How are the people putting the actual, real-world money into these businesses so unable to protect themselves against getting taken to the cleaners by a departing CEO?
"The S-1 detailed the extent to which Neumann controlled his company, and had benefited personally from his position: he had bought buildings in which WeWork then took out leases, and received $5.9 million in exchange for selling a set of We-related trademarks to his own company. One clause called for Rebekah to name a successor in the event of Adam’s death."
Rebekah is his wife...
TL;DR: stupidity combined with the myth of the founder
Of course, he may be the reason they now control an 8bn dollar company too, still an incredible valuation I suppose.
As JP Morgan is pushing for different vision of WeWork restructuring this is a pill to make sure they won't show loses on the credit line to Neumann.
I doubt that Neuman would be left with more then a few $ in his pocket.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/business/wework-jpmorgan....
TBH, it never really made sense. There were few lucky shots and tens of thousands of sad stories.
Also employees have higer risk than investors, so in theory they should get better terms, they just don't have the negotiating power.