Startup Visionaries are Officially Dead

WeWork CEO Has to Abandon Visionary Status

WeWork’s CEO is stepping down after mounting pressure from board members, including its largest investor, SoftBank.

Travis, Mark, Elon, Adam. The times are changing.

As Softbank is looking to buy-out Adam Neumann from the company he pretended was more than a real-estate company, the IPO crop of 2019 might never be the same. We are talking about an epic flop.

CEOs are only mortal. They can make mistakes.

Talk about an awkward compromise. WeWork CEO Adam Neumann will step down but retain his seat as chairman. The “We Company” isn’t all about you, Softbank had to tell Adam Neumann.

He’s not the first Unicorn founder to go off the rails. Travis and Mark come to mind. Elon Musk is surprisingly sane.

The reality is if your startup is hugely unprofitable, you have to think about layoffs. Sort of what like Uber is now actually doing.

WeWork, Bankers Have Discussed Laying Off One-Third of Workforce

Indeed as WeWork investors jousted over CEO Adam Neumann’s future, a parallel debate by the company’s executives and bankers has centered on just how deeply the company should cut costs to save its business.

Adam was a deal breaker for many potential investors and fund managers. The executive has been under pressure since WeWork released its S-1, amid concerns about its corporate governance and valuation. In its S-1, WeWork called Neumann, “critical to our operations.” Also, to a point, he became a critical weakness.

You can found a dream, build a company, get very rich investors, but it doesn’t mean you are a good leader or have what it takes to manage a scaling company of WeWork’s potential.

Adam Neumann will step down the company has confirmed on 24th of September, 2019. He will be replaced by Sebastian Gunningham, a former Amazon exec, and CFO Artie Minson, formerly of AOL and Time Warner Cable, who will become interim co-CEOs. Neumann will become non executive chairman of The We Company, the parent of the office-sharing business.

WeWork needs a heart transplant and to become the We Company it needed new leadership. Softbank has funneled $ billions of dollars into the glorified real estate company, and major changes should now occur moving forwards.

The firm’s proposed IPO, delayed for several months, has drawn heavy scrutiny in recent weeks, with its current expected valuation falling to roughly a third of what it was earlier this year ($47 billion). It’s been one of the most bizarre tech and IPO stories so far of 2019.

I cover future trends in business and technology and it’s been a long while since I’ve covered such a crazy story. Softbank Vision Fund is truly a spectacular experiment in venture capital with real dangers and risks. Uber and WeWork are to me about as doomed as Netflix, in the unprofitability department or even the path to profitability sector.

Sorry, Adam

Critically, Neumann’s voting shares will be reduced in power from 10:1 to 3:1, meaning he will no longer have majority voting control. Adam will no longer be a Zuck-barrier to the We Company’s future growth and that’s probably a good thing for everyone involved but Adam.

If Silicon Valley is littered with washed up visionaries, we don’t need more eccentric Voldemorts and tech magicians, thank you very much. Adam was key in trying to sell WeWork as more of a technology rather than just a real estate company.

There’s only one Elon Musk, one Jeff Bezos, can the pretenders please move aside.

Further reading (not my own):

Is We Work a Fraud?

So in a nutshell, this is what we know about this charade so far, apologies:medium.com

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