Diagnosis is not a defence. A misalignment can sit in the role, in the system, and also in the person. Lower down, the culprit is sought too quickly. At the top, nobody looks at all, because the answer would point to whoever is asking.
In November 2023 WeWork filed for bankruptcy. A company that had been valued at 47 billion dollars four years earlier ceased to exist in the form anyone had known. Thousands of people lost their jobs.1
The founder and chief executive, Adam Neumann, was not there to see it. He had left four years earlier with a package estimated at up to 1.7 billion dollars.1
One step back. In September 2019 he stepped down. Within a few weeks the stock market listing collapsed, and the banks that were to underwrite it cut the company’s estimated value to a fraction.1
One step back. In August 2019 the company published its prospectus, the document every company must file before listing on the stock market and in which nothing can be concealed.
From it, investors learned that the founder had personally registered the trademark for the word We and then sold it to his own company for 5.9 million dollars.1 After public criticism he reversed the transaction.1 The same document stated that he leased the company buildings he partly owned himself.2 That he held shares with twenty times the voting rights. And that his wife was one of three people who would choose his successor if he could no longer run the company.1
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