The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 34 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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 …”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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…”
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…”
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 …”
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?”
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…”
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.”
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 …”
McKelvey: Communities make better customers than fragmented individuals
“Communities are the best customers rather than fragmented individuals.”
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.”
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, …”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Adam Neumann's previous startup made baby pants with built-in knee pads
“So he had a couple of startups 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, so to protect their knees. They were called crawlers.”
McKelvey: Created GreenDesk's branding, website, and collateral in one night
“So basically I go home and I start thinking of a concept of a name, come up with green desk, which is office space oriented towards people who are environmentally responsible. I buy the domain, you know, I build a website. I designed some floor plans, really s…”
McKelvey: Green Desk was immediately profitable but capital-intensive
“It was a good business, definitely, right off the bat, and we were profitable, but the problem is, is that it's capital intensive.”
McKelvey: Green Desk non-compete restricted WeWork's initial expansion locations
“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.”
McKelvey: WeWork opened Soho flagship at 70-80% occupancy
“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.”
Miguel McKelvey: I was raised in an all-women collective without fathers
“There were five women who were all really good friends, you know, best friends for a long time. They had all pretty much decided to have children without the fathers in the picture just because it was a time when they wanted to break free from normal sort of a…”
McKelvey: American Apparel scaled to 200 retail stores in about four years
“Yeah, I think they were to 200 after four years or so.”
McKelvey: Green Desk branding, website, and business model created overnight
“I go home and I start thinking of a concept of a name, come up with green desk, which is office space oriented towards people who are environmentally responsible. I buy the domain, you know, I build a website. I designed some floor plans, really simple do like…”
McKelvey: Grew up in Oregon collective of five mothers without fathers
“There were five women who were all really good friends, you know, best friends for a long time. They had all pretty much decided to have children without the fathers in the picture just because it was a time when they wanted to break free from normal sort of a…”