This Is Where It Begins
Episode 1 of Wecrashed starts Wednesday September 18th 2019. WeWork welcomes Adam Neumann and his wife, Rebekah, into the office but the board have called an emergency meeting. A news article about Adam causing the company to spiral out of control has released, and Adam could be on his way out. As you may expect, we then cut back 12 years ago as Adam tries to find a golden business opportunity. He’s down on his luck, and everywhere he turns he’s receiving blanket “no”s. He even pitches a concept living idea – a foreshadowed glimpse of his upcoming business – but it doesn’t work. However, his words do spur the interest of a man called Miguel, who happens to have cheap office space available. So Adam decides to tag along and see this for himself. That night at the college dorm, Adam meets Rebekah at a party. She rejects him outright though, but Adam is persistent and even shows up at yoga where she’s teaching a group. Eventually she does succumb and agree to go out for dinner, but in doing so, things go sour. The pair end up arguing, with Rebekah giving a scathing assessment of Adam’s failed business ventures. It doesn’t deter Adam though, who shows up at the studio the next day after hearing about her monetary woes, sticking up for Rebekah in front of her boss. In doing so, she changes her opinion of him and the pair start kissing. Despite the pair dating, Rebekah still isn’t convinced that Adam has what it takes to sell. She tells him he needs to be passionate about what he’s selling and she doesn’t see that right now. Adam takes these words with him to work the next day, deciding to team up with Miguel and launch his new business venture. Only, it’s Miguel who’s doing most of the work while Adam presents himself as a salesman. After drawing up a pitch for something called Greendesk, an investor called Randall takes an interest, while Adam works his magic to sell the entire concept. It’s essentially workspace they’re pitching, and it doesn’t take long before the place is completely abuzz with people. However, the time is not good, given it’s off the back of the housing crash, and after selling their company off to Randall for 500k, Adam and Miguel find themselves struggling…. until Adam gets a burst of inspiration. Miguel and Adam meet a guy called Yevgeny Risakov who happens to have some office space available. The place is a mess though and needs a tremendous amount of renovation. Adam manages to convince him to see what he sees. There’s a really slick number of pop-up graphics here, showing what could be with a bit of effort. Risakov agrees to invest in Adam and Miguel’s company. And that number? 15 million dollars and 18 cents in exchange for one third of their company. Only, they don’t actually have a company or a business prospect just now so that’s a risky play. Fast forward to 2019 and we’re back in the meeting with Adam and the board members. He gushes over how well their business is doing but his slippery words don’t work on the suits. They reject his idea of an IPO and eventually get down to brass tacks. The board have voted and he’s out of the company.
The Episode Review
Wecrashed releases its first of three episodes today, depicting the story of Adam Neumann and the tumultuous rise and fall of the company WeWork. There is admittedly a bit of overacting here, especially as Jared Leto theatrically dances around from one scene to the next, but to be fair he gets Adam Neumann’s accent spot on so I won’t judge that too harshly. However, the episode does feel a tad overlong but from the looks of it, the rest of the episodes are slightly shorter so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue going forward. The visuals look great though, as do most of Apple’s shows to be fair, and the pop-up graphics in that work space were absolutely glorious and easily the highlight of the whole episode. It seems our storyline is now going to focus on the actual rise and subsequent fall of WeWork, which should be fascinating to watch play out.
