What If Adam Neumann Were Female?

Disgraced founders: Let’s compare the fates of Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes with WeWork’s Adam Neumann. Does justice, too, have a gender bias in Silicon Valley?

This morning on “Robinhood Snacks,” a clever, lighthearted, if not slightly “bro”-ish, podcast on top financial news stories, I listened to the hosts feast on the latest about Adam Neumann, founder and former CEO of WeWork, in their smartly punned story, “We-turn of the Founder.”

Jokes aside, Neumann is reportedly on a new real estate binge: this time devouring — or quietly acquiring a stake in — thousands of apartments in the southern U.S. (Atlanta, Miami, and various suburbs) — to capitalize on the exodus of Americans from places like New York City to elsewhere. 

Side note: The scale of said exodus is debated, but not my focus.

The hosts of “Snacks” — Jack Kramer and Nick Martell — lead the story with a quip about disgraced founder and CEO of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, who was found guilty this week on four counts of fraud and awaits sentencing that could amount to 20 years in prison plus restitution and a $250,000 fine.

It made me wonder, what if Adam Neumann were a female? 

• Would his transgressions be written off as naughty corporate governance (literally) — to the tune of a reported $1.7 billion windfall by SoftBank?

• Would he have successfully convinced investors to value a real estate company as a tech startup, at a $47 billion valuation in 2019? 

• Would he have received only a slap on the wrist for charging his own company, WeWork, $5.9 million to buy the trademark to “We” from him while he was still CEO, as reported in an amended S-1 filing? Conflict of interest, anyone? (Neumann reportedly repaid that money under mounting public pressure.)

• Would Neumann’s eventual catastrophic failure to bring WeWork to a successful IPO — due to alleged unethical corporate governance and failure to properly manage the company — land him in water as hot as Holmes finds herself in today?

• As WeWork’s valuation tumbled from $47 billion to today’s market cap of $6.6 billion, would Neumann face the same level of public scrutiny?
  I am not justifying anyone’s attempt to defraud investors. I am sure some would say this is not an apples to apples comparison.
  But let’s have a conversation about the fairness of how punishment is doled out in Silicon Valley. I’d love to hear your opinion.

Disclosure: I have a small ax to grind with WeWork. I co-founded a financial education business, CentSai, in 2016. We leased WeWork office space for several years in New York City. 

In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic — when nonessential workers were mandated to work from home — we still had two months remaining on our lease.
Rather than let us out of our lease, postpone payment, or be the “we” kind of guy Neumann professes to be in public, CentSai was required to pay our $5,000 monthly rent. We paid $10,000 for an office we legally could not use. I complained about it in this Washington Post article to no avail.

I wonder if our $10,000 was a part of Neumann’s golden parachute.

On second thought, I don’t want to know.