Introduction

Adam Neumann always had wild ambitions. By 2017, he had found an even wilder investor who wanted to fund those ambitions: SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Adam spent his billions from SoftBank on competitive tactics, seemingly random investments, and even an elementary school. In this episode, reporter Ellen Huet explores why this free-wheeling spending was so odd: Adam knew this was a bad idea. In exclusive recordings from internal meetings in 2016, he warned his employees that they had to cut back on WeWork's "spending culture." But once the money poured in, it appeared like he forgot his own advice.

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