Karan Virwani
CEO, WeWork India. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executivefounderinvestor@karan_virwani10 ↗LinkedIn ↗wework.co.in ↗
Karan Virwani introduced and scaled WeWork in the Indian market beginning in 2017 via a partnership with his family's real estate business, Embassy Group. Under his leadership, WeWork India expanded into a profitable flex-workspace network spanning major metropolitan hubs across the country.
2shows
2appearances
35statements
20resolved
13supported
3contradicted
65%fully supported
Everything Karan Virwani said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Virwani: Adam Neumann is the greatest salesman in the world
“Adam is I would say, The greatest salesman in the world, and that's what I was, you know, telling you as well, where he had it's one of those few people that you meet, I think, like, in the world where you can feel the energy, like, you know, from having a con…”
Virwani: WeWork India will hit $1 billion in revenue by 2026
“So, yeah, I think within three years.”
Virwani: Real Estate Supply Cannot Outpace Demand Due to 7-Year Cycles
“It's not physically possible to even just build, you know, that type of capacity where you would, where supply would outpace the demand. So the time it takes to just put up an apartment or like get the approvals and all that is like, you know, five, seven year…”
Virwani: Indian REITs will see higher appreciation than US REITs
“India will see higher appreciation, I would say, than foreign REITs, or like, you know, the US REITs and things like that, so.”
Virwani: India is Blackstone's most profitable market outside the US
“India has been very, very successful for them. I think it's been their most profitable market outside of the US.”
Virwani: Mercedes builds its complete car interactive system in India
“Mercedes as an example, the entire unit, the entire interactive system in every Mercedes car gets built. You know, out of India.”
Virwani: Real estate developers have failed to replicate the co-working model
“Many developers, you know, even in the country or everywhere else have tried to do this business or replicate the business, and none of them have been successful.”
Virwani: WeWork India operates at upwards of 20% margins
“You know, as a business hit what is called as like operating leverage, operating efficiencies, which means that we are sufficiently covering all of our costs and also incremental costs that we might have for growth by a decent margin, you know, businesses upwa…”
Virwani: India's outsourced work shifted from back-office to product R&D
“What we've seen also is that the type of work that is coming to India has changed drastically from back office, tele services, telecalling to now full-fledged R&D, product development sites happening here in itself.”
Karan Virwani: Indian family businesses will transition to professional public enterprises
“India is sort of where, and you know, my dad also says it's like where America maybe was in the eighties or seventies or eighties, where most companies were family businesses. They will slowly transition into, you know, being public. I think your world also ge…”
Virwani: Single-Asset Fractional Real Estate Carries High Concentration Risk Compared to REITs
“I wouldn't because you're still then limited to one asset versus in a, in an actual REIT. You know, I'm distributed across geographies.”
Virwani: Indian Commercial Office Rentals Stayed Around $1/sq ft for 20 Years
“When you look at it in terms of from a multinational, you know, spend standpoint, India is still pretty much like one dollar rentals. They've been one dollar rentals for the last, you know, 20 years.”
Virwani: Embassy Group represents roughly 20% of WeWork India's portfolio
“Actually, embassy as a landlord would be maybe about 20% of our portfolio.”
Virwani's family invested $150 million of personal capital into WeWork India
“So we've invested almost hundred and fifty million of our own money in this business. And yeah, that's been over the last sort of four or five years.”
Virwani: WeWork India faced 500-crore vendor exposure with zero bank balance
“We had an exposure to the market of like nearly four or 500 draws. With no money in our bank at all. And just, you know, our word and our promise that we will make good.”
Virwani: Multinational real estate procurement in India takes up to 24 months
“India has always had very low supply of grade A commercial real estate, or, you know, what these large MNCs would end up taking, and the speed at which they can bring on real estate in their system, which means whatever we spoke about You know, which is our se…”
Virwani: WeWork India's occupancy crashed from 77% to 47% in 45 days
“We saw occupancy, like, what is sold, go from 77% at that point in time, down to 47% in, like, a span of 30 days, or, like, 45 days.”
Virwani: Banking and media are overtaking IT in Indian enterprise leasing
“Banking and media have started to overtake IT and IT services, at least in this period of time. So we're seeing a lot of, you know, companies like multinational banks and stuff like that come into India, start to grow their footprint.”
Virwani: WeWork India is nearing a $300 million revenue run rate
“You know, we're already sort of, like, gonna be close to about 300 odd million, you know, in terms of run rate, like, very soon.”
Virwani: Bangalore leads global commercial real estate absorption in recent years
“Bangalore is, is the highest amount of absorption in terms of real estate globally in the last like few years.”
Virwani: Coworking will capture 20% of Indian commercial real estate
“We feel that co-working of, you know, the flex workspace industry will become at least 20% of, you know, all commercial real estate in a period of time. Or even if you say, like, at least 20% of all companies workforce will work in a flexible model.”
Virwani: Real estate accounts for 30% of all emissions
“See, I think that like, yeah, I mean, 30, 30% of all emissions is really from real estate.”
Virwani: WeWork India operates nearly 8 million square feet across 60 locations
“We operate almost like eight million square foot. We just opened our sixtieth location last week.”
Virwani: Embassy remains WeWork India's largest shareholder with WeWork Global owning 27%
“So, Embassy is still the largest shareholder. We started off owning hundred percent of it, and we've also invested, like, you know, pretty much all of our own capital, until twenty-twenty, where we were Put in some money. You know, they put in about a hundred …”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Karan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 NEON SHOWLEDGER | CEO, WeWork India | 1 | 22 | 62% 8/13 | full record on the Neon Show → |
 WTFLEDGER | CEO, WeWork India | 1 | 13 | 71% 5/7 | full record on WTF is with Nikhil Kamath → |