[thefj]

There are millions of poorly run shady businesses, it's a problem that takes care of itself if you don't have infinite money coming in.

Not sure that it's a problem now though. Like Matt Levine suggested[0], WeWork did a lot of weird shit when they were private, but now they want public money, they need to behave more like a responsible company. It's kind of what's supposed to happen because of the disclosure, it's just that most of the time companies take care of governance issues before the S-1.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-13/we-is-...

[ianferrel]

I think an under-appreciated aspect is that you can't just have a CEO who's engaged in extremely questionable practices like WeWork's did just flip a switch and say "Ok, now we're public, so I'm going to cut all that out and be honest". It's a pretty big fucking signal that he's not trustworthy.

Neumann's past behavior is still a problem.

[thefj]

Absolutely. Traditionally the move for a company in this situation might be to replace the CEO if they plan to raise public money and he has a history of bad behaviour.

In WeWork's case it's probably impossible to remove him both legally and because the whole company is built around his personality cult.

[munk-a]

I mean... this should lower the valuation into the ground, companies built around personalities will collapse - possibly when the personality retires/dies but more likely just due to implosion over crazy antics.

A company is something "we" build, it isn't something "one" builds, and this misunderstanding is causing a lot of social pains in the US right now.

[dondawest]

>A company is something “we” build

It is deeply ironic that the company that elucidates this exact philosophy in its IPO is such a good example of a company built by “one.”