WeWork's Co-Founder Breaks His 5-Year Silence (Exclusive)
From scale with soul by AJ
August 29, 2025 · 2h 31m
About this episode
Miguel McKelvey, co-founder of WeWork, shares insights and reflections on the company's journey and his personal experiences in this exclusive interview after five years of silence.
WeWork's Cofounder, Miguel McKelvey, shares the most vulnerable, insightful and rounded account of WeWork in his first interview since the startup's dramatic collapse 5 years ago. 📖 Chapters - In this interview we cover... 00:00 - The Guilt Of WeWork & How To Let Go 15:40 - What Does Changing The World Actually Mean? 22:03 - Business And Community Tensions 27:36 - What Does Community Actually Mean? 32:21 - Community Ideologies vs Geographies 38:20 - Wisdom & Naval Ravikant 44:38 - When Does A Startup Become A Cult? " 57:26 - "How do you scale culture? " 01:04:03 - What culture practices to invest in as a smaller startup 01:11:21- Leaning Into Conflict 01:13:07 - Team Adam vs Team Miguel 01:21:24 - Power Tensions 01:26:27 - Rebekah Neumann's Role in WeWork 01:32:23 - S-1 IPO Filing 01:37:34 - The Public's Reaction To Adam 01:47:19 - Miguel's Awareness Of WeWork's Finances 01:54:02 - How Much To Trust Others In The Leadership Team? 01:57:18 - Noticing Scrappy Scaling 02:00:31 - Why It Made Sense For WeWork To Buy An Artificial Wave Startup 02:02:41 - Adam & Miguel's Reality Distortion 02:10:45 - What Really Destroyed WeWork 02:12:40 - How To Step Outside Of Ourselves…
People in this episode
Host: AJ
Guest: Miguel McKelvey
Topics covered
- WeWork
- startup culture
- entrepreneurship
- community
- business challenges
- leadership
Keywords
- WeWork
- Miguel McKelvey
- startup collapse
- entrepreneur advice
- business culture
- community ideologies
- leadership challenges
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: WeWork
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