Apple TV+ WeCrashed eight-episode run concludes on Friday, with Adam Neumann (Jared Leto) leaving WeWork with his storied "golden parachute" deal. The astounding exit package was estimated to be worth more than $1 billion—despite the fact that the company, under his leadership, lost roughly $40 billion of its $47 billion valuation, cancelled its IPO, and screwed over employees in the hope that valuable stock shares would compensate for long hours and an alarming office culture. (It was later made public via a SPAC.)
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This vexing exit is alleviated, at least for WeCrashed viewers, by a coda sequence in the finale episode, "The One With All the Money." Adam jumps into the Dead Sea in Israel after a few moments of beach bliss with wife Rebekah (Anne Hathaway). Rebekah accepts a call from SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son (Kim Eui-sung) on Adam phone and takes a message.
"You're never going to get that buyout package. "Not a single penny," says the billionaire investor. "The next time we talk, we'll do so through lawyers."
This fictional flourish was clearly added for comic or even audience-consolation purposes. But did Adam and Rebekah, these flamboyant, entitled, polarising characters on and off the screen, receive any kind of backlash from the financial community?
We turn to Eliot Brown, a Wall Street Journal reporter who coauthored The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion with Maureen Farrell, for answers. Brown revealed the absurd details about WeWork in a bombshell feature for The Wall Street Journal in 2019.
How did he feel about the Dead Sea conclusion, especially given his knowledge of Adam and Rebekah Neumann? "I was laughing hysterically," Brown tells Vanity Fair, "and I thought that was a fantastic way to end [the show]." Having said that, he doubts the scene is historically accurate. "To the extent that the phone call occurred, I seriously doubt it." First and foremost, they were in New York at the time. Second, I believe it was something they discovered through lawyers and/or The Wall Street Journal."
If you want to call it that, the Neumanns real-life public kiss-off wasn't nearly as direct or theatrical. Brown reported in early 2020 that SoftBank was taking steps to withdraw from Adam's exit agreement. Adam sued SoftBank before reaching a settlement with the Japanese firm that reportedly awarded him half of what was originally offered—$480 million instead of $960 million, $50 million for legal fees, another $50 million for a noncompete fee, and a five-year extension on a $430 million loan.
"When they settled, Adam did well, perhaps even better in the end, despite the fact that the rest of the shareholders did worse," Brown says. "Which is a perfect coda for how much Adam put me over we, as he would say. In the end, [Adam and Rebekah] received a large portion of the money." (According to Brown and Farrell, SoftBank renegotiated to clear the way for a public offering.)
Brown adds, "Adam left [WeWork] a billionaire after accounting for the couple's real-estate investments." That's a very different ending than some of the other founders on other streaming service tech shows right now."
Following the Neumanns exit from WeWork, the family relocated to Israel for a period of time before returning to the Hamptons, where Adam proceeded to negotiate an even better deal for himself with SoftBank. The Neumanns stayed low-key during the pandemic, with the exception of one sighting of Adam barefoot, holding a pizza box, and standing next to a rabbi in the Hamptons.
WeWork went public in October, and Adam celebrated by throwing a "booze-soaked party for more than 100 of his earliest employees," according to the New York Post. As early as 9 a.m., champagne was served. "The irony is not lost on the fact that they are inviting former employees who got no money from the company they nearly destroyed, and in some cases, some who were laid off after the last IPO attempt," one Post source added. And it's day drinking, just like it used to be."
Meanwhile, Adam "bought an outrageously large house in Florida, which happens to have no capital gains tax, and has been spending a lot of time down there," according to Brown. On the investment front, he has stated that he wishes to construct apartments for the future of living. So what exactly that means is unclear, but he's literally buying apartment buildings. Is he confident that he can turn it into a business worthy of a tech valuation? I'm not sure, but he certainly believes he can turn it into a big business. He invests in crypto companies as well as prop-tech companies."
"People around him give the impression that he hasn't changed," Brown adds. "Early on, I believe some of his friends sensed a good deal of remorse and that he had become very subdued." But if you ask those people now, I believe they would say it was a fleeting moment." Brown stated in reference to Adam first public interview since leaving WeWork in November, "If you look at the New York Times interview, he didn't apologise." And I know it stung a lot of former WeWork employees."
So, as shocked witnesses and WeCrashed audience members, what are we supposed to take away from this story of a barefoot man who became a billionaire by preaching togetherness while screwing over his employees?
"His approach was the right one for capitalistic gain," Brown concludes. "He enriched himself enormously at the expense of many investors and employees, and he did it very well." The broader lesson, which is sort of the focus of our book, is that the Silicon Valley start-up machine is really irrational, or at least prone to being extremely irrational.... Because everyone thought it was some transformative tech company, you had literally more money than had ever gone into any start-up besides Uber going into a midsize office-space sublease company.... I believe it's easy to lose track of reality, especially in Silicon Valley, and that's what drove this entire story."
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