Movie Breakdown: WeWork: Or The Making And Breaking Of A $47 Billion Unicorn (Noah)

Pre-Screening Stance:

I am always interested in a documentary about the rise and fall of an enormous, seemingly douche-y, corporation. From everything I’ve read in advance, this fits the bill.

Post-Screening Ramble:

If you’ve seen any of the recent documentaries about cults, you’ve got the basic gist of WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn. A charismatic man – WeWork founder Adam Neumann – uses his considerable charm to coerce a bunch of people into believing in and eventually buying into his madcap ideas. Where in the case of most cults those bamboozled are a small number of sad folks seeking purpose, Adam Neumann and his tech/real-estate company scammed not only a bevy of high-powered, very wealthy people but millions of millennials also seeking purpose in their lives. Jed Rothstein’s film is a blow-by-blow account of Neumann’s rise to power, his unending want of expansion, the slow dissolution of the company’s early idealism and then, of course, its epic collapse. It is, again, the tale of any modern cult and though Rothstein doesn’t drive that point terribly hard, the documentary does subtly showcase some increasingly creepy parallels between big tech and overreaching flim flam artists. Adam Neumann is a fascinating character – a man with grand, and for the most part, good intentions – and you get to see a lot of the person he purported to be. In the end, after Neumann has left and WeWork has collapsed and the community (and the apartment communes and the child care centers) have all fallen to the wayside, what’s left in the wake is what’s left in the wake of all cults, broken people still searching for a purpose. This is a solid documentary that not only captures a particular moment in the late stages of capitalism but places it in a context that makes it seem all too familiar.

One Last Thought:

There’s an interview that features Ashton Kutcher hyping up his best man-bro Adam Neumann that made me want throw up so bad. The shit-eating grin on Neumann’s face when Ashton Kutcher is comparing WeWork to Uber and gloating about his investment in both feels truly evil.

One Other Last Thought:

Man, those WeWork Summer Camps must’ve had some serious NDAs signed.