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<b><i>WALL STREET JOURNAL </i>BESTSELLER • <b>A <i>FINANCIAL TIMES, FORTUNE,</i> AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR •</b> “The riveting, definitive account of WeWork, one of the wildest business stories of our time.”—Matt Levine, Money Stuff columnist, Bloomberg Opinion<br></b> <br><b>The definitive story of the rise and fall of WeWork (also</b> <b>depicted in the upcoming Apple TV+ series <i>WeCrashed,</i> starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway), by the real-life journalists whose <i>Wall Street Journal</i> reporting rocked the company and exposed a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation.</b>  <br><br><b>LONGLISTED FOR THE <i>FINANCIAL TIMES</i> AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD</b><br><br>WeWork would be worth $10 trillion, more than any other company in the world. It wasn’t just an office space provider. It was a tech company—an AI startup, even. Its WeGrow schools and WeLive residences would revolutionize education and housing. One day, mused founder Adam Neumann, a Middle East peace accord would be signed in a WeWork. The company might help colonize Mars. And Neumann would become the world’s first trillionaire.<br> <br>This was the vision of Neumann and his primary cheerleader, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In hindsight, their ambition for the company, whose primary business was subletting desks in slickly designed offices, seems like madness. Why did so many intelligent people—from venture capitalists to Wall Street elite—fall for the hype? And how did WeWork go so wrong?<br> <br>In little more than a decade, Neumann transformed himself from a struggling baby clothes salesman into the charismatic, hard-partying CEO of a company worth $47 billion—on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the six-foot-five Israeli transplant looked the part of a messianic truth teller. Investors swooned, and billions poured in.<br> <br>Neumann dined with the CEOs of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, entertaining a parade of power brokers desperate