Maybe WeWork Is Just a Real Estate Business
Adam Neumann is the coworking company's chief executive, as well as a landlord who owns multiple properties that WeWork leases.
*He's also the landlord.
Photographer: Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images North AmericaThis post originally appeared in Money Stuff.
There is something a little odd about WeWork Cos.’ business model. WeWork rents office space to businesses. Other firms compete with WeWork to rent office space to businesses: They are called real estate companies, and they own office buildings, and they rent out slices of those buildings—some number of floors for some number of years—to businesses. WeWork is different, though: It rents buildings, or slices of buildings, itself, and then slices those slices further and rents the sub-slices—some number of desks for some number of months, or whatever—to businesses. Rather than owning buildings and renting them to tenants, WeWork is itself a tenant and rents to sub-tenants. It is a middleman.