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Is Adam Neumann - Next Elizabeth Holmes?? I would not be surprised to see SEC involved at some point somehow.

by readhn 7y ago

fullshark 7y ago
AFAIK he hasn't done anything illegal beyond (allegedly) smuggling drugs across international borders (also i guess the acts OP mentions to stop self-dealing). This was all fairly known, we all thought it was stupid, but no one cared until the IPO revealed the public markets were more skeptical than anticipated.
- readhn 7y ago
  The way he is portrayed in the media almost looks like he is being prepared/setup to be the scapegoat when the house of cards comes down. Someone will have to pay for lost billions. I think there is an orange jump suit somewhere being prepared with "adam neumann" name tag on it.... Theranos 2.0 Pop corn is ready.
mondaygreens 7y ago
A relevant line from the essay that reminded me of Holmes: "The men and women who run them have to be charlatans, because they are storytellers justifying losses."
asveikau 7y ago
I was coming here to see if there were any comments on this and if I might leave one. It seems like a sketchy real estate company is a little bit less consequential than a medical device that doesn't work (potentially killing people). But I find the two points interesting as: What will it take for the Silicon Valley community to start being openly critical of a company and that's OK? For example if you leave comments on here that are skeptical of any given company or its prospects, even rightfully so, you may get a lot of push-back and people assuming you're some kind of mean jerk. But once the founders are shown to be actual frauds, the tone changes to what it might have been in the first place, had we had a bit more healthy skepticism and less "ra-ra, new companies good" kind of blind faith. In that I rate Theranos and WeWork to have something in common. They tipped these ocassionaly overly polite scales towards admitting that some companies act in bad faith.

Is Adam Neumann - Next Elizabeth Holmes?? I would not be surprised to see SEC involved at some point somehow.

by readhn 7y ago

Is Adam Neumann - Next Elizabeth Holmes?? I would not be surprised to see SEC involved at some point somehow.

AFAIK he hasn't done anything illegal beyond (allegedly) smuggling drugs across international borders (also i guess the acts OP mentions to stop self-dealing). This was all fairly known, we all thought it was stupid, but no one cared until the IPO revealed the public markets were more skeptical than anticipated.

readhn 7y ago
The way he is portrayed in the media almost looks like he is being prepared/setup to be the scapegoat when the house of cards comes down. Someone will have to pay for lost billions. I think there is an orange jump suit somewhere being prepared with "adam neumann" name tag on it.... Theranos 2.0 Pop corn is ready.

mondaygreens 7y ago

A relevant line from the essay that reminded me of Holmes: "The men and women who run them have to be charlatans, because they are storytellers justifying losses."

asveikau 7y ago

I was coming here to see if there were any comments on this and if I might leave one. It seems like a sketchy real estate company is a little bit less consequential than a medical device that doesn't work (potentially killing people). But I find the two points interesting as: What will it take for the Silicon Valley community to start being openly critical of a company and that's OK? For example if you leave comments on here that are skeptical of any given company or its prospects, even rightfully so, you may get a lot of push-back and people assuming you're some kind of mean jerk. But once the founders are shown to be actual frauds, the tone changes to what it might have been in the first place, had we had a bit more healthy skepticism and less "ra-ra, new companies good" kind of blind faith. In that I rate Theranos and WeWork to have something in common. They tipped these ocassionaly overly polite scales towards admitting that some companies act in bad faith.