.....Neumann
Nobody can time the market, but Adam Neumann did a pretty damn good job of selling out while WeWork was blowing up.
And now:
- selling $1bn of stock back to SoftBank
- $185mm consulting fee from SoftBank
- SoftBank to extend $500mm credit to Neumann
Thoughts?
Talk about failing upwards.
I wonder what would have happened if they actually went public as planned.
I hate him so much that I can't even think straight when I think about him. His wealth couldn't be less earned if he had inherited it.
He earned every penny. This is capitalism. He was able to sell ultra-rich investors on the idea that he would make them richer and profited generously as a result, we all dream of doing the same. When you have so much capital in the market chasing investments because the wealthy don't know what else to do with their money this is the result. Idk what's worse, Softbank pouring so much capital in this zero of a company or investors pouring $100 billion into Softbank.
Good for him. SoftBank needs to be slapped around a bit. They've completely fucked the VC space, especially anyone doing growth deals.
Also lol @ people saying Adam didn't "earn" his money. He certainly did. It's not easy to convince investors to throw that much money at a C-rate idea and if you think it is easy then you should do it. :)
Neumann "earned" his billions the way a televangelist "earns" his millions--through rank moral corruption.
Televangelists don't claim to be on TV to turn a profit and they take advantage of people's religious faith. It's different.
One could say that Adam earned his money the way Mark Cuban earned his money, back with broadcast.com.
In other words: dumb money.
Wat. It's not about being able to replicate it. If anyone else was in Adam Neumann's shoes, they also would have a fat pay check. Did Adam Neumann actually do anything? It's not hard to convince stupid investors to throw money away. It's been done time and time again for centuries.
Why aren't you able to do it then? Raising capital is certainly a skill.
When all of these unicorns that will never produce cash implode and the layoffs begin, middle class American employees will be left holding the bag per usual while the founders who already hit a nice MOIC will parachute away with no liability.
He is the embodiment of the last ~7+ years of start ups. He nailed it, power to him. He duped some of the most savvy investors of our time out of a ton of money and he still has them in the palm of his hand.
This should be way more embarrassing for everyone involved than is being discussed. The disconnect between valuations in the private vs public market is stark. What is even more comical is the fact that XYZ banks tried to shill this to public markets at X price and then marked down this POS to the current valuation now that they need to own it. Late stage VCs are laughable in my view. You could get more attractive valuations in public markets, I can not believe people are trusting them with the amount of money they are. It's almost as if they do not consider IRR when investing. I know I'm pointing out a lot of obvious facts, but that within itself is telling.
Yes. I'm far less disgusted with him than I am with the investors.
The concept was "Regus but cool." That may be a decent business model if executed properly, and I still very much believe in the coworking concept, but it is not a multi-billion dollar idea and is definitely not a tech company traded at tech multiples.
By everyone I was alluding to underwriters and investors, should have clarified
100% with you. His investors are irresponsible sheep living off fees that are detached from performance.
Yea - always thought late stage VCs and a fair amount of early stage VCs were a joke. The lack of substance / solid investment thesis was always apparent to me when I spoke with them.
Anyone else thinks other Softbank investments like Uber are at risk?
I don't see ANYTHING wrong with how this played out. I think the investors are the losers, but nothing's wrong with that from an objective standpoint. It's good when companies fail/decline and when investors take the beating.
Exactly - there is risk to investing, not everyone can be a winner. And in this case if you’re that stupid to fall for such valuations on essentially a real estate type business - that’s on you.
To me Neumann has shown true savvy to build a business like this so quick, and cash out with over a billion dollars. It’s the investment VCs who are proving how worthless they are.
Anyway some ultra rich Arab money is lost, who cares, they’ll be ok.
Actually, VCs are pretty noble, like Robin Hood, they take from the rich (investors) to GIVE to the poor!
x2....these people are supposed to be savvy investors, hence the amount of money at their disposal.
By definition and by design, investors expect to be paid handsomely for the assumption of RISK. Employees aren't taking a job assuming risk, and technically, an owner transfers risk or at least part of it to its investors.
Pitchbook’s Kevin Dowd did an interesting piece this past weekend on WeWork, entitled “WeAreAlmostOutOfMoney” touching on how WeWork’s on-track to run out of cash by mid-November, with their board and new co-CEOs on the hunt for additional funding.
SoftBank’s reportedly offering $5B in financing to save them from bankruptcy, and JPMorgan Chase, which has also reportedly put together a rival $5B debt package for the company. According to Bloomberg, there are doubts about the feasibility of JPM's proposal, due to skepticism over WeWork's ability to service such a large new debt commitment. And considering WeWork lost just shy of $2B last year, that seems extremely plausible.
It’s all bananas to me, and not even the silver kind… I mean you’re talking about SoftBank's of having invested more than $15B in a company that's now worth barely half that, and yet Softbank isn’t a major stakeholder, so all that and yet no true control over WeWork.
I cannot understand why JPM would consider doing this. I guess there is so much money out there with so little deployment opportunity that this insane behavior is the new norm.
Of course they won't be able to service the debt commitment, this isn't rocket science... At this point they may never be able to achieve any sort of DSCR because they may never produce a dollar of cash flow...
Guess who will greet Adam Neumann at the billionaire's club? Jerry Seinfeld.
The door opens and Jerry goes, "Hello...Neumann".
And that greeting pretty much describes all the disgust people are carrying outside that club for Mr. Neumann.
the only thing I wonder is how can a founder of a company think that before an IPO, they don't do thorough research, and check everything. He was literally renting buildings under his name to We company, without even try to cover this ...
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