EDITOR’S COMMENT Love him or loathe him, Adam Neumann fundamentally changed the office market. And dare I say it, he improved it along the way.
Yes, his ego and complete lack of corporate governance while at the helm of WeWork left a lot to be desired, but walk around any new office these days and they definitely have a We flavour. Granted, he did not invent the flex office, and it wouldn’t be a hard argument to make to say there are many better, more professional, more governed flex providers out there – TOG, Storey and Myo to name a few. But Neumann created a brand and a movement that has permeated the office world.
And I’m sure there are a few other real estate chief executives who would love to have Jared Leto play them in a dramatisation of their story. The rise bit at least, perhaps not the fall. So, while there may be some trepidation that Neumann is back in our world, and there will likely be dozens of naysayers reminding us how his WeWork days were an example of the dangers of corporate hubris, could his return – this time to residential real estate – be exactly what is needed to revolutionise the sector again?
Neumann has amassed more than 3,000 flats in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta and Nashville, and through his new company, Flow, plans to rethink the rental market by creating a branded product with consistent service and community features.
Hang on I minute, I hear you say – that just sounds like BTR. Greystar, Grainger, Moda, Essential Living, etc do all that already. They do, but I’m sure Mark Dixon would have argued that he did “WeWork” already, too.
Neumann does have a knack for shaking things up and tuning into the zeitgeist. And if on this new venture he has early backing from Silicon Valley royalty Marc Andreessen, with his VC company signing its biggest ever individual cheque for funding a company, you have to think he might be planning something just as game-changing as WeWork. And hopefully, this time, he has learnt a few lessons about corporate governance and having some humility. And perhaps wearing shoes.
Andreessen, whose $350m (£290m) investment gives the new company a $1bn valuation before it has even launched (that’s planned for 2023), describes Neumann as a “visionary leader” who revolutionised commercial real estate by “bringing brand and community” to it and who “fundamentally redesigned the office experience”. He believes this new venture will help change the world, revolutionising the residential sector and enabling greater equality.
“Many people will live in places far away from where they work, and many more will shift to a hybrid environment,” wrote Andreessen, in his blog announcing his firm’s investment in Flow. “As a result, they will experience much less, if any, of the in-office social bonding and friendships that local workers enjoy. For many of these people, increased screentime and reduced in-person interaction will cause challenges that are not just limited to work, such as alienation and loneliness.”
He added: “The residential real estate world needs to address these changing dynamics. And yet virtually no aspect of the modern housing market is ready for these changes… Flow is a direct strike on precisely this problem.”
The point is valid. The way we work has changed fundamentally, and for many the way we live will have to, too. And if Neumann does have a revolutionary idea that can create some equality in housing and solve loneliness, then let’s see it. And if he fails and a few VCs lose a few million (maybe billion) dollars, but the sector as a whole changes for the better, then that’s not so bad – is it?
And at least the streaming giants will be happy. WeCrashed, Again?
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