Review
Author: Reeves Wiedeman
Reviewed by: SHA
Issue: March 2021
Billion Dollar Loser will remind readers of the book Bad Blood, the story of the rise and collapse of the biotech start-up Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes. In 2010, Adam Neumann co-founded WeWork, a company that he envisioned as a "capitalist kibbutz." The busines model for WeWork was simple: Long lease large building spaces, cut it up into smaller pieces, mark it up and lease out the spaces made more attractive with short terms, cool design, flexibility, happy hours, and geared to be a social network. This idea was not new - there were competitors out there - but Newmann had market-dominating ambitions. He went for scale and charged into leasing spaces with abandon. By 2012 he had raised $7 million, later got $16.5 million from venture capital firm Benchmark, and later still convinced Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese conglomerate Soft Bank, to invest $4.4 billion from his Vision Fund. These investments allowed Newmann to up his already aggressive acquisitions. Adam was the dealmaker and others were left to handle the details, and WeWork ultimately became New York City's largest office tenant. But Adam was quirky - he ran around in T-shirts and barefooted, was a pot smoker, and exhibited signs of delusion. He said "This decade is the decade of We," while flagrantly exploiting employees, investors, and customers, and WeWork lost billions while greatly enriching the Neumanns. He and his wife Rebekah lived very high as they opened new "We" companies and ran around the world with high profile people while the losses mounted. A planned IPO in 2019 was put off as the mismanagement was exposed, public interest waned, and Neumann was forced out as CEO with a rich severance package. Billion Dollar Loser is well-researched and well written and readers will enjoy the ride of Adam Neumann (who has returned to Israel) and the "We" travesty.