What the Hell Happened at WeWork? (Guest: Eliot Brown, Wall Street Journal)

When you look back on the decade in tech, one of the biggest stories will be the rise and fall of WeWork. And while the company is still around, it has shed around $40B in valuation in the past few months. At the forefront of the story is the mercurial Founder of WeWork - Adam Neumann. And a Wall Street Journal Reporter named Eliot Brown - who broke some of the now-infamous stories about the company. Today, we hosted Eliot as a guest on This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. We talked to Eliot about numerous topics, including why WeWork was valued like a high flying tech company even though the core of its product was basic real estate. We ask Eliot to explain WeWork's basic business model, and what Adam did in order to sell the vision of the company to employees and investors. Eliot recalls his first meeting with Adam and what it was like to be at WeWork HQ in 2013. Eliot goes on to talk about corporate governance (or lack thereof) at the company, explaining the amount of power Adam had over the board. We get into escalation of committment, and how it played a major part in how the story unfolded. We dig into the myths and realities around whether Adam really wants to live forever, whether he really had Run DMC in the office after a layoff, and some of the other nuances of the story. Eliot talks about his perspective on Silicon Valley valuations, whether he wants to stick around here, and how he approaches reporting in the Bay Area. You do not want to miss this special holiday edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley.