Adam Neumann is a genius at finding ways to increase his net worth as founder of a VC backed company.
[0] WeWork’s CEO Makes Millions as Landlord to WeWork - https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/16/wework-c...
[0] WeWork’s CEO Makes Millions as Landlord to WeWork - https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/16/wework-c...
In that situation, the smartest move is to plunder your investors and shareholders for everything they are worth.
interesting definition of "smart" you're using
It is not completely legal though. Someone like a CEO has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of the company. "Breach of Fiduciary Duty" is a real thing, and opens you up to liability for actual loses as well as punitive damages. So while I understand why the CEO would do this, it's probably a good idea to step back from that activity, especially on the verge of an IPO where the investor market might take a hard pass at a company whose CEO appeared ready to strip the enterprise for parts and abscond with the proceeds.
BTW, I notice that commenters often have wildly different views of what rules mean. To some, they mean something intrinsically, and it's the players duty to understand and abide by them. To others, rules mean nothing unless they are enforced, and even then you have tons of wiggle room (roughly proportional to the money you spend on your defense). (And these days there's a vocal third crowd that says the government shouldn't enforce rules against businesses of a certain size "because it makes us vulnerable".)
As for a good CEO vs. successful CEO, I guess I don't actually view the later as "successful", because their actions either hurt the company or at least hindered its success. I look at the failure of Sears, abetted by a self-dealing CEO, as a prime example of failure in this area.
In a business with very risky long-term fundamentals, yes.
If you are trying to run a factory that makes widgets, or a store that sells widgets, or even a social network where people discuss widgets... There are obvious ways to build a successful business around these things. Just do what your competitors do, but better. It's very clear that a viable business can be made of this sort of thing, and that being a corporate pirate is just one of multiple ways of enriching yourself.
When your business consists of giving away a dollar for ninety cents, personal plunder is the only smart maneuver. Your shares aren't going to be worth the paper they are printed on, once the music stops, regardless of the heroic efforts you might, or might not undertake.
Further, you assume that legitimate compensation would exceed what a predatory CEO could extract by self-dealing and gaming performance metrics. Even a successful business may have much more upside for the CEO in self-dealing rather than long term hard work. Why put in the hours to increase your legitimate compensation package when instead you can siphon the same or greater amounts via self-dealing? Or even just half of that, but in a tenth of the time before moving on to the next victim company?
Which would mean not having pesky VC's with massive liquidity preferences.
Neumann is playing very efficient cards, his problem is trying to simultaneously portray this as something the public market should invest in.
Everyone gullible enough to consider WeWork shares on the public markets as validation - aka ALL the employees - should re-evaluate. Let the shares float, but no need for the lead underwriters to hold up syndicate bid, just let it float to its natural share price without the window dressing.
I'm reminded of the title of a book I read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room_...