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Published November 13, 2023, 6:00 am ET
Adam Neumann has a luxurious new home in Florida, where he now lives with his wife Rebekah and six children. Some go to the same school as the Neumanns’ close friends Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. MEGA
As WeWork goes bankrupt, its founder Adam Neumann basks in the sunny climes of Miami, where the golden beaches are paved with billionaires.
Neumann, 44, was the flamboyant leader of the office-sharing company whose meteoric rise would change the way we work in offices.
But the American-Israeli entrepreneur was forced out of WeWork in a botched initial public offering in September 2019, setting the company on a downward spiral that ended with a bankruptcy announcement this week.
And now that employee morale at WeWork is “horrible,” Neumann is doing just fine, The Post can reveal.
He skateboards, socializes and seeks investors for another startup that he claims will reshape the world – this time our lives at home – by telling them: “I am a creator, not a destroyer.”
Adam Neumann and his wife Rebekah Neumann now live in a billionaire’s paradise – Bal Harbor Marina – in Miami – while WeWork heads for bankruptcy.FilmMagic
He still has an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion and sources say he lives in South Florida with his wife Rebekah and their six children, according to The Post.
The Neumanns are close friends with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump and their children.
Jared, Ivanka and their three children live just 10 minutes away on ultra-chic Indian Creek Island after buying a $30 million fixer-upper.
The Neumanns’ spacious marina complex in Bal Harbor – on the edge of the water with a jetty. MEGA The house has a pool and they have their own boat docked. MEGA
The Neumanns spent the summer at their home in Amagansett – which is next door to Rebekah’s cousin Gwyneth Paltrow – and have now settled in the exclusive Bal Harbor Marina neighborhood.
We were told they host Shabbat dinners at their local synagogue. A pal from Bal Harbor added: “Adam and Rebekah are a big part of the Jewish community.”
Another Bal Harbor source added: “Adam skateboards all the time, all over town, and takes work calls. Everyone meets him – he is very friendly. He stops and kibitzes with people.”
Adam Neumann purchased the Miami property in 2021 for $44 million.MEGA
Rebekah, 45, is now “off the grid” after the WeWork debacle and is staying out of the spotlight. One person who knows her called her “a force of nature…that’s for sure.”
In 2021, Neumann purchased two properties for $44 million from local investor Joseph Imbesi in an off-market deal.
The deal included two 50,000-square-foot lots — on which Neumann planned to build a 14,500-square-foot mansion for his family — as well as 360 feet of waterfront and several marina slips.
Neumann attends the opening bell ceremony at Nasdaq in New York as WeWork prepares to go public in January 2018.AP
“From a lot of people’s perspective, you can never bet against Adam, he’s always the one who wins because the world sucks,” a former WeWork employee told The Post.
“Adam has cleaned up his image, he takes part in panel discussions and gives speeches. He seems very humble, very modest and has learned from his mistakes. But I don’t think he learned his lesson at all.
“I know him personally, he is a very, very good salesman and knows how to get to the point.”
Neumann said he learned many lessons from WeWork when he spoke on CNBC from Saudi Arabia last month.CNBC
In recent years, Neumann has been focused on his latest startup, Flow, which received a $350 million investment from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz along with mega-investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and reached a $1 billion valuation in August 2022. Dollars received – even before operations began.
The company says it will build rental communities that promote a sense of ownership and community.
Neumann has transferred the at least six homes he already owned in Florida and Nashville, Tennessee, to the company.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last month from Saudi Arabia – where he was courting potential investors at a conference called “Davos in the Desert” – he boasted: “We have some of the biggest Fortune 500 countries “Their needs have changed, but the need for collaboration, the need for community has never been greater.”
Adam and Rebekah Neuman out and about in New York in September 2009. Theo Wargo
But, according to a former WeWork employee, after two years there’s still nothing more than a landing page for Flow.
“Nobody really knows what they’re doing other than trying to reinvent the housing market. So he bought and managed real estate – but a lot of people do that,” said the former confidant.
“Adam has $1 billion and $300 million in real estate. He wants to be the next big disruptor and prove he can do what he couldn’t do with WeWork. But he hasn’t done that yet, so he’s probably frustrated and sitting on a pile of real estate.”
Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway as Adam and Rebekah Neumann in the Apple TV+ show “WeCrashed”.Peter Kramer
Neumann’s story was adapted into the Apple TV+ show “We Crashed” starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway.
But as always, nothing is as strange as the truth.
According to the Wall Street Journal, at the height of the WeWork boom, the Neumanns spent nearly $90 million purchasing six properties.
These included a townhouse in Greenwich Village, a $35 million Gramercy compound (the Neumanns bought four of the building’s seven units), a 60-acre farm in Westchester, New York (with a waterfall, tennis court and horseback riding track ), two properties in the Hamptons and an 11-acre property north of San Francisco — complete with a guitar-shaped living room, a pool, a three-story waterslide, a spa, a racquetball court, an orchard and “a series of…” Narrow windows conjure up[ing] “Out the opening chords” to a Grateful Dead song.
Neumann and his WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey attend the lively opening party in London in November 2015.David M. Benett
Since then, they have sold the San Francisco estate, the New York townhouse and the Westchester farm. The Gramercy house is still on the market.
There was a $60 million Gulfstream G650ER company — despite the fact that, according to the 2021 book “The Cult of We,” a charter company, Gama Aviation, claimed Neumann’s passengers spit tequila on each other and didn’t tip the crew given.
And the WSJ reported that in 2018, when a private jet carrying Neumann and his entourage landed in Israel, the crew discovered a cereal box containing marijuana.
Neumann with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in New Delhi in January 2016.
The jet’s owner was reportedly so disturbed by the discovery – the drug had been brought across foreign borders – that he stopped the plane, leaving Neumann and his friends without a return flight to New York.
There were loud and lavish corporate events, while Rebekah, who was given the title of “chief brand and impact officer” at WeWork, reportedly became known for firing people if she didn’t like their energy.
Then there was Neumann’s extravagant 40th birthday bash – a three-week trip that ended with inviting two dozen friends to a beach resort in the Maldives – while Rebekah invited friends like Jared and Ivanka to Italy for her 40th birthday.
The Neumanns live just 10 minutes from their friends Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.WireImage
In a 2019 Vanity Fair story, an employee reported that “Rebekah fired a mechanic for WeWork’s Gulfstream … because she didn’t like his energy.”
WeWork filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Monday after its bets that companies would use more of its office space failed.
The move represents an admission by SoftBank, the Japanese technology group that owns about 60% of WeWork and has invested billions of dollars in its turnaround, that the company cannot survive unless it renegotiates its expensive leases in bankruptcy.
Rebekah Neumann is cousin of star Gwyneth Paltrow – and they live very close in the Hamptons.FilmMagic
The former employee said: “Everyone has seen this coming for a good six to 12 months, they’re all getting paid but morale is terrible.” There is no corporate culture and everyone just watches the stock keep falling.
“People were collecting paychecks and waiting for the company to explode – the original version of WW has completely disappeared.”
In addition, WeWork landlords fear that the bankruptcy will leave them with vacancies in a difficult market that they cannot fill.
WeWork filed for bankruptcy this week.AP
Speaking to CNBC, Neumann claimed he had learned his lessons from WeWork. He said he drew inspiration for his new venture from his childhood on a kibbutz in Israel – and the fact that so many 30-year-olds and under can only afford rent.
In language eerily similar to his hype about WeWork, he said: “Bringing people together and building community has always been what we and I have been about.
“The most important word in our partnership is alignment, and we are very aligned with our views around the world, we are very aligned with our moral standards, and we are very aligned with what we want to build.
WeWork in Shanghai – the company has filed for bankruptcy. ZUMAPRESS.com
“Flow is another repetition of the same story: When people live in a community, when people live together, when people obviously have differences but actually figure out what passions they can share, when they find a way to share businesses, there is always one common ground.” ”
In a statement about WeWork’s bankruptcy, he called it “disappointing” to see the company collapse and that he had been watching “from the sidelines” since 2019, accusing current management of failing to “leverage a product , which is more relevant today than ever before.” Before.”
“I believe that with the right strategy and the right team, WeWork can emerge successfully through a reorganization,” he said.
He didn’t mention that, unlike the company’s bondholders, he could actually get more money out of bankruptcy.
A look inside Neumanns’ stunning Gramercy Park complex, now on the market.Compass
His agreed exit from the company included a $430 million loan from SoftBank with an interesting twist: Neumann’s collateral was WeWork shares. He can simply return them to pay off the loan, and now that they’re virtually worthless, he can get $430 million in free money.
“The fact that Adam managed to get a billion-dollar valuation says it all – he will never change,” the WeWork employee said.
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