Bloomberg to release Foundering podcast about WeWork on June 25

On January 9, 2019 WeWork raised $1 billion in its Series H round, which was led by Softbank. The new round brought the company’s total funding to $12.8 billion and gave it a valuation of $47 billion.

WeWork is an office-leasing company. It made money by renting office space. WeWork purchased real estate space—sometimes just a floor or two in an office building—and transformed it into smaller offices and common areas.

What made WeWork distinctive was essentially two elements -- its innovative office space leasing business model and its new age business and life philosophy espoused with religious fervor by its founder Adam Neumann.

At that point in time, We Work had reached its pinnacle of success, although the company and its founder had no idea that decline was now inevitable. By September of that year, Bloomberg

reported that WeWork was targeting a valuation of between $20 billion and $30 billion for its IPO, much less than its last private valuation of $47 billion. The company was planning on kicking off its IPO roadshow as soon as the following week, Bloomberg reported, and was targeting a share sale of $3.5 billion.

By the end of September WeWork was laying off thousands of employees and its founder and CEO Adam Neumann stepped down as CEO of the company. The exec was heavily criticized shortly before he stepped down for the questionable corporate governance of the company, WeWork’s culture and a report of smoking weed on private planes.

The company then announced an indefinite delay of  its IPO.

Documenting this self-propelled fall from grace is Foundering, a new serialized podcast from the journalists at Bloomberg Technology, which will bring its listeners inside one big story from Silicon Valley each season.

The first season will explore the story of WeWork through interviews with people who lived, worked and partied with Adam Neumann. The podcast will feature extensive audio of Adam himself, pulled from hours of candid internal meeting recordings and clips from Bloomberg interviews in the months leading up to the failed IPO. The podcast even explores his origin story with reporters visiting the kibbutz in Israel where Adam lived as a child.

Bloomberg has an extensive podcast network among its portfolio of digital and print communications.

The first episode drops on Thursday, June 25 on major podcast platforms.

You can find a link to the trailer HERE.