‘I realized after I got there it was a cult,’ one former WeWork executive said

The full story of WeWork, one of the most dramatic startup journeys of all time

WeWork has been through a lot since the office space company was founded as a startup in 2010. From its failed IPO in 2019, to the various leadership antics of its founder, Adam Neumann (some have claimed that he acted like a cult leader at times), to how it navigated remote work trends during the pandemic, this video tells the full story of WeWork's growth, failures, and more.

WeWork held controversial ‘summer camp’ retreats for employees

Step inside one of WeWork’s “summer camp” retreats full of drugs, alcohol, and exorbitant company spending.

Why did WeWork fail and why it's still around

Once valued at $47B, WeWork promised to revolutionize office space—but rapid expansion, financial red flags, and a pandemic-driven shift in work culture led to its 2023 bankruptcy. This overview looks at its rise and fall, and what’s next for the coworking giant.

In the beginning, there was Adam (Neumann)

This podcast episode, which includes a telling interview with one of WeWork’s first employees, tells the origin story of WeWork—from Neumann’s drinking and disheveled clothing, to WeWork’s first “summer camp” company party weekends in New York.

WeWork marketed itself on community

In a new era of work where many millennials wanted to work for themselves in offices with exposed brick, cold brew on tap, and casual dress codes, WeWork realized these entrepreneurs and startup workers didn’t want to do it alone.

WeWork’s S-1 was full of alarming financial and business information that concerned investors and the public

When WeWork’s S-1 came out, investors were particularly concerned about WeWork’s expenses far outpacing its growing revenue and its complex company structure, as well as a few potential conflicts of interest within the company.

WeWork’s competitors in the coworking space include Industrious and The Malin

WeWork’s story is colored by the times it just couldn’t make its numbers work. Its competitors in the coworking industry, such as Industrious and Convene, seem to be prioritizing slow and stable financial growth instead.

Adam Neumann started another real estate company after WeWork

Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann has attempted to purchase WeWork before, although, thus far, he hasn’t been successful. Since leaving the company, he has founded a residential real estate firm, among other projects.

See the small apartment WeWork founder Adam Neumann lived in before he was a billionaire

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann used to share a relatively small apartment in New York City with his wife before he became a billionaire off of WeWork. At one point, the apartment rented for $3K per month.

SoftBank's founder and CEO had a volatile relationship with WeWork's Adam Neumann

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, as WeWork's largest financier, had been Neumann's biggest champion for years—until he volleyed for Neumann to be removed from his position as WeWork's CEO.

The Wing was a coworking space and private members club before it closed down

The Wing was supposed to be more than a woman’s answer to the popular WeWork coworking spaces. Founder Audrey Gelman envisioned The Wing as a private members club where women could feel empowered and dignified—if they had a few thousand dollars a year for a membership, of course. However, after racism scandals and widespread employee criticism, The Wing ceased operations in 2022.

X's quirky culture clashed hard with Elon Musk's extreme leadership style

Investigative journalists have written that social platform X's open, sometimes chaotic workplace stopped when control shifted irreversibly from Jack Dorsey to Elon Musk. They claim the stark contrast in personalities left little protection for existing employees, culture, or users.

A Wall Street Journal podcast examines allegations inside the WEF

In this episode of "The Journal," WSJ reporter Shalini Ramachandran investigates claims from current and former employees that the organization behind Davos fostered a toxic workplace, sparked by an anonymous whistleblower letter in 2025 and internal accounts.

Burning Man’s countercultural messages have influenced Silicon Valley’s work culture

Burning Man is famous for attracting tech leaders like the CEOs of Tesla, Meta, and Google. Some experts believe the festival's ethos and principles of participation, communal effort and radical inclusion have given rise to Silicon Valley's communal work culture.

Y Combinator changed the way startups around the world are built

Many of the philosophies that the leaders of Y Combinator have infused into the program’s portfolio companies have become the playbook for building the next big thing, such as its focus on founder personality and more.

Working at a startup isn't for everyone, and is often more fast-paced than a run-of-the-mill job

Some argue that ideal startup employees have to be better than the average worker at managing uncertainty, acting with an "ownership" mindset rather than being a cog in the machine, and pushing limits.

Why do people join cults?

This quick TED video dives into some of the social psychology behind membership in radical cults, including famous ones where members took their own lives.

Inside the Sarah Lawrence College sex cult scandal

In late 2010, a middle-aged man, freshly released from prison, moved into his daughter's college dorm and created a group that had all the hallmarks of a cult. Over the decade that followed, he extorted millions of dollars from vulnerable young adults through violence, psychological torture, and forced sex work. Authorities credited his arrest to a magazine article published in 2019 detailing victims' allegations.

Hustle culture is what happens when the belief that working extremely hard will put people on the path to success becomes the norm in a workplace or other group

From pulling all-nighters at the office to never taking a weekend off, hustle culture has been known to lead to employee burnout. The Worklife with Adam Grant podcast explains hustle culture and its effects in depth in this episode.

The Takaro Lodge, a therapeutic New Zealand community turned wellness cult

Founded by Slovenian "energy" healer Aiping Wang, the lodge members were promised spiritual growth, healing, and even radical gifts like flight and foresight. Things turned dark as the group embraced extreme beliefs and practices.

What it's like to work in an office designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright's SC Johnson Global Headquarters is an administrative building in Wisconsin that radically challenged common practices for creating a corporate office space. Built in 1939, the office remains functional today with a spacious central room for exchanging ideas.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Evaluating film studio A24's cult status since achieving mainstream success

In its quick ascent to the upper echelons of cinema, A24 has achieved a rare place in pop culture of both cult status and financial success. One critic asks whether it can sustain such a position in this fascinating, quick piece.

Read about former FBI Director James Comey's time at Bridgewater Associates

Comey worked at Bridgewater Associates for three years before becoming the director of the FBI in 2013. Comey has said the company's tradition of "probing," or intense questioning, can be more intense than government hearings. During his time at Bridgewater, Comey led multiple investigations into employee conduct—particularly that of former executive Eileen Murray. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Andy Warhol, explained

Andy Warhol wasn't just an artist—he was a cultural force. From his early days working as a New York illustrator to managing The Velvet Underground and creating experimental films, Warhol blurred the line between art and commerce, leaving a legacy that changed pop culture forever.

How one young woman opted out of her orthodox Jewish community

Runner Connie Allen was raised in an ultra-orthodox sect of Hasidic Judaism known as Satmar in South Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. This long read details the rigid life of a contemporary Jewish community in New York, and how one young woman opted to leave it.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'