WeWork's $47 Billion Mistake

In August 2019, WeWork's IPO filing described a company investors had valued at $47 billion. The same filing disclosed $47.2 billion of rent it had promised to landlords, on U.S. leases averaging about 15 years, while its members had committed about $4 billion. This video follows WeWork from a Brooklyn coworking space through SoftBank's billions, the failed IPO, the 2023 bankruptcy and the 2024 restructuring that cut its future rent by more than half, and back to Regus, whose U.S. business hit the same trap in 2003. WeWork still operates today, privately, with Yardi as its majority owner. Sources are shown on screen with every figure. CHAPTERS 0:00 The other $47 billion 0:48 The spread 3:49 The big check 6:01 The numbers underneath 8:08 The sentence 9:16 11.8 to 1 10:08 The Regus precedent 11:17 The IPO falls apart 12:52 The bill 14:26 Chapter 11 15:43 The way out 16:49 The filing, again CREDITS Photos via Wikimedia Commons, cropped and animated: CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0): Sam Wilson (taken with Sony RX100 mk.V), Axel Tschentscher, The Bushranger, Rpollock1998, Dietmar Rabich, Hnapel CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0): Tony Hisgett, Ajay Suresh, Billie Grace Ward, Phillip Pessar, TechCrunch CC BY-SA 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0): Robert Lamb CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0): NYU FC (Wikis Take Manhattan 2009 participant) CC0: Billie Grace Ward News footage (short excerpts, no source audio, used for commentary): Yahoo Finance, AP, TechCrunch, Financial Times, Bloomberg, CBS This Morning, Reuters, CNBC, WeWork, CBS New York, NBC News, Network 10 (Australia), TV Tokyo, PBS NewsHour, Scripps News, Arirang News, South China Morning Post, NYSE, ABC News, WGN News, SoftBank, Fox Business, Semafor. Archived web pages: Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Company filings: The We Company Form S-1 (SEC, 2019); WeWork Inc. Form 10-Q (SEC, 2023); Regus plc (SEC, 2003); U.S. Bankruptcy Court, D.N.J., In re WeWork Inc., No. 23-19865.