What I took away from years of news about Adam Neumann at WeWork, and the Netflix series, is that people should be very reluctant to work with his new company, Flow. I am apprehensive about the entire rent-to-own market being used to scam people working towards homeownership with trapped shortcuts designed to rip them off; add in someone who uses therapy-speak like a weapon, the Venture Capital world's idiotic love of backing a prior loser, and a lot of nice folks could get hurt. I do not mean the venture capitalists.
You could ask what happened at WeWork, but Neumann says he's tired of talking about the past and is now an expert listener. However, Andreessen Horowitz learned nothing from Neumann's time at WeWork and is happy to pour cash into WeWork for Dormitory Style Living.
"Surround yourself not only with the best people and the smartest people, but also the ones that are going to tell you what they think," he said.
Neumann implied that his team at WeWork wasn't "brave" enough to tell him what they really thought. He added that having a team that indulged and agreed with him kept Neumann from being realistic about the limitations at WeWork…
…Now, Neumann says, he's more focused on listening than speaking.
"Part of being a great entrepreneur is not just listening, but listening to the hard truth, listening to the things you don't want," Neumann said.
He added he's ready to apply these lessons to Flow, which he has previously said will help renters feel "ownership" over their homes.
Is publicly blaming the last set of folks a good move when hiring the next?
