Title: Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork

Author: Reeves Wiedeman

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company 2020

Genre: Nonfiction - Business

Pages: 304

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Winter TBR

Christened a potential savior of Silicon Valley's startup culture, Adam Neumann was set to take WeWork, his office share company disrupting the commercial real estate market, public, cash out on the company's forty-seven billion dollar valuation, and break the string of major startups unable to deliver to shareholders. But as employees knew, and investors soon found out, WeWork's capital was built on promises that the company was more than a real estate purveyor, that in fact it was a transformational technology company.

Veteran journalist Reeves Weideman dives deep into WeWork and it CEO's astronomical rise, from the marijuana and tequila-filled board rooms to cult-like company summer camps and consciousness-raising with Anthony Kiedis. Billion Dollar Loser is a character-driven business narrative that captures, through the fascinating psyche of a billionaire founder and his wife and co-founder, the slippery state of global capitalism. 

This was a terrible book. In that, it detailed the rise and fall of pretty terrible company. In the vein of Jon Carreyou’s Bad Blood, Wiedeman set out to trace the trajectory of another unicorn startup. I am not well-versed in business, but I have been steeped in Silicon Valley startup mindset. WeWork fell into all the traps for ego and idealism at the expense of security and realism. Right away, I could not stand Adam Neumann but recognized exactly how he charmed his way to the top and then back down. At times, the writing got bogged down in numbers when I wanted it to tell a bit more of a human story. But overall, this was a fascinating read.

Next up on the TBR pile: