WeWork Co-Founder Fired Staff To Save Money; Then Hired Run DMC For Private Concert
Bad energy indeed!
WeWork First things first: Let the record show, I work at a WeWork. That's right, I cut a check to leave my house and go elsewhere to write, and currently I write that check to WeWork because they are easy to get to and have free beer on tap at all their locations. Is it a gimmick? Yes. Do I love it? Yes. While I work at a WeWork I am also not ignorant of the fact that they've been making headlines lately and not all of those headlines have been....uh, good. Who is Rebekah Paltrow Neumann? She's the wife of Adam Neumann's the company's founder, and she was recently asked to leave the board by investors. Oh, and she's also Gwyneth Paltrow's cousin.
1. Rebekah Paltrow Neumann
41-year-old Rebekah Paltrow (yeah that Paltrow) Neumann is the wife of Adam Neumann, the founder and CEO of a little company you've probably heard of: WeWork. Rebekah is the Co-Founder of WeWork. She's also the Brand Chief and Impact Officer of the We Company, which is the massive hydra of "We" based branches that was once just little old WeWork. Rebekah's focus has recently been dedicated to WeGrow, the private education branch of The We Company. She's the school's Founder and its CEO. She's also very much Gwyneth Paltrow's cousin. Because of course she is.
2. The Big News
Rebekah and her husband are in the news these days due to a decision reached by the We Company board. You see, before now Rebekah was slated to play a pretty role in the selection of a successor to Adam should he ever need one. However, after the investors in the company made a stink, she was removed from that roll and banned from being on the board. According to a notice filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 13 the board said, “Any chief executive officer who succeeds Adam will be selected by our board of directors, acting as a group. We will not rely on a succession committee. Our board has the ability to remove our chief executive officer.”
3. Rebekah's Role At We Company
In the filing that the company made, they describe Rebekah as someone who a central advisor to Adam and who helped shape the entire "We" brand. In the very same filing they also make it quite clear that she's never received a salary for doing so. The We Company, and in particular Adam and Rebekah's management style, has received national criticism, most recently from the Wall Street Journal who wrote up some of their stranger policies which include boozy parties for their staff...but also firing 20% of their staff annually to make sure they only keep the cream of the crop. YIKES.
4. Rebekah's Passion Project
Her connection to her cousin has been helpful to her brand. In fact, Rebekah actually sat down and did an interview with GP herself for a GOOP Installment, where she talked about the elementary school she started in Manhattan that costs $42,000 annually. “My husband and I were touring many, many elementary schools on both the East and West coasts for our eldest daughter.We had a clear vision of the type of school we wanted her to attend — a place that would not only nurture growth in her mind but also her spirit, a place that had a real culture of kindness, where she would have a real connection to nature, and where her individual gifts, talents, and passions would be recognized and supported," she said.
5. The Role Of Spirituality
For Rebekah, spiritually is central in all things, and that includes her management style. She is reported to have had staff members fired after meeting them for only a handful of moments when she decrees that their "energy" is off. She is a certified yoga instructor and once even attended a birthday party for the Dalai Lama. I once went to a birthday party at a petting zoo and there were LLAMAS there, but I have been told that is different. Her husband says she has put the stop sign down when it comes to talking about money, too. “We’re going to talk about wellness, happiness, fulfillment, and if the money is supposed to follow, it will. And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, because we will be happy and fulfilled," he said his wife instructed him.
6. The Feminist Backlash
Rebekah got some serious flack, when, during a summer event held by WeWork in 2018, she said the following on stage to the THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN ATTENDANCE: “A big part of being a woman is to help men [like Adam] manifest their calling in life." When people (quite rightly) took to Twitter to talk about how jaw-droppingly terrible that comment was, she dug herself a deeper hole saying: “The reality that I see today is that there is nothing bigger that women can do, in my opinion, than empower their partners — and that can be a man, a woman, a friend, it doesn’t matter, but empower others."
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cats, Batman and Margot. She's an experienced generalist with a passion for lifestyle, geek news, pop culture, and true crime.