Unlock Your Potential with The Cult of We: An Exploration of WeWork

dch526: The authors did an incredible job telling a compelling story with constant reinforcement of the stories they gathered from actual people who lived through this epic tale. Given their background in financial reporting, the authors also did a fantastic job of explaining key financial concepts and consequences so that it's easy to understand. It's a fast, thought-provoking read that is well-worth your time.

United States on Jul 09, 2023

KZ: It was well written. But the story itself was not that interesting. I am amazed that such a big book could be produced...lol. At some point, every chapter reads the same: there was greed, there was lots of money, there was a bad leader, and no one called out the bs in the company.

United States on Apr 29, 2023

Customer: Good book, well written.

United Kingdom on Sep 18, 2022

Yonni.I: Anyone who has stepped into a WeWork office pre-Covid will have felt something in the air without being able to put their finger on it.

Be it the real (rather than fake) foliage, human attended (rather than automated) coffee machine or open (rather than cubical) plan desk layout - you felt like you wanted to be a tenant even if you were visiting.

This non-fictional account of the rise and fall of WeWork covers how they raised such large sums of money (spoiler, it was largely down to one man's enthusiasm) and how other companies have followed in its wake.

The book is well written, and within a few chapters, you are absorbed - however, at times, it can be a bit wordy.

United Kingdom on Apr 22, 2022

Sandeep Sen: Fast paced book highlighting the crazy culture of the company, super ego of the owner and blind belief from the financial community. Is this what start up culture is and does? Great investigation

India on Mar 01, 2022

kunal v.: The timeline is stated well and goes through ups and down of wework. Only problem with book is repetition of words every now and then. Barring this, book is worth a read.

India on Feb 28, 2022

M. Olenick: While WeWork was imploding I wrote an article creating a trophy, the Archie McCardell Award for Horrendous Management, and awarding it to Adam Neumann. McCardell is the late executive who set a culture at Xerox that eventually blew all the Xerox PARC innovations -- which gave us modern computing -- then left to International Harvester, which was a top-ten US business, where he picked an unnecessary fight with the union and destroyed the business. The award is for managers who manage to do extraordinary economic harm without committing any crimes.

Given that, I fully expected this book to reinforce that perception and dive even deeper. Instead, I walked away thinking that while Neumann was a terrible operator, a megalomaniac, and probably an alcoholic he may have been onto something big, and others, with less vision, blew that something collapsing it into something small. More specifically, the authors repeatedly compare WeWork to Regus (since renamed IWG). That sat wrong with me but I wasn't sure why until a couple days after finishing the book. Now I realized and thought it's worth writing about. There are two reasons.

Reason 1. There are lists of the biggest...

France on Aug 19, 2021

GadgetChick: If you're reading reviews of this book, likely you know the bare bones of the WeWork story to date and I won't recap the events the book covers in comprehensive, but not overly granular, detail. The book is an excellent exploration of not just the events that lead to the founding, growth, and fall of WeWork, but the personalities involved in the entire debacle, including some valuable insights about Adam and Rebekah Neumann, Masayoshi Son, Jamie Dimon, and other architects of the disaster.

While I wouldn't say the book has a ton of "new news" - if you've read news coverage and seen the documentary episodes about the company, you'll know most of what's in the book about WeWork itself - the value of the book, and what sets it apart, is how it contextualizes what happened with Adam and WeWork, and explains what was going on in the national and global economies, in the startup arena, and with Softbank, as a way of setting the stage for why the Adam Neumann's star fell so spectacularly. About that, I only have this to say. At his core, Adam is a grifter, and what can you say about grifters? Grifters gonna grift. And grift Adam did, to the tune of billions of dollars. The genial...

United States on Jul 27, 2021

Steven R Schiller: First of all, this was a very enjoyable weekend read - well written, fascinating, and even a page-turner, which I was not expecting in a 'business' book. As someone who has received Venture Capital funding for my business, and an observer of humans, it unfortunatly confirmed my opionions about the false perceptions of wisdom, and the unconstrained conflicts of interest and self-interest, found in those (banks, VCs) resposible for the investing of OPM (other peoples money). And, sadly, I could not help but see the very direct parrallels between this story of a narcissitic con man, with no empathy or understanding of the duplicity in his claims of helping others while simply helping himself - and a certain former US President. And of course the parallels with both sets of enablers (in the book - VCs, banks, and executives) who thought they had found a tool to promote their self-interest but only found themsleves caught up in the lies and disgrace of a con man - a damaged individual who in the ends slips away with his self-deception, OPM, and family to a beach front resort.

P.S. my firm rented space from a We Work competitor described in the book (Regis) - I never could...

United States on Jul 26, 2021

Amazon Customer: If you thought you knew anything about this insane tale, think again. Cult of We is the definitive narrative of the shockingly fast rise and fall of, let’s be real, a complete madman. I couldn’t put it down.

The book places you directly inside the room as Adam Neumann over and over again convinces the world that he’s God’s gift to business. It’s both maddening and fascinating to see his sham pick up steam. The book reads like non fiction, except if it weren’t true, I’m not sure I would scenes that Neumann filling a private jet with marijuana smoke — and dodging arrest in the process.

Perhaps the most outrageous part is the ending: Neumann and his grifter wife extract more than $2 billion from the ashes of the company, as thousands of employees and investors lose everything.

Who knew fraud could be so lucrative — and so much fun?

United States on Jul 21, 2021