"Billion dollar loser" Book summary in English | Failure Story of a company "WeWork"

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WeWork is a company that rents office space to startups and other businesses. Founder Adam Neumann was set to make a lot of money when the company went public, but things went wrong. The company's capital was built on promises that it was more than just a real estate company, but it turned out to be just that. Veteran journalist Reeves Weideman tells the story of WeWork and Neumann's rise and fall.
WeWork has become one of the largest office tenants in New York City, and second in London only to Her Majesty’s Government. Its revenue has more or less doubled every year for a decade, and Neumann has raised more than $11 billion of investment capital.
WeWork promised community to post-recession millennials entering the workforce, but it ended up fracturing because its CEO, Adam Neumann, was a charismatic but ruthlessly ambitious entrepreneur. In the past decade, he rode the longest economic expansion in American history while telling anyone who questioned his risky growth strategy that he wasn't playing by traditional business rules.
Now, in the decade's final turn, he's racing to the finish line. WeWork is running out of money and Neumann has tapped out the world of private capital and racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. He's preparing to take WeWork public: the only viable path to continue its growth, as well as an opportunity to cash in on what he and others at WeWork have built. Neumann's company spent so much money expanding around the world in 2018 that it lost nearly $2 billion, and even his employees didn't know exactly what it meant to say that they were now trying to elevate the world's consciousness.
Adam Neumann struggled throughout his teenage years, but he found stability and confidence when he started taking driving lessons from a driving instructor named Arie Eigenfeld. Eigenfeld was worried that Neumann might be too charming for his own good, and he declared after watching Neumann drive that he had two paths open to him: either he would end up in jail, or he would become a millionaire. Neumann overcame his difficult upbringing by working hard and using his intelligence and charisma to succeed.
In the mid-2000s, the internet was starting to be widely used, and Facebook was becoming more popular. Adam decided to start a business manufacturing high-heeled women's shoes that turned into flats, and he came up with the idea while doing women's studies fieldwork. However, when the first samples of the shoes arrived, they were unusable because of the buttons and the legs. Adam struggled to make sales and pay his employees, and he eventually decided to quit his degree at Baruch and focus on Krawlers full-time.
WeWork is a company that rents desks to freelancers for a monthly fee. They were founded by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey. They were looking for a space to start their business, and they met Joel Schreiber, a real estate developer, at a bar. Schreiber agreed to invest $15 million into the company in exchange for a third of the company.
In 2010, Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey founded WeWork in a building in SoHo. At the time, the real estate market in New York City was in a slump, and WeWork was one of the first companies to emerge from the recession. To compete in the market, Neumann and McKelvey designed the company around being more than just an office space. They emphasized the idea of community and transparency, and designed the company's logo to symbolize this. WeWork quickly became popular with young entrepreneurs, and as the company grew, it became difficult to keep up with the demand for space. In recent years, WeWork has faced some allegations of sexual harassment and illegal behavior. Despite these allegations, the company continues to be successful.
Adam Schreiber convinced David Zar to lease 348 Fifth Avenue and WeWork took over the advertising space.
When Adam wanted to advertise WeWork as a "community," Miguel pushed back, saying that calling yourself a community was a distinction that had to be earned. With Miguel managing WeWork's build-out, Adam began to form a back office staffed in large part by his friends and family. His cousin-in-law, Chris Hill, came from wholesale produce distribution to become WeWork's chief operating officer.
The Kabbalah Centre helped raise Adam Neumann and Rebekah Neumann's social and economic standing in New York City, and WeWork's early financial backers included people who were involved in the Kabbalah Centre. In 2012, Adam told a New York real estate publication that Kabbalah itself was the inspiration for WeWork.