WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER A FINANCIAL TIMES FORTUNE AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR The
riveting definitive account of WeWork one of the wildest business stories of our time. Matt
Levine Money Stuff columnist Bloomberg OpinionThe definitive story of the rise and fall of
WeWork (also depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series WeCrashed starring Jared Leto and Anne
Hathaway) by the real-life journalists whose Wall Street Journal reporting rocked the company
and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation. LONGLISTED FOR
THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDWeWork would be worth $10
trillion more than any other company in the world. It wasn t just an office space provider. It
was a tech company an AI startup even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would
revolutionize education and housing. One day mused founder Adam Neumann a Middle East peace
accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would
become the world s first trillionaire.This was the vision of Neumann and his primary
cheerleader SoftBank s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight their ambition for the company whose
primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices seems like madness. Why did
so many intelligent people from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite fall for the hype? And
how did WeWork go so wrong?In little more than a decade Neumann transformed himself from a
struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47
billion on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras the six-foot-five Israeli
transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned and billions poured
in.Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs entertaining a parade of power
brokers desperate to get a slice of what he was selling: the country s most valuable startup a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a generation-defining moment.Soon however WeWork was
burning through cash faster than Neumann could bring it in. From his private jet sometimes
clouded with marijuana smoke he scoured the globe for more capital. Then as WeWork readied a
Hail Mary IPO it all fell apart. Nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate
America s most spectacular meltdowns.Peppered with eye-popping never-before-reported details
The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people and the financial
system they have made.
