Some thoughts on Wework from a former employee and current advocate

Today is my last day at Wework and the overriding emotion I feel is gratitude. Grateful to be out of here, for sure. But also grateful for the experience I was given and for the opportunity to learn more in two and a half years than I'm likely to learn in any similar length stretch for the rest of my life. Some of my work experiences blend together and have slipped into the background of my consciousness, but not this one. For its impact on my personal and professional develop AND because Wework’s rise, fall, and rise again have been so well documented that I would have to strive to avoid Wework related media which makes the chance I forget about my stint here less than 0%.

As I take time to think about my experience at Wework and what impact the company has made on me and the world I think about a couple of things. I think about what it was like working for such a polarizing character (Adam Nuemann). I think about corporate leadership and our role in our professional development (and our mood along the way). I think about what makes for a truly successful product, and what separates that from a successful company. Because I had the experience of being on the inside during the $47 Billion valuation, the failed S-1 and the subsequent path to a SPAC announcement, I have a lot of inside perspectives on the whole situation. That is what I want to share today.

I. The elephant in the room

If you guessed that this piece was going to mention Adam Nuemann, pat yourself on the back, because you are right. There is no Wework story that can avoid mentioning the man who founded the company and brought it up through its highs all the way down to its lows. My opinion on Adam Neumann is likely different from what has been portrayed in the print media (this book) or in a "documentary." Because despite all of his flaws, I still respect the living hell out of the man. Say what you want about his business practices or his more eccentric visions but you cannot say that he did not create something that fundamentally changed the way society works and thinks about work. Before Wework, co-working was something that was relegated to Hostels in countries abroad and you would NEVER hear the term in the same sentence as IBM. Now, with the help of a global pandemic, every Fortune 500 company under the sun is exploring flexible office space and that is the product of something that "crazy Adam Neumann" brought into existence.

Yes, I think he's a little nuts too but I also think you have to be a little nuts to change an industry in the way that he did. Jeff Bezos is also likely bananas. The same could be said for Steve Jobs. Now obviously putting those three in the same conversation makes this Substack a one of a kind publication, but there is truth to it. He had faith in his idea above all else and made true concrete steps towards changing the world to fit his vision. He didn't take it all the way there, but he got a helluva lot farther than most, and for that he has my respect. Even today. Even after everything that has come to light.

Something that doesn't get explained or detailed enough is how convincing this guy really was. Yes he had insane visions for the world but when he spoke about them people listened. I drank far more Kool-Aid than I would care to admit at my first and only all company summit. When Adam Neumann talked to us about changing the slogan to "Elevate the World's Consciousness," it was like watching Kanye at the VMAs decide to run for president while giving an acceptance speech. People didn't know what to expect but they were listening to every single word because of how entrancing a speaker he was.

II. Everyone else at Wework

At its peak, Wework employed about 16,000 people. The company is currently sitting around 5000 employees so with that number in mind you would assume that there were a lot of people who had no business with a job there, and in my mind you would be wrong. Yes duplicative work needed to be eliminated and with that a lot of people lost their jobs, but the quality of the average employee at Wework was as high as I have seen or heard of for a hyper-growth company. There were and are a TON of extremely talented, down-to-earth people who worked for Wework and that fact was part of the reason I stuck around for so long. I worked in Sales Operations and I was continually pleasantly surprised by the quality of the newly hired sales staff and everyone we partnered with across Finance, Marketing, Technology, and Sales. Wework, if nothing else, did a phenomenal job hiring the right people for the long term vision of the company. Where it fell short was putting those people in a position to succeed and that rests on the shoulders of senior leadership, not of the common man or woman who was putting in the hours to make Wework a top notch experience for its customers.

One of the reason I hung around for so long was how much I liked the people I worked with and worked for. I firmly believe that if you like the people you're working with, you can work through any number of reorgs and changing north stars. Although I eventually hit my limit and sought employment elsewhere, I do feel that it would have been much harder to hang around as long as I did if I didn't work with such wonderful, intelligent, driven people.

III. "Media" and the Business Insider hit job(s)

This section doesn't fit with the rest of the piece but I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't give myself a space to hop on my soapbox and rant for a minute. There was a time, when the online "publication" Business Insider was running an article a day about how Wework was going to fail and go bankrupt and what an embarrassing place it is to work and how could people have fallen for that charlatan Adam Neumann's nonsense blah blah blah... This went on for a few months after the (admittedly) embarrassing S-1 was released and the future of Wework was shaky at best.

The point is that during this time, Business Insider, as all of these hack organizations are, is in the business of selling clicks. And there is nothing that sells better than a controversy with a huge name. Wework was everywhere and at the scent of blood, "journalists" swarmed. I didn't have a lot of respect for them before, but this was the last nail in the coffin. From here on out I will always defer to the man in the arena for what is actually happening inside a company and I will now strive to no longer support "news" organizations that don't stink of journalistic integrity.

IV. My takeaways

While I'm leaving Wework professionally, Wework will never leave me. Not the people I have met nor the learning that I carry with me into my next role. All of our experiences shape who we are as people but I count my time at Wework as one of the more formative 2.5 year periods of my adult life. That may not be saying much as I'm only 26 and I still have (hopefully) a LOT of my adult life remaining, but the point still stands. I learned a lot here, and the main takeaways are worth their weight in gold.

• If you work with people you like and you can get through (just about) anything although...

• Organizational disfunction can inhibit the progress and brainpower of a LOT of talented workers.

• Executives can only be so transparent during turbulent times. Their job is not an easy one, and the balance between giving employees sufficient information and leading the company to the right place is one that will likely leave no one entirely satisfied.

• If you have a good enough product with the right product market fit, you can overcome a LOT of operational inefficiencies and build a LARGE business.

Each of those could probably be a blog post in and of itself, and if there is appetite for that kind of thing, please leave a comment and I'll gladly make that my next month of writing.

IV. The future of work

If I could, I would invest in the Wework business further than my company issued stock options. I believe that Wework changed an industry in a necessary manner that was long overdue. Cubicle farms and 15 year corporate leases are a thing of the past. COVID accelerated large corporate adoption of this principle but it was coming one way or another. Human beings do not want to come into an office that makes them feel uninspired and emotionless five days a week for 270 days a year. Wework gave an alternative to what was a pretty depressing life as a corporate drone. Walking into a Wework building just feels different. The interactions that a well-designed physical space offer are ones that will keep people coming into the office motivated, instead of feeling like they have been dragged there. As we shift to a world that provides more flexibility to remote work the office is now competing with an alternative that was never an option before. This means that the act of coming into the office now needs to offer something because it actually has to compete now. That is where Wework, and the other flexible space providers will step in and provide a collaborative, engaging, positive environment for the future of work. I know that any office I sign up to go into in the future is going to have to feel as good or better than the Wework I spent two and a half years in, or I will just opt to take a job that keeps me remote.

If "work" can't offer me an enticing physical location to spend the majority of my life, then I'll just stay home and make one myself.