WeWork: Miguel McKelvey

In 2007, architect Miguel McKelvey convinced his friend Adam Neumann to share an office space in Brooklyn. That was the beginning of WeWork: a shared workspace for startups and freelancers looking for an inspiring environment to do their work. Today, WeWork has created a "community of creators" valued at nearly $16 billion. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  So they showed it to us. I'm like, wow. Like, for me, as coming from a design background, I'm like, this is sick. This is as good as it gets. And they're basically, OK, here's the building. What would you do with it? So basically, I go home and I start thinking of a concept, of a name. I buy the domain. I build a website. I designed some floor plans, really simple. Do like a quick, like, business model. I stayed up all night.

• 0:30Guy Raz?

  Wait, wait. You did this in one night?

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, basically, because we had been challenged with, like, what are you going to do? And we have no credibility, right? So my thought was, if I do all this stuff and come back tomorrow, it'll seem like we were planning it for weeks in advance, right?

• 0:50Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how two friends hustled their way into Manhattan real estate and in just seven years, built a $17 billion office-sharing company called WeWork. Let's say, back in 1985, someone pitched you on an idea to build a chain of stores that just sold coffee. Or, say, in 2008, a friend asked you for some seed money to create a service that allowed

• 1:34Guy Raz?

  you to rent out a room in your home to a total stranger. Or if, in 2010, someone told you, hey, you know, I want to open up a salon that only blow dries hair, no cuts, no color, just blowouts. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, I would totally jump aboard. But the reality is, in the early days, almost no one thought Starbucks, Airbnb, or Drybar were going to work. Because who would need that one service, right? And that's what lots of people asked Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey a decade ago when they started to pitch landlords on the concept of leasing out unused parts of their buildings for shared workspaces. But not just any workspace.

• 2:18Guy Raz?

  A membership would include good coffee, foosball tables, great lighting and decor, exposed brick, comfy chairs and nooks, and, most importantly, a built-in community. And today, that idea they had is called WeWork. It has buildings across the US and in more than a dozen countries around the world. But long before that happened, long before the vision of a communal workspace was even on Miguel McKelvey's radar, he was actually living a communal life. Miguel was raised in an all-women hippie collective in Eugene, Oregon.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  There were five women who were all really good friends, you know, best friends for a long time. They had all pretty much decided to have children without the fathers in the picture, just because it was a time when they wanted to break free from normal sort of arrangements and configurations. And they all depended on each other for everything, sort of like we were a family, the five women and then their children. So me plus four girls. And then 10 years later, a little brother who showed up.

• 3:23Guy Raz?

  But basically, those five women were the parents. So like, any of them could be in charge at any point?

• 3:30Speaker 00

  Exactly. And we all had, you know, all the holidays together, from Thanksgiving to Easter to Christmas. Like, that was our family. Like, everyone was pretty disconnected from, you know, their other biological family. And that was, you know, that's who I grew up with. And I considered them like my moms, my aunts, you know, whatever you want to call it, and my brothers and sisters.

• 3:48Guy Raz?

  Did it feel different when you were a kid? Or was it just like, that's Eugene, Oregon, and it's kind of, there's like a vibe here?

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, there was a hippie vibe amongst the smaller community there. And there was, you know, kids with funny names, you know? Like, I remember a kid named Wind, you know? And another, there was Morning Star and Evening Star. So that made you feel not too weird. I think not until I was older and I realized that there was people who kind of had money that it became an issue, like, things that I didn't have. And the fact that we always had super crappy cars that were always breaking down and like, billowing big clouds of smoke. I would say it was more like the sort of like being poor than the like... Being weird from a family, you know, sort of scenario. But at the same time, I, I wouldn't say I wanted to get out, but I did from a very young age,

• 4:39Speaker 00

  have a dream of something bigger. So for some reason, from the time I was a kid, when it would be like, say, a really boring summer day, I would be like, you know, you're, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? Well, I don't know.

• 4:51Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  And I would say, I want to go to New York. And for some reason, I started saying that when I was a kid. And I think it like, became more and more of a thing, the more I said it and the more it became real. And it wasn't from like, oh, I hate this place. I've got to get out of town. It was more just aspiration, you know, for something bigger.

• 5:07Guy Raz?

  Wow. So, all right, so you grew up in this environment and you are one boy among lots of women.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:14Guy Raz?

  You think, oh, yeah, all women.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Pretty much.

• 5:16Guy Raz?

  Basically, four sisters and five moms?

• 5:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I mean, looking back on it, it was weird in the sense that like, I didn't have, like, I look at it now in terms of like, say, my own son and the role that I play in his life. And I realized things that I didn't have at all. You know, my mom did develop, say, a love for sports over time, but when I was younger, she had no knowledge or interest in sports at all.

• 5:40Guy Raz?

  And you loved sports?

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, from a young age, I did, but I didn't have much guidance, you know?

• 5:46Guy Raz?

  And, and what'd you play?

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Well, I played basketball, but never, I didn't play it seriously until I was really in high school. So, you know, I was like a kid just hanging out with a ball, but not like, I didn't have any skills until much later.

• 5:57Guy Raz?

  And give, and I should mention, you are sitting across from me in the studio. You are six foot eight?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Six foot eight, yeah, on a good day. Yeah, and actually, I can still dunk. I'm proud of that. I tried a couple of days ago. That's a good skill, skill to have at this height.

• 6:14Guy Raz?

  Okay, so Miguel, he wasn't just any basketball player. He was actually really good. He ended up making the team at the University of Oregon. And though he was good, he wasn't NBA good. So he focused on his studies and got a degree in architecture. After college, Miguel spent a few years trying to build a startup in Japan. It was a company that helped connect pen pals. But in the back of his mind, he still had this dream to live in New York, to maybe even work as an architect there. So in 2004, he started applying for jobs.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  So first of all, no one, there's something for everyone to learn. At least in my experience is that in New York, no one's going to reply to you if your address on your resume is not in New York. Because who cares? Like, who wants to deal with it? You know? So I learned that a friend, who, my friend's brother, who was living there, and he was like, you can use my address. And I changed my address to his address in Queens. And immediately, I got responses. So just that one switch.

• 7:13Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  But I got, I think, three interviews. So I flew out and I think it was a Wednesday. And I met with one firm. They were all super chic architects and they're all black and like cool glasses and super slick office and all that. And I was like, I know I don't fit in there. Like, that's not for me. And then the other one I went to was in Dumbo in Brooklyn. And it was just two guys in this tiny little office. Like, and they were in jeans and T-shirts. And, you know, they had like a really relaxed vibe. And, you know, I talked to him and basically this guy, Jordan Parnas, who was the owner of the firm, he was like, OK, great. We like you. We need you. We're really busy. Can you start tomorrow?

• 7:55Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 7:55Speaker 00

  And I'm like, um, because I had said I lived in New York, right? So literally, I have nothing with me. I'm like, well, can I have a week? You know, because I was trying to make up a lie on the spot of like, why can't I start tomorrow? And we negotiated and basically let me start Monday instead of Thursday. And so I basically, I went back to Portland. I literally packed up my entire apartment. I called my mom. I'm like, Mom, take all my stuff. You know, she packed it up and put it in her back of her car. And I moved to New York with a duffel bag on Sunday night. I remember I landed and never looked back.

• 8:38Guy Raz?

  And I mean, you were young, but you weren't like just at a college.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  I was 30.

• 8:41Guy Raz?

  You were 30.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  I was 30, so I was old. I mean, I was old for like-

• 8:44Guy Raz?

  Somebody starting out from scratch, right?

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the job was $10 an hour. So I mean-

• 8:49Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  I was, and it wasn't like I had money in the bank.

• 8:51Guy Raz?

  They needed a certified professional architect for $10 an hour?

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Well, I wasn't a certified professional architect, right? I was a junior-level draftsman. Like, I was the lowest on the totem pole. That's what they wanted. They wanted a person that could pay little, who would do odds and ends jobs, which is-

• 9:06Guy Raz?

  And you weren't worried about taking that risk at all?

• 9:10Speaker 00

  No, because I think, one, it was I get to move to New York, which was the big-picture goal. And that was, you know, getting my foot in the door. But, two, what did I have to lose? You know, I mean, I didn't, it's like I didn't have anything to my name. I didn't have any money. There's just nowhere I could, there was no way I was going down. You know, worst-case scenario, I moved back to my mom's house in Eugene for a while and figure stuff out.

• 9:32Guy Raz?

  And what was the job like? Did you like it? Was it fun?

• 9:34Speaker 00

  So what happened there, which was really cool, is that Jordan Parnas had grown up with Dove Charney in Montreal. So Dove is American Apparel-

• 9:43Guy Raz?

  Yes.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  Founder.

• 9:44Guy Raz?

  The infamous Dove Charney, yes.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Exactly. And so originally, when I first went there, the project that they had was an American Apparel store. And it was in, you know, Lower Manhattan. There was one they had already done, and then they were working on the second one.

• 9:56Guy Raz?

  You mean to design it or to like?

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, design it and manage the construction and build out.

• 10:00Guy Raz?

  That's kind of a big deal for a two-person firm.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was. But also, American Apparel, this was their first retail, right? So they were a wholesale company. And they were just exploring, could they do retail? And so it was great timing because, one, getting there at that time when American Apparel was just starting out was great. But, two, my background being in business actually was applicable to this new idea of retail rollout. And so what ended up happening was, over the course of, you know, starting out in more of a project-management role of like, "Okay, now we have two American Apparel stores, American Apparel stores. Now we have three, now we have four, now we have five." It turned from that, which was actually managing a project, to now we've got, in the office, we have 10. Now we're doing 20. Now we have 40 concurrent projects.

• 10:46Guy Raz?

  Wow. That was how fast and explosive their growth was? I mean, you joined this firm in 2004, and like, within just a few years, you're doing like 30, 40, 50 stores?

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think they were to 200 after four years or so.

• 11:00Guy Raz?

  That's crazy. So, I mean, you got to this firm at just the right time when they just landed this really interesting deal. And clearly, that was going to change your life.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I definitely had the attitude that, this feeling that every potential thing that's going to come up is something I'm going to use in the future. And so, the American Apparel projects were tough. I mean, we were under really tight timeframes, and Dove was really intense. And, you know, there was times, I remember a day, Black Friday is on, obviously, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I remember him calling me and saying, like, "We have to have this store open. There's a problem in Denver. If we're not open, I'm going to kill you." Something to that effect. And he was like, "This is the most important..." I remember one of the things he said, he said, "This is the most important moment of your life right now. You have to get on a plane right now to Denver and make sure the store opens on time." But it was like, once you've been through that, it's sort of like, well,

• 11:55Speaker 00

  what's going to come up that will be worse? What's more intense than having this person scream at you at the top of their lungs? And to respond to it in a positive way and say, "Hey, I'm going to take this experience and know that I can learn from it and do something with it."

• 12:11Guy Raz?

  So, when you were at the firm, did you, in the back of your mind, were you always thinking, "I'm going to eventually start my own firm, or I'm going to start my own business?" Or did you think, "Okay, this is cool. I can keep doing this for a long time"?

• 12:23Speaker 00

  So, there was definitely an expiration for me in terms of, I think, really, the learning curve. When the learning curve expires, that's when I start looking for other things. So, I think, once we'd done a whole bunch of American Apparel projects, and I'd sort of seen it before, I started thinking, "Well, what else am I going to do?" And this is, kind of starts the We Work story, is that while I was working for the firm, I had a coworker, this Israeli guy named Gil, and I became friendly with him, and we, you know, were-

• 12:53Guy Raz?

  He was also an architect?

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was an architect working on American Apparel projects. And we became friendly, and I remember, you know, he invited me over to his apartment one weekend, and I went over there, and as we're walking into the building, I think, in walks this other dude, and we get introduced, and it's- Adam, I think it's a hot summer day.

• 13:13Guy Raz?

  This is Adam Neumann, your partner now at WeWork.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, Adam Neumann, and he's got his shirt off, I think, which just to walk into a New York, you know, condo building, rental building, elevator with no shirt is one kind of statement. And then, two, I remember as we're like, you know, going up in the elevator, he's starting conversations with people who are on the elevator and then he's like holding the door as the person get off and then continuing the conversation. And I don't know Israelis at all. So first of all, I'm coming from Oregon. I've never met an Israeli before, so I don't even know this sort of abrasiveness, which I've come to love. But there's that. And then there's Adam, who just has like a really, you know, exuberant sort of personality.

• 13:54Guy Raz?

  Was he just a guy who lived in the building or?

• 13:56Speaker 00

  So he was Gil's roommate. So what I didn't know that at the time, though, because, I mean, I didn't understand, like, it wasn't like I had been pre-introduced or knew the situation or what I was coming into, but sort of on that elevator ride, it was all explained to me along the way.

• 14:10Guy Raz?

  So you and Adam just like hit it off right in there?

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that sounds weird because it doesn't really make sense. I mean, aside from the fact that we're both tall, we don't have that much in common. I mean, we're totally different people. For whatever reason, we just connected. We just, there was something between us that just sort of made sense.

• 14:26Guy Raz?

  What was he doing at the time?

• 14:28Speaker 00

  So he had a couple of startups. One of them, both of them, I think, were baby clothing companies. And he had sort of an idea for innovating in baby clothing by putting kneepads in babies' pants, so to protect their knees. They were called crawlers, which-

• 14:44Guy Raz?

  Did he have a baby at the time?

• 14:46Speaker 00

  No, no baby. I don't understand where the whole baby thing come from. We'd have to ask him to remember, but, you know, he was interested in succeeding in business and he thought that was a good idea and so he was pursuing it. And that's actually, the way we became closer friends was, he was looking for a new office for his baby clothing company and he was looking at spaces in Manhattan. And I was like, look, you're going to get double the space for half the price in Dumbo, you know, in my building where I am.

• 15:11Guy Raz?

  In Brooklyn.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, in Brooklyn. So I convinced him to move there. And so then he was just down the hall from me where I was working at that, at the firm, on the American Apparel projects.

• 15:21Guy Raz?

  Did you find a kind of charisma in Adam that you felt you didn't have?

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's more like, yeah, charisma is a good word for it. It's also more of a brashness, which I think is cool, but which I don't have. Like, I can't.

• 15:36Guy Raz?

  You don't like to be the center of attention?

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Well, I like to be next to the center of attention, though. That's the thing is that like, I like the idea of it. I just don't want to be it.

• 15:44Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  But I really enjoy the energy that sort of comes from that. Like, I like that. I like seeing it.

• 15:50Guy Raz?

  So what happened? Did he one day come up to you and say, "I have an idea and I want to do it with you"? Is it that seamless? Or is it a little more complicated than that?

• 15:59Speaker 00

  So it's hard to say exactly that moment. Like, it's hard to remember. But yeah, something to the effect of, we're talking about this building that we're in. And we're looking at the relationship between all of these tenants, cool companies, and then the level of service that they're getting from the landlord. And he had seen sort of the business model before of like office suites, which I wasn't familiar with. But he was like, "I think if we make, you know, these office suites, we can make money, we can make more money than the landlord is currently charging."

• 16:31Guy Raz?

  So basically, his idea was to create like a bunch of shared offices and cubicles? And then to just rent them out?

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Exactly. So I mean, nothing too complicated, other than just like, "Hey, right now, they lease you an empty space with, you know, 2,000 square feet minimum. And you're basically, as a small business, you have it in your own hands to figure that out. You know, you have to build it out, you got to buy all your own furniture, you got to sublease space if you can't fill it all up." Like, you're facing all those challenges. And you're paying a good price, which at the time was, you know, 20 bucks a square foot or whatever, which, you know, is a good deal. But it was just a very low level of service. And so I think he brought to me that idea. And I was like, "Sounds great." The challenge was is that neither of us really had experience in real estate or anything. And so...

• 17:22Speaker 00

  He would go to the owners of this building, 68J, and say, hey, we see there are floors that are available here. Will you lease one to us?

• 17:30Guy Raz?

  There were just empty floors in that building.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Well, so they were like redeveloping the building over time. They were kind of going floor by floor and trying to like, you know, move people around to, because they wanted to make more rent. So they were kind of like improving, because it was really crappy. I mean, it was like in bad shape. So they were trying, you know, they had enough thought to say, hey, let's redevelop this. We can charge more money.

• 17:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  And so he started going to them and saying, lease us the whole floor. And at the time, I don't remember a floor plate there, but it might have been, you know, 10,000 square feet or 14,000, 15,000 square feet. And they're just like, who are you? You're like the baby clothing guy who can't even pay your rent on time, you know? Why would we rent to you? It makes no sense. Like, you don't know anything about it. Like, we're the experts. We own 100 buildings. Like, what?

• 18:10Guy Raz?

  Fair enough.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  You know? And they just kept saying no. But credit to Adam, and this is part of his, you know, innate ability to like, continue to press even when people say no. He just kept going back and back. And I don't know, it was every week for probably, you know, weeks on end.

• 18:23Guy Raz?

  And it's not like the two of you sat down together and said, let's incorporate. You were just doing your thing. He was trying to do this?

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. And we had no business plan. We had nothing. It was a very simple idea of like, hey, could we break up this space in some way? I mean, no real plan. It was just a simple concept.

• 18:40Guy Raz?

  And the owner of the building kept saying no.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  So he's saying no, no, no, no, for weeks on end. And then one day, apparently, and I wasn't there at the time, but he says, oh yeah, I'm not going to give you a floor in 68J, but I have this other building across the street, which I've been clearing out. You know, come take a look. And so Adam says, hey, let's go look at this building. And it's beautiful. It's like perfect, you know, Brooklyn warehouse building, exposed brick, exposed timber, you know, beams and columns, big windows, views of the water. Literally like, you know, ideal building for the cool, like, you know, startup Brooklyn vibe. And they're basically like, okay, here's the building. What would you do with it? And I'm like, What are we gonna do? Adam's like, I don't know. I'm like, OK, I'll figure it out.

• 19:26Speaker 00

  So basically, I go home and I start thinking of a concept of a name. Come up with Green Desk, which is an office space oriented towards people who are environmentally responsible. I buy the domain, you know? I build a website. I designed some floor plans, really simple. Do like a quick like business model. Basically, I remember I went to Kinko's and had business cards made, had some little like promotional flyers. Basically, I stayed up all night.

• 19:56Guy Raz?

  Wait, wait. You did this in one night?

• 19:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, basically, because we had been challenged with like, what are you gonna do? And we have no credibility, right? So my thought was, if I do all this stuff and come back tomorrow, it'll seem like we were planning it for weeks in advance, right? And we show up the next day with this whole thing and they're like, kind of blown away, like, oh, like, whoa, you actually.

• 20:19Guy Raz?

  Have a company.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  You actually have something real here. And that was really, you know, and of course, Adam sold it. I mean, I presented this stuff, but he's the one who.

• 20:27Guy Raz?

  I mean, you guys are BSing a little bit. Because you have no money.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Of course, we have nothing.

• 20:34Guy Raz?

  In a moment, how Adam and Miguel went from BSing to building their first space literally by hand. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 21:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2008 and Miguel and Adam convince a Brooklyn landlord to give them one floor in a building to start their company. And the idea is to create this really cool looking space where people can rent out offices. And the company at this point is called Green Desk. And even before they finished preparing the space, they started to advertise.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  I remember the day when we first did it, we put masking tape down on the floor to sort of show the layout of the workspaces. And we posted ads on Craigslist and people started calling, you know, my cellphone and I would meet them and tour them through the building with just masking tape on the floor. And people started signing up from just the masking tape on the floor. And that's, that just showed how different it was. One, because it was cool. And we had a list of all the things we're going to offer. You know, we're going to give you coffee, we're going to have cool events, this kind of stuff. And people needed it, like they believed in it.

• 21:55Guy Raz?

  And the idea was that, that you would get permanent workspace that would be yours? Or, or what?

• 22:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the, the thing that was happening back then was there was, there were existing sort of corporate office suites. And then there was coworking, which at the time coworking is primarily tech focused. It's a lot of like, you know, engineers in a big open room, headphones on, at your computer. And there was some of those. It wasn't like prevalent, but you know, there's some in San Francisco, a few in New York. And they were primarily like oriented towards a group of people who kind of all knew each other and then they're going to come together and then they all want to work together in the same room and then they invite some others. Adam and I didn't come from that at all. We were in this Brooklyn environment. We weren't from tech. And we were much more interested in this like diversity and all these cool, different kinds of companies and what that energy is when they come together.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  That said, all those businesses are doing like real sales. They're on the phone, they're having meetings, they're talking to people. So this idea of like a big, open room just didn't work for us. It didn't make sense. And so I think when we first started, it was more like you're going, we're going to do small offices. You could have like a small, you know, five foot by seven foot, one person office, have two person, four person, six person, eight person office. I think at the time, maybe a 12 was the largest we did. And that was, you know, all glass partitioned, so very open and airy. And it was really like, you know, hey, join. A group of people working together, but you're still in your own private space.

• 23:20Guy Raz?

  And what did it cost to join?

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Uh, I think at the time, we were probably starting at like $300 for like the lowest end. And, you know, it went up to say a thousand for a four person office, you know, ballpark. Wasn't expensive when you look at the overall net cost, but also not cheap. It wasn't like, hey, this is rock bottom price or something.

• 23:38Guy Raz?

  So this is like 2008, like right before the financial crash.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, you know, that I think positive and negative in the sense that, one, the world was changing very quickly and there was people who were thinking about things differently. You know, perhaps like working at Lehman Brothers or whatever is not, you know, the, the best thing for your life, whereas, you know, it could have been before. We did have some members like that who were like, oh, I used to be X for this company. And now I want to sort of do it on my own.

• 24:06Guy Raz?

  So how many people did you sign up for that first space?

• 24:09Speaker 00

  So, I mean, I think each floor in that building was a little under, maybe it was 70 people or so.

• 24:15Guy Raz?

  And how many floors did you guys?

• 24:16Speaker 00

  So we had five floors. So I think that building was about 350 members. You know, it filled up very fast and then we expanded back to 68J, which was the cool thing. Cause we went back to the building they wouldn't let us have in the first place and started building out more space there.

• 24:29Guy Raz?

  And you designed it on, on paper, basically. You became the architect.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. So Gil was also our partner at the time. So there were three of us and we worked together. Gil, um, you know, worked on.

• 24:39Guy Raz?

  Who was also an architect.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was an architect. So he helped with that. And then, but he was still working at American Apparel or with the firm that did that. And then Adam was still working for the baby clothing company. So I was basically the operator. So I did all the stuff to get the business going. And I really was, you know, there, whatever, 18 hours a day, putting the whole thing together. And, um, and really running it, you know, as a very small business.

• 25:05Guy Raz?

  And, and so did you guys start to make money off this like very quickly?

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the challenge there was it was a good business, definitely, right off the bat. And we were profitable. But the problem is, is that it's capital intensive. So we did the first building under our 50 50 agreement. And we started thinking big. We're like, this is amazing. Everyone loves it. We're going to grow. And we started looking at Manhattan, looking at San Francisco, thinking of other locations. But they had a portfolio that they already owned. The owners of the buildings.

• 25:37Guy Raz?

  Okay, yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  So it was in their interest to use all the real estate in their own portfolio. So they're showing us other locations in Brooklyn. We're thinking about building a big brand and thinking this is like a worldwide phenomenon. Like, we're going to change the world. We're doing something really cool. And they're thinking, let's fill up all our existing buildings that have vacancy. And so as soon as we started talking about like other bigger things, it just showed this is not a partnership that's going to work long term.

• 26:01Guy Raz?

  So you left.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  So we sold. So we sold to them. They got a great business, which they're still operating, and we got some money to start over again.

• 26:08Guy Raz?

  So they own Green Desk.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  They own Green Desk. They still operate it, and it's a nice little business.

• 26:13Guy Raz?

  And what did you guys walk away with?

• 26:15Speaker 00

  I wish I remember the details, but I mean, we must have gotten like somewhere between half a million and a million dollars each. I mean, it was a good amount of money, and I think it also presented a challenge in that we had to ask ourselves, like, do we take this money and put it in the bank? Or do we, you know, sort of go forward and invest it in the next thing? And I think for Adam and I, it was clear, like, we're on to something big here, and let's roll with it and keep going. And I think for Gil, it was a little bit different. Like, he saw this money and was like, hey, I can move back to Israel, and I've got a bunch of money in the bank. And hey, my life is good.

• 26:50Guy Raz?

  And he did that.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  And he did that. So, you know, that was good for him and a good result. For Adam and I, it was enough to say, okay, let's switch focus completely to this business.

• 27:00Guy Raz?

  And did you create a, you had to create a new name and a new brand and all this stuff, right?

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think one of the things that we learned at Green Desk that was super important was when it was really working, what was cool was the connection between people. And the things that you would hear people say to each other in support of each other, even though they're in completely different industries, just, you know, late at night, there's across the hall, people having these really cool conversations about life, about business. And then there's also something that happens of almost like accountability. Because one of the things about being in a small business, especially on your own, or if you're owner of a small company, it's like, no one's watching you to see if you show up in the morning, right? But one of the coolest things that happens is like, you know, people become accountable to each other, even though they're not working for the same company. So if you don't show up for a couple of days, someone actually asks you like, hey, where you been?

• 27:47Speaker 00

  So that's one of the cool things that happens is it's this sort of like, hey, we're all working together even though we're separate, you know?

• 27:53Guy Raz?

  So, okay, so obviously at this point, you could not be Green Desk anymore. So how did you start to come up with a new name?

• 28:00Speaker 00

  So the problem that we had in trying to reinvent the business is like, what do you call that? You know, what is the name for a community oriented business? You know, without it sounding too like hippy dippy. Like, how do you come up with something that suggests the idea that we're all together? And that we want to like, be open and connected to each other, but doesn't have these words in it that sort of sound too like over the top in terms of, you know, saying, hey, let's all hold hands.

• 28:27Guy Raz?

  So, we work.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think it took a while to get there. What actually happened, I think, literally in the middle of the night, Adam's friend Andrew just literally came out with it. And he said, it's we work, it's we live, it's we sleep, it's we eat, it's we, like, just flowed with this whole thing. And it was a dialogue that was months old, that just happened in a moment for him in the middle of the night. And as soon as we heard it, we're like, that's it.

• 28:55Guy Raz?

  So where was your first stop? Where did you go to find your first place?

• 28:59Speaker 00

  So we looked in Manhattan a lot. We did have a non-compete with our Green Desk partners.

• 29:04Guy Raz?

  I would imagine, yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  A limited number of areas we could go. So we were looking in San Francisco and also in Manhattan. And It was tough. I mean, we had a lot of conversations with people who were like, again, who are you? You have no background in real estate. And also people looking for big credit tenants, I mean, especially in that environment of the financial crisis, a lot of landlords had been burned even by credit tenants who, you know, broke their lease and went bankrupt or whatever. So very few people wanted to work with us and we looked at a ton of spaces and everyone just said, why? You know, who are you? And so really what happened, I mean, it was a friend of a friend of a friend knew somebody and somehow we connected for this building in Soho.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  And it was really a relationship sale, you know, Adam, again, like had his persistence and he was willing to go over and over and over to the owner and just convince him that we were the right tenant for this building. And, and he, you know, he, he's good at making connections with people. Once that door is open, like if he sees a crack and he can get in there, then he's never going to stop until...

• 30:12Guy Raz?

  But how, how did you put the money forward for that? Did you guys have the money?

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. So we had the money from the Green Desk sale, so we, which was enough for the security deposit. And, you know, again, we're coming out of financial crisis. So it's not like this landlord has a ton of other options. They're not like, oh, there's all kinds of companies clamoring to move in. So we're in like a good place from a real estate perspective because we're saying, we'll take your whole building and there's not that many other tenants for it.

• 30:36Guy Raz?

  What did the building look like? Was it ready to just rent out to people or did you have to gut it and like?

• 30:43Speaker 00

  Not at all ready, full gut. It was actually in terrible condition. So...

• 30:48Guy Raz?

  But how much money did it, was it going to require to renovate that building?

• 30:52Speaker 00

  Probably in the order of a few million dollars.

• 30:54Guy Raz?

  Wow. Because, because you had a vision of what you want it to be, right? Like, I'm imagining like, you know... Hardwood floors, like sort of distressed wood floors and beautiful appliances and right?

• 31:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we were more conservative back then in terms of our investment. You know, we did all a lot of the work ourself.

• 31:15Guy Raz?

  The labor, the actual labor.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, there was a limit to how much they would build versus us. And so we had some responsibility. One of our responsibilities was IT wiring, all the cabling. And so we were out there getting bids for IT wiring. I remember we got one for a hundred thousand dollars and one for like eighty seven thousand five hundred. I remember getting those estimates and being like a hundred thousand dollars is a pretty round number for wiring. Like, shouldn't you have like a more detailed calculation of how much that costs? So my little brother and I, he's background in, he was pre-med and he's like kind of a research scientist in his brain. And he had moved out to help us. It was me, Kyle and Adam at the time. And, you know, I'm like, hey, why don't we look into how this actually works? And the way his brain works is then to break it down into like the most micro parts.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Basically, every cable run, how long is it? How many terminations, you know, how do you do terminations? And I mean, I remember he estimated it's going to cost us eight thousand dollars in materials. And then, you know, whatever, like fifty hours of labor, whatever the number was. It was some crazy small number relative to this hundred thousand dollar price. And so we're like, well, it's not rocket science, so we can do that ourself. And so we just did it ourself.

• 32:21Guy Raz?

  Wait, you wired the building yourselves?

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:25Guy Raz?

  You were like laying the wires out?

• 32:27Speaker 00

  All of it. So we, you know, we had to get like a hammer drill and like drill into the brick to hold like brackets to hold the wire. We had to, I mean, that was so much fun. It was like, it was crazy, but it was also like, we're really fully engaged. And we had to, you know, teach ourselves how to connect patch panels and program switches. And, you know, so we put in that whole infrastructure. I remember one of the things we had to do was actually, it's this thing called soda blasting, which is if you want that cool like exposed brick and it's been painted, you have to blast the sand, blast the paint off. There's a thing called soda blasting where you use baking soda to do that. And we had to buy baking soda by like the 50 pound bag. And you need bags and bags and bags of soda. I remember we would like rent zip cars, drive out to this place in New Jersey, load up the car with like these bags of baking soda.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  And we'd put so much in there that it would be like riding on the wheels on the tires. So we'd be like driving back from New Jersey through the tunnel. And you'd hear this like as the tires like running on the back of the, you know, the wheel well. But that was what we were doing. It was like every step was like, we're gonna. And we rented the equipment, the soda blasting equipment, just to like do it ourself. We had a compressor on the streets of Manhattan, just sitting out there like, like the compressor is running out there. And like, there's all this baking soda billowing out of the windows upstairs. It was awesome.

• 33:38Guy Raz?

  So, okay, so, so from the time that you signed the lease to when you opened the first floor, how, how long was that?

• 33:44Speaker 00

  Hmm, a few months, so three months, probably, maybe a little less. It was pretty quick.

• 33:48Guy Raz?

  How did it look? Take, take me into that first floor that you opened up.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, so when you walk in, you basically have, you know, an old wood floor, which we refinished and had a lot of that cool character, 100 year old wood floor. You have exposed brick, which again, we soda blasted to sort of bring back to that rustic sort of vibe. We had iron columns that were cool and had character. And then what we sort of inserted into that was sort of a sharp, modern, you know, glass and aluminum system. So you have this play between the old and the new. And, and then another thing was like, from the very beginning, I didn't want it to have an officey vibe at all. And again, this seems not like a big deal now, but back then we did.

• 34:25Guy Raz?

  Back then, 2010.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:26Guy Raz?

  Seven years ago.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  How quickly things changed. I mean, back then, we did all incandescent lighting. To do that in a workspace at the time, it just didn't exist. You had like a cool Brooklyn restaurant and an old auto garage. You had, you know, other people, say, doing boutique hotels with that vibe. But in workspace, no one did that at all. So it was totally unique. There was nothing like it.

• 34:46Guy Raz?

  How many people joined up by the day you opened?

• 34:49Speaker 00

  I think when we first opened the first floor, we were probably in the 70 to 80% range.

• 34:54Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  And then within the first couple of months, the first two floors were, were pretty much full.

• 34:59Guy Raz?

  So, so once this building, like, once people started to join up and this thing started to really take off. Was the idea immediately to go out and get investors and like scale this, make this huge?

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Okay, so part of the story which we didn't talk about is before we even built the first location, we actually had an encounter with a potential investor who was in a room for one of these potential real estate deals. So we were pitching a building. We really wanted to get this cool building down at Canal Street. And the owner of it was like, you know, I'm not sure if I'll give you the building, but I got this friend who might be interested and he's going to come over. So this guy shows up at the meeting, sits down, doesn't really speak to us, and shake hands. But these are like, you know, Orthodox Jewish guys, you know, wearing the black suit and stuff. So to me, he still has an Oregonian a little bit. Like, I don't really know the world too well, but Adam felt really comfortable with it by then. But he ends up calling, I think, that later that day

• 35:53Speaker 00

  or the next day after the meeting and saying, hey, I don't think we're going to get that building, but I want to partner with you guys. And we're like, well, we don't really need a partner. We got money. We're going to, we're building our own thing here. He said, yeah, but I, what will it take? You know, whatever it takes, I want to, I want to be a partner with you. And so, you know, we were like, why not? Let's throw out a number and we'll make it outrageous. There's no chance he'll say yes, but if he does, then hey, we're fine. Like, we did pretty well. And we had no building. We had no signed lease even, and we proposed a $45 million valuation. And that's pretty high for, for a business that is unproven. And, and so he said, yes. You know, he said, okay, I

• 36:37Speaker 00

  want to be a third partner. And, and so I'll commit to that. Which I think at the time was a little bit scary, but at the same time, it's like, wow, that's a real empowerment to say, okay, now we're going to have all this cash.

• 36:48Guy Raz?

  So he gave you all this cash, huge resk on his part?

• 36:51Speaker 00

  So he didn't give us the cash.

• 36:53Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 36:53Speaker 00

  But he committed to it.

• 36:54Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  He gave us some of the cash, a little bit to start, and then a little bit more over time. And that's actually a really great story in the sense that he empowered us to think really big because we started out with this valid, this valuation that sort of validated our picture of the future, which was really big. So it was great. And we're still good friends with him and everything is, is awesome. But that was the first step and the first money that we took as investment.

• 37:21Guy Raz?

  And then, of course, over time, you've got more and more investment and you expand it. You've built more and more of these spaces.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think what we did was we built fast. We built inexpensively and we turned around deals really quick and we were successful. You know, we built up credibility because each location that we did worked and we did what we said we're going to do. You know, we weren't like, say, a tech startup where it's like, oh, there's some, you know, hockey stick growth and all of a sudden we're going to have millions of users or whatever. But we were really clear that we're going to, you know, continue to grow. And the vibe in the buildings was unique and it was super cool. And when people came in, they could tell it was something different. Just on walking in the door would be like, wow, this is something I haven't seen before.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  And that validation of both, you know, the business is successful, it really works, the sort of fundamentals of the business are really good. And then we're like, you know, we're cool guys and we have a good story and we're here at the right time. And, you know, those things all added up.

• 38:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah, you know, I mean, I wonder, I mean, you must look at some of these companies like Uber, right? And, you know, some of these big tech companies and, you know, companies that we think of as giants, right? And, you know, we've had people on the show, people who started companies that don't exist anymore, like Compaq. And that was the fastest company in history to reach a billion dollars in revenue. And it doesn't exist anymore, right?

• 38:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:44Guy Raz?

  And I mean, you think about your company now, I mean, it's valued, what, 16, 17 billion dollars? And it seems like it could be there forever, but, I mean, do you ever think that, you know, all this could just collapse one day and not be there?

• 38:59Speaker 00

  You know, it's a great question. One of the things that we're holding on to very tightly is the feeling that we're still figuring it out every day. That nothing we've done so far is the right answer.

• 39:11Guy Raz?

  You still feel like a startup?

• 39:12Speaker 00

  100%.

• 39:13Guy Raz?

  Even though your value that's 17?

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the value is irrelevant, right, to the business problem? Like, who cares how much money you're worth when you're facing a business problem that is always evolving? And that your primary interest is in solving it in a better way. So our primary reason for existing is trying to help other people succeed. So our primary... Problem is like if they change, we change and it's sort of symbiotic in that way. Right. And that's why I think we don't really have a finish line. It's not like, hey, we're going to figure out some model and then we roll it out across the globe. It doesn't work that way for us at all. So that challenge will never stop. We'll have the learning curve forever, which is what makes it awesome. And Adam and I, like we, when we talked about this, we're like, this is a hundred year challenge. It's not like, hey, we're building a company so we can sell it and move on. We're doing this because we think this is the most interesting and biggest challenge we can work on.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  And so let's just keep on it forever.

• 40:06Guy Raz?

  When you did your last round of financing of looking for funding, the company was valued at $16 billion, a company that you started in 2010, which is crazy. I mean, do you ever, did you ever, do you ever stop and think, that's just nuts?

• 40:26Speaker 00

  That's a good question. I don't, it's interesting to think about the times at which these things hit you. And I would say I remember calling my friends when we were first reaching a billion dollar valuation. Actually, I can remember dinner with one of my best friends when we were at 130. And he was like, oh my God, 130, like, are you going to sell and retire? And I was like, what? Like, why would I do that? Like, I've just, this is so much fun, you know, no chance. When we got to a billion, I remember feeling pretty bashful about even saying the words. Like, I remember almost feeling like, wow, I don't want to send this in a text message because it's going to sound so preposterous. Like, I want to call and only say it verbally. But then, you know, once you cross that threshold, it's sort of like the other one's going from there.

• 41:11Speaker 00

  And first of all, I wouldn't complain about the fact that I get to live in Manhattan and I live in a nice apartment and I'm living, you know, I moved to an apartment with an awesome view. And that's a, you know, childhood dream to like, see the New York City skyline. So I've reached those thresholds where I live a great life.

• 41:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  And that's awesome. But beyond that, I don't have like some big ambition for money. It's not really interesting to me. It's more, again, like to be on a path where I feel like I get to continue to engage in something. That's what matters.

• 41:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah, it's really interesting because you think about like these huge booms like gold or oil or tech and the companies that really.

• 41:48Guy Raz?

  Were sustainable. The companies that made money, the most money off of these industries, were the ones that serviced them, right? Like Levi's jeans serviced the gold rush. And these companies that serviced the oil rigs, or, you know, the companies that built the platforms. You guys are kind of doing the same thing. I mean, there's this tech boom and a boom of, you know, this entrepreneurial spirit. And you kind of said, well, let's service this. Let's, let's provide the service.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  You know, that's a great way of looking at it. I don't think I've heard it stated that way, but I think it's really true. And it's not just those things, which I think tech boom is important, but it's also a shift in what people are looking for in their life and what their expectations are from work. Because there's a major shift happening in terms of young people thinking about going to work every day and what do they want back from that? People don't want to punch the clock anymore and then have their life start when they leave the office. They want their life to be integrated. They want to feel like there, there's value in what they do every day. And that's part of the environment that we create, you know? You can get that, say, you're working at Google, Facebook, whatever, super cool office, you know, maybe you feel this vibe. But when you're a small

• 42:58Speaker 00

  company, or say, you're working for a bank, or one of these places that isn't inherently as cool, you may not get that as easy. And what we're offering is something where you're an independent worker, or you're a small company of two people, or you're like a division from a pharmaceutical company or a bank, we're giving you that super cool environment where like, it doesn't feel like you're going to work every day. It feels like you're going to, you know, a cool spot to like, meet people and connect and collaborate, right? And that's, I think, the trend that we're working alongside of, less so specifically tech, or less so than any other business boom. It's more like a mindset shift.

• 43:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah. It's very interesting seeing you talk about this with confidence in a very sort of clear way. And you, and I'm also seeing you as this kid in this commune in Oregon, and I'm trying to square that circle. It's, it's just, it seems so implausible that, you know, here you are talking about real estate deals and price per square foot and all this stuff. And I'm not, that is a bad thing.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:03Guy Raz?

  It's just, right? I mean, do you ever think that's just implausible?

• 44:10Speaker 00

  No, primarily because I've been doing all the hard work for the last, I mean, literally from 1996 or whenever it was, 95, when I started architecture school, and I committed to the work. Like, I've worked nonstop since then. And I don't mean like literally, I mean, a lot of it was hours, but I mean it more like commitment. Like, I've been committed to the work and interested and engaged with the work since then, nonstop. And I think that's part of the thing is that I found something that I loved to do, and I felt what it feels like to love what you do. And I've never been willing to give that up. And I've been on that track ever since.

• 44:57Guy Raz?

  Miguel McKelvey, co-founder of WeWork. By the way, among the six kids who grew up with Miguel in the commune, two are employed by WeWork and another, Sadie Lincoln, founded her own empire, a national chain of exercise studios called Bar3.

• 45:19Guy Raz?

  Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more about it, go to howibuiltthis.npr.org. Oh, and next week, we're going to be back with our usual feature, How You Built That. So if you want to submit a story about something you're working on, go to build.npr.org. You can also write to us, it's h i b t at npr.org, or follow us on Twitter, it's at How I Built This. And of course, if you like us, please subscribe to the podcast. You can find it on iTunes or however you get your podcasts. Our show was produced this week by Ramtin Arablouei, who also composed the music. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Jeff Rogers, Sanaz Meshkampur, and Claire Brain. Our intern is Lawrence Wu. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Hey, y'all. Sam Sanders here. These days, I feel like I can't make sense of the news until I've talked it out with my friends. So I made a new show where we do that every week. It's called It's Been a Minute. That's my way of saying let's catch up. Our first episode is out this Friday evening, June 23rd. Check it out. It's Been a Minute on the NPR ONE app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks.