How I Built This with Guy Raz - WeWork: Miguel McKelvey

Episode Date: June 19, 2017

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.

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who are looking for a way to upgrade their digital footprint. Well, whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your business, Squarespace is the easiest way to build a great website that stands out. It's an all-in-one website platform that gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your products, and get paid. Anyone can use Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools to build an online presence that truly reflects what makes your business special.

There are templates, intuitive drag-and-drop editing, and even an AI-enhanced website builder. Then, Squarespace's built-in analytics tools help you make smarter business decisions. Review website traffic, learn where to focus engagement, and track revenue all in one place. Looking to grow your business, Squarespace even offers fast, easy business financing

through Squarespace capital. Go to Squarespace.com slash built for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code built to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Loans issued by Celtic Bank and serviced by Stripe, all loans subject to credit approval. This show is in partnership with Airbnb. This past summer, I took my family to Vienna, and it was incredible. We spent our days wandering the old streets, stopping for coffee and pastries, visiting museums, and just soaking up the history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And one of the things that made the trip so special was the home we booked on Airbnb.

It had tall windows, beautiful old details, and plenty of space for all of us. And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna, walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better your home might be worth more than you think find out how much at arbb.ca.ca slash host 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 and they're basically like okay

here's the building what would you do with it so basically I go home and I'm I start thinking of a concept, of a name. I buy the domain. I build a website. I design some floor plans, really simple. Do like a quick, like, business model. I stayed up all night. Wait, wait.

You did this in one night? 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? 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, some seed money to create a service that allowed 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 dry's 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 Newman 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 work spaces. But not just any workspace, 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 U.S. 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. 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. But basically those five women were, could, were the parents. So any of them could be in charge at any point. Exactly. And we all had, you know, all the holidays together from Thanksgiving to Easter to Christmas. Like that was our family. Like we're, 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 sister. Did it, did it feel different when you were a kid? Or was it just like that's Eugene Oregon and it's kind of.

of there's like a vibe here. 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. And 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 wouldn't say I wanted to get out, but I did from a very young age 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, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? I don't know what. 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 a, oh, I hate this place. I've got to get out of town. It was more just aspiration, you know, for something bigger. Wow. So, all right, so you grew up in this environment and you are one boy among lots of women. Yeah. All women. All women. Pretty much. Basically, four sisters and five moms. Yeah. And I mean, looking back on it, it was weird. In the the sense that like I didn't have um 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 realize things that I didn't have at all um 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 and you loved sports yeah I mean from a young age I did but I didn't have much guidance you know and and would you play well I played basketball but never I didn't play it seriously until I was really in high school so you know 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. And I should mention you are sitting across me in the studio. You are six foot eight? Six foot eight, yeah, on a good day.

You are done 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 to have it this height. 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. So first of all, no one did something for everyone to live.

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 at 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. Wow. 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, like, chic architects, and, like, 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, okay. okay, great, we like you, we need you, we're really busy, can you start tomorrow? Wow. And I'm like, 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 went back to Portland. I literally packed up my entire apartment. I called my mom. I'm like, mom, take all my stuff. 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. And, I mean, you were young, but you weren't like just at a car.

I was 30. I was 30. I was 30, so I was old. I mean, I was old for like being willing to. Somebody starting out from scratch, right? Yeah. And the job was $10 an hour. So, I mean, I was, it wasn't like I had money in the bank.

They needed a certified professional architect for $10 an hour? Well, I wasn't a certified professional architect. 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- And you weren't worried about taking that risk at all? 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's no way I was going down.

You know, worst case in there, I moved back to my mom's house in Eugene for a while and figure stuff out. And what was a job like? Did you like it? Was it fun? So what happened there, which was really cool, is that the Jordan Parnas had grown up with Dove Charnie in Montreal. So Dove is American Apparel founder. The infamous Dove Charnie, yes. Exactly. And so originally when I first went there, the project that they had was an American Apparel store. And it was in Lower Manhattan. There was one they had already done. And then they were working on the second one. You mean to design it or to like?

Yeah, design it and manage the construction and build out. That's kind of a big deal for a two-person firm. 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 project management role of like, okay, now we have two 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. Wow.

That was how fast and explosive their growth was. I mean, you're joining this firm in 2004 and like within just a few years, you're just like 30. 40, 50 stores? Yeah, I think they were to 200 after four years or so. That's crazy. So, I mean, you got to this firm at just the right time when they just like landed this really interesting deal. And clearly that was going to change your life.

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 like really. tight time frames and Dove was like 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 when I think he said he said this is 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 like, well, 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 like 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. 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? 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 kind of starts the wee work story is that while I was working for the formatted co-worker, this is a really guy named

Gil, and I became friendly with him and we, you know, were. He was also an architect. Yeah, he was an architect working on American Apparel projects. And we became friendly. And I remember 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. This is Adam Newman, your partner now at we work? Yeah, Adam Newman and he's got his shirt off, I think, which just to walk into a New York condo building, a 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 in 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. Was it just a guy who lived in the building?

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. So you and Adam just, like, hit it off right then and there? 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. There was something between us that just sort of made sense. What was he doing at the time? So he had a couple of startups. Both of them, I think, were baby clothing companies. And he had sort of an idea for innovating a baby clothing by putting knee pads in baby's pants to protect their knees. They were called crawlers. Did he have a baby at the time?

No, no baby. I don't understand where the whole baby thing come from. We'd have to ask him to remember. But 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. In Brooklyn. In Brooklyn. So I convinced him to move there. And so then he was just down the hall for me where I was working at the firm on the American Apparel projects. Did you find a kind of charisma in Adam that you felt you didn't have? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's more like, yeah, it's a 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. You don't like to be the center of attention. 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. Got it. But I really enjoy the energy that sort of comes from that.

Like, I like that. I like seeing it. So, 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? 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 we can make money, we can make more money than the landlord is currently charging. So basically his idea was to create like a bunch of shared offices and cubicles and then to just rent them out? 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 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 sub-lease 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, I sounds great. The challenge was is that neither of us really had experience in real estate or anything. And so 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 money to us? There were just empty floors in that building. 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're 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. Yeah. And so he started going to them and saying lease us a 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, 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. Fair enough. You know. And they just kept saying, no. But credit to Adam. and this is part of his 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.

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. 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. And the owner of the building kept saying no. 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.

they 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 going to do? Adam's like, I don't know. I'm like, okay, I'll figure it out. So basically I go home and I start thinking of a concept, of a name, come up with Green Desk, which is office space oriented towards people who are environmental, responsible. I buy the domain, you know, I build a website. I design 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 put, I stayed up all night. Wait, wait, you did this in one night? 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? 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... Have a company. You actually have something real here.

And that was really, you know, and of course, Adam sold it. I mean, I presented this up, but he's the one who... I mean, you guys are BSing a little bit. Of course. Because you have no money. Of course. We have nothing. 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. 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. 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

my cell phone 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 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. And they believed in it. And the idea was that you would get permanent workspace that would be yours or what? Yeah.

So the thing that was happening back then was there was there were existing sort of corporate office suites. And then there was co-working, which at the time, co-working 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, if you in New York. 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 in all these cool, different kinds of companies than what that energy is when they come together. 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 to do small offices. You could have like a small, you know, five foot by seven foot one person office. I 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 partition. 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 And what did it cost to join? 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. It 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. So this is like 2008, like right before the financial crash.

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 best thing for your life. Whereas, you know, could have been before. We did have some members like that who are like, oh, I used to be X for this company and now I want to sort of do it on my own. So how many people did you sign up for that for space? So, I mean, I think each floor in that building was a little under, maybe it was 70 people or so.

And how many floors did you guys have? So we had five floors. So I think that building was about 300. 50 members. You know, it filled up very fast. And then we expanded back to 68J, which was the cool thing because we went back to the building. They wouldn't let us have in the first place and started building out more space there. And you designed it on paper, basically. You became the architect. Yeah. So, Gill was also our partner at the time. So there were three of us. And we worked together. Gil, you know, worked on. Who was also an architect? 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 really running it, you know, as a very small business. And so did you guys start to make money out this like very quickly? Yeah. So the challenge there was it was a good business definitely right off the bat and we were profitable, but the problem 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 building. 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. So you left. 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. So they own Green Desk. They own Green Desk. They still operated and it's a nice little business. And what did you guys walk away with. 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,

Gill, 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. And he did that. 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.

And did you create a new name and a new brand and all this stuff, right? Yeah. So I think one of the things that we learned at Green Dust 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 and 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?

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 are you been? So that's one of the cool things that happens is it's sort of like, hey, we're all working together even though we're separate, you know? 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? 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. So we work. 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. So where was your first stop? Where did you go to find your first place? So we looked in Manhattan a lot. We did have a non-compete with our green desk partners.

So we had 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 in, I mean, it was a friend of a friend of a friend, knew somebody, and somehow we connected for this building in Soho. 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 he, you know, 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. But how did you put the money forward for that? Did you guys have the money? Yeah, so we had the money from the green desk sale, 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. What did the building look like? Was it ready to just rent out? to people or did you have to gut it and like not at all ready full gut it was actually um in terrible

condition so how much money did it was it going to require to renovate that building probably in the order of a few million dollars because because you had a vision of what you wanted to be right like I'm imagining like you know hardwood floors like sort of distressed wood floors and beautiful appliances and um right I mean yeah so We were more conservative back then in terms of our investment. You know, we did a lot of the work ourselves. I mean, the actual labor. 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 $100,000 and one for like $87,500. I remember getting those estimates and being like $100,000 is a pretty round number for wiring. Like, shouldn't you have like a more detailed? calculation of how much that cost. 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, 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 $8,000 in materials and then, you know, whatever, like 50 hours of labor, whatever the number was. It was some crazy small number relative to this $100,000 price. And so we're like, well, it's not rocket science. Like we can do that ourselves. And so we just did it ourselves.

Wait, you wired the building yourselves? Yeah. You were like laying the wires out and like 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 this thing called soda blasting where you use baking soda to do that. And we have to buy baking soda by like the 50 pound. bag and you need bags and bags and bags of the store i mean 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 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 um 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 ourselves we had a compressor on the streets of manhattan just sitting out there like zzz like the compressors running out there and like there's all this baking soda billowing out of the windows upstairs. It was awesome. So, okay, so, so from the time that you sign the lease to when you open the first floor, how long was that? A few months, so three months probably, maybe a little less. It was pretty quick. How did it look? Take me into that first floor that you opened up. 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, a hundred-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 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. Back then, 2010. Yeah. Seven years ago. 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 in an old auto garage. You had, you know, other people say doing boutique hotels with that, but in workspace, no one did that at all. So it's totally unique. There was nothing like it. How many people joined up by the day you opened? I think when we first open the first floor, we were probably in the 70 to 80 percent range. And then within the first couple months, the first two floors were pretty much full.

So once this building, 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 scale this? Let's make this huge? 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 the 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 in 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 in he's going to come over.

So this guy shows up at the meeting, sits down, doesn't really speak to us. I'm going to shake hands, but these are like, you know, Orthodox Jewish guys, you know, wearing the black suit and stuff. So to me, 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 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 building our own thing here. He said, yeah, but what will it take? You know, whatever it takes, 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 the $45 million evaluation. And that's pretty high for a business that is unproven. And so he said, yes. He said, okay, I want to be a third partner. 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. So he gave you all this cash, huge risk on his part. So he didn't give us the cash. Okay. But he committed to it. Okay. 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 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 awesome. But that was the first step in the first money that we took as investment. And then, of course, over time, you got more. and more investment and you expanded. You built more and more of these spaces. 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. 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. 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 Compact. And that was a fastest company in history to reach a billion dollars in revenue. And it doesn't exist anymore, right? Right. 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? 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. You still feel like a startup? 100%. Even though your value that's 17. 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 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, 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. And so let's just keep on it forever. 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 stop and think that's just nuts? 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'm 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 ones going from there. 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 a house. an awesome view, and that's a childhood dream to, like, see the New York City skyline. So I've reached those thresholds where I live a great life. Yeah. 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. Yeah, it's really interesting because you think about, like, these huge booms like gold or oil or tech. And the companies that really 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 provide the service.

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 They want to feel like there's value in what they do every day. And that's part of the environment that we create. 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 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 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 score that circle it's it's just it seems so implausible that you know here you are talking about real estate deals and price for square foot and all this stuff and I'm not that it's a bad thing right it's just right I mean do you ever think that's just implausible 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 ours, 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. Miguel McElvey, 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 Bar Three. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more about it, go to how I built this.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 hibt 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 Rumpteen Arablewee, who also composed the music. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Jeff Rogers, Sanaz Meshkampur, and Claire Breen. Our intern is Lawrence Wu. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.

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 podcast. Thanks.