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00:00Adam Newman is here. He is co-founder and CEO of we work the company provide shared office space to entrepreneurs and independent workers. It now serves over 50000 members. It is valued at more than 16 billion dollars. We work recently took a share in concept to the home market with the launch of we live . The first location opened in New York's financial district this April. I'm pleased to have Adam Newman at this table for the first time. Welcome. Thank you Charlie. So let's talk about let's take take me through the origin and development of we work. And then I want to know more about what you have discovered about the people who come to we were so born in Israel right. Mean had actually slightly a challenging childhood. We used to move around a lot. Every two years I lived in a different place and one of the things I noticed very early on is very hard to be the new kid. The kid that goes in and doesn't know anybody and all the things I learned from it was compassion. It wasn't called for that person that no one is bringing. Secondly that's exactly the reason that President Obama says he's wants to live in Washington. He doesn't want to take his daughter out of a school in Flint so he moved to Chicago or New York or somewhere else and introduce her. He wants to stay there until she finishes this level of her schooling. You know that makes sense but I would argue that because I moved so much what used to be signs of past My parents got divorced when I was younger my mom would move us around. We lived with my mom. She was a single parent and a doctor. I was so upset at her for moving us so many times. But looking back I don't think we work would exist without all these experiences that I've gotten. So even though I agree with President Obama about the fact that it's difficult I think difficulty for our kids sometimes is an important thing . How did that experience moving around inform you. Because Europe and you had been a serial entrepreneur. Yes but surely felt exactly right when somebody called you an entrepreneurial slapper or something. But how did that experience inform what you have done with work. It's one of the places I went to. I lived in was a kibbutz which for those of you don't know a kibbutz is actually a version of a social experiment that Israel made which actually did not succeed. When I was in a kibbutz or eight hundred of them today there are less than 10 in Israel but less than 10 less than 10 actually active ones. Another one in up in northern Israel. How long ago 15 years 15 years so there were a lot more of them 15 years ago but today for a variety of reasons some aspect of them didn't work. What did work as a child being in that community having friends that I eat breakfast lunch and dinner with. Going to school with the same group of friends and being part of something greater than myself was really meaningful and that was carried it with me. When I moved to the US which was right after a shooting right after September 11 I linked to with my younger sister was living her the time by herself and we were in an apartment building 10 15 floors and we would go up and down the elevator and I would notice that no one said hello and earnings that day I said what's happening here. Do Americans look like introducing themselves just so it's not considered polite. You go up the elevator you keep your mouth shut. I said really as Israelis we're really like to talk to everyone. And we said let's do an experiment for one month we will introduce ourselves to everybody. And the goal was to find the floor and every find an apartment every floor where we could have a cup of coffee. We did that for a month. Within a month the whole energy of the building changed. Suddenly everybody wanted to be part of it . When someone you came to the building with one party when someone left there was a going away party. Community community and I noticed the way communities global Americans wanted that Israelis wanted. It's a global phenomenon. Those experiences took me to do we work. Do we work or to the beginning of. So we work as a kibbutz. We work you know and I know some of the guys in Google they like to call it kibbutz 2.0. I think it's a mix. So I think there's capitalism in it mixed together with a lot of the good concepts. It's a good balance between the two . So how you developed it I mean what's the idea. So so as you said serial entrepreneur acts was that my third businesses about eight years ago and I met my then girlfriend today wife and I was nothing. Am I smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. I was not doing so well I was skinnier than I am today. Definitely failing in business and very quickly she looked at me she said you know you're a big talker but there's not a lot going on behind it. I said I wasn't used to someone speaking to me like that really. What do you suggest. Said I suggest you drop everything you're doing and find the business that you're actually passionate about and then make sure that that passion has intention that that business can make a positive difference in the world. If you bring those two things together as one she said first of all you'll really find success because success is about passion and doing what you love coming together with the really intention. Second of all she said don't worry about it the money will follow. And as I said we met each other last week. I've been following her ever since and so with success with a lot of you know thank God. And it started it started there and then we met Miguel McKelvey who was our co-founder . He actually grew up in a Tom Keene in Eugene Oregon has his own amazing story and get from the kibbutz. The guy from the commune. And then the then girlfriend today wife. But the super spiritual very smart. And now my wife. Altogether we were able to bring this thing and the interesting thing is this is May of 2008. This is before we work with called Green. This the world's about to crash or crashing and our partner at the time because we had no money. Who paid to just do the first floor came to us and said you know this is not gonna work. And the downturn real estate goes down. I mean this is not about real estate it's about community we think of the downturn . People want to be next. Other people like minded individuals part of something shared the pain RTS shared the success . Whenever there's pain there's a little bit of success. So we can celebrate it and even sharing the pain is a good quality . Communities know how to shopping together. And as we thought we put five ads on Craigslist. We never did any marketing and the rest is we're to be the ad in Craigslist saying you know it's sad it's funny you ask that and I should find them. But it said something like beautifully designed and communal office spaces . At the time we didn't even understand how strong community was it was called green desk. It wasn't called we work. And when literally within a week after people moved in we saw that way more interesting than the workspace was the relationship was there helping each other and was the fact that they all actually were like minded and we said wow there's something we can make a difference with here. Leap to where we are today what is we were do today. So we work helps create a world where people make a life and not just a living thing that that's very important. Technically speaking we have baby locations around the world where in 30 see these were in 12 countries we add between five to 10 locations a month. We have sixty thousand members and those members all have companies and families and friends and they're all thinking part of this great new way of working. You asked about Millennials let me just say before you tell me that because when I give commencement speeches or other kinds of speeches to people I always say there are two things you start with. First you know yourself and then you know something larger than yourself. That's where you start. And I think if we understand that being part of something larger than ourselves is a positive thing not a negative it makes us stronger. And that's why I think millennials come in. I think they do understand that then actually there's an opening to start changing the world. I'll tell you a few things that we've observed about Millennials yes they want it and they want it now because they were they had Google in their hands for a long time now. When I was a kid you asked me to do something. I went to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Twenty three. I knew at the time when I was 14 you would ask me a question would take me half an hour to find answer. 17. I knew exactly what page store openings. That was my entire knowledge. I think the knowledge that they have today. So they wanted them they wanted to know and have access to it saying that I feel that they're more compassionate they care about intention and meaning a lot of times more than material goods through leveraging technology they found amazing ways to use things when other people don't use them and ideally make a cheaper book make it better for the environment and better for the world. And I'm very happy that Dax a generation that's about to take more and more power. I'm very I'm very optimistic about the future with a story you know a lot about because you keep a lot of data don't you. I think we keep tremendous amounts of data things that people usually don't talk about like where they get up and how often do they go to the coffee or actually literally and connect with other people. So 70 percent of our members either do business with each other or do a connection with you. How what you mean by member. So we don't have tenants with numbers because as we said it's a community they choose to become our members. We don't ask for long term commitments. And this month to month six larger members which is a different topic and our members if you're a member of one you're a global member. So you could be from New York to live from London. And with your app you can enter any space around the world. You can say I'm looking for an accountant I'm looking for a lawyer I'm looking for a business partner or just a great place to have dinner and you will immediately get the answers if community managers all around this earth that are ready to help you. They work day time and night time there's always someone like because we work on 24/7 and it's and you were working you couldn't do this without what I think technology was very important. The phone today allows us the press of a button not only to share information but also to communicate what we need and what we can give. And so we're using technology in simple ways. We've actually been able to really empower our members. That's one tool we're using technology for the buildings themselves. Again when do the doors open and how many people are using water and what's the occupancy and both from safety point of view to just ease of use and all these things come together. But I think most important you needed a generation that was ready to accept it so the right idea at the right time. Very important. I say that a lot of people it's not just to say oh you guys are so good all we're also very lucky and our timing was very good . You are now what the six most valuable private startup I think if you do the math that way. What does that mean. You know not a lot. What it really means is. So first of all valuation and you know this is what one person is willing to sell for and another person is willing to buy. Important to remember what it means for us. The we were empowered by our investors to take our dreams our wildest dreams and make them into a reality. But by taking their money we we got to deal with them and that deal is that we're supposed to make their money back. This was not just them giving us money to play your investors are investors . They gave us the money to help us change the world. Our members that are choosing to be with us every day are paying us also for some reason members show up who doesn't fit. You know now it's 60000 members I don't know the details as well as it used to be but the beautiful thing is we have hardly ever kicked anybody out. Whenever a member doesn't fit the community actually takes care of itself. A simple example is recycling. We're very big on recycling means the person or you kick them out. So we haven't but the community has communicated to other community members and singers about what they do. Recycling is a good example. Hey recycle or someone comes to the recycling and he doesn't recycle doesn't know how to cause it. Three different garbage cans. If you don't know what you're doing you might get confused for it in the wrong place. So someone walk up to them and say hey here we work recycling is very important for us . Can I show you how to do it. And the guy can say you know don't tell me what to do. That's one attitude that one please teach me. We have learned that when you approach people nicely instead please teach me and I want to learn more. The response that we get more often. And that's one of the strengths of the community. The fact that we haven't had to kick out you also found out that they do business with each other. We have found out so 48 percent of our last survey we survey this every two weeks. We really care but we don't serve everybody at the same time. Each time a different group of people to not annoy anybody. If you think about it when it's challenging it's easy to go into your community and say hey I need an accountant they need a graphic designer or I just need help starting a business is such a difficult thing. They just need help. It just want to listen. And when you look at one company sometimes we think of big companies and two people have lunch they both complain about the same problems. Well when we go to lunch and I have a four person company and you have a five person company I have my problems you have yours. I can listen to yours you listen to mine but they're not actually our problems are separate which sometimes helps us to be slightly more empathetic. We found our lumber find our members to be very helpful to each other and that's why they do business so what's the business plan. What's the projected growth. Is it a simply to expand in scale or B to take the concept to unexplored areas so definitely be we be we wouldn't be excited if it was just to grow and scout. Right now we're focused on growing also but actually putting the infrastructure for scale that we just told our employees. We had a big discussion with Olympics and creativity also needs processes with a lot of creative employees and we love the creators but sometimes you need to put processes around Dax. We've been putting the process in the new frontier for us now has been enterprise. The largest companies in the world have been approaching us and saying hey can you bring this community culture and energy into our company. You mentioned to me you're going to do an event now with Michael Dell. Dell is actually one of the new companies that's coming to us. They've already taken space and said our creative team doesn't want to sit necessarily where they sit today they want to be in a new environment and it's a stale and its sales force and it's Microsoft and it's a whole list of companies all these are all talking to all members members and members with hundreds of thousands of employees and we're just starting with them. And the most important thing is the community so we don't want to take a huge company and just put it in a building it's not how we do it. We're very thoughtful. Here's what's interesting about this not close with this. I mean it is an age old idea . You mentioned cookbooks and but it is the idea of community it is the idea of creating work spaces where people connect to each other. They're not sitting away in silos isolated just doing their own thing not sharing not having common space not having a place where there is a trend. There is a relationship of ideas and personalities. I think you're capturing it. I think the main thing I want to show you and David Brooks did together was beautiful and one of the things he said is the first half of your life you work to create a space for yourself to have security. Then you take that money and the security but self comfort because you've explored yourself in the second half of your life and hopefully you're giving back . We actually think to do different all your life is like that . What we're really doing is we're creating a world or helping create a world. We're always I'm doing what I love and I have mission and intention behind it even when I'm 25. I want to be at that stage of my life where I'm giving back but also I need to build myself as a person financially socially psychologically . When you take that concept and you put it on the work environment you then put it on the living environment which we haven't spoken about. But this a big challenge and we love solving a real problem in major cities. And then you think about it in corporate American enterprise. You start saying hey if we can all buy into this thing that on the one hand we're taking care of ourselves. But on the other hand we're also giving and sharing. Well that's a great first step close to calling this a movement. You know when we started I used to tell my co-founder McGill I said Let's call this a community. I used to want to use the word community in wherever we're underway and he said to me you do not get to call yourself a community. Communities build themselves. So do movements. If when it becomes a movement we will know. OK just tell me briefly about the work in the living space. Very short version . Everyone know in college kids all around this country have an amazing communal experience. I know you went to Duke right. A lot friends an amazing experience. They still talk of my friends in their 30s are still talking about that experience . Well one of the things I think people like so much about college is the community that it brings. Because you heard the same stories all these different colleges you then become 22 or 23 you come to your city to fulfill your lecturing. It's scary . It's lonely. It's expensive. You need to show 50 times rent which no twenty three year old has. And then once you do that and let's include all of this you get to this small apartment where you're by yourself and the sold drenching hallway and you're a hermit. Instead of that imagine you can take an apartment building cut the costs by 30 percent put over security and amend it as you can imagine downstairs and inside of it . Put a socialist on it and bring the same concepts of coworking into quote living and really doing it for the betterment of everyone while saving the money while then being surrounded by like minded individuals like them and meeting new people which is so hard. Adam Newman thank you. Pleasure. Thank you very much. Co-founder and CEO we work. Thank you for joining us . See you next time .

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WeWork CEO Adam Neumann: Charlie Rose

On "Charlie Rose," a conversation with Adam Neumann. He is co-founder and CEO of WeWork. The company provides shared office space to entrepreneurs and independent workers. It now serves over 50,000 members and is valued at more than 16 billion dollars. WeWork recently took its sharing concept to the home market with the launch of WeLive. (Source: Bloomberg)

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