I’ve long been fascinated with companies that fail, often spectacularly, only to be reborn in a smaller but profitable form. Remember when Lego slapped its name on so much stuff that it almost went bankrupt? Companies like General Motors, Delta Air Lines, Starbucks, Apple, and Ford all had to pare back and refocus to get healthy. A more recent example: WeWork.
It’s launching a private office pod today that’s emblematic of a more focused and asset-light direction for the brand. Normally, I’d pass on getting an ‘exclusive’ on a product launch. But that changed when I saw ‘WeWork Go’ emblazoned on the side of what looks like a transparent phone booth, the company’s first new product since July 2022, when WeWork was still trading for around $5 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Of course, you’ll remember that the coworking company once had a $47 billion valuation and cult-like CEO in Adam Neumann who promised to “elevate the world’s consciousness.” That iteration of WeWork became a bankrupt cautionary tale with $18 billion in debt in 2023, when Neumann was ousted. (He later tried unsuccessfully to buy the company back.) It’s now a private firm with a penny stock that trades for around a nickel and a CEO named John Santora, who spent the first half-century of his career at Cushman & Wakefield.
It’s also, as Santora told me, a profitable company with 550,000 members in more than 600 locations. But many of those locations are now franchised and WeWork now has more than 2,000 third-party coworking partners in its network.
WeWork’s new “private office pod” offers models for single users and a larger pod for up to four people. Santora says you’ll see them in airports, convention centers, hotel lobbies or other high-traffic areas visited by “busy professionals on the move.” Not a breakthrough technology, perhaps, but a smart move from a man who’s navigated the realities of real estate his whole career.
WeWork Go “expands the ability for our people to access our spaces and our technology,” says Santora. He says WeWork still has “that entrepreneurial spirit,” and in the company’s new, slimmed-down era, transparent pods will test whether that culture can thrive on a smaller scale.
Written by Diane Brady for Fortune as “WeWork’s latest comeback bet fits inside a phone booth” and republished with permission.
