Adam Neumann: The WeWork boss creating the future of the office

There's no point in holding back: I’ve seen the future.

It’s at 9 Devonshire Square in the City, and it belongs to WeWork.

Not heard of it? You will.

WeWork started in New York in 2010, and is today worth $10 billion (£6.6 billion).

The office-space provider runs 57 locations in 17 cities, mostly in the US but also in Israel, the Netherlands and the UK, where it has six in London (Moor Place, which has just opened in Moorgate, is six times bigger than Devonshire Square and is nearing 100% let).

WeWork takes over one or two empty floors of a large office building in a city centre, gives it a trendy makeover with exposed bricks, pipes and floorboards, and walls covered in slogans (“create your life’s work”) and turns it into a shared workspace for start-ups, freelancers, creatives, entrepreneurs — anyone who wants a desk.

It also builds a sense of community — so clients are not called tenants but “members”.

They join a place that has its own bar with free coffee and beer, bowls of fruit and nuts, high-speed internet, lounges, conference rooms, social networking, weekly events, group discounts and health insurance.

Think Soho House in mood and appearance but more work than play.

WeWork charges £250 a month for someone to hot-desk, £325 for a dedicated desk and £600 for a small glass office.

Each of its premises houses hundreds, if not thousands, of users. Not all are individual tenants — many are small firms, some much bigger (The Guardian’s staff in New York is based in a WeWork).

Backers include JPMorgan, Fidelity and Goldman Sachs.

In the US, co-founder and chief executive Adam Neumann, 36, was recently named Number One in Forbes magazine’s 40 under 40 ranking of the most influential young people in business.

Tall, with a pumped-up physique and thick, wavy black hair, and wearing a tight T-shirt and jeans, Neumann looks more like a rock frontman than property baron — or, as he prefers it, a visionary who wants to change the world.

“Welcome to the future of the office,” he says by way of introduction, coming into the room and throwing himself into an easy chair.

There’s not a hint of self-deprecation or irony — he doesn’t do small or think tiny.

“With the Industrial Revolution and the advent of the production line, two things happened simultaneously,” he says.

“One was that very complex items could suddenly be built in large numbers; and lots of jobs were created. The sort of shift that is under way here is just like that — it’s a similar phenomenon.”

He laughs. “We stumbled on it, on the change in the way people are working, and we’re helping to push it in the right direction.

“We cater for the ‘we’ generation. Around 80% of our members are Millennials and, as of now, we’ve got 41,000 members.

“We treat them the way we want to be treated ourselves. For us and them, working is about much more than achieving material goods.”

WeWork vets each member: “No call centres, we don’t want people who will just man phones and sell.”

Millennials, Neumann says, “switch nine jobs on average. What we’re doing is helping them find what they love doing”.

He leans forward: “Do you know that in the US, 35% of all workers are independent workers. That’s 45 million people. And it will rise to 40%-42% by 2020.

“In London, currently, it’s 30% but the trend is in the same direction. More and more people are working for themselves. Why? Because they want to do something more meaningful.

“Sure, some have no choice — corporate America is not hiring. But WeWork is about giving them that seamless opportunity. More and more people are becoming freelancers.”

If you get the impression there’s no stopping Neumann, you’d be right. It’s hard to get a word in edgeways. But it’s easy to see how he’s wowed America and some of its most powerful financial institutions.

His accompanying PR man nods enthusiastically — so much so that I fear for his neck.

Neumann looks after the management, money and communications side while his business partner, Miguel McKelvey, takes care of achieving the right ambience and feel.

A former officer in the Israeli navy, Neumann grew up on a kibbutz. He followed his sister, Adi, a Miss Teen Israel, to New York.

While she became a successful model, he stayed in her apartment, managing her finances and studying business at Baruch College.

He set out on his own, launching children’s overalls with sewn-in kneepads, and Egg Baby, an online retailer for upmarket baby clothes.

He met McKelvey, an architect, at a party and asked him to design him an office space in Brooklyn.

When Neumann rented out a corner to someone else to save money, he alighted on the idea of shared offices.

Their first concept was called Green Desk, which was more like an executive suite rental company than WeWork.

Eventually, they sold Green Desk for $3 million and used the proceeds to launch a plan they’d had for lots of desks interspersed with communal areas.

This was in SoHo. It was the first WeWork, and within a month of opening in February 2010, it was making a profit.

Neumann wants to show me a video. It’s of a summer camp for WeWork’s New York members. Cue shots of mostly young people sitting on decks and around campfires against a backdrop of big skies and lakes.

The message is clear: WeWork is not about being hunched over a laptop but buying into a lifestyle. “We want you to do what you love, to find the creative in you and let it out,” says Neumann.

And meanwhile, I think cynically, rake in millions if not billions (he and McKelvey are thought to own 20% each).

Their ambition, says Neumann seriously, is “to change the world. Are we going to fulfil that potential? I don’t know, but I do know we’ve got a spectacular business model”.

But aren’t there well-established operators in this area — like Regus?

Neumann pauses: “Hilton and Marriott are in hotels. Then [hotelier] Ian Schrager comes in and redesigns the lobby, changes the rooms, and you’ve got the luxury boutique hotel. It wasn’t there before. He created it, he redefined the market. We’re doing the same for offices.”

Companies like Regus, he says, are about renting space to anyone who wants it. WeWork is about “meeting the needs of like-minded individuals, creating a community that they can feel part of”.

He accepts there is nothing to stop me finding a building and trying to do the same.

But he says, I would not match their scale, and I would lack WeWork’s “secret weapon — we know how to provide exactly the right culture”.

People, he says, have “a choice. They can stay at home and work from there, from a study.

“Or they can come into WeWork and be surrounded by people they can talk to, who can help them, who they can bounce ideas off.

“They can work together if they wish — and they often do. We reckon 55% of our members do business with each other.”

WeWork’s home is New York, where Neumann lives with his wife and four children, but London is central to his plans: “Right now, we’ve got six buildings open in London, catering for 6700 members. We will have five more by April, with another 6000 desks.

“Our goal by the end of 2016 is to have 20,000 in London across 10 to 15 buildings. London will be the largest, or second-largest after NYC in our portfolio.”