[merlincorey]

Cherry picking, of course, but, my gut tells me it might be the CEO:

> Also out are some of the 10-plus staffers who worked directly with Mr. Neumann in a group that was referred to internally as the “oval office” and included some friends who worked on personal deals for him.

Charitably, some high aspirations from Mr. Neumann and excellent synergy to have his personal deals team on-site at his We office.

> The plane was a favorite of Mr. Neumann’s, who would use it frequently to zip between his homes in the Bay Area and New York.

The main use of the plane was for personal reasons, not business ones.

> Attached to his office was a small spa an ice bath, according to people familiar with the matter.

I wonder if this is a normal amenity offered to CEOs and if it is more prevalent in the Bay Area or New York City?

> The office is in the process of being cleaned up,

... which I take to mean they are removing the spa?

> and as a director, Mr. Neumann’s access to the company’s facilities will be more restricted, the people said.

And here's where I hear a loud buzzer signaling that someone is not appreciated within their organization - no one wants to see them on-site after they leave.

[inimino]

Yes, but... who do we blame for it going on this long?

[raiyu]

The board of directors. They have a fiduciary responsibility to the business and shareholders and obviously they were looking at high level financials and not digging in further. It is a bit surprising that Masayoshi Son of Softbank would fund so many rounds when it was quite obvious that it was a house of cards.

With Uber, at least there was a real business, with some real differentiation and not the tremendous Capex overhead of real estate to weigh down the business. Imagine if Uber had to employ all of the drivers full-time and also own the cars outright, that would be a dramatically different business.

But everyone is happy when things are moving up and to the right, but in this case, the losses outweighted revenue. It's one thing for a startup to be burning x% of revenue to grow market share, but to literally every year burn more capital than revenue at such a massive scale is completely bonkers.

The only logical conclusion is that Masayoshi Son was calculated in this. In that he had some belief that WeWork would work, but additionally if he was able to markup his shares through his own investments, he could then raise a second vision fund based on the supposed returns of the first one.

Obviously that plan is now shot with Uber trading below the value of his private investments, and with WeWork it is an even larger hole that he has dug for himself, because not only is it's value dramatically less than when he invested, but there is a real possibility that the company may not be able to get on to solid financial footing.

Softbank would literally be the only investor willing to put in more capital at this point, and they almost have to in order to save the business, but at that point, don't be surprised if the entire cap table is completely redone.

[cnasc]

> a group that was referred to internally as the “oval office”

Why would they call it the oval office instead of the cabinet?