The Cult of We

WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion

By: Eliot Brown, Maureen Farrell

Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer

Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Wall Street Journal best seller

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 Opinion)

The 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 Award

WeWork 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.

©2021 Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell (P)2021 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[The] ultimate portrayal of...an empire built on sand.” (Newsweek)

“Like Bad Blood...The Cult of We is novelistic in detail and often thrilling.... It’s like watching a car careening toward a wall at 90 miles an hour.” (The Washington Post)

“If I had to make a list of top five business books of all time, this would be on it. It’s just so damn engrossing.” (Christopher Mims, Wall Street Journal tech columnist)

Fantastic

Genius reporting and a genuinely fun read. Six out of five stars. Very good book.

fascinating story

this is a terrific description of the We Work story and the obnoxious, self-absorbed and arrogant Adam Neumann and his spoiled flakey wife. well hindsight might be 20/20, a blind person could have seen that something wasn't right with the We Work propaganda. The perfect storm of greed that brought down this company is the same greed and stupidity that caused the entire housing market to crash in 2005 to 2012.

The reading was a bit off putting with way too many inflections and upswings in her voice.

An astounding story

Definitely worth reading. A look into the madness behind WeWork. A sobering story and a cautionary tale. Great narration.

Great listen!

Had to stop listening to this one!

A great ride from beginning to end - much more detail but just as much drama as We Crashed. Loved it!

Entertaining and wild

Didn’t realize how wild the scene was, but did a great job of narrating the founding till it became a traded company.

Yeah. It's pretty good; however...

The narratior's performance is really good; however some parts feel out of place. I would recommend listen to this one before sleep. Her voice can calm even though it's about a man almost building a cult.

Great companion to "Billion Dollar Loser"

I really enjoyed "Billion Dollar Loser", so I had some trepidation about "The Cult of We". On the one hand, I wanted more of the story. On the other, I was worried that it would be duplicative.

The two books are actually complimentary: "Billion Dollar Loser" focuses more on the cult of Adam Neumann and examples of his ego and rage-inducing narcissism, while "The Cult of We" focuses more on the financial side of the debacle. "The Cult of We" also goes into great detail on startup financing and all of the related craziness of the last 20 years. I could see "The Cult of We" as a standard textbook in MBA programs.

Fast pace, great narration. Really enjoyed it.

Less spicy than other "Business True Crime"

Adam had good intentions, believed in his company and simply got drifted too far into his fantasies, convincing investors along the way.

Compared with Elizabeth Holmes in Bad Blood, he is just an over-dreamy entrepreneur, no harm intended.

It was nice and interesting to hear the full story behind this epic rise and fall.

Therese Plummer did an excellent job narrating!
I wish more books were read by voices like hers.

I do 100% recommend Bad Blood.

Greed and gluttony

Great factual account of the WeWork disaster. Recommended for people who enjoy modern stories of greed, hubris and cult like organisations.

How to give a horrible story five stars

The epilogue begins by quoting F Scott Fitzgerald: “They were careless people.. “ That is an understatement. I make my living reading, writing and planning land-based investments. This is the second book I have read this summer on the Wework scandal. Well written and clearly told this book is about more than the waste of billions of US dollars at Wework. This book has made me more frequently nauseous and enraged than anything else I have ever read. Its worse than the stories about ponzi schemers. This story is about our penchant for messianic figures leading us to a Midas nirvana. It is about the myth of what is technology. It is about financing slight of hand promises rather than tangible goods, services and products. If you wish to become angry or ill, read this very good and clear book --. Avarice, narcissism and greed, or should that be gluttony. No they were not careless; they were intentional.