Adam Neumann

Adam Neumann co-founded WeWork in 2010 with a visionary belief that the physical environment could fundamentally alter human behavior and drive innovation, leading him to pioneer the modern coworking industry and transform the global commercial real estate market through highly designed, community-focused work environments.

Adam Neumann, born in 1979 in Israel, is an Israeli-American businessman who co-founded WeWork and served as its CEO until his ousting in 2019. Neumann served in the Israeli military before moving to the United States, where he pursued various business ventures and eventually crossed paths with Miguel McKelvey in the Brooklyn coworking scene. Neumann's charisma, boundless energy, and visionary leadership were instrumental in the early growth of WeWork, as he personally cultivated the company's cult-like community and secured the massive venture capital funding that fueled its global expansion. However, his tenure was also marked by increasingly erratic behavior, severe corporate governance issues, and controversial financial transactions, including the sale of his personal trademark for the word 'We' to the company for $5.9 million. The disastrous 2019 IPO filing exposed the depth of these governance problems and the fundamental flaws in WeWork's unit economics, leading to a massive revolt by investors and Neumann's forced resignation. Neumann walked away from the company with a bailout package worth nearly $1.7 billion, a move that was widely condemned by the public and the financial community. Despite his departure, Neumann's impact on the commercial real estate industry is undeniable; he fundamentally changed the way companies think about office space and pioneered the flexible office model that continues to shape the market today.