Adam Neumann: WeWork's Meteoric Rise and Catastrophic Fall | Full Interview

I went from 13,000 employees to three [music] employees in one week. We work was one of the fastest physical global

growth the world's ever seen. But everything went wrong. We lost everything. 2019 you were publicly filed

its S1. Company valued at around [music] $47 billion. The S1 showed some losses, 3 billion in the past 3 years. Also, the

S1 revealed when you were CEO that you'd also trademarked the word we [music] and sold it back to the company. That's not

true. People sometimes think I was fired because the Wall Street Journal said [music] so. Not true. I wanted to hear

directly from you. What happened? You really want to go there? I'm like I'm I'm happy to the floor is yours. So in

we work the business grew faster than I could grow and every step I take suddenly the [music] ego starts coming

up. Oh 20 billion valuation billion valuation in Japan on top of that 5 billion valuation in China. It suddenly

became about the money. I forgot what we were all about and when I lost it everybody lost it. And the next thing is

we found ourselves being forced to go public when we weren't [music] ready. Then you resigned as CEO of we work

after the IPO didn't pan out. So I stepped down out of choice and [music] a second after I did it, we got stabbed in

the back and the only lesson there, you're going to stab the king, kill. If you're not going to kill, I'm going to

come back again. >> Why did you make that choice to go back into business again? Cuz you had money

from the reports almost a billion dollars. You know how hard it is. >> I now realize [music] that in we work, I

did a lot more things right than wrong. A lot more. Not like 10% more, like 95%. Some of what I'm saying is hard for you

to fully hone in on. All these founders you spoke [music] to, all this I don't think they shared this paper. So, let's

talk about it. So, first, you might have seen or you might not have seen, but this channel is chasing a

big subscriber milestone. So, I have to ask you for a favor. Roughly 58% of the people watching right now still haven't

hit the subscribe button despite the fact that you watch this channel every single week. So, could I ask you guys a

favor? that 58% of you that for whatever reason haven't yet hit the subscribe button. If there was ever a time to

deliver upon a favor for us, it would be right now. And I promise that I will do everything in my power to make sure that

this channel gets better and better and better for you. Do [snorts] we have a deal?

[music] Adam Newman, I've had the privilege of getting to know you briefly over the

last um couple of months, and it struck me almost immediately that you're unlike almost any other founder or CEO or

really person I think I've ever met. There's a depth to you and a and a philosophy and a perspective that is

just incredibly rare. My question to you is for you to be an anomaly if we accept that.

Am I right in thinking that you had some sort of anomalous early origin story? What is that that

story that shaped this man that sat in front of me? You know, for me first when I get to know someone in the beginning

and they say, "Where is it coming from? Who are you?" I usually start the same. First of all, I'm a husband. It's my

first job. what I'm most proud of. Then I'm a father. I'm a father of six. Then I'm a friend. Friendships are very

important for me. And after that I'm an entrepreneur. I think each one of us has a

phenomenal soul. I think it's perfect. And I think what really we see when we look at

people is the distance between where we think they're holding to where their potential is. And I think it's that gap

between those two things that actually defines a person. And for me throughout my life, sometimes out of my control

when I was young and sometimes with my control when I got older, I've always been striving to close that gap.

>> So you talk about not having control. Your early context is quite unstable from what I read because your mother

suffered from bipolar. Can you bring me into that world so I can understand like the sort of context that Adam was

raised? >> Happily. So we'll start like every story it has two sides to it and my mom and my

father are both doctors and growing up I always saw both of them taking care of the patients and it would feel sometimes

like the patients came ahead of us. So for example my sister and I we were never sick no matter how sick we were

look at my she was an oncologist and she would say my patients are sicker go to school and that was sort of the

beginning of it. When I was in the second grade, my parents got a divorce. It was very difficult for my mom and she

needed a change of scenery. So, we actually moved to the United States. You know this photo here?

>> I do. >> Um, and this one here, you've got a kid. This is you as a a child that is beaming

with uh smell sort of ear to ear. Often when I see photos like that, my my curiosity is what what you can't see and

what that young kid, that young boy there is is not saying, but what he's feeling underneath all of those uh those

emotions. What I could tell you is I think for me I think the challenge started in the house. So we talked about

my mother being bipolar. I only observed my mother's moods when we moved to the United States. There was no one around.

It was only my mom and my sister and I. And all day she would work with the patients and at night at 8 p.m. she

would come home and all hell would break loose. And I remember there's many stories but I remember this. She would

tell my sister and I we had to wash the dishes. That was our one chore. And we wouldn't no matter what because kids

sometimes rebel by action when they can't rebel by words. And she would come home, you didn't wash the dishes. And

she would take the dishes and throw them on the floor. And then she would cry and start cleaning the dishes and and

mopping them. And it was every night ended with some version of action like that. And for 2 years, I remember how

crazy my sister and I thought the whole experience was. And we didn't have any friends who were sharing that experience

until one day she bought this nice set of dishes. And she comes home again to throw the dishes. And we notice she's

only throwing the cheap dishes. She's not throwing the ones that she liked, which gave us a little hint that maybe

there's a little more control over what's happening than this out of control situation. So if I had to guess

what was happening with the kids because now in hindsight I know my mom and my dad very well. Probably there was a lot

of arguing in the house. Probably as a kid cuz I now see my kids that are very young. I'm sure a child finds it very

confusing when the parents are not aligned as a team because as a child all you have to lean on are your parents.

But I think the most important thing to say if my mom wasn't the way she was and if

I didn't go through all those challenges that I went through growing up and I went through a lot. We're talking about

bipolar. There's a lot that comes with it and we could go deeper or less. But almost every single thing if you took a

piece of paper and you had to do a check mark for every bad thing we think can happen to a little boy. You get to check

mark with me all almost all of them including the really bad ones that we don't like to talk about. As bad as that

was when I was 22 23 I remember being very angry about my childhood. only when I met Rebecca, my then girlfriend to

then wife, she very quickly introduced me to a spiritual practice. The way she introduced me, by the way, was after a

week of dating, she came to me and she goes, "Look, you're really nice. You have a lot of potential, but you're not

the guy for me." I was very surprised at the time. I was living in New York. My sister was the supermodel. We were

hanging out. I I thought a lot of myself. And I said, "What do you mean I'm not the guy for you?" He said,

"Well, you don't have a spiritual band. You're very focused on material things. You want to be successful, but you're

not actually understanding the game of life. The guy I'm interested in is going to want true happiness and true

fulfillment. And true happiness and true fulfillment does not come from material things. It was so different for anything

anyone has ever told me that instead of running away or doing this or doing that, I thought for a second and I said,

"Well, how would one come to explore this spiritual life that you're talking about?" And she said, "Well, you need a

practice." And for me that practice started being cabala. But for all of us there can be different practices. The

thing I learned very quickly in the practice is the difference between meant to be and free choice. And I think a lot

of people don't understand it. But how can there be? We talk a lot about in spirituality about it's meant to be and

there's free choice. How could there be free choice and things be meant to be at the same time? The way I explain it is

you get to a fork in your life and you choose left over right and everything works out meant to be. You get to that

same fork and you choose right and you crash on your face horribly. Everybody's watching and you stop and you actually

learn lessons from it and you take accountability and you say, you know what, whatever happened to me happened

for a reason and I'm going to learn from it. I'm going to be stronger. Almost like a sword that's getting forged. And

the more times you hit it and the more hit you put on it, the stronger it gets. And then you learn those lessons and you

go back into the game of life and you apply that in again, suddenly you take the catastrophe or the tragedy or the

curse and you make it into a blessing. You turn it into a made to be. When the world did crash on me as an adult, it

was nothing compared to what I had to deal with as a child. I was like, it's okay. I have a wife. I have kids.

[clears throat] I have close friends. we'll take a deep breath and we'll start from scratch again. And that kind of

fortitude, I think regretfully, comes through going through very difficult things. So, if you're listening to this

right now and you're going through something really difficult and it feels dark, I encourage you to remember that

the darkest moment of the night is a second before dawn. >> I feel like there's things in your early

context that you haven't shared before because you said there's things that we don't usually share. Not publicly, but

meaning I have in front of So I used to share everything in front of our employees that we work. So there's

things I shared in front of 10,000 people. I'm not sure it ever made it to the press.

>> What is missing? You really want to go there? >> I'm I'm happy to.

>> If you're happy to, I'm happy to. >> I'll share two things that I'm not sure that maybe could be helpful for other

people that are going through similar things. So the the hidding and stuff like so

when someone's bipolar, by the way, they get very angry or very happy very fast. When they're happy, they're the

happiest. You have fun and everything's amazing. And my mom would play games with us and it was phenomenal. But

also when that I think happens a lot with bipolar, there's the suicide threats. And then there's one thing when

you threaten to. So again, if you're two children and your only parent threatens to commit suicide,

who is going to take care of you? What is going to happen if suddenly that happens? And I have a lot of memories,

but one that just came back to me not too long ago. We're in the kibuts, which is where we're living after we came back

from the US. My mom wanted us to have a special experience. So we went to this community where everybody shares a lot

of things together. It's also the beginning of why I love communities. And we get into this big fight and my mom

basically says she's going to kill herself and she takes the knife and I remember she's holding this huge knife.

I'm like, "No, no, don't do it." And I remember I just remember feeling that I

[clears throat] have to stop it that it is up to me and if I don't stop it, then she's going to kill herself right there

in front of my sister and I. So I grabbed the knife and we're fighting left and right. And my sister is sitting

right there and she's crying and she's crying and I'm no and she's saying yes. And the

whole thing is so crazy. How old were you? 12 at that moment. That's one. There's more if you want to

go deeper, but that was one. I invite you to go deeper. When I was in between second grade to

fourth grade, um I was sexually I think you called molested by an older uh than a teenager.

So she was at least six or seven years older than me. This one I didn't even know that what was happening was

wrong. And many years later, Rebecca and I are in the Hamptons and it's somehow the

story comes up and she goes, "Adam, understand that this is not normal for a child at that age."

And I didn't even fully understand. And that taught me

that explained to me a lot about children. And again we go back to the responsibility of parents and the

responsibility of society to take care of the children and schools to understand what's happening. And

whenever we see anyone we are so good at walking into a room seeing someone else and judging. Oh, they're not acting the

way I would act. They're not acting right. They're not speaking right. Everybody's so busy judging everybody. I

want to encourage every single person next time you're about to judge. You don't know who that person is. You do

not know where they come from. You do not know what happened to them as a kid. God forbid they were molested. God

forbid they dealt with all these things. You don't know where they started. You only know where you see them now. And it

could be that if you really got to know them and you would have known the distance they went from here to here,

you would have been extremely impressed with them and you would have not measured them that way.

And this is why I think it's so important for all of us when we walk into rooms to really go after unity. You

and I can say the same sentence in a way that tears people apart or brings people together. It takes more effort to speak

in a way that brings us together. But if we don't start acting like this, if we keep dividing and keep splitting,

I'm worried. Sounds like as an adult, you've been able to understand that early experience

and sort of create a new sort of perspective or lens on what happened to you and what it means. And as you said,

you know, you've you've orientated it around the fact that it's happened for a reason or at least there's there's

something to have learned from it. Was that always the case? I I sometimes reflect on my own experience and think

that for the first season of my life I was dragged and then at some point I like got hold of the steering wheel and

I was able to like drive and one of them was like sort of unconscious and the other was more in sort of intentional

and thoughtful and I'm wondering through your early teens and 20ies whether you had the wisdom and the perspective that

you have now on your early experiences and how that's evolved over time. I probably went to sleep crying every

single night for probably until I was 14 or 15. And I remember and if you ask my sister did

what what would I say? She I I completely forgot. She said I told her that one day I'll become very successful

and we'll take care of I'll take care of us. That was what I used to say. I I literally didn't remember this is

something she told me. [sighs and gasps] I think that's how I interpreted that control and how I'm going to fix all

these challenges that I had. But we launched the school, Rebecca and I, more Rebecca I helped. It's a fifth school.

In the school, we teach kids how to be connected to themselves, how to be part of something greater than themselves. If

someone just taught me this as a kid and I would have understood then that there's this bigger picture, I think I

would have been able to handle it a lot better and skip the challenging years faster, move faster into the point where

I realize that I don't control what happens, but I can control how I react to it. So, back to your point of

driving, are you driving? >> Don't know. Now, you question it. I'm

questioning. I would question it. You know, my my follow-up question to you would be, how do you define success?

>> My definition of success these days, it's funny. I was thinking about it this morning when I got on the lift on my way

here. I thought um do you know what it was? Cuz my my fiance turned to me this weekend and she went, "Stephen, I think

you have enough now." And then she paused and then she retracted the statement. But I but it got me thinking

about what enough is. And actually, I thought, well, it's the motion forward in the pursuit of goals that matter to

me that are challenging surrounded by people that is the that is the success. And that's like a daily a daily thing.

There's no there's no podium in this this game that I'm playing. >> But when she said she thinks you have

enough, was she referring to material things? >> Yes. I think society has taught us that

once we gain that success, once we gain those material things, we get to this number, suddenly that hole that we all

fill inside of us will be full. Now, I know it's very hard to hear, especially for people who haven't gotten

there. Like, oh yeah, you got there already. So now you're saying it. I'm only going to share with you what I have

learned and from all the most successful people that I know and I'm lucky to know quite a lot of them. I have not seen one

that got happy or fulfilled from attaining a number or a material thing. I don't believe that's how the game of

life works. So when your fiance said which not like her cuz I think she's more on the spiritual side. Tell her

that I said I'm surprised she said that. I think she had something deeper to say and she was holding back. When she said,

"I think you have enough." I would really go back to redefining success. So, back to that. I'll tell you how I

define it in a second. But I think if we can agree on the definition of success, then we can start having a discussion of

a are we there and are we headed there? And B, how do we do better to get there? And if we agree on our definition of

success, then now we can start working together towards the same goal. If one of us defines success by making the most

money and the other person defines success by being the most fulfilled, the most happy, the most light that they can

be, then playing two different games. >> What's your definition? >> When you're at your deathbed and you're

one minute before it's all going to go and you know you're out of time, all you have left is the love that surrounds you

at that moment. your children, your grandchildren, your friends, your friends, children, all the love that

surrounds you at that moment and all the love that you have cultivated for your entire life. And I think it's that love

which then moves on to whatever it is that happens after. So my definition of success is in that last moment right

before you go, how do you feel? Do you feel full and surrounded by love and like life has been this amazing journey

or is there regret or is there this and I'll tell you the one thing that happens right before we pass away the ego goes

away completely. No more secrets. And and again in the spiritual study you say what's the definition of hell back to

how we started this. You get to see you get to glimpse for a second the ultimate potential that your soul had perfect it

was and how high you could have gone and where you really got to and the distance between those two. That's hell.

When you were 31 years old in 2010 and you sat down with your partner Miguel

>> Miguel McKelie >> and you you made this sketch on a whiteboard for we work. If id asked you

then what your definition of success was would you have turned to me and said love or would you have said something

else? >> I believe I would have said something else. So my big shift is when I met my

wife. So by this point of this picture that you're showing me I was four years into Rebecca teaching me about the game

of life. So I'm starting to get advanced. So I I can tell you what what I was thinking. It wouldn't have been

love, but it would have been we and the point above because was called if you look at that picture, it's going to say

we work, we live, we give, we share. I don't remember. I haven't seen it for like 10 years. It was never about desks

and chairs. It was always about creating a world where people make a life and not just a living. It was about something

greater than ourselves. If we just jump sort of backwards in time from that day by about 10 years, if I had asked you

what you want to be when you're older, what would you have said? >> At 21.

>> 21. >> It's embarrassing. I'll tell you. It's embarrassing though. I'm embarrassed for

>> I'm embarrassed for my 21-year-old self. >> What did you want to be? >> A billionaire.

>> You wanted to be a billionaire at 21. >> I did regretfully. >> Why?

>> I thought that making the money is going to compensate. I thought it was going to fill that hole for my childhood. What

about at 16 if I'd asked you? >> I think I said millionaire there. I don't think I knew the word millionaire

at 16. I think the numbers were cuz the world changed. >> But I thought that making money was

going to fill that hole from the childhood that back then seemed very difficult and very aggressive and very

with all these negative words that we can use about difficult and abusive childhoods. And I thought that making

money would solve it. But then I did three businesses afterwards who did not succeed until I met Rebecca. And Rebecca

was like, "You're chasing money. You will never have it. And even if you get it, it will never make you happy. You

will never have it." And she said, "Chasing money is like chasing cool. You're cool. You're just like that. You

didn't ch I don't think you're working too hard on doing. Thank you so much. >> You don't like putting on shoes. I don't

like putting on shoes that please. >> It's all good." >> So she said, "You're chasing money. It

doesn't work like that. Also like chasing a girl. You really want someone. You have to take a deep breath." But she

said to me, "Even if you were to get money the way you're chasing it, it not only will not fulfill you, it will be

negative for you." So I said, "Well, what should I do?" She said, "Well, you're a very talented individual. You

should figure out what your superpower is." It's the first time I've heard anyone use the word superpower. She

goes, "You need to take your superpower. You need to connect it to something that's really meaningful for the world.

Something you're passionate about, but something that can make a difference. You need to bring those two things

together. You need to only focus on making that a reality. Employees will want to work with a

company that's doing that. Investors want to invest in a company that's doing that. And consumers want to buy from a

company that's doing that. The rest will for then she said success the way you you define it then that money success

you think is a will fall on you from the sky more than you can ever imagine. I was like I want to marry this woman. I

proposed 3 months after we met. >> And the idea of we was central to this drawing that I have in front of me,

which is a a drawing you did on a whiteboard when you were 31 years old, 2010 with your partner Miguel after

selling your company. I think it was called Green Desk. >> Green Desk.

>> You sold it for how much? It wasn't like >> 1.5 million. There were three partners. So we each got half a million. Half a

million. Half a million. But our partner didn't want to pay us the whole amount up front. So he only gave us $300,000.

The rest was installment over four years for Miguel and I. And I remember telling Miguel, Miguel, you keep the money cuz

I'll waste it. First time I ever made money. You keep the money cuz I will waste it and we'll keep it for our next

business. And the way the universe works, by the way, the universe speaks to us. The signs start happening and you

sort of one thing leads to another. It's almost serendipity. Our first Weiwork building to get the building, the

landlord wouldn't give it to us unless we gave a check of exactly $300,000. The same $300,000 that was sitting in

Miguel's account. It went from there to there. and my work was created. So tell me what that is. Okay, we're in

Greenesk. Just to remind everybody what Greenesk is, Greenesk was created in May of 2008. The world was the world was

crashing. That was the downturn and before it started, Miguel and I got to know each other. He was an architect and

I had a baby clothing company and we're in the same building. My roommate introduced us and we would just talk

about doing great things and there was a landlord there and every day he would see me goes, "Adam, your baby clothing

company sucks." And I said, "Mr. Gutman, why do you say that?" He said, "Well, my wife, we have eight kids. She loves

buying baby clothes. She didn't once buy from you. I don't know how you pay me rent. Your baby clothes suck." And I

would say, "Well, Mr. Gutman, you own all this real estate around here." He goes, "Yes, I do." Said, "Your real

estate sucks." He goes, "Why do you say that?" Said, "It's all empty." And we would do that for four months back and

forth. One day he looks at me goes, "Adam, if I gave you one of my buildings, you keep saying that it

sucks. What would you do with it?" So he takes me upstairs and he shows me this this beautiful floor plate. And I said

to him, "How much do you get in rent?" He goes, " $5,000 a month." Said, "Well, it's empty, but let's say you would get

$5,000." Said, "Look, I'm a small business. I don't need this much. Let's divide it to 15 small places spaces.

We'll charge $1,000 each. We'll put a receptionist. We'll pay the receptionist 2500. We'll get 15,000. That will leave

us with 12,500. You will get 7,500 and we'll get the difference. And he was like, "Let me

think about it." He calls me the next day. He goes, "I love it, but instead of one floor, take the whole building. It

had five floors. We'll put the receptionist downstairs so we can share the expenses. It will be even better."

And we put five ads on Craigslist. We launched Greenes. It was 92% full within a week. started cash flowing positive

which was a new thing for me because this was my fourth business never had cash flow positive cash flowing positive

within a month and became very successful very fast after about six maybe 12 months we started thinking

bigger Miguel and I said we'll take this national we went to our landlord said I'm not interested we asked for $20

million we said we'll split the business 50/50 he wasn't interested so we started and and very soon after he said I'll buy

it from you and we started planning this and you drew this on a whiteboard. Miguel drew this on the wall, not even a

whiteboard. The walls were made of glass. This was drawn on the glass. So all of our walls in green desk were also

whiteboards and cuz everybody was about creating and inventing. And what you see here is that social life, commercial,

friends is here. This proves the fact Ben Horwitz in the interview that you saw he did with me in the podcast, he

says to me, Adam, you've always had one idea. And then at the end, at the end, he apologized said, Adam, I didn't mean

to say you only have one idea. Of course, you have all these ideas. I said, Ben, you're right. This is not

that different from what flow is. This is all about the friends and all about the living and all about the working

life essentials. Wow, I haven't seen this for a long time. Fintech, travel, everything in between. So, for anyone

that's watching uh listening and can't see, it's a circle that has lots of circles in it. Um, and it says all the

little circles are like travel, health, social life, friends, um, co-work co-workers, supporters,

uh, life essentials, work rituals, work rituals. Again, you can read it better than me, but that makes

sense. >> And this was the idea for we work. >> This is the idea for we work. So

sometimes people said, "Oh, you grew out of desk and chairs. You shouldn't have gone to all these categories." The idea

started, this was before there was one desk. What is the essence of this?

>> We wanted to make a world, at least in our opinion, that really needed community. This was to deliver on a

mission of of create a world where people make a life and not just a living. This was a full life style, life

circle, and it was very aspirational. And it's how, by the way, for anyone of our listeners or your listeners that uh

that is starting a business, start with a vision. Dream as high as you can. Go all the way to the stars. Cuz if you

don't shoot for the stars, you're never going to get to the moon. Go far. Then take a deep breath and go back to

basics. What do I need to do first? What I need to do second? What I need to do third? The secret of life and

entrepreneurship is to be able to be in both places at the same time. On the one hand, I'm going to go so far. On the

other hand, I'm just starting, so I better roll up my sleeves and get the broom and start brooming. It's both of

them. I need to go knock on doors. I need to go meet people. I need to do whatever work needs to be done at the

beginning to get the business started. >> Let's talk about both then. So the you got the trenches and then you've got

let's say the clouds or the moon as you refer to it. Why is it important to dream big? Why is the scale and the size

of the dream important? >> So I believe it's the secret of manifestation. So when people ask me

Adam what is the secret manifestation? How do you make something out of nothing? I think the order is first you

have to believe. If you and I have a big idea, first we have to believe it. Then that takes time to believe. True belief,

by the way. Do you know when belief is measured? >> No. When it's really tough. Belief is

not measured on everything. So I remember this. This is and I've shared this story before, but your audience is

so wide that I'm sure a lot of them haven't heard it. When right after the whole explosion of

we work occurred and it was like 5 days in and the whole thing was crashing on us and there's a million articles and

the whole thing is happening my spiritual teacher who I haven't spoken at this point almost for 2 years after I

studied with him for 8 years calls me said Adam how are you doing I said I'm not doing so well right now it's crazy

he said oh great that's why I called you I said why did you call me his name is Eton I said why didn't you call me said

I called you to make sure that you remembered the two things we learned for 8 years. Said, "Atan, we didn't learn

two things for 8 years. We study twice a week. We learned endless things." Goes, "No, you missed it. We learned two

things." I said, "Please remind me." Goes, "One was love thy neighbor as yourself, and

the rest is commentary." It took a second, Fred. I said, "Let's talk about this for a second. What does

love thy neighbor as yourself mean to you? >> Such a famous saying. We've heard it so

many times. When I think about it, the way that I understand it is to have empathy and compassion for

all of the complexities, both the good, the bad, the indifferent, and that which you don't understand, which is like how

I would treat myself. like I understand um all the that I'm a complex person and that I'm multifaceted and imperfect and

that I have strengths and weaknesses and I kind of I'm okay with all of it and in others we're less okay with all of it.

Beautiful. Let's say it a little bit different words but that was right on. Love that ins means that you first have

to love yourself. To love yourself you have to acknowledge not only the great strength that you have that you love,

you must acknowledge your weaknesses, your failures, your mistakes. And the only way you can love yourself after all

of those is if you're able to forgive yourself. So the true secret of loving oneself is to forgive yourself, to not

carry guilt, to really be able to know that all of these are lessons for you to grow and change and go to your next

level from. Back to the sword analogy that you're a sword and you're getting forged and every single time you get

hit, you just get stronger. Once you feel that and you're able to love yourself, then you're able to love

everybody else. That was the first thing he told me we learned. The second thing he said to me which we said before is I

want to remind you that the darkest moment of the night is a second before dawn. Belief is not measured when

everything is going up and everybody's telling you what a genius you are and everybody wants to be your friend and

everybody wants to be your investor. Belief is measured when it's all crashing. when even your friends are

questioning you, when the phone is not ringing and if a person is able to have true belief then then he says to me if

you're going to be able to take this experience and really hold your belief, hold your positivity, hold your

happiness, be the person I know you can be, you can't imagine what the future stored for you. What did you believe in

in your hardest moment? in God and in myself, in my wife, in my kids, and in the fact that even though I

don't know at this moment why this thing happened, I am going to be stronger for it. And I

remember that morning, this phone call was was late at night, the next morning at 6:00 a.m. I walked down to to my

three I went from 13,000 employees to three employees in one week. I walked down to the three employees who were my

partners in the family office, not even employees, partners. I walk down to them and I'm smiling and they're stressed

out. We would meet every day at 6:00 a.m. that we're done. We're bankrupt. It's finished. They only joined me 3

months before they came to manage what they thought was a 5 to10 billion family office and they're dealing with negative

400 million compounding interest full bankruptcy situation. and start and I thought about them all my not all a lot

of friends that I had that were really there with me and enjoyed with me and grew with me and made money with me when

I really needed that one small moment a lot of them weren't there and these three almost strangers who I didn't

really know were standing right there by my side and they see me smiling Adam why are you smiling you they're like they

thought I really lost my mind it was done and I said I'm smiling because I remember that the darkest moment of the

night is a second before dawn and I remember that belief is actually measured when things are difficult, not

when everything is working. And I believe and I know it's going to work out and I don't know how and I don't

know why, but this is all going to work out for the best. And we're going to learn a lot from this and it will

actually prepare us when a real difficulty happens. So, we're ready to go and deal with it. And about 10 days

later, we started coming out of it in a very positive way. I want to go to the top of the story and I really because I

really want to walk through some of the key moments, but um I noticed your energy shift a little bit when you

started describing those three people. >> Here's another thing that I've learned. If you know haven't you're facing this

as we speak right now. I bet you have lots of friends. >> I I bet you have

>> how you define friends. >> Exactly. Well, I'll tell you a secret about them and I'm sorry to say that.

We're only going to know which one of them are your friend and which ones are not. where if God god forbid you crash

and you actually need them and then I can also tell you if you're going to crash or not if you go big

enough really really big you crash whenever someone says oh Adam it's never going to happen to me my ego is never

going to get the best of me I'm never I'm always going to stay in control young successful people like to say that

to me and say oh you haven't gone big enough cuz if you really really that's part of the definition of going really

really big life is not about if we fall down. We're supposed to fall down. Life is about how we get up. And the more

times we fall down, the more times we get to get up. And if you practice getting up enough times, then you might

not fall. Then you get very good at it. And then you can go and really go for the stars. So with the friends,

the reason I my energy changed about those three, I didn't know them that well and they stuck by me. I have a

weakness with loyalty. I'm very loyal. So, if you were there for me when things were tough, I'm a sucker for that. I'll

be there for you even if you mess up to a fault almost. A lot of founders who start businesses have this thing that

pop culture is called imposter syndrome where they kind of do doubt themselves and this sort of sits in contrast to

this idea of having belief because sometimes they don't believe and they are plagued with insecurities and doubts

and they kind of go back and forward and they think really am I the person to do this? I've never done it before. which

is that that comes with pursuing something great. You had never done it before. So what do you say to those

people who are struggling with doubt and cuz they're hearing listen you have to believe. Did you have doubt when you

when you drew this? A fascinating question. My level of certainty was so high when I was doing way work. I I was

sure it was going to work. It was a lot of times I think people confused my certainty as a different word. I was

just I was that sure that the product is needed for the world. When I started flow which was different and came after

everything and after also we had a family. When I started we work I had no kids. It was just Rebecca and I was very

easy to throw myself into something and work 18 to 20our days 7 days a week and love every second. There was nothing

else. We work grew astronomically quickly, really atypically quickly, especially for that

like type of company. And I I wanted to hear directly from you like why? What what happened? What were the factors

that contributed to this meteoric rise? I think a couple of years after you founded the company, I became a customer

of it. Um both in New York, but also in London. What didn't I see? What was what was it? So we work started in February

of 2010 and it's for anybody listening I think this is the way that that it should and

could work. I think from the first day we were so clear as you pointed out with the circle on on the fact that this

mission is bigger than us. And when you're part of a mission that's greater than yourself urgency doesn't just

become something like oh we have to do it now because I said so or because we said so. when you feel that your mission

really needs to come out to the world, then you have to do it now because there's no time to waste because it's

really important. And we just started with our first and part of my energy is I bring people together. I really like

creating community, but I also I love to move fast when we're clear on the direction that we're moving and I don't

believe anything is impossible. So when you connect that mission of something being greater than yourself speed and

not accepting a no you put those things together then real magic happens. I think that's one too.

>> I want an example of that. >> I'll give you one many examples but let's let's start let's start early we

work cuz I think this all started work. But before the example, one more thing I was going to say that made we work to

answer a question. It's the team. The team was so dedicated. The team believed so much. It was their

it was their essence. It was their experience of being part of something greater than themselves. And when you

can bring a group of people together to all run in the same direction, you almost can't stop anything. Give you an

example. It's our second we work building. We need to do we need to do the floor. We only had a $90,000. We

didn't have any more money. And all the quotes were $200,000 a floor, whatever the number was. And I said to Miguel and

to the few people there, we have to do it for this price. And said, you can't. We got five quotes. It's not the price.

I said, well, how much is the floor? And everybody's like the floors between 30 to 45,000 where these wood floors was an

important part of the design. I said why? Said what do you mean why? These are the quotes. Said well can you break

down the quote for me? I said what do you mean? Said well how many pieces of floor? How many nails? How much glue?

How much rubber? How many hours of work per person? How much does each person cost? No one could answer. Said okay I

have an idea of how we can negotiate this differently. I called the top three guys and said, "Guy, I would like you to

to earn 15% above the cost. I think that's a fair margin, 15%. Do you agree?" So, of course, I agree. It's

like, great. And all three of them, by the way, said yes. I said, "Great. Well, I'm going to need to see the cost of

each piece. I'm going to go quote it myself and we're going to get to 15%." Very quickly, the cost went down to that

first floor instead of 30 to 45,000 was 12,000. The guy tells me, "Adam, no one's ever worked with me that way."

before you know it, they joined us and we had our own internal construction company and we realized that only by

controlling it could we get the right price and move fast enough. So it's not taking no for an answer but also using

logic to really look into it. Now it could be that if I looked into it I wouldn't have been able to get a better

price but what I'm describing is a challenge in construction in general and globally and it's part of the things

that flow is solving today. >> Elon would call that like reasoning from first principles. I had a similar story.

>> He would he would call it like that. And and from what I know in flow, we look up to Elen as an entrepreneur. We think

he's unbelievable. And whenever someone gives Elen as an example, say no one is Alen, that's not an example we use. We

just we look at him for inspiration. I happen to know that he can put an engineer cuz I have a friend whose

daughter works for him in SpaceX. He can put an engineer to work on one problem for 6 months. one screw, one connection,

but the result ends up being not twice as simple as anything NASA has done, but like 500 times as simple and cheaper and

faster and lighter. So, yes, it's going back. You can call it first principles. You can call it asking every question,

but if you're the entrepreneur and you're going to run or if you're an employee or a partner, ask why.

People don't because they don't want to be rude or inconvenience others or they're too concerned with being liked.

So pushing back on a supplier or you know conventional status quo in any way is seen to be inconvenient. I'm going to

try to say a different reason why they don't cuz they don't ask themsel why. It's going to go back this discussion

can keep going back to the same basics. A person who's comfortable asking himself why is he doing something

questioning himself or herself seeing negative things seeing problems and then enjoying the process of growing out of

them will have no problem asking someone else why. And whenever you ask someone why and they don't want to answer you,

what are you hiding? This is a discussion. I usually when I go into topics like this start by telling the

vendor wherever it is, I want you to make money. No, no one's trying to make you lose money. But we're on a mission

and if I'm going to pay even 20% more than I should, then that's 20% less of another building, another community,

another neighborhood that Floor is not going to take part in. >> This really does uh make a lot of sense

to me. We have this um Slack channel in our company called Paper Walls. And the whole idea is that we're trying to

encourage our team to push on paper walls. A paper wall is something that looks solid but reveals itself to be

completely made of paper. The minute you try it, you ask why. You push on it. And there's a a story of a a kid that worked

for me in one of my companies for 4 years. And um he animates video. I said to him, "How long is it going to take

you to animate a video for us that's 30 minutes?" He said, "It takes 9 days, right?" He worked for me for 4 years. It

took him 9 days to animate the video. We decide we want to launch a weekly channel. I need him to do it in 3 or 4

days max so that the rest of the team can do it. I say to him, "How long is it going to take you?" He says, "9 days."

And then because we had established this culture in our company of pushing on paper walls, I said to him, "Why?" And

do you know what he said to me? I think I said something like, "What would it take to do it in two?" And he went,

"Stephen, you just need to buy me a new laptop. I have an old laptop." I thought, "Fucking hell. I've been paying

him for 4 years and he's been think about how much time I've lost in those four years just simply because I didn't

ask that question. But also to your point, he never mentioned it. He never knew he was in a paper wall himself.

First year of we work, we opened one building. Hm. Year nine of we work, we open two buildings a day in 130 cities,

50 countries, 70 languages, 100,000 square foot per building. So that's 200,000 square foot a day, 20,000 square

meter for your European listeners a day. A lot of the same people who were only capable doing the one and two particip

were leaders by that time of of being able to do one of the fastest physical global growth the world's ever seen.

Same people as you learn to in your words go through paper walls as you learn that anything is possible suddenly

this is the secret of high growth and momentum whatever you can do today if your company starts growing fast you'll

be shocked what you'll be able to do in 3 months 9 months and in two years you're going to look back and not

believe that that was your capacity and I keep telling people and they tell me oh I can't do this and this takes 3

months I say guys I've seen this done before I know we can do it it's easier now I've already been there now you just

need to believe and goes back to the belief then we're going to need to put the systems and the processes and today

with technology and this is where I think AI is very exciting you could shortcut a lot of these things and and

do a much better work but back to what you said about your company I bet when's the last time you sat with them in a

circle how many employees >> about 200 in total >> so 200 is a big number but if you took

30 of them >> sat in a room >> and actually asked them what are you

working on personally what is your internal paper wall what is your internal challenge what's stopping you?

And they got comfortable talking about it. And then as a group, first of all, all their peers would hear and before

you know it, their peers would help them. Hey, I remember that you said that this is a child for you're insecure. You

don't talk in public. You're a little judgmental. You're too hard on yourself. Every person has another story. Before

you know it, the moment you get them used to grow internally, it will affect your business to grow externally.

In we work, the business grew faster than I could grow. That's where everything went wrong. I

actually think whenever a company grows faster than its founder, one of two things would occur. Either it will crash

because that's what happens. Or if somehow miraculously that founder is able to keep it all together, in my

experience, they're not fulfilled and happy. And if they're not fulfilled and happy,

why do it? How important for the founders listening and for the people that want to build or become is hard

work? Because there's a real debate around hard work. You know, some people say, you know, work life balance is is

the ultimate. Some people say if you're a founder, you got to give 100 hour weeks. Ah, by the way, new answer to

that question. It is the most important thing. But we have to define hard work. Hard work as a

founder is not just limited to how many hours you put in the office. Hard work as a founder is how much time do you put

on the business? How much time are you putting on yourself? As you grow, you will be a better leader. You will be a

better money raiser. You will be a better express. You'll express your business better. So hard work is the

only way to do it. And you can't be 50%. And here's something else that your founders know. When I had to decide if

I'm doing flow again or not, the reason it was so hard is cuz I knew that there's no such thing as being 80% in or

90% in. Either you're 100% in and you're all in or it's not going to work. So how important is hard work? most important

thing. What is hard work? Some of it is on the business, some of it is on you. If you're married, it's also on your

relationship. If you have kids, it's also with your kids. By the way, for those listeners who have kids, if you're

ever wondering what you need to work on, just listen to your kids. They know. There you alluding [clears throat] to

this like sort of magical thing that happens when one focuses on something. You were saying if you're like 90% in,

it like doesn't work, but if you're 100% in, it works. What is the the magic that isn't obvious with that?

>> When you're 100% in, there's no time for doubt. There's no time for questions. There's no time for fear cuz you're so

in it. When you're, oh, I can find this work life balance while doing it, you're not

going to do something great. And if you are, if you were to achieve something, it's not close to your potential. But

again, I'm redefining what 100% in meant. We talked about Warren Buffett. Was he not 100%? And of course he is.

Does he have a full schedule? No way. He keeps it open so he can have the important meetings, so he can read, so

he can connect. There are different ways to be 100% in. But you must in life, in my opinion, be

100% in. It's why I love surfing. In surfing, when you're on the board on a wave, if you're not present and you're

not in flow, you're knocked off that board. >> What about founders that are doing two

different businesses, pursuing two different missions? >> Remember what I told you? We say in

flow, you're not Elen. I would tell them you're not Elen. Elen can do two different very few people. I know I he's

one of the only examples I have. Jack Dorsey. Some of the best on the planet can do. But uh it's very hard to do two

businesses at the same time. It's hard enough to do one. And I guess even in those cases, they built up tremendous

resources by doing one really, really well. Again, my question about I don't know which founder you're thinking, but

you've met people like that. Really, where I when I've met people doing two that are somewhat succeeding, they're

spending no time on their own personal growth. So, the extra time they have because they did their first business so

well, they're using it to do another business, which usually in my experience is an excuse not to actually experience

life for what it is. If you're already doing one and it's meaningful and it's fulfilling, why do you need another?

What are you hiding from? What is it that you're not actually doing would be my question. Now, if they maybe there's

a maybe they're a miracle. Hello. I wasn't able to make that finance meeting. Can you tell me what I missed?

What I have in front of me is Whisper Flow's new notetaker. And for me, it's been an absolute game changer. I spend

most of my life sat in very, very long meetings with lots of different teams and lots of different departments. In

any given week, I could have 40, 50 meetings and sometimes more. But also, I sit in podcasts where lots of very

interesting things get said and I need to focus on the conversation. What whisper flows notetaker does for me is

it captures the entire context of everything that's happened throughout my entire week. It labels who the people

are that said what and I can ask it for things that I might have forgotten for actions things that I said I would do

that I haven't yet done. It's building this sort of broader context of everything that's happening in my life.

And it's an incredible incredible superpower. I love the fact that so many of you come up to me in the street

because you know I'm an investor in Whisper Flow and tell me how much it's changed your life. It is the worstkept

secret in productivity. If you want to give it a go, head to whisperflow.ai/stephven

to download it right now and give it a try. And once you try it, I think you'll realize why we let them sponsor this

podcast. It's amazing. I am have a stat here that genuinely shocked me. It says that sales teams spend about 50% of

their time on admin and manual CRM updates rather than selling. That is deadly for their bottom line. And that

is part of the reason why a decade ago at my previous company I switched to using Piperive who are our sponsor. If

you've never used Pipe Drive, it is an intelligent AI powered sales CRM. And they just launched new meeting

intelligence features like an AI noteaker built right into the CRM. Pipe Drive now automates more of the admin

that stops you from doing the work that you love to do best. Before your meeting, it pulls deal history, email

records, and previous conversations into a single brief so you're prepared. And it joins your meetings with you. It's in

there to take notes so you don't need to. and it turns those notes that it takes into accurate autodraft CRM

updates. 100,000 companies are already running their sales on it. You can sign up at piperive.com/ceo

where you'll get an exclusive 30-day free trial instead of the usual 14 days. Absolutely no credit card needed. Just

head to piperive.com/ceo to get started if you're in sales and you run a sales team. I don't think

you'll regret it. We often say, you know, in one end you're saying go fast. And I hear that

from great founders like yourself and Elon and those guys. They say go fast, push on paper walls, go as fast as you

can, but then also there's other areas where you go, you have to go slow to go fast, but also know your weaknesses. I

obviously did not succeed in building great technology in Weiwork. That is a known fact. So if I'm going to partner

again and I'm going to build a business larger than we work, put the right partners.

>> Know what you don't know. >> Know what you don't know and let them lead. When we hired our CTO, we had four

different CTOs. I'll let Ben do the final interview. >> Okay, this is what I was going to ask

because one of the things I hear from founders a lot is they know they don't know X. Let's say it's finance and then

they do an interview with someone and the person says, "I'm the best at finance." They have no idea if they're

the best at finance because they don't know finance, the founder. So, what did you do to mitigate the trap of

accidentally hiring someone that you weren't able to assess their competence? >> I chose partners that say the truth.

when Mark and Ben and I do a board meeting and Mark is our board member and Ben joins us.

>> For context, I should say Mark and Ben are two of the world's most famous investors and they have backed you with

your new venture flow. Um yeah, just >> Mark and Ben have invested $470 million into FL at the series A and series B.

And I, Adam, and my family personally invested $350 million because part of when we created the the the business

together, we wanted to be aligned. We buy together, we sell together, we do everything together.

>> [sighs and gasps] >> We have our board meetings. They usually start at 8:00 a.m. They end at 5:00.

Very long board meeting. We talk about everything. We love it as a team. We really respect them. We truly prepare

for these meetings. We don't spend too much time cuz again, when you're really busy, you don't have time. So, it's not

like we spend a month, we go a week before, look, take stock of everything we did that quarter. It's always

shocking to see how much you did. Cuz when you're not really measuring, you're just doing. When you stop for a second

and look what you did, like, wow, we did quite a lot in 3 months. So, very useful. We put together our board decks.

We send them to them a few days before they actually read them. And then they come for the meeting. So it's like 8:30

to 5. And then when it's done, I go to dinner with the two of them. And the dinner starts by me saying, "We sit down

usually wherever it is. Please tell me what I can do better." And the first time I asked them, they were a little

bit uncomfortable. The second time I literally remember Mark going like this. Mark Andrew like this, like he was

ready. Ben taking out his notes. That's a true partnership and we do it every single time. And when you have the

previously you said some of the biggest investors in my opinion A6Z number one investor in the planet and if you're an

entrepreneur today and and you can that's who you want your money from. If you're an entrepreneur today and you

take it from Benchmark the company that took me out that took Travis Superstar out. Jack Dorisy out

>> Travis from Uber Jack >> Travis from Uber. Jack Dorsey from Square, Twitter, Block and and many more

and many more. So when you choose your investors, look at their history. Are they the kind that support entrepreneurs

like you? Are they going to take you to the next level or do they have a history that actually clashes with the

entrepreneur? If they have a history that clashes with the entrepreneur, park them. So there was two two key things I

pulled out from there. The first was around this idea of like knowing when to go fast and slow and you use technology

as an example. The second thing which was opened up the story about um A16Z is the right people and partners.

>> So important more if I had to choose one. Right investors, right employees, right partners. Most important thing.

>> What did you learn about employees? Like what is a great team member? >> If I have a problem with an employee,

there's only one person to blame and that's me. >> And what are the mistakes that you made

in choosing employees? I think it's how I was leading that I've been learning more about. Where I used to lead from

top to bottom, I now I'm learning how to lead bottom to up. What's the difference?

>> Top to bottom means you think because someone reports into you, they have to do what you say. But it's not true. This

is not a dictatorship. They have free will. They can go work. If they're talent, if you hired someone, they're

really talented, they'll go work elsewhere. Especially great leader. The more talented they are, the more the top

to bottom does not work. They they won't be willing to do it. They shouldn't. Great talent is not willing to be

managed like this. Gray talent wants to be inspired, wants me to see the full version of themselves even more than

they see it. And they want the room to make mistakes, but also to grow. But they also need feedback. If you have

someone amazing and they're up. Sorry. They're miss >> You can swear.

>> I can swear. Yeah. My kids are going to listen. It's all good. They're up. Are you going to tell them or

because you're not comfortable with conflict? you're going to wait for 90 days and every time they're going to

make that mistake, you're going to get so upset that by the time you communicate to them, it's too late. The

moment they made a mistake, if you respect them, give them the feedback cuz that's the best thing for them. By the

way, when you give them the feedback, give them room to give you feedback. If you're going to manage these employees

and you want to attract the best talent in the world, remember that power comes from

influence, not control. If you think they need to do what you said because you're their boss, you've already lost

and it's a matter of time till it doesn't work out. If they're okay with it, just because you're the boss, you

have to tell them what they do and they accept that power, they're not the right employee for you and you're not the

right boss for them. There's no chance you're getting the best out of them. One of the um parts in your journey that I

have reflected on a lot because it's a fascinating story is the day that you meet Massa at SoftBank and I'm I'm keen

to understand the context of where the business was before you met Massa at SoftBank. That particular story has

always inspired me for a multitude of different reasons. Um but where was the business at? Was it It was um 2017. I

want to tell you about the day I met Mustang. I'm going to connect it to I think the biggest mistake I ever made in

Weiwork. I'll bring it together. Masa is one of the best investors in the world. He's also one of the biggest investors

in the world. In my story, Masa is the hero even though a lot of people who didn't know the story correctly might

have misunderstood. So in my story, Masa took a bet on me and and he did amazing and he deserved to have become very

successful from it. And he leads SoftBank. >> Masa is the leader of SoftBank. So if

you want a little history of Masa, Masa is the leader of SoftBank. He becomes very well known to the world where he

buys a tech conference actually in Vegas and he buys this tech conference for I think about 880 million and at the same

time he has his own tech businesses and he owns a phone company and he starts growing and growing. He's famous to have

gone to Steve Jobs and said I'm going to take the iPhone. When the iPhone just came out he knew it was going to be a

hit and I'm going to give it to every subscriber in Japan. He invents the leasing model for it and gives an

iPhone. Then everybody signs to his service cuz everybody wanted the iPhone. So a lot of things and then he gives

Jackma $20 million that over time I think becomes 200 >> for Alibaba.

>> For Alibaba which at its peak is worth about 80 billion. >> Wow.

>> So at the time when I meet Masa, this is 2016. Let's start with the night before. The night before I met Masa in New York

City, I have a board meeting the day before. This is the old board and we're all sitting together. I just raised at

16 I raised maybe six months before at 16 billion valuation. >> How big we work?

>> It's about to do that year about 950 million in revenue. And the reason I know is cuz we were doubled in revenue

every single year. So we work the business model was working very well and the four walls were working very well.

>> What's the distinction sorry between the four walls and everything else. When you have a retail business, you could have

your stores could be doing really well. Your state not making money >> and what's the

>> state the so let's say you're in New York City. So let's talk high growth for a second. When you're growing as fast as

we're growing, you're always putting new buildings on the map. >> A new building has a ramp up.

>> Usually ramp up of a retail store or a food or a restaurant could take two years, three years. And we like to talk

about ROI, return on investment and how long does it take. A great time to return your investment would be 24

month, 36 month and then it can grow. We work at its peak was returning its money somewhere between 6 month to 9 month and

then afterwards it was going up to 12 month and 18 month. So if you're going to grow, we we grew in New York City to

130 buildings. So you can have 30 buildings. If the following year you're adding 30 more buildings, those new 30

have to per definition lose money for at least the first 6 month if not 9 months. So you could be very profitable in these

buildings but not profitable in these because they need time. Which means this New York City the city doesn't look as a

city profitable or the country if you're looking at your P&L doesn't look as a country profitable. Which is why in a

high growth business you got to get very specific and in the details and you got to really understand what's working,

what's not. Even in a building you can have one floor that's profitable cuz you opened it first and the new floor that

you opened after not profitable yet. Weiwork's technology was never able to count this way. Flow's technology, if I

threw it on Weiwork today, I can tell you which square foot is, I forget which building is profitable, which floor is

profitable. I can tell you which corner is. It knows everything cuz it's a connected system. It's not disconnected.

[gasps] Back to what we're saying. I'm sitting with the board and we decide

that we want to turn the business, we're going to go out and raise money, turn the business profitable, and take it

public. How are you going to turn it profitable? All you have to do in a high growth business that's working to turn

it profitable is stop growing. You just stop adding new buildings and you give time to all the buildings to catch up.

Remember I explained that in we work your problem was not demand, it was supply. So the moment you don't add more

supply, the demand is greater than the supply, everything fills up. The moment everything fills up and you didn't add

anything new, you go cash flow positive. As simple as that. So, we sit in that board and we decide that I'm going to go

and raise and the number was 3 to 400 million, stop the growth, meaning stop signing leases, maybe even move to

management deals, something we'll talk about in floor in a second. And and then take it public. This is 2016.

That was the the day before. The same time at some point Masa's right-hand guy, his name is Ron Fischer, sends a

email, a text to one of our guys and says, "Hey, Masa wants to come see Adam." This is at the same time that

Masa is raising the vision fund. For those who don't know, the vision fund was his hundred billion dollar venture

fund, largest venture fund ever raised. Masa wants to see Adam. Say, "Great." And we schedule 90 minutes in the

morning, the next morning. And we do we do the we get ready in the morning. Masa is coming. Everyone's excited. They're

like, "This is amazing. Maybe that investment we just talked about yesterday will come today." His team

says, "Just to let you know, there will be no discussions of investing." So, okay, no problem. As it gets closer to

the morning, we keep getting text messages. He's not going to have 90 minutes. He's going to have 75 minutes.

He's going to have 60 minutes. He's going to have half an hour. I'm like, "Okay, whatever it is, sounds

great." The same time, President Trump wins for the first time. This is the end of December. And Masa had a meeting with

them. They wanted to talk about the future of America. Said, "I'm so sorry. I have a meeting with Trump, President

Trump, and I only have 12 minutes." Again, we all find ourselves in situations like this when, "Oh my god, I

had all this plan and I was going to do this tour and I was going to show these numbers. I'm going to do all these

things and suddenly it all changes." I take a deep breath. [snorts] Let's make it the best 12 minutes we

can, but I can't help myself. I go, "Tell me something, Masa. If you're meeting President, future President

Trump, do you have Jared Kushner introducing you to him first? He goes, "Adam, it's so funny you're saying that.

Everybody told me that it's better if Jared introduces me. I don't know him. We've been trying to get in touch." No.

I said, "Give me a second." I'm very lucky to to count Jared as as one of my close friends. Jared's married to Ivanka

Trump. >> Jar's married Jared married to Ivanka Trump and he's the adviser, I think, to

the president. But right now he's helping to peace both in the Middle East and in Europe. So I text Jared and I was

like, "Masa is here. Ta ta da. We spend 5 minutes on that." Jared says, "No problem. Send him. I will introduce him

to the future president." Now we have 7 minutes left. I say, "Masa, we only have 7 minutes. We're only going to stay

downstairs, but this is we work." And he looks at me. He goes like this. Smells there. He goes, "You know what this

smells like?" And I'm like, "Oh no, what is he going to say? They were serving waffles. Is that is he going to say it

smells like waffles? Like what is he going to say? He goes smells like dreams. This is a factory rework is not

an office space. It's a factory of dreams. And I'm like he's speaking your

language. >> Oh no. Not my language. One step above my language. He took he took the dreamer

and went one step above the dreamer. He out did the he he Adam. [laughter] He killed it. And I'm like, "Oh yeah, I

love the smell of dreams. This no one's ever defined the business better than that." He goes, "Look, Adam, we don't

have time. I'm driving up there to 50th Street, whatever, wherever it was. Do you want to come with me to the car?

We'll talk in the car." >> Did he not go around the building? And >> couldn't have time 7 minutes. We were

only downstairs in the lobby, the entrance. But but if you had the opportunity in 2017, 2016 to walk into

our HQ, the energy was electric. You could not walk in there and not feel I I never felt a factory of dreams, but I

felt community and people coming together. It felt like people are doing their life's work. It didn't feel like a

work environment. It felt like people are really connected. And when you make a connected environment, then it really

takes things to the next level and everybody wants to be there. So that's what it was. It's not what it is today,

but that's what it was. So he says, "Come with me to the car." I said, "No problem." I get into the car and I

remember the back of my hand, they said, "No investing." thing. His team said, "Don't talk about raising money." He

goes, "So I start talking build where we work." He's like, "Adam, what's the number?" Said, "What do you

mean?" Goes, "What's your valuation and how much money are you raising?" Goes, "I'm I'm here to do business." Said,

"Your team said like, ah, I am I am the boss. I've done this many times myself. I'm the boss. Let's talk

about it." [sighs and gasps] I said, "Well, listen. We have our last valuation was 16 billion. We have a we

have we just launched China. That's a $2 billion company. We have Latin America and we're in Europe. We have a global

company and then we have a China entity. Goes great. How much are you raising? I said 3 to 400 million. 3 to 400 million.

That's that's that's not going to work. Don't you want to build a global business? I was like of course I would

love to build a global business. Goes don't you have a business in China? I said of course. Said what about Japan?

Said I don't have a business in Japan yet. He said I think it's going to work very well in Japan. I said, "I'm sure

it's going to work well in Japan. It's working everywhere, but I don't have the team." Goes, "What about Southeast

Asia?" He said, "Sounds amazing, but I've never been there." He goes, "Well, I think it's going to work there." I

said, "Again, I'm sure it's going to work there, but and before you know it," he says,

"I think we should do about 3 billion." And that was a big number. Remember three, we were we were I was the night

before with the board 300 to 400 million. Let's take less than number one. And again, I don't blame myself for

any of this. Every decision I made was my decision. He's an investor. He saw a great business and he wanted to go big.

I respect that. I've done it myself. Not at those numbers, but I've done it myself. [gasps]

If you decide you have a mission or a vision and you're going to go raise out 300 million and the next day someone

offers you 3 billion, before you say yes, take a deep breath and ask yourself again that question of why and what is

my intention? What is that going to do to the business? and am I ready to take that much? And so it says 3 billion. We

then keep talking about all the different needs and the different stuff. It ends up after this is now we met for

12 minutes and the ride is um 16 minutes. So uh if yeah total 28 to 36 minutes the

whole thing and we agree on the he says 4 billion 4.2 to be exact.

>> 4.2 2 billion what >> dollars >> that he wants to invest in. We work

topco, we work China, we work Japan, and we work Southeast Asia. Remember, we were a cash machine. You put cash into

us and we that just to I'll go back to a second, but we were doing 980 million that year. We hit our numbers. We

forecasted we're going to do 1.8 billion next year. We did our 1.8 billion. The it was working so well. The model, all

you needed was cash to build it. You needed to build these spaces and you needed to do if you're going to grow

that big. He had big aspirations and I had big aspirations. >> Did you tell him that? Did you tell him

that it was a cash machine? >> No, you didn't need to. >> Did you tell him that if you put cash

in, you get cash out? >> I didn't need to. M understands business better than most people in the world.

But again, it was obvious cuz if you looked at the history of Weiwork, every single time you put money into it, it

grew. The mistake was we were signing leases. We were taking long-term commitments against short-term

commitments. We should have done something else. And we'll talk about it in a second. What we should have done

and it's what we're doing in flow. But the this question was there's people because a lot of people didn't

understand the money raised. The money raised was to build tremendous businesses all over the planet. And

those businesses the moment you stopped growing them turned profitable. Today we works profitable. Those businesses all

you had to do was stop growing. We were at a high growth stage. That's what high growth entrepreneurs do. That's what the

market wanted at the time and that's what everybody knew we were doing. It was not a secret what we were doing. And

it was growing exponentially. So, we ended up agreeing on 4.2 billion. He takes an iPad, he writes it all down.

This is all in that same car, right? He writes it all down. He signs his name and he hands me the pen to sign mine.

I look at it. I sign. He walks out of the car, says, "Thank you very much." And goes to his meeting. This is now

about 40 54th Street. Our HQ is on 18th Street. I'm just standing there. I can't believe what just happened. It

was not what I planned. And I start walking. I was like, I'm going to walk downtown. I'm going to

take a second. I'm going to walk. And every step I take, cuz until this point, this is 2016, we were 5 years of

missiondriven mission. You ask me about the fundamentals, we had all the right fundamentals and we work because we had

the right culture. And when you have the right culture, you can deal with any challenge. We were missiondriven. We

could break through any wall. We were teamwork. We worked late at night. We were together. We were friends. We were

one team. And I'm starting to walk down from 54th Street to 18th Street. And every step I

take, suddenly the ego starts coming up. Oh, 20 billion valuation. Billion valuation in Japan on top of

that. billion and a half valuation in in Southeast Asia on top of that five billion dollar valuation in China on top

of that. So a billion of that 4.2 was going to everybody including to myself and I owned about proportionately about

25% of the company at the time. So big numbers numbers I've never seen numbers Miguel was getting a lot all our

employees the investors many times more than they ever invested from that billion

and every step that I'm taking the ego comes up. Oh, I feel so strong. I feel so big. You start doing your own math.

20 billion, 25%. What's but that's that's that's 5 billion. Then there's all the other

ones. What's my net worth? And before you know it, the guy that sat in the car was a

missiondriven entrepreneur who really believed in creating a world where people make a life and not just a

living. Every step that I take, it goes higher and higher. And by the time I walk into HQ 18th Street,

I forgot what we were all about. Here is why ego is on the one hand very

good and on the other hand very dangerous. Ego and desire are the same word. Big ego just means big desire.

Having huge desire is important to build huge things. But you have to manage it and control it. When I walked in, I got

confused. It suddenly became about the money. all the stuff that Rebecca told me, all the stuff when we met, all the

years of spiritual practice, everything to the garbage. And what happens when the ego gets the best of you? You become

blinded. What does that mean? You make mistakes and bad decisions. And in a high growth business, you need to make a

100 decisions a day. And as we said before, at least 98 of them need to be correct.

Suddenly you're blinded and suddenly only 95 of them are correct or 90 those mistakes ex because you're growing so

fast the mistakes grow very fast also the other thing we were a company led from the top all great companies are led

from the top the moment I lost it everybody lost it [sighs and gasps] and it just spread and the moment that's

that's the beginning of the end and look it took 3 years after that for everything to unfold but it was that

moment That was the moment that went. >> Is there anything that could have been

said or done to have made you when Massa offered you that $4 billion in that cab? Are you ready for this?

>> Sure. I I used to be closer. We don't speak as much [clears throat] anymore today. I used to be much closer to Mark

Ben off the founder of Salesforce. He heard about Masa's offer and he called me and said, "Adam, I only know you for

a little bit and I know you're not going to listen to my advice, but I want you to fly to Japan and say no to Masa.

I want you to take your company public." What was your last valuation? I said 16. He goes, "Great. I want you to take your

company public for 5 billion. I want you to sell 20% of the billion. And I want you to learn how to be public CEO. I

promise you two things. one cuz your last valition was 16. At five, everybody's going to think this is a

great deal. People are going to rush to invest including myself. Everyone's going to

rush to invest. You'll learn because it's very different to be a public CEO and a private co. You're going to learn

about profitable. You're going to learn all these things cuz I think you're very fast student and I guarantee you before

you know it, your valuation will be much larger. And he said, "But I know you're not

going to listen to me." And I didn't. Was there a world that I could have said no?

not the kind of person that I was then and not with the tools I have. >> Why why didn't you listen to him?

>> We didn't know each other for long enough. I think it takes a lot of trust to listen to when someone gives you a

counter advice and every by the way there was another person also said no. But but we'll put that aside for a

second. But here's what I think is more important about it. Let's say I said no. And let's say we work could still be

around. We were could be a hundred billion dollar company today. Corona would have happened. we would have

renegotiated all of our leases instead of leases would become management deals and we would have led the return to

office. We would have led that concept because obviously people work I know we spoke about it much better face to face

than remote work and we would have we would have been the the leaders of the movement of return to office and we work

was a great company and even it would have launched launched we live our version of FL

but I Adam wouldn't have learned all those lessons I wouldn't be I am so much happier today even as we're speaking I'm

noticing like everything you're talking to about makes me feel full even the wor even the challenging parts I I'm so

happy that they happened because they made me exactly who I'm meant to be. Falling is not bad.

That's the thing that you and I are actually talking about. Falling is probably the most important part of

life. And most of us learn a lot more from falling than we do from succeeding. The thing that's bad is not when you

fall, it's how you get up. If you just fell and you're, "Oh no, everybody saw me fall. I'm not going to hide under the

covers for four years until everybody forgets whatever it is that happened. That's what's horrible. That leads to

the tragedy. That leads to the trauma. If you fail, you look around, you're like, "Wow, everybody saw." You clean

up, you get up, and you say, "Let's do it again." If you have that in you, nothing will stop you. And it might take

10 times and 20 times and 50 times, but if you fall enough times, then you might avoid falling.

>> There should be a button just down below here. And if it says subscribed, you're already subscribed. If it says

subscriber, that means you're not yet. And if you're not subscribed, please could you do us a favor and hit that

button? It helps the show more than you know. And according to the algorithm, you're someone that watches our show,

but you haven't yet hit that button. Thank you so much. I'm thinking also about a founder that's 21 years old.

They've got a startup or an idea that they want to start. You like like when I was 21 years old, my mom tells me 18, if

you do this, I won't speak to you again. It's, you know, she was warning me against business because she had

struggled in business herself. So, that's a proxy of love, I guess. And then you've got other people here

telling you that it's going to be amazing and you're going to make millions. When you're in that situation,

you've got noise. How do you find the signal? Two ways. One, they have to go back to the mission. So,

if one had a mission and then someone off someone offers them something and it's off mission and you're like, "Oh,

I'm going to do it anyway because it's good money, but it's off mission." That already is a warning sign. But I think

the other one, which is something that I have more today than I used to back then, one needs a practice. Part of the

way to try on the noise is with a practice. I've been enjoying meditating lately in the past year and I've been

getting better and better at it. And meditating is something that takes time. Meditating helps drown the noise. And

then the thoughts that I do get while I meditate tend to be very healthy thoughts that are headed in a good

direction. I there's many I do the hyperaric chamber.

>> Steve Jobs talked about meditation and his sort of spiritual practices and it's something that I I actually in the last

year I started really looking into. Um, when I say looking into, I mean I started looking into what he did and why

he did it because he's someone that I look at and go, it was like he was able to see around the corner and and for a

guy running a big company, how was he able to make these really unpopular calls today that proved out to be true

tomorrow? And you know, one of the conclusions I arrived at is that he spent just as much time in the trenches

as he did in the clouds. I.e. he stood away from the picture enough so he could see the full picture. And that's

something that I thought, oh gosh, that's it kind of correlates to what you were saying earlier about your

redefinition of hard work. Not just being in the office and being there, you know, 24/7, but actually when you're on

the surfboard, you're doing hard work because you're giving yourself time to see the full picture. And when you're

honest with yourself about your weaknesses, like I spoke about my speech, it can elevate things, but it

could also break things. We've seen that happen before. >> So hard work is also personal growth is

very hard work. And most people don't have the courage to even look in honestly, let alone change.

>> What is the exact mechanism that you think would result in me being more successful at 40 in business, let's say,

if I did exactly what you said and focused on personal growth, >> you're going to have to start by redefin

business, I'm going to have to push back on it. We are not going to measure your success just in business. We're going to

measure your success in life, in relationship, in friendships, in effect on the world

>> and in business. >> Do you know why I'm asking this question? Because there will be some

people that are listening right now and they have heard, you know, founders come on and people say, "You need to just

take a moment, meditate, do these things, focus on personal growth." and for whatever reason, because of their

trauma, because of how they were raised, the lens that they will receive that message through or the thing that will

be the carrot will be a promise that it will make them better at the thing they currently care about. Now, we might be

tricking them a little bit because we're going to get them to do the work and they'll realize that other things

matter. But just for those people that have that lens, >> no, I'm going to we're going to help.

We're going to say something and I hope people have said it here before, but I'm not sure they did. But tell me if people

said it. We're going to all these founders that are listening falling

is not just okay. It's the best thing that ever happened to you. If these founders can all redefine success, think

about if in school instead of learning about all the successes spoke about Steve Jobs and he's a real

hero of mine, but would I have wanted his life? How old was he when he passed away? How

was the relationship with everybody around? How did he affect people? Now, I don't know. Oh, I wasn't a friend. I