Is Adam Neumann the worst business operator in the history of capitalism?

There has been a lot of talk about Adam Neumann’s new startup Flow and the implications that the infamous founder of WeWork was able to fundraise $350M at a $1B valuation right out of the gate.

Some argued Adam Neumann is a visionary and radically changed how and where we work.

Others argued that he was reckless and defrauded investors, and created a toxic workplace.

Our focus is purely empirical data. As a lead business operator of a for-profit company, your job is to allocate resources to maximize long-term shareholder return. That’s it.

So if that means investment in technology, or hiring, or real estate, then that’s what you do. 

So using money raised vs. public market cap, we asked is Adam Neumann the worst business operator in the history of capitalism? 

According to CrunchBase, WeWork raised $22.2B.

Today, March 10th, 2023, WeWork has a market capitalization (meaning the value of the company) of $744M.

So WeWork is worth 3.3% of the amount of money it raised from investors.

Putting aside cases of fraud like with Enron, based on our research, the evaporation of over $21B, relative to current market cap, makes Adam Neumann the worst business operator in the history of capitalism. 

Here are some other notable poor operators in the fintech and proptech space that have led companies to be worth less than they’ve raised: