The rise and catastrophic downfall (click here) of WeWork founder and former CEO Adam Neumann has been chronicled in gleeful detail across the international financial press in the wake of his company’s ill-fated attempt at a public offering — which resulted in disastrous revelations about the company’s mismanagement, its devaluation and, ultimately, Neumann’s resignation.
But a new Vanity Fair article by Gabriel Sherman, titled “Inside the Fall of WeWork,” asserts that Neumann’s “millennial entitlement gone insane” and guru-like “egomaniacal glamour” extended beyond the business world and into the world of Middle East diplomacy.
Neumann, according to the Vanity Fair article, believed that WeWork “was even capable of solving the world’s thorniest problems. Last summer, some WeWork executives were shocked to discover Neumann was working on Jared Kushner’s Mideast peace effort. According to two sources, Neumann assigned WeWork’s director of development, Roni Bahar, to hire an advertising firm to produce a slick video for Kushner that would showcase what an economically transformed West Bank and Gaza would look like.”...
In a Four Seasons hotel (click here) in Manama, Bahrain, Jared Kushner is trying to solve Middle East peace.
He’s not off to a particularly great start.
The senior White House adviser and presidential son-in-law is in the wealthy Gulf nation for a US-led conference, dubbed the “Peace to Prosperity Workshop.” It’s intended to build support for the economic portion of the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan — part of the so-called “deal of the century” Kushner has been working on for more than two years — which the White House released ahead of the conference.
The plan is billed as “a vision to empower the Palestinian people to build a prosperous and vibrant Palestinian society,” and the administration claims it has “the potential to facilitate more than $50 billion in new investment over ten years.”
But critics have slammed the proposal, likening it to a “real estate brochure” — complete with glossy promotional photos from Palestinian aid programs that the Trump administration has cut.
For one, the plan lacks any details about a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That’s by design: Kushner decided to put out the economic half of the plan first before releasing the political half sometime later this year, saying that releasing the economic piece was “less controversial.”...
October 19, 2017
Before WeWork CEO Adam Neumann (click here) invites investors to his Chelsea headquarters, he sometimes directs employees to “activate the space,” for example by throwing a party. Then, when the investor arrives, he casually points out the great work atmosphere.
The trick, reported by the Wall Street Journal, is just one of the tools Neumann used to get investors to pump billions into his co-working company, most recently at a $20 billion valuation.
He has dismissed reports that portrayed WeWork as a real estate company, despite the fact that the bulk of its revenue comes from subletting office space.
Some venture capital firms were cautious, but gave him money anyway. “Let’s give him some money and he’ll figure it out,” Benchmark Capital Partners’ Bruce Dunleavie recalled thinking.
Manhattan property owner Joel Schreiber bought a 33-percent stake in the company for $15 million in 2010. “I didn’t negotiate — I said yes,” Mr. Schreiber said. “I loved Adam’s energy.”
Neumann likes to treat visitors to Tequila shots, according to the Journal. In one case, he convinced Jared Kushner to take shots in Philadelphia bar after touring a property....
