Big Tech's Comeback And The Spillover to VCs and Startups — With Eliot Brown
Eliot Brown is a reporter at the Wall Street Journal and co-author of The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion. He joins Big Technology Podcast this week to talk about Big Tech's remarkable stock market comeback and how that's spilling over to VCs, startups, and IPOs. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss the risks in the commercial real estate market, looking into examples Brown has reported on. We end discussing Evan Gershkovich, a friend and colleague of Brown who is currently imprisoned in Russia.
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Tech’s Frothy Days Are Over. Now What? — With Eliot Brown
Eliot Brown is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and co-author of The Cult of We. Brown joins us to check in on how the tech industry is adapting after years of zero-interest-rate-driven froth fades away. Tune in for a discussion of how real 'the end of froth' is, whether it was productive or not, and a company-by-company look at Softbank, Tiger Global, Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir, Tesla, and Twitter.
If you like Big Technology Podcast, please rate it five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice.
For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/
You can find The Cult of We here.
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Tokyo Games Can't Catch a Break, Klobuchar Targets Vaccine Misinformation, and Friend of Pivot Eliot Brown
A tropical storm threatens the Olympics, Kara enjoys being the Bad Girl of GETTR, and Friend of Pivot Eliot Brown explains how WeWork's Adam Neumann attracted experienced investors, and kept his hair looking good at all times.
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The Definitive WeWork Story — With Eliot Brown And Maureen Farrell
Eliot Brown And Maureen Farrell are the authors of The Cult of We: WeWork and the Great Start-Up Delusion. The new book digs into the rise and fall of Adam Neumann's WeWork. And though it's the story of one company, it's really a lens through which you can see all the markets' irrationality. The authors join for a macro discussion of the factors that led WeWork — a real estate company — to become the world's most valuable "tech" startup. And why it couldn't keep the show rolling.
Check out the book: https://amzn.to/3Btv6XS
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How WeWork's Adam Neumann made a pigeon look like a swan
For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha took a trip down memory lane to the great WeWork saga. We had WSJ reporter and author Eliot Brown on the show to chat about his new book, The Cult of We, written with his colleague Maureen Farrell. You can snag it here if you haven't already.
Brown and Farrell were key reporting voices during WeWork's rise, and fall, covering the company's growth, hijinks, and demise.
Recently, WeWork has filed to go public via a SPAC, bringing the co-working startup to the public markets years after it initially tried for an IPO. It will debut at a fraction of the value that it once commanded on the private markets.
For fun, you can read the original WeWork S-1 filing here.
The WeWork-SPAC deck is here.
While we had Brown on the show, we took the time to dive into how he handled reporting the WeWork story, what his take is on today's startup market, and how the tech media in general can do a better job. It felt like a masterclass for journalists and founders alike, which we'd argue is Equity's sweet spot.
What lessons can we take away from WeWork's rise and fall? At a very basic level, that companies with slim gross margins are not software companies and should not be valued as such. And that allowing founders to have monarchical control of their company goes against historical norms of good corporate governance, which isn't so smart.
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
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