Opinion
McKelvey: WeWork failed on capital assumptions, not operational execution
“It wasn't like we were overextended in our ability to execute on the business model. I think what we were overextended in was the Ability that we could get the continuous capital we would need to continue that expansion, you know, and those are two completely …”
Opinion
McKelvey: Adam Neumann was trying to save WeWork during 2019 crisis
“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.”
Disclosure
McKelvey: SoftBank pushed WeWork to prioritize market share over profitability
“When SoftBank made that investment, it opened us up to a new way of thinking about how do you build a company and the way that, you know, I would say they prescribed and we agreed to was that capturing as much market share as possible was the way to go.”
Opinion
McKelvey: WeLive and WeGrow were good experiments with real potential
“In the case of the things you talked about in terms of we live and we grow, I actually think both of those were really good experiments, you know, for us to be looking at other ways to build our company, you know, with a more diversified offering. I think thos…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McKelvey: WeWork's massive pre-IPO losses were deliberate investments in growth
“The challenge that we are facing is that it's not that those losses were a surprise. They were by design. You know, again, we were a fast growing company and we were investing in our growth. And so we were making the decision to lose money.”
Opinion
McKelvey: Vilifying and punishing Adam Neumann for mistakes does not serve society
“You can look at Adam as an example of a person who did a bunch of things and was attacked and vilified and sort of canceled. There was some shadow in him, and there's some shadow in me, there's some shadow in all of us, and what's the best thing is for us to b…”
Assertion Supported
McKelvey: WeWork Secured a $45M Valuation Commitment Before Signing Its First Lease
“And we had no building, we had no signed lease even, and we proposed a forty-five million dollar valuation. And that's pretty high for a business that is unproven, and so he said yes. You know, he said, okay, I want to be a third partner, and so I'll commit to…”
Disclosure
McKelvey: WeWork is a hundred-year challenge, not built to be sold
“And Adam and I, like, we, when we talked about this, we're like, this is a hundred year challenge. It's not like, hey, we're building a company so we can sell it and move on. We're doing this because we think this is the most interesting and biggest challenge …”
Opinion
McKelvey: Google offering free AI tools could threaten ChatGPT
“When you have big players who are competing, you know, it can be a race to the bottom, and that's scary, too, because if Google wants to give their AI tools for free, what happens to ChatGPT?”
Disclosure
McKelvey would not co-found another company with Adam Neumann
“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 v…”
Assertion Supported
WeWork secured a $45M valuation before signing its first lease
“And we had no building. We had no signed lease, even, and we proposed a forty-five million dollar valuation. And that's pretty high for a business that is unproven. And so he said, yes, you know, he said, okay, I want to be a third partner.”
Disclosure
McKelvey claimed WeWork was a 100-year company, not built to sell
“And Adam and I, like, we, when we talked about this, we're like, this is a hundred year challenge. It's not like, hey, we're building a company so we can sell it and move on. We're doing this because we think this is the most interesting and biggest challenge …”
Insight
McKelvey: Communities make better customers than fragmented individuals
“Communities are the best customers rather than fragmented individuals.”
Opinion
McKelvey: Unclear Monetization Makes AI Valuations Hard to Understand
“The AI applications are so incredibly powerful and amazing, but because they can do so much, and it's not yet clear exactly how to monetize them, it is a bit confusing to understand how will they be evaluated, you know.”
Insight
McKelvey: TikTok favors raw, direct storytelling more than Instagram
“And again, I think what you find in the difference between tick tock and Instagram is
You know, narrative, like, rough storytelling, real people in front of a camera, that's really on TikTok these days, and it's less so on, on some of these other platforms, …”
Insight
McKelvey: Founders must stay responsible for business areas they dislike
“Sort of out of sight, out of mind. It's not a great model for entrepreneurship. You know, I think you have to be responsible for everything when you're a founder.”
Opinion
McKelvey: Public market narrative completely shifted after Uber's IPO
“If you look about what did the market want, it completely changed after Uber's IPO. And all of a sudden there was a shift in terms of the market narrative.”
Disclosure
McKelvey: Founders received $500K to $1M each selling Green Desk
“I wish I remembered the details, but I mean, we must have gotten like somewhere between half a million and a million dollars each.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McKelvey and Neumann each made up to $1M selling Green Desk
“I mean, we must have gotten, like, somewhere between half a million and a million dollars each.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McKelvey: In 2010, no workspaces used incandescent, hospitality-style lighting
“I mean, back then we did all incandescent lighting. To do that in a workspace at the time, it just didn't exist. You had like a cool Brooklyn restaurant in an old auto garage. You had, you know, other people say doing boutique hotels with that vibe, but in wor…”
Disclosure
McKelvey refused to participate in media dramatizations about WeWork
“No, I haven't. And I think a lot of the reason for that was that I was always trying to make sense of it myself, and I don't really feel like participating in someone else's agenda was helpful to me in, in any way.”
Assertion Supported
McKelvey: Adam Neumann previously ran Crawlers, a baby clothing startup
“One of them, both of them, I think were baby clothing companies. And he had sort of an idea for innovating in baby clothing by putting knee pads in baby's pants to protect their knees. They were called crawlers.”
Disclosure
McKelvey: Green Desk Non-Compete Restricted Early WeWork Search to Manhattan and SF
“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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McKelvey: WeWork's Soho Location Reached 70-80% Occupancy at Opening
“I think when we first opened the first floor, we were probably in the 70 to 80% range. And then within the first couple months, the first two floors were pretty much full.”
