I don’t think anyone is to blame here except the people that gave him money in the first place.
You honestly can't think of anyone else who is responsible? How is WeWork not fraud? How was it legal for Neumann to take all of that money?
WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
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Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#12Yet any early employees who signed on with compensation in the form of stock grants/options/RSUs have lost out on years of compensation. Claiming that it's a risk/reward tradeoff is nonsense, as ICs don't have any meaningful say on the path to exercising their "income", and there are huge incentives for founders and VCs to arrange deals like this. I really hope that people start realizing that this is a core behavior…
I've been saying for years that stock grants/options/RSUs are like playing the lotto, and salary/benefits are more important. They're also a tool to keep people in roles they no longer want, because of a promise of a great payoff someday.
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#13[flagged]
Capitalism isn't necessarily a good thing, it's just better than any other economic system.
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#14Since when did loss making pre-IPO companies become "TOO BIG TO FAIL" ?
At least it was SoftBank bailing them out and not taxpayers.
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#15Yet any early employees who signed on with compensation in the form of stock grants/options/RSUs have lost out on years of compensation. Claiming that it's a risk/reward tradeoff is nonsense, as ICs don't have any meaningful say on the path to exercising their "income", and there are huge incentives for founders and VCs to arrange deals like this. I really hope that people start realizing that this is a core behavior…
I've been saying for years that stock grants/options/RSUs are like playing the lotto, and salary/benefits are more important. They're also a tool to keep people in roles they no longer want, because of a promise of a great payoff someday.
Especially for companies that aren’t public yet so there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to exercise ever, even if it does become profitable and worth real money.
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#16Since when did loss making pre-IPO companies become "TOO BIG TO FAIL" ?
When they own/lease a shit ton of physical assets
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#17Yet any early employees who signed on with compensation in the form of stock grants/options/RSUs have lost out on years of compensation. Claiming that it's a risk/reward tradeoff is nonsense, as ICs don't have any meaningful say on the path to exercising their "income", and there are huge incentives for founders and VCs to arrange deals like this. I really hope that people start realizing that this is a core behavior…
there are also a lot of stories of early wework employees who were essentially told "we will give you options soon in the future, but sign your employment contracts now and trust that we'll get it done" and then didn't get it done. Really shady all around.
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#18Lesson: If you're rich and mess up, you'll become yet more rich.
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#19[flagged]
Re: WeWork Needed a Bailout, But Adam Neumann Still Leaves a Billionaire
#20As Matt Levine said, if you owe the bank a million dollars, you have a problem. If you owe the bank 100 million dollars, the bank has a problem.