The Exchanges

Q Did it, did it feel different when you were a kid, or was it just, like, that's Eugene, Oregon, and it's kind of, there's, like, a vibe here?

A Yeah, I mean, there was a hippie vibe amongst the smaller community there, and there was, you know, kids with funny names, you know, like, I remember a kid named Wind, you know, and another, there was Morningstar and Eveningstar. Star. And, um, so that made you feel not too weird. Um, I think not until I was older and I realized that there was people who kind of had money that it became an issue, like things that I didn't have and the fact that we always had super crappy cars that were always breaking down and like billowing big clouds of smoke. I would say it was more like the sort of like being poor than the like being weird from a family, you know, sort of scenario. Um, but at the same time, um, I, I I wouldn't say I wanted to get out, but I did from a very young age have a dream of something bigger. So for some reason, from the time I was a kid, when it would be like, say a really boring summer day, I would be like, you know, you're, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? Well, I don't know what, I would say, I want to go to New York. And for some reason I started saying that when I was a kid, and I think it like became more and more of a thing, the more I said it and the more it became real. Um, and it wasn't from like a, oh, I hate this place. I've got to get out of town. It was more just Aspiration, you know, for something bigger.

AI assessment note: “there was a hippie vibe amongst the smaller community there... made you feel not too weird”

Q So when you were, um, when you were at the firm, did you, did, in the back of your mind, were you always thinking, I'm gonna, I'm gonna eventually start my own firm, or I'm gonna start my own business, like, or did you think, okay, this is cool, I can keep doing this for a long time?

A So there was definitely an expiration for me in terms of, I think, really, the learning curve. When the learning curve expires, that's when I start looking for other things. So I think once we'd done a whole bunch of American Apparel projects, and I'd sort of seen it before, I started thinking, well, what else am I going to do? And this is, kind of starts the WeWork story, is that, um, while I was working for the firm at a coworker, this Israeli guy named Gil, and I became friendly with him, and we, you know, were- He was also an architect. Yeah, he was an architect working on American Apparel projects, and we became friendly, and I remember, you know, he invited me over to his apartment one weekend, and, um, I went over there, and as we're walking into the building, um, I think in walks this other- Dude, and we get introduced, and it's Adam. I think it's a hot summer day.

AI assessment note: “there was definitely an expiration for me in terms of, I think, really, the learning curve.”

Q The idea was that, that you would get permanent workspace that would be yours or, or, or what?

A Yeah. So the, the thing that was happening back then was there was, there were existing sort of corporate office suites, and then there was coworking, which at the time, coworking is primarily tech focused. It's a lot of like, you know, engineers in a big open room, headphones on at your computer. Um, and there was some of those. It wasn't, like, prevalent, but, you know, there's some in San Francisco, a few in New York, and they were primarily, like, oriented towards a group of people who kind of all knew each other, and then they're going to come together, and then they all want to work together in the same room, and then they invite some others. Adam and I didn't come from that at all. We were in this Brooklyn environment. We weren't from tech, and we were much more interested in this, like, diversity and all these cool different kinds of companies and what that energy is when they come together. That said, you All those businesses are doing like real sales. They're on the phone. They're having meetings. They're talking to people. So this idea of like a big open room just didn't work for us. It didn't make sense. And so I think when we first started, it was more like you're going to, we're going to do small offices. You could have like a small, you know, five foot by seven foot, one person office of two person, four person, six person, eight person office. I think at the tim…

AI assessment note: “we're going to do small offices... you're still in your own private space.”

Q we've talked since then. Um, but now that you've had even more distance, how does it feel? And I should point out, you were never accused of mismanagement. You come out great in a lot of these documentaries and in the, um, dramatization that was, that was, uh, put out there, We Crashed. Um, how do you, how does it feel when, when you look back on your experience there?

A You know, I still look back a lot. It obviously played such a huge role in my life, and I get the opportunity to talk about it, um, not publicly that much, but like last night I spoke to a group of entrepreneurs at an accelerator, and of course they're very curious about the experience, and I love to share the stories of both the good times and the hard times, and, um, You know, entrepreneurship is a roller coaster no matter what scale you're at. You know, there's so many emotional layers to everything that happens. And I think my perspective is that every one of those experiences is an opportunity to grow from and learn something about myself, um, about how to treat other people, about how to, you know, do business in the way that I think is the right way to do it. And I still get lessons from it because people, you know, I'll run, I literally will run into someone on the street A former WeWork employee who will share something with me about how WeWork changed their life. Something I may have known and forgotten or something I, you know, never even knew about. And, you know, I get this incredible feeling of like, wow, we did something really powerful and it touched a lot of people. And, um, that is just endlessly fulfilling. And so, uh, I, I don't shy away from it at all. I, I'm happy to go Back into it. Um, even though there's a lot of pain there, I think going into that pain…

AI assessment note: “I get this incredible feeling of like, wow, we did something really powerful”

Q Nice. All right, uh, Miguel McElvey, I want you to jump in here, meet Melissa. Um, thoughts about, uh, the business, the dilemma, questions?

A Yeah. I mean, the first thing that came up for me when I was looking at your website was the content side of things because I would be so confused in one of these moments of what to do. So even before I was going to buy a gift, I was thinking, could I have a guide of just how to think about it or how to feel about it? And especially now with AI, I imagine I would go ask, you know, uh, Gemini or, or someone like, Hey, this just happened in my life. What do I do? And so it seems like tuning your, the content side, both for SEO and also for AI is essential. And I don't know how much you have this, but, um, having a webpage for literally every single web search you can imagine that someone might make in one of these scenarios would be really smart because, you know, if someone goes in and they say, X just happened, what do I do? You want to come up first in that, uh, in that search. And, and then if you optimize that page for AI crawling, you know, it's possible that When the person goes to AI to ask that question, they're going to find you as well. I would look at the same thing across everything. Like, can you make TikTok videos that answer these questions? Can you make YouTube videos that answer these questions? Like everywhere you could have content to answer this question, you want to be there to help people deal with it.

AI assessment note: “the first thing that came up for me when I was looking at your website”

Q was a lot of focus on, on your co-founder, Adam Neumann, and his charisma, described as a cult of personality. You were attracted to his charisma. I remember you talking about first meeting Adam, and, and that was one of the things that really made you want to work with him. But I wonder when, when, when things start to unravel, um, How did that affect your relationship with Adam?

A I was with Adam, you know, through the whole process of approaching the IPO, and then, you know, through his exit, and, you know, I saw him trying to reconcile a lot of different things that were coming at him, and I feel like the decisions that he made through that process were truly, you know, for the benefit of the company, and, you know, he's received a lot of Backlash and criticism for sure. Um, but what I saw him trying to do through that process was save the company, you know, in every step of the way, his goal was to preserve WeWork and to preserve what we had built. And so, you know, I came away from that experience with a lot of respect for him through that process because it was incredibly difficult to be, you know, at the center of so much controversy and so much criticism. So You know, I was trying to be both a partner to him through the process and then also be loyal to the company and loyal to all the thousands of people who were a part of the WeWork journey. And so I was, you know, walking a line between those things. And when he decided to leave the company, my priority was showing up for all of the rest of the team members through that entire transition process and really remaining sort of hopefully a kind of spiritual center Of the company through what was a really, really painful process.

AI assessment note: “I came away from that experience with a lot of respect for him through that process”

Q Would you, I know we'll talk about this in a bit, uh, about what you're working on now, but would you ever start another business with Adam?

A I don't think that I would primarily because it doesn't support my own journey. I put myself into that second position because of a lot of insecurity and things that I thought I couldn't do. And so being around a person who's very much an alpha, you know, is very much like, um, the person who wants to be at the center wants to be in control. I don't think that would be the right fit for me, for my own growth and my own potential learning, but If I was just looking to, like, I don't know, make money, which is not what I care about, um, then I would say probably he's going to continue to be quite successful.

AI assessment note: “I don't think that I would primarily because it doesn't support my own journey.”

Q How do you feel about, I mean, about being portrayed in, in a dramatization of your, of your life?

A Um, Well, the first thing I noticed is like the guy they have playing me is wearing a striped t-shirt and I've never worn a striped t-shirt like that in my life. So I'm a bit like, well, they got that part wrong. You know, um, it's weird. It's super weird. At first I was like, I'm not going to watch that show. What's the point? It's all been said before. Um, when I saw the trailer, it flipped for me a little bit and I said, you know what, instead of, you know, brushing it off, I said, I'm going to watch it. I'm, and I'm going to see what it feels like. And The thing for me is that, you know, what really hooked me was that I saw the things that I created and that our team created on screen. And when I saw like the logo that I made, you know, wherever, way back in, in 2011, you know, on this incredibly high production show, um, I said, you know, I said, there's something to that, to my work, to these things that I actually, you know, designed myself being portrayed in this way. And it made me curious, you know, to see how that's going to feel.

AI assessment note: “it's weird. It's super weird. At first I was like, I'm not going”

Q So where was your first stop? Where did you go to find a, your first place?

A So we looked in Manhattan a lot. We did have a non-compete with our green desk partners. So we had a limited number of areas we could go. So we were looking in San Francisco and also in Manhattan. And, um, it was tough. I mean, we had a lot of conversations with people who were like, again, who are you? You have no background in real estate. And also people looking for big credit tenants. I mean, especially in that environment of, of the, um, financial crisis, a lot of landlords had been burned even by credit tenants who, you know, broke their lease and went bankrupt or whatever. So very few people wanted to work with us. And we looked at a ton of spaces and everyone just said, why, you know, who are you? Uh, and so really what happened, I mean, it was a friend of a friend of a friend knew somebody and somehow Um, we connected, uh, for this building, um, in Soho, and it was really a relationship sale. You know, Adam, again, like, had his persistence, and he was willing to go over, and over, and over to the owner, and just convince him that we were the right tenant for this building. And, um, and he, you know, he, he's good at making connections with people. Once that door is open, like, if he sees a crack, and he can get in there, then he's never gonna stop until.

AI assessment note: “we connected, uh, for this building, um, in Soho”

Q When you did your last round of financing, of looking for funding, um, the company was valued at sixteen billion dollars, a company that you started in 2010, which is crazy. I mean, do you ever, did you ever, do you ever stop and think, that's just nuts?

A That's a good question. I don't, it's interesting to think about the times at which these things hit you, and I would say I remember calling my friends when we were first reaching a billion dollar valuation. Actually, I can remember dinner with one of my best friends when we were at a 130, and he was like, oh my god, a 130, like, are you going to sell and retire? And I was like, what? Like, why would I do that? Like, I'm just, this is so much fun, you know, no chance. When we got to a billion, I remember feeling pretty bashful about even saying the words. Like, I remember almost feeling like, Wow. I don't want to send this in a text message cause it's going to sound so preposterous. Like I want to call and only say it verbally, but then, you know, once you cross that threshold, it's sort of like the other ones going from there. And first of all, I wouldn't complain about the fact that I get to live in Manhattan and I live in a nice apartment and I'm living, you know, I moved to an apartment with an awesome view and that's a childhood dream to like see the New York city skyline. So I've reached those thresholds where I live a great life and that's awesome. But beyond that, I don't have, like, some big ambition for money. It's not really interesting to me. It's more, again, like, to be on a path where I feel like I get to continue to engage in something. That's what matters.

AI assessment note: “it's interesting to think about the times at which these things hit you”

Q So where was your first stop? Where did you go to find a, your first place?

A So we looked in Manhattan a lot. We did have a non-compete with our green desk partners. So we had a limited number of areas we could go. So we were looking in San Francisco and also in Manhattan. And, um, it was tough. I mean, we had a lot of conversations with people who were like, again, who are you? You have no background in real estate. And also people looking for big credit tenants. I mean, especially in that environment of, of the, um, financial crisis, a lot of landlords had been burned even by credit tenants who, you know, broke their lease and went bankrupt or whatever. So very few people wanted to work with us. And we looked at a ton of spaces and everyone just said, why, you know, who are you? Uh, and so really what happened, I mean, it was a friend of a friend of a friend knew somebody and, and somehow, um, we connected, um, Uh, for this building in Soho, and it was really a relationship sale. You know, Adam, again, like, had his persistence, and he was willing to go over and over and over to the owner and just convince him that we were the right tenant for this building. And, um, and he, you know, he, he's good at making connections with people. Once that door is open, like, if he sees a crack and he can get in there, then he's never going to stop until

AI assessment note: “we connected, um, Uh, for this building in Soho”

Q So, so once this building, like, once people started to join up, and this thing started to really take off, Was the idea immediately to go out and get investors and, like, scale this, make this huge?

A Okay, so part of the story, which we didn't talk about, is before we even built the first location, we actually had an encounter with a potential investor who was in a room for one of these potential real estate deals. So we were pitching a building. We really wanted to get this cool building down on Canal Street, and the owner of it was like, You know, I'm not sure if I'll give you the building, but I got this friend who might be interested, and he's gonna come over, so this guy shows up in the meeting, sits down, doesn't really speak to us, I'm gonna shake hands, but these are like, you know, Orthodox Jewish guys, um, you know, wearing the black suit and stuff, so to me, still as an Oregonian a little bit, like, I don't really know the world too well, but Adam felt really comfortable with it by then, but he ends up calling, I think, that later that day, or the next day after the meeting, and saying, hey, I don't think we're going to get that building, but I want to partner with you guys. And, um, we're like, well, we don't really need a partner. We got money. We're going to, we're building our own thing here. He said, yeah, but I, what will it take? You know, whatever it takes, I want to, I want to be a partner with you. And so, you know, we were like, why not? Let's throw out a number and we'll make it outrageous. There's no chance he'll say yes, but if he does, then, hey, w…

AI assessment note: “before we even built the first location, we actually had an encounter with a potential investor”

Q So, so basically his idea was to create like a bunch of shared offices and cubicles and then to just rent them out?

A Exactly. So, I mean, nothing too complicated other than just like, hey, right now they lease you an empty space with, um, you know, 2000 square feet minimum. And you're basically, as a small business, you have it in your own hands to figure that out. You know, you have to build it out. You got to buy all your own furniture. You got to sublease space if you can't fill it all up. Like, you're facing all those challenges, and you're paying a good price, which at the time was, you know, 20 bucks a square foot or whatever, which, you know, is a good deal, but it was just a very low level of service, and so I think he brought to me that idea, and I was like, I'm, sounds great. The challenge was, is that neither of us really had experience in real estate or anything, and so, um, he would go to the owners of this building, and say, hey, we see there are floors that are available here. Will you lease one to us? Well, so they were, like, redeveloping the building over time. They were kind of going floor by floor and trying to, like, you know, move people around to, because they wanted to make more rent, so they were kind of, like, improving, because it was really crappy. I mean, it was, like, in bad shape. So they were trying, you know, they had enough Thought to say, hey, let's redevelop this. We can charge more money.

AI assessment note: “Exactly. So, I mean, nothing too complicated other than just like”

Q So, so basically his idea was to create like a bunch of shared offices and cubicles and then to just rent them out?

A Exactly. So, I mean, nothing too complicated other than just like, hey, right now they lease you an empty space with, um, you know, 2000 square feet minimum. And you're basically, as a small business, you have it in your own hands to figure that out. You know, you have to build it out. You got to buy all your own furniture. You got to sublease space if you can't fill it all up. Like you're facing all those challenges and you're paying a good price, which at the time was, you know, 20 bucks a square foot or whatever, which, you know, is a good deal, but it was just a very low level of service. And so I think he, um, brought to me that idea and I was like, I'm, sounds great. The challenge was, is that neither of us really had experience in real estate or anything, and so, um, he would go to the owners of this building, and say, hey, we see there are floors that are available here. Will you lease one to us? Well, so they were, like, redeveloping the building over time. They were kind of going floor by floor and trying to, like, you know, move people around to, because they wanted to make more rent, so they were kind of, like, improving, because it was really crappy. I mean, it was, like, in bad shape. So they were trying, you know, they had enough Thought to say, hey, let's redevelop this. We can charge more money.

AI assessment note: “Exactly. So, I mean, nothing too complicated”

Q And did you create a, you had to create a new name and a new brand and all this stuff, right?

A Yeah. So I think one of the things that we learned at green desk that was super important was when they, when it was really working, what was cool was the connection between people and the things that you would hear people say to each other in support of each other, even though they're in completely different industries, just, you know, late at night, there's across the hall, people having these really cool conversations about life, about business, And then there's also something that happens of almost like accountability, because one of the things about being in a small business, especially on, on your own, or if you're owner of a small company, it's like, no one's watching you to see if you show up in the morning, right? But one of the coolest things that happens is like, you know, people become accountable to each other, even though they're not working for the same company. So if you don't show up for a couple of days, someone actually asks you like, hey, where you been? So that's one of the cool things that happens is it's this sort of like, hey, we're all working together, even though we're separate, you know?

AI assessment note: “Yeah. So I think one of the things that we learned at green desk”