Here’s What Happened To WeWork’s Other Founder Miguel McKelvey

As the once-hot office-sharing startup WeWork imploded this fall, frustrated investors pushed out its charismatic and erratic cofounder and CEO, Adam Neumann. The company’s other cofounder? Miguel McKelvey, 45, an under-the-radar presence compared with the outsize Neumann, stuck around in the vaguely defined role of chief culture officer. McKelvey was a big part of the founding story and was photographed alongside Neumann when Forbes first profiled WeWork in 2014. But by the time SoftBank was considering an investment in 2017, Neumann alone delivered the now infamous 12-minute pitch to SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son that raised $4.4 billion for WeWork globally. This year, as the company was gearing up for its much-anticipated initial public offering, McKelvey had largely been written out of the official narrative. In WeWork’s original registration statement from August, “Adam” was named 169 times, while McKelvey appeared just six. Even Neumann’s wife, Rebekah Paltrow Neumann—cousin to Gwyneth and retroactively named a company founder in January—got more ink, with 20 mentions. It was Neumann who promoted some of WeWork’s crazier expansions, including a WeGrow school, Rebekah’s pet project.“As Miguel focused on more culture things, Adam focused on, frankly, the things that were driving headlines,” recalls a former executive who asked to remain anonymous because of a nondisclosure agreement. “The value was created in Adam’s ability to raise money from Masa, which Miguel was not involved in directly.”But after the company pulled the IPO in September and had to be bailed out by its backers at SoftBank, it was McKelvey who sent an inspirational email to the demoralized staff. “It’s been a challenging period, and it takes fortitude to continue to believe,” he wrote in late October. “We have an amazing team and incredible brand—and with renewed focus, we have the opportunity to build an outstanding business.”On October 23, SoftBank’s Marcelo Claure, installed as executive chairman of WeWork, tweeted out that he’d spent “a very late night” at Sprint headquarters talking with McKelvey and learning about WeWork’s culture. McKelvey’s decision to stay affiliated with the company—and investors’ decision to allow him to do so—stands in stark contrast to Neumann’s unceremonious ouster, albeit with a $1.7 billion exit package. Once so entwined that they chose to hold their shares in WeWork through a singular entity, known as We Holdings LLC, set up in 2010, the two appeared to grow apart in recent years as WeWork’s valuation soared to a peak of $47 billion as investors poured in more than $9 billion. When WeWork released securities filings for the planned IPO, it revealed a business that had lost $1.9 billion on revenue of $1.8 billion in 2018, and those losses have continued to expand, reaching $1.25 billion in the third quarter, according to a recent report to debt holders.


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Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldm...


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