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Comment by tqkxzugoaupvwqr | Hacker News Reader

What an amazing twist if true. In my opinion, Neumann is a conman. That he got away with taking out $700 million pre-IPO, that We is close to bankcruptcy just weeks later, that he now gets an additional $1.7 billion … it’s just jawdropping. I don’t understand why he is not afraid for his safety.

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This is America. He might most likely run for President next.

Not too far off. He wanted to become prime minister of Israel, but these days he wants to be "president of the world" [1].

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-wants-...

He did it with money from VCs not from la cosa nostra...

Do you think Masayoshi Son is going to order a hit on him?

$45bn of Vision Fund money was contributed by the Saudis.

They have been known to express displeasure quite forcefully to associates who they believe owe them money.

Why do VCs let founders cash out pre-IPO?

AFAIK fiduciary self dealing is illegal in public companies but for whatever reason WeWork's investors evidently didn't seem to care. Why?

The founders have control of the company and hold it for ransom. They can destroy the company if they aren't kept happy.

if you owe somebody 500k, they own you.

if you owe them 50B (val of wework), you own them

Right, that's the part I'm a bit confused by.

If I'm understanding you right, it sounds like VCs choose to not require fiduciary-style obligations of the founders?

e.g. whatever the contract looks like, I'm a bit surprised it wouldn't have a term along the lines of 'by taking this money you promise not to self deal'

>Why do VCs let founders cash out pre-IPO?

Because they aren't as smart as we/they think they are. Like most people, they have zero repeatable ability to spot unicorns or conmen.

Yeah, he's a loser and a fraud, but there's an even bigger loser and a fraud that's even more desperate to save face...

Fraud, certainly.

Loser?

If this is what losing looks like why am I trying to win...

This is what losing looks like for billionaires. Not you.

This is what losing looks for someone who wanted to build a sustainable business and stay in control of it... For anyone else, pocketing over two billion dollars isn’t losing.

>who wanted to build a sustainable business and stay in control of it.

Serious question: what evidence is there that WeWork was built to be "sustainable"?

Doesn't the evidence quite clearly demonstrate the EXACT OPPOSITE, that WeWork was built to be a VC-guzzling gamble that would implode the second investors stopped funding the losses?

The only "sustainable" part was destroying the competition to build some semblance of a moat

I didn’t say that WeWork was built to be sustainable.

Masa from SoftBank?

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