WeWork investors lost everything

Adam Neumann could take home more b/c of a ~$430 M non-recourse loan SoftBank gave him in his 2019 exit package. It's secured by his shares in WeWork

Also: Rajeev Misa's fund made $105 M thanks to the WW bankruptcy

wsj.com/real-estate/co… Previously a Neumann-run entity sold >$1 B of WeWork stock, and he was paid ~$200 M by SoftBank related to his exit package

Some fun from the WeWork archives

here's Masa's scribbles on Adam's chart -- showing how WeWork would be worth $10 trillion by 2028 ⌚️ Here's from Goldman Sachs' pitch deck to WeWork, where they tap quotes from Mother Teresa and Steve Jobs

SoftBank exec Rajeev Misra started his own $6 B+ fund last year, staying on part-time at SoftBank Vision Fund 1

One of his first big investments: $470 M in high-interest debt to WeWork, a SoftBank company owned partly by VF1

wsj.com/articles/rajee… Comes amid a bunch of related party deals at SoftBank in recent years
-Masa Son owes SoftBank ~$5 B for soured deals he placed alongside the company
-Misra / others put personal money into a loan to Wirecard
-SoftBank recently sold a VC fund to a company run by Masa's brother

Fantastic look at how Elon Musk's Boring Co has promised tunnels to Chicago, Maryland, LA, Ontario CA; then "went underground."

The faster-tunneling-machine company that hasn't dug faster tunnels, yet has raised >$700 M

from aces @thetrough @bykowicz

wsj.com/articles/elon-… "All Boring had to do was bring its machine (named Godot) and start digging, former Maryland officials said. But months, and then years, passed. Maryland was waiting for Godot."

New FTX CEO: "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls" Story here wsj.com/livecoverage/s…

Adam Neumann raises $350 M from Andreessen Horowitz for his apartment company now named Flow.

Of note: "Flow will operate the properties Neumann has bought" & try to sell services to third parties. Via Dealbook 🤔

"Adam, and the story of WeWork, have been exhaustively chronicled, analyzed, and fictionalized – sometimes accurately."

a16z.com/2022/08/15/inv…

These are some big expense numbers for Airbnb, which engaged in huge cost cutting after q1 2020

$363 M on product development.
$189 M on G&A, up 2x

These include stock comp costs related to IPO, but still big numbers here's the stock comp numbers

ummm, WHAT? nytimes.com/2021/05/13/boo… the media's endless coverage of HQ2-mania looks better every day

cult of the founder still alive and well as a pitch to investors

From Bird's investor presentation. point #1
sec.gov/Archives/edgar… here are Bird's comparable companies, according to Bird: Netflix, Tesla, etc.

Meanwhile, in Sweden ...

... ok nevermind it didn't work

wsj.com/articles/long-… Good charts here.

lol, from Sept 2018 this part was pretty good too

Adam Neumann: *long monologue about WeWork and its goal to make a life, not just a living*

Presidio board member: "I still don't quite understand the mission"

Q: Is there any precedent for a company pulling a hotly anticipated IPO amid concerns about its valuation? Especially ones in the real estate leasing arbitrage business?

A: Why yes: Regus.

independent.co.uk/news/business/… From the Independent in 99 (no link)

"Mr Dixon - and advisers Merrill Lynch International - appeared to hope the float would value Regus at between nine and ten times its revenue, or roughly #1bn. For a business in a new market, it proved to be an overly optimistic multiple"