Billionaire's WARNING: His $47 Billion Empire Collapsed! | Adam Neumann
Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork, joins Steven Bartlett to explain how his $47 billion company collapsed and what he learned about ego, growth, and rebuilding after failure.
The gist
-
Neumann says accepting a $4.2 billion investment from Masa Son caused his ego to override the mission that had built WeWork, leading to cascading mistakes.
-
When a company grows faster than its founder does as a person, Neumann says poor decisions follow, so personal development must keep pace with business growth.
-
Neumann practices a weekly Technology Shabbat to disconnect from work and invest time in relationships and family, which he sees as part of total commitment as a founder.
-
Neumann advises choosing investors based on their track record with founders, not just the size of the check they offer.
"I've been enjoying meditating lately in the past year and I've been getting better and better at it. Meditating is something that takes time. Meditating helps drown the noise. And then the thoughts that I do get while I meditate tend to be very healthy thoughts that are headed..."
▶ Play at 1:16:0219 creators recommend it, including Mark Hyman, MD, Andrew Huberman, and Ezra Klein.
See all on the Meditation page"Have you ever fasted? Does your brain get very clear? Have you noticed when fasting, after 12 hours, 18 hours, 24 — depending — how clear your head becomes? Your body doesn't want it, but you've tested it and you know that you get clarity from it."
▶ Play at 1:32:493 creators recommend it, including David Sinclair and Andrew Huberman.
See all on the Fasting page"For me that practice started being Kabbalah. But for all of us there can be different practices. The thing I learned very quickly in the practice is the difference between meant to be and free choice."
▶ Play at 7:55"The best practice I can suggest is Technology Shabbat. Forget religion. This is nothing to do with religion. If you take 24 hours off of your phone, completely off. Put it aside. From my experience, when those 24 hours are over, you're going to feel amazing at hour 22, 23, and..."
▶ Play at 1:30:08"About 10 years ago, I started keeping Shabbat, which for those who don't know, it means that on Friday, we disconnect from technology for 25 hours and I just spend my time with my family, my friends, and taking part of something greater than myself. That disconnection actually..."
▶ Play at 1:29:51What they recommend · 6 picks
"About 10 years ago, I started keeping Shabbat, which for those who don't know, it means that on Friday, we disconnect from technology for 25 hours and I just spend my time with ..."
"The best practice I can suggest is Technology Shabbat. Forget religion. This is nothing to do with religion. If you take 24 hours off of your phone, completely off. Put it aside..."
"I've been enjoying meditating lately in the past year and I've been getting better and better at it. Meditating is something that takes time. Meditating helps drown the noise. A..."
Steven, Joe, Tim and Peter agree on 21 things
See what they all use, in their own words. Paid ads are left out.
See what they all swear by Or pick your own peopleAlso mentioned
Ads in this episode
Pipedrive, Wispr Flow. They're paid, so we keep them out of the picks above.
See what Steven recommends without being paid →Related episodes
Episodes covering similar topics