Part One: The Idiot Who Made, And Destroyed, WeWork

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's in Chicago? Meet me? I'm in Chicago. This is
Robert Evans hosted Behind the Bastards, the show that tells
you everything you don't know about the very worst people
in all of history. And today I'm in the Windy
City that Never sleeps on a big apple, Chicago, Illinois,
with my co hosts today, the hosts of the Wonderful

(00:23):
Knowledge Fight podcast, my favorite podcast, Dan and Jordan's. That's
I don't know your last names? Wow, it's irrelevant. We're
not allowed to say our last names on television sales.
So Mr mixel Plick situation will to another dimension should
we say our names? Oddly enough, I have a friend

(00:43):
who's like that, and it's Mr. He said his name
backwards twice though, so you got him? Yeah, you got
you terrible. You can only visit him on certain occasions
for having us. You know, it's nicely in Chicago. There's
so many, so many choices of people you could sit
down lot, a lot of things going on in Chicago.
I was surprised at the cars um as a Southerner

(01:05):
and then and then a West Coaster. I didn't realize
you had them here yet. But that's good. It's good.
It's good. It's good. Once the once the city burned
down the first time, we were like, well, let's wait
for the second to get some cars, but we decided
against it. Well, I'm I'm proud of y'all. There's a
lot going on in Chicago. Mainly it's cold, very cold.

(01:26):
Have you been yelled out about food at all? Oh
my god, Actually I have a tail. This will be
dropping an episode of Worst Year Ever. But we went
totally on accident. When we were covering Cody Johnson, Katie
Stile and I were coming the Midwest Profest. We went
to accidentally what has to be one of the fanciest restaurants.
It's one of fancies restaurants, maybe the fanciest I've been
to in my life, so I'm guessing it's one of

(01:47):
the fancier ones in Chicago. No, it was the Capital
grill Um. It was a place that, like, we walked
in and they asked to take our coats and we
said no, and they immediately looked like, oh, you're not
supposed to be here. That is just not done. But
they seated us and we ordered lobster bisk which was fantastic.
The food was was phenomenal um. And as I was

(02:09):
eating my bisk, the waiter walked by and gave me,
fetched me a look of pity and said, sir, is
there something wrong your soup spoon? I had used the
wrong spoon, I was. I was half sure the problem
was going to be that you put ketch up in
the b which is frowned upon. Not quite that much

(02:32):
an animal, but I am apparently a filthy animal because
I used Yeah, you know, um, I'm I'm deeply ashamed
as Chicaglan's allow us to resolve or what does that call?
Absolve you of your food since yeah, I thought you
were going to double down. No, I don't give a
sh about bisk. So we we have never been to

(02:54):
a swanky I look like I've ever. It was purely
by accident that we went. Jordan thought Julia Bays was
a cold sup really did It's not really. This is
on the way here. Every soup that's not clam chatter.
I assume it is gus paco. I don't know other suits.
Jordan didn't know. I did not know about Tripe. That's

(03:16):
a shame. I really don't think. Once I learned about Tripe,
it did not bother me that I didn't know about
it this long. It's not good. Um so, uh, normally
y'all host a podcast, you sit around, drink novelty beverages
and talk a little bit about Alex Jack. It's true.
We're not doing anything like that today, nothing even vaguely
reminiscent of that. You told me earlier that we're going

(03:38):
to talk about somebody that has nothing to do within
for war, couldn't be lesson. I was almost convinced it
was a trap. No, we talked about Alex Jones before.
And yeah, yeah, normally I would have you on to
to discuss someone in Alex Jones's universe because that's your wheelhouse.
But sometimes the sausage just gotta be made. You are

(04:00):
the sausage packers nearby. Yeah, I'll take it. Chicago has
not had sausage packing for a while, but I think
we'll we'll start the project again. Well, um, do you
guys know the name a little fella named Adam Neuman? No,
it does ring a bell. Have you heard of a
company called we Work? Yes? Is that guy? Oh boy,

(04:23):
oh boy? And he is a real piece of ship. Okay,
now that sounds right. So I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna,
I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna dive into this, to
dive into the ship right now. Um so well, now,
I actually scrolled to the bottom of the page, very professional.
This is how the sausage gets made when we don't

(04:43):
print it out. Adam no discernible middle name, Neuman was
born in Tel Aviv, Israel, on a n seventy nine,
very close to my birthday. I'm already very invested in
this story. And you were also born in Televisi correct,
well the American television Yes, yes, which is Van Eys, California. Yes.

(05:04):
He gets a lot of ship about the right to
return laws for California, which is you do not have
them stay the funk out of California. Just too many
people here. Um so yeah. When he was seven, his
parents divorced and his mother moved to New York City
to do her medical residency. Adam and his sister av

(05:24):
moved in with her. Now I found other variations about them.
Story that climed to split happen when he was nine,
and that they moved to Minneapolis first. I think he
lies a lot on this show. Whenever it's like I've
heard multiple stories about his life about like specifically when
he came Like yeah, like in so consequential details, I
don't know. I I ran into both. Um. We don't

(05:46):
have a lot of granular details of his childhood, UM,
like not a lot of anecdotes about him as a kid. UM,
but we know it was rough. He was severely dyslexic,
still is severely dyslexic. You don't just um, is that
why we work as one word? Maybe? Does that? Is
that a dyslexic thing? I don't think it is welcome
Behind the Beasts the podcast where we slandered dyslexia and

(06:08):
talk about terrible people. H So, yeah, he was dyslexic,
couldn't read it write at all until the third grade.
UM and his mom moved constantly, so he lived in
a lot of different homes and usually didn't spend enough
time in any one place to build strong attachments to
people there. I get that a little bit. Yeah. Now,
in nineteen ninety, when he was eleven, Adam's mom moved

(06:30):
back to Israel his family and he settled in a kipputz.
Gives no much about kipputz is ku. I know a
little bit about kid butts is like, Yeah, it's like
a it's like a commune essentially, right, Yeah, it's like
it's like an Israeli type of commune thing. I'm got
to talk about him a little bit. The first Kipputz
was founded in a place called dia Gania and you

(06:52):
know in Palestine at the time now now the nation
known as Israel uh in nineteen o nine and nineteen ten. Now,
this is two complex a topic to do justice too
as an aside in this episode, but it's reasonably accurate
to say that the inspiring motivations behind the establishment of
the first kibbutz is kibbutze Um. I'm not really sure
what's correct. I don't know yetish Um is a mix

(07:13):
of Zionism, admiration of like literal classical Spartan values um
and communism. So it's like a millity. It was like
an initially like very militant. So like when the Israeli
War for Independence or war the Nakba, whichever term you
prefer to use, when that happened, a lot of like
the cells of like Israeli um or not, I mean,

(07:34):
they weren't is rather at that point of like of
like Jewish partisans who like we're active, we're like based
around kibbutz is and stuff, and like there are kibbutz
is that were like manufacturing arms and stuff and like
later wars and stuff. So there's like a militant swing
to them, but also very leftist, very communist, very like
like like communitary. Yeah, yeah, I assume that will never
go wrong. And yeah, just a really fucking complicated thing.

(07:56):
And I I please don't take this, like read up
more on them. I I don't want to, like, and
they're all different too, so I'm sure there's a lot
of kibbutz is that that are very different backgrounds. But
I found like a really fun lecture on the history
of kibutz is by guy named Henry Near who was
a professor some fucking college, and I'm gonna quote from
that now. It was governed by all the members gathered
in their weekly meetings. Meals were eaten in common in

(08:17):
the central dining hall, which also served as a social
and cultural center, and other items of consumption were distributed
freely or in accordance with the principle to each according
to his or her need. In its early stages, all
decisions were taken in common by all the members. That's
the idea of the chibuts, like pretty practical ground democracy
sounds pretty pretty all right, Yeah, it sounds like every
one way to live. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know

(08:38):
about the making arms part. I don't know if I'm
going to sign up for that. Do you want to
make some arms? It's not my thing. Little bit arms here,
a little bit arms there. I just feel like I
don't have the right kind of like dexterity in those skills.
Really really want kids for making because they're little fingers
getting all those holes. Yeah, pop, a little little baby fingers.

(09:00):
H nobody makes an a k forty seven like a
couple of three month olds. They really, they really know
how to start now. Women and men both worked all
day in the kibbutz is kibbutz um um. Their children
were cared for in small groups, looked after by individuals
were a mix of teacher and nanny. Kild spent time
in their parents home after working hours, but most cases
slept with other kids in a children's house at night.

(09:22):
In the early days, at least all of the kibbutz
is were part of a utopian movement towards a better society.
One of the founders of the first kibbutz, Joseph Barretts,
wrote this in his memoirs. We were happy enough working
on the land, but we knew more and more certainly
that the ways of the old settlements were not for us.
This was not the way we hope to settle the country,
this old way with Jews on top and Arabs working
for them. Anyway, we thought that there shouldn't be employers

(09:44):
or employed at all. There must be a better way.
Very left wing, very like like utopian projects. I just
want to emphasize that. Yeah, this being this show, though
I'm waiting for a hammer to drop. Yeah, it goes
into not not as utopian direction. There's all around. They're
not all at least the same that they were so
obviously in the early days they were all about agriculture. Um,

(10:07):
some still focus on that, but today they serve in
a variety of industries. For example, Kibbutz sasa Uh serves
the Israeli military making special military grade plastics. Is two
hundred members sold some eight hundred and fifty million dollars
in products in two thousand tens. These are not all,
These are not small, but yes, necessarily and that's a
sizeable business. Yeah, And Kibbutz near m where Adam Neuman

(10:30):
spent his formative years, currently hosts an innovation center that
seems to focus as an incubator for the Israeli tech
industry and looks like literally any tech building in San
Francisco from the pictures I've seen, so like these are
no longer like like necessarily like rule or like like
hard scrabble things like there's big businesses that are are
operated in these um Now. By the time Adam and

(10:52):
his family arrived at Kibbutz near Am, Kibbutz has had
moderated significantly from their early radical leftist ideology, and rather
than being educated in a group of children on site,
he went to the share Hannegev. I'm so sorry for
surely pronouncing that school, which is near to Gaza Strip.
His mother worked as an oncologist at a nearby hospital.
Um and living in the kibbutz and taking partners communal

(11:12):
life was something that Adam's mom valued. He later recalled,
it was important to my mother that we all do
something special. So, yeah, every rite up you're going to find.
This guy's life focuses on his time in the Kibbutz.
It seems to be something out of himself. May has
made a point of discussing with every journalist who interviewed him. Um,
despite how often it comes up, you seldom here in
the details of his time there. One of the few
scraps I ran into came from a Hearts article. As

(11:34):
a child who lived in a lot of places, one
of the hardest things for me was to join a
new community. It was hardest at the Kibbutz, but that
was also one of the most impressive communities. I remember
how much fun it was to be a child in
the Kibbuts. I feel like I would probably speak the
same but also like, you know, not very in detail
about like the time when I lived in like I
don't know, Boston. Yeah, I don't remember much of it,

(11:57):
but I could probably be like, you know, hey, it
made me who And you get the like he really
drives home that it was like a formative thing for him,
but you also get the the idea that was kind
of painful. He talks a lot about how, um, the
other kids that he that were on the Kibbitts had
all been born and like grown up there, and he
had moved there when he was like eleven or twelve

(12:17):
or so. UM, so that was like obviously difficult. He
would have been something of an outsider. He says, he
like made his way in and it was really rewarding.
I kind of get the feeling that maybe this guy's
never quite felt like he belonged anywhere. It's like a
new kid in school, but the school happens to be
a commune, and nobody wants you there, and nobody wants

(12:38):
you there. Yeah, maybe I don't know. I wasn't there.
I didn't grow up in that particular Israeli kibbutz um. Now.
As a young adult, Adam went to the Israeli Naval
Academy and served in the Navy for five years. So
he didn't do like the minimum service you need to do,
Like he he made a thing of it. Um. He
retired as a captain or left the service as a captain. Um.

(13:00):
Once he'd done his time, he followed in his mother's
footsteps and moved to New York. He was twenty two
years old, and it was two thousand one, widely considered
to be the very best year in history to move
to the game. I remember well the Blueprint three or
now the Blueprint dropped, the Yes first album that was
really really good, The Strokes first album that was awesome.

(13:20):
All of those, All of those happened on on a
day that I don't think anybody remembers for any reason
at all. No, no, uh. Two thousand one particularly like
the fall, early winter, like autumn. Great time to be
in New York. The two thousand one particularly good time
to be a dance punk was taken the nation by Yeah.

(13:41):
It was fantastic. So he moves there in a perfect time. Um. Now,
his sister Avy had already beaten him to New York.
She had been a former team Miss Israel and then
managed to turn that into a career as a model.
She was very successful model and is very famous in
his room, much more famous than actually he is to
this day. Um. He stayed in her Tribeca apartment while
he worked to figure out what his future would be.

(14:03):
Eventually he settled on business and enrolled at Baruch College.
In between classes, he and his own words, spent his
first years in New York hanging out at clubs and
quote hitting on every girl in the city. Um he
looked for you know, spent the rest of his time
looking for get rich quick schemes. His first months in
the USA brought with them some sobering revelations about American culture. Quote,

(14:25):
it's bullshit, yeah kind of actually yeah, yeah, it's it's
propag around the world. Okay, that a lot of other
people are also try and get rich quick sche people
like me. It seems like a lot of people really
wish they could get rich quick. The whole thing about
the American character being con artists, and it's a mix

(14:47):
of con artists and gold rushers. Like the honest people
are looking for a gold rush, the not honest people
are con artists. The goal is always the same. Which
has spent his little time living in the part of
America that exists for people who aren't rich, Yeah, which
is hard, and then filled with go fund means for insulin.
So far, the places for Americans who aren't rich are

(15:09):
are not great. Most people want to get out of there.
You know, I, for one, don't understand why you would
want to live anywhere but the Pacific Palisades. But you know,
my butler lives elsewhere, and he says, it's there's there's, there's,
there's decent parts. You fly him in for the week
days or is he a weekend butler, Like no, no, no, no, no,
you split custody of the butler with your ex wife.

(15:31):
He takes, he takes, he takes a bus in and
he's you know, there's there's a tracking chip on him
when he's in the palaceine. We don't want to stay,
good lord though, not after dark unless there's a party,
in which case we deliver a small series of electric
shocks every fifteen minutes. We didn't get too comfortable, you know,
all right, yeah, ethics, Um so yeah. Adam had a

(15:52):
rough arrival to the United States. Um and I'm gonna
quote him now. After I arrived in the United States,
I realized that in the army is really had to
be part of something bigger than themselves. The things that
I had experienced in my life all came together in
our life. We had a lot of movement and a
lot of new things. So I feel sorry for someone
who's having a bit of a hard time, because I
know what it's like to be new. Um. He found

(16:13):
that he was like really frustrated by particularly the distance
and kind of facelessness of American culture. Elevator rides were
the things that most struck him. He recalled later to
an interviewer that whenever he would travel up the elevator
in his sister's apartment, he would wonder, why is nobody
talking to each other? We're in the same building. How
come you don't know everybody? Oh? Man, man, if somebody

(16:33):
talked to me in an elevator, I lose my ship. Yeah,
absolutely furious. To be fair, I've had those very similar thoughts.
But every time I've tried to act the opposite, it's
been a disaster. No, they don't want to be to say,
I look like me. Yeah, it's a it's a captive environment.

(16:54):
There's no escape route. That's that's the issue there. I mean, obviously,
until the door's open, it seems very suspicious. You strike
up a conversation in those now those times when we've
as a culture just decided shut it down. Yeah, yeah,
start a conversation in the bathroom, the bus, the bus,
never elevators. No, I keep a tear gas grenade on

(17:16):
me at all times. Anyone talks, I just pulled that pen.
I will in the conversation that I will begin a
conversation if we're stuck in the elevator, and I'm just
at the place where I have to poop in the corner.
Back in that situation, I'm going to start with a sorry. Yeah,
this is gonna be rough for all of us. I
think we'll make it through. There are different protocols for

(17:37):
once you get to that point. The only place in
America it's okay to talk to people is in lying
at the movies. That's a good one that works. That's it,
really okay, that's it. Say yeah. Other than that, zip
it yeah, keep it, keep it shut. Doctor's waiting room
under no circumstances, no no eye contact blames. A holding

(18:02):
cell is probably a good place. Like yeah, you in
on as more like collaboration. Yeah, you're you're you're in
a holding cell. You're getting something cooking in the beginning
of the movie blow, that's yeah, that's a rich scheme.
In the in the works, I can say a lot
of people at guns stores want to have conversations with

(18:23):
you while you're waiting. You should not. You should not
talk to those people. It does not end well. You
will learn uncomfortable things about them. Um. Yeah, I imagine
every conversation at a gun store starts with my ex
wife and that's where it goes. Well, the government, let
me tell you about the government. Federal government. Either that

(18:46):
or I got a lot of fucking gophers on my property.
How many misdemeanors for I can't buy one of these
no more. I imagine the people around there are full
of trivia. It is actually it's just mostly firstly gun trivia. Yeah,
very accurate. Yeah, you know they change the way the
feed and ramp loads back in nineteen sixty two, so

(19:08):
that's a yeah, it's very very boring in general. Um so, yeah.
Adam gets to the US fresh out of the military
is frustrated at like the distance and the kind of
soullessness lack of communication in American culture. Um yeah. He
challenges his sister Abby to a friendmaking competition, uh, to
see who could learn the names and established cordial social

(19:31):
relationships with the most people in the building the fastest.
This is the first time. This is the beginning of
me saying fuck this guy. Yeah, this is it. It's
him trying to people like, let's have a friendship contest.
Fuck that guy out. You're trying to gamify like natural

(19:52):
interaction between people. That just seems weird. Also, his sister's
name is Addie. I'm a hack and a fraud and
and spelled it wrong, not added. Yeah, so is that
long for something? Probably? I don't know. It's just sister.
She didn't do anything wrong. Um. They get into what
they get into a contest to see who can like

(20:13):
build the most cordial social relationships the fastest. Yeah, she's
she absolutely wins this contest very quickly. They like, almost immediately.
This guy seems like a creep. She's a model. Yeah,
this guy is weird. He's trying to start conversations elevators.
And she's one of the most beautiful. Yes, she wins. Handle.

(20:34):
She has like six times as many friends in after
a week. It is not a not a close not
a close thing, not a near run game. Um. But
Adam claims as a result of their contest, the entire
energy of the building changed to what what people would
he be bothered, borrow, shooker from each other. He was good,

(20:56):
he says, it was good, Okay, all right now. Is
a common refrain in Adam's interviews, both the difficulty of
meeting new people when you move, a lot of the
cold and informal nature of life in American society. Uh.
And oddly enough, this sort of like understanding that whatever
it is about our hyper capitalist world makes people not
want to connect with one another was paired in Adam
with a deep bone level belief in the goodness of capitalism. Um,

(21:21):
so that's interesting. That doesn't make sense on any level.
It will continue to not or maybe it will. Capitalism
alienates us from each other, and damn it, it's awesome,
so good I believe in. It's more of a capitalism
alienates or people in capitalist societies are alienated. What if
we could find a way using capitalism to make them
less alienate? You just gotta put like financial incentives for

(21:44):
that friendship contest. See oh boy, that sounds like it's
a disingenuous friendship that got to turn this into like
a reality show? Are there other friendships than those based
on money? Like my friendship with my butler, for example,
I don't know his name. Why would you? Yeah, of course,
like why would I? It seems odd? But no, when
his wife died because you couldn't afford her insulin, I

(22:07):
did consider sending a flower, but then I thought it
kind of sends the wrong message. Well, I mean, if
you inject the flower of insulin. That's a real bad one,
especially that. I just I didn't want him to think
he could talk to me in my elevator. Right, right,
that's a good call. You make him take the dumbwaiter,
of course. Oh well absolutely, I mean either that or
the stairs. Yeah, I usually the stairs. Yeah now um.

(22:30):
Adam after this, decided to drop out of college and
launch himself into a frenzy of ill conceived business ventures. First,
he started a business selling women's shoes with collapsible high
heels for reasons I cannot quite explain. Probably one of
those like uh like operations, you know, like cut Co,
the knife people. He's probably some women's shoe company he

(22:50):
got hooked up with, right, No, No, he started, he
started a business. He did, so he started there was
two business. I'll give him credit for that. His first
two businesses are not consum Their products just bad. They're bad,
but they are He is trying to start a legitimate
business that sells a product. We are three people here
who have very little use for collapsible heeled shoes. Perhaps

(23:15):
I'm not going to speak for the women listening as
to whether or not that's a good idea, but he
did not execute it well, as proven by the fact
that the company didn't. All right, now, I think I'm
a little bit late, but here's my pitch. Put some
wheels on those. Do you remember those? Yeah? I don't see. Yeah,
soap shoes, collapsible high heels and expanded drop you know,

(23:37):
perfect perfect. Uh. Next, he made the leap to selling
specialty baby clothing. Um collapses, of course, actually breakaway baby clothing.
Turned out that's attracted so very well to the wrong people.
Absolutely to the wrong people. Stress it's about to dance.

(23:58):
In fact, the Vatican ordered seven million in dollars worth,
which was really watch out. Um. Yeah. The ones he
designed were called crawlers with a K and there were
normal baby pants with kneepads sewn into the legs, which
actually meshes uncomfortably with my Vatican joke. Yeah. I don't

(24:19):
think the Vatican has carpet though, so you don't need
to what So, in order to distract us from that,
whatever you like to point out, I did not take
part in that. That's good. You know who else? Do
you know who else is a conscience subjector? And the
realm of priests in molesting baby sponsors, the sponsors and

(24:45):
that is. That is that is an ant plug products.
And we're back. We're back, and we're talking about Adam
Neuman and his so far god awful attempts to make
it big in America. Women's shoes, patted knee baby to

(25:07):
his credit, real businesses, actual things I've heard. No, Okay,
are you telling me that his name is a annoy many? Yeah?
It is, Okay, there we go. It is. I just
needed that cleared upper hero. I just needed to be Yeah,
the guy. It's the superhero whose power is talking to
you in an elevator. Yeah, his power is never taking

(25:27):
the hint. I feel like I have a completely unfair
picture of this guy already in my head, but you don't.
I think I've nailed him so um. Now, Adam had
started Crawlers with a hundred thousand dollar investment from his grandmother.
By the time the financial crisis slammed down in two
thousand eight, he'd spent every dime of that investment, and

(25:49):
his almost shockingly bad idea for a company was nearly
out of gas. He had to hire a law you're
just to renew his visa to stay in the USA.
Comes from wealthier family, not like rich, but well an
off off that his grandma had an extra hundred K. Yeah,
so that this difficult time for Adam's business prospects proved
to be the most important period of his life. For
one thing, it's when he met his future wife, Rebecca Paltrow.

(26:12):
He was twenty eight at the time, and Rebecca recalls
that he was really, really thin, and he was shaking
because I think he was smoking too many cigarettes, and
he was engaged in a friend making contests. And then
we got married. She claimed simultaneously that when she first
talked to him, she realized both that he was full
of ship and that he was her soul mate. That's

(26:34):
that's that's shocking portrait of another person. Yes, I guess
that's the most self aware thing you could say. It
is the most self aware thing she has ever said. Um. Now,
they went out for lunch and Adam couldn't appored to
pay for anything or for the cab ride because he
was he was broke. You accept novelty, baby clothes, hated
not um. Rebecca insulted him for talking a big game

(26:57):
but having no actual money, and Adam justified it by
calling himself an entrepreneur whose money was all an inventory. Um,
but yeah, they got to either married a couple of
months later. Um, so like very very quickly. Uh. And
they getting better at making friends. He's gotten a lot,
but he's good, good at making this one friend now.
At the time, Rebecca had done a little bit more
with her life than her her paramore. She'd been a

(27:19):
stock trader for like a week or two. Um, She'd
spent time in a Buddhist monastery and been to the
Dali Lama's birthday party because she's rich as well. Um,
she toured with Michael Frantie and Spearhead what not playing.
She was just wandering, are you are you? Are you
a Spearhead fan? No, I've actually weirdly, I was a

(27:42):
friend of mine from high school last night and one
of the things I've always accused him of is being
super into Spearhead, and he claims that that is not
true at all. I literally they literally were something that
I was yelling about last night. Why would that's a
wild coincidence. It's because they have a line in one
of those songs like there's a war on cancer, war
on drugs, war on police, war on hugs. I'm like,

(28:05):
there is not a war on hugs. There is absolutely
a war on have you been in an elevator recently? Zero? People?
When you try to hug someone on it, they do
not appreciate it. Dan, My mind is completely blown that
this lady went on tour with Spearhead. Yeah, she went
on tour with Spearhead. Spearhead. Uh. And it's here I
should drop that she's Gwyn With Paltrow's first cousin. Oh

(28:25):
I totally knew that. Yeah, yep, Now keep that one
in mind. Yeah, the the goopy of it all. Now,
Rebecca and Adam started dating and she helped him quit smoking,
and so she said cousin first cousin, Yes, okay, gotcha.
They started dating. She helped him quit smoking and soda.
She introduced him to kabbala, the Jewish mystical tradition, and

(28:47):
worked to stop him from obsessing over money so much.
I assume that worked. It absolutely Dutch. So this is
the end of the is the end of the story.
Good episode, guys, good good um. This is about a
man who played a friend game in his building. We
hate him and that is the end of his crimes
play game. That's kind of endearing this episode. This episode

(29:12):
is just about getting our fans to hunt this man down.
He lives in a small apartment in Van Nuys. Now
so so grab a gun? No? Um? So yeah. She
tried to make him stop obsessing of her money, and
Adam later recalled Rebecca said, stop no more talking about money.
We're going to talk about wellness, happiness, fulfillment, and if

(29:32):
the money is supposed to follow, it will, and if
it doesn't, it doesn't matter because we will be happy
and fulfilled. That's an asshole says, that is the thing
a rich asshole said. No poor asshole has ever said
if the money is supposed to follow, will know? They say,
what about the insulin? Poor assholes say like food is good? Yeah?
Boy ass will say like we gotta fucking make rent. Yeah.

(29:55):
So it was clear though, that making funkloads of money
was the only thing that would actually make Adam happy
being fulfilled. The baby close game was not working out,
But while he was failing at a second business, Adam
fell in love with the building where Crawlers had its
office space, an otherwise empty former warehouse in Brooklyn's rapidly
gentrifying Dumbo neighborhood. Neighborhood. Yes, I know, I every new

(30:18):
thing I learned about New York. So many fucking racist
crows in that Neighborhood's terrible. It's awful. They had to
have a warning Disney. Plus, the strangest juxtapositions of my
life was as a child the racist crows and Dumbo,
and then as an adult the very different but also

(30:38):
similar racist crows in Fritz the Cat but very different.
Why don't even like the Rick? Is? It really directly
deals with things like police violence against the black community.
Very complicated film, the most complicated film with a mouse
Nazi bike? Was he a mouse? Which species was the
Nazi biker? I have no idea. I just remember Fritz

(31:01):
the Cats, the one with the bag, right, I'm way off.
I'm thinking of a completely different cat now, I remember
what we're actually telling Fritz. Fritz the Cat is the
one about the cat who fox. Yeah, thinking I was
thinking about a different great movie. I've never seen it,
not tripping um, but have seen it five or six
times and remember enjoying it and also feeling confused and

(31:23):
conflicted at certain parts. Ralph Bakshi, everybody a lot of
check him out, got really turned on by certain things. Yeah,
all of the all had the same issue watching the
Robin Hood Disney movie if you remember that one. Yeah,
a lot of a lot of complicated feeling Dale's rescue rangers.
Fritz is interesting because all of the all the black

(31:44):
people are crows um, much like in Dumbo, but all
of the police are literal pigs um. And it's it's
quite a film made in like the sixties seventies weird
movie Don't Haven't Haven't Seen a good breakdown on on
the Haven't Seen it sober Maybe I should maybe maybe
we're talking about horrible, horrible racist propaganda. I don't think

(32:06):
it was, though. I think it was about as woke
as possible for the era. But I may be wrong
on that. I remember enjoying it. This has been too
long a aggression on Fritz and Cap So yeah, the
baby Clothes game, you know they so yeah. Adam falls
into the building where the Crawlers had its office space,
which is an empty warehouse in Brooklyn's Dumbow neighborhood. He
meets up with the neighborhood Joshua Goodman and tells him

(32:28):
give me the building. Goodman was like, no, I assume
that that knife point that he told him the building,
it's great. It's gonna be great to be like the
kind of person who could just be like, I want
that build, get that building. So Goodman's like no and
shoots back because basically Adam is not saying like, give
me ownership of the building. He's saying like, let me

(32:50):
control the space and rent it out. It's empty. Uh.
And Goodman is like, why would I do that? You
sell baby clothes. Goodman makes a good point here, Yeah,
you know nothing about this industry point annoyment response. Your
business is empty? What do you know about real estate? Good? So,
all right, what do you know about business? Asshole? Let's

(33:10):
do this your tip for tap this all day. In
an impasse, he he convinces Goodman UM, and Goodman pairs
with Adam and his business partner, a guy named Miguel
mckelby who had grown up in a commune in Oregon,
so they both have that sort of background. Yeah. Uh,
And together they found a company called Green Desk, which
was billed as an environmentally friendly coworking space. UM. Now,

(33:33):
the idea for green guests was actually based on a
failed business plan Adam had created for a competition at
Burrut College before he dropped out. Uh. The idea was,
in his words, community structured real estate, which would meld
working in living space together in a manner reminiscent of
the Kibbutz. The plan failed to progress to the second
round of the contest, and Adam complained to the dean
about this, and the dean told him there's no twenty

(33:54):
three year old or any inexperienced real estate person who
will ever be able to raise enough money to do
anything like concept living. So I really feel like that
reminds me more of like when the railroad barons built
their own cities and use their own currency and ship
like that made people live on them. So that's that's
where I'm at right now. I feel like that business
model has been tried before. You your heading right in

(34:16):
the right direction. So now, Green Desk though, wasn't a
whole lot like a kid, but it was basically a
way for small businesses and individuals working as contractors to
least short term office space for an affordable price. Um
and this one up being a really fucking smart move
because in two thousand and eight the economy collapsed, uh,
and there were suddenly a ton of people out of
work and switching careers and businesses looking to cut costs,

(34:36):
and Green Desk did really well. We have an overhead projector,
we have a table, there's pens. None of you have money. Yeah,
within a year the business was valued around three million dollars.
So they do not that very successful. Not that that's
probably more successful than the other two of his business.
While neither of the other two succeeds, neither of them
made money. No, no, this is his first success. Um. Now,

(35:00):
Goodman was like, we should maybe do this in more buildings.
This is a good idea. Let's expand, you know, conservatively
to other spaces and you know, see see how far
this plan takes us continue and try another couple of spaces.
But Noman in to Kelvier like fun that we're going
to start another business. So they sell out their shares
in Green Desk in two thousand ten for about three dollars.

(35:20):
Most of the money went to the guy who owned
the space. Obviously, um they used this seed money to
launch We Work. Now. Unlike Green Desk, which had been
a modest ambition based around um compromise with an uncertain landlord,
We Work was from the beginning a bold vision. Adam
Neuman wanted to create what he called a capitalist kibbutz,
a global network of work spaces that would eventually extend

(35:41):
beyond merely short term office rentals. So what he'd like
to do is create a capitalist commune. Yeah, I feel
like there's a contradiction there, but you can't. I can't
put my finger on it. They both start with C.
I guess a literation is my issue? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
they should have fixed that and host um. Now, from

(36:01):
the beginning, they had trouble convincing landlords that they wanted
to rent them space of their vision. McKelvey, his partner,
later recalled, we didn't have credibility or credit. We had
no business taking out of forty square foot lease. But
using Adam's charisma, his ability to convince people, which is significant. Uh,
they managed to board, but not for friendships. I mean,

(36:23):
not compared to his sister, but she is a model. Uh. Now.
In that same interview, Nouman explained that the landlords needed
a lot more than just a vision. In the end,
they were unable to convince one person to rent them
one floor in a building as a trial run. But
this was a wild success and over the next five
years we work expanded all over the world at an
astonishing pace. People started to invest millions, and then tens

(36:44):
of millions, and eventually billions of dollars in the company
with Adam would sell them on the idea he presented
we work as much more than just a real estate company.
He spoke about creating the first physical social network. All
I hear is en Ron. Said, you just described Enron
to me, That's all I'm hearing. Yeah, it's interesting you

(37:04):
said physical social network, and they immediately me and Jordans
both deep inhale. Yeah. Who that sounds like bullshit. Yeah,
got a lot of bells. Okay, especially knowing what we
work is, you know, like and like it just absolutely
it was like this. What I wanted to do was
build a flag factory that only build giant red flax.

(37:28):
That's what I'm going for right here, gotcha, Probably more
successful than baby clothes. Yes, I mean I could actually
use a couple of red flags. Um, I am full
of them. Um. Yeah. He wanted to create the first
physical social network, and when he would like explain what
that meant to people, he said he wanted we work
offices to not just be places where people worked. He
wanted them to be places where people could talk about

(37:49):
their jobs, their families, their problems, and love. It's not
like an office, like like a neighborhood. I think is
more the idea he was trying to recreate that like
fifties style idea of a neighborhood, but condensed within specially
catered and decorated office buildings that he owned and sold
access to. Feel that this is the this is him

(38:12):
rigging the friendship contests. That's what I'm hearing right here.
This is this is him just being like, fucking sister,
I'm gonna I'll show her my business is going to
be a friendship competition. You do feel like this was
the result of him fuming over losing the friendship contest
and reading like an old history of the labor movement
that talked about company towns. Or he's like walking home

(38:35):
after his sister wins and he hears that St. Peter,
don't you call because I can't sold the company's store.
Wait a tick light bulb exploitation. It's an absurd thing
to try to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars.
A very silly idea, obviously, idea of like let's were
short term office pace totally reasonable than the context of

(38:58):
businesses people can run, will need it, why not, which
is what Green Desk was. That's not what Adams trying
to sell. Does Green Desk continue like through as I
don't know, probably I think so. Um, But yeah, Adam,
this is a dumb idea, a stupid idea to to
like literally any normal person. But Adams this idea to

(39:18):
normal people. He was selling this idea two investors. And investors,
if I know one thing about capitalism, are all super
fucking dumb. The more money they have to invest, the
dumber they is. Robert money equals intelligence. How many times
do rich people have to tell us that there are

(39:40):
betters and that's why is the most profitable company in
the world. Of course it doesn't lose two billion dollars
every six months or so. What a silly thing? People
wouldn't take money? And what kind of company could exist
losing that much money on a regular basis? Oh god?

(40:03):
So Adam sold this idea to investors and also to
his employees. Um. And the answer to how he sold
this very dumb idea basically boils down to the fact
that he was really fucking charismatic on one on one situations.
So he made friends with these investors. He more like
cult members. Now there's a really good New York Times article,

(40:25):
Adam Neuman in the Art of Failing Up, which pretty
good way to frame it. Um, I'm gonna read section
of white people in America. I'm going to read a
section from that article that I think in capsulates the
way Adam both led and sold his company. Quote and
this is from to that. Yeah, Adam Neuman stood on
the fifty seventh floor of the Woolworth Building, the neo

(40:47):
Gothic skyscraper that was once the tallest in the world.
It was late on a Friday night in two thirteen,
and the wee Work founder and chief executive had just
made a move to add the top thirty floors to
his rapidly expanding real estate dealings. Mr Neuman and three
employees had already enjoyed a few drinks when he decided
to bring them to tour his latest coup. In the
gutted out space, they tossed beer bottles into empty elevator shafts,

(41:08):
listening to them clink on the way down. Then Mr
Norman told them all to follow him out to the
ledge No guardrails, no enclosures, just four inebriated startup executives
teetering on the edge of death. I was up there
with him at the top of the world, and he said,
everything is going to be amazing, recalled Harrison Webber, we
worked editorial director at the time. Then Mr Norman picked
up an old beer bottle, a remnant apparently from some

(41:29):
previous bender. He asked the employees to drink the rank liquid.
Everyone took a swig except for Mr Webber. The end
of lost. It felt like a loyalty thing, he said.
In that moment, I felt what a deeply persuasive person
he is. Man. I assumed that he would be up
there the way I would, which is just screaming at them.
Do it. Man, You would have to know that I'm

(41:54):
still CEO. I'll give you one shot, right fucking now,
if the balls. That is how you get investment. You
can't be too charismatic when you're doing that. I honestly
feel like that behavior is very similar to a lot
of people that I may have been annoyed by in

(42:15):
past jobs. You know, like that that that does not
seem far afield from some professional douches. It's just it's
a real bummer. It's a it's an elevation of scale.
Like if if the shitty bosses that I've had had
that kind of bullshit charisma as well as just an

(42:38):
insane psychopathic confidence, then they would try and do the
same ship Like, it's just a different level of abuse
of power. And I can't even like suggest music to
people lest I feel like they're going to reject me
for it. Let alone, like drink this swill. Yeah, it's amazing,
and it's a testament to how good he wasn't doing

(43:01):
this to most people that by two thousand fifteen, we
workers valued at more than ten billion dollars. They rented
out hundreds of properties on multiple continents, So whatever you
can say about them, at least in two thousand fifteen,
it looks like it's fucking working like Gamebusters. It's it's
it's such like things just don't exist anymore. There's nothing,
there's no money, not real, it's it's imaginary. It's entirely imaginary.

(43:25):
This story really illustrates a couple of things. To me, One,
money isn't real, and to money is like dumb, not
in the sense like odds. It's so dumb that like
we have to live in our capitalisry. Know, money is
dumb in the sense that like money makes bad decisions.
The more you have of it, the worst decisions you make.
That tends to be the truth. And and the story

(43:48):
of We Work is the story of a lot of
people with infinite resources making horrible decisions until their resources
are less infinite. It's like it's like Tarantino's career, like
one he got enough cash, a he makes movies that
are probably an hour too long. But when he was
when he was coming up, it was like perfectly paced,

(44:09):
right time, all that stuff. You're making the argument that
like you've got to stay hungry, that kind of thing,
But when this dude was hungry, he made collapsible shoes.
I'm saying, you've got to surround yourself with people who
are going to say no whenever you have a dumb idea.
But this isn't a dumb idea, clearly. Well, at the
same time, it's a great idea. I get it. But

(44:29):
I don't know if I've ever I think I've talked
to like maybe two people who have used we Work spaces,
and I've talked to a lot of people in my life.
That seems it seems like a low engagement. It'll make sense.
Why what's going on here a little bit later? Great question.

(44:49):
I have a desk A desk. Now. In articles at
the time around two to sixteen, we Work was kind
of hitting it's zenith. Adam and those around him tended
to credit their meteoric rise on the hip cool flare.
They brought to what was traditionally at the least soulful
part of a person's life. The office we work spaces

(45:12):
were decorated in like a variety of super cool like
funky hip furniture, Like they absolutely have kegs. Yeah, it's
it's it's situation, but it works longer than Pucci did. Um.
They had funky, comfortable furniture, kombucha and beer on tap um.

(45:33):
I'm gonna quote now from a six article. Oh yeah,
it's cool, bro, it's cool bro. We got fucking got
we got briz bro. I may have actually worked at
a company that supplied a couple of WE work locations
with coffee. I may have actually dealt with their their

(45:54):
their corporate structure before. Probably not talk about this. I
will say that I worked in the past at an
named company that had a Thirsty Thursday where they provided
employees initially with unlimited beer and wine on Thursday afternoons,
and people made horrible decisions. Um, it was a really
bad idea actually to give a bunch of people who

(46:14):
are united by nothing than that they work in the
same building access to unlimited free alcohol once a week.
There was some of there was some of that vibe,
but yeah, the group on until someone threw up in
one of the social rooms and then they were like, hey,
let's uh anymore. I've always thought a lot of my

(46:37):
inner office relationships could have been improved by less inhibitions
any of the way to run an office really is
once a year you just dose everyone against their will
and consent with like nine to ten hits of M
d M A, like enough that they're hallucinating, like not
just rolling, but like really can't control their bodies. You've

(46:58):
got to go to nine or ten o three. We're
talking about a Graham apiece at once, So really just
overdose the whole Office's the elderly woman who sits at
the front desk, who's going to be our our test
subject there, and then friendship and then friendship contest. It's

(47:20):
gonna be a few days after until people are ready
to have a friendship contest or talk. But us um so,
I found a fun quote in a two sixteen Fast
Company article about when it was that made we work special,
And this was a very positive article. This is back
before anyone's got questions about we work up. It has

(47:42):
to be the beer, a co worker tells me, believing
that the secret to we work success is the always
on tap brewin its kitchens. But the hip, fun millennial
things people most often site when they try to describe
we work are almost irrelevant. As I discover while working
from two New York locations this winter, the room full
of old arcade games at the two two two Broadway
location is empty all day, and the controllers for a
nearby and Nintendo sixty four sitting a neat line, wrapped

(48:03):
tightly by their cords in a way that suggests they've
been undisturbed for some time. At the end of the day,
I see only three people pull the famous we work tap.
Mostly people inside we Work are just working. They had
all this, like video games and beer, but they also
had like a really strict dress code. You get the
feeling that's the kind of thing like you and for
a job interviewed, we work, and so we're like, yeah,

(48:24):
you want to beer from the tap, but if you
actually take it during the job interview, they'll be like,
everybody's watching you out of the corner. They're just like,
we'll see what you do. But there is a lot
of drinking, which we'll get too later. It's just not
when you choose to now more than beer, We work
owed a success to investors. Its whole business hinged on
getting angel investors in giant companies to invest hundreds of

(48:44):
millions of dollars into its expansion, not unlike Uber and
The reason so many of these very moneyed individuals were
willing to trust Adam know Hman with fortunes that could
have funded whole nations is that he was very good
at selling them on a stupid dream up to the roof,
taking him up to the roof, making drink his piss yeah,
or invest in my company, fucking. The focus of his

(49:06):
promises sent it around his time in the Kibbutz. He
would weave a story to investors of the idea that
office space could fulfill the same role of the kibbutz
and creating community and inspiring creativity. He invented his own
buzzword term, this is going to piss you off Montere
Montere that basically turned down Jordan's Mike before. The weed Generation. Yeah,

(49:28):
the weed generation, he w W weed generation. Weed generation.
That's what he used to describe millennials who'd grown up
int a world where renting and not owning was the
norm and no employment in situation was likely to last
more than a couple of years. Now, most people view
this as a star of generation. Most people view this
is a problem for millennials, but Adam Cooman viewed it

(49:51):
as a marketing opportunity. The weed generation, he told investors,
cares about the world, actually wants to do cool things,
and loves working. And when he made these claims, it
was not without any kind of backing. In two sixteen,
a group called Project Time Off for at Least a
study on the work habits of millennials. They measured members
of our demographic for habits evident of what they called

(50:12):
work martyrdom. Now, work martyrs are more likely to forfeit
vacation days, more likely to work excessive hours, and more
likely to be seen as workaholics by their colleagues. Than
members of any other generation. Yeah, when Adam going the
frames this as loving to work, it sounds like one thing.
But if you read the statements that that Project time
Off study found, millennials tended to agree with. I think

(50:35):
you're presented with a much darker picture. And I'm going
to read four of them right now. No one else
at my company can do the work while I'm away.
I want to show complete dedication to my company and job.
I don't want others to think I am replaceable. I
feel guilty for using my paid time off. That's not healthy.
Those are symptoms of deep problems within our Yeah, you

(50:57):
might as well have just been like, I'm drowning. I
am all the dying. I'm drowned. I know the bottom
can fall out at any moment. Everything about my life
could be on the street in three weeks. Um. That's
that's what that says to me. I broke my foot,
now I'm homeless. Yeah, exactly. These are signs of panic
at the reality of poverty and it's very imminent nature

(51:18):
in most of our lives, not signs of a love
of work. And I think Adam knows that. Born in
nineteen seventy nine, He's not a millennial the cut offer
that is usually one, but he's close enough that I
think he gets what it's like for the folks in
the Weed generation. But he also understands how employers think.
If you are running a company, you want your employees
to spend unreasonable hours at the office and to vote

(51:39):
themselves irrationally to the work that is great for your
bottom line. Nap rooms, yoga classes, and free beer seem
like perks, but the goal in providing all that is
to keep you in the office longer, working more hours.
I think what Adams sold more than anything was a
vision to employeers of employees who made work the center
of their very life. Here's another Adam Nouman quote from

(52:00):
that Fast Company interview. If you understand it, being part
of something greater than yourself is meaningful, And if you're
not just driven by material goods, then you're part of
the Weed generation. All right. So I am wondering how
many people have shipped him, because the numbers not no
knives on the roofs. You can make a knife out

(52:22):
of anything. That really would have been the just way
for the story to end. There really was a moment
where just a little trip and we would have been saved.
We work all over. This would have had to happen
infinite universes. There was a banana peel up. This is
actually the only universe where he wasn't shoved off that roof. Yeah,

(52:44):
I knew we were living in the wrong one the
universes where he was the police didn't even prosecute. And
this is someone told them the story and they were like,
you know what. No. This is also the only universe
where the baby clothes thing didn't take off. Yeah, I'm surprised.
Great idea. And because babies are always complaining about their knees.

(53:06):
About babies, as your baby had to have knee surgery,
I think you need these. He made blow shop pants
for babies. I retract my interaction with this bit now.
So Adam is not a dumb guy. Uh. Anti materialism,

(53:29):
like anti capitalism, has grown up among members of our
generation because we've been largely cheated out of the promises
that our system may do older generations. Adam's anti materialism, however,
is not a rejection of capitalism. It's a way to
make capitalism more profitable. If you convince workers at their job,
provides them with a variety of non material benefits. Then
you can work them harder while paying them less. Now,

(53:52):
if a potential investor needed proof that millennials could be
sold on Adam Neuman's vision of the workplace as a neighborhood,
they need look no further than the actual staff and
we work. I'm gonna quote from the New York Times
right up here. It's actually really weird to think about.
I'm sorry to interrupt you with people work at we work.
I mean it's a big company. Yeah, that's that's so.
I think of it as like an empty space. We

(54:13):
work at we will, but you gotta like manage all
that ship sales people got the whole Yeah. Yeah, Now
I'm gonna quote from that New York times pace about
sort of the culture of the company. Boy, it might
be a mike down clip for you, Jordan. Across podcasts,
people have learned that Jordan to put the mic down

(54:35):
is now the John Munch of podcast. Mr Neuman would
convince employees to take shots of pricey Don Julio tequila
a hundred and ten dollars a bottle, work twenty hour
days at ten two am meetings. He convinced them the
smoke marijuana at work, dance to journey around a fire
in the woods on weekend excursions, smoke more pot, drink
more tequila. Even people who don't really seem the tequila

(54:57):
type would go along with his act, including a pre
White House Jared Kushner who imbibed while scoping out of
property in Philadelphia. In his view, we work didn't simply
subly office space to workers. It's supplied them with kombucha,
cold brew coffee, and an ecstatic sense of community. They're
coming to us for energy for culture. Mr Noyman would say,
don't stop, I'm doing alright, I'm doing fine coiled spring. Yeah.

(55:24):
You guys want to guess if Jake Coush is going
to play a bigger role in this episode. I get
the sense he is. Oh, he absolutely is. He accidentally
entered into a friendship contest. He did, he did, and
everyone lost. You know who he's And he's getting the

(55:45):
people who work for him to be his friends. He's
forcing them to drink and smoke at work, fine and
drunk in order to break down their defenses, forced them
to continue working as hard as humanly possible, while at
the same time, we're shipping him as something of a
charismatic guy. And it sounds familiar to me, and I
don't know why it doesn't. It sounds like nothing that's

(56:07):
ever been done before. As a loyalty test, he makes
them dance around a fire to Journey, which is mathematically
the douciest thing you could possibly do. All right, now,
we're not gonna be We're not gonna be attacking Journey
on this podcast. You know, the keyboardist for Journey is
married to Paula White Cane, Trump's spiritual advisor. That makes
complete sense. Yeah, that's entirely that's entirely Yeah, Jane, that

(56:33):
makes total sense. And I have now stopped believing. I'm
not gonna hold on to that feeling. What are you
gonna do? We all in sky just stopped turning. You're
gonna have to You're gonna have to switch back to Rush.
Oh yeah, they did that one too. That was That's
a better song that don't stop believing it. And faithfully,
that's not a great song. No, it's not that great.
Although in the music video there's a great shot of

(56:54):
Steve Perry shaving his mustache looking really sad. It's like,
you know, hey, man, gotta go gotta go do shows,
gotta shape this mustache off. He wasn't faithful to it.
This is the most affecting moment. This is the push.
It's stuck with me, stuck with now. Adam's wife, Rebecca,

(57:18):
was a major part of the whole operation. She eventually
became the chief brand Officer or and then a little
bit not a job, that's not a job. Refused it pass.
She was an integral part of designing the feel of
we work as a brand, stop it, get the funk out.
As a certified yogi and more importantly, and more importantly

(57:40):
certified Jordan, Sorry, what's more legitimate than a certified yogi?
A certified yogi? He is the cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow.
It went to the dog Le Lama's birthday. I'm doing great,
so I'm doing all next, total sense. There's rigid certification
for this is something you gotta do. Eight years of school,
you do, five year internship. Honestly, you don't know this.

(58:02):
It's actually easier to be an on college. Remember reading
the autobiography of a yoga Big Yogi Bio three Rama
Rama Krishna or whatever his name is, And he said
specifically after he learned how to float. That was when
he got his certification. To me, that was it. The
government regulations once he got the power of levitation now

(58:25):
um Rebecca as a cert of ideogi and a cousin
Gwyneth Paltrow was an expert at adding wui New Age
nonsense to what should have been like a business um.
She repeatedly claimed in interviews that when she met Adam,
she was suddenly taken with a strong belief that he
could save the world. In an episode of the School
of Greatness, an insufferable YouTube show, she said this, My

(58:49):
intention was never to find a way to make the
most money. My intention when I met him was just
how do we expand this good vibration to the planet.
I just gotta explain the vibration. I'm gonna expand Adam's
good vibes. Has anybody ever defined megalomania to her? It
wouldn't take. I'm gonna tell you right now, it would
not would not take. I apologize Whyneth Paltrow's first cousin. Always,

(59:14):
every time I think of words, I assume that people
understand their meaning and apply them. I'm having a really
tough time because I was coming in with a fairly
positive view of her, know, her cousin life, because you
said earlier that like when they first met, she made
fun of him, she told him, and she married him
and got involved in his business. I kind of thought like, yeah,

(59:36):
maybe she's pretty cool. And then everything every added detail,
just like Nash, she's not good. You're full of shit,
like me, I can use you as a weapon now.
Adam embraced the image of the guru ceo. He threw raucous,
wild parties in the office where employees were all but
forced to drink. He walked around barefoot and would have
his personal trainer meet him in his office and then

(59:58):
walk around afterwards drenched in sweat to lead his employees.
It seems like a good get with Doesn't Jack do
a little bit of that that Twitter stuff, like maybe
not forcing his employees to drink, but having like sort
of a groove vibe jacket Twitter. Oh yeah, absolutely. Every
time I watched Silicon Valley, the only thing I can

(01:00:19):
think of is I don't know how to parody these
people anymore. You can't go there, you can't go extreme enough.
You know it not And it's crazy. Oh no. The
products and services that support this show. I'm a product
that supports Robert. I have no downsides and should be
bought immediately. That's a parody. We work, Actually, you work.

(01:00:46):
Our only sponsors are coke Industries, and of course there's
some cidy every nor Dine Defense Systems nor Dine. If
a wedding has to be blown up at range with
the thermobaric warhead, it has to be nor Dine. Oh boy,
worlds in a great shape, right products, we're back. We're

(01:01:11):
talking about we work, a perfect company that never did
anything wrong. And that's the end of the episode. Yeah, alright, Now,
as we work expanded and opened new branches around the world,
Adam's partner Miguel designed office spaces with narrow hallways and
large open desks to encourage spontaneous encounters. And let me be,
let me be this real quick. They are still not

(01:01:32):
making any money. Correct um, their profits double or their
revenue doubles every year, right, but no, they're not making
any much. There we go now, so spontaneous encounters is
a real fun way to say bottleneck. Most employees also
hot desk, which meant they didn't have assigned desks. They
just wound up wherever they could get in the morning. Now,

(01:01:53):
this was supposed to make things feel free and open,
but it really resulted in employees spending huge junks of
their day finding somewhere quiet enough to get some work done.
It sounds like a nime, but I'm gonna go to
an office. I better have a motherfucking desk, now, um,
And I'm not going to go to an office, and
you can't make me. I have enough guns at this
point that nobody can um. Adam attempted to cultivate a
capitalist Kibbutz style culture by hosting yoga classes, wine tastings,

(01:02:16):
networking panels, and all night drinking bouts that employees were
expected to attend. He says, fun drinking like mandatory. Really
feel like he's he's doing the Kibbutz thing, but that
from each to each part he's skipping that part. We're
going to come to that. There's a quirt that's that
like everything's good, but I'm exploiting you. Doesn't sound very

(01:02:39):
I thought the Kibbitts was cool, but no one liked me.
What if they had to have forced them to exploited
the What if they'd be homeless if they didn't what
if I got them all really up? Also, they're wasted. Yeah,
but we Work offices were in blasted with slogans on
the wall like hustle Harder and love what you do.
He could be seen as either motivational or haunting, depending

(01:03:01):
on your personal attitude. It's the Cowboys locker room, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
Rapid growth came with equally rapid turnover. A few employees
were able to handle at them or we work for
very long. The expansion was so rapid and turnover was
so high that no one seemed to notice it was
all built on sand. We Work would offer potential corporate
clients free rent and a volunteer to buy out their

(01:03:22):
existing leases. This brought clients and do we Work properties,
but required huge amounts of money, which was furnished by
hundreds of millions of dollars in VC cash. Many companies
began surfing through a series of free rent deals at
Sundry we Work properties, doing the corporate equivalent of signing
up for Uber with a burner email to take advantage
of a week of free rides. So this is that
he's keeping spaces open. How he's justifying the massive expansion.

(01:03:44):
You get free rent you get like will buy out
your fucking lease. So the idea is that eventually they'll
own so much space that everyone will have to use them.
It's kind of like with Uber. Eventually, like we're gonna
burn through money now, but at a certain point will
be the only ones able to offer this service, and
then the money will low. They'll do the loss Leader
Walmart thing, where it's like they're we're willing to take

(01:04:04):
a hit on this just to make sure all the
other stores in the town out of business, and then
we'll raise prices. And unlike Walmart, Walmart's an objectively brilliant
idea store where I can buy nine millimeter bullets Time
cop DVDs in Arizona iced Tea within ten feet of
each other. That's not the necessity. Were the necessity. They're
a thing that exists. Look, if you have time Cop
on DVD, Arizona iced Tea and enough nine millimeter ammo,

(01:04:28):
you can get all the other necessities. I can't afford
Time Cop had to torrent it. It's unfortunate, it's heartbreaking.
From Walmart dot Com and a two thousand and fifteen
industry conference, Adam Neuman declared, we are in a consumption
phase like nothing that has ever been seen mean humans

(01:04:48):
or we were we were? Yeah. He matched these words
with actions by embarking on a mass leasing frenzy, committing
we work to filling up more and more office space
and more and more cities around the globe. One executive
told The New York Times there was no discipline as
to how Adam approved leases. Another recalled no one knew
what anyone was doing. Now. Empty facilities were being filled

(01:05:08):
by offering businesses free rent, which kept the show game
moving along and kept we works valuation rising because all
the investors are seeing is how fast this ship is
expanding and revenue isn't doubling every day net revenue. Different
story the revenues though, so it looks like, Okay, once
we get through this consumption phase, this is going to
be making a funkload of money. When you say that

(01:05:29):
they're signing leases and there's clients, is this like I
have a small business and I want to use the
office space. Is that the lease that we're talking about
or is it him having least he's leasing space from
landlords in many cases paying being like I'll pay you
double whatever your current tendants are paying. For the space
because he just wants to have the right to all

(01:05:51):
of the space. That's the idea. You you acquire all
of the space, and he's he's a brilliant appreciator. Just
double whatever they're paying. Now. By two fifteen, We Work
was worth an estimated ten billion dollars in monopoly money.
Keeping all this going wasn't exhausting for employees. One of
them later recalled, quote, we would joke that we worked

(01:06:11):
like slaves. Adam would have meetings on Sunday and you
could never miss those. Sometimes it wouldn't happen. It would
happen hours late, and you'd be there all night. You'd
cry in the bathroom all the time. Good bit. It
really feels like the lesson that tech venture people learned
from Enron was we should try harder to get away
with it. Only one of them died. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,

(01:06:32):
we're good. We work CFO for a time. Was Aerial Tiger,
one of Adam's navy buddies. He phone officer. Yeah, well
not really. I'm a CONSCIENTI objector to that joke. He
frequently threatened to fire people while wandering we works open
desk office from Vanity Fair. Quote every two weeks, Area

(01:06:53):
would get a print out of payroll and he would
go through the red and redline the ship out of it,
saying he wanted to reduce people's pay. A former executive
set I remember walking through the office in Area would
loudly say, why do we have all these people? I
could do what they're doing with two people. So I
got healthy kind of like that guy healthy work. He
is actually the most reasonable person. That's a vibe. The

(01:07:15):
guys shouting that in the office not a healthy vibe.
That's what I'm trying to paint the picture of here,
what's your what's your payroll strategy? Well, I either give
a thumbs upper thumbs down and one of them die.
I don't. I don't. I don't like that guy in
the real world, but like in a movie, I might
want to play him, you know what I mean. That's
the kind of feeling. Yeah, Matthew McConaughey would be get
picked for that. In June of two thousand fifteen, We

(01:07:36):
Work raised four d and thirty four million dollars more
to fund their reckless growth. Right around that same time,
thirty two b J's Service Employees International Union, which represents
cleaners in New York launched a protest outside if we
Works offices. Their issue was the fact that Neuman and
mcklby used non union labor to clean their offices for
ten dollars an hour, which is like half what they're

(01:07:57):
supposed to get paid in the city of New York. Uh. Now,
Neuman attempted to deal directly with picketing cleaners by approaching
them with a New York Times reporter behind him and
talking about his own background as an immigrant. And then
here with not but a hundred thousand dollars from my grandmother,
free booze and kombucha for all. Uh. This didn't work.

(01:08:19):
They didn't They didn't buy that ship. Did you take
him to the roof? Uh? Yeah, I don't think he
got to. I think they heckled him immediately. Adam later
told a reporter with Fast Company, the last thing I
was going to do was work with the union because
I didn't believe that it's fair to blackmail someone to
do something. You're literally a landlord. Oh boy, oh boy.

(01:08:43):
Now frustrating, he did eventually sit down with Hector figaroa
the union president. Figaro recalled, rather than talking about the issue, itself.
He wanted to have a conversation about who we are
as people? What do you think about stars? Then he
got me really drunk, was off the roof. Figaro was

(01:09:06):
too smart for that ship. He pressed the issue, and
eventually Adam agreed to hire back unionized cleaners for eighteen
forty six an hour and health benefits. Figaro was so
grateful that he got his way that he gave Adam
a union jacket for what it's worth. He walked away
from the interaction feeling positively towards Adam. God Less positive
was the fact that, in two thousand fifteen, and San
Francisco landlord kicked out two tenants rights organizations from their

(01:09:27):
offices to make room for we work. Adam had offered
to pay double the rent, which guaranteed him the space
and ensured that San Francisco's homelessness problem would get even worse.
This may seem out of character for someone raised in
the socialistic nexus of the kibbutz, but in later interviews,
Adam was quick to mention that he considered the kibbutz
um to be failed social experiments. Their chief law, in
his eyes, was that everyone made the same amount of

(01:09:50):
money that's the problem. Community was important to him, but
only up to the point where you exhibited any weakness.
Adam said, on one hand, community, on the other hand,
you eat what you kill. So that's where the spartan
kind of culture comes in there. I got you. I
don't think so, because the actual kibbitz Is would have
totally ship. So this guy is just a piece of ship. Yeah, yeah,

(01:10:12):
and has a real misunderstanding of what if I could
evict everybody in the Kippitts. Yeah what am I going
to evict them for not being cool enough or drinking
patron with me? But but I'm sure he would rationalize
it like, all right, this like let's say in San Francisco,
this housing organization, we take over their their lease here
or whatever. But they can just use the wee work space.

(01:10:33):
They just use the way work space. I'm sure that
there's something like that's how you sleep at night knowing
that you know you've just created value. Man, it's value.
It's good to create value. Sure, And then these people
trying to help homeless people get to get funked up
at work exactly guys. Anyway, In two thousand seventeen, Adam

(01:10:57):
got on the phone with an executive from Blackstone, a
major investment firm, to complain because it had invested money
in a rival company. Do we work at work? Yeah?
Working out. Adam also refused to work with landlords who
lease based to other coworking companies, and he sued several
of these rivals for trademark infringement. Your work you are work,

(01:11:17):
WE Labs and high Work. He said, we're all infringing
on WE works copyright. Well, Adams company did not claim
exclusive rights to the word work. He believed they owned
the use of that word after a two letter pronoun
So that was the company's argument. So you so they
are saying that if you put any two letters in
front of work, you are infringing. Are infringing on we

(01:11:39):
words copy right right? Okay. I feel like he might
sue you or hire you to give his employees mandatory
to working lessons. We're going to test this. I we
got to do it now. While the company's valuation rose,
there were worrying signs that beneath all the glamour, this

(01:11:59):
was just a grift. And two thirteen, Neuman tried to
buy a stake in a Chicago building that planned to
lease space until we Work. The board rejected this idea
because it would be a conflict of interest for Neyman
to personally own property that his company leased. That's a
little bit, a little bit, it's called propertical integration. It's

(01:12:20):
vertical integration. That's totally called stealing money from investor. Nobody's
ever had an issue with it now in Dealers. In fourteen,
Adam maneuvered himself into control of the board of directors
so he could approve his plan of personally buying up
a number of properties and leasing them back to his
company for millions of dollars. We Work eventually signed lease
agreements with four buildings Neuman owned since two thousand and sixteen.

(01:12:41):
They paid almost seventeen million dollars to his properties. This
is essentially theft to venture capital money, funneling it directly
into the owner's pocket without informing the people paying of
what's happening. See if it wasn't him getting the money,
I'm fine venture capital stealing money from ventual capital. Venture capital. Yeah,
but he is. It is because I have some sort

(01:13:02):
of moral compass or whatever. But I'm fine with other people.
Robin Hooding, Yeah, I'm not going to do it. It
just it is a huge grift and an obvious one
on the go. It wasn't obvious at first. This actually
came out until a while later when they filed for
their I p O and all the stuff became public knowledge.

(01:13:23):
Now as the grift sput on, Adam continue to motivate
his employees with impossible stories of where the brand was
going into this. In fifteen, he claimed, we work Mars
is in our pipeline and red red flag, red flag this, dude,
that's a little bad. You know, they can go to
Mars in our world. Once you say my business is

(01:13:46):
going to Mars, that means we're in med bed territory. Yeah,
that's that's generally. When if I were in that meeting,
I'd have to walk away, you know what a good
ride on the chance you're talking literally have to leave.
He told his employees that he'd met with Elon Muskin,
offered the company's services and prepping a future Mars mission.

(01:14:08):
And I just love the thought that he thinks the
company that leases office space with him anything to contribute
to that. Yeah. At the same time, I completely believe
him that he didn't say he met with Elon Musk.
He also said that Musk turned him down. Um, which
makes sense. Even Elon Musk is a little bit like
no this said Mars. I have a I have a

(01:14:31):
monopoly on the Mars graft right now, buddy, don't don't
try and step on my game. Now. Grand visions of
the future were mixed with Adam's own growing reputation as
something very much like a cold leader. I'm gonna yeah,
oh yeah, you absolutely did. I'm going to experience I
know a cult leader when I see one. I'm gonna
quote now from New York Magazine. Within We Work, a

(01:14:54):
mystique quickly developed around Neuman, who did little to downplay
it until recently. An executive conference room at we Work
headquarters was decorated with a large photograph of Neuman's surfing
a wave. He is bragged about working twenty hour days
and regularly called executive meetings that would begin after midnight.
I've had meetings that started at two am where he
joined us forty five minutes late. But that meeting was
worth millions of former We Work executive course. Many we

(01:15:18):
could not stand shipping ourselves in the room. Yeah, many
people told me they bought into We Works Grand mission
only when Neuman was doing the preaching. At the beginning
of every week we work, employees were required to stay
after work for a thank God it's Monday team building
event that could last for hours. Okay, so they also
made them exhausted and tired and less than capable of

(01:15:41):
making fully realized decisions. All the things that meeters don't
heard of that before. No, it's all the things you
don't do as a cult leader. Check gotcha? No, I
mean would typically speak, after which employees often walked around
handing out shots of tequila that people were expecting to
consume every time on out. He brings me back in. Yeah.
One former employee says Neuman offered her tequila during her

(01:16:03):
job interview, and liquor was a constant presence at pretty
much every company event, another perk for the largely millennial staff.
I'm picturing this dude like with a lamp shade on
his head. Yes, many employees know the name of no
Himan's favorite tequila, Don Julio nineteen forty two, and offices
around the country would keep it stocked for when he

(01:16:24):
came to visit. One morning. In two thousand fourteen, not
long after We Work open a new location in Washington,
d C. An employee arrived to find the game room trashed.
There were cups lying around the room which smelled to
him like weed. When the employee reviewed the security footage
from the night before to identify the culprits, he saw
Neuman and Michael Gross we Works vice chairman, drinking and
partying on time Crisis Arcade machine. We smelled weed and

(01:16:49):
there was also like an empty cups. Yeah, I really
feel like I have no problem with that. Of all
of the things so far, he owns this business. He
got drunken high. It's not like he was It's not
like it was tweaking on like crystal meth or anything. Yeah,
I'm cool with a this stuff, the exploiting labor and
that bullshit. I'm again, you do get the feeling that

(01:17:12):
when he wasn't around, the people didn't really drink or party. Yeah. Absolutely.
My my experience with like workplaces that have alcohol and um,
it's like most people don't. Yeah, even even it's alable now,
not everyone bought the permanent party vibe of the company,
and two fifteen we Work bought a fancy private jet,

(01:17:34):
which Adam Neuman immediately took to using all over the world.
He smoked weed and it constantly, sometimes breaking international law
to do so. His former chief of staff, Medina Barty,
got pregnant and had to stop traveling with Neuman to
company events because he refused to not hot box the
company play and when she was in it good stuff.
She wound up filing a federal complaint against Adam for,

(01:17:55):
among other things, retaliating against herford getting pregnant. That's what
I was, according to the Washington Post. Party. According to
the Post, Barty quote alleges that female employees were subjected
to sexually offensive conduct, disparage for taking maternity to leave,
and often paid significantly less than their male counterparts. According
to a complaint filed Thursday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,

(01:18:17):
Barty had two children during her more than five years
at we Work and claims Neuman referred to maternity leave
as retirement and vacation. According to the complaint, she alleges
she was demoted after both pregnancies and replaced by men
at higher wages and given no instruction about her new responsibilities.
So cool, Yeah, now, that story didnt drop until two thousand,
nineteen sixteen. The company was still right and High, flushed

(01:18:40):
with billions of dollars in VC money and on its
way to becoming the largest private office renter in New
York City. In the spring of that year, Neuman met
the CEO of soft Bank, Masayoshi saw at a dinner.
Masayoshi held the purse springs to soft banks hundred billion
dollar investment fund. He was one of the biggest investors
in the startup world or the rest of the world matter.

(01:19:01):
Adam badly wanted his money. He invited Massa on a
tour of the company offices, and Massa told him he
had twelve minutes to listen to a presentation. Ne Himan
gave him the pitch and followed him out to his
car when it was over, continuing to pick and then
he played Massa Yoshi takanakas seven goblins, I assume for
twelve minutes, right, I don't understand that joke in anyway?
All right? Somehow Adam won Masayoshi Sun over. The elder

(01:19:26):
businessman told Neuman that the only problem with his business
plan was that we Work was thinking too small. It
should move from leasing office space to small businesses and
working to leasing space to all businesses. Massa Yoshi offered
him four point four billion dollars on the spot. All right,
no bad. It seems like a bad idea, right, it

(01:19:46):
seems like a ridiculous thing to do. What you should
do is own your own country. Yes, that's kind of
where this goes. Yeah, okay, this is right. Isn't this
now just becoming entirely like real estate base because like,
if you're going to go to bigger companies, then you're
going to need a building, an entire building that you
would then rent to them. Yeah, you would rent to
them instead of them renting it, because they all rent

(01:20:08):
their spaces. It's a stupid idea. This is an inversion
of reality as a business model. It's it's this this
thing people talk about with Steve Jobs, this reality distortion
field that he had, Like Adam clearly has that ability,
and he enraptures this guy and convinces him that like
this dream of changing the world, changing work is more

(01:20:29):
than just like what it actually is, which is we
rent office space. Ya Um. I don't understand how he
did it, but he did it, and he got four
point four billion fucking dollars to do it. That's that's
one of those things that I've I've talked about on
our podcast is like I would love to just like
measure whether or not, like I want to talk to

(01:20:49):
this guy and see if he can get me on
his Like, I want to measure my ability to fight
off a cult leader. I really don't want you to
do that because I know that you'll loseta. I gotta
I was, I was born in it. I need closure
on my life. I have to defeat a cult leader
before I can grow as a person. I mean, we
could hunt down Adam Noyman and throw rocks at him.

(01:21:10):
I am that count. I don't think I trust you
to go to the roof with Adam. Trust me to
the roof byself. Yeah, I would. I do think that
if should you know, our lives ever go in that direction.
Let's say some investor gives us four point four tonight,
I would to start my cult that I've been working
on for years. I feel like a nice offshoot of

(01:21:31):
that would be, like maybe we make a reality show
where we try and do terrible terrible cults of personality.
Absolutely well, speaking of terrible cults of personality, the episodes
over part one, and it's time for you to plug
your own cults of personality. Sure, um, well, we do

(01:21:52):
a podcast called Knowledge Fight that people can find just
by I guess googling it. It's on iTunes and talk
about on Spotify. That's true, various other places around and
then you know we have Twitter and all that stuff.
That's a knowledge Underscore Fight. And I'm Jordan's I am
somewhat of a comedian and if you're looking to book me,

(01:22:15):
I'm available. Tweet tweet at go to that Jordan. That'll
be that'll do it. If you run a comedy, then
you and no Alaska, please force Jordan to come up.
I want to try to say that's for this, not
you go, I can't come. No, just Jordan's come on.

(01:22:38):
I'm gonna follow. I'm gonna send you. I want to
send I want to send you to Panama. I want
to get you both opposite sides of the hemisphere. Alright,
Panama song the whole time they're drinking Kabba wabbo in
honor of Adam Noyman. Well, I'm Robert. This is my podcast.
You're listening to it, so you know what it is.

(01:22:59):
You can find the sources on behind the Bastards dot com.
You can find us on Twitter and Instagram and at
bastard pot. You can find me on Twitter at I
Right Okay, And you can find love in your heart
anywhere you also find a dollar because capitalism, my friends,
is the essence of love. And that's you know, we're
going to write out on h

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Part One: The Idiot Who Made, And Destroyed, WeWork