By: Serach Nissim
Adam Neumann, the former WeWork CEO is down but not out.
The 41-year-old Israeli-American former billionaire and co-founder of the shared workspace giant may have a new mystery business up his sleeve. As reported by the NY Post, Neumann is planning his next venture— a post-pandemic business. “It involves what happened in the world because of the pandemic,” an insider told the Post. “He’s got big plans and he’s waiting for the right time to announce them.”
Since his high-profile exit from We Work in September 2019, when he was blamed for the failed IPO and exaggerated valuation, he has not made public speeches and has tried to keep out of the limelight. He has been laying low in New York with his wife, Rebekah, and five children, tending to his properties in Greenwich Village and the Hamptons, and reportedly working on some bold new venture.
Neumann has reportedly not watched the trending new Hulu documentary “WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn”, which depicts his remarkable rise and fall as CEO of the sizzling office-space startup. The documentary portrays him as magnetic but deluded, who convinced financial frontrunners, including Chase Bank’s Jamie Dimon and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, to team up with him and invest billions into WeWork before it all went awry. Neumann has had friends tell him about the show, but as a rule doesn’t watch or read things about himself, as per a source for The Post.
Neumann’s name may have suffered a blow, and he has reportedly sold at least three of six properties in his estimated $90 million portfolio, including one of their homes in the Hamptons, one in Westchester and a luxe Gramercy Park complex. His net worth has plummeted from a high of $14 billion to $750 million, knocking him off Forbes’ billionaires list in 2020. Still, people who know Neumann, know he is far from done. Neumann, who grew up for a time on a kibbutz in Israel, has already invested in several startups including a residential concierge service named Alfred, a tech-enabled mortgage service, and some Israeli companies.
“He does feel he made mistakes but he also feels the media made a sensation out of certain elements of the story,” an inside source told The Post. “The $47 billion valuation was probably a mistake. But WeWork is still a good company and he built it … It’s got hundreds of locations. I don’t know too many people who can build a company like that in 10 years.”
