Adam Neumann

21:49Adam Neumann:She was born there. Like, it was this idiot. She was going out to clubs when she was 14. And that was that. And a week later, she just out of nowhere calls and says, hey, if you want to hang out, me and my friend are hanging out, you can come and say hello. And I do that. And I go, at the time, I have no money. I ride my bicycle. I go to that first meeting. I walk into her apartment. She's with a friend. We talk for a few minutes, and then she tells the friend she can go. And it was just an instant connection. And you already knew of her for years, but you'd never met her. Never knew how she looked.

22:27Adam Neumann:Never saw a picture. Yeah, I never spoke to her before. Never spoke just that one time. Knew of her. But again, the thing that got me that first time we met, and I think there's a lot to learn from this. It was like she put a mirror in front of my face and said the truth, not caring. I think one of her superpowers is how authentic she is. She just looked at me and within a few minutes, she was like, wow, you talk big and you don't have anything. And I was like, well, what do you mean? And she goes, the way you're talking, it's like you're so successful and I can literally tell that you're broke.

23:00Adam Neumann:So it's a little ridiculous. It's like, how would you know my bank account? And she goes, you just came to meet me for the first time. you couldn't even shower than taking a taxi. You drove your bicycle, you probably couldn't afford a taxi. And it was true. It was so true. And it was just instantaneous. And you hit it off right away. We hit it off immediately. It was right after I broke up from a girlfriend. And after the second day, I came back and I said to her, look, you're amazing. But I just broke up from a girlfriend. I had this plan to sort of be men around town for a second. And so I'm just letting you know that I'm not.

23:37Adam Neumann:And this is, again, this is her strength. She goes, really? I said, really? She goes, no problem. Come back when you're ready, but I don't want to hang out until then. I was like, okay. Wow. And I go for two, three days and everybody was like, that was weird. Why wouldn't you want to hang out with me? And five days later I call her and I was like, Hey, what are you doing on Sunday? She goes, I'm going to my father's day, something, something, not intending for me to say anything. Cause it's father's day again, a very American thing. And we talked a little bit more. She's just being polite. She said, do you want to come?

24:06Adam Neumann:Sure, I'm not going to say yes. I said, of course. She tells me many years later that she never thought I would want to come to her Father's Day activity. And I just, we hang out and we go to her Father's Day. I meet her entire family. I sort of move in the next day and I never leave.

24:22Rick Rubin:So tell me about her invitation for you to find your spirituality. So we're hanging out.

24:29Adam Neumann:I never leave. We're a month into it. and she comes home one day. I'm working at my baby clothing company at the time doing two million in sales and three million in expenses. So we're just losing money, rolling it, making ends meet, making things come together. She comes to me and she goes, I don't think it's going to work out between us. This is now a month in and I'm, I am head over heels, as I think we say here. And I said, what do you mean it's not going to work out between us? She goes, I think the man that I'm going to be with is going to have a spiritual practice. It's very important for me in my life.

25:04Adam Neumann:And you really don't have one. And I don't think you're interested in one. And therefore, I don't think it's going to work out, but it's okay. You're going to do great and very good looking. A lot of girls are going to be interested. Don't worry about it. You're going to do fine. I'm like, wait, wait, wait. How would someone go around having a spiritual practice? She goes, well, some people do yoga. Some people meditate. Some people pray. there are many different ways for many different people. I said, well, what do you think a good one for me would be? He said, well, you are Jewish. There's this thing called Kabbalah.

25:39Adam Neumann:Why don't you explore that? It's the mysticism of Judaism. You'll like it because she knows it's very anti-religious. Anything religious, being Israeli, a lot of people don't know this, you don't like religious. If it's forced on you and it's religious, you walk the other way. You want to choose. I didn't know that at all. People don't know that. Yeah. That's a lot of the split. There's the stories from the outside that we hear, and there's what actually happens. There's a big divide in Israel between religious and non-religious. Tell me about that. It's a big topic, but on a very high level, growing up the way I grew up, when we're 18, we serve in the army.

26:12Adam Neumann:We go and get whatever jobs we get. We pay our taxes. We do what we think is our civil responsibility. I remember serving from age 18 to age 21 in my case, still almost 23. I almost did five years because I was a Navy officer. Serving at such a young age, I think is such an important thing. Because it's exactly the age where you really just want to take care of yourself and have fun and party and do whatever it is that 18-year-olds really want to do. And by being forced to serve, it already gives you a different take about life. You have responsibilities? Extremely. Depends what your position in the Army is.

26:47Adam Neumann:I was specifically a Navy officer. I did at age 21. But in the U.S., they do at age 28. It takes your age because they have less money and they need to get things. You have tremendous responsibilities. But even if you're a soldier working, you have huge responsibilities. And there's many, many lessons I learned there. But one of my biggest lessons was before you become a great leader, you must know how to follow orders. If you don't know how to be a soldier, if you don't know how to do the basic...

27:13Rick Rubin:You can't be a general if you haven't been a good soldier. You can't. You can be an okay general or okay leader. Because you need to understand what it's like to get information given to you.

27:24Adam Neumann:One, but I also think because you need to learn that you're not in control. And when you always think you're in control, you never let go. And when you don't let go, when is the universe going to get a chance to come in? I actually think, you know, I have an acupuncturist who tells this great story. He goes to Mexico. There's this hot water river and there's a pool that fills up every day in the morning and then everybody bathes in it. And then they empty it at night. He wakes up early for his meditation and he sees the guy cleaning the pool with a mop, moving around like Tai Chi. He literally, it looks like it's movements from a master in martial arts.

28:02Adam Neumann:And he brings an interpreter and he goes to that guy and says, excuse me, it looks to me like doing martial arts, but you're cleaning the pool. What are you doing? He said, I'm doing what my father taught me. And he said, what did your father used to do? He said, he used to clean this pool. And who taught your father? He said, his father, my grandfather. And he used to clean this pool. This pool is healing for people. We take every move that we make in this pool as an art. And we've practiced it for our entire lives. You could take something as simple as cleaning a pool and view it as your spiritual practice and something that's in the service of others, or view it as a horrible chore and be very busy complaining.

28:43Adam Neumann:Beautiful story. That's what you learn in the army. If you want to or not, and someone with my characteristic, it's a must. because if you look at me before and after, I was still not in a great place after. But the me before and the me after are two different things. How would you describe you before and you after? You know, me before is I grew up in this kibbutz. We did whatever we wanted. We were part of this community. We didn't wear shoes. We just enjoyed every second of life and we were just looking for more ways to have fun. It's not that we didn't have responsibilities. We did, but it was all about the community of children and coming together.

29:20Adam Neumann:it was like a storybook of what kids can do to have fun. And that was one piece of it. And the other piece of it was the challenges at home and all the different things. And sort of in between, school was not a big deal. I would, most classrooms, most days, teachers would literally walk into the classroom. Adam, leave. Okay, now we can start the class. And I would start wondering. The education there was not a perfect fit for me. Me after, I knew that when I am part of a team, if I can get the team to follow or to partner with me, there is not many things I couldn't achieve. With that energy, I arrived into the U.S.

29:56Adam Neumann:This is after September 11th, so there was just a horrible terrorist attack. New York, if you remember, the time is changing. There's the New York before and the New York after. I actually think New York had a golden era afterwards for 10 years, at least from what I've understood and my experience. People from all over the world are coming to New York and it's always at the back of my mind, this thought that I could basically do anything I put my mind to. as long as I can get a team to believe in it and join. The problem at that point is I have all that knowledge, but I have no spirituality. I have no purpose.

30:30Adam Neumann:So when you take a person that's capable of doing that, but you don't give them a purpose, I think that's where trouble comes. Now, Rebecca, who is literally just starting with me, is seeing the potential and articulates the potential, but says without a purpose, you're not the man for me. And I really wanted to be the man for her. So she takes me to this first Kabbalah class. and without getting into the... Had she already been doing Kabbalah or no? She was doing Kabbalah once a week, but not as a practice thing, not with any rigiliosity. I would really separate. Sometimes people say, Adam, are you religious or are you spiritual?

31:02Adam Neumann:And I say, spiritual. And they say, how do you define? I say, so I keep Shabbat. And... When did that start? 10 years ago, which is four years into it. But I'll go back to that first Kabbalah class. I go to that first Kabbalah class to prove to this woman I just met that I can do anything. And Norm's going to say, she's not going to say, I'm not the man for her. Maybe she's not the woman for me. You don't break up with me. I break up with you. Do you know who I am? My sister is a model. I was an idiot. I was an actual idiot. And I go to this class and this woman is teaching. And to teach the lesson was a very basic one.

31:43Adam Neumann:When a challenge happens in your life, Instead of reacting, take a deep breath, stop, and then you say, pause, what a wonder. Pause, what a wonder. Then interact again. So no knee-jerk reaction. No knee-jerk reaction. Take a breath. Let the universe come in, or new language. Hone that antenna and let it receive for a second. There's a certain speed that this travels in. And that was it. That was the class. Class ends. I'm like, whatever. But I still want to prove that. So I go and talk to the, I'm going to ask this teacher something and show her. And I asked the teacher something. And this one was a very wise teacher.

32:26Adam Neumann:She takes her book. She gives it to me. She says, Adam, I write notes on the side of my books. Take a look. Your answer is there. Bring it to me next week. I think, oh, I'm going to show Rebecca. I took her teacher's book. Meanwhile, I go outside. I look at the book. The class ends. I'm like, oh my God, this teacher tricked me. No, I got to come back next week and give that this book. I'm not going to not return the book. And the next day, I go back into my baby clothing business. I was genuinely not succeeding. And I had this saleswoman who was very powerful, but we argued every day. And she gets at it again.

32:58Adam Neumann:And this is something that I think people don't know about me. Even when I look like I'm not listening, I always hear. And when I think what I learned could be beneficial, I'll try it at least once. No matter what, I'll try it once. so I pause I take a deep breath and a different reaction comes to my head and I try it and this saleswoman who's so quick to anger suddenly she's pausing I want this beautiful dialogue and we come up with a new idea of how to do something wow first time you know the book The Alchemist he talks about beginner's luck I think when we start practicing spirituality first time it's beautiful I encourage everybody to give it a shot and see if it works.

33:45Adam Neumann:And if it works, then we can go to the next level. And it works. And I love things that work. And I come there the next day, next week, and now I'm hungry. Now I'm spiritually hungry. Now I want more. Because it already changed your life. It already worked. I wouldn't say yet. I don't recognize at this point that it already changed. Some of the biggest moments of our life that change our life, most of us don't know that that's what's happening. And this is why no matter what moment you're going through right now, even if you think you're going right this second through your worst moment, you might not know that the darkest moment of the night is a second before dawn.

34:23Adam Neumann:Yes. And if you just pause and have a little more patience and keep pursuing, don't quit, the light will be revealed. Let's see what the next scene in the movie is. The movie is great. I just don't know how. Yeah. It's a divine movie, by the way. It was 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? Are we going to be an up and down? Are we going to learn from our lessons? Or are we actually going to curl below our blanket and, oh, no, this happened, and I'm not going to go back out? That's how Rebecca introduced me to it.

35:06Adam Neumann:And I just drank it like it was from the fire hose. I was just intrigued. And the moment that started, things started, we call it being in flow state. Once I hit that flow state, things started moving fast. That led to Green Desk, led to WeWork, led to our first child, led to everything, brought us all the way here today. And it only started with one class and one teacher and one sentence. And then you started going every week? Then I started going every week. Well, I, again, this is me. when I see something that works, I actually do more than once a week. It started once a week. It became two times a week.

35:43Adam Neumann:Then it became three times a week. And then at the same time that this is happening, my life is changing so fast. I'm at this stage. I meet Rebecca at 28. I'm now 31, 32. I'm having my first daughter. That's a miracle. We're starting to have that experience. And then we're launching WeWork. So we said that we had that business green desk and this landlord kept growing and growing. And after a few months, I saw that this business could be a national business. And I go to him, Mr. Gottman, I said, Mr. Gottman, if you invest in us, the number is$20 million. We will give you 50 % of the business and we will build this thing national.

36:22Adam Neumann:And Mr. Gottman said, I'm sorry, it's not for me. I like Brooklyn, but if that's what you guys want, and there's actually a deeper story there, but maybe for another time. If that's what you guys want, then I encourage you to go for it. I will buy you guys out and you guys run with it. And we agree on a number, but he won't pay the entire number up front. He's only willing, the number is 3 million. We own 50 % with another partner, so a million and a half. Miguel and I a million. He's only willing to give us 300 ,000 of our million. The rest is installments for the next four years to ensure that we don't enter Brooklyn with our new business.

36:59Adam Neumann:We don't compete. He just wants Brooklyn. By the way, back then, No, Brooklyn, no big deal. Well, Brooklyn became quite a big deal. He wanted Brooklyn. Did he grow the company in Brooklyn as well? First of all, it still exists and is successful. So yes, he grew it, but not with the concept of community and the soul behind it. But it still exists today and it's still successful today. And then co-working is a successful business today. And this was the beginning. This was the seed. And what's interesting is when we come to start WeWork, so then Miguel and I want to start WeWork. We did take six months to come up with the name.

37:35Adam Neumann:So we knew we had an amazing business. I knew this business was a home run. I felt it. I knew it was right. And you already

37:40Rick Rubin:experienced a lesser version of it. An early version.

37:44Adam Neumann:This one had a higher intention than the first business. 100 % true. This one had time to put thought. And this one had Miguel and I sitting with a whiteboard for six months planning it. We used to draw a picture of what we would do nine years into it, it was very similar to that initial picture that we drew. I will send it to you so you see it. It's a beautiful picture, but the name's not there. And I'm not willing to start the business because by this stage in my spiritual practice, I know the power of words and I need a name that describes this vision and I can't come up with it. And one thing we didn't say about my friend, Andrew Finkelstein, who introduces me to Rebecca, when we fall in love and I call and tell him we're going to marry each other, he stops talking to us for three months.

38:29Adam Neumann:He had a relationship, nothing to do between him and Rebecca. He was so upset because he knew the Adam he knew was the Adam that used to party a lot and go over and be, I used to hang out a lot. And Rebecca was his close friend that he was so worried about. And he thought she was some innocent lamb and I was the wolf. And he didn't want the wolf to get close to his close friend. So he called Rebecca and said all the, whatever worst things he could say about me. And there's a lesson there also because if you call someone and tell them why you shouldn't be with someone then they get really interested but we loved it it was true i told him it was true he just didn't believe it was true and i'm a very loyal person when i commit i'm not at 99 committed i am 100 to a fault so andrew ends up not talking to us for three months but then again becoming very close

39:16Rick Rubin:and we never forgot that he introduced us but when and instead of you somehow hurting her

39:22Adam Neumann:She made you better. That's what happened. And I think for her, at the point she meets me, she was celibate for six years. She at age 23, she was 29, decided she's not going to go on this dating scene and this thing that everybody else is doing. She told the universe. So she's a yogi. She was meditating. She was Jiva Monkty. She was certified. And she would meditate. And she would tell the universe, send me my soulmate or no one at all. She was zero interested. So at this point, she's six years in. So then she meets me and she knew it. I knew it. And that's that. And then when it's time to launch the business and I don't know the name, I call my old friend Andrew Finkelstein.

40:00Adam Neumann:But this point is in Hollywood. His career is starting to take off. And he has and has always been an unbelievable agent. But he's also an amazing copywriter and speaker. And, you know, Marty Supreme that just came out. He put together. He represents the director. He did a lot. He didn't write and direct it. He's the agent, but he helped it become a reality. I was there for the whole process. And I called him. I said, I need your help to come up with a name. And I go to his house and we hang out the way we used to hang out. And we are really, this is now 2 a.m. And we're about to, we're about to faint.

40:41Adam Neumann:And he looks at me and he literally goes, I wish we had a video of this. He looks like this. His eyes are like almost rolled back. He goes, Steve Jobs had it wrong. It's not iBook, iPhone, me, me, me. It's we. We work. We give. We fly. We teach.

41:03Rick Rubin:We. And faints. It's interesting also that you say it's at two in the morning. You're both exhausted. We're exhausted. The point is, is that you weren't like in a strong place. The opposite. It was almost as if you were ready to give up. You were at the end. You let go.

41:25Adam Neumann:This is so accurate, Rick. We were so at the end. We were done, and it wasn't going to happen. And he says it, and I look up at the universe. By this point, I'm already practicing more. I said, please, let me remember it in the morning. I wake up, and I call Miguel. trademark, WeWork, let's go, boom. Amazing. But it reminds me, you just said something I think very important. It reminds me of a story. Joseph, in the Bible, he's born, he has all these dreams. He dreams his father and his mother and his brothers will bow to him and his brothers hate him for it. And they put him in the cave, they want to kill him.

42:06Adam Neumann:Then they decide to sell him. And no matter what happens, he looks up to the heavens and he says, it's God's will. The brothers sold me. Maybe it's my fault I didn't speak. They sell him. If you don't remember the story, they sell him. He moves from... Into slavery. He becomes slave to one of Pharaoh's right-hand people. He then rises, always, whatever, what? He always is blessed. He says, God's will. And he rises there as a slave. He starts running the house. Then the woman of the house, her name was Eshet Potiphora. She wants to sleep with him because he was defined as beautiful from the in and from the out.

42:37Adam Neumann:He's very handsome and very smart. And she chases him. He doesn't want it. He runs away. The clothes gets ripped. Then she feels ashamed. She says he tries to rape her. He gets thrown into prison. And no matter what, God's will, God's will. Then in prison, he climbs to the top. He's helping run the prisoners. God's will. Until after 10 years, those two people come, the two ministers that have dreams and interprets their dreams. One, he says, Pharaoh will save you. And the other one, he says, you will die in three days. And the one, he says, Pharaoh will save you. He says to him on the way out, please don't forget me.

43:10Adam Neumann:He suddenly gives up this belief that he had until then, that it's God's will, God's will, God's. He forgets for a second. It says that he gets punished to stay two more years. Now he's 12 years in prison and he gets to this night where he is done. He's ready to give up. He says, God, maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe I need to be in prison. I will never leave. He gives up and lets go and goes to his lowest point. And in his lowest point, and this I think is very important for us, when we're there, and we all have a moment where in that lowest point, we get to choose. Do you choose belief or don't you?

43:46Adam Neumann:And if you choose belief and are able to pick yourself up from that lowest point, boom, that's when it happens. And the next second, Pharaoh has his dreams, can't interpret them. The guy remembers he met this guy, Joseph, this Hebrew slave. He says, I met a slave in prison that interpreted my dream, brings him to Pharaoh, interprets Pharaoh's dream and goes from a slave to basically the CEO of Egypt, the number two to the king in one day, all the way from here to that. And to finish that story, when his brothers, there's a famine, the seven bad years, they come and he saves his family. And when his brothers see him and they cry and they're so sorry for what we did to you, he said to them, it was never you.

44:26Adam Neumann:I was here so we all could be saved. It's God's will. So I think what you're saying is not only true that in that moment that we let go. I also think it's the moment when we're at our lowest moment and we let go where we can choose to believe.

44:43Rick Rubin:Yeah. I think there's also something in that lowest moment where you're not doing the work. There's space. Like you said earlier, in your life you were talking a lot and you weren't listening. when you're working a lot of times you're talking talking talking talking and there's not the space but when you run out of steam talking eventually you're done and then there's space and it's quiet

45:13Adam Neumann:and then it can come through and sometimes when we talk i'll talk about myself when i used to do it I know I still do it, but I try to do it less. When I used to do it, I thought I was in control. When we think we're in control, that's when we really start losing the game. We're in control of our reaction to what happens, not of actually what happens. No. And we never know what's going to happen next, really. We really don't. No. The only thing we know is that it's part of that movie that you described before with the greatest director, writer, producer on the planet.

45:51Rick Rubin:Yes. And I'm always anxious to see what's the next scene, what's the next chapter.

46:00Adam Neumann:You know, the nice thing about what you said is if you're patient, you said anxious, but I bet you're also patient. Because if you're patient enough, the next chapter could be phenomenal.

46:11Rick Rubin:And I think there's no way to get to greatness without patience.

46:16Adam Neumann:I think there is no way to get to lasting greatness without patience. You could taste it. You could taste it. We all know so many stories. I've been part of one of those stories. You could taste it, but it's not going to last. I think if you want lasting blessings or lasting greatness, you need patience. You need to be aware that you're not in control. I need to accept the fact that sometimes even though you don't know and it's really, really scary, life is not about if you fell down. Life is only about how you get up.

46:54Rick Rubin:In a world of artificial highs and harsh stimulants, there is something different, something clean, something precise. Athletic nicotine, not the primitive products found behind convenience store counters, not the aggressive buzz that leaves you jittery, but a careful calibration of clean energy and focused clarity. Athletic nicotine The lowest dose tobacco-free nicotine available Made entirely in the USA No artificial sweetener Just pure, purposeful elevation Athletic nicotine is a performance nootropic Athletic nicotine is a tool for shifting mindsets Athletic nicotine is a partner in pursuit of excellence Slow release Low dose Gradual lift Sustained energy Soft landing Inspired results Athletic nicotine More focus Less static Athletic nicotine More clarity Less noise Athletic nicotine More accuracy Less anxiety Athletic nicotine From top athletes pushing their limits To artists pursuing their vision Athletic nicotine offers the lift you've been looking for Learn more at athleticnicotine.com slash tetra and experience next level performance with Athletic Nicotine.

48:22Rick Rubin:Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. So you have the name and what happens next? It's miraculous. It's on fire.

48:36Adam Neumann:What's the first thing you do? I go and find a building on Lafayette and Grant that wasn't that cool yet from a landlord that didn't like to give any money and was very, was like one of those very tight landlords. and I convinced him to pay us enough to build it. It had five floors. The idea was we'll rent the top floor and we'll do so well. Then we'll rent the floor below, the floor below, the floor below. And the reason you start in flow five, when you do construction afterwards, you're always doing below people and not above their head. Make less noise was the thought. And I convinced him to do the deal, but he has one thing.

49:14Adam Neumann:We must put$300 ,000 in a letter of credit. Otherwise, we can't do it. the exact same$300 ,000 that we got from the sale that the partner was willing to give us before the installments. Dollar for dollar, same amount. That same amount moves, and I think that's how energy moves when you're in flow. That energy moves from that idea that was, like you said, the early, to a slightly more intention-oriented idea. Now it's there. And we were under construction. We do the first flow. We get a very small budget from him. Which is amazing, because never for the next nine years in the history of WeWork can we build for that price that we built the first time.

49:53Adam Neumann:Why? Because we were constrained. Because constraints is the mother of all innovations. It's what takes us to the next level. And we design it, we build it. I still remember the night before Miguel was about to have his first son. He gets overwhelmed the night before. And we had a few employees. We all go and finish it. and the place just, it fills up before, within a month. 99 % full, next month, next floor, next floor, next floor, next floor. And that's the case for, and the first building is done and we go to do building two. We have no money. We raise our first round and that's where it starts.

50:36Rick Rubin:Where's building two?

50:37Adam Neumann:Building two is on 35th and 5th, right in front of the Empire State Building, literally right in front, which at the time was not considered a good location. But for me being an outsider in New York, I was like, what are you talking about? I can see the Empire State Building from the roof. It's beautiful. Sometimes I've learned this a lot in life. The ones who know everything because they've been living in that market forever actually might be limited. And for me coming from the outside, a fresh set of eyes on any situation or I like to think of it more as a childlike look. Rebecca thinks she has seven children, not six.

51:14Adam Neumann:me being the toughest one. Number seven, I look at life as a child for good or for bad, which allows me to see situations from the beginning. So that's building number two. And we raise our money from the first person and we just start running. My third building is in meatpacking. The same time also, as I said, New York is happening, meatpacking is starting to happen. There was a club called Lotus. We used to go there every Tuesday night. Danny A was at the door and we just loved the meatpacking. It was so good. I don't know if you remember meatpacking back then. So cool. The original restaurant before rent became expensive.

51:49Adam Neumann:It was such a great place to be. And I just wanted the building and the meatpacking. Find the landlord that is impossible. We become friends. I understand him. He understands me.

51:58Rick Rubin:Also seems like as you have success, it's easier because you have examples.

52:03Adam Neumann:We're not there yet because this is same year, right? This is early success. So it is success. And remember real estate people are very good at saying no. They know everything. Their business is cyclical, so they've been there, done that. But at the same time, if you remember, you're now 2010. Office is only starting to be at the rise. So there's all empty space, which gives us an opportunity. So we do meatpacking, which is amazing. And I want to do San Francisco. And the reason I want to do San Francisco, I want it to be a national brand. And my head was like, okay, we'll be national by being on two coasts.

52:36Adam Neumann:So three is the answer. And number four is San Francisco. How was the reaction in San Francisco? The concept of people wanting to be part of something greater than themselves and wanting to be part of a community. And when you start business and you have one or two employees are by yourself, to go to the coffee machine and talk to someone, to need an accountant today, we'll talk about it later with AI, the world's different, but to need all this help and meet five different people around the coffee machine that you can just talk to, to share the struggles and the successes with people in a like-minded place was relevant all over the planet.

53:16Adam Neumann:It made tremendous amount of sense back then. The only time I would say it makes more sense is today. Because the more people are getting connected digitally, the less they are connected physically and the more they crave it. But back then, it was unbelievable in San Francisco is the answer.

53:32Rick Rubin:And then did you do more in San Francisco or did you spread out from there?

53:35Adam Neumann:This is where I'm a little, this is where Adam back then is very busy doing push everything out by the time i did san francisco i might have done one or two more buildings i was ready to go global i wanted london and people were like adam you can't go to london said why it's the same language similar accounting system similar law what's the big deal same website what's the big deal like adam it's london it's a different time zone so from after doing a few buildings i go to london and what's interesting about london london is the inventor of the original co-working, right? Regis, the original company that did this from the 80s, I believe, is there.

54:12Adam Neumann:So everybody was like, no, it's not going to work as well in London because it exists there. In my opinion, and I feel it's stronger even today, when you go to a place where people know of a new concept, but you bring something innovative, you do even better than when you have to convince everybody about a new concept. So we then go to London and it goes really Well, it basically for the following five years goes unbelievably well wherever you go. And just to give it weight, from year one doing one building in the first year, and year two adding, I believe, three, you go to a year nine doing two buildings a day.

54:48Adam Neumann:Two buildings a day? A day. Nine years. two buildings a day in 130 cities, 50 countries, five continents, 72 languages. And when I count today, I only count business days. So that's five days a week, not including holidays. So you do over 400, maybe five. Did a crazy amount in that last year. It's unbelievable. It was an amazing journey. And you know something about the journey that sometimes doesn't get spoken enough? to do what I just said. You need an unbelievable team that believes. For sure. Because this is not technology that's building. Not only can you not be everywhere, this is physical labor.

55:28Adam Neumann:This is architecture in all these languages. This is construction. This is management. It's operations and hospitality and accounting. And the thing about WeWork, that team was phenomenal.

55:39Rick Rubin:Yeah.

55:40Adam Neumann:Because they believed. And if you ask them, I just met one of them a few weeks ago. He works in an awesome news start They're not even here. They're publicly traded. He works in Archer, which is the vertical takeoff drones. They're doing really well. And he's top five. And he used to be one of our heads of construction. And he sees me. He's very nice. And he says, Adam, I just want you to know the reason I'm doing so well is because of everything you taught me at WeWork. And I said, I didn't teach you how to work in a vertical takeoff drone company. Like, what does construction have to do with that?

56:08Adam Neumann:He said, no. You taught me that if I put my mind into it and I get a team to work with me and I put purpose and mission first, I can do anything I want. And that has worked phenomenally for me. So that's the first five years. Do you think the success had to do with the concept or with your personal will? In hindsight, I think the success was accumulation of every single thing that I did leading to that. It's the childhood. It's the challenges. It's the parents that were always giving as doctors. It's the kibbutz. It's the learning how to serve at the age of 18. It's living with Adee, my sister in New York City, and experiencing this unbelievable city that inspired me.

57:02Adam Neumann:It's my friend Andrew Finkelstein who teaches me about America and about culture and about movies and about all these beautiful things that inspire me and get me excited. and it's this belief in something that I play a part in something bigger than me, but I can make a difference. Maybe sometimes it feels big and sometimes it feels small, but there's a mission for me on this planet. There's a message. For me, it's more community and that message needs to be told and needs to be heard. And as long as I stick to it and don't forget it and put that first, nothing can stop me.

57:54Rick Rubin:LMNT Element Electrolytes Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? Do you want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add Element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function. Experience an increase in steady energy with fewer headaches and fewer muscle cramps. Element electrolytes. Drink it in the sauna.

58:31Rick Rubin:Refreshing flavors include grapefruit, citrus, watermelon, and chocolate salt. formulated with the perfect balance of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you hydrated and energized throughout the day. These minerals help conduct the electricity that powers your nervous system so you can perform at your very best. Element electrolytes are sugar-free, keto-friendly, and great tasting. Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra and stay salty with Element Electrolyte. LMNT.

59:20Rick Rubin:Tell me about your relationship with SoftBank and Masa.

59:23Adam Neumann:First, I'll start with the most important thing to say about Masa. Because for me, it's Masa. SoftBank is the company that he created, and SoftBank is great, but it's Masa. When Masa walks the first time into WeWork, he goes like this. It smells like a factory of dreams. Wow. You're not manufacturing business here. Wow. You're making dreams. What a beautiful statement. And I am, I get shivers all over my body. And I was like, Adam, you just met someone who thinks bigger than you.

59:57Rick Rubin:Yeah.

59:58Adam Neumann:I didn't even know where it came from. And then he just kept talking. I didn't even know where it came from. And he was supposed to come for an hour and a half. And he only had 12 minutes. This all, this in the 12 minutes, he says that. And my headquarters, where I sat, when I used to bring investors, had this whole tour through our HQ I would do. It was on the fifth floor. I was never getting there. So I took him into our innovation center and introduced him to two residents because our buildings, I always wanted to work in buildings where customers were their members. So I could always hear from them in the elevator.

1:00:29Adam Neumann:They love telling me what's wrong and I love hearing. Yeah. So I introduced him to two residents, two members, and he says what he says. He looks at me. He goes, this is great. I need to go uptown. Would you like to join me in the car? We could talk some more. I said, of course. we go into the car, have this whole presentation, close the door, it's like, forget your presentation. Let's do a deal. The night before we have a board meeting, this is 2016, towards the end,

1:01:01Adam Neumann:and we decided as a board, the story was we can turn our business profitable whenever we want, because we're growing. That business, you spoke about Green Desk, never stopped being profitable. You would just slow down building and you'd be profitable. Or even better, you stop. You let the machine catch up with you because you've done so much. You actually take account, inventory of where you're at, which there is no way to grow as fast. We were one of the fastest, maybe fastest, physically growing business on the planet. No matter how good at what you do you are, you will never be able to do that perfectly right.

1:01:32Adam Neumann:You stop. You let the deals catch up with you and you reconsider everything you're doing. You look at everybody. Are everybody in the right roles? Do we have enough employees? Do we have too many employees? Is our technology working? What do we need to do? You take a moment. Because up until this point, you're sprinting. I think sprinting would be an understatement. I think if you came, because I know you a little bit, I think you would have told me after our meeting that you need to take 10 minutes and meditate before you go downstairs. Because you would have felt that, because that energy, I think you'd have loved it.

1:02:03Adam Neumann:But that energy was electric. We were flying. It used to say outside of my door, we do the impossible every day, miracles once a week. And we meant it. Yeah. We meant it. And it happened. It happened. We meant it. It was happening. So we have this board meeting. Tell me now, how big is WeWork in 2016? I would need to go back. It's been some time. Approximately. I'm going to guess. I remember it by buildings and revenue. WeWork is at$450 million revenue, going to$900 million. So WeWork is doubling, not just in size every year, but in revenue. which then doubles your expenses and the growth and everything that comes.

1:02:47Adam Neumann:So$450 million growing into a billion in revenue. It's a$16 billion company of its last valuation. It's probably in, for sure, in Europe, in the United States, and in Latin America. Wow. At this point. And we're flying. And we're working. We are working many, many, many hours. Everyone, the employees, myself, everyone's working nonstop. We have the board meeting the night before and we agree. We say, we're going to go out to raise money one more time. One of my abilities is that I am able to raise money because I'm able to bring people with me towards the direction I want to go. And I'm also, for people who know me, I keep my word.

1:03:28Adam Neumann:If I say we're going to double by this number, I do. If I say we're going to hit this goal, I do. So the best people for me to raise money for are second time. People who passed the first time but heard what I said. And then I come to them the next time and say, let me show you what I did since we met. Then they're like, oh, wow, you told us 10 things. We thought you were going to do one. You did nine. And then they would want to join the journey. And so this, we are the board winning, and we decide that I am going to raise$300 million. We're going to take a pause. We're going to clean everything up.

1:03:54Adam Neumann:We're going to turn the company profitable, stop signing leases. We're going to take the company public. And not only are we going to take the company public, it's 2016 going to 2017. We're not going to worry about our last valuation of$16 billion. We're going to take it for 10 because we want to leave money on the table. So again, but at this point, we weren't using valuations, at least on my side and my executive team. We believed that our solution is so correct and it worked everywhere. There was not a place on the planet you opened this thing and it didn't work. Yeah, you had proof. We had proof.

1:04:23Adam Neumann:We had belief. We had everything we needed to know and the plan was solid. You slowed down for a second. And the next morning I met Masa. And we sit in his car. The story I told you happens what happens. He invites me into his car. What's the deal and how much you're looking for? So again, it happened the night before. And I'm already, by this stage, I am studying spirituality. And I believe there's no, it's not cause and effect. I believe in cause and effect, but I believe, wow, we said it yesterday and it's happening today. So I'm going to tell him the number we said, raising 300 million at a$20 billion valuation because the last one was 16.

1:04:58Adam Neumann:He looks at me and goes, but Adam, I'm Massa. I have the vision fund. It's going to be a$100 billion vision fund. it could take a long time to spend$100 billion,$300 million checks. Don't you have a bigger vision, a bigger picture? I said, I do, but you know that, that would be a very big amount for us to raise. He said, well, tell me if you could do anything, how big can this company be? I said, this company can be as big as as much money as you inject into it. You put money on one side, you get growth on that. I haven't missed my numbers once. Remember by this point, 2010 to 11, I grew 3x, 3x, 3x, and then 2x, 2x, 2x, but I don't miss my growth.

1:05:36Adam Neumann:I said, look, we're 450. I'll hit 900 million next year, then a billion eight, then three six. It's going to keep, depends how much money you want to put in the machine. And he says to me, well, what do you think about Southeast Asia? I said, I've never been there. I said, well, do you think the concept will work there? I said, I'm sure it will, but I would need to learn about it. I said, well, we should do a company there. And then he said, what do you think about China? Oh, sorry. When I said we're in all those places, I forgot to mention. We're already in China also by that point. Really? So when Masa comes, we're in China, Latin America, Europe, and the U.S.

1:06:07Adam Neumann:And China already is a freestanding company that we raised locally at a$2 billion valuation. And the reason I raised the local company, if the locals don't believe in it, I don't want to enter a market that that's hard. So that was my litmus test, let this test, and worked out very well. And he says to me, what about South East Asia? I say, yes. He said, well, we can write this size check there. And he says, what about Japan? I said, I really don't know anything about Japan. He said, well, Adam, I know Japan and tells me the whole story about Yahoo Japan and how at some point Yahoo Japan was bigger than all of Yahoo.

1:06:35Adam Neumann:And I said, okay, we could do that together. And then he said, China, you could go much bigger in China. And the 300 million requests becomes 3 billion. Big change. Big change. And it's all written down and it's all in 28 minutes. In 28 minutes. From the moment we started writing till the moment we arrived, 28 minutes. But we're not there. We're only at minute 22. and he's writing all of it down on an iPad. Then he looks at it and he goes, and I said, I can't take this much dilution. Maybe I could take, you know, maybe a billion. I said, no, but we will fund Southeast Asia as a separate company.

1:07:10Adam Neumann:China already was separate. Japan will be separate. So this way, so you don't just have, we work as one valuation. You have all these separate companies with their own valuations. And again, that money in them, because we have a team that can execute, will become successful businesses. He was not wrong. The recipe was in place. He was very right. And then he says, let's make it$4 billion. I said, I don't have it in me. This is me and this is this. I said, I don't have it in me. I don't know where I would put it. Were you scared at all? It sounds scary. You know, I'm in my mid-30s. My lesson in hindsight, after a lot of time of reflection, when you tell the universe you're looking for$300 million, and the next day a guy offers you$4 billion, Instead of signing the dotted line, you take a breath and say, why?

1:07:58Adam Neumann:What does it come with? What am I committing to? Is there something here I don't see? But to be fair, including myself, most 30-something-year-olds sitting in that seat, those numbers, that 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. And I go, what am I going to do with another bill? and said, you'll do secondary for you and for all your investors and for all your employees. And everybody will have an exit. So they feel this. Okay. And I should have been scared.

1:08:37Adam Neumann:I wasn't. I should have been scared. I've never thought about this before. I should have been terrified because I was way more. 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. Right there. On the spot. On the spot. He offered it on the spot. Amazing. I signed one in the art of the deal, which deals sometimes have momentum. They have moments. They're second in time, just like channeling.

1:09:05Rick Rubin:Yeah.

1:09:05Adam Neumann:But the deal can come from both sides. And just, I want to make this clear. Not only do I not blame Masa for anything.

1:09:12Rick Rubin:No.

1:09:12Adam Neumann:I am so grateful. So appreciated. He trusted. He saw the vision. He trusted. He trusted completely. Yeah. How could you be mad at that guy? I woke up because other people many times after, oh, he pushed you to grow so fast. We're going to say what happened. We're going to get there. But I couldn't be. I couldn't be. I wouldn't be. And there's nothing. If he called me today, said, Adam, I need this or that. I am on that plane and with him as fast as engines can take me. Of course. Straight away. I walk out of that car. Again, in hindsight, I couldn't know at that moment. that's when a mission-driven company that was based on belief that came from kibbutz, that came from all the right things with all the right energies, switched to become about growth, money, and valuation.

1:10:02Rick Rubin:And because you had now a commitment to live up to. Before that, you were building at the fastest pace you could with what you had. And now you're put in the situation of multiplying it by a hundred times.

1:10:17Adam Neumann:Yes, but I want to take more accountability than that. Before all that happened, I had a choice. I could walk out of that car, take a deep breath, really pause, maybe go talk to Rebecca, go talk to some of my spiritual teachers, go to people I know who have more experience than me. I signed already. Let's say this. I've thought about this many times. I could have not not signed. That wasn't in the cards. Not that Adam then, not. Maybe Buddha could. I could have not not signed. I could have taken a deep breath and said to myself, this is more money than I've ever touched. This is a tremendous responsibility.

1:10:57Adam Neumann:Yes, he wants me to grow very fast, but that's not what he really wants. What he really wants is the result in five years from now. What would be the best way? And I could have thought for a second about my spiritual studies by this point, about five years. that when things come really easy, we tend to not appreciate them. And we don't appreciate them. We tend to short circuit. But I didn't. Instead of that, and I remember it, I walked. It was like 58th Street, I think, and our HQ was on 18. I walked down New York City. Every step I took, that ego went up. It was under control. It was there, but I had Rebecca and I had my kids.

1:11:33Adam Neumann:I have a beautiful relationship where I get given feedback all the time with the executives. We had a teacher that we worked with. There were a lot of controls around us to keep it. But it went above my threshold, above my spiritual level at the time. And it came up and I walked into that HQ a different version of myself. The purpose and the mission suddenly became not the goal. Those promises that were made on growth and revenue became the goal. But that wasn't the DNA of what we built. I'm not saying that there aren't companies that could be built that way. I, Adam, don't operate that way. I cannot build a company that way.

1:12:11Adam Neumann:And then we really started growing fast. If fast was fast before then, then we started flying.

1:12:16Rick Rubin:I feel like you're being very hard on yourself considering you've been in business for six years. You've been sprinting or flying the whole time, only having success. And here's someone who believes in you even more than you believe in yourself saying you can do this. I don't know anyone in that position who would not move forward with that.

1:12:41Adam Neumann:So I appreciate you saying that. I don't view my words that I just said as hard. I cherish that moment because in hindsight, that is what made me who I am today. Yeah. In general, I think for me, I think it's relevant for other people. if we can start taking those moments that at the moment we can view as a mistake and actually say, it's not a mistake. It's exactly what needed to happen as long as I can learn. If I can learn from it, it's meant to be and it's part of my journey. If I'm going to go and make that decision again, that makes it a mistake. But yes, that's where we were. You wouldn't make that same decision today because now you have more experience.

1:13:28Adam Neumann:I didn't. Similar in the magnitude, but I had a version. I didn't.

1:13:32Rick Rubin:Yeah.

1:13:32Adam Neumann:I took almost six months to make the decision to start the next business. Yeah. Now, is there a world in what Masa believed could have happened?

1:13:46Rick Rubin:A hundred percent.

1:13:47Adam Neumann:Almost did. We were very close. If I played 2019 differently, there's a very high likelihood that it would. but it's very important to say you know this concept of on the one hand we have free choice on the other hand it's meant to be yes when i say that to people i say how would you explain that the way i would put it is how would you say it we get to a fork in life we all do many times you have free will you choose one choice and it actually ends up working out or what you perceive as working out you're like oh meant to be choose another choice and suddenly things don't work out If you take those things that didn't work out and you learn and grow from them, you're right back to meant to be.

1:14:33Adam Neumann:So it's our free choice. Again, that thing of us not controlling, us controlling our reaction. It's that. So to answer your question, I'm going to caveat what I'm about to say. Without everything happening exactly the way you did, I wouldn't be where I am today. Yes. And I love where I am today. Of course, no regret. Not only no regret. I think I am, as a person, happier. I think I have the capacity to build things that are tremendously larger. As you said, if Kibbutz was here, then GreenDesk was there, then WeWork was this. I think Flow is the next level and would have never been able to be born without those steps.

1:15:09Adam Neumann:So I'm so happy. But here's a different scenario, an easy scenario for you. If instead of my investors, I would have Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz as my partners, my partners today. And I'm saying this from knowledge because I've gotten to know them. I sit with them. We're a board meeting in two days, which I'm very excited about. I'm going to get to sit with both of them in the room. Best part of my business, without a doubt, is the nine hours of sitting with Mark and Ben, knowing that they're going to tell you what they actually think, not what you want to hear, and learning from people who are not just, in my opinion, the best investors in the world.

1:15:41Adam Neumann:They've built their own businesses. If they were sitting around that table when the whole thing was happening, the one thing they wouldn't have done is said adam you should step down that they knew was not going to work because it's been tried many times and literally if you look at the history almost has never worked they would have said something like adam we need to have a serious talk maybe taking me somewhere lock the door thrown the key and said okay adam you've proven that you're the fastest growing company in the world you've proven you've proved that it's time to prove profitability. Because if we're going to mature to our next stage as a business, and if we're going to want to go to Wall Street, they're not going to understand this unstoppable growth.

1:16:22Adam Neumann:And we know that the four-wall units are profitable. Let's prove it. That's the first thing they would have done. Second thing they would have done again, now that I know them, they would have said, Adam, our tech is not working. Because if our tech was working, we would be able to show things in a way that would be very clear to everybody. The fact that we can also means that we can't control, which means we need to go and fix that also. That's the thing that in September of 2019, if happened differently, we would have had a chance for Masa's idea not only to have worked, but to work phenomenally because remember what happens then, Corona comes.

1:16:59Adam Neumann:And in Corona, we work would have had an opportunity to press the reset button. All those leases, we haven't talked, we don't need to get into the details of the business, but we were taking these long-term leases, selling against short-term commitments. We then started going into enterprise that was taking longer. If you remember in Corona, everybody left office. No one paid their rent, except for one company, WeWork. Because the people running it, it wasn't their money anymore. They didn't treat it like it's theirs, so they paid. No one was paying their rent. If we were there, me and our original team, and we sat there and we actually had the opportunity to reflect, have partners that were honest with, by the way, the honesty could have included saying, if we said, Adam, you did great taking the company from one to 3.6 billion in revenue.

1:17:44Adam Neumann:We talked about the size of that, but the revenue grew from zero to huge. We should bring in a professional CEO that should do it daily and you should become chairman. The discussion could have been a very real discussion. We had no discussion. And then when Corona happened, the reset button would have been set. And I actually think what's interesting about Corona, now that there's been time to think about it, work has never been the same since. it needed leadership. It needed a vision. So yes, I think Masa could have been right.

1:18:16Rick Rubin:What happened in 2019 where it changed?

1:18:20Adam Neumann:I think, as I said, what happened started actually in that December of 2016. Getting out of the car. It all moved to chase these things and it became bigger than us. And we just grew for the sake of growth. and Masa saw us go from$450 to$900 million. A lot of companies promised him that we're the only ones who hit. Then he saw us go from$900 million to$1.8 billion. So then he came in again, and then it became even bigger. And by this point, we were rushing. And SoftBank was going through their own set of challenges and their own public stock challenges in the Japanese stock market. And this is not 2019, it's 2018.

1:19:02Adam Neumann:In March of 2018, Masa comes to me and says, why don't we buy WeWork from all your investors at a$20 billion valuation? How many investors did he have at that time? Not that many. Institutional investors, the biggest ones, best ones, the biggest ones. You know, seven to eight institutions plus 10 individuals maybe. Not that many. And why did he want to do that? He wanted to build a trillion dollar company.

1:19:32Rick Rubin:Yeah.

1:19:32Adam Neumann:He wanted to go huge. Yeah. And he could see it working. He saw it working. He knew it was going to cost money. He had no problem with it losing money. He knew that if it needed to go public, Wall Street won't understand it, but he understood it. He wanted to grow to a way bigger revenue and then do the pause and the cleanup. I see. He wanted to keep going. He just wanted to wait longer before the cleanup. He wanted to truly own the category. Yes. At this moment, people are copying from all over the world. there are 40 ,000 companies that got funded, registered and opened Coping WeWork, 40 ,000.

1:20:03Rick Rubin:Right. So he saw, and he just wanted us to own it.

1:20:07Adam Neumann:And to do that, he offered a$20 billion valuation, $10 billion for all of our investors and employees, and$10 billion on the bank account. Just so you have this, this is at the time the company is losing about$1 billion to$2 billion a year. Again, this is where a different board would have done things differently, I can't be part of that decision because I'm staying in. I wasn't selling. Wasn't even selling secondary in that. I was keeping everything because I'm aligned with him. And we had goals. There was a deal 70-30 his way approximately. And every time the management team hits a goal, we go up in ownership or at the end when we hit the final goal, which was a very big goal, but we believed we could hit it.

1:20:48Adam Neumann:We would own 51 % and he would own 49%. Everybody would get more equity. It was a big plan. He was a big thinker. I know they had hiding in it, not just we work. It had we live. So it had residential hiding in it. It had construction as a new category hiding in it. It saw the future. And because I was staying in the deal, I was a conflicted party and therefore I couldn't take any part in accepting the deal. So the board did what's called a special committee. And that special committee's job was to negotiate with VASA and do whatever they need to do. And I think they made, again, mistakes, everything, the way you and I talk about mistakes.

1:21:31Adam Neumann:I think they were greedy. Because instead of saying, we'll take the win, we'll take a$20 billion company, the$10 billion, by the way, these investors, these investors that put$20 million, that were walking out with$2.4 billion. Clean cash. They thought the company was worth$100 billion. They believed also. So they go into this lengthy negotiation from March until September towards October. deals have momentum again if i'm sitting on a board and there's a founder like me and the founder brings a 20 billion dollar acquisition to our company that has a great vision but currently is losing money every month i go to the founder and i say mr founder is this what you want and if the founder said yes yes maybe it's hurtful that he wants me to sell and doesn't be with me but if he says yes and it has happened to me and i've done it multiple times if the founder said I just did it on a company three months ago.

1:22:26Adam Neumann:The founder says, yes, this is what I want. I say, thank you so much for working so hard for the past nine years. Yeah. And good luck. And I walk out with my, in this case, 100x return on my 20 million, more, 150, because they pulled out money. But no, they negotiated. And Masa told them very clearly, this is my, I didn't negotiate. I gave you a huge number in cash for a company that we all know needs a lot, still work to do. and they negotiate from March till September. Then the Japanese market starts changing. Then when they see there's a problem, they stop negotiating and they're still fighting until they go down and then until in Christmas, they finally decide, okay, we're not negotiating.

1:23:08Adam Neumann:A little before, not negotiating anymore. They agree to everything and they pass it to Masa. Now, here's the problem. Because this is all happening, Masa and I are already planning that the company is going to grow very big. I'm already signing a lot of deals. I'm already planning for this to happen, but I'm not in charge of it happening. And there was a guarantee, there was a protection that if it doesn't happen, Masa still needs to invest a certain amount. And I trust Masa because we've done this before and he invested. So we're signing deals. We're running really, really quickly. This is not happening.

1:23:41Adam Neumann:And then suddenly our special committee decides, okay, now it's time to agree. I just want to say one thing.

1:23:48Rick Rubin:you're running quickly and this is what Masa wants. Exactly what he wants. 100%. To the T. The speed he wanted. You didn't go rogue in trying to build a company fast. This is what you signed up for with Masa and you were doing it.

1:24:01Adam Neumann:I did the opposite of going rogue. People who know me will know that I make a partner that keeps his work. If you and I are partners and I'm going to change something or I want to change something I will call you and I will ask for permission. And I'll always offer something. And if you say no I will say I understand. And I would say, don't get offended that I tried. I wanted to go a different direction, but I respect our partnership. It's what I signed up for. It's what we took the money for. Also, our partners were all there with us. Now remember, the employees are killing it. They're running for it.

1:24:30Adam Neumann:They're running through walls.

1:24:31Rick Rubin:Had the Japanese market not changed, would the picture have been different? Had,

1:24:38Adam Neumann:and again, we're doing a lot of ifs and maybes, had the board, special committee, got on a plane the next day, said, Masayor, they have two boards, it's in the company, you know everything. We don't need to disclose anything. 20 billion, here's a term sheet, here's our bank account, please sign. It would have happened the next day. They would have all been out. The cash would have been there. And when Corona hits, we wouldn't have had the whole 10 billion because we would have been burning, but we would have had enough. And again, we wouldn't be where we are today, which I'm very happy about. But I think the interesting thing to connect it to where you and I are sitting right now.

1:25:16Adam Neumann:It's December 2018. I am sleeping in a house three minutes away from here. I get a phone call from Asa. 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$20 billion acquisition, 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, the house that we were living here and has like a kitchen with couches in it. So the kids are next to the kitchen. Everyone's hanging out. They're eating, they're drinking.

1:25:58Adam Neumann:Everyone's smiling. They're really having fun. I decided I'm not going to say anything today. I just went and hung out and took many, many deep breaths.

1:26:13Rick Rubin:Yeah.

1:26:14Adam Neumann:That night when everybody was sleeping, I told Rebecca what happened. She had a nice relationship with Masa also. I said, let's go see him. Where is Masa at the same time? Can you guess where he would be? Because the universe, remember who's writing the story? If you were directing the story, where would Masa be? Not far. Exactly. Has to be not far because the movie set can't go too much. Yeah, yeah. He's 15 minutes away. Unbelievable. We go and sit. And you didn't know that before. Didn't have a clue. Didn't have a clue. That's how, that's when you're in flow. Bad things or perceived bad things can happen when you're in flow also.

1:26:49Adam Neumann:If they're still in flow, it's just another clue to tell you they're not bad. They might be seen bad. We go, 15 minutes away, we walk in, we discuss. Again, in hindsight, legal, you promised, I grew because of it. There's all these things I could have done, but no, this is my partner. I understand what he just said. He wasn't happy to make the call to you? No, not at all. You could see it. No. No. It was not easy for him. He didn't want to make the call. Of course. It was his team.

1:27:18Rick Rubin:It was his team this, but. And it was just the reality of the situation changed, and he was at the mercy of the reality of the situation. He did the right thing.

1:27:26Adam Neumann:He didn't really have a choice. This was not Master Sun money. No. This was SoftBank money. Yes. And Vision Fund money, but SoftBank. So this is the other thing we didn't say. This is not even a vision fund. This is a soft bank acquisition. Small vision fund, big soft bank. So it's soft bank money. He did the right thing. So then we talked. We said, well, what are we going to do? We've been spending. We agreed on an amount that will still go. So we're still very supportive. At this very large valuation, that's where that$40 billion valuation comes from. And I walk out. And now, it's January of 2019.

1:28:02Adam Neumann:we have this big off-site in LA rented Universal Studios again a moment of reflection I could have gone on that stage told everybody what happened told the stories what I really really would not like to be in any similar situations ever again but if I were I would go up on that stage tell everybody exactly what happened say this is what we have in the bank because this is all we get and we're turning this company profitable now. Yes, which was doable. 100 % doable, 100 % doable. But I get on that stage. I say a light version of it, but I say we're going to get serious to that. I had one close person on that board that was really close to me.

1:28:50Adam Neumann:His name is Steven Langman. He's amazing. He's still a close friend. He lost a lot from being a part of this and never did he say a word except call me and laugh about it and be a great friend. And here's the definition of it. How do we define a great friend when things are actually challenging? Are the day for you? He comes and sees me. I was in somewhere around here. He comes, sits with me. We talk about the fact that we're going to make the company profitable. We make the commitments. We're clear. We're going to do what needs to be done. We know exactly what needs to be done again because we're the leaders.

1:29:20Adam Neumann:We know where everything is buried. We know exactly what to do to do it. And then my CFO goes to the Lyft IPO. This is like a month later. We're warming up. to use it to do, and it's on fire. And it's all about revenue. It has nothing to do with profitability. He goes, Adam, based on their value, we're worth it, based on their revenue, we have more, and they're getting multiple revenue. And again, the fire starts. Now the IPO story and the fire starts. And basically he says, and not only him, bankers, and those bankers are not any bankers. These are the biggest bankers on the planet. Come to me and show me books, which obviously we still kept, that show the valuations that we're going to go public in.

1:30:01Adam Neumann:And they all make sure to go above$40 billion 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. And 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. Never plan on everything being perfect. Just like if this works and this works. A second ago, and again, just look how many times the universe tried to come in and tell me.

1:30:40Adam Neumann:How many messages? Turn it profitable the first time, the second time, the third time. What actually happens is we start running for this IPO. We keep growing. We don't slow down at all. So we keep earning because we're told it's going to be a multiple of revenue. There's Lyft and there's Uber. And as we're preparing for this IPO, Uber goes public and immediately crashes. Value goes down because the public markets don't want just revenue. They actually want profitability. And there's this flip that happens in the public markets a lot, where it goes in one second from we all want revenue, multiples of revenue, to we want profitability.

1:31:18Adam Neumann:You're living in a world today where you're going to see some very valuable AI companies go with huge revenue and a lot of losses, and they're going to get some mega valuations. And I hope for all of them that they can turn the switch whenever they need and do whatever it is they need. I'm sure they know what they're doing. But the market flips in a second. It's not about revenue. It's about profitability. For us, we needed nine months to turn. The ship is sailed really far fast to suddenly move is this. And now suddenly we have to take the company public. If we don't take the company public, they won't have enough money.

1:31:53Adam Neumann:Or so we're told. and at this point the bank that then again without getting into it because it's so many details and but the two banks that are fighting on us i end up choosing one of the banks and that bank is leading us into the ipo and we're doing the meetings and they're not going well and the articles start coming out because people are in the meetings and that the valuation is not there and it's not going to be 40 it's going to be 30 there's this thing in growth companies you can't catch a falling knife once it starts dropping you don't know where the bottom is and masa calls me and says adam i don't want you to take the company public it's not good so i'm looking good things are not working well let's rethink let's regroup but the leaders around me and this is the big big choice and again i'm saying this again so it's heard again I take full accountability but the leaders that I put around me and when did I start putting those leaders really?

1:32:53Adam Neumann:After that 2016 the leaders because I was at the beginning attracting people that were mission and purpose oriented like me but when you stop being mission and purpose oriented then the people you attract will stop being mission and purpose oriented they all wanted that IPO, everybody was doing math and they're pushing IPO, IPO and the bank and everything you can't talk to Masa, you can't talk to Masa if you talk to Masa it will all be ruined. Even as I tell you this story, I think about again, this is why life and experience is so important. Today, if I was advising me, I said, close everybody out.

1:33:28Adam Neumann:Who gave you the most money? Masa. As he trusted you? Yes. As he believed in you? Yes. Go talk to Masa. Don't worry about what they tell you. Go to Masa. Of course. Say, Masa-san, you trusted me so much. I am grateful and appreciative. I'm sorry we got into this. The truth is we were going to buy the company and then you changed in the last second. So you put me in a little bit of an uncomfortable situation. They then told me I can go public. So I take accountability, but we did it as partners. I never had that conversation. We did it as partners, Masa. What should we do as partners now to solve it?

1:34:01Adam Neumann:That one conversation didn't happen. And it didn't happen. And today I know a lot more about it for two reasons. One, because I needed to be where I am today and I wouldn't get there. But a more technical reason, because there are a lot of people who had different agendas. And when the numbers are of that magnitude, we were not dealing with billions. We were dealing with tens of billions and going to potentially hundreds. When the numbers are of that magnitude, if you didn't surround yourself with people that are actually there for the right reasons, your chances of getting the right advice are very small.

1:34:38Adam Neumann:Remember also that at that time, I'm very good at this. Yes, I have a spiritual practice. And yes, I'm very good at this. Going into a retreat for a week and stopping everything and breathing and meditating and really asking myself, who do I have that I can trust? And going and talking to them would have been the wise thought. And then maybe similar things would have happened, but we never even gave it a shot.

1:35:05Rick Rubin:Even though Masa made the call to you that you didn't like, the first call of like, things are changing, I'm guessing you still trusted Masa.

1:35:16Adam Neumann:So again, this is, I was not able to quiet down the noise that came around me because the people who were telling me, don't do that, were the most powerful people in the business world. We're talking about the heads of the banks. We're talking about the biggest venture capitalists on the planet. We're talking about a lot of the board members. We're talking about people that have built this repertoire for a very long time.

1:35:46Rick Rubin:And they have more experience than you. They've been through this before. This is your first time, anybody's first time at this scale.

1:35:55Adam Neumann:There were a few voices out there. I missed two. Two voices called me that I missed. Mark Benioff calls me. He wasn't such. and we were close friends, but not the closest. Said, Adam, I don't need to know a lot to know what's happening. I can read the press. You don't know that Salesforce was going to go public. I pulled back, I reshuffled, I did it again. You must pull back and fire your CFO and general counsel. And I don't need to know who they are. Just know they're not advising you right right now. Missed that one. There was another super powerful person, comfortable saying, Ruth Porat, superstar.

1:36:29Adam Neumann:Same story. sends me someone from a different bank to advise me. He said, Ruth sent 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. And he's not talking to me. And now the bank that was supposed to go out public is telling me we're having real issues. And this is moving really fast. And the articles are coming and the this. And again, everyone keeps telling me how SoftBank is doing this to me and SoftBank is doing that to me. They actually painted SoftBank as the enemy. But they weren't. He wasn't and they weren't. And then I have this very monumental meeting on a Sunday with the head of the bank that's taking us public, where he sits me down and basically says, Adam, you're going to have to step down.

1:37:16And if you do and when you do,

1:37:19Adam Neumann:we'll take care of the business. We'll fund the business and we'll do the different things. And I remember talking to him and saying, but I don't think someone else is going to understand how to, I understand what needs to be done. He says, yes, a lot of founders think that, and then things survive without them. They don't really. I don't know a lot of examples for venture-backed businesses that then become huge success without.

1:37:39Rick Rubin:But that's the arrogance of the people with the money. They think because they have the money, they know what the right thing to do is, and it's often not the case.

1:37:47Adam Neumann:I think so. I also think he truly believed in what he was saying. I actually think his team told him that it's possible, and maybe they didn't understand what the magic of WeWork really was. That's what I'm saying. I don't think he did. So I'm not so, again, I don't know how much he knew himself.

1:38:01Rick Rubin:Yeah.

1:38:01Adam Neumann:Because he has a big team and he's doing a lot of things. This is just one other meeting. Again, no blaming at all.

1:38:06Rick Rubin:No.

1:38:07Adam Neumann:And I did mistakes before. There's many, many things that I did. But that's the idea that was given. And I come back with my partner. And now I have the beginning of a family office that was with me, three individuals. And I'm like, okay, we're going to need to, it looks like we're going to need to step down. and the guy is running my family office. He says to me, his name is Elon. He says to me, I don't like it. There's a clause and one missing piece of the story that you don't have is at the same time, I have debt of over 400 million that I borrowed against equity from that same bank that was telling me to step down.

1:38:48Adam Neumann:And he says to me, I don't like you. You have a clause that says that if you step down, then you're in breach of your contract because it's a control clause and then they can call back the man. I said, no, he wouldn't. He's the one who told me. He'll protect me. He said, I don't like it. So we go and we bring it up. We have a board member that says, of course, I'm going to talk to them. And I talk to them and there's no problem and it won't happen and everything is good. I get comfortable even though my team is not as comfortable because again, I'm speaking to the people running the place. And I trust.

1:39:18Adam Neumann:I do actually have, I trust. and I stepped down on the board meeting, on the board call, and nine minutes later, I receive an email from the same bank. There were two other banks part of it, but that bank was the biggest part, that I'm in breach of contract and that they're calling all my shares. Wow. And I have 15 days to pay back$435 million, which of course I didn't have, and there's no chance I could have died. That's unbelievable. And just so we're clear about the nine minutes, a bank cannot create a document in nine minutes or in a day. It has to go through a lot of legal process, at least a weekend, if not a week, on a very, very fast example.

1:40:09So it was perfectly executed. Wow. I walked right into it.

1:40:15Rick Rubin:Terrible story.

1:40:16Adam Neumann:And then, no, it's not a terrible story. It is.

1:40:18Rick Rubin:It is. At this point in the story, it's a terrible story. That's interesting. I've never told it, by the way. Yeah. It's a shocking story.

1:40:26Adam Neumann:I think this story has occurred, but we never hear these stories. I think they're versions of this story. I think they happen more often than we know. They happen more often than we know.

1:40:33Rick Rubin:And every time, it's a tragedy.

1:40:36Adam Neumann:Well, let me tell you, it's interesting, and maybe this is me. So now I'm really getting down. Now I feel down.

1:40:43Rick Rubin:Yeah.

1:40:44Adam Neumann:Now my 10 years of spiritual practice are in the garbage. I am properly depressed. Everybody told me. And at the same time, articles are coming out at a speed of one every three to five minutes. This is now 2019. This is Trump first term. There's a lot of noise in the media. I have a friend who called it the first time social media was used. It was like social media before social media was fully there and the speed that the articles were coming out. Another story, another story, but no one knows the story. And another story, another story and another story and I'm feeling really low and my spiritual teacher calls me and this is like two days into this and he goes Adam just call to see how you're doing and I said to him this is not a good time I'm not doing great um the things are really tough right now and I'm not sure what's going to happen and he says to me I thought you might say that I just called to remind you the one thing we learned.

1:41:41Adam Neumann:I said to him, we've been studying for eight years. Same as Eitan. I said Eitan, we studied for eight years. We did not study one thing. I studied three times a week. I think we studied more than one thing. It was wrong. We actually only studied two things, but they're similar. But we only studied two things. One, treat other people the way you want to be treated. The rest is commentary. Two, and this is the real one, the darkest moment of the night is a second before dawn. I want you to know something. He says, I've seen you for the past eight years with belief and connecting people and speaking about spirituality and the business.

1:42:16Adam Neumann:Of course you believe in the universe when you were flying like this, no one's ever seen something like that happen before. That's not belief. That's, you'd be an idiot if you don't believe and that happens. Belief is measured when everything goes wrong and you can look up to the heavens and say, I don't know how, I don't know why, but this will end up working for the best. And he says, if you can, I know it's hard and most people can't. If you can actually change your perception right now, because belief is a choice and choose to believe that this will work out. I don't know how the new version of yourself that will come out of this will be so much more powerful, So much stronger, so much smarter, that you will actually be able to reveal the thing that you were put on this planet to do.

1:43:08Adam Neumann:Just like that first lesson. I hear it. I breathe it. I almost feel it. Almost there. I'm not there yet. And I hang up the phone, go to sleep. I wake up at 5 a.m. sweating, crying. I don't cry. I cried as a child. I don't cry as an adult. Everything's fine. Nothing is as bad as what I had as a kid, so nothing is bad. Rebecca wakes up, 5 a.m., looks at me, she's never seen me cry. We're together at this point, 12 years, 13 years. She goes, you're crying? I said, yes. She goes, why? I said, because it's all gone. I said, what? I said, everything. It's all gone. They're going to take it all away.

1:43:45Adam Neumann:It's gone. I made this mistake. I mean, that's all gone. She goes, everything? I go, everything. She goes, well, remember we spoke about you once putting 100 million on my name, so in case one thing happens, we'll have something like bankruptcy remote. I said, yeah, I never did that. She goes, well, remember, we spoke about the fact that we never signed a personal guarantee. So it's not all gone. We didn't sign a personal guarantee. I said, no, we're signing on a personal guarantee. This piece for you, if you really want to understand, because we're going to go public, that debt I had, that after an IPO, you're supposed to be in a lockup period.

1:44:22Adam Neumann:So they can't use that as collateral. So I wrote in the documents that for the six months after the IPO, it's personal guarantee. but my lawyers forgot to write but if there's not an IPO no one thought there wouldn't be then that guarantee goes away so I say to her no we're personally guaranteed now in relationship I think we all get to a moment where the two sides get actually tested something real happens yeah many ways Rebecca could have answered this many ways other partners could have reacted she took a deep breath she looked at me and goes You know, my mom's house in upstate New York, she owned it for 30 years.

1:45:01Adam Neumann:She doesn't have a mortgage. We could move there with five kids at a time. We'll take our five kids. We're going to homeschool for a little. We don't need to send them for school. You're going to take a second to find yourself again. If you want to go back into business, amazing. If you don't, we'll move to Costa Rica. We'll do a little real estate. Kids will be homeschooled. We'll serve every day. We'll work out either way.

1:45:24Rick Rubin:Amazing.

1:45:24Adam Neumann:No matter what, you got me and the kids. What are you crying about? At this moment, I understood something. When we're children and we have a hard moment, when we really have a hard moment with our parents, like a difficult that you're like, suppose you trust them and they're not there for you. That's why it's so sad when children go through horrible things. There's no one there. But as adults, if we do have a partner, if we have a few close friends, they say you have one close friend, you have a whole world. for a few close friends, for a family. Suddenly, I felt like I'm not a child anymore, and there's something I can lean on.

1:46:02Adam Neumann:It's not the end of the world. But she looks at my face, and she sees that I'm not. I'm almost there. She knows me, but she didn't get me over the helm. I'm still a little depressed, and it's not like me, because I don't get depressed. And she goes, and by the way, something I've meant to tell you. When we met, you were broke. I find you much sexier broke than I do. With money. Then I smiled. Now I wasn't happy. I walked downstairs. Remember, I had 15 days to pay back$430 million that doesn't exist. I walked downstairs. I have three employees. A week ago, I had$13 ,000. I went down from$13 ,000 to$3 ,000 because now it's all gone.

1:46:45Adam Neumann:The three family members who came, just joined me a few months ago to manage all this money that now we don't have. And I'm smiling at 6 a.m. We started at 6 a.m. because we had to deal with this horrible situation. And I'm smiling. They're like, why are you smiling? I said, first of all, I'm smiling because it's all going to work out. They thought I lost my mind. They're very rational investors. They're world class. They're all three of them are with me still. Elon, DJ, and Max, they're unbelievable. They think I lost my mind because they're real investors and they think the situation is done.

1:47:18Adam Neumann:They think we're going bankrupt. It's finished. So I said, we're going to work out. It's all going to work out because I believe. And I don't know how, and I don't know why. This was the darkest moment. Dawn is coming. It's going to take a deep breath. It's going to show itself. And my wife thinks I'm sexy.

1:47:42Adam Neumann:Amazing. Do you know who saves the day? If you wrote the movie, who saves the day? But how? Who is his messenger? Do you know that by talking to you now? I'm actually understanding myself what happened. Do you know how many times you told me that I should talk about this and I haven't? And you're like, Adam, we should talk about it. And I was not expecting us to talk about this today. I was expecting to talk about a lot of other things. But by saying it, I myself and understanding something, there's some actions I'm going to need to do after we've done this. Masa. Masa saves the day. How? He pays back the debt.

1:48:16Adam Neumann:Wow. He calls through Marcelo with his team. They call, Marcelo calls me for a meeting. So here's, okay. So now we're going to connect and this is all going to connect. It's back to belief. I celebrate the holidays. I'm celebrating Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. It's a day of reflection. We don't eat. We don't drink. We pray. And we pray to go to the next version of ourselves. We pray to be forgiven for all of our sins. We pray to learn from our past mistakes. And it's Rosh Hashanah. and then Yom Kippur. And in Rosh Hashanah, a close friend of mine comes with me and everybody around me is down, by the way.

1:48:56Adam Neumann:And people are really affected by what happened. And I'm very affected because I feel extremely bad for the employees and for everybody that was at the journey with me. The investors, all the investors, except for us, have all made money already multiple times. I have this sense of belief. I don't know how it's going to work out. And so we do this Rosh Hashanah and this and then between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. And then Yom Kippur happens and we're praying. And there are many different, without getting into, in Judaism, there's different sectors and they don't all get along. And I practice with many different sectors.

1:49:32Adam Neumann:I practice with this sector and that sector. So three different sectors who do not get along with each other, if it's a shame, but it's the truth. All three of them send representatives to pray with me that Yom Kippur. One of the biggest rabbis sends his sons. They've never not prayed with him in Yom Kippur. the other one, the head of the organization and his number one guy comes, Eitan, the guy that spoke and his, Michael Berg. All these people come together around me and we are praying like there is no tomorrow. We're praying for a miracle. And suddenly before it ends, Max, one of those three comes.

1:50:07Adam Neumann:I see on his face, he has something really important to tell me. I said, Max, if it's all business, don't talk to me. 24 hours, no talking, there's no business. And he's sitting there. He can't help himself. I said, he keeps trying to want to tell me something. And I said, Max, please, unless it's life and death, I need you to let the sun go down. Just participate, enjoy. Join us. We're not talking business. And it ends. And he says to me, you won't believe this. Marcelo is inviting you for a meeting. He wants to work the situation out. I go and meet Marcelo. He basically says, Adam, we trusted you.

1:50:45Adam Neumann:We've invested a tremendous amount. we want to save the company the way we see fit, we would like you to give us the keys. In return for that, we will pay your debt in full so no one has a gun to your hand because we don't like how they're treating the situation. Again, at this point, they were from the outside because everybody else was able to keep them locked out is what was really happening. If I would have gone before, if we were together, they wouldn't have been able to keep them locked out, but they kept them locked out. We'll buy your controlling shares. for approximately$100 million, supposed to be even more.

1:51:23Adam Neumann:We will pay back your debt 100 % and in full and on time. And we're going to invest an amount in the company so the company can go to its next level. And we will buy from you and from all the other shareholders at the discounted valuation, the approximate valuation of$10 billion, because the last valuation was$40, 30%, which will be$1 billion to you and$2 billion because I own 30 % of the float of everything minus their piece. Then there was the Miguel part and$2 billion to everybody else. All your investors, all the employees, everybody. And we said yes. And I stepped down. And they put Marcelo at the beginning was running it himself.

1:52:04Adam Neumann:My interactions with Marcelo were always whatever he promised always happened. And then he chose the CEO that he chose. He asked me to not be as close. Again, this is back to the old playbook. This is the playbook of keep the founder away and like this. And they come in. And the thing on the first day they do is they fire all the people closest to me. The problem is they were the ones who knew everything. The only ones who knew. Not only ones who knew. They lived it and breathed it. But it's an old playbook. You take out the king, then you kill all of his loyalists. They called me. The two biggest loyalists called me and said, Adam, should we stay because the business will go down?

1:52:41Adam Neumann:I said, of course you should stay. they got fired first they put a new ceo and we negotiated it and remember on in a code the reason i stepped down also and the reason i accepted is we negotiated three billion for the whole company not just three billion for everybody to take out money three billion for the whole company so the company is funded they have a new ceo and the payment is scheduled the three billion to the company money in the company goes in the three billion for because it's their company now and on most of it. The$3 billion that's for everybody else is scheduled to come in April 1st, 2020.

1:53:17Adam Neumann:Corona hits March and the last day of March we get a letter from SoftBank saying force majeure, even though it wasn't in the contract, we're not paying. All the money that I thought was coming was gonna go by the way by this point i'm a practiced samurai deep breath and rebecca a month before said it's never coming and she was like it's never coming and she's like too good to be true we're guessing we're gonna have a little more we're not out yet i took a deep breath didn't come in and i got the last gift that masa gave me the gift of litigation litigated we learned a lot about that. What is it like having strangers write things about you you know are not true and people

1:54:08Rick Rubin:reading it or watching a tv series about it what's that like?

1:54:13Adam Neumann:You know connecting to what you and I just spoke about there are a lot of things I knew I was giving away when I stepped down. the one thing I completely missed was that I was giving away my narrative. I had a platform and I had a microphone. And then in one day I stepped down, which to the eye that's not experienced probably means he must have been wrong. Everything he did was wrong. Otherwise he wouldn't have given them back the keys. The story that you just heard, the buildup, they didn't, no one knew any of it. That's something I now understand. So I handed over the control over my narrative.

1:54:56Rick Rubin:You were never accused of doing anything illegal. You were never brought up on any charges. It was all just innuendo, storytelling.

1:55:06Adam Neumann:It was me being a novice to the game of life when it comes to communication and media. I remember the first time I met you, you did not need to hear the story to know the story. And another person, when we met both of you at the same time when we were in Malibu, Mark Andreessen. Mark Andreessen 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. He didn't know what the story was. And in hindsight, now that I know him and Ben so much better, we've spoken about it a little. For them, getting such media coverage and hearing so many stories means pick up the phone and call.

1:55:45Adam Neumann:There's something very interesting.

1:55:47Rick Rubin:There's an opportunity here. Yeah, something's going on that's not being said. Because this story that's being shouted, it's too much.

1:55:56Adam Neumann:Not only is it too much, in their eyes, we know what WeWork built. He calls first phone call. Adam, you might not know who I am. I'm Mark Andrewson. I'm an investor. I said, Mark, I know exactly who you are. Hey, 16Z is already very big at this point. This is 2019, right after. A little after. This is 2020. and he goes, and what do you think? And I start telling you a little bit what I 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, Mark? The one where you believe what other people are saying about and you forgot what actually happened.

1:56:31Adam Neumann:This is like the first time I meet Rebecca. I'm like, I love this guy. This is amazing. I said, well, Mark, yes, you might be right. He goes, would you like me to tell you what we think about you here at A16Z? He said, please. He said, you're the only company in our entire portfolio, at the time about 400 today, over 1 ,000. You're the only company in our portfolio who every single startup that we have either is using today or used in the past. We have no other company that we can say that about. What you've built was not built in one room with a bunch of engineers. Actually, your tech was your weakest link.

1:57:08Adam Neumann:We could talk about that one day. what you built is you had to be in 50 countries you were in 70 languages you were doing construction you built a brand you created a movement the word we work is said is a verb almost it means i've made the we were said do you know how many pitches we get on the we work of this in the we work of that you created a category that's what we think i said thank you so much and i hung up the phone missing the fact that he actually wanted to do some business or get to know me better because I was at that stage. But back to your question, I handed over the mic. Yeah. And I didn't understand that by doing so, the story is going to run away from me.

1:57:51But because we never actually did anything

1:57:55Adam Neumann:of the things that you just said, all it was was a story. Makes a good book. I hear it makes a good television show. So I haven't watched a television show. I watched the first episode because my friend Stephen Langman really wanted me to. But I know from my friends who've watched it and people who watch it and the stories in this, if they have 30 % of the story right, that would be a big number.

1:58:18Rick Rubin:What's interesting about the TV series about you, I'll call it a smear piece, is everyone I know who's seen it thought that both you and Rebecca were the heroes of the story.

1:58:31Adam Neumann:I think this is connected to what we said before. I think truth and authenticity are the biggest tools that we can have. So even though I gave away the mic and let everyone else run with it, somehow the truth, even in something that was supposed to be a smear brief, floated to the top. And I'll tell you a little bit how I think. So Jared Leto, so we talked about Andrew Finkelstein, is a character in our story, I see, which is excellent. And he made sure, by the way, to write himself out of every show. Because he's in Hollywood, he's very powerful. But not this one. He doesn't get to write himself out of this one.

1:59:13Adam Neumann:Andrew Finkelstein keeps getting emails from Jared Lezo's agent, saying Jared's going to play Adam. He's a method actor. He must meet Adam. And I'm ignoring, ignoring, ignoring, ignoring. And eventually, Andrew calls me and he says, look, Adam, they're driving me crazy. Can't we take one meeting with the guy? He'll come in, he'll come out. He's a movie star, he's an Oscar winner, it'll be fun. So I have a defamation lawyer at the time, and when the show is going to come out, we're like, how is it legal? How can Apple tell a story about us using our name that we haven't approved, that we haven't read, that we didn't write?

1:59:46Adam Neumann:There's this whole thing. If you're a public figure, you could do this, you could do that. I think 15 years ago, it wouldn't be today. Obviously, it is. Social media today, we're in a different place. But I remember talking to the lawyer. He said, look, Adam, if it's so horrible, because Jared Leto is also a producer and this, the credit, at least we'll tell him some of the true story. Maybe it will play favorable for us. I also remember the whole time reaching out to Apple and sort of being sent an email directly to Tim Cook, actually, saying if Apple is all about personal privacy and safety and security, how can on the one hand you be that when it represents your iPhone?

2:00:21Adam Neumann:But when it comes to you making content, you can use a person's name and a person's family and a person in a story that I know you're not going to have the right story because you guys never spoke to me. So factually, it wouldn't be correct. We never got a response from Tim. We did get a response from his lawyers that read the following. You're going to like this one. We reviewed the series again. Your claims will go to court. You will litigate for three years and you will lose. We're moving forward. You're a public figure and you will lose. Not you're wrong or you're this or you're that. So that was that.

2:00:55Adam Neumann:So then we say, okay, to Jared Leto, we say fine. And we meet him in Miami. He walks into the house. I'm sure you've met him before. He's a little shorter than me. Looks up, puts his hands on my face like this. And in his version of my accent, I think very good accent, in a very good, but very good demeanor. I think he added. In a demeanor, in his version of Adam Neumann starts talking to me and saying how he's been looking at me for three months and this and this. And I'm not familiar with Hollywood. I've never met method actors. The whole thing for me is a little bit outrageous. And we just do this thing for the next hour and a half.

2:01:30Adam Neumann:And then Rebecca is there and she's talking. And at one point, he looks at Rebecca and goes, you know, there's this scene when you and I are stooping. He goes, Jared, you and I are not stooping. It is a television show. It is not the truth. She's laughing, but it's a surreal moment. He asked, how does that feel? I'm looking, and he said, I'm going to have these prosthetics. And the guy said, how are you going? Then he sits at the table. The kids start walking in. And they said, who is this? And I said, this guy is going to play me in a television show. And the guy's like, but he's shorter, but he doesn't look like you.

2:02:01Adam Neumann:But this, and every kid has his own very smart thing to say. This is in the midst of Corona, all of this is happening. And we finish our two hours together. And I walk Jared outside. He asked me if we can have a picture together. I am the interesting thing for him, which I'm sure usually he's the one that people take pictures with. He looks at me and goes, listen, you're calling it a smear piece. This was supposed to be a takedown. I know because I read the script. It's a shame we didn't meet before because I have gone and fought for the script. But don't worry. I now know who you are, and I'm going to play you the right way.

2:02:36Adam Neumann:I said, who is that, Jared? He said, out of my truth, I'm a method actor. But there's the real Jared. The real Jared loves music. I love being on stage. I love being a rock star. You're a rock star. I'm going to play you like a rock star. I saw your family. I saw your kids. You're a good guy. What I was told was not accurate. I wish I knew it before. He said it twice. But don't worry about it. You're going to come out like a rock star. Just do me a favor. Don't watch the show. I mean, you kept your word. I said, you got it. Beautiful. I said, you got it. Beautiful. But let's really go into this for a second.

2:03:13Adam Neumann:How many times in life do we think the IPO, supposed to be my big moment, the moment I was going to be amazing, ends up being a total, utter catastrophe if we never even get to the IPO? The television show coming out was supposed to be this horrible moment. Even my team, by the way, got very stressed about that television show. It was supposed to be that horrible moment where it all goes down. And yet it comes out. And the day after it comes out, the inbound starts. Entrepreneurs wanting investments, partners wanting to partner, employees, everything. It was a flat gate. I've never seen that happen before.

2:03:53Adam Neumann:There's a very famous story in the Bible about it. The Jews led by Moses are coming out of Egypt. All the local nations are very afraid they're going to come. And there's this Balak and Bilam, a king and a sorcerer. He wants to curse the Jews. And the sorcerer says to the king, look, the Jews, they have God. It's hard to curse. I don't want this. And the story is longer, but he says, I'll dream. I'll meditate about it. And in the dream, God tells him, don't curse the Jews. He wakes up in the morning and says to the king, God spoke to me. Don't curse the Jews. And even though he was working for the negative side, Even people who work for the negative side have their own connection to the universe.

2:04:29Adam Neumann:It takes power to win both sides. And three times, and eventually the king forces him, pays him a fortune, forces him to this. They go on a mountain and he's starting to curse the Jews and the blessings come out. And he's cursing the Jews and the blessings come out. Eventually at his last curse, he foresees Messiah and the entire coming and the salvation of the world. Crazy story. In the Bible is where we hear stories like this. I think the truth is the truth is the truth. I think if I were to have done something that was actually one of those things that you said before, it would have ended differently.

2:05:06I think I was saved by actually my relationship with Rebecca. She kept me straight, honest, loyal.

2:05:16Adam Neumann:We didn't keep our word every time, but we tried so hard to do the best we could. We kept our commitments. we did our version of what we thought was right to do. And even though a lot of our close friends used to say used to walk into a row, I had a thousand friends. Then in one day I went down to 10. Five of them were my family.

2:05:37Rick Rubin:And even that was a gift. The other thing that's interesting about the smears, Rebecca was always smeared. Oh, she got the worst of it. She got the worst of it. As if they were saying she was incompetent because she was a woman. That's what it was all about, which is like, is that the story in 2020? That because she's a woman, she's incompetent? That's what the smears were.

2:05:57Adam Neumann:You know how many times I think when things like this happen, the woman gets portrayed even worse? By the way, let's be clear. I was CEO and chairman. Yeah. The 100 % it wasn't Rebecca. But they negated the fact of what she brought to you, which you recognized. And what she brought to the brand. You know, if you just says the word, the brand that everybody knows, WeWork, that everybody knows, WeWork, Adam and Miguel, was a hardworking, let's go build office space. We had this logo with the men, with the hammer. We started breaking the Macintosh computer. You would have loved it as Miguel did it.

2:06:31Adam Neumann:That was our original hammer, breaking the original Macintosh computer. A little bit of a, I think of a old Steve Jobs, that old commercial with the woman throwing. When Rebecca walked into WeWork, in the first 90 days, she created Do What You Love, create your life's work, build a world where people make a life and not just a living. She gave it so much intention and so much meaning that then I ran with it like it was nobody's business. But she brought, which is what she always does, intention, meaning, and the other word, authenticity. For people who know Rebecca, she does not lie. If she does something wrong, she will tell you.

2:07:12Adam Neumann:All you need to do is ask her. Tell me what happens with the IPO. So let's do it. Let's go for it. So April 1st, money doesn't come in. The whole world is under Corona. My kids, even my kids realized the money wasn't coming. They go, daddy, it's April Fool's Day. Of course the money was never going to come in. Like, yeah, you guys are geniuses. We're in Israel at the time because we always wanted to try to live there. And this was our opportunity. and suddenly a second ago in the end of 2019 when we stepped down and the media and all the craziness felt like we were secluded and the whole world was open and we were like locked up.

2:07:49Adam Neumann:Suddenly everybody was sort of where we were. But we had six month heads up. We were already in the bunker when that hit. Remember from the story, we did have the original amount of money that was given to us. We never got the billion, but we got that original amount that they bought from us to pay. We had a team and we just got to work. And everybody else was busy understanding what's happening. I started, we started learning how to trade stock and how to invest in different ways and small businesses and big businesses and early stage and late stage. And even though we weren't using a big pool of capital, we were hungry and we were ready and willing and with a very open mind that the world just changed.

2:08:24Adam Neumann:But part of how I approach life like a child, okay, today's a new day. Now there's Corona. What does that mean? What's going to go up now? What's going to go now? So as all of that is occurring, this is the beginning. the seeds were starting to say, well, what's going to say? Residential. Residential is going to be interesting because even if people stop going to the office, the home is where the heart is. So park that aside. The litigation starts because we want to get paid the$3 billion that was promised not just to us, we're a third of it, but the other$2 billion is all the investors, all the employees, everybody.

2:08:56Adam Neumann:And it was promised, it was signed, it's contractual. So we start getting into litigation. And as we get into litigation, we move now from Israel back to the Hamptons. We live in East Hampton. Andrew Finkelstein is living right next to us. Another interesting thing about him. So many close friends that I had disappeared when this happened. I do think that's probably the saddest thing of the whole thing. And some of them don't think they disappeared. And I forgive. So I'm like, I'm over it. But you really get measured when your friends are in their toughest moment. And you don't get measured. By the way, it's nice to send a text and to pick up a phone call.

2:09:35Adam Neumann:but Andrew calls me and goes, hey Adam, you know I'm a Hollywood agent, it's Corona, I can do my work from anywhere. Do you want to come and live next to you? I'll rent a house next to you. Maybe you're going through a tough time. We'll do our own co-working space. We'll make a WeWork out of one of the houses. We'll do a beach house co-working, our own WeWork. We'll have fun. We'll work from the jacuzzi. It's like, sounds amazing, Andrew. And he moves in, so he's there with us and he's in the house next door and we're there. And we are starting this litigation and it's not working. It's not working because the contract wasn't perfect and we didn't did it and we weren't there and SoftBank is very powerful and they don't want to pay and they did put the money in the business and they control the business now so we can't get any information.

2:10:22Adam Neumann:And I am a person until this point that has always negotiated with power and leverage. I'm very good at momentum. When I have the leverage and I have the power, I'm very good at negotiating. but now I have no leverage, no power. I'm completely on the outside. Nothing I can do. We're litigating. The litigation doesn't look like it's headed in the right direction because of a variety of reasons but also because WeWork's not really partnering with us because we're the founder that was from the outside with the store. And at this point, if you're in WeWork, you believe 100%, not 90%, to all the press that you read because that's...

2:10:57Adam Neumann:And I do think the world's different today. I hope people today don't believe everything they read but this is still 2020. 20 people are just wising up. And I remember going and I was doing these meditation sessions of an hour each. And I'm doing one of those. And as I'm like very deep while listening to music, I suddenly have this, again, moment of vision. Which basically what I see is that if a different person, if I found someone who could get excited about WeWork and would want to take WeWork public, SPACs were at the time, so through a SPAC, then Massa and SoftBank and all people fighting paying the three people would want the company public because they own the majority of it, would settle the litigation because no worth fighting it, and would let the company go public.

2:11:48Adam Neumann:And if all those things went out perfectly, then everything would be resolved. I come out of the meditation. I call my dad, who I'm very close to. He's actually right outside here, hanging out right now, waiting for me. He was surfing with me this morning. And I said, Dad, I have an idea. I'll find the guy. He'll say he wants to invest. We'll take the company public. Softball will settle. Everybody will get paid. Softball will make back their money. Everybody will be happy. It's all going to work out. He goes, I don't know. That's too many things that are going to work out. And my dad and I argue he does not believe in God and I believe in God.

2:12:21Adam Neumann:I said, Dad, if this happens, will you believe in God? Looking for an opportunity. He goes, no. I believe that I have a very talented son. I say, okay, the last cast. I said, okay. And I call UBS and say, give me two names of people that might find WeWork exciting. They give me two names. Meeting number one, meeting number two. Second meeting, the guy goes gaga. He loves it. His name is Brebek. He ends up taking it public. He knew Steve Jobs or Steve Jobs was this. He was part of the coming back. He knew this story and he knew that. So he had all these stories in his head that fit this perfectly.

2:12:56Adam Neumann:But I was very clear. I said, here's what I would do. I gave a clear plan of how to make we were profitable. Again, I still know the leverage to pull. I told him exactly what to do. So now you understand all the pieces on the board. We have no power. We brought the guy to basically do the SPAC, but we're litigating at the same time. They're in control and they don't want to settle because they don't want to pay anything. They don't want to pay a billion. They don't want to pay. We're going back and forth, back and forth. And we try to give them this IPO, but they don't know that they want to go public.

2:13:25Adam Neumann:And they don't know they will do well public because they're not sure that anybody, the spark in WeWork is gone. So they're not sure that's going to solve their problems. And the last thing they need is another headache. So the going public was good, but not enough to push it over the edge. And part of what happens when you do litigation is everybody does discovery, everybody does all the different things. And you say, oh, we're going to say all these things about you. You're going to say all these things about this. And this happened, that happened, your fault, our fault. And we're getting very close to it.

2:13:51Adam Neumann:And the contract's going to say this, contract's going to say that. And we're getting very close to a litigation date. to a court date. They're going to court and then you're going to fight whose contract is right. And very close to it, after we all basically, everybody threatens everybody with everything, we agree on a settlement. And the settlement is this complicated thing where the money will get paid in six months. First, the company will go public, then this and all these different things, and then money will get paid after. And this is four days before Rebecca gives birth. And I had a lawyer at the time who ran his own firm.

2:14:28Adam Neumann:His name was Eric Seiler. Now he's a partner with me. And he and I reached the settlement. It's all happening on Zoom because this is Corona. So this whole thing is happening on Zoom. Their lawyers, our lawyers. They spend 10 times as much as we're spending. They have the biggest lawyer in the world. And Andrew Finkelstein, our Hollywood friend, is sitting right behind the screen. And for three weeks, as this negotiating is going, he does not work. He's just doing that. At the end of the day, they say, Andrew, you need to work. So that I'm in Hollywood. the biggest show in the world is happening right now in front of my face and I'm not missing a beat let me be wow Coran remember no acting no nothing's happening he's there and once in a while when he feels there's something important to say he writes it on a piece of paper he shows it to me above the screen I read I listen again who do you trust puts it down we're negotiating negotiating at some point they're like we're gonna pay we're gonna do this we're gonna do that but we're gonna pay you in six months I say it's not gonna work and he said this.

2:15:26Adam Neumann:I said, look, even Marcelo, even if I wanted, you know, I can't go back to Rebecca and we make decisions like this together. I can't tell her in six months. It's not going to work. He goes, call Rebecca and I want to talk to her. She's four days before giving birth. We call that stage with six kids. We've seen it a few times. Couch commando. That's when she's on the couch and orders are given. Couch commando. And so I get up to call her in because that's what he said. And then we all know each other. And Andrew picks up the paper. If you call her in, we will all be in court next week. You fix it.

2:15:57Adam Neumann:I read it. I sit back down. I said, you know what, Marcelo, in second thought, let's figure this out. Let's just agree. How are we going to be protected? And we basically work out the deal that's going to be done. But we get paid in six months after the IPO, after this, after that, with all these maybes and nests. Not just us, all the employees. But it's the best we could get. We couldn't get a better settlement. And if I don't settle, there's no IPO. And again, I try to do what I think is best for everybody. And I thought taking it public, giving it a chance. We agree. I go to Rebecca to tell her the great success that we did.

2:16:29Adam Neumann:She goes, no. So what do you mean, no? She said, for 10 years you're running this business, never have I told you once what to do. This is how much the narrative is wrong. Once. She's very respectful. She can give advice. She would not tell me what to do. She respects this as my business. She supports it. It's our business in equity holding, but she's very respectful. And I'm very respectful of her businesses. But they didn't pay us. We had a contract. We didn't get paid. One time you do it to us, we learn a mistake. Second time, why are we agreeing as a settlement for all of us, not just for us, for the employees to get paid in a year and a half?

2:17:05Adam Neumann:Please go back and said, no deal. I'll see you in court. Said, no, you don't understand. The IP will blow up, the whole thing. Said, no, they'll fault. They're bluffing. They're acting like a bully. And my father was a bully. And there's only one way to deal with a bully. Gun to your head. They're bluffing. And I'm, this is after, I'm like, this is an emotional rollercoaster. I go, Andrew and I, to get Andrews with me. He's like, oh, I thought we had it. I'm like, oh, I thought we had it. We're done. Then Eric Seiler calls me. Very famous phone call in our lore. Goes, Adam, I just learned something.

2:17:40Adam Neumann:I said, what is it, Mr. Seiler? Again, he owns his own firm. I don't work for you. I work for Rebecca. I said, how did you learn that? He goes, well, she called me and completely disagrees with my legal strategy and told me that we're going to court, not settling. It's different from what you and I agreed. Therefore, I work for her, not for you. I said, well, I feel like I work for her because I know that all my blessings come from my wife.

2:18:07Rick Rubin:Yeah.

2:18:07Adam Neumann:And if she feels strongly about something, I support her. There's no question. She has better intuition than me. So I support her. You support me. Then yes, we're going to go with her way. He goes, okay, then. Just wanted to clarify that. I said, what do you think is going to happen? He goes, I don't know. This is uncharted territory. I would accept. I said, well, what if they do? What if she's right and they do? He goes, you don't understand. They gave all these promises. I said, Eric, we just litigated for a year about all these promises about a contract. What's a promise? Either the money's in the bank or it's not.

2:18:43So he goes, okay, let's get on the call.

2:18:45Adam Neumann:There's going to be a very bad Zoom. We get on the Zoom with the litigators, with the this, with the that, their general counsel, and scary individuals, I'll basically say, look, guys, it's not me anymore. It's me and Rebecca. We make choices together. We have a Schedule C section Friday, 9 a.m., which is also the first day of Purim holiday. If the money is not in the bank at 8.30, all of it, we'll see you in court. And even though court is in eight days, the court date, which is the breast of my new son that's going to be born, I will miss the bris or I will do it in the courtroom but I will see you in court boom explosions pop pop screaming da da da da Andrew behind the scenes it's like this tragedy done done if we were watching the movie you and I would be like that's it it's gone we're staying in court next scene court with the bris happening outside of the court with the rabbi with the mohel four hours later Marcela calls me he's on the walker with the video you see him going Saddam Please call Rebecca in.

2:19:51Adam Neumann:I said, okay, Marcelo. Call Rebecca in. It's just Marcelo, no litigators, nor anyone else. And she says something beautiful. Said Rebecca and Adam, I want to apologize to both of you. You guys were 10 years ahead of your time. It could be that if you had the keys to this car, when you needed the keys to the car, we would have been in a different place. It is what it is. We are where we are now. the money will be in your account 30 minutes before your plan C section you have my word but separate from it you will see it you do not need to go forward with the litigation let's be partners I'm going to bring in a CEO I'm going to choose to do things my way I know to call you if I need to I respect you, respect me let's move like that I say thank you Marcel I look at Rebecca, she goes all good I say you're not worried I'm not worried, we're all good I say thank you at 4.30 a.m.

2:20:46Adam Neumann:Don't ask me how I didn't know money could transfer. 4.30 a.m. It hits the account. At 9 a.m. We're in the birthing room. Our sixth son, Moses, was born. Four months later is the television show. Wow. That is the true story. That's what actually happened. That's amazing. The fact that they chose to make her the villain, because it's easy. Yeah. By the way, it shows you a lot about society. But not only is it not true, whenever people hear something I've learned, when you hear two stories, there's a small group saying one story and a large group agreeing. Go listen to that small group and really take your time listening.

2:21:27Rick Rubin:Yeah.

2:21:28Adam Neumann:This will be the last piece. And then I think we can part ways with Reward once and for all. A year into this with this CEO, I see that they're not managing right. Stock starts dropping. We're like, oh my God, they're doing not one thing that we would have suggested. I call a few people. We have money at this stage again. I say, hey, if I put a big check, will you guys come in with me? Immediately, one day, commitments to a billion. Now, it's not that we didn't send the documents, we didn't do, but it was so quick that it would have come, we would have raised more if we needed it. Because I told people exactly what I was going to do.

2:22:01Adam Neumann:And again, corona was happening. Buildings were empty. It was very clear, at least to us, what the right thing would be to create the movement back, to deal with the situation. Because these moments of change for creatives who are in their field. Those are the biggest moments. This was my market. This was office. This was a change. It wasn't the end of office. It was time for a new office. And I called the CEO. I was like, look, we have soft commitments for a billion, but we're ready to go. I want to share with you the strategy. I want to see this. We will invest into the company. We will buy in.

2:22:31Adam Neumann:We want to support. We just want to make sure we have the same this. We want to share it with you, and we want to help you. Let's make this company successful. Corona should be the win, not the loss. Schedules it all with us. Our investors, top guys on the plane. We're all on our way to go. Sends me a text. I'm sorry, Adam. Whatever reason. It's a pass. I will pass. Cancel the meeting. Cancel the meeting. Never takes it. Wow. Drives the company all the way to bankruptcy. We were ready to put our money. We brought new money. And we brought a new plan. I'm not telling you that it would have worked.

2:23:05Rick Rubin:No, you can't know.

2:23:06Adam Neumann:Can't know. All I'm telling you is...

2:23:07Rick Rubin:But it would have been different.

2:23:08Adam Neumann:I'm just telling you what happened. And that was that.

2:23:11Rick Rubin:That's wild.

2:23:13Adam Neumann:So you asked how it's all connected. As all of this is happening, Mark Andreessen is calling us. Called the first time, we missed the fact. Called the second time. Then an article in the Wall Street Journal comes up saying that Adam Neumann's family office has purchased over a billion dollars worth of real estate in South Florida. We've moved to Miami at this stage. And he calls Mark and he says, hey, Adam. I thought, because every time the end of every call, I said, if you're going to do something, let's talk. I said, I thought we said that we're going to talk if you're doing something. I said, yeah, of course we are.

2:23:44Adam Neumann:I said, you're obviously doing something. You bought a lot of real estate. I said, no, Mark, that's just real estate. He goes, no, it's not. It's your idea for the future of living. It's a new brand. It's We Live, but better. I say, well, honestly speaking, yes, I've been having thoughts, but it's not that. I said, do you have an idea? I said, I do. I said, are you clear about how you're going to do it? I said, I don't care about how it would start. I said, do you have a name? I said, I don't. I said, do you want to talk about it? I said, whenever you want. And we're going to really connect it.

2:24:16Adam Neumann:And I said, let's talk about it. I said, okay. And we sort of leave it in the air. I still don't follow up. Tell me when that call was. Back to the timeline. The first call is happening 2020, end of winter. Second call, about half a year later. This third one is happening before the television show. Our sixth child was born on Rebecca's birthday, which is February 26th. So that's 2021. So this needs to be 2022. So the teen is now very worried because we have worked one foot after the other to build ourselves from the beginning, business-wise and reputation-wise. A lot of people believe this false story suddenly.

2:24:59Adam Neumann:And again, I'm walking into a room every time needing to explain what really happened. And they're worried. And the story's going to come out and that's a horrible thing. But we have Marc Andreessen that's been calling us. And then one of the team members has an idea, a great idea. What if you call Marc Andreessen and he will interview you because we know what he thinks about you. He's the biggest investor in the world. He'll interview you about what really happened. And not only that, what if we do it in South by Southwest? Because the show, Apple was very smart about it because it was a tech-oriented...

2:25:31Adam Neumann:They premiered it south by southwest. They premiered it south by southwest the first time anything was done like that. So you were going to do a live... My idea was, no, the person who gave me the idea, a live interview with the biggest investor in the world. With the truth. The same time it premieres. Great idea. Great idea. So I schedule, I text to Mark, which in this time I've never taken, I've never jumped into any discussion. And I ask his assistant, and this is for a Friday, and the show is scheduled, whatever, a month after. I need to talk to Mark. wanting to ask him, I don't have a close relationship, would he be willing to do that?

2:26:02Adam Neumann:You've only talked to him three times? Only three times. This is the third time. I've only talked to him twice at this point. So only twice before, and the calls, how long reach are those calls? They're good calls. The first one is 20. Mark is, as you know, an amazing guy to talk to. They're great calls. I let them go as long as he's, as long as he's interested, I'm on the call. So great calls about many topics. But always coming back to that same topic of the calls basically being, Adam, when are you getting back in the ring? That's like the theme of the call. Very motivating, by the way. Very, very powerful.

2:26:31Adam Neumann:Better than most of the friends I had, and we didn't even know each other. I really appreciate it. And so I'm scheduling this other call. And I'm going to basically try to convince him to come. I know it's hard to travel to South by, or if he can't travel, I was going to, my idea was, I'll come to you, and they'll Zoom it in. But no matter what, we're in front of a live audience in South by. Or maybe he's on Zoom and I'm live. But whatever, if I can get him to come then. Maybe. We scheduled a call for a Friday, and a few days before, because again, I'm just starting to understand what the word woke means, and this whole media, and social media, and I'm starting to learn what I went through.

2:27:08Adam Neumann:Suddenly, I have this thought in my head. What if South by Southwest wouldn't want, what if I'm offering Mark something that they wouldn't put on stage? And I asked two people, I said, what are you talking about, Adam? This is the biggest thing that's happening, is this show getting premiered. How would you and Mark talking on stage not be good for the conference? if you're running South by, are you letting this interview go? I would say yes. Of course. I would think so. But I suddenly, because I'm starting to understand how the world works, or at least how it works, not how it should work, but regretfully how it does sometimes.

2:27:38Adam Neumann:And I realized I should ask someone before I ask Mark. And I call someone that's very close to the people running it. And I say, can you check if I get Mark to say yes, would they be interested in this interview, in this fireside chat live? and they call me an hour before my call with mark that i'm planning to say adam you won't believe this answer is no i said no now i'm really you know like the show is coming out more did the takedown already happened before it didn't said please tell me why no i said interesting because i asked because i knew you're gonna ask me starts with mark sitting on the board of facebook and They hate Facebook since 2022.

2:28:19Adam Neumann:So that's reason number one. I said, but he's a board member. He's this, he's that. That's what they said. You, on the other hand, they're willing to have next year, depending how the show comes out. If the show comes out and you're an evil villain, no. If the show comes out and people like you, they'll have you next year. I was like, fuck then. So now I'm an hour before the call with Mark. I really have nothing to say. And this is back to that same story. I call my partner, Ilan. He's like, Ilan, I'm canceling the call. He goes, no, you're not. He's like, I'm canceling the call. He goes, why?

2:28:54Adam Neumann:Mark was excited about the call. He's finally, you're talking and like, Mark's excited. Don't cancel. I said, well, I don't have anything to say. He said, yes, you do. You have a vision in your head. It doesn't have a name. It's a new business. You have the vision of the future of how people are gonna live. Tell him that. I said, I'm not clear about it yet. He said, I said, Adam, I'm your partner. It's hiding inside of you. It's your perfect founder market fit for this thing. It's always been there. It's your original idea. Your original idea was no WeWork. Your original idea was called Concept Living when you were in college.

2:29:26Adam Neumann:It's your original idea. It's from the kibbutz. It's how people live. It's the future of living. Tell him that. I say, Elon, I'm not ready to say it. He's the biggest investor in the world. I don't want a half thought idea. I want to articulate it clear. It was no problem. Tell him you love to do it face to face. He's going to invite you. It's going to take a second. We're going to get a second to get our act together. We'll do it then. Call is about to come. I'm sweating. I can't believe why am I sweating. This is after all this stuff. Why am I again acting like I'm a 32-year-old? What am I stressed about?

2:29:57Adam Neumann:We own all the stuff we're doing, we're building, we're having my family. I've learned a lot. I'm in a much better place. I feel happier. How am I stressed again? Like I'm pitching to an investor at age 28. At the exact same time that I have that thought, But my second feeling is like, wow, I like this. I miss this. This is how it feels to be in the ring.

2:30:19Rick Rubin:Yeah.

2:30:19Adam Neumann:I feel alive. I get on the call and very honestly, I say what I say. I say, I want to do it face-to-face. Talk for half an hour about other stuff. I said, it would be my pleasure. A week later, he invites me. We go to Malibu. Four weeks later, we sit down. And the whole way... It's the first time you're meeting him in... First time meeting face-to-face. Never met before. Didn't know he was that tall. Very tall. Taller than me. Him, his head of his crypto fund, Chris Dixon, another tall guy. All of them, first time, we're in Malibu. We walk in and start talking. It's high level, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

2:30:57Adam Neumann:Everybody sits down. And Mark starts saying, so Adam, we're all here. We like to hear. I say, Mark, I would like to talk about WeWork first and my lessons learned. Because you don't need to. I said, I understand. I would really like to. He goes, Adam, let's be clear. We called you here because we know what we think has happened. Assume that we've spoken to most people that have ever worked with you. Definitely to an engineer that has ever worked with you and all of your board members. Let's talk about the future of living. I say, Mark, I really appreciate it. I've never spoken to you about this, especially if you know so much about it.

2:31:34Adam Neumann:Maybe I can learn one more thing. I know I learned a lot, but maybe there's one more lesson hiding there. I want to talk about it. And this for those people who know Mark. He'll say twice, but if you let him loose, he's going to go and there is no filter. And it's going to be some of the smartest things you've ever heard in your life. He almost does a version of this. So, okay, Adam, let's go. And we go for it. And for the next hour and a half, not only do I share what I share, I learn at least five new things about it. The craziest one being, he goes, hey, when you took the money from Benchmark, did you ever check how many founders they ever ousted?

2:32:08Adam Neumann:I said, no. It was interesting. Jack Dorsey, Travis Kalanick, and then he names five other ones. Because they're known for it. It's not that they said they're great investors, but it has happened there many times. Did you even know that? I said, no, I didn't. I said, okay, so we learned one thing about you. You did not do your homework. I said, no, I did not. I trusted. I said, okay. We then talked for the next three hours. Then we talked about the future of living. I said, Adam, what would you want to solve if you solved, what do you think are the two biggest problems? I said, loneliness. and ownership.

2:32:42Adam Neumann:He goes, great. How are we going to solve that? And then we talked about how I think we're going to solve that. And at the end, he goes, so what do you think about considering new partners? Because by this point, I'm funding the business 100 % on my own. I don't want partners. I don't need partners. I'm traumatized. I said, I genuinely didn't think about it. He goes, well, how about you do your homework and call a lot of people who we've been investors of? Because we've I've already called a lot of people that know you. See what you think. And basically for the next six months, we get to know each other.

2:33:14Adam Neumann:But as we're getting to know each other, we shape, the business already existed. There were buildings, we already bought the small tech company that we were using. There were things that were occurring already, but we shape it even bigger. And Mark is playing a very active role. And every time I think big, he thinks bigger. But not the way Masa thought bigger grow faster. the way think longer, build a better product, take your time. Don't worry about profitability, not because you're chasing revenue. Don't worry about profitability because if we can actually challenge loneliness and ownership in a real way, we're going to have a world-changing business.

2:33:54And Mark says to me, and I am here to build the big one, not the middle one.

2:33:59Adam Neumann:So it's again that energy of, wow, here's someone thinking as big or bigger than me. But he's not telling me to go crazy. He's teaching me history. He said, great tech teams are small. They're not big. Starts naming every single great tech product that was built and how it was built. And as we do this partnership, and Ben Horowitz is starting to jump in, but the first board meeting was only Mark and starting the second Ben joins. The one thing we agreed in advance is when it comes to technology, they will help choose the leaders. Great. Amazing. They will help choose the leaders. And on our board meetings, we're going to spend time talking about the whole business, but we're really going to spend time talking about the whole business.

2:34:34Adam Neumann:spend time talking about tech. Because when it comes to building a brand, a global movement or real estate, they truly trust me. When it comes to building technology, they wanted me to truly trust them. Now, even though my investors before were tech investors, not once did I give any advice. I love this. I'm like, great. And then Mark has the ha-ha moment that even takes it to the next level. He said, how much money? He looked at all of my real estate portfolio. He said, choose the best. Tell me how much equity it is. and that's what we're going to invest. So I put$350 million in the form of equity, of real estate, not debt, not value of real estate, just the equity.

2:35:11Adam Neumann:And they put$350 million in cash. We both had skin in the game. The one rule between the two of us, they told us, Adam, we're aligned with you. Even though you weren't actually misaligned with your investors because you didn't do anything wrong, not only was there the perception of misalignment, you found yourself misaligned. Let's make a rule. When you buy, we buy. When you sell, we sell. We're together. I said, great rule. Great rule. I can't wait to be with you, Alliant. And just to lend this point home, and then we'll take it to what it is that we've been building. It's time to find a CTO.

2:35:44Adam Neumann:Something people don't know about Flow. Flow spends more money on technology than anything else, not on real estate. Really? We'll explain in a second why. So it's time to find a CTO. And we go on this six-month journey of interviewing the best on the planet because we're not going to make that mistake again. And we get to four final candidates. And I choose my final one. and then I introduce all four to Ben. And Ben Horowitz, an amazing CEO himself, but also a coach of CEOs. He's a great recruiter and hirer. Seen it all done at home. And Ben interviews, I interview. Ben calls me, goes, hey Adam, I finished my four interviews.

2:36:19Adam Neumann:I know my pick. I said, great. He goes, first I'm going to tell you who you picked. I said, let's go Ben, because you picked the Amazon guy. I said, yes I did. He goes, great pick. He has the experience. He's a great guy. He worked in a great company. and he checks all the boxes. He's not your guy. I said, why, Ben? Because your guy's the WhatsApp guy. I said, why is my guy the WhatsApp guy? I said, I'm going to tell you something. His name is Scott. I'm going to tell you something about Scott that Scott doesn't know about himself. Scott is extremely smart. Scott had to architect a very complicated situation in WhatsApp and dealt with billions and billions of users and huge numbers that you've never imagined the numbers that he dealt.

2:36:56Adam Neumann:And we know about his engineering team and how he cleaned it up and how he did the architecture. And there's a lot of really good things that we did our diligence on. But Scott has one quality that builds excellent tech teams that you need. I said, what is that? I said, when someone says something stupid next to Scott, Scott does this with his face. He can't help it. He doesn't even know he does it. I guess, and Ben, that's important for our tech team because it's the most important. I said, why? Because I'm going to tell you a secret about tech teams and my small tech teams are great. One bad apple ruins the whole thing.

2:37:28Adam Neumann:We always manage to the lowest basis not to the highest, he can't help it. Even if he won't be able to tell them you're fired, they will see on his face that he thinks they are not great and they will go find another job. This for Flo, Flo's tech team needs to be world-class because Flo is trying to solve very large problems. And it's going to take time to build what you want to build. And we have to make sure the core is correct because if our foundation is not there, we won't be able to deliver on this big mission. He's your guy. Again, old Adam might have argued. New Adam chose his partners because of what they know.

2:38:04Adam Neumann:And what he doesn't bring. And what they bring. Yeah. I don't know if Ben thought this was going to be an argument or not. I said, great, yes. He was like, that's it? I said, of course, that's it. That's why we're partners. I know you know more than me. And obviously, I didn't do a good job last time on this topic. Bring it up.

2:38:21Rick Rubin:Yeah. And we recruit Scott. How many CTOs did you hire in the past? Six. And how many has he hired in the past?

2:38:31Adam Neumann:He's hired so many entrepreneurs, by the way, who act as CTOs at the beginning, right? In pure tech companies, we're more than just a tech company. In pure tech companies, many times the founder is the CTO at the beginning. And then they all have to hire CTOs. So he has over a thousand companies. So he's done this over a thousand times, this way or that way, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

2:38:51Rick Rubin:So he has some level of experience that feels good trusting.

2:38:58Adam Neumann:It also disconnects to our past. At WeWork, because we were trying, especially now that we know the story, at some point to start chasing revenue, we were trying to build systems that can count and manage. At Flow, from the first day, our mission was oneness. Oneness for a person and themselves, a person in their community, and a person in the natural world. To achieve that, you need to build technology. and we talk a lot about AI to think instead of humans. At Flow, we talk about AI to empower humans to be the best version of themselves.

2:39:34Rick Rubin:Beautiful.

2:39:34Adam Neumann:To create spaces that empower humans to be the best version of themselves. Our technology does not need to think for us. It needs to make everything so smooth and make things work so organically that we can be part of something greater than ourselves. And that's why our CTO was such an important pick. So now he starts and it's three weeks into the job. And the counselor says, hey, Adam, I have good news and bad news. The good news is I have an idea of the architecture that would build what we need to build to deliver on your vision of solving ownership and solving loneliness and on creating this energy of oneness or togetherness.

2:40:15the bad news is current real estate technology is built on databases and does not put the resident

2:40:24Adam Neumann:or the member first puts a lot of other things first but not that we're gonna have to build it from scratch all of it back to the we work days i was told by many ctos i need to build from scratch i built all the time from scratch and i had nothing or very little to show for it yeah so I said, Scott, I'm not sure I'm ready for this adventure, but you're in luck. I have a board meeting next week. I truly trust my partners. If you're ready to walk in and present how you're going to build real estate from scratch, architecture, be my guest. I'm just telling you this might be a short partnership for the two of us.

2:40:58Adam Neumann:And I really started to like you. It's only been three weeks, but I like the energy because I'll take my chances. Because by the way, I'm here to fulfill your vision. I want to explain to you something that I'm going to tell them. Your vision is going to change so many times that if I don't give you an extremely flexible system that's truly rethinking everything, I won't be able to keep up with you. I might at the beginning, but one day you're going to ask for something I can't do. I'm going to preempt it, but it's going to be tough for you because then I'm going to tell you I need a year for you not to bother me.

2:41:27Adam Neumann:And all the little things that our CTOs might have built for you, nice apps and front-facing and all the gimmicks, you're not going to have any gimmicks. But when I'm done with what I'm doing, you're going to have a powerful system that can basically tackle on the future of how we live. It goes into the board meeting and you should have been there. They go at it for three hours. I don't have a lot to say because it's not my field. Mark is very strong in architecture. Ben is very strong in use cases and how it's used. And they just go. And after three hours, they say, we agree. And then go out to dinner and they argue between themselves for another two hours about it.

2:42:06Adam Neumann:It's a big decision. It's a very big turn. And the guy just started. It's a lot of trust. And at the end of it, Ben is like, Adam, I'm good. I said, why? He goes, because Mark is good. We've been working together for 30 years. And I love this, by the way. For me, this is no problem. We've been working together for 30 years, and I know when to trust my partner. He's good, I'm good. It's like, you guys are good, I'm good. And we start this journey of rethinking how the architecture for, and I say architecture, I mean the digital architecture in a way that will allow us to put the resident, the member, the person first.

2:42:44Adam Neumann:Why is digital architecture

2:42:45Rick Rubin:so important in housing?

2:42:46Adam Neumann:I don't understand. So without giving away all of our secrets, I'll explain to you how it's built today. Think of it as a database that's built data on data on data on data. And now you want to put AI on top of it. You're really getting the top layer. You're not actually understanding everything. And if you want to leverage technology in a way that truly understands everything, you have to re-architect how the data is stored. From the beginning. From the beginning. You have to actually rethink it. And this is where we got luckier than smart. This is two and a half years ago. Blockchain is in place.

2:43:21Adam Neumann:AI is in place. It's not the way it is today, but it's all starting. So everything is built taking in mind the newest way of doing things. It's the edge of the edge of how to build things. and I told you that we're going to have a board meeting in two days. We're going to present for the first time how not only it all comes together theoretically, but how it's working and how it's starting to deliver. And it's going to only work better from here, but we see the results. And how do we see the results? In much more profitable buildings, but we're also seeing much happier residents, much more connected.

2:43:53Adam Neumann:How many buildings are there now? So Flow now has nine buildings, four in the U.S. and five in Saudi Arabia, and flow is how these communities come together. And we're doing it by tackling the technology, the brand, the world it represents, and the experience. And we're really doing it one thought at a time. And again, the big difference from the past, we're not rushing. We're going after the right product and we're doing it in a way that's truly going to make you, the user, feel like you're having this experience that's truly unique. And when we talked about this two years ago, we said mind, body, and soul and how it all comes together.

2:44:32Adam Neumann:People maybe had a little tough time. Everybody wants to feel like they're in flow. Everybody understands what flow state is for them. Everybody is connecting to it. And the buildings are really starting to show it.

2:44:45Rick Rubin:Wow. Each time that you have a new building, do you learn new things about what works and what doesn't work? What a great question.

2:44:55Adam Neumann:we just launched a new building in Brickell in Miami. 632 apartments, very large, brand new, completely empty. And Flow is not just able to run buildings. Flow is now developing the beginning of small neighborhoods. So it's a single building, but there are three more plots. It's 6.2 acres, which for Miami is a very large plot, to build over 2 ,200 apartments with office space, with retail, with a school that we're considering. A whole community. A whole community. And as you start thinking about it as a community, you start saying, well, what does a community need? You don't limit it to just a single building.

2:45:29Adam Neumann:You're saying, what are obvious things? Well, community, well, it needs a barbershop. It needs a Nelson. But then it needs this film. It needs a coffee shop. And you start adding all these things that make a tremendous sense. And what else does community? Community loves music. Community loves food. Community loves art. And you start thinking of all those things bringing together. And before you know it, we get to not just experience all these things, but experiment them. So I'll give you an example. Do you know how many times you've driven by empty construction sites that are fenced up? Yeah.

2:45:57Adam Neumann:So we had three of those because we have one finished building and three construction sites. We take one of them. And this was Rebecca's idea, actually. And we plant. We put sand to make it like a beach. We put palm trees. We put a little, you know, the indigenous structures that they love to create in Miami, like a tiki hut, but a large one that's going to have a floor. And we're like, we're going to do music here three times a week. And here's two food trucks. And we're going to open it up for the public. Beautiful, like a park. like a park. Costs very little to do, but for the next two years, instead of having an empty construction site, you gave to the community.

2:46:29Adam Neumann:This one is on the river. We say, hey, what about a farmer's market? We launch a farmer's market.

2:46:34Rick Rubin:Great.

2:46:35Adam Neumann:We have this amazing woman. Her name is Shelly. Do you remember Jelena's? She used to be the CEO of Jelena's. If you remember Jelena's, you know what she does. The best food. The best food. And from what I hear from a lot of people, the best experience. Yeah. She brings it all together. So we say to Shelly, all we have to say is we want the farmer's market with intention. and it's like an AI, you just give it a prompt. You come to the farmer's market, every booth has a story, this mother, this daughter, this local, and they're also inspired. Now people start walking it and they're so inspired.

2:47:05Adam Neumann:And now you're giving to your local community. But what you're really doing is you're also attracting a lot of people and you're starting to tell the flow story. And it actually starts in the beginning, but we can't get a lot of people there because no one's ever heard of this farmer's market. So we throw a yoga class and we launch a runs club and we're at your walking club. because some people prefer walking than running. And before you know it, there were over a thousand people coming. There was one, I didn't see the last one because I was here with you. There was one yesterday. And it's every week.

2:47:32Adam Neumann:And the more exciting the environment is downstairs, the more it affects the upstairs. And people start coming in. And now all these tours are coming. And because we're leveraging, and then we write a sign on the building. What if it all goes right? And two weeks ago, someone goes on their boat on the river and takes a video. What if it all goes right? This is a woman with 13 ,000 followers. She gets 22 and a half million views. She went viral. And she writes, sometimes it only takes one sentence to lift you up. She must have not been the only person. It was shared over 1.8 million times. Huge numbers.

2:48:11Adam Neumann:All it said is, what if it all goes right, but it was on a building? Landlords don't usually say thanks.

2:48:18Rick Rubin:No.

2:48:19Adam Neumann:And who do you think, by the way, came up with that sentence? The person who people like to make a villain. Of course. Classic Rebecca. Classic. Because it's so simple. I said, where did you come up with that sentence? She said, it's you. You think it's always going to come. No matter what happened to you in your life, you found a way to think, what if it all goes right? You stand for it. So I put it on the building. She has a way of building brands that is so authentic. I am now understanding. There's so much depth there. By the way, she does three hours a week. The rest is all us. Because we don't need more than that.

2:48:52Adam Neumann:And she doesn't need to give. If she gave us more than that, we couldn't keep up. And she's a full-time mom. And just launched a school and is doing all these different things that she's doing. Yes, full-time mom, just launched a school. She's doing a lot. She's tackling the world the way she sees in a way to make a difference. But you suddenly have this flow building. It has a farmer's market. It has a park. Everybody's coming in. Tours are flying in. We don't know what to do with them. And because of our same architecture, that digital architecture we spoke about, it works very well connecting to social media.

2:49:23Adam Neumann:We can count and measure every lead that comes in. We can start pulling a lever. We can do a million things that other landlords can't do. We start pulling that lever in that new building, and it's filling up so fast. First of all, I'm slowing down for a second, because when something is working that well, you got to take a second, take a breath and say, wait, maybe it's priced wrong, maybe. But it's filling up at least five times the speed of the market. It traditionally would take 18 months to fill up a building with 400 apartments. That's the market number. This building has 632 apartments.

2:49:53Adam Neumann:It will fill up in six months. And that's just the beginning. We're going to use AI to keep it maintained. We have a team to do that because it's very creative, leveraging a lot of tools. But afterwards, to maintain it, you'll do it with a lot less people. And the other thing that we've done in this community, another lesson from the past, we have ambassadors that live there. Each one of them chooses a topic that they love. They host events. They make it all happen. We just empower them through the app, through the tech, to be able to do. Once a month, each one of them, five of them. So once a month, so that's five events a month.

2:50:24Adam Neumann:Then the trainers are from the building. The yoga instructors are from the building. The meditation is from the building. And people are really reacting well to it.

2:50:33Rick Rubin:Beautiful. Tell me, since you and Rebecca started your spiritual journey together, how it has grown?

2:50:44Adam Neumann:So, spoke about Shabbat a little bit. When my boys were born, we had an experience with a rabbi that wasn't willing to get paid. He did the bris, and he wouldn't take the money. His name is Rabbi Heller. And he's a very special person. And no matter how much we chased him, he wouldn't take the money. Until I sort of didn't believe. I was like, Rebecca, this guy is just playing a shawl. I'll force him to take the money. And I go to his house thinking there's some trick up his sleeve or something. And I see a very humble house and a very humble man, an amazing wife and amazing kids. I'm so inspired and impressed that I said to him, we've got to find a different way.

2:51:25Adam Neumann:He's not going to take the money. It's a no, it's a no. Let's do something else. And he encourages us to practice more on our own practice, starting by the Friday night and this and then. He encourages us to try Shabbat one time. What are the rules of Shabbat? So the rules of Shabbat, forget the religious rules. Let's do the spiritual rules. The rule is that you take one day a week and you disconnect from 24 hours from the external world. And you connect to the internal world, yourself, your wife, your kids, your close friends. No technology. No technology, no cooking, no working. You don't talk about business.

2:52:06Adam Neumann:No matter what, no talking about business on Shabbat. Best ideas, by the way, for business, come on Shabbat. Don't talk about it, but it's the time. And it's a rule that existed 3 ,000 years ago, is when it comes from. As relevant as it was then, I think it's never been more relevant than today. And I tell this to people all the time, forget the religious part. Take your phone and put it in the cookie jar, up there, close it, and take 24 hours. And I say, here's what you're going to experience. notice how many times for the first three hours you're going to put your hand in your pocket to grab that phone, which means you're addicted.

2:52:42Adam Neumann:Just notice it. But then make it through the night and go into the next day. And I say, I don't care if you do it on Saturday or Sunday. Choose your day. You know, the Pope that passed away, he used to call it Technology Shabbat. He would preach it. Say, Technology Shabbat, Technology Shabbat. And the next day, be disconnected from the phone. Drive, do everything else you want to do. Just don't use your phone. Make your plans in advance so it works. Tell me afterwards if you had a better week. If you had a better week, do it again. You are allowed to read a book. You are encouraged to read a book.

2:53:11Adam Neumann:Encouraged to read a book. So again, in my practice, you would also pray. You pray Friday night. You pray on Saturday. I'm putting myself on the side for a second. And I'm saying, anybody who tries this, when you disconnect from your phone, you're giving a gift to your kids, you're disconnected. They're disconnected, but you're all much connected to each other, especially for people who work very hard. Imagine the gift of 24 hours. before you know it, they're going to be 18, they're going to be out of the house, and you miss this beautiful thing. When we do it, we don't touch anything. When did you start doing it?

2:53:43Adam Neumann:10 years ago. 10 years ago, my boys are 10, so right after their birth, so 10 years ago.

2:53:50Rick Rubin:Would you say of the different things you've done, that was one of the life-changing decisions? I would say without a

2:53:57Adam Neumann:doubt that the biggest move that I've made spiritually is keeping Shabbat. On those days, The biggest channeling of ideas for Rebecca and I happen at 8 a.m. Saturday morning. I remember we don't write also because we don't this, so we just remember them. But the action happens Saturday morning. And then we also host sometimes the Shabbat where everybody comes together and reads the Torah. We host the Shabbat. So then we're hosting other people and we're bringing them together. And then everybody shares this experience. And we sit in a circle and we talk before the Torah reading about this week's portion.

2:54:30Adam Neumann:We share how is it relevant to our everyday life. But sometimes we just take the Saturday off and we don't participate in that. And we're just with our kids and our friends.

2:54:40Rick Rubin:Beautiful. There's something happening now. I don't know if you know about it called the quiet revolution. Tell me about it. Young people are interested in going to church. For years and years and years, the people who went to church were getting older and older. And the amount of people was declining, declining, declining, declining. and something happened in the last few years where young people are interested in going to church, more Bibles are being sold. Something's happening. 100%.

2:55:13Adam Neumann:It's everywhere you go. People are more open. People are ready for it. It's natural. As technology is going to make us more and more digitally connected, we're going to feel more and more disconnected. The more disconnected that we feel, the more we're going to crave a real connection. A real connection will never come by buying another car or buying another house or owning another material good. A real connection comes from the inside. A person who has unity from the inside has unity to the outside. Here's what I think. We're connected to this week's portion. We all have something that we're slaves to.

2:55:54Adam Neumann:We all have an addiction to anger, to ego, to power, whatever it is, idol worship that we have. We all have an Egypt. We all need to leave that Egypt, come out of it. When we come out of that Egypt, we all face the Red Sea. When we see that Red Sea, we all need to have the courage to walk into it so far that we drown. Only when we're willing to drown will the Red Sea be split and we'll go to our next level. We then go to our next level. We see the Red Sea splits. And we're like, oh, everything is okay. And we forget. The moment we forget, we step into the desert. We all have to walk to our version of desert.

2:56:34Adam Neumann:That desert is between us and God, no one else. The only decision we get to have is how long we're going to journey through that desert. Are we going to journey for 14 days, like the children of Israel were supposed to? or are we going to journey for 40 years because we're not learning our lesson? Our choice is not, are we going to get into the desert or not? It's how long will we be in? And once we go out of that desert, we all have our version of the promised land. And if we have the courage to look inside, see our own correction, our own limitation, look at it clearly now and say, I see you and I'm going to get over it.

2:57:12Adam Neumann:I'm going to learn. I'm going to grow. I'm going to understand that life is not about falling down. It's about how I'm going to get up. I'm going to fall a thousand times so I can get up a thousand and one times. And in that last time when I get up and I'm actually ready to go to my next level, I'm going to wish for you, for me, please, may we have the courage to go to our next level because we know that the promised land is waiting right after it. And may we not be afraid when the whole world is saying this or that about us, who cares about what you think what your wife thinks, what your kids think, and what the universe thinks.

2:58:16Rick Rubin:Tetragrammatin Tetragrammatin is a podcast. Tetragrammatin is a website. Tetragrammatin is a whole world of knowledge.

2:58:47Rick Rubin:Tetragrammatin Biodynamics Tetragrammatin Graphic Design Tetragrammatin Mythology and Magic Tetragrammatin Obscure Film Tetragrammatin Beach Culture Tetragrammatin Esoteric Lectures Tetragrammatin Off the Grid Living Tetragrammatin Alt Spirituality Tetragrammatin The Canon of Fine Objects Tetragrammatin Muscle Cars Tetragrammatin Ancient Wisdom for a New Age Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn.