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WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

businessinsider.com

21–30 of 138 posts

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... is a genius at I'm reminded of the title of a book I read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room_...

The documentary with the same title is also excellent, if you're more inclined to watch something than read it.

I'd strongly suggest the book. It goes into amazing detail and is super well written. I'm generally more into literature when not reading work related things. This was just fun to read.

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#22

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...

A true genius would increase his net worth by building a successful business. If you're not clever enough to do that though, there's always self-dealing.

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#23
Jason Calacanis suggested that the CEO should do this exact thing on his podcast last week. He also suggested he should tie up his shares longer to compensate for all the money he has borrowed against stock to show he is still long the company.

I would never invest in this company but it is good to see that at least people understand that this sale was shady.

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#24

Honestly, who cares? A lot of people care now because they just filed for an IPO, which is why he returned the money. But if this was a private company and a co-founder thought he deserved $6 million for his efforts and wanted to label it as a trademark transfer, I see no problem with it.

Well that's the whole point. It is a public company so people should care, since investors should be aware of what they are getting into. If they invest in a company and money gets transferred to the owner in some funny ways, they should know.

The fact that this wouldn't apply if they were private doesn't really matter here, they are on their way to be public.

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#25
post #2

So is this a thing now? That all new high-valuation tech companies of the last generation (Uber, "We") have to have some shady founder/CEO thing going on?

Being honest doesn’t garner press coverage. Ever hear of troubles at Twilio, PagerDuty, etc? I have not (disclaimer: no investment in either, happy customer of both).

Why would you need to disclaim that you are not an investor?

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, your complaint is that the article is presenting a viewpoint that you basically agree with, and making the CEO out to be a grifter, which he basically is, and therefore making him look like a grifter is uncomfortably biased? Hell, the article didn't even mention the insane narcissism of the IPO filing.

Yup, pretty much - if you have facts to stand on then it annoys me when arguments are watered down with unsubstantiated claims. Put a balanced picture in, use neutral phrasing and let the dude's actions speak for themselves as you reveal the twistedness. Starting with a baseless attack just weakens your reporting.

Maybe they should associate these photos with those hagiographies they usually write about business leaders instead of the ones showing them being majestic/gregarious/smart?

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#28

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...

A true genius would increase his net worth by building a successful business. If you're not clever enough to do that though, there's always self-dealing.

He is building a successful business, it's just that that business isn't necessarily WeWork. I don't hold their stock, I'm not one of their VCs, what he and WeWork do is not my business, I have no quarrel with it.

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, your complaint is that the article is presenting a viewpoint that you basically agree with, and making the CEO out to be a grifter, which he basically is, and therefore making him look like a grifter is uncomfortably biased? Hell, the article didn't even mention the insane narcissism of the IPO filing.

Yup, pretty much - if you have facts to stand on then it annoys me when arguments are watered down with unsubstantiated claims. Put a balanced picture in, use neutral phrasing and let the dude's actions speak for themselves as you reveal the twistedness. Starting with a baseless attack just weakens your reporting.

If the dude's actions reveal the twistedness, then the attack is not baseless. Also, keep in mind, the guy posed for that photo. It's not like he didn't know.

Re: WeWork CEO gives back $5.9M from 'We' trademark after criticism

#30

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...

A true genius would increase his net worth by building a successful business. If you're not clever enough to do that though, there's always self-dealing.

It's not clear that it's possible to build a successful, long-term business by shouldering all the long-term risks of owning office space, and leasing it out at short-term rates to startups.

In that situation, the smartest move is to plunder your investors and shareholders for everything they are worth.

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