Matt Levine today: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-16/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-is-also-a-landlord https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2

Matt Levine today: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-16/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-is-also-a-landlord https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-16/wework... "Yes it really does seem like a conflict of interest! “A WeWork spokesman said all related-party deals are reviewed and approved by the board or an independent committee and disclosed to investors,” so that is good, but on the other hand, “Mr. Neumann, the 39-year-old executive who founded WeWork in 2010, is WeWork’s largest individual shareholder and has voting control over the company,” so it is not clear that the board can say no. (He got that control in 2014 with some super-voting stock; before that, he once tried to do a related-party deal and got turned down by the board.) "One thing I will say, though, is that if you told me that a privately owned real estate company was engaging in transactions with its controlling shareholder and CEO that raised possible conflicts of interest, I would be like “ha, yeah, that’s the real estate industry for you.” Conflicts of interest are more common there, as everyone knows these days after years of stories about Donald Trump’s business dealings, and it is not surprising for a founder/controller/CEO to be involved in a deal with his company on multiple sides and in multiple ways. Private tech startups, on the other hand, tend to be a bit more pristine. They are not complex moneymaking structures for their founders but mission-driven enterprises where everyone’s incentives are ostentatiously and lavishly aligned: If the company gets big, the founder becomes a zillionaire; if not, he walks away with only his modest salary and a track record for failing ambitiously. WeWork is a weird company because it is a real estate company that thinks it’s a tech startup; it seems to have the culture and New-Age-y patter and grandiose ambition and valuation of a tech company. But what if, deep down in its heart, it really is a real estate company?"