Episode 95: Adam Neumann (WeWork)

The episode this week describes the hottest new trend in companies that have no conceivable way to make money: launching IPOs and letting the founders dump that problem onto the general investing public. Early 2000s nostalgia is in so we're bringing back dot com pump and dumps. Welcome to the life of Billionaire Adam Neumann and his "company" WeWork, which is cooking its books so blatantly that even the financial newspapers owned by other billionaires have been pointing it out. We explore his humble origin story growing up the rich kid in a Kibbutz on stolen land, his meager start doing business out of the Tribeca apartment his parents paid for, and how the WeWork IPO later this month will solidify him as a billionaire even when the company inevitably crashes and burns.

Citations:

• Controversial Landlord Meets His Match in Brooklyn Court (New York Times)
  One thing we forgot to mention on the episode: the Brooklyn landlord Joshua Guttman, who gave Adam Neumann the space to start his first company Green Desk, has been linked to numerous mysterious arson fires at his properties. Everything here seems to be on the up and up!
• Why Is Israel Still Covering Up Extrajudicial Executions Committed by a Jewish Militia in '48? (Haaretz)
  Source on war crimes mentioned in this episode.