Billion Dollar Loser
You can be forgiven when reading Billion Dollar Loser for wondering whether you’re reading a book about a company or a cult. By the end I concluded maybe it was both, at least as far as Adam Neumann was concerned. It tells the story of the rise and fall of We Work but more directly Neumann himself. One thing you can’t fault him of is self-belief but several times whilst reading this I found myself laughing and saying aloud (keep in mind I listened to most of this whilst out running!) ‘This guy was absolutely nuts?!’
There are certainly remarkable elements of the rise of We Work and I tend to think the wheels would probably come off sooner if not for Adam connecting with Masayoshi Son, the CEO of Softbank. I’ll leave a separate review for Gambling Man which is a biography of Son, however both he and Neumann seem to share similar traits in the strength and depth of their self-belief and vast ambitions.
The book is definitely entertaining and I assume We Crashed which is a miniseries on the topic is probably quite entertaining too although I haven’t watched it yet. This is a cautionary tale of someone daring to fly too close to the sun and despite numerous ignored warnings burning and crashing to the ground.
I’ve worked in WeWork offices before and remember still how quickly they came to grow in popularity not least because of the offer of beer on tap at the end of a working day. I certainly at the time though and until reading this had no idea about the background of the company, founder and sheer speed and scale of their growth seamlessly at the cost of everything else. Worth a read albeit more for entertainment value or things to avoid in entrepreneurialism than to pursue.
Who’s it for?
Anyone interested in understanding how We Work failed and quickly fell out of favour after rising in popularity at such pace will enjoy this. I found myself thinking back to Bad Blood, the story of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes when reading this so for anyone who enjoyed that you’re likely to enjoy this too. I think this also makes for enjoyable, low effort holiday reading if business or partially biographical books capture your attention.