Billion Dollar Loser
by Reeves Wiedeman · first published 2020
9mentions
6recommended by
7HN commenters
2021–2025first – last mentioned
86% recommend14% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Narrative account of WeWork's rise and fall under Adam Neumann, covering how the company grew and how it treated employees; a good read for anyone curious about startup hype and corporate failure.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Hatching Twitter - Nick Bilton Bad Blood - John Carreyrou How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story - Billy Gallagher Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork - Reeves Wiedeman Whistleblower: My Unlikely Journey to Silicon Valley and Speaking Out Against Injustice - Susan Fowler Uncanny Valley…
on “Ask HN: Books on the inside stories of big tech?” ↗Good idea. * "Billion Dollar Loser" by Reeves Wiedeman (WeWork) * "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou (Theranos) * "Losing My Virginity" by Richard Branson (his failed projects) * "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗…Blood by John Carreyrou - Theranos scandal. 76. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson - Memoir and business insights. 77. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - Leadership lessons. 78. Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman - WeWork's rise and fall. 79. Tuxedo Park - Invention of radar during WWII. 80. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography.
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗I actually read Billion Dollar Loser this year, and the show is dead on. The book has more WTF moments in it, but the show's S-1 fiasco was juicer, if I remember correctly.
on “The great VC pullback of 2022” ↗I just finished reading Billion Dollar Loser and I think you might like it.
on “How People Get Rich Now” ↗I suggest reading Billion Dollar Loser to see how WeWork abused its employees.
on “WeWork and Adam Neumann: Scam or Genius? 5 Lessons Learned” ↗I have been reading Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman. That out of touch quality that seemed to permeate WeWork was seemingly there from the beginning, courtesy of Adam Neumann. To say that he comes off looking delusional is being kind.
on “Stripe announces new round of funding and plan to provide employee liquidity” ↗I have a dumb question. How common are political chat rooms at companies? When I read books like Billion Dollar Loser, it sounds like lots of tech companies encourage employees to have semi-public discussions via Slack on company time about things completely unrelated to work. I work for a tech company and I can't imagine…
on “Changes at Basecamp” ↗It's pretty faithful to the book - Billion Dollar Loser. The phrase is "unique leadership style", which is a euphemism for "that guy has no idea what he is doing".
on “WeWork's former CEO has a new startup, reportedly valued at more than $1B” ↗