adam Neumann, and I knew a little of what the company was about and its fall from grace, but I went in with very little background information. I cannot stress this enough; Brown and Farrell have written probably one of the best books of this type that I have ever read.

Sometimes, whilst I enjoy the topic, the content and writing can be a bit dry and to be fair that is sort of expected with non-fiction but this one? It reels you in from the start and it is so well written, combining backstories of the main characters, explanations of more industry specific items that a reader may not be well-versed in and all the key details in the company’s journey. Normally if I’m reading non-fiction I’ll also read a fiction book alongside it but I didn’t do that with this one because the story, and especially the writing that was laying it all out on the page, was just that good!

I will definitely be picking up anything else they write, together or individually, because this was so worth the read!

Here are some thoughts and take-aways from the book which some may consider spoilers so proceed at your own risk.
There was something about Neumann that gave me Donald Trump vibes. He isn’t rooted in reality, his has big dreams and ideas but nothing to back them up with, essentially, he’s a big bulls***er that can talk a good game and wrack up mountains of debt at the same time, all whilst constantly wanting more, more more and not understanding what people’s concerns may be. He’s only interested in himself, his power and fortune and less interested in the company he has built. Every deal must shore up his own personal gains and not put the business first. He’s also surrounded by people that refuse to tell him no, either because they don’t want to be pushed out, their scared of him or they’re buying in to everything he’s selling. Sounds a lot like someone else we know….And like the book title suggests, it sounds a lot like a cult, especially when everyone talks about his personality and charisma.

It also highlights so many issues within Silicone Valley, which I couldn’t even begin to list, but were so interesting to read about. What was most interesting, and off putting, was knowing that an (almost) international paraiah in MBS was behind so much of the investment money flowing into the businesses in the area, and that these business leaders seemed to look the other way, for the most part, on his heinous crimes, putting their and their company’s profits ahead of human rights and you know, not associating with criminals that were murdering people over free speech?

Its interesting that the WeWork documentary has just come out, and after reading this I am interested to see how it abridges basically the same story. Because this book is an exhaustive (and occasionally exhausting) document of the excesses and failings of the highly toted, big spending and in the end failing business. The problem the book has, which it admits early on, is this list of excess just seems too obvious. From a clear eyed position after the fact, that a company that leases serviced offices is just a version of real estate company seems obvious. From the outside the amount of control the CEO had, and the constant leveraging for expansion without getting anywhere near profit seems an obvious flag. But Neumann, that self same CEO, is also presented as am extremely charismatic guru type salesman. And for that I would probably need to see him in action.

The book goes in to accessible, but quite painstaking detail, as to that expansion. It is very much a perfect storm of the current tech investing environment, a leadership figure and investors (particularly one investor). The mind boggles when SoftBank fund investor Son suggests Neumann get more crazy, that he invested billions on the back of gut feelings about people rather than evidence and balance sheets. Brown and Farrell make all of this very readable, with bite sized chunks which only occasionally feel like "look at what these crazy kooks did now". And it is 90% rise, considering the fall (to a potentially solvent property company) only happened last year. Both this, and I am guessing the documentary, may well be missing an epilogue about what the company eventually looks like, and what the new banished CEO and coterie are doing now.

There will always be a bit of the drive-by carcrash sightseeer to a book like this, and whilst they don't linger, they are disdainful enough of the antics over the ten year period - particularly where it lies of excess, bullying and what leads to the crash. However there is also of course a cautionary tale, and one that is almost as old as time. If something looks to good to be true - particularly when it is financial - it probably is. The Cult Of We is a good title because it was exactly that: everyone wanted to believe that what on paper replicated an already existing business model (first time I heard of it I thought of Regus), was a magical unicorn. It wasn't, and it isn't and this will tell exactly why.

Extremely interesting and fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of ‘ big business’ in the form of the WeWork empire. So well written by the two Wall Street journalists/ authors, explained in plain English. I enjoyed dipping in and out of this work, as I read fiction in between.
Each time I thought - ‘This is it, he’s reached the end of the rope this time’ but no, someone else threw him a lifeline. Amazing story of our times.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this title.

This book was incredibly fascinating. It was an excellent insight into something that I’ve half read articles about for a few years but never imagined the levels of “interesting” business decisions at WeWork. It is extremely difficult to believe it is not fiction! Really good pace throughout the book and very well researched and written.

Absolutely fantastic, I couldn't stop reading it. Both a deep dive into the bizarre rise and fall of WeWork, and a more general sober look at VC-funded companies, the book is incredibly well reported and a gripping read. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This book is absolutely fascinating! I'm always interested in stories of big businesses floundering or imploding because there are so many lessons to be learned. Sometimes its fraud and corruption and sometimes it's just plain negligence or arrogance.

The demise of WeWork was something I was aware of and had followed but not particularly closely. The whole situation seemed incredible and indicative of the huge overvaluing of companies in Silicon Valley.

This book is a masterpiece of investigative journalism as we follow the whole story - from the business starting up, the increasingly manic behaviour of the CEO and eventual failed IPO which put a spotlight on the business' failings.

I was absolutely gripped the whole way through and loved every minute. It's such an interesting saga and recommend it even if it's not the sort of topic you would usually read about!

The inside story the real story of this company is fascinating.A company built by grifters by people who seemed so creative intelligent skilled till the truth came out and the company fell apart.The characters that play apart in this story are something from a bad movie .Well written researched reads like a novel but is sadly true.#netgalley#harperuknonfiction.

Ever been baffled by tales of investors throwing billions at overconfident start-ups?
Raised an eyebrow about a company leasing office space could be considered a tech company?
Wondered just how the very rich burn through money?
This impeccably researched book will answer all of those questions, and more.
Find out how "an inexperienced baby-clothes salesman"(an unforgettable descriptor) somehow became the CEO of a company valued at $48 billion before a failed IPO sent the value of his company through the floor.
Read about how investors were captivated by his charisma, so much so that they never questioned what they were being told. And even when there were questions (Why is there no profit? Why are you spending $2 for every $1 you make? How come you sold a trademark to your own company for over $5 million?), they still had too much fear of missing out to insist on answers.
This is one where the "unicorn hunters" should have walked away, but oh the hubris of SoftBank and JPMorgan and other chasers of the next Amazon/Google.
There are multiple examples of unfettered greed and chicanery in this book, the two stand-outs for me were a passage about discarded WeWork couches and the detailing of Neumann's summer in the Hamptons before everything came crashing down.
As someone who gets the sweats when I need to dip into my (tiny) overdraft, the numbers bandied about in here were staggering.
This is less enraging than reading about Theranos (no messing with peoples' health), but it's genuinely astounding to see (almost) the entire story of WeWork laid out so clearly.
To make things even better, this is a genuinely engaging read - even though if it were fiction you probably wouldn't believe it.

Thanks to Harper Collins for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Really well written, with a bunch of financials and accounts turned into plain english. The story is crazy and there are so many points where I was just wondering is it the *next* page where this is all going to tumble down... but no, it goes and it goes and it goes.

Well written, well researched and a surprisingly easy read.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book.

Such an interesting insight into WeWork. Really enjoyed learning more about the rise and fall of the company.

I’m not 100% sure when I became fascinated with the office sub-leasing business WeWork, but it was certainly ahead of its mid-2019 filing for an IPO, and which point things really did seem to fall spectacularly apart.

Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell are a pair of Wall St Journal reporters who covered WeWork on the paper in the years of its spectacular growth – and especially the growth in its valuation. The story they tell here is one of our times, with companies’ value tied up so much not in what they are actually earning today, but what they could earn tomorrow if the growth continues.

Except, as becomes readily apparent throughout this book, not all companies can “scale” in the same way. Companies that are based essentially on software, like Facebook or Google, can make enormous savings from that scale down the line. The cost of maintaining one extra user is basically zero. Yet if your business is sub-leasing office space, every extra desk space that you hire out costs you more money. You have to keep leasing more office space in more buildings.

This is the story of Adam Neumann, a young entrepreneur who was driven to create a business whose valuation grew at the expense of just about everything else. It’s the story of The Emporer’s New Clothes, as seemingly respectable financial institutions kept backing him in spite of, rather than because of the business he was in – positioning it as a tech company on some especially specious grounds, rather than the real estate business it actually was (and with the lower valuation that brings with it).

And it’s the story of Softbank, its founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son, and his Vision Fund, backed heavily by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. The Vision Fund was an attempt to replicate the success Masayoshi Son had previously had with an early investment in Alibaba which reaped tremendous rewards.

The book also explores the wider start-up scene, and the backers that are so willing to support often young and very inexperienced CEOs, giving them incredible leverage, almost treating them as latter-day Messiahs, and allowing them to structure their companies in such a way that even if they end up with relatively small shareholdings after multiple funding rounds, they still have all the voting rights – meaning they maintain complete control over those businesses regardless of the wishes of other, larger, shareholders.

If that all sounds a bit serious, this is also a book about a frankly unhinged couple at the top of a business, who are let rip to go out and buy surfing businesses on whims, or purchase a private jet just because they can. Never mind that their business is, year after year, losing money, and despite all their projections stating otherwise, getting worse rather than better. Neumann and his wife appear as frankly delusional at times, carried away with the personal wealth that they are attaining. Indeed, the amount of money that they manage to pull out of the business at a relatively early stage also brings significant questions about corporate governance in the modern era. Think about all those Dragons’ Den sessions where the Dragons look down their noses at people who asking them for cash at the same time as they are personally pulling lots of cash out of their nascent business during its early expansion.

The really curious thing about all this is that centrally, there is a perfectly good business model here. It’s not dissimilar to Regus – now known as IWG, who’s CEO Mark Dixon pops up, scratching his head more than once in this story. And as we slowly move towards a post-pandemic world where companies are going to look at different kinds of office attendance models, it may well be that there’s a real opportunity here. But the capital required for growth in this business is high – office space in major city centres is expensive. And the valuation of those businesses is low compared to tech companies. Hence, everyone wants to position themselves as a tech company rather than anything else.

If you know the story of WeWork, you won’t be learning anything fundamentally new in this book, but you will be learning an awful lot of detail, and the whole tech scene is covered here. But there’s an incredible breadth of colour here, with stories and anecdotes that really paint a full picture of what happened.

And if you don’t know the story in great detail, you’re in for a fantastic ride!

Highly recommended.

A fireworks display of exploded delusions.

Written by two journalists from the Wall Street Journal, this book seeks to research, document and explode the delusions of the We Work founder Adam Neumann, his wife, gurus, senior employees, their numerous investors and fund managers in charge of other people’s money and even his Japanese mentor and backer Masayoshi Son of Softbank. The effect is rather like an ever-swelling firework display of waste and destruction taking folly to ever greater heights, culminating in the man at the centre of a massive multi-billion-dollar sacrifice of other people’s money on the altar of New-Age virtue-signalling, being allowed to walk away with over a billion dollars (at least on paper) as a reward. At one point, Neumann even unwittingly seeks equivalence with Tony Blair by aspiring to become “president of the world!”

But there is one very important delusion which the authors do not explode, nor do they even appear to recognise it! Adam Neumann and Masayoshi Son engage in large-scale real-estate dealings in Communist China, where all property belongs to the CCP no matter how many leases, contracts and title deeds you think you have, and they go on to plot a scheme by which they would not only control all the real-estate finance in the United States and the Free World, but also in the very unfree world of Communist China. Their vaulted ambition is duly mocked by the authors, but at no point do the authors conceive that even modest and ostensibly profitable investments in the Chinese property market or Chinese industry are inherently delusional. Because to do that, would expose the nakedness of an awful lot of readers of the Wall Street Journal. With that important caveat, this book gets a four-star recommendation to readers.

Were you as fascinated as I was about the WeWork story? There was a great book review article in Financial Times (can’t share link unfortunately-behind paywall) by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson. The story of “its charismatic co-founder” Adam Neumann sometimes beggars belief.

I’m reading it now and if you knew some of the stories, the authors, The Wall Street Journal reporters Eliot Brown & Maureen Farrell, bring much new information, amazing stories of behaviour and excess and the role of the investment of Masayoshi Son of SoftBank in keeping its bubble inflated.