Remember Adam Neumann, the founder and former CEO of WeWork? The one surrounded by controversy over his leadership and self-dealing who left the company with a massive payout amid a failed IPO?
Yep, he’s back.
We know, we know, we just did this a few months ago when he raised a ton of money for his blockchain-based carbon credit company, Flowcarbon.
We haven’t heard much about that recently, but this time he’s coming to a home near you with his new residential real estate company called “Flow.” 🏘️
The company’s website offers little details except that it should launch in 2023. However, The New York Times says that Flow is “effectively a service that landlords can team up with for their properties, somewhat similar to the way an owner of a hotel might contract with a branded hotel chain to operate the company.”
While the business is more or less still at the idea stage, it just received $350 million in funding from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. 💰
The firm outlined in a blog post its thesis for its largest single-check investment ever, focusing on the ongoing housing crisis and Adam Neumann’s past success in transforming the real estate space.
Regarding the investment in Neumann, the blog post essentially says that his efforts at WeWork were largely underappreciated and that the firm loves “seeing repeat-founders build on past successes by growing from lessons learned.”
That’s certainly one way to put it.
We’ll have to see if this time is different, but the massive raise ruffled a lot of people’s feathers today (and rightfully so). 😤
Finally, to add to the lols, the cryptocurrency $FLOW shot up on the news. I guess the algorithmic traders’ systems haven’t quite figured out how to differentiate between ticker symbols just yet.
Another win for the efficient-market hypothesis and another saga to watch in the years ahead. 🤷♂️