CASE STUDY
Why You Need to Oust The CEO
Adam Neumann’s Ouster from WeWork Is More than a Business Move: It Is a Cautionary Tale of Poor Governance
Over the past month, the media (and many other financial analysts on Wall Street) had a field day with WeWork’s IPO, which ultimately got shelved under heavy pressure from the public market and WeWork’s biggest investor.
While the shared-office-space company has inherent flaws in their business model, their public filing revealed more than just insane losses and looming deadlines for lease payments.
The S-1 filing was pockmarked with questionable governance decisions, leaving many public investors, analysts and observers scratching their heads.
With a board full of renowned, experienced private investors such as Steve Langman and Bruce Dunlevie, many have wondered: why did these investors allow those questionable decisions to go through?
Adam Neumann had big dreams for WeWork, but he has since voted to step down after the IPO debacle. Neumann’s ouster came from huge pressure under Softbank’s CEO, Masayoshi Son.
Neumann has also since ceded majority control, decrease his voting rights from 20:1 to 3:1, against regular shareholders’ rights (previously…
