A Hulu documentary relives the highs and lows of the infamous company and its shamanic leader detailing how it went from next big thing to big trouble
It’s almost by requirement that Hulu’s WeWork: Or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn, a documentary on the spectacular over-inflation of the company that coated shared offices in a soft-lit shell of capitalistic spirituality, starts with Adam Neumann (in business terms, a unicorn is a private company valued at over $1bn).
WeWork’s charismatic, erratic founder, who pitched the simple concept of leasing sub-divided office space into a multibillion-dollar investment darling backed by Saudi money and a reclusive Japanese billionaire, was a virtual movie-ready character, from weird quirks (barefoot, long hair, Kabbalah, keg-filled parties) to messianic vision (Neumann was a fan of preaching “work, work, work” with pop star-style face microphones). When he appears in the film’s first scene, in outtakes from an attempted public video statement before the company’s disastrous, and ultimately aborted, initial public offering in August 2019, Neumann’s Teflon-like sunny veneer appears to be cracking, finally reflecting the disarray behind $2.9bn of losses in the prior three years.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3szd4OW
