Adam Neumann

The Neumann family is from Israel and are Jewish. Neumann's parents, Avivit and Doron Neumann, divorced when he was 7 years old. He and his younger sister, Adi, moved to the United States with their mother for her medical residency. Severely dyslexic, Neumann could not read or write until third grade.[7] In 1990, after four years in the US, they returned to Israel and settled in Kibbutz Nir Am. He graduated from the Israeli Naval Academy and subsequently served as an officer in the Israeli Navy for five years and was discharged with the rank of captain.[2] He later attended the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York City.[8]

Prior to founding WeWork, Neumann founded a children's clothing company, Krawlers.[8][9]

Neumann and McKelvey began working together after having previously met through a mutual friend. A shared interest in community upbringings and design led them to create Green Desk in 2008, a shared-workspace business focusing on sustainability, which served as the precursor to WeWork, which they founded in 2010.[9] The pair sold their interest in Green Desk[10] and using the funds along with a $15 million investment from Brooklyn real estate developer Joel Schreiber for a 33% interest in the company,[11] they founded WeWork in 2010.[9] Neumann stated that with WeWork, he intended to replicate the feeling of togetherness and belonging he felt in Israel and that he thought was lacking in the West.[12]

According to The Wall Street Journal, Neumann chartered a Gulfstream G650 for a trip from the United States to Israel during the summer of 2018. During the flight, Neumann and his friends spent much of the flight smoking marijuana. After the flight landed in Israel, the flight crew found a cereal box stuffed with marijuana and reported it to the jet owner. Fearing a marijuana trafficking incident, the owner of the jet ordered it to return to the US. Neumann and his friends had to book a separate flight back.[3]

In 2018, WeWork faced a lawsuit from a former employee who identified issues of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behaviors within the company workplace. In her statement, she mentioned that Neumann "plied [her] with tequila shots during her interview with the company."[13][14] Shortly after this claim was made, WeWork put an end to its unlimited beer and implemented a policy of only four beers per day in the New York office.[15]

On September 22, 2019, there were reports, from outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, that various WeWork directors were planning on asking Neumann to step down as CEO, after "a tumultuous week in which his eccentric behavior and drug use came to light" prior to a planned IPO.[16] The Wall Street Journal had reported that he had taken $700 million out of WeWork before the IPO, among other details, and "undermined his position" at the company.[17] On September 24, 2019, he resigned and Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham were instated as co-successors.[18]

In October 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that Neumann would receive close to $1.7 billion from stakeholder SoftBank for stepping down from WeWork's board and severing most of his ties to the company.[19] Weeks later, minority shareholders filed a lawsuit against Neumann and other WeWork officials for breach of its fiduciary duties.[20]

In 2012, he partnered with Ken Horn of Alchemy Properties and Joel Schreiber and purchased for $68 million the top floors of the Woolworth Building which they converted into condominiums.[11] Neumann became a partner of InterCure, an Israeli cannabis company led by Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel, in 2018.[21][22] Neumann has also invested in EquityBee, a start-up for tech investors,[23] and Selina, a hospitality company.[24]

Neumann has purchased buildings and then leased the space back to WeWork. Observers noted this as a potential conflict of interest and one that would not be allowed if WeWork were a public company.[25]

Adam Neumann talking at TechCrunch in 2015

Neumann lives in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City with his wife, Rebekah Neumann, and their five children, including two pairs of twins.[26][27] Rebekah is a cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow.[28] Neumann's sister, Adi Neumann, is a model and was Miss Teen Israel.[29][30]

In 2018, Neumann gave a keynote speech at an event held by UJA-Federation of New York where he spoke of observing Shabbat with his family every week[31][32] and the role Judaism has played in his personal and professional growth.[33]

The Wall Street Journal reported that Neumann had aspirations such as living forever, becoming the world's first trillionaire, expanding WeWork to the planet Mars, becoming Israel's prime minister, and becoming "president of the world".[34] A September 2019 Vanity Fair article reported that Neumann made claims that he convinced Rahm Emanuel to run for the presidency of the United States, used JPMorgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon as his personal banker, convinced Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman to improve the standing of women in Saudi Arabia, and claimed to be working with Jared Kushner on the Trump administration's peace plan for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[35]