WeWork's new Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure on Wednesday defended huge payouts to the office-sharing company's founder Adam Neumann and said there is now "zero risk of the company going bankrupt," according to an audio recording of a meeting he held with employees that was reviewed by Reuters.
"There's a level of gratefulness that we're going to have for Adam, because he's the one who built this business," Claure said. "I think I've run out of words to describe what's been going on from surreal to crazy to unbelievable to...bonkers," McKelvey said. Investors also questioned both whether its business model was sustainable given big losses it was suffering and the way that Neumann was running the company, triggering his resignation as CEO.
And that meant deciding which of the markets around the world "makes sense for us to be in, which market doesn't," he said. According to its website, WeWork has 856 office sites in 123 cities that are open or about to open.