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Speaker 1: What's in Chicago? Meet me? I'm in Chicago. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Evans hosted Behind the Bastards, the show that tells

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Speaker 1: you everything you don't know about the very worst people

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Speaker 1: in all of history. And today I'm in the Windy

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Speaker 1: City that Never sleeps on a big apple, Chicago, Illinois,

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Speaker 1: with my co hosts today, the hosts of the Wonderful

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Speaker 1: Knowledge Fight podcast, my favorite podcast, Dan and Jordan's. That's

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Speaker 1: I don't know your last names? Wow, it's irrelevant. We're

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Speaker 1: not allowed to say our last names on television sales.

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Speaker 1: So Mr mixel Plick situation will to another dimension should

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Speaker 1: we say our names? Oddly enough, I have a friend

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Speaker 1: who's like that, and it's Mr. He said his name

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Speaker 1: backwards twice though, so you got him? Yeah, you got

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Speaker 1: you terrible. You can only visit him on certain occasions

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Speaker 1: for having us. You know, it's nicely in Chicago. There's

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Speaker 1: so many, so many choices of people you could sit

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Speaker 1: down lot, a lot of things going on in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: I was surprised at the cars um as a Southerner

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Speaker 1: and then and then a West Coaster. I didn't realize

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Speaker 1: you had them here yet. But that's good. It's good.

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Speaker 1: It's good. It's good. Once the once the city burned

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Speaker 1: down the first time, we were like, well, let's wait

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Speaker 1: for the second to get some cars, but we decided

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Speaker 1: against it. Well, I'm I'm proud of y'all. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot going on in Chicago. Mainly it's cold, very cold.

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Speaker 1: Have you been yelled out about food at all? Oh

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Speaker 1: my god, Actually I have a tail. This will be

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Speaker 1: dropping an episode of Worst Year Ever. But we went

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Speaker 1: totally on accident. When we were covering Cody Johnson, Katie

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Speaker 1: Stile and I were coming the Midwest Profest. We went

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Speaker 1: to accidentally what has to be one of the fanciest restaurants.

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Speaker 1: It's one of fancies restaurants, maybe the fanciest I've been

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Speaker 1: to in my life, so I'm guessing it's one of

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Speaker 1: the fancier ones in Chicago. No, it was the Capital

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Speaker 1: grill Um. It was a place that, like, we walked

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Speaker 1: in and they asked to take our coats and we

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Speaker 1: said no, and they immediately looked like, oh, you're not

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Speaker 1: supposed to be here. That is just not done. But

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Speaker 1: they seated us and we ordered lobster bisk which was fantastic.

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Speaker 1: The food was was phenomenal um. And as I was

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Speaker 1: eating my bisk, the waiter walked by and gave me,

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Speaker 1: fetched me a look of pity and said, sir, is

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Speaker 1: there something wrong your soup spoon? I had used the

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Speaker 1: wrong spoon, I was. I was half sure the problem

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Speaker 1: was going to be that you put ketch up in

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Speaker 1: the b which is frowned upon. Not quite that much

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Speaker 1: an animal, but I am apparently a filthy animal because

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Speaker 1: I used Yeah, you know, um, I'm I'm deeply ashamed

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Speaker 1: as Chicaglan's allow us to resolve or what does that call?

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Speaker 1: Absolve you of your food since yeah, I thought you

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Speaker 1: were going to double down. No, I don't give a

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Speaker 1: sh about bisk. So we we have never been to

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Speaker 1: a swanky I look like I've ever. It was purely

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Speaker 1: by accident that we went. Jordan thought Julia Bays was

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Speaker 1: a cold sup really did It's not really. This is

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Speaker 1: on the way here. Every soup that's not clam chatter.

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Speaker 1: I assume it is gus paco. I don't know other suits.

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Speaker 1: Jordan didn't know. I did not know about Tripe. That's

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Speaker 1: a shame. I really don't think. Once I learned about Tripe,

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Speaker 1: it did not bother me that I didn't know about

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Speaker 1: it this long. It's not good. Um so, uh, normally

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Speaker 1: y'all host a podcast, you sit around, drink novelty beverages

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Speaker 1: and talk a little bit about Alex Jack. It's true.

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Speaker 1: We're not doing anything like that today, nothing even vaguely

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Speaker 1: reminiscent of that. You told me earlier that we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about somebody that has nothing to do within

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Speaker 1: for war, couldn't be lesson. I was almost convinced it

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Speaker 1: was a trap. No, we talked about Alex Jones before.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, normally I would have you on to

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Speaker 1: to discuss someone in Alex Jones's universe because that's your wheelhouse.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes the sausage just gotta be made. You are

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Speaker 1: the sausage packers nearby. Yeah, I'll take it. Chicago has

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Speaker 1: not had sausage packing for a while, but I think

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Speaker 1: we'll we'll start the project again. Well, um, do you

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Speaker 1: guys know the name a little fella named Adam Neuman? No,

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Speaker 1: it does ring a bell. Have you heard of a

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Speaker 1: company called we Work? Yes? Is that guy? Oh boy,

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Speaker 1: oh boy? And he is a real piece of ship. Okay,

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Speaker 1: now that sounds right. So I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna,

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna dive into this, to

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Speaker 1: dive into the ship right now. Um so well, now,

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Speaker 1: I actually scrolled to the bottom of the page, very professional.

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Speaker 1: This is how the sausage gets made when we don't

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Speaker 1: print it out. Adam no discernible middle name, Neuman was

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Speaker 1: born in Tel Aviv, Israel, on a n seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: very close to my birthday. I'm already very invested in

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Speaker 1: this story. And you were also born in Televisi correct,

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Speaker 1: well the American television Yes, yes, which is Van Eys, California. Yes.

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Speaker 1: He gets a lot of ship about the right to

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Speaker 1: return laws for California, which is you do not have

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Speaker 1: them stay the funk out of California. Just too many

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Speaker 1: people here. Um so yeah. When he was seven, his

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Speaker 1: parents divorced and his mother moved to New York City

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Speaker 1: to do her medical residency. Adam and his sister av

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Speaker 1: moved in with her. Now I found other variations about them.

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Speaker 1: Story that climed to split happen when he was nine,

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Speaker 1: and that they moved to Minneapolis first. I think he

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Speaker 1: lies a lot on this show. Whenever it's like I've

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Speaker 1: heard multiple stories about his life about like specifically when

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Speaker 1: he came Like yeah, like in so consequential details, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I I ran into both. Um. We don't

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Speaker 1: have a lot of granular details of his childhood, UM,

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Speaker 1: like not a lot of anecdotes about him as a kid. UM,

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Speaker 1: but we know it was rough. He was severely dyslexic,

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Speaker 1: still is severely dyslexic. You don't just um, is that

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Speaker 1: why we work as one word? Maybe? Does that? Is

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Speaker 1: that a dyslexic thing? I don't think it is welcome

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Speaker 1: Behind the Beasts the podcast where we slandered dyslexia and

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Speaker 1: talk about terrible people. H So, yeah, he was dyslexic,

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Speaker 1: couldn't read it write at all until the third grade.

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Speaker 1: UM and his mom moved constantly, so he lived in

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Speaker 1: a lot of different homes and usually didn't spend enough

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Speaker 1: time in any one place to build strong attachments to

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Speaker 1: people there. I get that a little bit. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety, when he was eleven, Adam's mom moved

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Speaker 1: back to Israel his family and he settled in a kipputz.

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Speaker 1: Gives no much about kipputz is ku. I know a

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Speaker 1: little bit about kid butts is like, Yeah, it's like

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Speaker 1: a it's like a commune essentially, right, Yeah, it's like

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Speaker 1: it's like an Israeli type of commune thing. I'm got

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Speaker 1: to talk about him a little bit. The first Kipputz

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Speaker 1: was founded in a place called dia Gania and you

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Speaker 1: know in Palestine at the time now now the nation

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Speaker 1: known as Israel uh in nineteen o nine and nineteen ten. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is two complex a topic to do justice too

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Speaker 1: as an aside in this episode, but it's reasonably accurate

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Speaker 1: to say that the inspiring motivations behind the establishment of

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Speaker 1: the first kibbutz is kibbutze Um. I'm not really sure

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Speaker 1: what's correct. I don't know yetish Um is a mix

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Speaker 1: of Zionism, admiration of like literal classical Spartan values um

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Speaker 1: and communism. So it's like a millity. It was like

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Speaker 1: an initially like very militant. So like when the Israeli

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Speaker 1: War for Independence or war the Nakba, whichever term you

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Speaker 1: prefer to use, when that happened, a lot of like

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Speaker 1: the cells of like Israeli um or not, I mean,

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Speaker 1: they weren't is rather at that point of like of

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Speaker 1: like Jewish partisans who like we're active, we're like based

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Speaker 1: around kibbutz is and stuff, and like there are kibbutz

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Speaker 1: is that were like manufacturing arms and stuff and like

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Speaker 1: later wars and stuff. So there's like a militant swing

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Speaker 1: to them, but also very leftist, very communist, very like

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Speaker 1: like like communitary. Yeah, yeah, I assume that will never

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Speaker 1: go wrong. And yeah, just a really fucking complicated thing.

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Speaker 1: And I I please don't take this, like read up

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Speaker 1: more on them. I I don't want to, like, and

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Speaker 1: they're all different too, so I'm sure there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of kibbutz is that that are very different backgrounds. But

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Speaker 1: I found like a really fun lecture on the history

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Speaker 1: of kibutz is by guy named Henry Near who was

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Speaker 1: a professor some fucking college, and I'm gonna quote from

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Speaker 1: that now. It was governed by all the members gathered

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Speaker 1: in their weekly meetings. Meals were eaten in common in

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Speaker 1: the central dining hall, which also served as a social

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Speaker 1: and cultural center, and other items of consumption were distributed

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Speaker 1: freely or in accordance with the principle to each according

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Speaker 1: to his or her need. In its early stages, all

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Speaker 1: decisions were taken in common by all the members. That's

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Speaker 1: the idea of the chibuts, like pretty practical ground democracy

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Speaker 1: sounds pretty pretty all right, Yeah, it sounds like every

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Speaker 1: one way to live. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know

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Speaker 1: about the making arms part. I don't know if I'm

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Speaker 1: going to sign up for that. Do you want to

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Speaker 1: make some arms? It's not my thing. Little bit arms here,

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Speaker 1: a little bit arms there. I just feel like I

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Speaker 1: don't have the right kind of like dexterity in those skills.

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Speaker 1: Really really want kids for making because they're little fingers

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Speaker 1: getting all those holes. Yeah, pop, a little little baby fingers.

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Speaker 1: H nobody makes an a k forty seven like a

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Speaker 1: couple of three month olds. They really, they really know

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Speaker 1: how to start now. Women and men both worked all

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Speaker 1: day in the kibbutz is kibbutz um um. Their children

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Speaker 1: were cared for in small groups, looked after by individuals

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Speaker 1: were a mix of teacher and nanny. Kild spent time

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Speaker 1: in their parents home after working hours, but most cases

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Speaker 1: slept with other kids in a children's house at night.

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Speaker 1: In the early days, at least all of the kibbutz

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Speaker 1: is were part of a utopian movement towards a better society.

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Speaker 1: One of the founders of the first kibbutz, Joseph Barretts,

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Speaker 1: wrote this in his memoirs. We were happy enough working

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Speaker 1: on the land, but we knew more and more certainly

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Speaker 1: that the ways of the old settlements were not for us.

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Speaker 1: This was not the way we hope to settle the country,

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Speaker 1: this old way with Jews on top and Arabs working

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Speaker 1: for them. Anyway, we thought that there shouldn't be employers

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Speaker 1: or employed at all. There must be a better way.

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Speaker 1: Very left wing, very like like utopian projects. I just

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Speaker 1: want to emphasize that. Yeah, this being this show, though

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Speaker 1: I'm waiting for a hammer to drop. Yeah, it goes

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Speaker 1: into not not as utopian direction. There's all around. They're

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Speaker 1: not all at least the same that they were so

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Speaker 1: obviously in the early days they were all about agriculture. Um,

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Speaker 1: some still focus on that, but today they serve in

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Speaker 1: a variety of industries. For example, Kibbutz sasa Uh serves

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Speaker 1: the Israeli military making special military grade plastics. Is two

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Speaker 1: hundred members sold some eight hundred and fifty million dollars

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Speaker 1: in products in two thousand tens. These are not all,

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Speaker 1: These are not small, but yes, necessarily and that's a

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Speaker 1: sizeable business. Yeah, And Kibbutz near m where Adam Neuman

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Speaker 1: spent his formative years, currently hosts an innovation center that

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Speaker 1: seems to focus as an incubator for the Israeli tech

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Speaker 1: industry and looks like literally any tech building in San

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Speaker 1: Francisco from the pictures I've seen, so like these are

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Speaker 1: no longer like like necessarily like rule or like like

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Speaker 1: hard scrabble things like there's big businesses that are are

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Speaker 1: operated in these um Now. By the time Adam and

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Speaker 1: his family arrived at Kibbutz near Am, Kibbutz has had

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Speaker 1: moderated significantly from their early radical leftist ideology, and rather

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Speaker 1: than being educated in a group of children on site,

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Speaker 1: he went to the share Hannegev. I'm so sorry for

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Speaker 1: surely pronouncing that school, which is near to Gaza Strip.

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Speaker 1: His mother worked as an oncologist at a nearby hospital.

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Speaker 1: Um and living in the kibbutz and taking partners communal

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Speaker 1: life was something that Adam's mom valued. He later recalled,

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Speaker 1: it was important to my mother that we all do

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Speaker 1: something special. So, yeah, every rite up you're going to find.

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Speaker 1: This guy's life focuses on his time in the Kibbutz.

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Speaker 1: It seems to be something out of himself. May has

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Speaker 1: made a point of discussing with every journalist who interviewed him. Um,

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Speaker 1: despite how often it comes up, you seldom here in

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Speaker 1: the details of his time there. One of the few

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Speaker 1: scraps I ran into came from a Hearts article. As

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Speaker 1: a child who lived in a lot of places, one

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Speaker 1: of the hardest things for me was to join a

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Speaker 1: new community. It was hardest at the Kibbutz, but that

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Speaker 1: was also one of the most impressive communities. I remember

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Speaker 1: how much fun it was to be a child in

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Speaker 1: the Kibbuts. I feel like I would probably speak the

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Speaker 1: same but also like, you know, not very in detail

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Speaker 1: about like the time when I lived in like I

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Speaker 1: don't know, Boston. Yeah, I don't remember much of it,

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Speaker 1: but I could probably be like, you know, hey, it

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Speaker 1: made me who And you get the like he really

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Speaker 1: drives home that it was like a formative thing for him,

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Speaker 1: but you also get the the idea that was kind

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Speaker 1: of painful. He talks a lot about how, um, the

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Speaker 1: other kids that he that were on the Kibbitts had

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Speaker 1: all been born and like grown up there, and he

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Speaker 1: had moved there when he was like eleven or twelve

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Speaker 1: or so. UM, so that was like obviously difficult. He

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Speaker 1: would have been something of an outsider. He says, he

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Speaker 1: like made his way in and it was really rewarding.

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Speaker 1: I kind of get the feeling that maybe this guy's

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Speaker 1: never quite felt like he belonged anywhere. It's like a

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Speaker 1: new kid in school, but the school happens to be

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Speaker 1: a commune, and nobody wants you there, and nobody wants

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Speaker 1: you there. Yeah, maybe I don't know. I wasn't there.

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Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in that particular Israeli kibbutz um. Now.

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Speaker 1: As a young adult, Adam went to the Israeli Naval

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Speaker 1: Academy and served in the Navy for five years. So

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Speaker 1: he didn't do like the minimum service you need to do,

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Speaker 1: Like he he made a thing of it. Um. He

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Speaker 1: retired as a captain or left the service as a captain. Um.

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Speaker 1: Once he'd done his time, he followed in his mother's

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Speaker 1: footsteps and moved to New York. He was twenty two

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Speaker 1: years old, and it was two thousand one, widely considered

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Speaker 1: to be the very best year in history to move

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Speaker 1: to the game. I remember well the Blueprint three or

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Speaker 1: now the Blueprint dropped, the Yes first album that was

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Speaker 1: really really good, The Strokes first album that was awesome.

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Speaker 1: All of those, All of those happened on on a

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Speaker 1: day that I don't think anybody remembers for any reason

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Speaker 1: at all. No, no, uh. Two thousand one particularly like

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Speaker 1: the fall, early winter, like autumn. Great time to be

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Speaker 1: in New York. The two thousand one particularly good time

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Speaker 1: to be a dance punk was taken the nation by Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It was fantastic. So he moves there in a perfect time. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: his sister Avy had already beaten him to New York.

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Speaker 1: She had been a former team Miss Israel and then

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Speaker 1: managed to turn that into a career as a model.

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Speaker 1: She was very successful model and is very famous in

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Speaker 1: his room, much more famous than actually he is to

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Speaker 1: this day. Um. He stayed in her Tribeca apartment while

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Speaker 1: he worked to figure out what his future would be.

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Speaker 1: Eventually he settled on business and enrolled at Baruch College.

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Speaker 1: In between classes, he and his own words, spent his

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Speaker 1: first years in New York hanging out at clubs and

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Speaker 1: quote hitting on every girl in the city. Um he

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Speaker 1: looked for you know, spent the rest of his time

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Speaker 1: looking for get rich quick schemes. His first months in

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Speaker 1: the USA brought with them some sobering revelations about American culture. Quote,

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Speaker 1: it's bullshit, yeah kind of actually yeah, yeah, it's it's

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Speaker 1: propag around the world. Okay, that a lot of other

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Speaker 1: people are also try and get rich quick sche people

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Speaker 1: like me. It seems like a lot of people really

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Speaker 1: wish they could get rich quick. The whole thing about

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Speaker 1: the American character being con artists, and it's a mix

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Speaker 1: of con artists and gold rushers. Like the honest people

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Speaker 1: are looking for a gold rush, the not honest people

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Speaker 1: are con artists. The goal is always the same. Which

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Speaker 1: has spent his little time living in the part of

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Speaker 1: America that exists for people who aren't rich, Yeah, which

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Speaker 1: is hard, and then filled with go fund means for insulin.

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Speaker 1: So far, the places for Americans who aren't rich are

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Speaker 1: are not great. Most people want to get out of there.

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Speaker 1: You know, I, for one, don't understand why you would

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Speaker 1: want to live anywhere but the Pacific Palisades. But you know,

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Speaker 1: my butler lives elsewhere, and he says, it's there's there's, there's,

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Speaker 1: there's decent parts. You fly him in for the week

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Speaker 1: days or is he a weekend butler, Like no, no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: you split custody of the butler with your ex wife.

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Speaker 1: He takes, he takes, he takes a bus in and

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Speaker 1: he's you know, there's there's a tracking chip on him

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Speaker 1: when he's in the palaceine. We don't want to stay,

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Speaker 1: good lord though, not after dark unless there's a party,

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Speaker 1: in which case we deliver a small series of electric

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Speaker 1: shocks every fifteen minutes. We didn't get too comfortable, you know,

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Speaker 1: all right, yeah, ethics, Um so yeah. Adam had a

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Speaker 1: rough arrival to the United States. Um and I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: quote him now. After I arrived in the United States,

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Speaker 1: I realized that in the army is really had to

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Speaker 1: be part of something bigger than themselves. The things that

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Speaker 1: I had experienced in my life all came together in

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Speaker 1: our life. We had a lot of movement and a

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Speaker 1: lot of new things. So I feel sorry for someone

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Speaker 1: who's having a bit of a hard time, because I

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Speaker 1: know what it's like to be new. Um. He found

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Speaker 1: that he was like really frustrated by particularly the distance

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Speaker 1: and kind of facelessness of American culture. Elevator rides were

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Speaker 1: the things that most struck him. He recalled later to

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Speaker 1: an interviewer that whenever he would travel up the elevator

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Speaker 1: in his sister's apartment, he would wonder, why is nobody

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Speaker 1: talking to each other? We're in the same building. How

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Speaker 1: come you don't know everybody? Oh? Man, man, if somebody

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Speaker 1: talked to me in an elevator, I lose my ship. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: absolutely furious. To be fair, I've had those very similar thoughts.

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Speaker 1: But every time I've tried to act the opposite, it's

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Speaker 1: been a disaster. No, they don't want to be to say,

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Speaker 1: I look like me. Yeah, it's a it's a captive environment.

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Speaker 1: There's no escape route. That's that's the issue there. I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: until the door's open, it seems very suspicious. You strike

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Speaker 1: up a conversation in those now those times when we've

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Speaker 1: as a culture just decided shut it down. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: start a conversation in the bathroom, the bus, the bus,

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Speaker 1: never elevators. No, I keep a tear gas grenade on

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Speaker 1: me at all times. Anyone talks, I just pulled that pen.

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Speaker 1: I will in the conversation that I will begin a

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Speaker 1: conversation if we're stuck in the elevator, and I'm just

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Speaker 1: at the place where I have to poop in the corner.

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Speaker 1: Back in that situation, I'm going to start with a sorry. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is gonna be rough for all of us. I

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Speaker 1: think we'll make it through. There are different protocols for

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Speaker 1: once you get to that point. The only place in

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Speaker 1: America it's okay to talk to people is in lying

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Speaker 1: at the movies. That's a good one that works. That's it,

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Speaker 1: really okay, that's it. Say yeah. Other than that, zip

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Speaker 1: it yeah, keep it, keep it shut. Doctor's waiting room

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Speaker 1: under no circumstances, no no eye contact blames. A holding

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00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:05,399
Speaker 1: cell is probably a good place. Like yeah, you in

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Speaker 1: on as more like collaboration. Yeah, you're you're you're in

350
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:15,000
Speaker 1: a holding cell. You're getting something cooking in the beginning

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00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:17,919
Speaker 1: of the movie blow, that's yeah, that's a rich scheme.

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Speaker 1: In the in the works, I can say a lot

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Speaker 1: of people at guns stores want to have conversations with

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Speaker 1: you while you're waiting. You should not. You should not

355
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 1: talk to those people. It does not end well. You

356
00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:34,560
Speaker 1: will learn uncomfortable things about them. Um. Yeah, I imagine

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Speaker 1: every conversation at a gun store starts with my ex

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Speaker 1: wife and that's where it goes. Well, the government, let

359
00:18:41,760 --> 00:18:46,679
Speaker 1: me tell you about the government. Federal government. Either that

360
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Speaker 1: or I got a lot of fucking gophers on my property.

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Speaker 1: How many misdemeanors for I can't buy one of these

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Speaker 1: no more. I imagine the people around there are full

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Speaker 1: of trivia. It is actually it's just mostly firstly gun trivia. Yeah,

364
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:05,119
Speaker 1: very accurate. Yeah, you know they change the way the

365
00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:07,919
Speaker 1: feed and ramp loads back in nineteen sixty two, so

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Speaker 1: that's a yeah, it's very very boring in general. Um so, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Adam gets to the US fresh out of the military

368
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Speaker 1: is frustrated at like the distance and the kind of

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Speaker 1: soullessness lack of communication in American culture. Um yeah. He

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Speaker 1: challenges his sister Abby to a friendmaking competition, uh, to

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Speaker 1: see who could learn the names and established cordial social

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Speaker 1: relationships with the most people in the building the fastest.

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Speaker 1: This is the first time. This is the beginning of

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Speaker 1: me saying fuck this guy. Yeah, this is it. It's

375
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:46,920
Speaker 1: him trying to people like, let's have a friendship contest.

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Speaker 1: Fuck that guy out. You're trying to gamify like natural

377
00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:56,159
Speaker 1: interaction between people. That just seems weird. Also, his sister's

378
00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:58,440
Speaker 1: name is Addie. I'm a hack and a fraud and

379
00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:03,399
Speaker 1: and spelled it wrong, not added. Yeah, so is that

380
00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 1: long for something? Probably? I don't know. It's just sister.

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00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:10,760
Speaker 1: She didn't do anything wrong. Um. They get into what

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00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:13,000
Speaker 1: they get into a contest to see who can like

383
00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 1: build the most cordial social relationships the fastest. Yeah, she's

384
00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:22,400
Speaker 1: she absolutely wins this contest very quickly. They like, almost immediately.

385
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:25,800
Speaker 1: This guy seems like a creep. She's a model. Yeah,

386
00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:30,240
Speaker 1: this guy is weird. He's trying to start conversations elevators.

387
00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:33,280
Speaker 1: And she's one of the most beautiful. Yes, she wins. Handle.

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00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:36,560
Speaker 1: She has like six times as many friends in after

389
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:39,480
Speaker 1: a week. It is not a not a close not

390
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:43,679
Speaker 1: a close thing, not a near run game. Um. But

391
00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:46,359
Speaker 1: Adam claims as a result of their contest, the entire

392
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Speaker 1: energy of the building changed to what what people would

393
00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 1: he be bothered, borrow, shooker from each other. He was good,

394
00:20:56,840 --> 00:21:00,119
Speaker 1: he says, it was good, Okay, all right now. Is

395
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,439
Speaker 1: a common refrain in Adam's interviews, both the difficulty of

396
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Speaker 1: meeting new people when you move, a lot of the

397
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:07,879
Speaker 1: cold and informal nature of life in American society. Uh.

398
00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:11,720
Speaker 1: And oddly enough, this sort of like understanding that whatever

399
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:13,879
Speaker 1: it is about our hyper capitalist world makes people not

400
00:21:13,960 --> 00:21:16,800
Speaker 1: want to connect with one another was paired in Adam

401
00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:21,760
Speaker 1: with a deep bone level belief in the goodness of capitalism. Um,

402
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:25,400
Speaker 1: so that's interesting. That doesn't make sense on any level.

403
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:29,000
Speaker 1: It will continue to not or maybe it will. Capitalism

404
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:31,520
Speaker 1: alienates us from each other, and damn it, it's awesome,

405
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:35,240
Speaker 1: so good I believe in. It's more of a capitalism

406
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: alienates or people in capitalist societies are alienated. What if

407
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:40,879
Speaker 1: we could find a way using capitalism to make them

408
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 1: less alienate? You just gotta put like financial incentives for

409
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,600
Speaker 1: that friendship contest. See oh boy, that sounds like it's

410
00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:50,520
Speaker 1: a disingenuous friendship that got to turn this into like

411
00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:54,920
Speaker 1: a reality show? Are there other friendships than those based

412
00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 1: on money? Like my friendship with my butler, for example,

413
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 1: I don't know his name. Why would you? Yeah, of course,

414
00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 1: like why would I? It seems odd? But no, when

415
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:07,640
Speaker 1: his wife died because you couldn't afford her insulin, I

416
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:11,159
Speaker 1: did consider sending a flower, but then I thought it

417
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 1: kind of sends the wrong message. Well, I mean, if

418
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,560
Speaker 1: you inject the flower of insulin. That's a real bad one,

419
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 1: especially that. I just I didn't want him to think

420
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:19,879
Speaker 1: he could talk to me in my elevator. Right, right,

421
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 1: that's a good call. You make him take the dumbwaiter,

422
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:25,720
Speaker 1: of course. Oh well absolutely, I mean either that or

423
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:30,280
Speaker 1: the stairs. Yeah, I usually the stairs. Yeah now um.

424
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:32,879
Speaker 1: Adam after this, decided to drop out of college and

425
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:36,120
Speaker 1: launch himself into a frenzy of ill conceived business ventures. First,

426
00:22:36,119 --> 00:22:38,920
Speaker 1: he started a business selling women's shoes with collapsible high

427
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 1: heels for reasons I cannot quite explain. Probably one of

428
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 1: those like uh like operations, you know, like cut Co,

429
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 1: the knife people. He's probably some women's shoe company he

430
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 1: got hooked up with, right, No, No, he started, he

431
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:55,840
Speaker 1: started a business. He did, so he started there was

432
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:57,600
Speaker 1: two business. I'll give him credit for that. His first

433
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:02,640
Speaker 1: two businesses are not consum Their products just bad. They're bad,

434
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 1: but they are He is trying to start a legitimate

435
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:08,920
Speaker 1: business that sells a product. We are three people here

436
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: who have very little use for collapsible heeled shoes. Perhaps

437
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:17,240
Speaker 1: I'm not going to speak for the women listening as

438
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:19,719
Speaker 1: to whether or not that's a good idea, but he

439
00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,200
Speaker 1: did not execute it well, as proven by the fact

440
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:23,760
Speaker 1: that the company didn't. All right, now, I think I'm

441
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: a little bit late, but here's my pitch. Put some

442
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 1: wheels on those. Do you remember those? Yeah? I don't see. Yeah,

443
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:37,239
Speaker 1: soap shoes, collapsible high heels and expanded drop you know,

444
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 1: perfect perfect. Uh. Next, he made the leap to selling

445
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: specialty baby clothing. Um collapses, of course, actually breakaway baby clothing.

446
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: Turned out that's attracted so very well to the wrong people.

447
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 1: Absolutely to the wrong people. Stress it's about to dance.

448
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 1: In fact, the Vatican ordered seven million in dollars worth,

449
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 1: which was really watch out. Um. Yeah. The ones he

450
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: designed were called crawlers with a K and there were

451
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:12,680
Speaker 1: normal baby pants with kneepads sewn into the legs, which

452
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: actually meshes uncomfortably with my Vatican joke. Yeah. I don't

453
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: think the Vatican has carpet though, so you don't need

454
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: to what So, in order to distract us from that,

455
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 1: whatever you like to point out, I did not take

456
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:33,880
Speaker 1: part in that. That's good. You know who else? Do

457
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: you know who else is a conscience subjector? And the

458
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 1: realm of priests in molesting baby sponsors, the sponsors and

459
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,800
Speaker 1: that is. That is that is an ant plug products.

460
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: And we're back. We're back, and we're talking about Adam

461
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 1: Neuman and his so far god awful attempts to make

462
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 1: it big in America. Women's shoes, patted knee baby to

463
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: his credit, real businesses, actual things I've heard. No, Okay,

464
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: are you telling me that his name is a annoy many? Yeah?

465
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: It is, Okay, there we go. It is. I just

466
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: needed that cleared upper hero. I just needed to be Yeah,

467
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: the guy. It's the superhero whose power is talking to

468
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: you in an elevator. Yeah, his power is never taking

469
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: the hint. I feel like I have a completely unfair

470
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: picture of this guy already in my head, but you don't.

471
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: I think I've nailed him so um. Now, Adam had

472
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: started Crawlers with a hundred thousand dollar investment from his grandmother.

473
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 1: By the time the financial crisis slammed down in two

474
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,919
Speaker 1: thousand eight, he'd spent every dime of that investment, and

475
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,440
Speaker 1: his almost shockingly bad idea for a company was nearly

476
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:53,200
Speaker 1: out of gas. He had to hire a law you're

477
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: just to renew his visa to stay in the USA.

478
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 1: Comes from wealthier family, not like rich, but well an

479
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,119
Speaker 1: off off that his grandma had an extra hundred K. Yeah,

480
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: so that this difficult time for Adam's business prospects proved

481
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 1: to be the most important period of his life. For

482
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: one thing, it's when he met his future wife, Rebecca Paltrow.

483
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 1: He was twenty eight at the time, and Rebecca recalls

484
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: that he was really, really thin, and he was shaking

485
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: because I think he was smoking too many cigarettes, and

486
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 1: he was engaged in a friend making contests. And then

487
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 1: we got married. She claimed simultaneously that when she first

488
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,400
Speaker 1: talked to him, she realized both that he was full

489
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 1: of ship and that he was her soul mate. That's

490
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 1: that's that's shocking portrait of another person. Yes, I guess

491
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: that's the most self aware thing you could say. It

492
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: is the most self aware thing she has ever said. Um. Now,

493
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 1: they went out for lunch and Adam couldn't appored to

494
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: pay for anything or for the cab ride because he

495
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: was he was broke. You accept novelty, baby clothes, hated

496
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: not um. Rebecca insulted him for talking a big game

497
00:26:57,560 --> 00:26:59,919
Speaker 1: but having no actual money, and Adam justified it by

498
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: calling himself an entrepreneur whose money was all an inventory. Um,

499
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: but yeah, they got to either married a couple of

500
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: months later. Um, so like very very quickly. Uh. And

501
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: they getting better at making friends. He's gotten a lot,

502
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: but he's good, good at making this one friend now.

503
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: At the time, Rebecca had done a little bit more

504
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: with her life than her her paramore. She'd been a

505
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 1: stock trader for like a week or two. Um, She'd

506
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: spent time in a Buddhist monastery and been to the

507
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 1: Dali Lama's birthday party because she's rich as well. Um,

508
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: she toured with Michael Frantie and Spearhead what not playing.

509
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: She was just wandering, are you are you? Are you

510
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: a Spearhead fan? No, I've actually weirdly, I was a

511
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 1: friend of mine from high school last night and one

512
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 1: of the things I've always accused him of is being

513
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 1: super into Spearhead, and he claims that that is not

514
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: true at all. I literally they literally were something that

515
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 1: I was yelling about last night. Why would that's a

516
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: wild coincidence. It's because they have a line in one

517
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 1: of those songs like there's a war on cancer, war

518
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: on drugs, war on police, war on hugs. I'm like,

519
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: there is not a war on hugs. There is absolutely

520
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: a war on have you been in an elevator recently? Zero? People?

521
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 1: When you try to hug someone on it, they do

522
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: not appreciate it. Dan, My mind is completely blown that

523
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: this lady went on tour with Spearhead. Yeah, she went

524
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 1: on tour with Spearhead. Spearhead. Uh. And it's here I

525
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 1: should drop that she's Gwyn With Paltrow's first cousin. Oh

526
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: I totally knew that. Yeah, yep, Now keep that one

527
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: in mind. Yeah, the the goopy of it all. Now,

528
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: Rebecca and Adam started dating and she helped him quit smoking,

529
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: and so she said cousin first cousin, Yes, okay, gotcha.

530
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: They started dating. She helped him quit smoking and soda.

531
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: She introduced him to kabbala, the Jewish mystical tradition, and

532
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: worked to stop him from obsessing over money so much.

533
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: I assume that worked. It absolutely Dutch. So this is

534
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: the end of the is the end of the story.

535
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: Good episode, guys, good good um. This is about a

536
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: man who played a friend game in his building. We

537
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: hate him and that is the end of his crimes

538
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: play game. That's kind of endearing this episode. This episode

539
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: is just about getting our fans to hunt this man down.

540
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 1: He lives in a small apartment in Van Nuys. Now

541
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: so so grab a gun? No? Um? So yeah. She

542
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: tried to make him stop obsessing of her money, and

543
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: Adam later recalled Rebecca said, stop no more talking about money.

544
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about wellness, happiness, fulfillment, and if

545
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 1: the money is supposed to follow, it will, and if

546
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: it doesn't, it doesn't matter because we will be happy

547
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: and fulfilled. That's an asshole says, that is the thing

548
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: a rich asshole said. No poor asshole has ever said

549
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: if the money is supposed to follow, will know? They say,

550
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: what about the insulin? Poor assholes say like food is good? Yeah?

551
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: Boy ass will say like we gotta fucking make rent. Yeah.

552
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: So it was clear though, that making funkloads of money

553
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: was the only thing that would actually make Adam happy

554
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: being fulfilled. The baby close game was not working out,

555
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: But while he was failing at a second business, Adam

556
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: fell in love with the building where Crawlers had its

557
00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: office space, an otherwise empty former warehouse in Brooklyn's rapidly

558
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: gentrifying Dumbo neighborhood. Neighborhood. Yes, I know, I every new

559
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: thing I learned about New York. So many fucking racist

560
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: crows in that Neighborhood's terrible. It's awful. They had to

561
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: have a warning Disney. Plus, the strangest juxtapositions of my

562
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: life was as a child the racist crows and Dumbo,

563
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 1: and then as an adult the very different but also

564
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: similar racist crows in Fritz the Cat but very different.

565
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: Why don't even like the Rick? Is? It really directly

566
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: deals with things like police violence against the black community.

567
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: Very complicated film, the most complicated film with a mouse

568
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: Nazi bike? Was he a mouse? Which species was the

569
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: Nazi biker? I have no idea. I just remember Fritz

570
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: the Cats, the one with the bag, right, I'm way off.

571
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of a completely different cat now, I remember

572
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: what we're actually telling Fritz. Fritz the Cat is the

573
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: one about the cat who fox. Yeah, thinking I was

574
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: thinking about a different great movie. I've never seen it,

575
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: not tripping um, but have seen it five or six

576
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: times and remember enjoying it and also feeling confused and

577
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 1: conflicted at certain parts. Ralph Bakshi, everybody a lot of

578
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: check him out, got really turned on by certain things. Yeah,

579
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: all of the all had the same issue watching the

580
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: Robin Hood Disney movie if you remember that one. Yeah,

581
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of complicated feeling Dale's rescue rangers.

582
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: Fritz is interesting because all of the all the black

583
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: people are crows um, much like in Dumbo, but all

584
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: of the police are literal pigs um. And it's it's

585
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: quite a film made in like the sixties seventies weird

586
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: movie Don't Haven't Haven't Seen a good breakdown on on

587
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: the Haven't Seen it sober Maybe I should maybe maybe

588
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: we're talking about horrible, horrible racist propaganda. I don't think

589
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: it was, though. I think it was about as woke

590
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: as possible for the era. But I may be wrong

591
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: on that. I remember enjoying it. This has been too

592
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: long a aggression on Fritz and Cap So yeah, the

593
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: baby Clothes game, you know they so yeah. Adam falls

594
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: into the building where the Crawlers had its office space,

595
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 1: which is an empty warehouse in Brooklyn's Dumbow neighborhood. He

596
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: meets up with the neighborhood Joshua Goodman and tells him

597
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: give me the building. Goodman was like, no, I assume

598
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: that that knife point that he told him the building,

599
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: it's great. It's gonna be great to be like the

600
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: kind of person who could just be like, I want

601
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: that build, get that building. So Goodman's like no and

602
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: shoots back because basically Adam is not saying like, give

603
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: me ownership of the building. He's saying like, let me

604
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: control the space and rent it out. It's empty. Uh.

605
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: And Goodman is like, why would I do that? You

606
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: sell baby clothes. Goodman makes a good point here, Yeah,

607
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: you know nothing about this industry point annoyment response. Your

608
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: business is empty? What do you know about real estate? Good? So,

609
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: all right, what do you know about business? Asshole? Let's

610
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: do this your tip for tap this all day. In

611
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: an impasse, he he convinces Goodman UM, and Goodman pairs

612
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: with Adam and his business partner, a guy named Miguel

613
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: mckelby who had grown up in a commune in Oregon,

614
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: so they both have that sort of background. Yeah. Uh,

615
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: And together they found a company called Green Desk, which

616
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: was billed as an environmentally friendly coworking space. UM. Now,

617
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: the idea for green guests was actually based on a

618
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: failed business plan Adam had created for a competition at

619
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: Burrut College before he dropped out. Uh. The idea was,

620
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: in his words, community structured real estate, which would meld

621
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: working in living space together in a manner reminiscent of

622
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: the Kibbutz. The plan failed to progress to the second

623
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: round of the contest, and Adam complained to the dean

624
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: about this, and the dean told him there's no twenty

625
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: three year old or any inexperienced real estate person who

626
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 1: will ever be able to raise enough money to do

627
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: anything like concept living. So I really feel like that

628
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: reminds me more of like when the railroad barons built

629
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: their own cities and use their own currency and ship

630
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: like that made people live on them. So that's that's

631
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: where I'm at right now. I feel like that business

632
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: model has been tried before. You your heading right in

633
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: the right direction. So now, Green Desk though, wasn't a

634
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: whole lot like a kid, but it was basically a

635
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: way for small businesses and individuals working as contractors to

636
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: least short term office space for an affordable price. Um

637
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: and this one up being a really fucking smart move

638
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,919
Speaker 1: because in two thousand and eight the economy collapsed, uh,

639
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 1: and there were suddenly a ton of people out of

640
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: work and switching careers and businesses looking to cut costs,

641
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: and Green Desk did really well. We have an overhead projector,

642
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: we have a table, there's pens. None of you have money. Yeah,

643
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,240
Speaker 1: within a year the business was valued around three million dollars.

644
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: So they do not that very successful. Not that that's

645
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: probably more successful than the other two of his business.

646
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 1: While neither of the other two succeeds, neither of them

647
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: made money. No, no, this is his first success. Um. Now,

648
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: Goodman was like, we should maybe do this in more buildings.

649
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: This is a good idea. Let's expand, you know, conservatively

650
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: to other spaces and you know, see see how far

651
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: this plan takes us continue and try another couple of spaces.

652
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,319
Speaker 1: But Noman in to Kelvier like fun that we're going

653
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,800
Speaker 1: to start another business. So they sell out their shares

654
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: in Green Desk in two thousand ten for about three dollars.

655
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: Most of the money went to the guy who owned

656
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: the space. Obviously, um they used this seed money to

657
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: launch We Work. Now. Unlike Green Desk, which had been

658
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 1: a modest ambition based around um compromise with an uncertain landlord,

659
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: We Work was from the beginning a bold vision. Adam

660
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,320
Speaker 1: Neuman wanted to create what he called a capitalist kibbutz,

661
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 1: a global network of work spaces that would eventually extend

662
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: beyond merely short term office rentals. So what he'd like

663
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: to do is create a capitalist commune. Yeah, I feel

664
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: like there's a contradiction there, but you can't. I can't

665
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 1: put my finger on it. They both start with C.

666
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: I guess a literation is my issue? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

667
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 1: they should have fixed that and host um. Now, from

668
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 1: the beginning, they had trouble convincing landlords that they wanted

669
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 1: to rent them space of their vision. McKelvey, his partner,

670
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: later recalled, we didn't have credibility or credit. We had

671
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 1: no business taking out of forty square foot lease. But

672
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:20,399
Speaker 1: using Adam's charisma, his ability to convince people, which is significant. Uh,

673
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: they managed to board, but not for friendships. I mean,

674
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: not compared to his sister, but she is a model. Uh. Now.

675
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: In that same interview, Nouman explained that the landlords needed

676
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:31,759
Speaker 1: a lot more than just a vision. In the end,

677
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:33,879
Speaker 1: they were unable to convince one person to rent them

678
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: one floor in a building as a trial run. But

679
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,439
Speaker 1: this was a wild success and over the next five

680
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: years we work expanded all over the world at an

681
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: astonishing pace. People started to invest millions, and then tens

682
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 1: of millions, and eventually billions of dollars in the company

683
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: with Adam would sell them on the idea he presented

684
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: we work as much more than just a real estate company.

685
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: He spoke about creating the first physical social network. All

686
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: I hear is en Ron. Said, you just described Enron

687
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: to me, That's all I'm hearing. Yeah, it's interesting you

688
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: said physical social network, and they immediately me and Jordans

689
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: both deep inhale. Yeah. Who that sounds like bullshit. Yeah,

690
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 1: got a lot of bells. Okay, especially knowing what we

691
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: work is, you know, like and like it just absolutely

692
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: it was like this. What I wanted to do was

693
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: build a flag factory that only build giant red flax.

694
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 1: That's what I'm going for right here, gotcha, Probably more

695
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: successful than baby clothes. Yes, I mean I could actually

696
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: use a couple of red flags. Um, I am full

697
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 1: of them. Um. Yeah. He wanted to create the first

698
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: physical social network, and when he would like explain what

699
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: that meant to people, he said he wanted we work

700
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: offices to not just be places where people worked. He

701
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: wanted them to be places where people could talk about

702
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: their jobs, their families, their problems, and love. It's not

703
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: like an office, like like a neighborhood. I think is

704
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 1: more the idea he was trying to recreate that like

705
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: fifties style idea of a neighborhood, but condensed within specially

706
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: catered and decorated office buildings that he owned and sold

707
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: access to. Feel that this is the this is him

708
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 1: rigging the friendship contests. That's what I'm hearing right here.

709
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 1: This is this is him just being like, fucking sister,

710
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'll show her my business is going to

711
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: be a friendship competition. You do feel like this was

712
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 1: the result of him fuming over losing the friendship contest

713
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: and reading like an old history of the labor movement

714
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 1: that talked about company towns. Or he's like walking home

715
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:37,800
Speaker 1: after his sister wins and he hears that St. Peter,

716
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: don't you call because I can't sold the company's store.

717
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 1: Wait a tick light bulb exploitation. It's an absurd thing

718
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 1: to try to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars.

719
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: A very silly idea, obviously, idea of like let's were

720
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: short term office pace totally reasonable than the context of

721
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,439
Speaker 1: businesses people can run, will need it, why not, which

722
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 1: is what Green Desk was. That's not what Adams trying

723
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,359
Speaker 1: to sell. Does Green Desk continue like through as I

724
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: don't know, probably I think so. Um, But yeah, Adam,

725
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: this is a dumb idea, a stupid idea to to

726
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:18,360
Speaker 1: like literally any normal person. But Adams this idea to

727
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 1: normal people. He was selling this idea two investors. And investors,

728
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 1: if I know one thing about capitalism, are all super

729
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: fucking dumb. The more money they have to invest, the

730
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: dumber they is. Robert money equals intelligence. How many times

731
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: do rich people have to tell us that there are

732
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: betters and that's why is the most profitable company in

733
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: the world. Of course it doesn't lose two billion dollars

734
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: every six months or so. What a silly thing? People

735
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't take money? And what kind of company could exist

736
00:39:54,440 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: losing that much money on a regular basis? Oh god?

737
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 1: So Adam sold this idea to investors and also to

738
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: his employees. Um. And the answer to how he sold

739
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:12,959
Speaker 1: this very dumb idea basically boils down to the fact

740
00:40:12,960 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: that he was really fucking charismatic on one on one situations.

741
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: So he made friends with these investors. He more like

742
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: cult members. Now there's a really good New York Times article,

743
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: Adam Neuman in the Art of Failing Up, which pretty

744
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:31,320
Speaker 1: good way to frame it. Um, I'm gonna read section

745
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: of white people in America. I'm going to read a

746
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: section from that article that I think in capsulates the

747
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 1: way Adam both led and sold his company. Quote and

748
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: this is from to that. Yeah, Adam Neuman stood on

749
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: the fifty seventh floor of the Woolworth Building, the neo

750
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: Gothic skyscraper that was once the tallest in the world.

751
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 1: It was late on a Friday night in two thirteen,

752
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: and the wee Work founder and chief executive had just

753
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: made a move to add the top thirty floors to

754
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: his rapidly expanding real estate dealings. Mr Neuman and three

755
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: employees had already enjoyed a few drinks when he decided

756
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: to bring them to tour his latest coup. In the

757
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 1: gutted out space, they tossed beer bottles into empty elevator shafts,

758
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: listening to them clink on the way down. Then Mr

759
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 1: Norman told them all to follow him out to the

760
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 1: ledge No guardrails, no enclosures, just four inebriated startup executives

761
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: teetering on the edge of death. I was up there

762
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: with him at the top of the world, and he said,

763
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: everything is going to be amazing, recalled Harrison Webber, we

764
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,359
Speaker 1: worked editorial director at the time. Then Mr Norman picked

765
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 1: up an old beer bottle, a remnant apparently from some

766
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 1: previous bender. He asked the employees to drink the rank liquid.

767
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,399
Speaker 1: Everyone took a swig except for Mr Webber. The end

768
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: of lost. It felt like a loyalty thing, he said.

769
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:41,760
Speaker 1: In that moment, I felt what a deeply persuasive person

770
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 1: he is. Man. I assumed that he would be up

771
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: there the way I would, which is just screaming at them.

772
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: Do it. Man, You would have to know that I'm

773
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: still CEO. I'll give you one shot, right fucking now,

774
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: if the balls. That is how you get investment. You

775
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: can't be too charismatic when you're doing that. I honestly

776
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 1: feel like that behavior is very similar to a lot

777
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: of people that I may have been annoyed by in

778
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: past jobs. You know, like that that that does not

779
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: seem far afield from some professional douches. It's just it's

780
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 1: a real bummer. It's a it's an elevation of scale.

781
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 1: Like if if the shitty bosses that I've had had

782
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: that kind of bullshit charisma as well as just an

783
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: insane psychopathic confidence, then they would try and do the

784
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: same ship Like, it's just a different level of abuse

785
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: of power. And I can't even like suggest music to

786
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 1: people lest I feel like they're going to reject me

787
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 1: for it. Let alone, like drink this swill. Yeah, it's amazing,

788
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: and it's a testament to how good he wasn't doing

789
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: this to most people that by two thousand fifteen, we

790
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,280
Speaker 1: workers valued at more than ten billion dollars. They rented

791
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 1: out hundreds of properties on multiple continents, So whatever you

792
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: can say about them, at least in two thousand fifteen,

793
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: it looks like it's fucking working like Gamebusters. It's it's

794
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,959
Speaker 1: it's such like things just don't exist anymore. There's nothing,

795
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:25,399
Speaker 1: there's no money, not real, it's it's imaginary. It's entirely imaginary.

796
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:29,399
Speaker 1: This story really illustrates a couple of things. To me, One,

797
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: money isn't real, and to money is like dumb, not

798
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 1: in the sense like odds. It's so dumb that like

799
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 1: we have to live in our capitalisry. Know, money is

800
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: dumb in the sense that like money makes bad decisions.

801
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:44,919
Speaker 1: The more you have of it, the worst decisions you make.

802
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: That tends to be the truth. And and the story

803
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: of We Work is the story of a lot of

804
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:56,240
Speaker 1: people with infinite resources making horrible decisions until their resources

805
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: are less infinite. It's like it's like Tarantino's career, like

806
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: one he got enough cash, a he makes movies that

807
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: are probably an hour too long. But when he was

808
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,560
Speaker 1: when he was coming up, it was like perfectly paced,

809
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 1: right time, all that stuff. You're making the argument that

810
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: like you've got to stay hungry, that kind of thing,

811
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: But when this dude was hungry, he made collapsible shoes.

812
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: I'm saying, you've got to surround yourself with people who

813
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,400
Speaker 1: are going to say no whenever you have a dumb idea.

814
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 1: But this isn't a dumb idea, clearly. Well, at the

815
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,880
Speaker 1: same time, it's a great idea. I get it. But

816
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever I think I've talked

817
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: to like maybe two people who have used we Work spaces,

818
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 1: and I've talked to a lot of people in my life.

819
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: That seems it seems like a low engagement. It'll make sense.

820
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: Why what's going on here a little bit later? Great question.

821
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: I have a desk A desk. Now. In articles at

822
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,399
Speaker 1: the time around two to sixteen, we Work was kind

823
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: of hitting it's zenith. Adam and those around him tended

824
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:06,320
Speaker 1: to credit their meteoric rise on the hip cool flare.

825
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: They brought to what was traditionally at the least soulful

826
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: part of a person's life. The office we work spaces

827
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: were decorated in like a variety of super cool like

828
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 1: funky hip furniture, Like they absolutely have kegs. Yeah, it's

829
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 1: it's it's situation, but it works longer than Pucci did. Um.

830
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: They had funky, comfortable furniture, kombucha and beer on tap um.

831
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:38,720
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote now from a six article. Oh yeah,

832
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 1: it's cool, bro, it's cool bro. We got fucking got

833
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: we got briz bro. I may have actually worked at

834
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:49,959
Speaker 1: a company that supplied a couple of WE work locations

835
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 1: with coffee. I may have actually dealt with their their

836
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: their corporate structure before. Probably not talk about this. I

837
00:45:57,880 --> 00:45:59,959
Speaker 1: will say that I worked in the past at an

838
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:03,800
Speaker 1: named company that had a Thirsty Thursday where they provided

839
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:07,480
Speaker 1: employees initially with unlimited beer and wine on Thursday afternoons,

840
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 1: and people made horrible decisions. Um, it was a really

841
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: bad idea actually to give a bunch of people who

842
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: are united by nothing than that they work in the

843
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 1: same building access to unlimited free alcohol once a week.

844
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: There was some of there was some of that vibe,

845
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 1: but yeah, the group on until someone threw up in

846
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: one of the social rooms and then they were like, hey,

847
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: let's uh anymore. I've always thought a lot of my

848
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: inner office relationships could have been improved by less inhibitions

849
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: any of the way to run an office really is

850
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,879
Speaker 1: once a year you just dose everyone against their will

851
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: and consent with like nine to ten hits of M

852
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: d M A, like enough that they're hallucinating, like not

853
00:46:54,120 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 1: just rolling, but like really can't control their bodies. You've

854
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: got to go to nine or ten o three. We're

855
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 1: talking about a Graham apiece at once, So really just

856
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:09,359
Speaker 1: overdose the whole Office's the elderly woman who sits at

857
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: the front desk, who's going to be our our test

858
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: subject there, and then friendship and then friendship contest. It's

859
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: gonna be a few days after until people are ready

860
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 1: to have a friendship contest or talk. But us um so,

861
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:31,720
Speaker 1: I found a fun quote in a two sixteen Fast

862
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 1: Company article about when it was that made we work special,

863
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 1: And this was a very positive article. This is back

864
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,000
Speaker 1: before anyone's got questions about we work up. It has

865
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:44,240
Speaker 1: to be the beer, a co worker tells me, believing

866
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:46,320
Speaker 1: that the secret to we work success is the always

867
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:49,280
Speaker 1: on tap brewin its kitchens. But the hip, fun millennial

868
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:51,320
Speaker 1: things people most often site when they try to describe

869
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: we work are almost irrelevant. As I discover while working

870
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 1: from two New York locations this winter, the room full

871
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:58,320
Speaker 1: of old arcade games at the two two two Broadway

872
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: location is empty all day, and the controllers for a

873
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 1: nearby and Nintendo sixty four sitting a neat line, wrapped

874
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: tightly by their cords in a way that suggests they've

875
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: been undisturbed for some time. At the end of the day,

876
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: I see only three people pull the famous we work tap.

877
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:15,400
Speaker 1: Mostly people inside we Work are just working. They had

878
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: all this, like video games and beer, but they also

879
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: had like a really strict dress code. You get the

880
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 1: feeling that's the kind of thing like you and for

881
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 1: a job interviewed, we work, and so we're like, yeah,

882
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:25,360
Speaker 1: you want to beer from the tap, but if you

883
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: actually take it during the job interview, they'll be like,

884
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: everybody's watching you out of the corner. They're just like,

885
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:32,879
Speaker 1: we'll see what you do. But there is a lot

886
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: of drinking, which we'll get too later. It's just not

887
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:38,919
Speaker 1: when you choose to now more than beer, We work

888
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: owed a success to investors. Its whole business hinged on

889
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: getting angel investors in giant companies to invest hundreds of

890
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: millions of dollars into its expansion, not unlike Uber and

891
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 1: The reason so many of these very moneyed individuals were

892
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: willing to trust Adam know Hman with fortunes that could

893
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:54,879
Speaker 1: have funded whole nations is that he was very good

894
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,399
Speaker 1: at selling them on a stupid dream up to the roof,

895
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: taking him up to the roof, making drink his piss yeah,

896
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: or invest in my company, fucking. The focus of his

897
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:08,320
Speaker 1: promises sent it around his time in the Kibbutz. He

898
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: would weave a story to investors of the idea that

899
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: office space could fulfill the same role of the kibbutz

900
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 1: and creating community and inspiring creativity. He invented his own

901
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: buzzword term, this is going to piss you off Montere

902
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: Montere that basically turned down Jordan's Mike before. The weed Generation. Yeah,

903
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:34,279
Speaker 1: the weed generation, he w W weed generation. Weed generation.

904
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: That's what he used to describe millennials who'd grown up

905
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: int a world where renting and not owning was the

906
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: norm and no employment in situation was likely to last

907
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 1: more than a couple of years. Now, most people view

908
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 1: this as a star of generation. Most people view this

909
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,400
Speaker 1: is a problem for millennials, but Adam Cooman viewed it

910
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 1: as a marketing opportunity. The weed generation, he told investors,

911
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 1: cares about the world, actually wants to do cool things,

912
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: and loves working. And when he made these claims, it

913
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 1: was not without any kind of backing. In two sixteen,

914
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: a group called Project Time Off for at Least a

915
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: study on the work habits of millennials. They measured members

916
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:12,320
Speaker 1: of our demographic for habits evident of what they called

917
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: work martyrdom. Now, work martyrs are more likely to forfeit

918
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 1: vacation days, more likely to work excessive hours, and more

919
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: likely to be seen as workaholics by their colleagues. Than

920
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 1: members of any other generation. Yeah, when Adam going the

921
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: frames this as loving to work, it sounds like one thing.

922
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,359
Speaker 1: But if you read the statements that that Project time

923
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 1: Off study found, millennials tended to agree with. I think

924
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: you're presented with a much darker picture. And I'm going

925
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 1: to read four of them right now. No one else

926
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:41,760
Speaker 1: at my company can do the work while I'm away.

927
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: I want to show complete dedication to my company and job.

928
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,719
Speaker 1: I don't want others to think I am replaceable. I

929
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 1: feel guilty for using my paid time off. That's not healthy.

930
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: Those are symptoms of deep problems within our Yeah, you

931
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: might as well have just been like, I'm drowning. I

932
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,320
Speaker 1: am all the dying. I'm drowned. I know the bottom

933
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: can fall out at any moment. Everything about my life

934
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: could be on the street in three weeks. Um. That's

935
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 1: that's what that says to me. I broke my foot,

936
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: now I'm homeless. Yeah, exactly. These are signs of panic

937
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: at the reality of poverty and it's very imminent nature

938
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: in most of our lives, not signs of a love

939
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: of work. And I think Adam knows that. Born in

940
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:25,919
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, He's not a millennial the cut offer

941
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 1: that is usually one, but he's close enough that I

942
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: think he gets what it's like for the folks in

943
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:33,399
Speaker 1: the Weed generation. But he also understands how employers think.

944
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 1: If you are running a company, you want your employees

945
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 1: to spend unreasonable hours at the office and to vote

946
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 1: themselves irrationally to the work that is great for your

947
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 1: bottom line. Nap rooms, yoga classes, and free beer seem

948
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 1: like perks, but the goal in providing all that is

949
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: to keep you in the office longer, working more hours.

950
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 1: I think what Adams sold more than anything was a

951
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:56,800
Speaker 1: vision to employeers of employees who made work the center

952
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: of their very life. Here's another Adam Nouman quote from

953
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 1: that Fast Company interview. If you understand it, being part

954
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 1: of something greater than yourself is meaningful, And if you're

955
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: not just driven by material goods, then you're part of

956
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:14,080
Speaker 1: the Weed generation. All right. So I am wondering how

957
00:52:14,080 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 1: many people have shipped him, because the numbers not no

958
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: knives on the roofs. You can make a knife out

959
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 1: of anything. That really would have been the just way

960
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:30,280
Speaker 1: for the story to end. There really was a moment

961
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 1: where just a little trip and we would have been saved.

962
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: We work all over. This would have had to happen

963
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 1: infinite universes. There was a banana peel up. This is

964
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:43,399
Speaker 1: actually the only universe where he wasn't shoved off that roof. Yeah,

965
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 1: I knew we were living in the wrong one the

966
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:50,400
Speaker 1: universes where he was the police didn't even prosecute. And

967
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: this is someone told them the story and they were like,

968
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:55,400
Speaker 1: you know what. No. This is also the only universe

969
00:52:55,400 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 1: where the baby clothes thing didn't take off. Yeah, I'm surprised.

970
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:05,280
Speaker 1: Great idea. And because babies are always complaining about their knees.

971
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:12,280
Speaker 1: About babies, as your baby had to have knee surgery,

972
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:16,760
Speaker 1: I think you need these. He made blow shop pants

973
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:23,399
Speaker 1: for babies. I retract my interaction with this bit now.

974
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:29,919
Speaker 1: So Adam is not a dumb guy. Uh. Anti materialism,

975
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 1: like anti capitalism, has grown up among members of our

976
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: generation because we've been largely cheated out of the promises

977
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: that our system may do older generations. Adam's anti materialism, however,

978
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:43,319
Speaker 1: is not a rejection of capitalism. It's a way to

979
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: make capitalism more profitable. If you convince workers at their job,

980
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,839
Speaker 1: provides them with a variety of non material benefits. Then

981
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: you can work them harder while paying them less. Now,

982
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 1: if a potential investor needed proof that millennials could be

983
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: sold on Adam Neuman's vision of the workplace as a neighborhood,

984
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: they need look no further than the actual staff and

985
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:02,919
Speaker 1: we work. I'm gonna quote from the New York Times

986
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: right up here. It's actually really weird to think about.

987
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:07,280
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to interrupt you with people work at we work.

988
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:10,879
Speaker 1: I mean it's a big company. Yeah, that's that's so.

989
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: I think of it as like an empty space. We

990
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: work at we will, but you gotta like manage all

991
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:20,319
Speaker 1: that ship sales people got the whole Yeah. Yeah, Now

992
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:22,279
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from that New York times pace about

993
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: sort of the culture of the company. Boy, it might

994
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 1: be a mike down clip for you, Jordan. Across podcasts,

995
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: people have learned that Jordan to put the mic down

996
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 1: is now the John Munch of podcast. Mr Neuman would

997
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 1: convince employees to take shots of pricey Don Julio tequila

998
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:46,879
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten dollars a bottle, work twenty hour

999
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 1: days at ten two am meetings. He convinced them the

1000
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:52,239
Speaker 1: smoke marijuana at work, dance to journey around a fire

1001
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: in the woods on weekend excursions, smoke more pot, drink

1002
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: more tequila. Even people who don't really seem the tequila

1003
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 1: type would go along with his act, including a pre

1004
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: White House Jared Kushner who imbibed while scoping out of

1005
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 1: property in Philadelphia. In his view, we work didn't simply

1006
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 1: subly office space to workers. It's supplied them with kombucha,

1007
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:12,719
Speaker 1: cold brew coffee, and an ecstatic sense of community. They're

1008
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:16,960
Speaker 1: coming to us for energy for culture. Mr Noyman would say,

1009
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 1: don't stop, I'm doing alright, I'm doing fine coiled spring. Yeah.

1010
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:26,359
Speaker 1: You guys want to guess if Jake Coush is going

1011
00:55:26,400 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 1: to play a bigger role in this episode. I get

1012
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: the sense he is. Oh, he absolutely is. He accidentally

1013
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 1: entered into a friendship contest. He did, he did, and

1014
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: everyone lost. You know who he's And he's getting the

1015
00:55:45,200 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 1: people who work for him to be his friends. He's

1016
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 1: forcing them to drink and smoke at work, fine and

1017
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 1: drunk in order to break down their defenses, forced them

1018
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: to continue working as hard as humanly possible, while at

1019
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 1: the same time, we're shipping him as something of a

1020
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 1: charismatic guy. And it sounds familiar to me, and I

1021
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 1: don't know why it doesn't. It sounds like nothing that's

1022
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:09,640
Speaker 1: ever been done before. As a loyalty test, he makes

1023
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:12,840
Speaker 1: them dance around a fire to Journey, which is mathematically

1024
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 1: the douciest thing you could possibly do. All right, now,

1025
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:17,280
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be We're not gonna be attacking Journey

1026
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 1: on this podcast. You know, the keyboardist for Journey is

1027
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 1: married to Paula White Cane, Trump's spiritual advisor. That makes

1028
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:33,799
Speaker 1: complete sense. Yeah, that's entirely that's entirely Yeah, Jane, that

1029
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:37,399
Speaker 1: makes total sense. And I have now stopped believing. I'm

1030
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 1: not gonna hold on to that feeling. What are you

1031
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 1: gonna do? We all in sky just stopped turning. You're

1032
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:44,399
Speaker 1: gonna have to You're gonna have to switch back to Rush.

1033
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they did that one too. That was That's

1034
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: a better song that don't stop believing it. And faithfully,

1035
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:51,879
Speaker 1: that's not a great song. No, it's not that great.

1036
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,520
Speaker 1: Although in the music video there's a great shot of

1037
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 1: Steve Perry shaving his mustache looking really sad. It's like,

1038
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 1: you know, hey, man, gotta go gotta go do shows,

1039
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 1: gotta shape this mustache off. He wasn't faithful to it.

1040
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: This is the most affecting moment. This is the push.

1041
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: It's stuck with me, stuck with now. Adam's wife, Rebecca,

1042
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: was a major part of the whole operation. She eventually

1043
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 1: became the chief brand Officer or and then a little

1044
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:28,040
Speaker 1: bit not a job, that's not a job. Refused it pass.

1045
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 1: She was an integral part of designing the feel of

1046
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: we work as a brand, stop it, get the funk out.

1047
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 1: As a certified yogi and more importantly, and more importantly

1048
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 1: certified Jordan, Sorry, what's more legitimate than a certified yogi?

1049
00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:49,080
Speaker 1: A certified yogi? He is the cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow.

1050
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 1: It went to the dog Le Lama's birthday. I'm doing great,

1051
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 1: so I'm doing all next, total sense. There's rigid certification

1052
00:57:56,840 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 1: for this is something you gotta do. Eight years of school,

1053
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:02,320
Speaker 1: you do, five year internship. Honestly, you don't know this.

1054
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 1: It's actually easier to be an on college. Remember reading

1055
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:10,400
Speaker 1: the autobiography of a yoga Big Yogi Bio three Rama

1056
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 1: Rama Krishna or whatever his name is, And he said

1057
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:16,680
Speaker 1: specifically after he learned how to float. That was when

1058
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: he got his certification. To me, that was it. The

1059
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: government regulations once he got the power of levitation now

1060
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 1: um Rebecca as a cert of ideogi and a cousin

1061
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow was an expert at adding wui New Age

1062
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 1: nonsense to what should have been like a business um.

1063
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:39,080
Speaker 1: She repeatedly claimed in interviews that when she met Adam,

1064
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:41,240
Speaker 1: she was suddenly taken with a strong belief that he

1065
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 1: could save the world. In an episode of the School

1066
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:49,680
Speaker 1: of Greatness, an insufferable YouTube show, she said this, My

1067
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 1: intention was never to find a way to make the

1068
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: most money. My intention when I met him was just

1069
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 1: how do we expand this good vibration to the planet.

1070
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 1: I just gotta explain the vibration. I'm gonna expand Adam's

1071
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:06,880
Speaker 1: good vibes. Has anybody ever defined megalomania to her? It

1072
00:59:06,920 --> 00:59:09,040
Speaker 1: wouldn't take. I'm gonna tell you right now, it would

1073
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:13,960
Speaker 1: not would not take. I apologize Whyneth Paltrow's first cousin. Always,

1074
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:16,680
Speaker 1: every time I think of words, I assume that people

1075
00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: understand their meaning and apply them. I'm having a really

1076
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 1: tough time because I was coming in with a fairly

1077
00:59:22,560 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 1: positive view of her, know, her cousin life, because you

1078
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 1: said earlier that like when they first met, she made

1079
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 1: fun of him, she told him, and she married him

1080
00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:36,160
Speaker 1: and got involved in his business. I kind of thought like, yeah,

1081
00:59:36,200 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 1: maybe she's pretty cool. And then everything every added detail,

1082
00:59:39,480 --> 00:59:41,919
Speaker 1: just like Nash, she's not good. You're full of shit,

1083
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 1: like me, I can use you as a weapon now.

1084
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 1: Adam embraced the image of the guru ceo. He threw raucous,

1085
00:59:51,400 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 1: wild parties in the office where employees were all but

1086
00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:56,160
Speaker 1: forced to drink. He walked around barefoot and would have

1087
00:59:56,200 --> 00:59:58,440
Speaker 1: his personal trainer meet him in his office and then

1088
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:01,960
Speaker 1: walk around afterwards drenched in sweat to lead his employees.

1089
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 1: It seems like a good get with Doesn't Jack do

1090
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:07,400
Speaker 1: a little bit of that that Twitter stuff, like maybe

1091
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 1: not forcing his employees to drink, but having like sort

1092
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:17,120
Speaker 1: of a groove vibe jacket Twitter. Oh yeah, absolutely. Every

1093
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:19,920
Speaker 1: time I watched Silicon Valley, the only thing I can

1094
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 1: think of is I don't know how to parody these

1095
01:00:22,360 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 1: people anymore. You can't go there, you can't go extreme enough.

1096
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:30,840
Speaker 1: You know it not And it's crazy. Oh no. The

1097
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 1: products and services that support this show. I'm a product

1098
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:38,440
Speaker 1: that supports Robert. I have no downsides and should be

1099
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:46,400
Speaker 1: bought immediately. That's a parody. We work, Actually, you work.

1100
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 1: Our only sponsors are coke Industries, and of course there's

1101
01:00:49,840 --> 01:00:53,400
Speaker 1: some cidy every nor Dine Defense Systems nor Dine. If

1102
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:55,480
Speaker 1: a wedding has to be blown up at range with

1103
01:00:55,480 --> 01:01:00,400
Speaker 1: the thermobaric warhead, it has to be nor Dine. Oh boy,

1104
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:11,840
Speaker 1: worlds in a great shape, right products, we're back. We're

1105
01:01:11,880 --> 01:01:15,360
Speaker 1: talking about we work, a perfect company that never did

1106
01:01:15,400 --> 01:01:19,520
Speaker 1: anything wrong. And that's the end of the episode. Yeah, alright, Now,

1107
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:22,840
Speaker 1: as we work expanded and opened new branches around the world,

1108
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:25,920
Speaker 1: Adam's partner Miguel designed office spaces with narrow hallways and

1109
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:30,080
Speaker 1: large open desks to encourage spontaneous encounters. And let me be,

1110
01:01:30,320 --> 01:01:32,320
Speaker 1: let me be this real quick. They are still not

1111
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: making any money. Correct um, their profits double or their

1112
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,520
Speaker 1: revenue doubles every year, right, but no, they're not making

1113
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:41,400
Speaker 1: any much. There we go now, so spontaneous encounters is

1114
01:01:41,440 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 1: a real fun way to say bottleneck. Most employees also

1115
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:50,720
Speaker 1: hot desk, which meant they didn't have assigned desks. They

1116
01:01:50,760 --> 01:01:53,520
Speaker 1: just wound up wherever they could get in the morning. Now,

1117
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 1: this was supposed to make things feel free and open,

1118
01:01:55,640 --> 01:01:58,120
Speaker 1: but it really resulted in employees spending huge junks of

1119
01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:00,200
Speaker 1: their day finding somewhere quiet enough to get some work done.

1120
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:01,720
Speaker 1: It sounds like a nime, but I'm gonna go to

1121
01:02:01,720 --> 01:02:05,600
Speaker 1: an office. I better have a motherfucking desk, now, um,

1122
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:07,040
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to go to an office, and

1123
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:08,920
Speaker 1: you can't make me. I have enough guns at this

1124
01:02:08,960 --> 01:02:12,680
Speaker 1: point that nobody can um. Adam attempted to cultivate a

1125
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 1: capitalist Kibbutz style culture by hosting yoga classes, wine tastings,

1126
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:18,960
Speaker 1: networking panels, and all night drinking bouts that employees were

1127
01:02:18,960 --> 01:02:23,920
Speaker 1: expected to attend. He says, fun drinking like mandatory. Really

1128
01:02:24,040 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 1: feel like he's he's doing the Kibbutz thing, but that

1129
01:02:27,520 --> 01:02:31,880
Speaker 1: from each to each part he's skipping that part. We're

1130
01:02:31,880 --> 01:02:33,919
Speaker 1: going to come to that. There's a quirt that's that

1131
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:39,080
Speaker 1: like everything's good, but I'm exploiting you. Doesn't sound very

1132
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:41,440
Speaker 1: I thought the Kibbitts was cool, but no one liked me.

1133
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:45,200
Speaker 1: What if they had to have forced them to exploited

1134
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:47,720
Speaker 1: the What if they'd be homeless if they didn't what

1135
01:02:47,760 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: if I got them all really up? Also, they're wasted. Yeah,

1136
01:02:52,720 --> 01:02:55,400
Speaker 1: but we Work offices were in blasted with slogans on

1137
01:02:55,400 --> 01:02:58,480
Speaker 1: the wall like hustle Harder and love what you do.

1138
01:02:58,800 --> 01:03:01,360
Speaker 1: He could be seen as either motivational or haunting, depending

1139
01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 1: on your personal attitude. It's the Cowboys locker room, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

1140
01:03:05,400 --> 01:03:08,280
Speaker 1: Rapid growth came with equally rapid turnover. A few employees

1141
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 1: were able to handle at them or we work for

1142
01:03:10,120 --> 01:03:12,600
Speaker 1: very long. The expansion was so rapid and turnover was

1143
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:15,600
Speaker 1: so high that no one seemed to notice it was

1144
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: all built on sand. We Work would offer potential corporate

1145
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:22,080
Speaker 1: clients free rent and a volunteer to buy out their

1146
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:25,760
Speaker 1: existing leases. This brought clients and do we Work properties,

1147
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:28,520
Speaker 1: but required huge amounts of money, which was furnished by

1148
01:03:28,600 --> 01:03:31,800
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars in VC cash. Many companies

1149
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: began surfing through a series of free rent deals at

1150
01:03:34,320 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 1: Sundry we Work properties, doing the corporate equivalent of signing

1151
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:39,840
Speaker 1: up for Uber with a burner email to take advantage

1152
01:03:39,840 --> 01:03:41,720
Speaker 1: of a week of free rides. So this is that

1153
01:03:41,800 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: he's keeping spaces open. How he's justifying the massive expansion.

1154
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 1: You get free rent you get like will buy out

1155
01:03:46,160 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 1: your fucking lease. So the idea is that eventually they'll

1156
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:52,880
Speaker 1: own so much space that everyone will have to use them.

1157
01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 1: It's kind of like with Uber. Eventually, like we're gonna

1158
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:57,040
Speaker 1: burn through money now, but at a certain point will

1159
01:03:57,080 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 1: be the only ones able to offer this service, and

1160
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 1: then the money will low. They'll do the loss Leader

1161
01:04:01,680 --> 01:04:04,840
Speaker 1: Walmart thing, where it's like they're we're willing to take

1162
01:04:04,880 --> 01:04:06,600
Speaker 1: a hit on this just to make sure all the

1163
01:04:06,640 --> 01:04:08,520
Speaker 1: other stores in the town out of business, and then

1164
01:04:08,520 --> 01:04:11,800
Speaker 1: we'll raise prices. And unlike Walmart, Walmart's an objectively brilliant

1165
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:14,640
Speaker 1: idea store where I can buy nine millimeter bullets Time

1166
01:04:14,680 --> 01:04:17,000
Speaker 1: cop DVDs in Arizona iced Tea within ten feet of

1167
01:04:17,000 --> 01:04:21,560
Speaker 1: each other. That's not the necessity. Were the necessity. They're

1168
01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:24,800
Speaker 1: a thing that exists. Look, if you have time Cop

1169
01:04:24,880 --> 01:04:27,959
Speaker 1: on DVD, Arizona iced Tea and enough nine millimeter ammo,

1170
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 1: you can get all the other necessities. I can't afford

1171
01:04:30,600 --> 01:04:33,760
Speaker 1: Time Cop had to torrent it. It's unfortunate, it's heartbreaking.

1172
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 1: From Walmart dot Com and a two thousand and fifteen

1173
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:44,840
Speaker 1: industry conference, Adam Neuman declared, we are in a consumption

1174
01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:48,080
Speaker 1: phase like nothing that has ever been seen mean humans

1175
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:50,959
Speaker 1: or we were we were? Yeah. He matched these words

1176
01:04:51,040 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 1: with actions by embarking on a mass leasing frenzy, committing

1177
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:56,240
Speaker 1: we work to filling up more and more office space

1178
01:04:56,280 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 1: and more and more cities around the globe. One executive

1179
01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:01,360
Speaker 1: told The New York Times there was no discipline as

1180
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:04,720
Speaker 1: to how Adam approved leases. Another recalled no one knew

1181
01:05:04,720 --> 01:05:08,640
Speaker 1: what anyone was doing. Now. Empty facilities were being filled

1182
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:10,840
Speaker 1: by offering businesses free rent, which kept the show game

1183
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:13,880
Speaker 1: moving along and kept we works valuation rising because all

1184
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 1: the investors are seeing is how fast this ship is

1185
01:05:15,720 --> 01:05:21,840
Speaker 1: expanding and revenue isn't doubling every day net revenue. Different

1186
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 1: story the revenues though, so it looks like, Okay, once

1187
01:05:24,640 --> 01:05:26,680
Speaker 1: we get through this consumption phase, this is going to

1188
01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:29,800
Speaker 1: be making a funkload of money. When you say that

1189
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:33,400
Speaker 1: they're signing leases and there's clients, is this like I

1190
01:05:33,600 --> 01:05:37,080
Speaker 1: have a small business and I want to use the

1191
01:05:37,160 --> 01:05:39,480
Speaker 1: office space. Is that the lease that we're talking about

1192
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:42,360
Speaker 1: or is it him having least he's leasing space from

1193
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 1: landlords in many cases paying being like I'll pay you

1194
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:49,240
Speaker 1: double whatever your current tendants are paying. For the space

1195
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:51,080
Speaker 1: because he just wants to have the right to all

1196
01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:54,440
Speaker 1: of the space. That's the idea. You you acquire all

1197
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:58,280
Speaker 1: of the space, and he's he's a brilliant appreciator. Just

1198
01:05:58,280 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 1: double whatever they're paying. Now. By two fifteen, We Work

1199
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:05,360
Speaker 1: was worth an estimated ten billion dollars in monopoly money.

1200
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:08,840
Speaker 1: Keeping all this going wasn't exhausting for employees. One of

1201
01:06:08,880 --> 01:06:11,560
Speaker 1: them later recalled, quote, we would joke that we worked

1202
01:06:11,560 --> 01:06:13,800
Speaker 1: like slaves. Adam would have meetings on Sunday and you

1203
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:16,280
Speaker 1: could never miss those. Sometimes it wouldn't happen. It would

1204
01:06:16,280 --> 01:06:18,640
Speaker 1: happen hours late, and you'd be there all night. You'd

1205
01:06:18,640 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 1: cry in the bathroom all the time. Good bit. It

1206
01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 1: really feels like the lesson that tech venture people learned

1207
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:29,120
Speaker 1: from Enron was we should try harder to get away

1208
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:32,720
Speaker 1: with it. Only one of them died. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,

1209
01:06:32,800 --> 01:06:36,440
Speaker 1: we're good. We work CFO for a time. Was Aerial Tiger,

1210
01:06:36,600 --> 01:06:40,520
Speaker 1: one of Adam's navy buddies. He phone officer. Yeah, well

1211
01:06:42,480 --> 01:06:47,800
Speaker 1: not really. I'm a CONSCIENTI objector to that joke. He

1212
01:06:47,920 --> 01:06:50,760
Speaker 1: frequently threatened to fire people while wandering we works open

1213
01:06:50,800 --> 01:06:53,880
Speaker 1: desk office from Vanity Fair. Quote every two weeks, Area

1214
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:55,520
Speaker 1: would get a print out of payroll and he would

1215
01:06:55,520 --> 01:06:57,240
Speaker 1: go through the red and redline the ship out of it,

1216
01:06:57,240 --> 01:06:59,760
Speaker 1: saying he wanted to reduce people's pay. A former executive

1217
01:06:59,760 --> 01:07:02,280
Speaker 1: set I remember walking through the office in Area would

1218
01:07:02,320 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 1: loudly say, why do we have all these people? I

1219
01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:07,240
Speaker 1: could do what they're doing with two people. So I

1220
01:07:07,320 --> 01:07:10,520
Speaker 1: got healthy kind of like that guy healthy work. He

1221
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 1: is actually the most reasonable person. That's a vibe. The

1222
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:18,240
Speaker 1: guys shouting that in the office not a healthy vibe.

1223
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to paint the picture of here,

1224
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:22,920
Speaker 1: what's your what's your payroll strategy? Well, I either give

1225
01:07:22,960 --> 01:07:24,960
Speaker 1: a thumbs upper thumbs down and one of them die.

1226
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:26,360
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I don't like that guy in

1227
01:07:26,400 --> 01:07:28,400
Speaker 1: the real world, but like in a movie, I might

1228
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:30,240
Speaker 1: want to play him, you know what I mean. That's

1229
01:07:30,240 --> 01:07:33,040
Speaker 1: the kind of feeling. Yeah, Matthew McConaughey would be get

1230
01:07:33,080 --> 01:07:36,120
Speaker 1: picked for that. In June of two thousand fifteen, We

1231
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:38,960
Speaker 1: Work raised four d and thirty four million dollars more

1232
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:42,040
Speaker 1: to fund their reckless growth. Right around that same time,

1233
01:07:42,360 --> 01:07:46,240
Speaker 1: thirty two b J's Service Employees International Union, which represents

1234
01:07:46,280 --> 01:07:49,160
Speaker 1: cleaners in New York launched a protest outside if we

1235
01:07:49,240 --> 01:07:51,800
Speaker 1: Works offices. Their issue was the fact that Neuman and

1236
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:54,560
Speaker 1: mcklby used non union labor to clean their offices for

1237
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:57,439
Speaker 1: ten dollars an hour, which is like half what they're

1238
01:07:57,440 --> 01:08:00,400
Speaker 1: supposed to get paid in the city of New York. Uh. Now,

1239
01:08:00,520 --> 01:08:04,440
Speaker 1: Neuman attempted to deal directly with picketing cleaners by approaching

1240
01:08:04,480 --> 01:08:06,720
Speaker 1: them with a New York Times reporter behind him and

1241
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:09,240
Speaker 1: talking about his own background as an immigrant. And then

1242
01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:14,320
Speaker 1: here with not but a hundred thousand dollars from my grandmother,

1243
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:19,240
Speaker 1: free booze and kombucha for all. Uh. This didn't work.

1244
01:08:19,520 --> 01:08:21,200
Speaker 1: They didn't They didn't buy that ship. Did you take

1245
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 1: him to the roof? Uh? Yeah, I don't think he

1246
01:08:23,520 --> 01:08:27,720
Speaker 1: got to. I think they heckled him immediately. Adam later

1247
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:29,800
Speaker 1: told a reporter with Fast Company, the last thing I

1248
01:08:29,840 --> 01:08:31,679
Speaker 1: was going to do was work with the union because

1249
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:33,800
Speaker 1: I didn't believe that it's fair to blackmail someone to

1250
01:08:33,840 --> 01:08:42,599
Speaker 1: do something. You're literally a landlord. Oh boy, oh boy.

1251
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: Now frustrating, he did eventually sit down with Hector figaroa

1252
01:08:46,280 --> 01:08:49,960
Speaker 1: the union president. Figaro recalled, rather than talking about the issue, itself.

1253
01:08:49,960 --> 01:08:51,800
Speaker 1: He wanted to have a conversation about who we are

1254
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:59,280
Speaker 1: as people? What do you think about stars? Then he

1255
01:08:59,360 --> 01:09:06,120
Speaker 1: got me really drunk, was off the roof. Figaro was

1256
01:09:06,160 --> 01:09:08,240
Speaker 1: too smart for that ship. He pressed the issue, and

1257
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:11,240
Speaker 1: eventually Adam agreed to hire back unionized cleaners for eighteen

1258
01:09:11,280 --> 01:09:14,200
Speaker 1: forty six an hour and health benefits. Figaro was so

1259
01:09:14,240 --> 01:09:16,200
Speaker 1: grateful that he got his way that he gave Adam

1260
01:09:16,200 --> 01:09:18,880
Speaker 1: a union jacket for what it's worth. He walked away

1261
01:09:18,880 --> 01:09:22,879
Speaker 1: from the interaction feeling positively towards Adam. God Less positive

1262
01:09:22,960 --> 01:09:24,559
Speaker 1: was the fact that, in two thousand fifteen, and San

1263
01:09:24,560 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 1: Francisco landlord kicked out two tenants rights organizations from their

1264
01:09:27,840 --> 01:09:30,360
Speaker 1: offices to make room for we work. Adam had offered

1265
01:09:30,400 --> 01:09:32,679
Speaker 1: to pay double the rent, which guaranteed him the space

1266
01:09:32,720 --> 01:09:35,920
Speaker 1: and ensured that San Francisco's homelessness problem would get even worse.

1267
01:09:36,520 --> 01:09:38,360
Speaker 1: This may seem out of character for someone raised in

1268
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:40,960
Speaker 1: the socialistic nexus of the kibbutz, but in later interviews,

1269
01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:43,280
Speaker 1: Adam was quick to mention that he considered the kibbutz

1270
01:09:43,360 --> 01:09:47,120
Speaker 1: um to be failed social experiments. Their chief law, in

1271
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:50,160
Speaker 1: his eyes, was that everyone made the same amount of

1272
01:09:50,200 --> 01:09:54,320
Speaker 1: money that's the problem. Community was important to him, but

1273
01:09:54,360 --> 01:09:56,479
Speaker 1: only up to the point where you exhibited any weakness.

1274
01:09:56,720 --> 01:09:59,880
Speaker 1: Adam said, on one hand, community, on the other hand,

1275
01:10:00,160 --> 01:10:02,839
Speaker 1: you eat what you kill. So that's where the spartan

1276
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:06,120
Speaker 1: kind of culture comes in there. I got you. I

1277
01:10:06,160 --> 01:10:08,479
Speaker 1: don't think so, because the actual kibbitz Is would have

1278
01:10:08,520 --> 01:10:12,479
Speaker 1: totally ship. So this guy is just a piece of ship. Yeah, yeah,

1279
01:10:12,520 --> 01:10:15,040
Speaker 1: and has a real misunderstanding of what if I could

1280
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:17,680
Speaker 1: evict everybody in the Kippitts. Yeah what am I going

1281
01:10:17,720 --> 01:10:20,719
Speaker 1: to evict them for not being cool enough or drinking

1282
01:10:20,720 --> 01:10:23,240
Speaker 1: patron with me? But but I'm sure he would rationalize

1283
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:25,840
Speaker 1: it like, all right, this like let's say in San Francisco,

1284
01:10:25,920 --> 01:10:30,920
Speaker 1: this housing organization, we take over their their lease here

1285
01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:33,599
Speaker 1: or whatever. But they can just use the wee work space.

1286
01:10:33,680 --> 01:10:35,479
Speaker 1: They just use the way work space. I'm sure that

1287
01:10:35,520 --> 01:10:38,000
Speaker 1: there's something like that's how you sleep at night knowing

1288
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:41,759
Speaker 1: that you know you've just created value. Man, it's value.

1289
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:46,240
Speaker 1: It's good to create value. Sure, And then these people

1290
01:10:46,240 --> 01:10:48,439
Speaker 1: trying to help homeless people get to get funked up

1291
01:10:48,439 --> 01:10:57,240
Speaker 1: at work exactly guys. Anyway, In two thousand seventeen, Adam

1292
01:10:57,280 --> 01:10:59,640
Speaker 1: got on the phone with an executive from Blackstone, a

1293
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:02,559
Speaker 1: major investment firm, to complain because it had invested money

1294
01:11:02,560 --> 01:11:05,639
Speaker 1: in a rival company. Do we work at work? Yeah?

1295
01:11:06,400 --> 01:11:10,439
Speaker 1: Working out. Adam also refused to work with landlords who

1296
01:11:10,520 --> 01:11:13,240
Speaker 1: lease based to other coworking companies, and he sued several

1297
01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:17,719
Speaker 1: of these rivals for trademark infringement. Your work you are work,

1298
01:11:17,840 --> 01:11:20,560
Speaker 1: WE Labs and high Work. He said, we're all infringing

1299
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:23,599
Speaker 1: on WE works copyright. Well, Adams company did not claim

1300
01:11:23,640 --> 01:11:26,800
Speaker 1: exclusive rights to the word work. He believed they owned

1301
01:11:26,840 --> 01:11:29,200
Speaker 1: the use of that word after a two letter pronoun

1302
01:11:29,840 --> 01:11:33,040
Speaker 1: So that was the company's argument. So you so they

1303
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:35,840
Speaker 1: are saying that if you put any two letters in

1304
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:39,120
Speaker 1: front of work, you are infringing. Are infringing on we

1305
01:11:39,160 --> 01:11:45,439
Speaker 1: words copy right right? Okay. I feel like he might

1306
01:11:45,479 --> 01:11:50,160
Speaker 1: sue you or hire you to give his employees mandatory

1307
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:53,920
Speaker 1: to working lessons. We're going to test this. I we

1308
01:11:53,960 --> 01:11:57,439
Speaker 1: got to do it now. While the company's valuation rose,

1309
01:11:57,520 --> 01:11:59,800
Speaker 1: there were worrying signs that beneath all the glamour, this

1310
01:11:59,880 --> 01:12:02,559
Speaker 1: was just a grift. And two thirteen, Neuman tried to

1311
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:04,720
Speaker 1: buy a stake in a Chicago building that planned to

1312
01:12:04,840 --> 01:12:08,200
Speaker 1: lease space until we Work. The board rejected this idea

1313
01:12:08,240 --> 01:12:10,439
Speaker 1: because it would be a conflict of interest for Neyman

1314
01:12:10,520 --> 01:12:16,160
Speaker 1: to personally own property that his company leased. That's a

1315
01:12:16,200 --> 01:12:20,360
Speaker 1: little bit, a little bit, it's called propertical integration. It's

1316
01:12:20,560 --> 01:12:25,160
Speaker 1: vertical integration. That's totally called stealing money from investor. Nobody's

1317
01:12:25,200 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 1: ever had an issue with it now in Dealers. In fourteen,

1318
01:12:28,320 --> 01:12:31,120
Speaker 1: Adam maneuvered himself into control of the board of directors

1319
01:12:31,120 --> 01:12:33,400
Speaker 1: so he could approve his plan of personally buying up

1320
01:12:33,400 --> 01:12:35,400
Speaker 1: a number of properties and leasing them back to his

1321
01:12:35,439 --> 01:12:38,639
Speaker 1: company for millions of dollars. We Work eventually signed lease

1322
01:12:38,680 --> 01:12:41,759
Speaker 1: agreements with four buildings Neuman owned since two thousand and sixteen.

1323
01:12:41,800 --> 01:12:44,920
Speaker 1: They paid almost seventeen million dollars to his properties. This

1324
01:12:45,040 --> 01:12:48,240
Speaker 1: is essentially theft to venture capital money, funneling it directly

1325
01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:50,519
Speaker 1: into the owner's pocket without informing the people paying of

1326
01:12:50,560 --> 01:12:53,439
Speaker 1: what's happening. See if it wasn't him getting the money,

1327
01:12:53,560 --> 01:13:00,559
Speaker 1: I'm fine venture capital stealing money from ventual capital. Venture capital. Yeah,

1328
01:13:00,600 --> 01:13:02,800
Speaker 1: but he is. It is because I have some sort

1329
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:05,400
Speaker 1: of moral compass or whatever. But I'm fine with other people.

1330
01:13:05,640 --> 01:13:07,479
Speaker 1: Robin Hooding, Yeah, I'm not going to do it. It

1331
01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:10,400
Speaker 1: just it is a huge grift and an obvious one

1332
01:13:10,600 --> 01:13:16,320
Speaker 1: on the go. It wasn't obvious at first. This actually

1333
01:13:16,320 --> 01:13:19,680
Speaker 1: came out until a while later when they filed for

1334
01:13:19,760 --> 01:13:22,920
Speaker 1: their I p O and all the stuff became public knowledge.

1335
01:13:23,439 --> 01:13:26,000
Speaker 1: Now as the grift sput on, Adam continue to motivate

1336
01:13:26,040 --> 01:13:29,120
Speaker 1: his employees with impossible stories of where the brand was

1337
01:13:29,200 --> 01:13:32,439
Speaker 1: going into this. In fifteen, he claimed, we work Mars

1338
01:13:32,520 --> 01:13:39,360
Speaker 1: is in our pipeline and red red flag, red flag this, dude,

1339
01:13:40,280 --> 01:13:41,800
Speaker 1: that's a little bad. You know, they can go to

1340
01:13:41,840 --> 01:13:46,600
Speaker 1: Mars in our world. Once you say my business is

1341
01:13:46,600 --> 01:13:50,479
Speaker 1: going to Mars, that means we're in med bed territory. Yeah,

1342
01:13:50,560 --> 01:13:52,800
Speaker 1: that's that's generally. When if I were in that meeting,

1343
01:13:53,160 --> 01:13:56,320
Speaker 1: I'd have to walk away, you know what a good

1344
01:13:56,400 --> 01:14:00,639
Speaker 1: ride on the chance you're talking literally have to leave.

1345
01:14:02,560 --> 01:14:04,920
Speaker 1: He told his employees that he'd met with Elon Muskin,

1346
01:14:05,000 --> 01:14:08,000
Speaker 1: offered the company's services and prepping a future Mars mission.

1347
01:14:08,040 --> 01:14:10,240
Speaker 1: And I just love the thought that he thinks the

1348
01:14:10,280 --> 01:14:13,160
Speaker 1: company that leases office space with him anything to contribute

1349
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:15,639
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah. At the same time, I completely believe

1350
01:14:15,720 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 1: him that he didn't say he met with Elon Musk.

1351
01:14:21,320 --> 01:14:24,240
Speaker 1: He also said that Musk turned him down. Um, which

1352
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:27,000
Speaker 1: makes sense. Even Elon Musk is a little bit like

1353
01:14:27,320 --> 01:14:31,880
Speaker 1: no this said Mars. I have a I have a

1354
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:34,599
Speaker 1: monopoly on the Mars graft right now, buddy, don't don't

1355
01:14:34,640 --> 01:14:37,960
Speaker 1: try and step on my game. Now. Grand visions of

1356
01:14:37,960 --> 01:14:40,720
Speaker 1: the future were mixed with Adam's own growing reputation as

1357
01:14:40,800 --> 01:14:45,679
Speaker 1: something very much like a cold leader. I'm gonna yeah,

1358
01:14:45,760 --> 01:14:49,400
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you absolutely did. I'm going to experience I

1359
01:14:49,520 --> 01:14:51,559
Speaker 1: know a cult leader when I see one. I'm gonna

1360
01:14:51,640 --> 01:14:54,680
Speaker 1: quote now from New York Magazine. Within We Work, a

1361
01:14:54,720 --> 01:14:57,719
Speaker 1: mystique quickly developed around Neuman, who did little to downplay

1362
01:14:57,720 --> 01:15:00,320
Speaker 1: it until recently. An executive conference room at we Work

1363
01:15:00,320 --> 01:15:03,479
Speaker 1: headquarters was decorated with a large photograph of Neuman's surfing

1364
01:15:03,479 --> 01:15:06,800
Speaker 1: a wave. He is bragged about working twenty hour days

1365
01:15:06,800 --> 01:15:09,679
Speaker 1: and regularly called executive meetings that would begin after midnight.

1366
01:15:10,000 --> 01:15:12,000
Speaker 1: I've had meetings that started at two am where he

1367
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:14,120
Speaker 1: joined us forty five minutes late. But that meeting was

1368
01:15:14,120 --> 01:15:18,479
Speaker 1: worth millions of former We Work executive course. Many we

1369
01:15:18,760 --> 01:15:23,679
Speaker 1: could not stand shipping ourselves in the room. Yeah, many

1370
01:15:23,720 --> 01:15:25,799
Speaker 1: people told me they bought into We Works Grand mission

1371
01:15:25,800 --> 01:15:27,960
Speaker 1: only when Neuman was doing the preaching. At the beginning

1372
01:15:28,000 --> 01:15:30,800
Speaker 1: of every week we work, employees were required to stay

1373
01:15:30,800 --> 01:15:33,840
Speaker 1: after work for a thank God it's Monday team building

1374
01:15:33,840 --> 01:15:37,599
Speaker 1: event that could last for hours. Okay, so they also

1375
01:15:37,960 --> 01:15:41,800
Speaker 1: made them exhausted and tired and less than capable of

1376
01:15:41,840 --> 01:15:45,720
Speaker 1: making fully realized decisions. All the things that meeters don't

1377
01:15:46,040 --> 01:15:48,240
Speaker 1: heard of that before. No, it's all the things you

1378
01:15:48,280 --> 01:15:50,519
Speaker 1: don't do as a cult leader. Check gotcha? No, I

1379
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:53,559
Speaker 1: mean would typically speak, after which employees often walked around

1380
01:15:53,600 --> 01:15:56,120
Speaker 1: handing out shots of tequila that people were expecting to

1381
01:15:56,160 --> 01:15:59,439
Speaker 1: consume every time on out. He brings me back in. Yeah.

1382
01:16:00,560 --> 01:16:03,680
Speaker 1: One former employee says Neuman offered her tequila during her

1383
01:16:03,800 --> 01:16:06,559
Speaker 1: job interview, and liquor was a constant presence at pretty

1384
01:16:06,640 --> 01:16:10,000
Speaker 1: much every company event, another perk for the largely millennial staff.

1385
01:16:10,040 --> 01:16:12,120
Speaker 1: I'm picturing this dude like with a lamp shade on

1386
01:16:12,160 --> 01:16:18,560
Speaker 1: his head. Yes, many employees know the name of no

1387
01:16:18,640 --> 01:16:22,120
Speaker 1: Himan's favorite tequila, Don Julio nineteen forty two, and offices

1388
01:16:22,160 --> 01:16:24,280
Speaker 1: around the country would keep it stocked for when he

1389
01:16:24,320 --> 01:16:27,000
Speaker 1: came to visit. One morning. In two thousand fourteen, not

1390
01:16:27,320 --> 01:16:29,879
Speaker 1: long after We Work open a new location in Washington,

1391
01:16:29,960 --> 01:16:33,000
Speaker 1: d C. An employee arrived to find the game room trashed.

1392
01:16:33,160 --> 01:16:35,120
Speaker 1: There were cups lying around the room which smelled to

1393
01:16:35,240 --> 01:16:38,439
Speaker 1: him like weed. When the employee reviewed the security footage

1394
01:16:38,479 --> 01:16:40,400
Speaker 1: from the night before to identify the culprits, he saw

1395
01:16:40,479 --> 01:16:43,559
Speaker 1: Neuman and Michael Gross we Works vice chairman, drinking and

1396
01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:49,640
Speaker 1: partying on time Crisis Arcade machine. We smelled weed and

1397
01:16:49,640 --> 01:16:52,679
Speaker 1: there was also like an empty cups. Yeah, I really

1398
01:16:52,680 --> 01:16:54,679
Speaker 1: feel like I have no problem with that. Of all

1399
01:16:54,720 --> 01:16:57,360
Speaker 1: of the things so far, he owns this business. He

1400
01:16:57,680 --> 01:17:00,519
Speaker 1: got drunken high. It's not like he was It's not

1401
01:17:00,560 --> 01:17:04,759
Speaker 1: like it was tweaking on like crystal meth or anything. Yeah,

1402
01:17:04,800 --> 01:17:07,800
Speaker 1: I'm cool with a this stuff, the exploiting labor and

1403
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:11,280
Speaker 1: that bullshit. I'm again, you do get the feeling that

1404
01:17:12,080 --> 01:17:19,440
Speaker 1: when he wasn't around, the people didn't really drink or party. Yeah. Absolutely.

1405
01:17:19,560 --> 01:17:23,240
Speaker 1: My my experience with like workplaces that have alcohol and um,

1406
01:17:23,240 --> 01:17:28,160
Speaker 1: it's like most people don't. Yeah, even even it's alable now,

1407
01:17:28,680 --> 01:17:31,280
Speaker 1: not everyone bought the permanent party vibe of the company,

1408
01:17:31,439 --> 01:17:34,200
Speaker 1: and two fifteen we Work bought a fancy private jet,

1409
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:36,960
Speaker 1: which Adam Neuman immediately took to using all over the world.

1410
01:17:37,360 --> 01:17:40,599
Speaker 1: He smoked weed and it constantly, sometimes breaking international law

1411
01:17:40,640 --> 01:17:43,479
Speaker 1: to do so. His former chief of staff, Medina Barty,

1412
01:17:43,600 --> 01:17:46,120
Speaker 1: got pregnant and had to stop traveling with Neuman to

1413
01:17:46,200 --> 01:17:48,840
Speaker 1: company events because he refused to not hot box the

1414
01:17:48,840 --> 01:17:52,200
Speaker 1: company play and when she was in it good stuff.

1415
01:17:52,200 --> 01:17:54,840
Speaker 1: She wound up filing a federal complaint against Adam for,

1416
01:17:55,040 --> 01:17:58,360
Speaker 1: among other things, retaliating against herford getting pregnant. That's what

1417
01:17:58,439 --> 01:18:03,680
Speaker 1: I was, according to the Washington Post. Party. According to

1418
01:18:03,720 --> 01:18:07,400
Speaker 1: the Post, Barty quote alleges that female employees were subjected

1419
01:18:07,400 --> 01:18:10,439
Speaker 1: to sexually offensive conduct, disparage for taking maternity to leave,

1420
01:18:10,520 --> 01:18:13,320
Speaker 1: and often paid significantly less than their male counterparts. According

1421
01:18:13,320 --> 01:18:16,800
Speaker 1: to a complaint filed Thursday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,

1422
01:18:17,080 --> 01:18:19,320
Speaker 1: Barty had two children during her more than five years

1423
01:18:19,320 --> 01:18:21,599
Speaker 1: at we Work and claims Neuman referred to maternity leave

1424
01:18:21,680 --> 01:18:26,160
Speaker 1: as retirement and vacation. According to the complaint, she alleges

1425
01:18:26,240 --> 01:18:28,680
Speaker 1: she was demoted after both pregnancies and replaced by men

1426
01:18:28,720 --> 01:18:32,240
Speaker 1: at higher wages and given no instruction about her new responsibilities.

1427
01:18:33,479 --> 01:18:36,960
Speaker 1: So cool, Yeah, now, that story didnt drop until two thousand,

1428
01:18:37,080 --> 01:18:40,400
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen. The company was still right and High, flushed

1429
01:18:40,400 --> 01:18:42,400
Speaker 1: with billions of dollars in VC money and on its

1430
01:18:42,400 --> 01:18:45,160
Speaker 1: way to becoming the largest private office renter in New

1431
01:18:45,200 --> 01:18:47,760
Speaker 1: York City. In the spring of that year, Neuman met

1432
01:18:47,760 --> 01:18:51,080
Speaker 1: the CEO of soft Bank, Masayoshi saw at a dinner.

1433
01:18:51,400 --> 01:18:54,439
Speaker 1: Masayoshi held the purse springs to soft banks hundred billion

1434
01:18:54,479 --> 01:18:58,040
Speaker 1: dollar investment fund. He was one of the biggest investors

1435
01:18:58,040 --> 01:19:01,040
Speaker 1: in the startup world or the rest of the world matter.

1436
01:19:01,439 --> 01:19:04,280
Speaker 1: Adam badly wanted his money. He invited Massa on a

1437
01:19:04,320 --> 01:19:06,920
Speaker 1: tour of the company offices, and Massa told him he

1438
01:19:06,920 --> 01:19:09,760
Speaker 1: had twelve minutes to listen to a presentation. Ne Himan

1439
01:19:09,800 --> 01:19:11,400
Speaker 1: gave him the pitch and followed him out to his

1440
01:19:11,439 --> 01:19:14,760
Speaker 1: car when it was over, continuing to pick and then

1441
01:19:14,760 --> 01:19:18,280
Speaker 1: he played Massa Yoshi takanakas seven goblins, I assume for

1442
01:19:18,280 --> 01:19:21,200
Speaker 1: twelve minutes, right, I don't understand that joke in anyway?

1443
01:19:21,320 --> 01:19:26,000
Speaker 1: All right? Somehow Adam won Masayoshi Sun over. The elder

1444
01:19:26,040 --> 01:19:28,759
Speaker 1: businessman told Neuman that the only problem with his business

1445
01:19:28,760 --> 01:19:31,040
Speaker 1: plan was that we Work was thinking too small. It

1446
01:19:31,080 --> 01:19:33,760
Speaker 1: should move from leasing office space to small businesses and

1447
01:19:33,760 --> 01:19:37,920
Speaker 1: working to leasing space to all businesses. Massa Yoshi offered

1448
01:19:37,960 --> 01:19:43,160
Speaker 1: him four point four billion dollars on the spot. All right,

1449
01:19:44,000 --> 01:19:46,760
Speaker 1: no bad. It seems like a bad idea, right, it

1450
01:19:46,800 --> 01:19:49,320
Speaker 1: seems like a ridiculous thing to do. What you should

1451
01:19:49,320 --> 01:19:52,960
Speaker 1: do is own your own country. Yes, that's kind of

1452
01:19:52,960 --> 01:19:55,720
Speaker 1: where this goes. Yeah, okay, this is right. Isn't this

1453
01:19:55,840 --> 01:19:59,200
Speaker 1: now just becoming entirely like real estate base because like,

1454
01:19:59,240 --> 01:20:00,920
Speaker 1: if you're going to go to bigger companies, then you're

1455
01:20:00,920 --> 01:20:03,680
Speaker 1: going to need a building, an entire building that you

1456
01:20:03,680 --> 01:20:05,760
Speaker 1: would then rent to them. Yeah, you would rent to

1457
01:20:05,800 --> 01:20:08,400
Speaker 1: them instead of them renting it, because they all rent

1458
01:20:08,439 --> 01:20:12,920
Speaker 1: their spaces. It's a stupid idea. This is an inversion

1459
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:16,320
Speaker 1: of reality as a business model. It's it's this this

1460
01:20:16,360 --> 01:20:18,840
Speaker 1: thing people talk about with Steve Jobs, this reality distortion

1461
01:20:18,880 --> 01:20:21,840
Speaker 1: field that he had, Like Adam clearly has that ability,

1462
01:20:21,880 --> 01:20:24,760
Speaker 1: and he enraptures this guy and convinces him that like

1463
01:20:25,439 --> 01:20:29,639
Speaker 1: this dream of changing the world, changing work is more

1464
01:20:29,680 --> 01:20:31,760
Speaker 1: than just like what it actually is, which is we

1465
01:20:31,880 --> 01:20:36,040
Speaker 1: rent office space. Ya Um. I don't understand how he

1466
01:20:36,080 --> 01:20:38,000
Speaker 1: did it, but he did it, and he got four

1467
01:20:38,040 --> 01:20:41,840
Speaker 1: point four billion fucking dollars to do it. That's that's

1468
01:20:41,880 --> 01:20:44,320
Speaker 1: one of those things that I've I've talked about on

1469
01:20:44,479 --> 01:20:47,519
Speaker 1: our podcast is like I would love to just like

1470
01:20:47,680 --> 01:20:49,760
Speaker 1: measure whether or not, like I want to talk to

1471
01:20:49,800 --> 01:20:52,040
Speaker 1: this guy and see if he can get me on

1472
01:20:52,120 --> 01:20:55,800
Speaker 1: his Like, I want to measure my ability to fight

1473
01:20:55,840 --> 01:20:57,720
Speaker 1: off a cult leader. I really don't want you to

1474
01:20:57,720 --> 01:21:01,040
Speaker 1: do that because I know that you'll loseta. I gotta

1475
01:21:01,120 --> 01:21:03,560
Speaker 1: I was, I was born in it. I need closure

1476
01:21:03,600 --> 01:21:05,840
Speaker 1: on my life. I have to defeat a cult leader

1477
01:21:05,880 --> 01:21:08,240
Speaker 1: before I can grow as a person. I mean, we

1478
01:21:08,280 --> 01:21:10,720
Speaker 1: could hunt down Adam Noyman and throw rocks at him.

1479
01:21:10,760 --> 01:21:13,800
Speaker 1: I am that count. I don't think I trust you

1480
01:21:13,840 --> 01:21:17,280
Speaker 1: to go to the roof with Adam. Trust me to

1481
01:21:17,560 --> 01:21:21,479
Speaker 1: the roof byself. Yeah, I would. I do think that

1482
01:21:21,520 --> 01:21:23,880
Speaker 1: if should you know, our lives ever go in that direction.

1483
01:21:23,960 --> 01:21:26,800
Speaker 1: Let's say some investor gives us four point four tonight,

1484
01:21:26,920 --> 01:21:29,240
Speaker 1: I would to start my cult that I've been working

1485
01:21:29,240 --> 01:21:31,439
Speaker 1: on for years. I feel like a nice offshoot of

1486
01:21:31,479 --> 01:21:33,679
Speaker 1: that would be, like maybe we make a reality show

1487
01:21:33,720 --> 01:21:39,800
Speaker 1: where we try and do terrible terrible cults of personality.

1488
01:21:39,840 --> 01:21:44,000
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, speaking of terrible cults of personality, the episodes

1489
01:21:44,040 --> 01:21:48,599
Speaker 1: over part one, and it's time for you to plug

1490
01:21:48,840 --> 01:21:52,160
Speaker 1: your own cults of personality. Sure, um, well, we do

1491
01:21:52,240 --> 01:21:55,600
Speaker 1: a podcast called Knowledge Fight that people can find just

1492
01:21:55,720 --> 01:21:58,519
Speaker 1: by I guess googling it. It's on iTunes and talk

1493
01:21:58,560 --> 01:22:04,720
Speaker 1: about on Spotify. That's true, various other places around and

1494
01:22:04,760 --> 01:22:07,200
Speaker 1: then you know we have Twitter and all that stuff.

1495
01:22:07,400 --> 01:22:11,679
Speaker 1: That's a knowledge Underscore Fight. And I'm Jordan's I am

1496
01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:15,360
Speaker 1: somewhat of a comedian and if you're looking to book me,

1497
01:22:15,439 --> 01:22:19,800
Speaker 1: I'm available. Tweet tweet at go to that Jordan. That'll

1498
01:22:19,840 --> 01:22:25,200
Speaker 1: be that'll do it. If you run a comedy, then

1499
01:22:25,240 --> 01:22:29,600
Speaker 1: you and no Alaska, please force Jordan to come up.

1500
01:22:30,400 --> 01:22:35,040
Speaker 1: I want to try to say that's for this, not

1501
01:22:35,120 --> 01:22:38,519
Speaker 1: you go, I can't come. No, just Jordan's come on.

1502
01:22:38,880 --> 01:22:41,160
Speaker 1: I'm gonna follow. I'm gonna send you. I want to

1503
01:22:41,200 --> 01:22:43,160
Speaker 1: send I want to send you to Panama. I want

1504
01:22:43,160 --> 01:22:46,280
Speaker 1: to get you both opposite sides of the hemisphere. Alright,

1505
01:22:47,520 --> 01:22:51,280
Speaker 1: Panama song the whole time they're drinking Kabba wabbo in

1506
01:22:51,360 --> 01:22:57,800
Speaker 1: honor of Adam Noyman. Well, I'm Robert. This is my podcast.

1507
01:22:57,960 --> 01:22:59,640
Speaker 1: You're listening to it, so you know what it is.

1508
01:22:59,720 --> 01:23:01,960
Speaker 1: You can find the sources on behind the Bastards dot com.

1509
01:23:02,000 --> 01:23:03,599
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram and at

1510
01:23:03,600 --> 01:23:05,559
Speaker 1: bastard pot. You can find me on Twitter at I

1511
01:23:05,720 --> 01:23:08,559
Speaker 1: Right Okay, And you can find love in your heart

1512
01:23:09,200 --> 01:23:12,519
Speaker 1: anywhere you also find a dollar because capitalism, my friends,

1513
01:23:13,040 --> 01:23:16,360
Speaker 1: is the essence of love. And that's you know, we're

1514
01:23:16,360 --> 01:23:20,600
Speaker 1: going to write out on h