In fall 2019, the story of WeWork’s Icarian plummet —from the startup destined to change the way we work and live to the laughing stock of Wall Street—played out with all the drama you’d expect when at its center are a messianic CEO and a Japanese billionaire enabling his reckless whims. As you may recall, former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann had a vision of creating a culture of communal workspaces that was turbocharged by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son investing more than $10 billion in WeWork with a mandate to Neumann to think bigger. WeWork soared to a $47 billion valuation and was on the precipice of going public until its prospectus raised a sea of red flags —from the company reporting $900 million in losses and $47 billion in lease obligations to Neumann’s wife, Rebekah, being granted the power to name his successor should anything happen to him. It was a tale of staggering hubris, lavish excess, and toxic leadership that became catnip for a storm of media coverage. Indeed, in today’s insatiable market for content for video streaming and on-demand audio, the WeWork saga inspired a flurry of deals to turn this story into tragedy, farce, or a bit of both. Last year there was Wondery’s deep-dive podcast miniseries WeCrashed , and New York Magazine contributor Reeves Wiedeman published the book Billion Dollar Loser. Yet to come is the book The Cult of We from Wall Street Journal reporters Maureen Farrell and Eliot Brown, which is being adapted into a limited series with Succession breakout star Nicholas Braun. Another forthcoming book, about SoftBank, from Fast Company contributor Katrina Booker, was fast-tracked for a TV series from Blumhouse. An Apple TV Plus limited series starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway as the Neumanns has also been announced
See the original post here:
Hulu’s WeWork doc tries to recapture the energy of the 2019 saga