“It's a divine movie. Written by the best director, writer and producer. And you know who the star is? We are. Are we going to be a tragedy? Are we going to be a success?”

There are three gospel truths about Adam Neumann. He is one of the most talented salesmen this industry (any industry) has ever seen. He built one of the world’s great service brands (notice we didn’t say companies) in WeWork. And his shamanic charisma means that anything he does is bound to get outsized attention. None of this is debatable.

And then there are the truths he would take issue with: He ran one of the world’s most promising startups into the ground with his growth-at-all-costs mentality. He embarked on an extravaganza of self-dealing while at the top of WeWork, making sure he got his. And he deployed his billion-dollar golden parachute on the way out, leaving his investors, employees and lenders to contend with the ashes.

Two books, a documentary and a TV drama later, Neumann is finally ready to tell his side of the story. 👇

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In a 3-hour marathon w/ record producer magnate turned new-age guru Rick Rubin (massive h/t to friend of the pod Noam Franklin of Northmarq, who insisted I listen), Neumann details those much-chronicled final months at WeWork. He provides a tick-tock of being pushed out, his lenders turning on him, his legal battle w/ key backer SoftBank, and the existential gloom that followed. He gets into being courted by a16z, w/ whom he eventually rebooted through his multi-focused venture Flow. And he dishes on life, love, spirituality and being the star in his divine movie. This is not so much an interview as a therapy session – Rubin’s role is mostly restricted to summarizing what Neumann has just soliloquy’d or reacting with “That’s incredible!” (The ads here plug athletic nicotine, which gives you a sense of the audience). But perhaps b/c of that huggable environment, Neumann dishes on it all in far more detail than I’ve ever heard him get into before. None of this is fact-checked or challenged during the conversation, of course, so keep that in mind. We’ve compressed some of the dialogue for length/clarity.

The state of play just before SoftBank: We decide that I am going to raise $300M. We're going to take a pause. We're going to clean everything up. We're going to turn the company profitable, stop signing leases. We're going to take the company public. We're not going to worry about our last valuation of $16B, we're going to do it for $10B because we want to leave money on the table.

That chat w/ Masa-San that changed everything: He invites me into his car. “What's the deal and how much you're looking for?” I'm going to tell him the number we said, $300M at a $20B valuation. He looks at me and goes, “but Adam, I have the $100B Vision Fund. It could take a long time to spend $100B via $300M checks. Don't you have a bigger vision?” I said, “this company can be as big as [the] money as you inject. You put money on one side, You get growth on that. I haven't missed my numbers once.” Remember, by this point, I grow 3x, 3x, 3x, 3x, and then 2x, 2x, but I don't miss my growth. I said, “look, we're at $450M, I'll hit $900M next year, then $1.8B, then $3.6B… depends how much money you want to put in the machine.” I'm in my mid-30s. My lesson in hindsight, after a lot of reflection: When you tell the universe you're looking for $300M, and the next day a guy offers you $4B, instead of signing the dotted line, you take a breath and say, “Why? What does it come with? What am I committing to? Is there something here I don't see?” But to be fair, most 30-somethings sitting in that seat, those numbers… this is the Israeli from the kibbutz, who came to New York City and lived with his sister who was paying his rent for the first six years and then Rebecca paying for the following three years. I go, “what am I going to do with another billion?” He said, “you'll do a secondary, for you and for all your investors and for all your employees and everybody will have an exit.” I should have been scared. I wasn't. I should have done that first lesson that I learned in Kabbalah. Pause. What a wonder! But I didn't. I took that pen and I signed that document. On the spot. ✒

That's when a mission-driven company that was based on belief, that came from all the right things with all the right energies, switched to become about growth, money and valuation. Every step I took, that ego went up. It was under control. It was there, but I had Rebecca and I had my kids, and I have a beautiful relationship where I get feedback from my executives. There were a lot of controls around us to keep it [in check]. But it went above my threshold, above my spiritual level at the time. And I walked into that HQ a different version of myself.

Not only do I not blame Masa for anything, I am so grateful, so appreciative. He saw the vision. He trusted completely. How could you be mad at that guy?

On the aborted SoftBank acquisition: It’s December 2018. I get a phone call from Masa. “Adam, I am so sorry. The Japanese market has changed. Our stock is down 30%. My CFO told me that if I go through with this, our stock will crash. My first responsibility is to my shareholders. I know I promised. I know you've been growing. I can't go through.” I remember Rebecca is in the kitchen, playing with the kids. Everyone's hanging out, they're eating, drinking, smiling. I decide I'm not going to say anything today. I just went and hung out, and took many, many deep breaths. He [Masa] was at the mercy of the reality of the situation. He did the right thing. He didn't really have a choice.

On the botched IPO: These are the biggest bankers on the planet. They show the valuations that we're going to go public [at]. And they all make sure to go above $40B because that's the last valuation, because they're making a sale again – all stuff that today I understand, but back then I had no clue. Basically, “if you keep obtaining growth of this magnitude, the markets will understand that you can always pull the lever and turn profitable, grow faster, grow more, we'll take the company public for this gigantic number, and home run.” And what happened? Life happens.

Marc Benioff [Salesforce] calls me. He said, “Adam, I don't need to know a lot to know what's happening. I can read the press. You must pull back and fire your CFO and general counsel. They're not advising you right right now.” There was another super powerful person, Ruth Porat [Google], superstar. Sends me someone from a different bank to advise me. But I missed the signs. There was so much noise. And I'm not talking to Masa. And the noise is all around me.

On getting Shanghaied by his lenders: I have debt of over $400M that I borrowed against equity from that same bank. And [my FO head] says to me, “I don't like it. You have a clause that says that if you step down, then you're in breach of your contract. And then they can call back the money.” I said, no, he wouldn't. He's the one who told me. He says, “I don't like it.” So we go and we bring it up. I get comfortable, even though my team is not as comfortable, because I'm speaking to the people running the place. And I trust. And I step down on the board call. Nine minutes later, I receive an email from the same bank. That I'm in breach of contract and that they're calling all my shares. And I have 15 days to pay back $435M which, of course, I didn't have, and there's no chance I could have done. A bank cannot create a document in nine minutes, in nine minutes or in a day. It has to go through a lot of legal process. So it was perfectly executed. I walked right into it.

On Marc Andreessen: Marc calls me a few weeks after I stepped down, knowing that because he heard so much noise from the media, that he knew what the story wasn't. For [a16z], getting such media coverage and hearing so many stories means pick up the phone and call – there's something very interesting, there's an opportunity here…

He goes, “What do you think?” And I'm speaking a little bit like the story that's being told about me. And he goes, “Oh, you're still at that stage.” I said, “what stage is that, Marc?” He said, “The one where you believe what other people are saying about and you forgot what actually happened.” 👨‍🦲

The dealmaker Joey Tabak once told me an ol’ chestnut about a Polish lottery ticket: “You win $1M and they pay it out to you a dollar a year for the rest of your life. All you end up with is $60.” The takeaway: You pick the price, let me pick the terms.

As one of the world’s foremost AUM Gobblers ™, there’s no way Pimco can sit on the sidelines while its rivals deploy tens of billions of dollars to ride the AI wave, via increasingly exotic equity/credit vehicles. Pimco has to play, but it’s looking to at least dictate the rules of engagement: On Related Digital’s Oracle-anchored data-center Michigan project for e.g., it insisted the financing be structured as long-term bonds (tastier yields) that matched the duration of Oracle’s lease, per Bloomberg. BofA, which was leading the financing process, tried to find alt lenders/structures, but eventually came back to Pimco.

“It’s critical we get this right,” Pimco prez Christian Stracke told Bloomberg. “We’re only really taking a leading role in financing where we can structure the deals and drive the terms.” The shop’s other biggies in the space incl. co-leading the $29B financing for Meta’s Louisiana megaproject; on that one, Pimco had Meta agree to make good on any investor losses stemming from an early termination, nonrenewal or valuation dip below a certain threshold.

Side note: If a player deep in the mix on financing these things is open to a Q/A, reach out – would love to speak

If you’re somehow not yet hooked to The Promote Pod (SMH fr), now is a good time to rectify that: On Wednesday, we’ll be dropping Pt. I of our special episode on the Reichmanns, an extraordinary family that probably contributed more to the financialization of CRE than anyone else. It’s a tale of survival, grit, chutzpah, genius (on many fronts), generosity, unchecked ambition, heart-stopping leverage, and eventually, ruin. You won’t want to miss it. Set up your feeds (Apple, Spotify, or YouTube) now to catch it fresh. Listen to our prev. special ep. on JMB to get a taste of how we do.

Multi chatter - S2’s underwater joints hitting the market: “Pipeline call this AM sounded like S2 D-Day,” said one insider at an institutional multi shop, adding that much of the product was coming via S2’s lenders, incl. Benefit Street Partners. Doesn’t come as a shock, given recent events.