THIS EDITED Q&A HAS BEEN CONDENSED FOR SPACE AND CLARITY.
ADAM NEUMANN CAME DRESSED for the occasion. He wore dark slacks and jacket and a white button-down shirt. His hair was long but kempt. This was a more serious incarnation of the charming but arguably reckless entrepreneur who once made headlines for partying on private jets and profiting off personal lease agreements with WeWork, the company he cofounded in 2008. This newly evolved version of Neumann was at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in mid-July to convince the crowd that he had moved on from his former startup, and they should too. “I wore T-shirts for a long time,” the founder joked, moments before stepping onstage for an interview.
The last time Neumann, 44, was on the speaking circuit, WeWork was soaring high. But in 2019, after questions arose about the viability of its $47 billion valuation, the company’s IPO was put on hold, and Neumann stepped down. WeWork eventually did go public and is now hovering around a $600 million market cap. The scrutiny didn’t die down with Neumann’s departure, though. Instead, the spectacular rise and fall of one of the most highly valued startups in history—and the
