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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

So in the last little while, we've learned that WeWork has/had oppressive non-compete clauses, and will no longer allow anyone to expense anything involving the consumption of meat.

This is odd to me, because the people I know who work for them love their job and employer, but it seems like they're moving down a dark path...

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(regular HNer here, posting anonymously for obvious reasons). I work for WeWork, and you don't know the half of it. In mid-August WeWork had their "Summer Camp" event, which was a three day all-hands company meeting in England. About 5500 of 7000 WeWork employees were flown into Heathrow and shipped out to a campground in Tunbridge Wells. Everyone was required to sleep in a tent, generally with four or five other tent mates, on air mattresses on the ground with thin mattresses.

Because of the vegetarianism thing, everyone was forced to eat WeWork-provided food, sans meat (though fish is okay!). This totally broke my ketogenic diet, which made me quite mad. See other comments about this being a form of group control.

For the first day and a half, we were subjected to a number of corporate "talks" which largely revolved around the cult of personalities of Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey. Adam Neumann particularly styles himself a televangelis or Jesus-wannabe and walks out into the audience, asking people about their deepest fears, delivering some ersatz corprorate sermon on the mount. There is no "me", only "we".

See also the time when Rebecca Neumann commands the gathered WeWorkers to hold hands, close their eyes, and pray.

Or the time that Deepak Chopra comes out and shows a disturbing video about childbirth (people were like, "is this an anti-abortion video?) and talks about how evolution and child development are intimately related, and how we should take our shoes off to let the ions flow, and leads a meditation session.

A fish rots from the head down, and this is one crazy fish.

That's outright cult behavior in a very disturbing sense. Often cults operate as a way to cover for some verboten behavior - usually perpetrated by the founders - and use the cohesive group identity to prevent people from leaking whatever inappropriate behavior is occurring.

> This totally broke my ketogenic diet

Absolutely infuriating. As a diabetic a high-protein diet is just about the best thing for me. I'd quit on the spot.

Working on it ;)

An employee who could document health damage might have grounds for legal action, eh?

Wee!

GL!!

I actually had to do some Google research to confirm that Deepak Chopra did indeed talk at a WeWork event. Wow.

I mean, I won't hold it against any individual to be into Deepak Chopra, I won't even hold it against a company of 100 people to invite Deepak Chopra provided the employees are aware that the company has a New Age vibe, a subtle scent of potpourri that just never goes away. 5000+ people though? Holy crap.

I won't even hold it against a company of 100 people to invite Deepak Chopra provided the employees are aware that the company has a New Age

If you’re a devout believer in religion A and your employer forces you - unknown to you at the time you were hired - to attend religious ceremonies of religion B as a condition of your continued employment - that is surely massively illegal

> Everyone was required to sleep in a tent, generally with four or five other tent mates, on air mattresses on the ground with thin mattresses.

I prefer keto diets too, but I think this would piss me off way more. I have really bad OCD. I wash my hands a lot; coworkers notice. I'm already self conscious about it. I can go camping but it takes a lot of mental prep (and I typically throw everything in the wash or away when I get home).

If a company forced me to camp like that .. da fuck?!

Not to mention everything else about that sounds pretty insane too.

I love camping, away from everyone else. If you made me camp with my coworkers I would not be happy either.

The irony being that your weak immune system is making you more susceptible to the nasties...

Lest anyone think this is hyperbole, I've heard even crazier stories from an employee I know personally who was there.

There was a journalist that covered the event that also corroborates basically everything that the OP is saying as well: https://www.propertyweek.com/insight/the-cult-of-wework/5098...

I'm all for reducing meat consumption. But having everyone do a hard and fast rule: no meat whatsover, seems extreme. People grew up with different values and diets. Until we can convince others, I think we should be more accepting of others values and not force everyone to do it one way.

Do these people go nuts after getting rich, or is being crazy not an impediment to building a large company?

George Bernard Shaw once wrote, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

People who have the audacity to do big things are frequently not reasonable people at all, and many times can be quite wacky. Sometimes this turns out well, like with Isaac Newton and Nikola Tesla. Other times this turns out very badly, like with Josef Stalin or Adolf Hitler.

At least half of that shit has to be illegal.

Have you considered leaking to like techcrunch or something? Hell even a major paper would probably take it up.

Dont leak to techcrunch. Hire an attorney. Walk away with six figures.

What the actual fuck? Why are you still working for them?

Well, to be fair, he did say "working on it" in a reply above.

>This totally broke my ketogenic diet

https://theoutline.com/post/6133/the-keto-diet-is-a-recipe-f...

The rest of what you describe sounds like a nightmare though.

I'd avoid prescribing dietary advice based on sensationalist articles. Ketogenic diets work for many people, dieters as well as diabetics, celiacs, etc. The science is sound as long as you understand the philosophy that makes it work.

This feels a bit naive. I understand wanting to use their position to change the world, but the right way to do this feels like the practices that Google did - small nudges to change behaviour, rather than commandments from the founders, which enforce a particular world view.

There are health and religious reasons why one may want to eat meat, but also vegetarianism for environmental reasons is a fairly US/Euro-centric phenomenon, and doesn’t have anywhere near the same following in parts of Africa, Asia, and other places.

Here’s a good thread on the topic: https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/100636379997523148...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/wework-vegetaria...

Wow. I am speechless. I am without speech.

We're living in a world (at least in tech) where the boundaries between work/life are becoming increasingly blurred. Right or wrong, it seems like WeWork is a breed company that expects deep employee alignment on values that extend well outside of what's normally considered the sphere of work.

This may not be representative of the average WeWork employee? A 3.5 Glassdoor rating (https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/WeWork-Reviews-E661275.htm) is pretty low

love their job and employer

It has all the trappings of a cult. It is well known that cults use a low-protein diet for indoctrination. http://www.leaderu.com/common/cults.html

In a private Slack with a thousand or so industry people, I've seen "WeWork is a cult" mentioned more than once.

That isn't particularly surprising to me. Not because of anything specific to WeWork, but just because of general tech industry dynamics. Job advertisements want people who are "passionate", who "believe", who want to "change the word". We have had decades of "holy wars" and quasi-religious behavior, starting with editor choice [1] and OS [2], going up to the present moment [3][4].

It's pretty common for exposes of tech companies to talk about cult-like behavior. E.g., Dan Lyons on Hubspot [5] or John Carreyou on Theranos [6]. I don't think all startups are this way, or even most of them. But the seeds of cult-ish behavior are clearly commonplace. E.g., charismatic leaders, a group dedicated to a non-mainstream vision, people spending a lot of intense time together, hazy boundaries, top-down power structures, and a lot of young, impressionable people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editor_war

[2] https://tidbits.com/1995/06/26/computings-holy-war/

[3] https://www.recode.net/2018/5/30/17386068/brad-garlinghouse-...

[4] https://www.recode.net/2017/12/6/16680816/elon-musk-spacex-t...

[5] https://www.amazon.com/Disrupted-My-Misadventure-Start-Up-Bu...

[6] https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/07/theranos-elizabeth-holmes...

We're talking about WeWork here, not a tech company.

WeWork is, in no small part, a tech company.

In what non-small part?

They have a barely functioning mobile app and portal, but that's about it. Even the IT (which I wouldn't even count towards them being a tech company) seemed ridiculously broken at the locations I've been staying in the past.

In what non-small part?

Their business is built on the deployment of custom (if not particularly sexy) office technology and quite simply could not exist without it. There's also another certain very significant tech company they outright acquired to enhance their overall operations and portfolio.

So - they're not a traditional tech-only company; but a tech company quite definitely.

the deployment of custom (if not particularly sexy) office technology and quite simply could not exist without it.

In that sense every company is a tech company. Like if McDonalds “deploys” custom deep fryers are they a tech company too?

Yes, but not one that would have a keynote address by Deepak Chopra wherein chicken McNuggets of wisdom are delivered...

My own experience was that the printers never worked, the billing had errors, their mail and visitor notifications never worked... so while I agree they fashion themselves as a tech company, they were really bad at it.

Oh sure, their stuff only kinda works -- like the products of a great many tech companies. But at the end of the day -- well enough to have people lining outside the door. And they can't seem to stake out new buildings fast enough to keep up with the demand.

A successful tech company, through and through.

It's an interesting gedankenexperiment... we were with them for 18-24 months (I don't remember now...)... it was just an ok experience, and at a premium price. I don't imagine I would use them again. So do they continue to thrive, or does the veneer eventually fade and they are stuck holding some very expensive leases?

It seems that WeWork is interested in the cultural trappings of big tech, even though it isn’t tech at all.

WeWork is a real estate holding company masquarading as a tech company because anything that is described won't fly in any real estate holding company.

It can be challenging to get enough iron and B vitamins with a vegetarian diet. It's not that hard to get enough protein. Most Americans are consuming more protein than their bodies can use.

I have a genetic disorder. I need about 1.5 to 2x as much nutrients as normal people to not be malnourished. I eat smaller portions of meat than your standard American diet and some of my meals are meatless. My meat-and-potatoes relatives have accused me of being vegetarian because of it. I've improved my overall nutritional status while eating semi-vegetarian by American standards.

Some B vitamins are a serious problem for some vegetarians. But you would really have to be doing something wrong to not be getting adequate protein eating vegetarian.

Can someone explain the downvotes on this? There are no factual errors and the poster does not seem to be on the attack.

Meta: I've noticed downvotes are starting to be handed out very liberally lately. Maybe it's time to bump the minimum "karma" score up again required to downvote, or perhaps adjusting the algorithm on how downvotes are scored.

Vegetarian/vegan does not mean undernourished.

Not necessarily, but it can quite often be the case if the person in question isn't actively aware of the nutrients they are consuming.

True, as is the case for any diet.

Well, sure, you can be vegetarian on a diet of pizza and icecream and get plenty of calories but you’ll still be deficient in some nutrients.

You can be on a diet of pepperoni pizza and ice cream and get plenty of calories but you’ll still be deficient in some nutrients. I don't see your point.

You can be on a diet of beef and pork, get plenty of protein, and still be undernourished.

> It is well known that cults use a low-protein diet for indoctrination.

Okay, but this reads as non-sequiter because a lack of meat in a diet does not mean that the diet is one with low-protein consumption. Certainly if one is determined to be protein deficient then cutting out some food that is high in protein would be beneficial for their goal, but that's like saying if you don't use git you are managing a project wrong and aren't using version control. If you didn't want to use version control, then that would mean you wouldn't use git, but not using git doesn't mean you don't use VC.

That's one detail that might be cult-like, but on the whole as long as their employment contract doesn't prescribe who employees are allowed to talk to I fail to see how it is cult-like on the whole.

That is kinda what an overarching noncompete is isn’t it? Cults always try to forbid former members spilling the beans.

In this case it's very specific to trade secrets. It's not really cult-like to ask people not to talk specifics about your manufacturing processes, suppliers, or customers. That's also not usually within the purview of a non-compete. Non-competes generally dictate whether you can start selling competing products with a competitor or develop the same kind of software for sale with a competitor. They generally don't prohibit finding jobs in unrelated industries.

The morally reprehensible thing about a non-compete for a barista or janitor is that the knowledge of how to make coffee or clean is widely available and unless WeWork has some kind of proprietary technique for cleaning offices the non-compete is really a form of indentured servitude. And assuming there's no particular consideration given to what would happen to the janitor or barista should they lose their job and not be able to find similar work it's the kind of contract that should be illegal. It also makes me glad that I asked my employer to hold off on leasing an office for me from WeWork as I don't like doing business with companies that are that predatory.

But there's nothing particularly cult-like about it.

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