The WeWork “Acquisition” (with Dan Primack)

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2019

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s an IPO, it’s a bailout, it’s an... acquisition? We’re joined by the one and only Dan Primack from Axios to recount the epic saga of the We Company in all its tragic glory. How did this business somehow go from chopping up commercial real estate to elevating global consciousness to rewarding its ousted CEO with a $1.7B “platinum parachute”, all while the company can’t afford severance for thousands of soon-to-be laid-off employees? Where did it all go wrong? And most importantly, who gets the Gulfstream G650??

Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta

Statsig: bit.ly/statsigacquired
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury

Transcript

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0:00.0	No, yeah, we'll cut this part out.
0:01.9	We have a woodpecker happening.
0:03.9	The pecker situation.
0:05.9	This is a first on a choir.
0:06.9	Dan's gonna take care of it.
0:08.4	I love it. Welcome to season 5 episode 6 of acquired the
0:26.8	podcast about great technology companies and the stories behind them.
0:30.2	I'm Ben Gilbert and I'm the co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs a startup studio and early stage venture fund in Seattle
0:36.1	I'm David Rosenthal and I'm a general partner at Wave Capital and early stage venture firm focused on
0:41.8	marketplaces based in San Francisco.
0:44.1	And we are your hosts.
0:45.9	Today we tell an episode that in our initial season 5 planning calendar we had as an IPO episode.
0:52.1	And then that was pitifully cancelled,
0:54.2	and we were just gonna tell the crazy story
0:56.0	of the antics that got it here.
0:58.0	But now it's shaping up to be a tried and true acquisition
1:00.7	episode for us.
1:01.6	So here on this episode episode we will dive into the
1:04.0	existential question of if we work a once 47 billion dollar company can be saved by
1:08.6	Soft Bank's effective acquisition of the company and we are going to try to accomplish two goals.
1:14.0	First to dive into the history of this company from the very beginning and second to try and
1:19.2	see the core economic forest through the undergoverned trees and understand precisely the
	...

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