WeWork Isn’t Solving Its Biggest Problem
Governance changes may help win backing for its IPO, but won’t change a fundamentally flawed business model.
WeWork’s need for cash gives it incentive to bend ... but not by too much.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images North AmericaWeWork is slightly less WeWork, but it's still very WeWork.
The commercial real estate/wannabe tech company shed a few of its egregious provisions that gave Adam Neumann, the company's co-founder and chief executive officer, an unusual measure of authority over his company – including the power through his wife to pick his replacement from beyond the grave. WeWork also agreed to cut in half the voting power of Neumann’s stock, and he will hand to the company any profits he receives from real estate properties he had owned and leased to WeWork. If you’re new to reading about this company, yes, all of those eyebrow-raising things happened at WeWork.