Well, if he leaves now, it's not as if he's going off to a terrible fate. He's been pretty well-paid. If he gets an IPO out of it someday, he'll get even more money, but if he doesn't, he gets to step off the burning ship.

Or, to put it another way, he doesn't have to go through firing all of those people that he hired when he was pumping the company up to ginormous size. I think perhaps the fun part of running WeWork was behind him, regardless of how it turns out.

Softbank probably made it clear to him that if there is any hope to salvage the IPO and have a chance at a lucrative exit, this is the only path forward.

That or they found his cereal box and threatened to call the cops.

I think Softbank could tank We stock by refusing to further finance them, and trying to sell them.

That would also hurt Softbank though, so the question becomes, what was so bad about Neumann staying on to warrant such a stick.