Will WeWork Work?
Infamous founder Adam Neumann is gone, and demand for the company’s office space is rising as it prepares to go public via SPAC in late October.
When WeWork Cos. tried to go public two years ago, it was an unmitigated disaster. The company was burning cash at a rate as high as $2 billion a year, and its erratic and egomaniacal chief executive officer, Adam Neumann, had enriched himself by selling off stock while WeWork was a private company. At one point, the startup's largest private investor valued it at $47 billion. Public investors balked at the price, the startup was forced to pull its initial public offering, Neumann resigned, and thousands of employees lost their jobs, all in the span of a few months.
Then Covid-19 hit. Seemingly the last place people would want to be was an enclosed space shared with hundreds of strangers, breathing the same air and touching the same elevator buttons and seltzer dispensers. WeWork occupancy dropped from 67% to 46% during the first nine months of the pandemic.