Adam Neumann

[Music] I was born in Israel. I moved 13 times. I'm moving from place to place. I always found myself in a new community. Being the new kid in every community means you have no friends on a first day. I would always be attracted to the other kids who had no friends and my goal in life is to be to make the uncool kids cool. We take about a few months then we would all become friends and we would move to the next destination and I did that literally 13 times in my childhood. The place I lived the most was in the kibbutz. For people who don't know what the kibbutz is, there used to be hundreds of them in Israel. It was a version of a community where every person had a different job but everybody earned the same amount of money and had access to the same amount of resources. Everybody had the same house. I happened to have just gotten a chance to go to the house. I lived in the kibbutz. I didn't remember how small it was. The entire house, bedroom, kitchen and children's room. My sister and I shared a room. It was 450 square feet and I don't fit in the door. I was told there but when I went the kibbutz was like, "Oh wow!" The door doesn't fit. Your sister older and younger. The younger sister, three years younger. What was your relationship like? Growing up separate from moving from place to place, which means I had to be very close. When I was about eight, my parents got a divorce. After my parents got a divorce, we moved to the US. My parents are both doctors. We moved to the US for two years because my mother had to fellow. She's a oncologist. She followed an Indianaian police. I was a teacher for two years. I went to pre-seers games and in the 500. That's where I learned how to speak English because I'm very dyslexic. For very dyslexic people, one of the toughest things in New Language. I remember all those people said, "How dyslexic are you?" I would say, "When we move to Indiana, I ask my mom when I want to school the first day. I say, "Why are you going to do it? How am I going to order food?" There's a cafeteria. I don't know any words in English. She said, "Say peanut butter and gel." I learned peanut butter and jelly. For the next two months, every day, I wait in line and everybody gets there and they order the hamburgers and their fries and their chicken nuggets. I can say, "Penet butter and jelly." One day after two months, I was like, "I can't eat one more peanut butter and jelly." I had the courage and I said the word "hotdog." From there, I started learning. That was the two years. At this stage, my parents are divorced. It's my mom, my sister and I. We're living alone in the US. As we go back to Israel, my mother wanted us to have a special experience. That's how we got to the keyboards. In the keyboards, because everybody has a job, she was the doctor at night. In return for her being the doctor at night, we got the place to live. She worked the whole day in the hospital and then at night she was the doctor. The reason the keyboards for me so relevant, closed my life with a lot of ups and downs and a lot of different challenges. The first time that I felt safe was in that community. My mother, many years after was diagnosed as bipolar and growing up, the patients were always the most important. I think it taught me a lot because she was too careful over patients so beautifully. When she would come home, there was less patients for us. There would be a lot of fighting and screaming and hitting and things flying. A lot of things would occur. I remember that no matter how bad the night was, there were always three neighbors checking on me. There were always friends that I could go to. No one ever judged me. Everything was always open. I always felt like I was part of it. That feeling of safety is something that not only stayed with me wherever I went into the world. I sort of find myself bringing people together. When I moved to the US, which was actually following my sister, so my sister left Israel and she was 16. She was missing in age Israel. She moved to the US. She became a very successful model. When I finished the army, I moved to the US four days later and I lived with my sister. From the first day that we're sharing an apartment together, this was right after September 11, a month later and we lived very close to where it happened because that's where you got the money from the government. That was the most affordable thing we could do. I remember going up and down that elevator and was so surprised that in America people don't introduce themselves. I would see the same neighbors every day. No one says hello. Until after a month, my sister's name is Adi. She was like, what do we do? Experiment. Let's introduce ourselves to everybody. In a month, we're going to throw a party on the roof. There was a shared roof. That party, we'll see who comes and we did it. We threw the party and have the building came and the energy in that building changed. It was very obvious for me that this thing that I cherish the skibuts energy is something that we could bring to the United States in a form of a business. This is now 2007. I've had three failed businesses by this point. Two fashion businesses and a baby closing business called Crawlers, baby friends with knee pads on them to protect the baby's knee. Good idea. At the time, I thought today being the father of six kids, no one ever complained about the knees. I actually think they've extra skin and they're built for it. But the universe started that one. But by this stage, I'm already after my third business and I meet Rebecca. When I meet Rebecca, the first date, first time we met, I don't even remember what we ate, but I was waiting for her to put out her credit card so I can put out my credit card so we could split the bill. We do that twice and the third time she goes out of them, you know, in America, it is okay. You could offer to pay for the meal. I don't have to say yes, but you could offer. And I said, no, I'm an entrepreneur. My money is in the business. She goes, I don't know what kind of entrepreneur you are, but if you're a man is in the business that you can't invite someone for a meal, you might not be a great one. And it's interesting because I think it was the first time someone talked to me that way. And I found that not only intriguing, I was like, wow. And I said, no, you don't understand how business works. And she was like, maybe you don't understand how business works. And that kind of discussion very quickly became a very passionate relationship three months from the moment we met I proposed. Wow. And after we were together, she one day, it was two o'clock at night. I was talking to the Chinese manufacturers of the baby closing. I was screaming at Mr. Mao, Mr. Mao, Mr. Mao, Mr. Mao. And she woke up there when she said, if you wake me up one more time, screaming at your Chinese manufacturer for a company that makes no sense and it's probably never going to make any money, it's really going to be an issue. And I was like, what do you mean? This is my business. And she goes, what do you know about babies? What do you know about fashion? Why is this your business? And again, this was what's so interesting about a relationship and said, well, because I like being challenged. I said, well, what do you think my business should be? And she said, it should be something you're very passionate about. It should be something that you think can actually make a positive difference. And you should be so excited to jump out of bed that everybody wants to join you. So I said to her, well, do you have an idea of what that business might be? And she said, no, but I can't tell you one observation I have about you. You love real estate. So I don't know anything about real estate. Said, well, when you and I walk down the street, some men, they look at many things that cross by their way, their eyes wander. Your eyes look up. You're always looking at buildings. And again, I listened. And the next morning I walked and I noticed that I'm looking at buildings. And from that moment, I just started getting preoccupied in the sponsor of community and buildings. And very soon after this landlord in Brooklyn, out of nowhere, says to me, he starts talking about my baby clothing business and tells me how horrible it is. And I said, and I said, Mr. Gatman, I said, Mr. Gatman, why would you say my business is so bad? Said Adam, I have nine children. My wife loves buying baby clothes. She's not one spot from your store. I don't think you're even going to pay me rent next month. I said, Mr. Gatman, how much real estate do you own? He says, everything. As far as the eye can see. And I said, well, it looks empty to me. You don't know a lot about real estate. And we would go back and forth for six months. Till one day he goes, takes me upstairs to one of his buildings, said Adam, what would you do? I gave you this floor. I read this in your book. I think sometimes people think ideas come after thinking deeply for many years and coming up with that perfect idea. It came on the spot instantaneously, which made me know that it's not mine. I think when you take your time, maybe you think you own it. When it comes out of nowhere, you could give it it's bigger than you. Came from something bigger than me. I said, well, Mr. Gatman, I'm a small business owner and I pay you a lot of rent, but I only have five people. I would love a small space that fits the five people with some shared services. A receptionist and everything in between. Your floor makes you charge five thousand dollars in rent. We'll charge a thousand dollars of space. I think we can fit 15 spaces. We'll get 15,000. We'll pay the receptionist to twenty five hundred dollars. You'll get seventy five hundred. I'll keep the difference. He said interesting and I went home, not thinking anything about it. I come the next day. He calls me so excited. He said, Adam, why do one floor? If we have a whole building, we'll put the receptionist downstairs, we'll save the cost, we'll fill up the whole building. I'll get this much. You'll get the difference. I said, great idea. The next day I went to Miguel, my Calvary, who was in my co-founder at the time, is an architect. I do it all architect. In one night, the business, the business cards, everything gets created. It was called Green Desk. It's early moving. on the environmental movement. And it was a green-shared office space. The back-then-co-working was not the concept that loved people knew. And the launch was May of 2008. - And you weren't aware of co-working before the idea? - Interesting question. At the time I go to Baruch College, I actually had a person sitting next to me, a woman who was older. And her son had some version of co-working but was very different than this. And did not have a brand behind, had no purpose. It was just, let's split space. And we actually had an entrepreneur through competition. And she joined me to the competition. So those are the stories of our son and our concept was called concept living. And was the building on an office space with shared services. It was flow at a long, long, long, long time ago. We never made it even to the second stage of the competition because the dean of the business called told me that you can disrupt real estate. It's too big so the idea doesn't make sense. So I heard about the idea. I was never, I wasn't aware of it. It is something that brings to people together. I never thought about it as the place where that same community, that same kibbutz that as a child made me safe would make others. And I think the timing, which is another thing in life, was perfect because it was after the crash of '08 because people were getting fired, because people were changing their life and changing what they were doing. It was a perfect time to start that business. And I remember our partner told me, Adam, the business is not gonna succeed. And I said, why? He said, 'cause real estate always goes down when the economy goes down. I said, well, this is not real estate. It's gonna be counter-cyclical. More people are gonna wanna be here. More people are gonna, 'cause when people have the courage to start something new. And we started in May 2008 and it just took off. It was positive cash flow. - How did it start? - We put five ads in Craigslist. - No money for marketing. - Record marketing. - Five ads. The first flow was 92% full within five business days. What did the ads say? - Wow, probably, I'm gonna have to check. But probably something to the tone of green communal shared workspace, something like that, something simple. - And it happened right away. - It filled up immediately. It was instant success. It went from three businesses that didn't succeed to immediately hitting. It was so successful that, again, the landlord who was not used to investing any money came the next week and said, "We see my idea is so good, I said yes." Mr. Godwin, your idea is the best. And he said to me, "Let's open the other floor and as fast as we would build in 30 days, we would finish a floor as fast as we finished it, it would fill up then another floor, and another floor, and another floor." And at the same time, I'm starting my spiritual journey because Rebecca immediately, the woman's success, is starting. He's noticing that this thing that drove me this community. Suddenly, something is competing with it, that success. Money was starting to sip and it was tiny, little money. But it was, she felt that this is a great time to start a spiritual practice. - So you were not spiritual growing up? - So I don't know, and you would be a better person. What do you consider spiritual? - A meditation practice, praying, going to a temple or church, a regular basis. I would say that would be spiritual. - So based on your definition, I was extremely not spiritual. I did none of that. - You didn't practice anything. - Didn't practice anything. - Were you a believer? - So you spoke about my sister. I think if she was here, she would say, but at night, when we were having those difficult nights after all the craziness that would occur at home, I would tell her stories about how we're gonna be very successful one day in the future, and how we're not gonna have these issues, and how it's all gonna work out great. So I always had this very optimistic view, no matter how tough it was, had a feeling that things will work out in a very positively. - So you were optimistic, but maybe you wouldn't use the word spiritual. - No, I 100% would not use the word spiritual. I was not spiritual. I was very optimistic. I would say the only thing that was spiritual about me would have been my optimism. (beeping) (upbeat music) - As nutrition science advanced through the mid 20th century, researchers began to understand that modern eating patterns, limited variety, processed foods and time constraints could leave small but meaningful gaps in daily micronutrient intake. Today, large population studies confirmed that approximately 90% of adults fall short on one or more essential vitamins or minerals. A.G.1 was formulated in response to those findings. 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It's no wonder A.G.1 is trusted by the world's top athletes and experts. What was once a futuristic concept? Daily nutritional support in a glass is now the result of applied science. Learn more at drinkag1.com/HETTAPE Do it today. Tell me more about the kabuts. Would you feel like the other people in the kabuts were like an extended family or no? So as we said, they entered 13 communities in childhood. The toughest community to enter was the kibbutz. The kids that are growing up, sleep in the same house, and only go sleep with their parents on the weekend. This is an old-fashioned thing that doesn't exist anymore. But that's how they grew up. Back in the day, the most successful leaders in Israel grew up in these kibbutzes. It was a very successful social movement. But it worked for the first generation. When the second generation, their kids not so much, and by the third generation, the whole thing collapsed. Funny enough, lately, there's a little bit of a movement back to it today in the world that will live when people are so digitally connected, actually think there's a much deeper craving for it. So when I was in the kibbutz, I think everybody felt this way. And I think even though I was an outsider because I wasn't the kid that grew up there, they took care of me really well. And again, my mother was an unbelievable doctor. So she was taking care of everybody. We had a challenge because she was a single mom and she was dealing with her own challenges or personal, which again, back then as a child, I could have complained a lot about it. But today, it's what made me who I am. I'm so grateful for every single moment we spent together. So I think everybody in the kibbutz felt that way. I left the kibbutz at the 11th grade. I lived there for five years. It was the place that shaped me and the place that I lived the longest. You know, when we lived in the kibbutz, how sure a few things are different. I think we can learn so much today from the past. In our kibbutz one day a week, there was no school. Everybody volunteered and worked at the job. Interesting thought. In our kibbutz, every morning, we all went to the dining hall to have breakfast. It was so come in, I loved breakfast. There was nothing there, by the way. Bread, a little bit of Nutella, but it wasn't called Nutella and a little bit of gringies. And maybe some eggs. I was such a great way to start the day and all the kids would come. No parents. All the kids are together. This is now 5th grade, 6th grade. All the kids are together and we're talking and we're excited and we're going to this. And everybody goes to the bus and from the bus to school. And most of us were not wearing shoes. Not on the bus, not in breakfast, not in the school. Which then I kept going, which over time some people thought was interesting. I was wearing shoes. Yeah, how did you meet Rebecca? I have the best friends and his name is Andrew Finkelstein. That same party that I told you about that my sister and I threw on the roof for wanting to invite everybody from the building. Yes. Andrew's girlfriend Rachel came and met me. And we spoke for a little bit. And then she said, maybe she'll come hang out afterwards in our apartment. She goes downstairs to her boyfriend who lives with her and said, I just met this Israeli. He has a very, very accident. Invited me to hang out in his apartment. He goes, oh, the Israeli invited you to hang out in his apartment. I am coming. And 20 minutes later and now on the door, I opened the door back then I didn't use to wear shirts a lot. And I opened the door and she tells this story. And I'm like, without my shirt, all being very, he calls me very uratrash is the way he would refer to it whatever that means. And he starts making fun of me. Oh, he told my girlfriend this and this. And for every word he tells me, I give him back two words. We go back and forth before we know it. We're hanging out until 2 a.m. Playing video games. We forgot about his girlfriend about anything. And we become best friends instantaneously. For the rest of the time. the next two years, we just hang out together. He is in between finishing college. He's very famous to have done six years of college 'cause he really liked it. And he's not getting a job yet. He was selling tickets. And he would just hang out. I would come back from school and we would hang out. I love my work. All the stuff I needed to do, their English, the this, that that would help me write my papers and stuff. Again, it's a new language for me. And he would hang out. And for him, it was very important that I understand the American culture. And he's my age, 46, he's 48. And for him, American culture was AD's movies. He loved movies. And he just, have you ever seen breakfast club? No, boom. Have you ever seen, and he would take me through every single AD's movies that he grew up on. And teach me about American culture. And I found it fascinating. And we would hang out and learn, go out. And at the same time, at these in New York City, she's a model. So every night going to different places or having the time of our lives. And keeps always telling me that he had this friend, Rebecca, who was his best friend or one of his close friends from Cornell University, but she lives in Los Angeles. And one day he tells me, I'm going to move to LA. And all the time, he wanted to be a movie agent. I'm going to go, I'm going to become to be an agent. Rebecca got me my first job. I'm going to sleep on the couch. And he moves to LA. And I've never met Rebecca at the sport. And he starts his career. He's a very successful Hollywood agent today. And always tells me about Rebecca. And from her side, always tells me about the crazy Israeli. Never introduces us. Then, two years later, I'm now at this stage. I'm 28. Rebecca is moving back from LA to New York and is introducing us on phone. Today, if you want to meet someone cool, you're two cool friends of mine. I'm introducing you. And I remember that first phone call because I was standing in Rebecca. Anything you need in New York, I can help you get. She was born there. And like, it was this idiot of her. She was going out to Klausner. She was 14. And that was that. And a week later, she just out of nowhere calls and says, hey, if you want to hang out, I mean, my friend are hanging out. You can come and say hello. And I do that. And I go at the time I have no money. I ride my bicycle. I go to that first meeting. I walk into her apartment. She's with a friend. We talk for a few minutes. And then she tells the friend she can go. And it was just an instant connection. And you really knew her for years. But you'd never met her. Never knew how she looked, never saw a picture. Yeah, I never spoke to her before. Never spoke just that one time. Yeah. New of her. But again, the thing that got me that first time we met. And I think there's a lot to learn from this. It was like she put a mirror in front of my face and said the truth. Not caring. I think one of her superpowers is how authentic she is. She just looked at me. And within a few minutes, she was like, wow, you talk big and you don't have anything. And she goes, the way you're talking, it's like you're so successful. And I can literally tell that you broke. So it's a little ridiculous. Like how do you know my bank account? And she goes, you just came to meet me for the first time. You couldn't even shower, then take an attack seat. You drove your bicycle. You probably couldn't afford a taxi. And it was true. It was so true. And it was just instantaneous. And you hit it off right away. We hit it off immediately. It was right after I broke up from a girlfriend and after the second day I came back and I said to her, look, you're amazing. But I just broke up from a girlfriend. I had this plan to sort of be made around town for a second. And so I'm just letting you know that I'm not, and this is again, this is her strength. She goes, really, I said, really? She goes, no problem. Come back when you're ready. But I don't want to hang out until then. I was like, okay. Wow. And I go for two, three days. And I was like, that was weird. Why would you miss that? Why would you want to hang out with me? And five days later I call her and I was like, hey, what are you doing on Sunday? She goes, I'm going to my father's day, something, something. Not intending for me to say anything 'cause it's father's day in a very American thing. And we talked a little bit more. She's just being polite. She said, do you want to come? Sure, I'm not going to say yes. I said, of course. She tells me many years later that she never thought I would want to come to her father's day. A activity, and I just, we hang out and we go to her father's day. I meet her entire family. And I sort of move in the next day. And I never leave. So tell me about her invitation for you to find your spirituality. So we're hanging out. I never leave. We're a month into it. And she comes home one day. I'm working at my baby clothing company at the time doing two million in sales and three million in expenses. So we're just losing money, rolling it, making ends meet, making things come together. She comes to me and she goes, how things gonna work out between us? This is now a month in and I'm head over heels. Does I think you say here? And I said, well, it's not going to work out between us. She goes, I think the man that I'm going to be with is going to have a spiritual practice. It's very important for me in my life. And you really don't have one. And I don't think you're interested in one. And therefore, I don't think it's going to work out. But it's OK. You're going to do great. And very good looking. A lot of girls are going to be interested. Don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. Like, wait, wait, wait. How would someone go around having a spiritual practice? She goes, well, some people do yoga, some people meditate, some people pray. There are many different ways for many different people. I said, well, what do you think a good one for me would be? Well, you're our Jewish. There's this thing called Kabbalah. Why don't you explore that? It's the mysticism of Judaism. You'll like it because Shino is very anti-religious. Anything religious being Israeli, a lot of people don't know this. You don't like religious. If it's forced on you and it's religious, you walk the other way. You want to choose. I didn't know that at all. People don't know that. That's a lot of this. There's stories from the outside that we're here and there's what actually happens. There's a big divide in Israel who turned religious and not religious. Tell me about that. It's a big topic. But on a very high level, growing up the way I grew up, when we're 18, we serve in the army. We go and get whatever jobs we get. We pray our taxes. We do what we think is our civil responsibility. Remember serving from age 18 to age 21, in my case, still almost 23, I almost did five years because I was a Navy officer. Serving at such a young age, I think is such an important thing. Because it's exactly the age where you really just want to take care of yourself and have fun and party and do whatever it is that 18-year-olds really want to do. And by being forced to serve, already gives you a different take about life. There's an extra responsibility. Extremely. Depends what your position in the army is. I was specifically a Navy officer. I did at age 21 within the US. They do at age 28. What takes your age? Because they have less money. And they need to get things. You have tremendous responsibilities. But even if you're a soldier working, you have huge responsibilities. And there's many, many lessons I learned there. One of my biggest lessons was, before you become a great leader, you must know how to follow orders. If you don't know how to be a soldier, if you don't know how to do the basic-- be a general, if you haven't been a good soldier. You can't. You can be an OK general or OK leader. Because you need to understand what it's like to get information given to you. One, but I also think because you need to learn that you're not in control. And when you always think you're in control, you never let go. And when you don't let go, when is the universe going to get a chance to come in? I actually think, you know, I have acupuncturist, who tells this great story. He goes to Mexico. There's this hot water river. And there's a pool that fills up every day in the morning and let everybody bathe in it. And then they empty it at night. He wakes up early for his meditation and he sees the guy cleaning the pool with a mop. Moving around like Tai Chi, he literally, it looks like it's movements from a master martial arts. And he brings an interpreter and it goes to that guy. And he says, excuse me, it looks to me like doing martial arts, but you're cleaning the pool. What are you doing? He said, I'm doing what my father taught me. And he said, what did your father used to do? He said, he used to clean this pool. And who taught your father? He said, his father, my grandfather. And he used to clean this pool. This pool is healing for people. We take every move that we make in this pool as an art. And we've practiced it for our entire life. You could take something as simple as cleaning a pool and view it as your spiritual practice and something that's in the service of others. Our view it as a horrible chore and be very busy complaining. Beautiful story. That's what you learn in the army. If you want to or not and someone with my characteristic, it's a must. 'Cause if you look at me before and after, I was still not in a great place after. But the me before and the me after to different things. How would you describe you before and you after? You know, maybe fours, I grew up in this keyboard, we did whatever we wanted. We were part of this community. We didn't wear shoes. We just enjoyed every second of life. And we were just looking for more ways to have fun. It's not that we didn't have responsibilities we did, but it was all about the community of children and coming together. It was like a story book of what kids can do to have fun. And that's what was one piece of it. And the other piece of it was the challenges at home and all the different things. And sort of in between school was not a big deal. I would most classrooms, most days, teachers would literally walk into the classroom. Adam leave. Okay, now we can start the class. And I would start wondering the education there was not a perfect fit for me. Me after, I knew that when I am part of a team, if I can get the team to follow or to partner with me, there is not many things I couldn't achieve. With that energy I arrive into the US. This is after September 11th, so there's just a horrible terrorist attack. [BLANK_AUDIO] If you remember, the time is changing. It was the New York before and the New York after I actually think New York had a golden era. Afterwards, for 10 years, at least, and for what I've understood and my experience, people from all over the world are coming to New York. And it's always at the back of my mind to start that I could basically do anything I put my mind to, as long as I can get a team to believe in it and join. The problem at that point is I have all that knowledge, but I have no spirituality. I have no purpose. So when you take a person that's capable of doing that, but you don't give them a purpose, I think that's where trouble comes. Now Rebecca, who is literally just starting with me, is seeing the potential and articulates the potential, but says, without a purpose, you're not the man for me. And I really wanted to be the man for her. So she takes me to this first Kabbalah class and without getting into the-- - I've really been doing Kabbalah or no. - She was doing Kabbalah once a week, but not as a practice saying, not with any rigiliosity. I would really separate me. Sometimes people say, "Adam, are you religious? Or are you spiritual?" And I say, "Spiritual." And I say, "How do you define?" I say, "So I keep Shabbat." And-- - When did that start? - 10 years ago, which is four years into it. But I'll go back to that first Kabbalah class. I go to that first Kabbalah class to prove to this woman I just met that I can do anything. - I know he's gonna say, "She's not gonna say, "I'm not the man for her. "Maybe she's not the woman for me." You don't break up with me. I break up with you. Do you know who I am? My sister is a model. I was an idiot. I was an actual idiot. And I go to this class and this woman is teaching and to teach the lesson was a very basic one. When a challenge happens in your life, instead of reacting, take a deep breath, stop and then you say, "Pause, what a wonder." Then interact again. - So no need your reaction. - No need your reaction. Take a breath, let the universe come in or new language, hone that antenna and let it receive for a second. There's a certain speed that this travels in. And then-- and those are the class. - Class ends, I'm like whatever, but I still wanna prove that. So I go and talk to the-- I'm gonna ask this teacher, someone, something and show her. And I ask the teacher something and this one is a very wise teacher. She takes her book, she gives it to me, she says Adam, I write notes on the side of my books. Take a look, your answer is there. Bring it to me last week. I think, oh, I'm gonna show Rebecca, I took her teacher's book. Meanwhile I go outside, I look at the book, the class ends on like, oh my God, this teacher tricked me. Oh, I gotta come back next week and give that this book. I'm not gonna not return the book. And the next day I go back into my baby clothing business, that was genuinely not succeeding. And I had the saleswoman who was very powerful, but we argued every day and she gets at it again. And this is something that I think people don't know about me. Everyone I look like I'm not listening, I always hear. And when I think what I learned could be beneficial, I'll try it at least once. No matter what, I'll try it once. So I pause, I take a deep breath, and a different reaction comes to my head and I try it. And the saleswoman who's so quick to anger, suddenly she's passing, what is beautiful dialogue? And we come up with a new idea of how to do something. - Wow. - We execute our time, first time. You know the book, the alchemist? - Yes. - He talks about beginner's luck. I think when we start practicing spirituality, first time it's beautiful. I encourage everybody to give it a shot and see if it works. And if it works, then we can go, then we can go to the next level. And it works and I love things that work. And I come there the next week and now I'm hungry. Now I'm spiritually hungry. Now I want more. 'Cause it already changed your life. - It already worked. I wouldn't say yet that I don't recognize at this point that it already changed. It's the biggest moments of our life. I change our life. Most of us don't know that that's what's happening. And this is why no matter what moment you're going through right now, even if you think you're going right this second through your worst moment, you might not know that the darkest moment of the night is a second before dawn. - Yes. - And if you just pause and have a little more patience and keep pursuing, don't quit. The light will be revealed. - Let's see what the next scene in the movie is. - The movie is great. I just don't know how. - Yeah. - It's a divine movie by the way. It was written by the best director, writer and producer. And you know who the star is? We are. Are we going to be a tragedy? Are we going to be a success? Are we going to be up and down? Are we going to learn from our lessons? Are we actually going to curl below our blanket? And all know this happened. And now I'm not going to go back out. That's how Rebecca introduced me to it. And I just drank it like it was from the fire. I was just intrigued. And the moment that started, things started to collect being in a flow state. Once I hit that flow state, things started moving fast. That led to green desk, led to rework, led to our first child, led to everything brought us all the way here today. And it only started with one class and one teacher and one sentence. - And then you started going every week? - Then I started going over it. Well, again, this is me. When I see something that works, I actually do more than once a week. It started once a week. It became two times a week. Then it became three times a week. And then at the same time that this is happening, my life is changing so fast. I'm at this stage. I meet Rebecca 28. I'm now 31, 32. I'm having my first daughter. That's a miracle. We're starting to have that experience. And then we're launching we work. So we said that we had a business green desk and this landlord kept growing and growing. And after a few months, I saw that this business could be a national business. And I go to him, Mr. Gatman. If you invest in us, the number is $20 million. We will give you 50% of the business. And we will build this thing national. And Mr. Gatman said, I'm sorry. It's not for me. I like Brooklyn. But if that's what you guys want, and there's actually a deeper story there, but maybe for another time. If that's what you guys want, then I encourage you to go for it. I will buy you guys out. And you guys run with it. And we agree on a number. But he wants to pay the entire number up front. He's only willing, it's the number is $3 million. We own 50% with another partner, so a million and a half, we get a million. It is only willing to give us $300,000 over a million. The rest is installments for the next four years to ensure that we don't enter Brooklyn with our new business. So we don't compete. He just wants Brooklyn. By the way, back there, no Brooklyn, no big deal. Well, Brooklyn became quite a big deal. He wanted Brooklyn. And he grow the company in Brooklyn as well. It still exists and is successful. So he has to grow it, but not with the concept of community and the soul behind it. But it still exists today and it's still successful today. And co-working is a successful business today. And this was the beginning, this was the seed. And what's interesting is when we come to start, we work, so then Miguel and I want to start, we work. And we did take six months to come up with the name. So we knew we had an amazing business. I knew this business was a home run. I felt it. It was right. And you really experienced a lesser version of it. This was how to hire intention in the first business. 100% true. This one had time to put thought. And this one had Miguel and I sitting with a whiteboard for six months, planning it. We used to draw a picture of what we would do nine years into it. It was very similar to that initial picture that we draw. Wow. I will send it to you so you see it. It's a beautiful picture. But the name's not there. And I'm not willing to start the business because by this stage in my spiritual practice, I know the power of words. And I need the name that describes this vision. And I can't come up with it. And one thing we didn't say about my friend Andrew Finkelstein, who introduces me to Rebecca. When we fall in love and I call and tell him, we're going to marry each other. He stopped stalking to us for three months. He had a relationship. Nothing to do between him and Rebecca. He was so upset because he knew the Adam. He knew was the Adam that used to party a lot and go over and be-- I used to hang out a lot. Yeah. And Rebecca was his close friend that he was so worried about. And he thought she was some innocent lamb and I was the wolf. And he didn't want the wolf to get close to his close friend. So he called Rebecca and said, "All the-- whatever worst things he could say about me." Wow. And there's a lesson there also. Because if you call someone and tell them I should be with someone, then they get really interested. But we loved it. It was true. I told him it was true. He just didn't believe it was true. I'm a very loyal person. When I commit, I'm not at 99% committed. I am 102 fault. So Andrew ends up not talking to us for three months. But then again, becoming very close. And we never forgot that he introduced us. But instead of you somehow hurting her, she made you better. That's what happened. And I think for her, at the point she meets me, she was salabled for six years. She had aged 23. She was 29. She said that she's not going to go on this dating scene and this thing that everybody else doing. She told the universe. She used to-- so she's a yogi. She was meditating. She was jiffa mong tea. She was certified. And she would meditate. And she would tell the universe, send me my soulmate, or know on it all. She was zero interested. So at this point, she's six years in. So then she meets me. And she knew it. I knew it. And that's that. And then when it's time to launch the business, and I don't know the name, I call my old friend, Andrew, Finkelstein, but this point isn't Hollywood. His career is starting to take off, and he has and has always been an unbelievable agent, but he's also an amazing copywriter and speaker. And you know, Marty Supreme that just came out, he put together, he represents the director, he represented a lot, he didn't write and directed, he's the agent, but he helped it become a reality. I was there for the whole process. And I call him, he said, I need your help to come up with a name. And I go to his house and we hang out the way we used to hang out. And we are really, this is now 2am and we're about to, we're about to faint. And he looks at me and he literally goes, I wish we had a video of this, he looks like this. His eyes are like almost rolled back. He goes, "Steel jobs had it wrong. It's not iBook, I phone, me, me, me, it's we, we work, we give, we fly, we teach, we." And thanks. It's interesting also that you say it's a two in the morning, you're both exhausted. It's our exhausted. The point is, is that you weren't like in a strong place. The opposite. It was almost as if you were ready to give up. You were at the end. You let go. This is so accurate, Rick. We were so at the end, we were done and it wasn't going to happen. And he says it. And I look up at the universe, at this point, I'm already practicing more. I said, please, let me remember it in the morning. I wake up and I call me Gail. Straight mark, we work. Let's go. Boom. Amazing. But it reminds me. It just sets something I think very important. It reminds me of the story. Joseph in the Bible. He's born. He has all these dreams. It dreams his father and his mother and his brothers will buy bow to him and his brothers hate him for it. And they put him in the cave. They want to kill him. Then they decide to sell him. And no matter what happens, he looks up to the heavens and he says, it's God's will. The brothers sold me. Maybe it's my fault I didn't speak. They sell him. If you don't remember the story, they sell him. He moves his slavery. He becomes slaves to one of Pharaoh's right hand people. He then rises always, whatever what, he always says, bless. He says, God's will. And he rises. There is a slave. He starts running the house. Then the woman of the house, her name was Eshed Potifora. She really, she wants to sleep with them because he was defined as beautiful from the inn and from the out. It is very handsome, very smart. And she chases me. It doesn't want it. He runs away. The clothes gets ripped. Then she feels ashamed. She says he tries to rape her. He gets thrown into prison. And no matter what, God's will, God's will. That is, then in prison, climbs to the top. He's helping around the prisoners. God's will. Until after 10 years, those two people come to two ministers that have dreams. And interprets their dreams. One says Pharaoh will save you. And the other one says you will die in three days. And the one says Pharaoh will save you. He says to him on the way out, please don't forget me. He suddenly gives up the belief that he had until then that that it's God's will, God's will, God's will forget for a second. It says that he gets punished to stay two more years. Now he's 12 years in prison and he gets to the snot where he is done. He is ready to give up. He says, God, maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe I need to be in prison. I will never leave. He gives up and let's go and goes to his lowest point. And in his lowest point, and this I think is very important for us, when we're there and we all have a moment where in that lowest point we get to choose. Do you choose belief or don't you? And if you choose belief and are able to pick yourself up from that lowest point, that's when it happens. And the next second Pharaoh has his dreams, can't interpret them. The guy remembers him, this guy Joseph, this Hebrew slave says, I'm at the slave in prison that interpreted my dream, brings him to Pharaoh, interprets Pharaoh's dream and goes from a slave to basically the CEO of Egypt, the number two to the king in one day, all the way from here to that and to finish that story when his brothers, there's the famine, the seven bad years, they come and he saves his family. And when his brothers see him and they cry and they're so sorry for what we did to you, said to them, it was never you. I was here so we all could be saved. It's God's will. So I think what you're saying is not only true that in that moment that we let go. I also think it's the moment when we're at our lowest moment and we let go where we can choose to believe. Yeah, I think there's also something in that lowest moment where you're not doing the work. There's space like you said earlier, in your life you were talking a lot and you weren't listening. When you're working, a lot of times you're talking, talking, talking, talking and there's not the space. But when you run out of steam talking, eventually you're done and then there's space and it's quiet and then it can come through. And sometimes when we talk, I'll talk about myself, when I used to do it, I know I still do it, but I try to do it less. When I used to do it, I thought I was in control. When we think we're in control, that's when we really start losing the game. We're in control of our reaction to what happens. Not of actually what happens. And we never know what's going to happen next, really. We really don't know. The only thing we know is that it's part of that movie that you described before with the greatest director, writer, producer on the planet. And I'm always anxious to see what's the next scene, what's the next chapter. You know, the nice thing about what you said is if you're patient, you said anxious, but I bet you're also patient. Because if you're patient enough, the next chapter could be phenomenal. And I think there's no way to get to greatness without patience. I think there is no way to get to lasting greatness without patience. You could taste it, you could taste it. We all know so many stories. I've been part of one of those stories. You could taste it, but it's not going to last. I think if you want lasting blessings or lasting greatness, you need patience. You need to be aware that you're not in control. And you need to accept the fact that sometimes even though you don't know, and it's really, really scary, life is not about if you fell down. Life is only about how you get on. 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Athletic nicotine offers the lift you've been looking for. Learn more at athletic nicotine.com/tattro and experience next level performance with athletic nicotine. Warning, this product contains nicotine. nicotine is an addictive chemical. So you have the name and what happens next? It's miraculous. It's on fire. What's the first thing you do? I go and find a building on Lafayette and Grant. That wasn't that cool yet. From a landlord that didn't like to give any money and was very, it was like one of those very tight landlords. And I convince him to pay us enough to build it, had five floors. The idea was we'll rent the top floor and it will do so well. Then we'll rent the floor below the floor below the floor below. The reason you start in floor five, when you do construction afterwards, you're always doing below people and not above their head. Make nice noise was the thought. I convince him to do the deal but he is one thing. We must put $300,000 in a letter of credit otherwise we can't do it. The exact same $300,000 that we got from the sale that the partner was willing to give us before the installments. Dollar for dollar. Same amount. That same amount moves and I think that's how energy moves when you're in flow. That energy moves from that idea that was like you said the early to a slightly more intention oriented idea. Now it's there and we were on the construction. We do the first floor. We get a very small budget from him. It's amazing because never for the next nine years in the history of we work, can we build for that price that we built the first time? Why? Because we were constrained. Because constraints is the mother of all innovations. So it's what takes us to the next level. And we design it, we build it. I still remember the night before Miguel was about to have his first son. He gets overwhelmed the night before and where the fume players will go and finish it. And the place just, it fills up before, within a month. 99% full, next month, next floor, next floor, next floor, next floor. And that's the case for, and the first building is done. And we go to the building too. We have no money. We raise our first round. And that's where it starts. Where's building two? Building two is on 35th and 5th right in front of the Empire State Building. A literally right in front, which at the time was not considered a good location. But for me being an outsider in New York, I was always talking about, I can see the Empire State Building from the roof. It's beautiful. Yeah. Sometimes I've learned this a lot in life. The ones who know everything because they've been living in that market forever, actually might be limited. And for me coming from the outside, a fresh set of eyes on any situation, or I like to think of it more as a childlike. Yes. Look, Rebecca thinks she has seven children, not six me being the toughest one. Number seven. I look at life as a child for good or for bad, which allows me to see situations from the beginning. So that's building number two, and we raise our money from the first person, and we just start running. My third building is in meat packing. The same time also, as said, New York is happening in meat packing. It's starting to happen. There was a club called Lotus. We used to go there every Tuesday night. Daniel was at the door. And we just loved the meat packing. It was so, I don't know if you remember meat packing back then. It's so cool. The original restaurant before rent became expensive. It was such a great place to be. And I just wanted the building and the meat packing. Find the landlord that is impossible. We become friends. I understand him. He understands me. It also seems like as you have success, it's easier because you have examples. We're not there yet. Because this is same year, right? This is the early success. So it is success. But remember real estate people are very good at saying no. They know everything. They're businesses cyclical. So they've been there, done that. But at the same time, if you remember, you're now in 2010 office is only starting to be the rise. So there's all empty space which gives us an opportunity. So we do meat packing which is amazing. And I want to do San Francisco. And the reason I wanted to do San Francisco, I wanted to be a national brand. And my head was like, okay, we'll be national by being on two coasts. So three is the answer. And number four is San Francisco. How was the reaction in San Francisco? The concept of people wanting to be part of something greater than themselves. And wanting to be part of a community. And when you start business and you have one or two employees or by yourself, to go to the coffee machine and talk to someone. To need an accountant today, we'll talk about it later with AI. The world's different. But to need all this help and meet five different people around the coffee machine that can just, you can just talk to. To share the struggles and the successes with people in a like-minded place was relevant over the planet. It made tremendous amount of sense back then. The only time I would say it makes more sense is today. Because the more people are getting connected digitally, the less they are connected physically and the more they crave it. But back then it was unbelievable in San Francisco's answer. And then did you do more in San Francisco or did you spread out from that? Or I'm a little, this is where Adam back then is very busy doing push everything out. By the time I did San Francisco, I might have done one or two more buildings. I was ready to go global. I went in London. And people were like, Adam, you can go to London. So why it's the same language, similar accounting system, similar law? What's the big deal? Same website. What's the big deal? Like Adam, it's London. It's a different time zone. So from after doing a few buildings, I go to London. And what's interesting about London is the inventor of the original coworking, right? Regist. The original company that this is from the 80s, I believe, is there. So everybody was like, no, it's not going to work as well in London because it exists there. In my opinion, I feel it's stronger than today. When you go to a place where people know of a new concept, but you bring something innovative, you do even better than when you have to convince everybody about a new concept. So we then go to London and it goes really well. It's basically for the following five years, goes unbelievably well wherever you go. And just to give it weight from year one, doing one building in the first year. And you're too adding, I believe three, you go to a year nine, doing two buildings a day. In a two buildings a day. A day. Nine years. Two buildings a day. In 130 cities, 50 countries, five continents, 72 languages. And when I count today, I only count business days. So that's five days a week, not including holidays. So you do over 400 maybe, did a crazy amount in that last year. It's unbelievable. It was an amazing journey. And you know something about the journey that sometimes doesn't get spoken enough to do what I just said. You need an unbelievable team that believes. Because this is not technology everywhere. Not only can you not be everywhere. This is physical labor. This is architecture in all these languages. This is construction. This is met and then it's operations and hospitality and accounting. And the thing about we worked that team was phenomenal. Yeah. Because they believed. And then a few asked them, I meant I just met one of them a few weeks ago. And he works in an awesome new start and not even near. They're publicly traded. He works in Archer, which is the vertical take of drones. They're doing really well. And he's top five. And he used to be one of our heads of construction. And he sees me very nice. And he says Adam, I just want you to know the reason I'm doing so well. It's because of everything you taught me. We work. And I said, I didn't teach you how to work in a vertical take of drone company. Like, what does construction have to do with that? You said, no. You taught me that if I put my mind into it. And I get a team to work with me. And I put purpose and mission first. I can do anything I want. And that has worked phenomenally for me. So that's the first five years. Do you think the success had to do with the concept or with your personal will? In hindsight, I think the success was accumulation of every single thing that I did leading to that. It's the childhood. It's the challenges. It's the parents that were always giving as doctors. It's the kibbutz. It's the learning how to serve at the age of 18. It's living with my sister, New York City, experiencing this unbelievable city that inspired me. It's my friend Andrew Finkelstein who teaches me about American about culture and about movies and about all these beautiful things that inspire me and get me excited. And it's this belief in something that I play a part in something bigger than me, but I can make a difference. It be sometimes it feels big and sometimes it feels small. But there's a mission from me on this planet. There's a message for me. It's more community and that message needs to be told and needs to be heard. And as long as I stick to it and don't forget it and put that first. Nothing can stop me. Add element electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper. Improve your cognitive function. Experience an increase in steady energy with fewer headaches and fewer muscle cramps. Element electrolytes. Drink it in the sauna. Refreshing flavors include grapefruit, citrus, watermelon and chocolate salt. 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I didn't even know where it came from and he was supposed to come for an hour and a half and he only had 12 minutes. This all the signal 12 minutes he says that and my headquarters might where I said when I used to bring investors had this whole tour through our HQ. I would do was on the fifth floor. I was never getting there. So I took him into our innovation center and introduced him to two residents because our buildings I always wanted to work in buildings where customers were there members. So I could always hear from them and the elevator. They love telling me what's wrong and I love hearing. So I introduced him to two residents, two members and he says what he says. He looks at me. He goes, "This is great. I need to go up town. Do you like to join me in the car? We could talk some more?" I say, "Of course. We go into the car. Have this whole presentation." I was like, "Forget your presentation." "Do it, do it." The night before we ever board meeting. This is 2016 towards the end. And we decided as a board, the story was we can turn our business profitable whenever we want because we're growing. That business is talking about greenness. Never stop being profitable. You would just slow down building and you'd be profitable or even better. You'd stop. You let the machine catch up with you because you've done so much. You actually take account, inventory over your app, which there is no way to grow as fast. We were one of the fastest, maybe fastest, physically growing business on the planet. No matter how good it what you do you are. You will never be able to do that perfectly right. You stop. You let the deals catch up with you and you reconsider everything you're doing. You look at everybody or everybody in the right roles. Do you have enough employees to do it? To my employees, is our technology working? What do we need to do? You take a moment because up until this point you're sprinting. I think sprinting would be an understatement. I think if you came because I know you a little bit, I think you would have told me after our meeting that you need to take 10 minutes and meditate before you go downstairs. Because you felt that energy. I think you'd have loved it. But that energy was electric. We were flying. It used to stay outside of my door. We do the impossible every day miracles once a week. And we meant it. We meant it. It happened. We meant it. It was happening. So we have this board meeting. Tell me now how big is we work in 2016? I would need to go back. It's been approximately. I'm going to guess I remember it by buildings and revenue. We work is at 450 million dollars revenue going to 900 million. So we're doubling not just in size of your money. Revenue, which then doubles your expenses and the growth and everything that comes. So far in 50 million growing into a billion in revenue. It's a 16 billion dollar company of its last valuation. It's probably in for sure in Europe and the United States and Latin America. Wow. At this point, our flying. And we're working. We are working many, many, many hours. Everyone. The employees, myself, everyone's working. We have the board meeting the night before and we agree. We say we're going to go out to raise money on more time. One of my abilities is that I am able to raise money because I'm able to bring people with me towards the direction I want to go. And I'm also for people who know me. I keep my word. If I say we're going to double by this number, I do. If I say we're going to hit this goal, I do. So the best people for me to raise money for a second time. People who passed the first time, but heard what I said. And then I come to them the next time say, let me show you what they did since we met. Then they're like, oh, wow, you told us 10 things we thought you were going to do one. You did nine. And then they would want to join the journey. And so this we are the board meeting and we decide that I am going to raise 300 million. We're going to take a pause. We're going to clean everything up. We're going to turn the company profitable. Stop sighting leases. We're going to take the company public. And not only are we going to take the company public to 2016 going to 2017. We're not going to worry about our last valuation of 16 billion. We're going to take it for 10 because we want to leave money on the table again, but at this point we weren't using valuations. At least on my side and my executive team, we believed that our solution is so correct and worked everywhere. There was not a place on the planet you opened this thing in the day work. You had proof. We had proof. We had belief. We had everything we needed to know and the plan was solid. You slowed down for a second. And then next morning I made a master. And we sit in his car. I told you what happens. What happens? Invites me into his car. What's the deal and how much are you looking for? Again, happened the night before and I'm already by this day, I am studying spirituality. I believe it's not causing an effect. I believe in causing an effect. I believe we said it yesterday and it's happening today. So I'm going to tell him the number we said. We're using 300 million at the 20 billion dollar valuation because the last one was 16. He looks at me and goes, I'm a master. I have division fund. It's going to be 100 billion dollar vision fund. It could take a long time to spend a hundred billion dollar, 300 million dollar checks. Don't you have a bigger vision, a bigger picture? I said I do, but you know that that would be a very big amount for us to raise. I said, well, Tom, if you could do anything, how big in this company be? I said this company can be as big as as much money as you inject into it. You put money on one side, you get growth on that. I haven't missed my numbers one. Remember, by this point in 2010, 2011, I grow three X three X three X and then two X two X two X, but I don't miss my growth. I said, look, we're 450. I'll hit 900 million next year, then a billion eight, then three six. It's going to keep depends how much money you want to put in the machine. And he says to me, well, what do you think about Southeast Asia? I said, I've never been there. I said, well, do you think the concept will work? I said, I'm sure it will, but I would need to learn about it. So, well, we should do a company there. And then he said, what do you think about China? Oh, sorry. When I said we're in all those places, I forgot to mention we're already in China. So by that point, really? So when must that comes, we're in China, Latin America, Europe, and the US and China already is a free standing company that were raised locally at the two billion, the evaluation and the reason I raised the local company, if the locals don't believe in it, I don't want to enter a market that that's hard. So that was my lippness test, like this test, and worked out very well. And he says to me, what about Southeast Asia? I say, yes, he said, well, we can write this size check there. And then he says, what about Japan? I said, I really don't know anything about Japan. He said, well, I know Japan and tells me the whole store where we are Japan. And how at some point, Japan was bigger than all of Yahoo. And said, okay, we could do that together. And then it's the China, you could go much bigger in China. And the 300 million requests becomes three billion. Big change. And it's all written down and it's all in 28 minutes. And in 28 minutes, from the moment we started writing, till the moment we arrived, 20 minutes, but we're not there, we're only in minute 22. And he's writing all of it down on an iPad. And he looks at it and he goes and I said, I can't take this much to illusion. Don't maybe I could take, you know, maybe billion is like, I said, no, but we will find Southeast Asia as a separate company. China already was separate. Japan will be separate. So this way. So you don't just have, we work as one valuation. You have all these separate companies with their own valuations. And again, that money in them because we have a team that can execute will become successful businesses. He was not wrong. The recipe was in place. He was very right. And then he says, let's make it for billion. I said, I don't have, I don't have it in me. This is me and this is this. I said, I don't have it in me. I don't, I don't, I don't know where I would put you scared at all. It sounds scary. You know, I'm in my mid 30s, my lesson in hindsight, after a lot of time of reflection, when you tell the universe, you're looking for 300 million. And the next day a guy offers you four billion. Instead of signing the doubt at line, you take a breath and say, why? What does it come with? What am I committing to? Is there something here I don't see? But to be fair, including myself, most 30 something year old sitting in that seat. There are those numbers that. This is the Israeli from the Kibbutz, who came to New York City and lived with the sister who was paying his rent for the first six years and then Rebecca paying for the following three years. I go, what am I going to do with another building? City will do second there. For you and for all your investors and for all your employees and everybody will have an exit. So they feel this. And I should have been scared. I wasn't. I should have been scared and never thought about this before. I should have been terrified because I was way more. I should have done that first lesson that I learned in Kibbala, pause, what I wonder. But I didn't. I took that pen and I signed that document right there on the spot. He offered it on the spot. I signed on the art of the deal, which deals sometimes of momentum. They have moments. They're second in time, just like channeling. But the deal can go from both sides and just I want to make this clear. Not only do I not blame Master for anything. No. I am so grateful. So appreciated. He trusted. He saw the vision. He trusted. He trusted completely. How could you be mad at that guy? I woke up because other people many times after, oh, he pushed you to grow so fast. Where we're going to say what happened? We're going to get there. But I couldn't be. I couldn't be. I wouldn't be. And there's nothing. If he called me today, said Adam, I need this or that. I am on that plane and with him as fast as engines can take me. Of course. Straight away. I walk out of that car again in hindsight. I couldn't know that moment. That's when a mission driven company that was based on belief that came from keyboards that came from all the right things with all the right energies. switched to become a both growth. money and valuation. And because you had now a commitment to live up to, before that you were building at the fastest pace you could with what you had and now you were put in the situation of multiplying it by 100 times. Yes, but I want to take more accountability than that. Before all that happened, I had a choice. I could walk out of that car, take a deep breath, really pause, maybe go talk to Rebecca, go talk to some of my spiritual teachers, go to people I know who have more experience than me. I signed already. Let's say I've thought about this many times. I could have not not signed. That wasn't in the cards. Not that bad and then not. Maybe Buddha could. I could have taken a deep breath and said to myself, "This is more money than I've ever touched. This is a tremendous responsibility. Yes, he wants me to grow very fast, but that's nobody really wants, what he really wants is the result in five years from now. What would be the best way?" And I could have thought for a second about my spiritual studies by this point about five years, that when things come really easy, we tend to not appreciate them. And we don't appreciate them. We tend to short circuit. But I didn't. Instead of that, and I remember it, I walked. It was like 58 streets, I think, where's an R HQ was an 18. I walked down New York City. Every step I took, that ego went up. It was under control. It was there, but I had Rebecca and I had my kids and I had a beautiful relationship where I get given feedback all the time with the executives, where the teacher that we worked with, there were a lot of controls around us to keep it. But it went above my threshold, above my spiritual level at the time. And it came up and I walked into that HQ, a different version of myself. The purpose and the mission suddenly became not the goal. Those promises that were made on growth and review became the goal. But that wasn't the DNA of what we built. I'm not saying that there aren't companies that could be built that way. I add them, don't operate that way. I cannot build a company that way. And then we really started growing fast. If fast was fast before then, we started flying. I feel like you're being very hard on yourself considering you've been in business for six years. You've been sprinting or flying the whole time, only having success. And here's someone who believes in you, even more than you believe in yourself, saying, you can do this. I don't know anyone in that position who would not move forward with that. So I appreciate you saying that. I own view my words that I just said is hard. I cherish that moment because in hindsight, that is what made me hire him today. In general, I think for me, I think it's relevant for other people. If we can start taking those moments that at the moment we can view as a mistake and actually say, it's not a mistake. It's exactly what needed to happen as long as I can learn. If I can learn from it, it's meant to be and it's part of my journey. If I'm going to go and make that decision again, that makes it a mistake. But yes, that's where we were. You wouldn't make that same decision today because now you have more experience. I didn't. Similar to the magnitude, but I had a version. I didn't. I took almost six months to make the decision to start the next business. Now, is there a world in what massive believed could have happened? 100%. Almost it. We were very close. If I played 2019 differently, there's a very high likelihood that it would. But it's very important to say, you know, this concept of, on the one hand, we have free choice on the other hand. It's meant to be. When I say that to people, I say, "How would you explain that?" The way I would put it is. We get to a fork in life. We'll do many times. You have free will. You choose one choice and it actually ends up working out or you would perceive as working on. You're like, "Oh, meant to be." Choose another choice. And suddenly things don't work out. If you take those things that didn't work out and you learn and grow from them, you're right back to meant to be. So it's our free choice. Again, that thing of us not controlling us, controlling our reaction. It's that. So to answer your question, I'm going to caveat what I'm about to say. Without everything happening exactly the way you did, I wouldn't be where I am today. Yes. And I love where I am today. Of course. No regret. Not only no regret. I think I am as a person happier. I think I have the capacity to build things that are tremendously larger. As you said, if Kibbutz was here, then Grindesk was there. Then we work with this. I think flow is the next level and would have never been able to be born without those steps. So I'm so happy. But here's a difference in an easy scenario for you. If instead of my investors, I would have Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz as my partners. My partners today. And I'm saying this from knowledge because I've gotten to know them. I sit with them where they're board meeting in two days. I'm very excited about them. I'm going to get to sit with both of them in the room. Best part of my business without a doubt is that nine hours of sitting with Marc and Ben knowing that they're going to tell you what they actually think. Not what you want to hear. And learning from people who are not just in my opinion the best investors in the world have built their own businesses. If they were sitting around that table when the whole thing was happening. The one thing they wouldn't have done is said Adam, you should step down. That they knew was not going to work because it's been tried many times. And literally if you look at the history, almost has never worked. They would have said something like, "I don't want to have a serious talk. Maybe taking me somewhere, locked the door, thrown the key." And said, "Okay, Adam, you've proven that you're the fastest growing company in the world. You've proven to improve the, it's time to improve profitability because if we're going to mature to our next stage as a business and if we're going to want to go to Wall Street, they're not going to understand this unstoppable growth. And we know that the four-wall units are profitable. Let's prove it. That's the first thing they would have done. Second thing they would have done again now that they know then they would have said, "Adam, our tech is not working because if our tech was working, we would be able to show things in a way that would be very clear to everybody. The fact that we can also means that we can't control which means we need to go and fix that also." That's the thing that in September of 2019, if happened differently, we would have had a chance for Massas' idea not only to have worked, but to work phenomenally because remember what happens then. Corona comes. And in Corona, we work with a head and opportunity to press the reset button. All those leases, we haven't talked, we don't need to get into the details of the business but we were taking these long-term leases, selling against short-term commitments. We then started going into enterprise that was taking longer. If you remember in Corona, everybody left office. No one paid their rent. It's a for one company. We work because the people running it, it wasn't their money anymore. They didn't treat it like so. They pay. No one was paying their rent. If we were there, me and our original team and we sat there and we actually had the opportunity to reflect, have partners that were honest with. By the way, the honesty could have included saying, if we said Adam, you did great taking the company from one to 3.6 billion in revenue. We talked about the size of revenue group from zero to huge. We should bring in a professional CEO that should do it daily and you should become chairman. The discussion could have been a very real discussion. We had no discussion. And then when Corona happened, the reset button would have been set. And I actually think what's interesting about Corona and now that there's been time to think about it, work has never been the same sense. It needed leadership. It needed division. So yes, I think Massa could have been what happened in 2019 where it changed. I think as I said, what happened started actually in that December of 2016. Getting out of the car. It all moved to chase these things and it became bigger than us. And we just grew for the sake of growth. And Massa saw us go from 450 to 900 million. A lot of companies promised him that we're the only ones ahead. Then he saw us go from 900 million to 1.8 billion. So then he came in again and then he became even bigger. And by this point, we were rushing. And SoftBank was going through their own set of challenges and their own public stock challenges in the Japanese stock market. And this is not in 2018. In March of 2018, Massa comes to me and says, why don't we buy, we work from all your investors at a 20 billion dollar valuation? How many investors did you have at that time? Not that many. It's institutional investors, the biggest ones. Best ones, the biggest ones. You know, seven to eight institutions, plus ten individuals maybe. Not that many. And why did he want to do that? He wanted to build a trillion dollar company. Yeah. He wanted to go huge. Yeah. And he could see it working. And so it working. He knew it was going to cost money. He had no problem with it losing money. He knew that if it needed to go public, Wall Street won't understand it, but he understood it. He wanted to grow to a way bigger revenue and then do the pause on the cleanup. I see. He wanted to keep it short. He just wanted to wait longer before the cleanup. He wanted to truly own the category. Yes. At this moment, people are copying from all over the world. There are 40,000 companies that got funded. registered and opened copying we work 40,000. So he saw and he just wanted us to own it. And to do that, he offered a 20 billion dollar valuation, 10 billion dollars for all of our investors and employees and 10 billion dollars on the bank account. Just so you have this and this is at the time the company is losing about a billion a to two billion a year. Again, this is where a different board would have done things differently. I can't be part of that decision because I'm staying in. I wasn't selling. I wasn't even selling second there in that is I was keeping everything because I'm aligned with him. And we had goals, but the deal was a deal 70, 30 his way approximately. And every time the management team hits a goal, we go up in ownership or at the end when we hit the final goal, which was a very big goal, but we believe we could hit it. We would own 51% and he would own 49. Everybody would get more equity. It was a big plan. It was a big thing here. And they had hiding in it, not just we work. It had we live. So it had residential hiding in it. It had construction as a new category hiding in it. It saw the future. And because I was staying in the deal, I was a conflicted party and therefore I couldn't take any part in accepting the deal. So the board did what's called a special committee and that special committee's job was to negotiate with Massa and do whatever they need to do. And I think they made again mistakes, everything they were united talk about mistakes. I think they were greedy because instead of saying, we'll take the win, we'll take it 20 billion dollar company. The 10 billion might be investors, investors that put 20 million that were walking out with 2.4 billion. Clean cash. They thought the company was worth 100 billion. They believed also. So they go into this lengthy negotiation for March until September towards October. Theals have momentum. Again, I'm sitting on a board and there's a founder like me and the founder brings a 20 billion dollar acquisition to our company that has a great vision but currently is losing money every month. I go to the founder and I say Mr. founder, is this what you want? And if the founder said yes, yes, maybe it's hurtful that he wants me to sell and doesn't agree with me but if he says yes and it has happened to me and I've done it multiple times. If the founder just did it on a company three months ago, the founder says yes, this is what I want. I say thank you so much for working so hard for the past nine years and good luck. And I walk out with my in this case a hundred X return on my 20 million more 150 because they pulled up my. But no, they negotiated. And Massa told them very clearly this is my now I didn't negotiate. I gave you a huge number in cash for a company that we all know needs a lot still work to do. And they negotiate from March till September. Then the Japanese market starts changing. Then when they see there's a problem, they stop negotiating and they're still fighting till they go down and then until in Christmas they finally decide okay we're not negotiating a little before. Not negotiating anymore, they agree to everything and they pass it to Massa. Now here's the problem because this is all happening. Massa and I are declining that the company is going to grow very big. I'm already signing a lot of deals. I'm already planning for this to happen but I'm not in charge of it happening. And there was a guarantee there was a protection that if it doesn't happen, Massa still needs to invest a certain amount and I trust Massa because we've done this before and invested. So we're we're signing deals, we're running really, really quickly. This is not happening and then suddenly our special community decides okay now it's time to agree. I just want to say one thing, you're running quickly and this is what Massa wants. Exactly what he wants. 100% to the speed he wanted. You didn't go rogue in trying to build a company fast. This is what you signed up for with Massa and you were doing it. I did the episode of Goering Rogue. People who know me will know that I make a partner that keeps his word. If you're not our partners and I'm going to change something or I want to change something, I will call you and I will ask for permission and I'll always offer something. And if you say no, I will say I understand. I would say don't get offended that I tried. I wanted to go a different direction but I respect our partnership. So what I signed up for is what we took the money for. Also our partners were all there with us. And I remember the employees are killing it. They're running for it. They're running through walls. Had the Japanese market not changed with the picture had been different. Had, and again, we're doing a lot of ifs and maybes, had the board special committee that on a plane the next day said Massa, you already have two boards, it's in the company, you know, everything. We don't need to close anything. 20 billion here's a term sheet. Here's our bank account. Please sign. It would have happened the next day. They would have all been out. The cash would have been there. And when Corona hits, we wouldn't have had the whole 10 billion because we would have been burning but we would have had enough. And again, we wouldn't be where we are today, which I'm very happy about. But I think the interesting thing to connect it to where you and I are sitting right now, it's December 2018. I am sleeping in a house three minutes away from here. I get a phone call from Massa. Other than I am so sorry, the Japanese market has changed. Our stock is down 30%. My CFO told me that if I go through with this 20 billion dollar acquisition, our stock will crash. My first responsibilities to my shareholders. I know I promised. I know you've been growing. I can't go through. I remember Rebecca is in the kitchen playing with the kids, the house that we were living here and has like a kitchen with couches and it's of the kids are next to the kitchen and everyone's hanging out, they're eating, they're drinking and one smiling, they're really having fun. I decided I'm not going to say anything today. I just went and hung out and took many, many deep breaths. That night when everybody was sleeping, I told Rebecca what happened. She had a nice wish. She would also say, "Let's go see him." Whereas Massa at the same time, I guess where he would be, because the universe, remember who's writing the story. If you're directing the story, where would Massa be? Not far. Exactly. Has to be not far because the movie said can go too much. Yeah, yeah. He's 15 minutes away. Unbelievable. We don't understand. And you didn't know that. They didn't have a clue. That's how it that's when you're in flow. That things or perceived bad things can happen when you're in flow also. Yeah. If they're still in flow, it's just another clue to tell you they're not bad. They might be seen bad. We go 15 minutes away. We walk in. We discuss. Again in hindsight, legal, you're promised. I grew because of it. There's all these things I could have done. But no, this is my partner. I understand what he just said. He wasn't happy to make the call. No. Not at all. You could see it or no. No. It was not easy for him. He didn't want to make the call. Of course. Of course. It was a steam. It was a steam this bad. And it was just the reality of the situation changed and he was at the mercy of the reality of the situation. He did the right thing. He didn't really have a choice. This was not Massa's son money. No. This was soft bank money. Yes. And Vision Fund money. But soft bank. This is the other thing that didn't say this is not Vision Fund. This is a soft bank acquisition. Small Vision Fund big soft bank. So it's a soft bank money. So then we talked. We said, what are we going to do? We've been spending. We agreed on an amount that will still go. Yeah. So we're still very supportive at this very large valuation. That's where that 40 billion dollar valuation comes from. And I walk out. And now it's January of 2019. We have this big off site in LA, Brented Universal Studios. Again, a moment of reflection. I could have gone on that stage, told everybody what happened. All the stores were, I really, really would not like to be in any similar situations ever again. But if I were, I would go up on that stage, tell everybody exactly what happened. Say, this is what we have in the bank, because this is all we get. And we're turning this company profitable now, which was doable. 100% doable. 100% doable. But I get on that stage, I say a light version of it. No, I said we're going to get serious to that. I had one close person on that board that was really close to me. His name is Stephen Langman. He's amazing. He's still a close friend. He lost a lot from being a part of this and never did he say a word. He said, "Call me and laugh about it and be a great friend." He's the definition of it. How do we define a great friend when things are actually challenging? Are they for you? He comes and sees me. I was in somewhere around here. He comes, sits with me. We talk about the fact that we're going to make the company profitable. We make the commitments. We're clear. We're going to do what needs to be done. We know exactly what needs to be done again, because we're the leaders. We know where everything is buried. We know exactly what to do to do it. Then my CFO goes to the lift IPO. This is like a month later. We're warming up to use it to do it. It's on fire and it's all about revenue. It has nothing to do with profitability. It was Adam based on their value. It was on their revenue. We have more and they're getting multiple revenue. Again, the fire starts. Now the IPO story and the fire starts and basically he says, "Not only him, bankers and those bankers are not any bankers. These are the biggest bankers on the planet. Come to me and show me books, which obviously we still kept, that show the valuations that were we're gonna go public hand and they'll make sure to go about 40 billion because that's the last valuation because they're making a sale again all stuff that today I understand but back then I had no clue. And basically if you keep obtaining growth of this magnitude, the markets will understand that you can always pull deliver and turn profitable. Grow faster, grow more, we'll take the company public for this gigantic number and homerun. And what happened? If happens, never plan on everything being perfect just like this works and this was a second ago and again just look how many times the universe tried to come in and tell me how many messages turn it profitable the first time, the second time, the third time. What actually happens is we start running for this IPO, we keep growing, we don't slow down at all so we keep earning because we're told it's gonna be a multiple revenue. There's lift and there's Uber and as we're preparing for this IPO, Uber goes public and immediately crashes, value goes down because the public markets don't want just revenue. They actually want profitability and there's this flip that happens in the public market a lot where it goes in one second from we all want revenue multiples of revenue to we want profitability. You're living in a world today where you're gonna see, you're gonna see some very valuable AI companies go with huge revenue, a lot of losses and they're gonna get some mega valuations and I hope for all of them that they can turn this switch whenever they need and do whatever it is they need, I'm sure they know what they're doing. But the market flips in a second, it's not about revenue, it's about profitability. For us, we needed nine months to turn the ship itself really far fast to suddenly move this and now suddenly we have to take the company public. If we don't take the company public, they won't have enough money or so we're told. And at this point the bank that then again without getting into it because it's so many details and but the two banks that are fighting on us to end up choosing one of the banks and that bank is leading us into the IPO and we're doing the meetings and they're not going well. And the articles start coming out because people are in the meetings and the valuation is not there and it's not gonna be for it, it's gonna be for it, there's this thing in growth companies you can't catch a falling knife. Once it starts dropping you don't know where the bottom is and Masa calls me and says Adam, I don't want you to take the company public. It's not good, it's not looking good, things are not working well. Let's rethink, let's regroup. But the leaders around me, this is the big big choice and again I'm saying this again so it's heard again, I take full accountability. The leaders that I put around me and when did they start putting those leaders really? After that 2016 the leaders because I was at the beginning attracting people that were mission and purpose oriented like me. But when you stop being mission and purpose oriented then the people you attract will stop being mission and purpose oriented. They all wanted that IPO, everybody was doing math and they're pushing IPO IPO and the bank and everything. You can't talk to Masa, you can't talk to Masa, if you talk to Masa it will all be ruined. Even as I tell you this story I think about, again this is why life and experience is so important today. That was advising me. I said close everybody out. Who gave you the most money? Masa. As he trusted you. Yes. As he believed in you. Yes. Go talk to Masa. Don't worry about what they tell you. Go to Masa. Of course. Say Masa-san. You trusted me so much. I am grateful and appreciative. I'm sorry we got into this. The truth is we were going to buy the company and then you changed in the last seconds. You put me in a little bit of an uncomfortable situation. They then told me I can go public so I take accountability but we did it as partners. I never had that conversation. We did it as partners Masa. What should we do as partners now to solve it? That one conversation didn't happen. And it didn't happen and today I know a lot more about it for two reasons. One because I needed to be where I am today and I wouldn't get there. But a more technical reason because there are a lot of people who had different agendas. When the numbers are of that magnitude, we were not dealing with billions. We were dealing with tens of billions. And going to potentially hundreds. When the numbers are of that magnitude, if you didn't surround yourself with people that are actually there for the right reasons, your chances of getting the right advice are very small. Remember also that at that time I am very good at this. Yes, I have a spiritual practice and yes, I am very good at this. Going into a retreat for a week and stopping everything and breathing and meditating and really asking myself, "Who do I have that I can trust?" And going and talking to them would have been the wise thought. And then maybe similar things would have happened but we never even gave it a shot. Even though Masa made the call to you that you didn't like, the first call of like things are changing, I'm guessing you still trusted Masa. So again, this is I was not able to quiet down the noise that came around me because the people were telling me, "Don't do that." Were the most powerful people in the business world. Were you talking about the heads of the banks? Were talking about the biggest venture capitalists on the planet. Were talking about, we were talking about a lot of the board members. Were there about people that have built this repertoire for a very long time? Yes. And they have more experience than you. They've been through this before. This is your first time. Anybody's first time at this scale. There were a few voices out there. I missed two voices called me that I missed. Mark Benjav calls me. He wasn't such a, we were close friends, but not the closest. I said, Adam, I don't need to know a lot to know what's happening. I can read the press. You don't know this. Salesforce was going to go public. I pulled back. I reshuffle. They did it again. You must pull back and fire your CFO and general counsel. I don't need to know who they are. I just know they're not advising you right right now. Missed that one. There was another super powerful person, comfortable, same Ruth Barat superstar. From story, sends me someone from a different bank to advise me. Said, Ruth sent me. But I missed the science. There was so much noise. And I'm not talking to Massa. And the noise is all around me. And he's not talking to me. And now the bank that was supposed to go out public is telling me we're having real issues. And this is moving really fast. And the articles are coming and the this. And again, everyone keeps telling me how soft bank is doing this to me and soft bank is doing that to me. They actually painted soft bank as the enemy, but they weren't. He wasn't and they weren't. And then I have this very monumental meeting on a Sunday with the head of the bank that's taking us public. Where he sits me down and basically says Adam, you're going to have to step down. And if you do it when you do, we'll take care of the business. We'll fund the business and we'll do the different things. I remember talking to him and saying, but I don't think someone else is going to understand how to. I understand what needs to be done. He says, yes, a lot of founders think that. And then things survive without them. They don't really. I don't know a lot of examples for venture back businesses that then become huge success without. But that's the arrogance of the people with the money. They think because they have the money, they know what the right thing to do is and often not the case. I think so. I also think he truly believed in what he was saying. I actually think his team told him that it's possible and maybe they didn't understand what the magic of who we work really was. That's what I'm saying. I don't think he did. So I'm not so big. Again, I don't know how much he knew himself because he has a big team and he's doing a lot of things. This is one other meeting. You got no blaming at all. No. And I did. I did mistakes before that there's many, many things that I did. But that's the idea that was given. And I come back with my partner and now I have the beginning of a family office. I was with me three individuals and I'm like, okay, we're going to need to, it looks like we're going to need to step down. And the guy is running my family office. He says to me, his name is Elon. He says to me, I don't like it. There's a clause in the one missing piece of the story that you don't have is at the same time I have debt of over 400 million that I borrowed against equity from that same bank. It was telling me to step down. And he says to me, I don't like you over clause that says that if you step down, then you're in breach of your contract because you're not going to control clause. And then they can call back the man. I said, no, he wouldn't. He's, they want to told me, he'll protect me. He said, I don't like it. So we go and we bring it up. I have a board member that says, of course, I'm going to talk to them and I talk to them. And there's no problem. And it won't happen and everything is good. I get comfortable even though my team is not as comfortable because again, I'm speaking to the people running the place. And I trust, I do actually have, I trust. And I step down on the board meeting on the board call and nine minutes later, I receive an email from the same bank. There were two other banks part of it, but that bank was the biggest part that I'm in breach of contract and that they're calling all my shares. Wow. And I have 15 days to pay back $435 million, which of course I didn't have and there's no chance I could have done. That's unbelievable. And just so we're clear about the nine minutes, a bank cannot create a document in Nine minutes or in a day, I have to go through a lot of legal process. At least a weekend, if not a week, on a very, very fast example. So it was perfectly executed. I walked right into it. Terrible story. And then no, there's not a terrible story. It is. At this point in the story, it's a terrible story. That's interesting. I've never told it, by the way. Yeah. It's a shocking story. I think this story's occurred, but we never heard these stories. I think there are versions of this story. I think they happen more often than we know. They happen more often than we know. And every time it's a tragedy. Well, let me tell you, it's interesting. And maybe this is me. So now I'm really getting down. Now I feel down. Yeah. Now my 10 years of spiritual practice are in the garbage. I am properly depressed. Everybody told me I am at the same time. Articles are coming out and a speed of one every three to five minutes. This is now 2019. This is Trump first term. There's a lot of noise in the media. I have a friend who called it the first time social media was used. It was like like social media before social media was fully there and the speed that the articles were coming out. And I just started. And I said, but no one knows the story. And another story. And another story. And another story. And I'm feeling really low. And my spiritual teacher calls me. And this is like two days into this. And it goes Adam. Just called to see how you're doing. And I said to him, this is not a good. I'm not doing great. The things are really tough right now. And I'm not sure what's going to happen. And he says to me, I thought you might say that. I just called to remind you the one thing we learned. I said, we've been studying for eight years. Same as eight. So the eight and we studied for eight years. We did not study one thing. I studied three times a week. I think we studied more than one thing. Was wrong. We actually only studied two things. But they're similar. We only studied two things. One. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. The rest is commentary. Two. And this is the real one. The darkest moment of the night is a second before done. I want you to know something. He says, I've seen you for the past eight years with belief and connecting people and speaking about spirituality and the business. Of course, you believe in the universe when you were flying like this. No, it's ever seen something like that happen before. That's not believed. That's you'd be an idiot if you don't believe in that happens. Believe is measured when everything goes wrong. And you can look up to the heavens and say, I don't know how I don't know why. But this will end up working for the rest. And he says, if you can, I know it's hard. And most people can't. If you can actually change your perception right now because belief is a choice. And choose to believe that this will work out. I don't know how. The new version of yourself that will come out of this will be so much more powerful, so much stronger, so much smarter, that you will actually be able to reveal the thing that you were put on this planet to do. Just like that first lesson, I hear it. I breathe it. I almost feel it. Almost there. I'm not there yet. And I hang up the phone, go to sleep. I wake up at 5 a.m. Sweating, crying. I don't cry. I cry. There's a child. I don't cry as an adult. Everything's fine. Nothing is as bad as what I had as a kid. So nothing is bad. Rebecca wakes up 5 a.m. Looks at me. She never sent me cry. And together, by these point, 12 years, 13 years, because you cry. She said, yes, she goes, why? She said, because it's all gone. She said, what? They said everything. It's all gone. They're going to take it all away. It's gone. I made this mistake. I mean, that's all gone. It was everything. I go everything. She goes, well, remember, we spoke about you once putting 100 million on my name. So in case one thing happens, we'll have something like bankruptcy remote. So the I never did that. She goes, well, remember, we spoke about the fact that we never signed a personal guarantee. So it's not all gone. We didn't sign a personal guarantee. So no, we're signed on a personal guarantee. This piece for your really want to understand for us, because we're going to go public that that I had. That after an IPO, you're supposed to be in a lock up period. So they can't use that as collateral. So I wrote in the documents that for the six month after that IPO, it's personal guarantee. But my daughter's forgot to write, but if there's not an IPO on thought, there wouldn't be. Then that guarantee goes away. So I say to her, no, we're personally guaranteed. Our relationship. I think we all get to a moment where the two sides get actually tested. Something real happened. Yeah. Many ways Rebecca could have answered this. Many ways other partners could have reacted to get the breath. She looked at me and goes, you know, my mom's house in upstate New York. She owned it for 30 years. She doesn't have her mortgage. We could move there with five kids at the time. We'll take our five kids. We're in a homeschool for a little. We don't need to send them for school. You're going to take a second to find yourself again. If you want to go back into business, amazing. If you don't, we'll move to Costa Rica. We'll live over the state. Kids will be homeschool. We'll serve her every day. We'll work out either way. Amazing. No matter what, you got me and the kids. What are you crying about? At this moment, I understood something when we're children and we have a hard moment. When we really have a hard moment with our parents, I could difficult that you're like, suppose you trust them and they're not there for you. That's why it's so sad when children go through horrible things. There's no one there. But as adults, if we do have a partner, if we have a few close friends, they say you have one close friend, you have a whole world, if we have a few close friends, if we have a family, suddenly I felt like I'm not a child anymore. And there's something I can lean on. It's not the end of the world. But she looks at my face and she sees that I'm not. I'm almost there. She knows me. She didn't get me over the home. I'm still a little depressed and it's not like me because I don't get depressed. As you go, I'm by the way. It's something I've meant to tell you. When we met, you were broke. I find you much sexier broke than I do. It's money. Then I smiled. No, I wasn't happy. I walked downstairs. Remember I had 15 days to pay back for on the 30 million that doesn't exist. I walked downstairs. I have three employees a week ago. I had 13,000. I went down from 13,000 to three because now it's all gone. The three family office who came just joined me a few months ago to manage all this money that now we don't have. And I'm smiling at 6 a.m. We started at 6 a.m. because we had to deal with this horrible situation. I'm smiling. They're like, "Why are you smiling?" I said, "First of all, I'm smiling because it's all going to work out." They thought I lost my, they're very rational investors. They're world class. They're all three of them are with me still. Elon DJ and Max. They're unbelievable. They think I lost my mind because they're real investors and they think the situation is done. They think we're going bankrupt. It's finished. So I said, "We're going to work out. It's all going to work out because I believe." And I don't know how. And I don't know why. This was the darkest moment. Don is coming. It's going to take a deep breath. It's going to show itself. And my wife thinks I'm sexy. Amazing. Do you know who saves the day? If you wrote the movie, who saves the day? But how? Who is his messenger? Do you know that by talking to you? No, I'm actually understanding myself what happened. Do you know how many times you told me that I should talk about this? And I have them and you're like, "I don't know. We should talk about it." And I was not expecting us to talk about this. Today I was expecting to talk about a lot of other things. But by saying it, I myself am understanding something. There's some actions I'm going to need to do after it. And this. Masa. Masa saves the day. How? He pays back the debt. Wow. He calls through Marcelo with his team. They call Marcelo Cosmo for a meeting. So here's, okay. So now we're going to connect. And this is all going to connect. It's back to belief. I celebrate the holidays. I'm celebrating young Kippur that day of atonement. It's a day of reflection. We don't eat. We don't drink. We pray. Or we pray to go to the next version of ourselves. We pray to be forgiven for all of our sins. We pray to learn from our past mistakes. And it's Rosha Shana and then you keep poor. And in Rosha Shana, a close friend of mine comes with me and he's everybody around me is down by the way. And we are really affected by what happened. And I'm very affected because I feel extremely bad for them, employees and for everybody that was at the churning with me. The investors, all the investors, except for Masa, have all made money already multiple times. I have this sense of belief. I don't know how it's going to work out. And so we do the, the Strasha Shana and this and then between Rosha Shana and young Kippur. And then young Kippur happens and we're praying. And there are many different without getting into introducing there's different sectors and they don't all get along. And I practice with many different sectors. I practice with this sector and that sector. So three different sectors who do not get along with each other with its ashamed. But it's the truth. All three of them send representatives to pray with me that young Kippur. One of the biggest Rabbi sends his sons. They've never not prayed with him in young Kippur. The other one, the head of the organization and his number one guy comes, a tundigite that's spoken and his Michael Berg, all these people come together around me and we are praying. I agree. know tomorrow. We're praying for America. And suddenly before it ends, Max wants those three cups. I see on his face, he has something really important to tell me. He said, Max, if it's all business, don't talk to me. 24 or it's not talking to his business and he's sitting there. He can't help himself. He keeps trying to want to tell me so I said, Max, please, unless it's life and death, I need you to let the sun go down. It's participating. Enjoy. Join us. We're not talking business. And it ends. And he says to me, we want to believe this. Marcelo is inviting you for a meeting. He wants to work the situation out. I go in with Marcelo. He basically says, Adam, we trusted you. We've invested for a minute some out. We want to save the coming the way we see fit. We would like you to give us the keys. In return for that, we will pay your debt in full. So, no one has a gun to your hand because we don't like how they're treating the situation. Again, at this point, they were from the outside because everybody else was able to keep them locked out as well as really happening. If I would have gone before, if we were together, they wouldn't be able to keep them locked out, but they kept them locked out. Well, by your controlling shares, for approximately $100 million, supposed to be even more, we will pay back your debt 100% and in full and on time. And we're going to invest in amount in the companies so the company can go to its next level. And we will buy from you and from all the other shareholders of the discounted valuation, the approximately valuation of 10 billion, the last valuation was 40, 30%, which will be a billion to you and two billion because they're on 30% of their float of everything, minus their piece. And then there was the Miguel part and two billion to everybody else, all your investors, all the employees, everybody. And we said yes, and I stepped out and they put Marcelo the beginning was running it himself. My interactions with Marcelo were always whatever he promised always happened. And then he chose the CEO that he chose. He asked me to not be as close. Second, this is back to the old playbook. This is the playbook of keep the founder the way in like this. And they come in and the thing on the first day they do is they fire all the people close to me. The problem is there are the ones in you everything that not only ones who knew. Not only ones who knew. They lived it and breathed it, but it's an old playbook. You take out the king and you kill all of his loyalists. They called me, the two biggest loyalists called me, said Adam should we stay because the business will go down. I said, of course, you should stay. They got fired first. They put the new CEO and we negotiated it in the room. I ran it in a go to a nice step down also and the reason I accepted is we negotiated three billion for the whole company, not just three billion for everybody to take out money. Three billion for the whole company. So the company is funded. They have a new CEO and the payment is scheduled. The three billion to the company money. The company goes in. The three billion for it because of their company now and they are most of it. The three billion that's for everybody else is scheduled to come in April 1st, 2020. Corona hits March and the last day of March, we get a letter from South Bank saying, "Force major," even though it wasn't in the contract, "we're not paying." It's all the money that I thought was coming. It was going to go. By the way, by this point, I'm a practiced samurai. The breath in Rebecca, a month before said it's never coming. It was like, "It's never coming." It was like, "It's not coming." It was like, "It's like it's good to be true." We're going to have a little more. We're not out yet. I took a deep breath, then come in and I got the last gift that must have given me, the gift of litigation, litigated. We learned a lot about that. What is it like having strangers write things about you? You know, you're not true. People reading it or watching a TV series about it, what's that like? You know, connecting to what you and I just spoke about, there are a lot of things I knew I was giving away when I stepped down. The one thing I completely missed was that I was giving away my narrative. I had a platform and I had a microphone. Then in one day, I stepped down, which to the eye that's not experienced, probably means he must have been wrong. Everything it did was wrong. Otherwise, he wouldn't have given them back the case. The story that you just heard, the build, they didn't know on you any of it. That's something I now understand. So I handed over the control over my narrative. You were never accused of doing anything illegal. You were never brought up on any charges. It was all just in you window, storytelling. It was me being an obvious to the game of life when it comes to communication and media. I remember the first time I met you, you did not need to hear the story, to know the story. And another person when we met both of you at the same time when we were in Mali book, Mark and Jason. Mark and Jason calls me a few weeks after I stepped down, knowing that because he heard so much noise from the media, he knew what the story wasn't. He didn't know what the story was in hindsight. Now that I know him and Ben so much better, we've spoken about it a little. For them, getting such media coverage and hearing so many stories means pick up the phone and call. There's something very interesting. There's an opportunity here. Yeah, something's going on that's not being said. Okay. Because this story that's being shouted, it's too much. Not only is it too much in their eyes, we know what we work built. He calls first phone call. Adam, you might not know who I am. I'm Mark and Jason. I'm investor. I said, Mark, now exactly who you are. A six things. These are the very big at this point. This is 2019, right after. Little after. This is 2020. And he goes and what do you think? And I start telling a little bit what I think. And I'm speaking a little bit like the story that's being told about me. And he goes, oh, you're still at that stage. He said, what stage is that Mark? The one where you believe what other people are saying about him for God, what actually happened? This is like the first time I meet my very colleague. I love this guy. This is amazing. He says, oh, Mark, yes, you might be right. He goes, we do like me to tell you what we think about you here at A16Z. He said, please. He said, you're the only company in our entire portfolio at the time about 400 today, over a thousand. You're the only company in our portfolio who every single startup that we have either is using today or using the past. We have another company that we could say that about. What you've built was not built in one room with a bunch of engineers. Actually, your tech was your weakest link. We could talk about that one day. What you built is you had to be in 50 countries. You were in 70 languages. You were doing construction. You built a brand. You created a movement. The word we work is said is a variable. Almost. It means that we were said, you know, how many pitches we get under we work of this and the we work of that. You created a category. That's what we think. I said, thank you so much. And I hung up the phone. Missing the fact that you actually wanted to do some business or get to know me better because I was at that stage, but back to your question. I handed over the mic. And I didn't understand that by doing so, the story is going to run away from me. But because we never actually did anything of the things that you just said, all it was was a story. Makes a good book. I hear it makes a good television show. But so I haven't watched the television show. I watched the first episode because my friend Stephen Langman really wanted me to. But I know from my friends who have watched it and people watch it and the stories and this, if they have 30% of the story right, that would be a big number. What's interesting about the TV series about you, I'll call it a smear piece, is everyone I know who's seen it thought that both you and Rebecca were the heroes of the story. I think this is connected to what we said before. I think truth and authenticity are the biggest tools that we can have. So even though I gave away the mic and let everyone else run my thoughts, somehow the truth, even in something that was supposed to be a smear piece, floated to the top. And I'll tell you a little bit how I think. So Jared Leto, so we talked about Andrew Finkelstein, is a character in our story, which is excellent. He made sure by the way to write himself out of every show because he's in Hollywood is very powerful. But not this one. He doesn't get to write himself out of this one. Andrew Finkelstein keeps getting email from Jared Leto's agent saying Jared's going to play Adam. He's a method actor. He must meet Anna and I'm ignoring. Ignoring, ignoring, ignoring. And eventually Andrew calls me and he says, look at them, they're driving crazy. Can we take one meeting with the guy? He'll come in, come out. He's a movie star. He's an Oscar. We'll never be fun. So I have a defamation or the time when we're going to show his going to come out. We're like, how is it legal? How can Apple tell a story about us using our name that we haven't approved, that we haven't read that we didn't write? That's this whole thing. If you're a public figure, you could do this. You could do that. I think 15 years ago, it wouldn't be today, obviously. This social media today, we're in a different place. But I remember talking to the lawyer, he said, look at them if it's so horrible because during Letters also a producer and this is a credit, at least we'll tell him some of the true story. And maybe it will play favorable for us. I also remember the whole time reaching out to Apple and sort of being sent an email directly to Tim Cook actually, saying if Apple is all about personal privacy and safety and security. How can on the one hand you be that when it represents your iPhone? But when it comes to you making content, you can use a person's name and a person's family and a person in a story that I know you're not going to have the right story, because you guys never spoke to me. So it actually wouldn't be correct. We never got a response from Tim. We did get a response from his lawyers that read the following. You're going to like this one. We reviewed this series again. Your claims will go to court. You will litigate for three years and you will lose. We're moving forward. Your public figure and you will lose. Not you're wrong or you're this or you're that. So that was that. So then we say, okay, to Jared Leado, we say fine. And we meet him in Miami. He walks into the house, sure you've met him before, a little shorter than me. Looks up, puts his hand on my face like this. And in his version of my accent, I think very good accent. And a very good, but very good demeanor. And he added. In a demeanor in his version of Adam Newman, start talking to me and saying how he's been looking at me for three months and this and this and that. I'm not familiar with Hollywood. I've never met method actors the whole thing for me is a little bit outrageous. And we just do this thing for the next hour and a half. And then Rebecca is still king. Then one point that looks at Rebecca goes, you know, there's the scene when you and I are stooping, goes Jared. You and I are not stooping. It is a television show. It is not the truth. She's laughing. But it's, it's a surreal moment. You ask, how does that feel? I'm looking and then he said, I'm going to have these prosthetics and they're like, how you got? Then he sits at the table. The kids start walking in. And they say, who is this? And I said, this guy is going to play me in a television show. And look at his like, but he's shorter, but he doesn't look like you. But this and every other kid has his own very smart thing to say. This is in the midst of Corona, all of this is happening. And we finish our two hours together. And I walked Jared outside. He asked me if we can have a picture together. Yeah. I am the interesting thing for him, which is I'm sure usually he's the one that people take pictures with. Yeah. It looks to me goes, listen. You're calling it a smear priest. This was supposed to be a pigtail. I know because I read the script. It's a shame we didn't meet before because I have gone and fought for the script. But don't worry. I now know who you are. And I'm going to play you the right way. And I said, who is that Jared? He said, that my truth, I'm a method actor, but there's the real Jared. The real Jared loves music. I love being on stage. I love being a rock star. You're a rock star. I'm going to play you like a rock star. I saw your family. I saw your kids, your good guy. What I was told was not accurate. I wish I knew it before. I said it twice. But don't worry about it. You're going to come out like a rock star. Just do me a favor. Don't watch the show. I said, you got it. You got it. You got it. Beautiful. But let's really go into this for a second. How many times in life do we think the IPO is supposed to be my big moment? Yes. I was going to be amazing. And as a total utter catastrophe, we never even get to the IPO. The television show coming out was supposed to be this horrible moment. Even my team, by the way, got very stressed about that television show, was supposed to be that horrible moment where it all goes down. And yet it comes out. And the day after it comes out, the inbound starts. Entrepreneurs running investments. Entrepreneurs running to partner employees, everything. It was, it's bad slap rates. I've never seen that happen before. There's a very famous story in the Bible about it. The Jews, led by Moses, are coming out of Egypt. All the local nations are very afraid. They're going to come and there's this black and white king and a sorcerer. He wants to curse the Jews. And the sorcerer says to the king, look, the Jews, they have God. It's hard to curse. I don't want to do this. And it's a story is longer, but he says, I'll dream. I'll meditate about it. And in the dream God tells him. Don't curse the Jews. He wakes up in the morning and says to the king, God spoke to me. And even though he wasn't, he was working for the negative side, even people who work for the negative side have their own connection to the universe. He takes power to win both sides. And three times and eventually the king forces him, pays him, the fortune forces him to this day. Go and amount him and he's starting to curse the Jews. And the blessings come out. And he's cursing the Jews and the blessings come out. Eventually at his last curse, he forcibly massiah and the entire coming in the salvation of the world. Crazy story. In the Bible, it was where we hear stories like this. I think the truth is the truth is the truth. I think if I were to have done something, that was actually one of those things that you said before, it would have ended differently. I think I was saved by actually my relationship with Rebecca. She kept me straight, honest, loyal, didn't keep our word every time, but we tried so hard to do the best we could. We kept our commitments. We did our version of what we thought was right to do. And even though a lot of our close friends used to say used to walk into either thousand friends, then in one day I went down to ten. Five of them were my family. And even that was a gift. The other thing that's interesting about the smears, Rebecca was always smeared. It was a divorce of it. She got the word as well. Is if they were saying she was incompetent because she was a woman. That's what it was all about, which is like, is that the story in 2020? That because she's a woman, she's incompetent? That's what the smears were. Do you know how many times I think when things like this happen, the woman gets portrayed even worse? By the way, let's be clear. I was CEO and Chairman. Yeah. They're 100% it wasn't Rebecca. But they negated the fact of what she brought to you, which you recognized. And what she brought to the brand, you know, if you just as a word, the brand that everybody knows, we work, that everybody knows, we work Adam and Miguel was a hard working, let's go build office space with this logo with the men with the hammer we started breaking the Macintosh computer. You're the love that was Miguel did, that was our original hammer breaking the original Macintosh computer a little bit of it. I think of it, old Steve Jobs, that old commercial with the woman throwing. When Rebecca walked into we work, in the first 90 days she created, do what you love, create your life's work, build a world where people make a life and not just a living, she gave it so much intention and so much meaning that then I ran with it. Like it was nobody's business, but she brought, which is what she always does, intention, meaning and the other word authenticity. For people in over a bit, because she does not lie. If she does something wrong, she will tell you. All you need to do is ask her. Tell me what happens with the IPO. So let's do it, let's go for it. So April 1st, money doesn't come in. The whole world is under Corona. My kids, even my kids realized the money wasn't coming. They go daddy, it's April's full days. Of course the money was never gonna come in. Like yeah, you guys are geniuses. Weren Israel at the time, 'cause we always wanted to try to live there and this was our opportunity. And suddenly a second ago in the end of 2019, when we stepped down in the media and all the craziness felt like we were secluded and the whole world was open and we were locked up. Suddenly everybody was sort of where we were. But we had six months heads up. We were already in the bunker on that head. Remember from the story, we did have the original amount of money that was given to us, we never got the bill where we got that original amount that they bought from us to pay. We had a team. And we just got to work. And everybody else was busy understanding what's happening. I started, we started learning how to trade stock and how to invest in different ways and small businesses and big businesses in early stage and late stage. And even though we weren't using a big pool of capital, we were hungry and we were ready and willing and with a very open mind that the world just changed. But sort of how I approach life, like a child. Okay, today's a new day. Now there's Corona, what is that mean? What's gonna go up now? What's gonna go now? So as all of that is occurring, this is the beginning, the seeds, where it starts to say, what's gonna go, say residential? Residential is gonna be interesting 'cause even if people stop going to the office, the homes were the hardest. So part of that aside, the litigation starts because we want to get paid the $3 billion. That was promised not just to us, we're a third of it, but the other $2 billion is all the investors, all the employees, everybody. And it was promised, it was signed, it's contractual. So we start getting into litigation. And as we get into litigation, we move now from Israel back to the Hamtons, we live in East Hamtons, and you think, Christine is living right next to us. Another interesting thing about Hamt, so many close friends that I had disappeared when this happened. I do think that's probably the saddest thing of the whole thing. And some of them don't think they disappeared, and I forgive, so I'm like, I'm over it. But you really get measured when your friends are in their toughest moment. And you don't get measured, by the way, it's nice to send a text and to pick up a phone call. But Andrew calls me and goes, hey Adam, you know, I'm in Hollywood agent, Corona, I can do my work from anywhere. Do you want to come and live next to your house next to me? If you're going through a tough time, we'll do our own co-working space. We'll make a we work out of the one of the houses. Beautiful. We'll do a beach house co-working, our own we work, we'll have fun, we'll work from the Jacuzzi. That sounds amazing, Andrew. And he moves in, so he's there with us, and he's in the house next door, [BLANK_AUDIO] there and we are starting this litigation and it's not working. It's not working because the contract wasn't perfect and we didn't did it and we weren't there and South Bank is very powerful and they don't want to pay and they did put them on in the business and they control the business now so we can't get any information. And I am a person until this point that is always negotiated with power and leverage. Very good momentum when I have the leverage and I have the power, I am very good in negotiate. But now I have no leverage, no power. I am completely on the outside. Nothing I can do. We are litigating. The litigation doesn't look like it's headed in the right direction because of a variety of reasons but also because we work not really partnering with us because we are the founder that was from the outside with the start and at this point if you are and we work you believe 100% not 90% to all the press that you read because that's and I do think the world is different today. I hope people today don't believe everything they read but this is still 2020 people are just whizing up and I remember going and I was doing these meditation sessions of an hour each and I am doing one of those and as I am like very deep while listening to music I suddenly have this again, moment of vision. It is basically what I see is that if a different person if I found someone who could get excited about what we work and would want to take we work public, spacks for the time so it's back. Then must sign soft bank and all people fighting pain that people wouldn't want to accompany public because they are the majority of it would settle the litigation because no worth fighting it and would let the company go public and if all those things went out perfectly then everything would be resolved. I come out of the meditation and call my dad and I am very close to he is actually right outside here hanging out right now waiting for me. He was surfing with me this morning and I say dad I have an idea I will find the guy he will say he wants to invest will take the company public, stuff like we said everybody will get paid, stuff people will make back their money, everybody will be happy, it's all going to work out. Because I don't know that's too many things that are going to work out. My dad and I argue he does not believe in God and I believe in God. I said that if this happens will you believe in God? Looking for an opportunity. He goes no I believe that I have a very talented son. I say okay he will ask us. I said okay and I call UBS and say give me two names of people that might find we work exciting. They give me two names, meaning number one, meaning number two, second meeting the guy goes Gaga. He loves it, he loves it, he loves it and he's taking it public. He knew Steve Jobs, he was part of the coming back, he knew this story, so we had all these stories in his head that fit this perfectly. But I was very clear I said here's what I would do. I gave a clear plan of how to make your profitable. Again I still know the levers to pull. I told him exactly what to do. So now you understand all the pieces on the board. We have no power. We brought the guy to basically do this back but we're litigating at the same time. They're in control and they don't want to settle because they don't want to pay anything, they don't want to pay a billion, they don't want to pay. We're going back and forth, back and forth and we try to give them this IPO but they don't know that they want to go public and they don't know they will do well public because they're not sure that anybody, the spark in we work is gone. So they're not sure that's going to solve their problems and the last thing they need is another headache. So the going public was good but not enough to push it over the edge. And part of what happens when you do litigation is everybody does discovery, everybody's all the different things and you say oh we're going to say all these things about you, you're going to say all these things about this and this happened that have been cheerful, our fault and we're getting very close to it and the contract is going to say this, the contract is going to say that and we're getting very close to a litigation date, to a court date, they're going to court and then you're going to fight, it was contract is right and very close to it after we all basically everybody threatens everybody with everything, we agree on a settlement and the settlement is this complicated thing where the money will get paid in six months, first the company will go public, then this and all these different things and then the money will get paid after. And this is four days before Becca gives birth and I had a lawyer at the time who ran his own firm and I was Eric Seiler, now he's a partner with me and he and I reached the settlement, it's all happening in Zoom because this is Corona so these all things happening in Zoom, their lawyers, our lawyers, they spend 10 times as much as we're spending the biggest learn in the world and Andrew Finkelstein, our Hollywood friend, is sitting right behind the screen and for three weeks as this negotiating is going, he does not work, he's just doing that then they say Andrew, you need to work so that I'm in Hollywood, the biggest show in the world is happening right now on my face and I'm not missing a beat, let me be, wow, Corona, remember, no acting, nothing's happening, he's there and once in a while when he feels there's something important to say he writes it on a piece of paper, he shows it to me above the screen, I read, I listen, again, would you trust, could sit down, when negotiating and negotiating at some point they're like we're going to pay, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, but we're going to pay you in six months. I say it's not going to work and he said this, I said look, even Marcelo, even if I wanted to, you know, I can't go back to Rebecca and we make decisions like this together, I can't tell her in six months, it's not going to work, because call Rebecca and I want to talk to her, she's four days before giving birth, we call that stage, we're six kids, we've seen it a few times, couch commando, that's when she's on the couch and orders are given couch commando and so I get up to call her in because that's what he said and then we all know each other and Andrew picks up the paper, if you call her in, we will all be in court next week, you fix it, I read it, I sit back down, I said you know what Marcelo, I second thought, let's figure this out, let's just agree how are we going to be protected and we basically work out the deal that's going to be done, but we get paid in six months after the IPO, after this, after that with all these maybe the next, not just us, all the employees, but it's the best we could get, we couldn't get a better settlement and if I don't settle there's no IPO and again I try to do what I think is best for everybody and I felt like in the public if I get the chance, we agree, I go to Rebecca to tell her the great success that we did, she goes no, so what do you mean no? She said for ten years you're running this business, never have I told you once what to do, this is how much the narrative is wrong, once she's very respectful, she can give advice, she would not tell me what to do, she respects this is my business, she supports it, it's our business and equity holding but she's very respectful, and I'm very respectful of her business, but they didn't pay us, we had a contract we didn't get paid, one time you do it to us, we learn a mistake, second time why are we agreeing as the settlement for us, not just for us, for the employees to get perni year and a half, please go back and say no deal, I'll see you in court, said no, you don't understand the IPO will blow up, the whole thing, said no, they'll fault, the bluffing, they're acting like a bully, and my father was a bully, and there's only one way to deal with a bully, go on to your head, they're bluffing, and this is after, it's like emotional roller coaster, I go to Andrew and I to get Andrew's with me, he's like "I thought we had it, I'm like oh I thought we had it, we're done," then Eric Siler calls me, very famous phone call in our, in our lore, goes Adam, I just learned something, he said "What is it Mr. Siler, getting on his own firm, I don't work for you, I work for Rebecca, I said how did you learn that, because well she called me and completely disagrees with my little strategy and told me that we're going to court, not settling, it's different from what you and I agreed, therefore I work for her not for you, I said well, I feel like I worked for her, because I know that all my blessings come from my wife, and if she feels strongly about something, I support her, there's no question, she's better intuition than me, so I support her, she support me, then yes, we're going to go with her way, it goes okay then, just wanted to clarify that, I said what do you think is going to happen, I don't know this is uncharted territory, I would accept, I said well what if they do, what she's right and they do, because you don't stand, they gave all these promises, I said Eric we just litigated for a year about all these promises about a contract, what's a promise, neither the money's in the bank or it's not, so he goes okay, let's get on the call, it's going to be a very bad zoom, we get on the zoom with the litigators, with the this, what they did, they have their general counsel, some scary individuals, I basically say look guys, it's not me anymore, it's me and Rebecca, we make choices together, we have a schedule C section Friday 9 a.m., which is also the first day of pouring holiday, the money's not in the bank in 830, all of it, we'll see you in court, and even though court is in 8 days because court date, which is the bris of my new son that's going to be born, I will mess the bris, or I will do it in the court form, but I will see you in court. Boom explosions, bop, screaming, and to behind the scenes is like this, tragedy, done, done. We were watching the movie, you and I would be like that's it, it's gone, we're saying in court, next scene, court, with the bris happening outside of the court, with the rabbi, with the mohal. Four hours later, Marcelo calls me, son, they walk her with the video, you see him going, sadam, please call Rebecca in, so look at him Marcelo, he called her like, can he just Marcelo, no litigators, no anyone else? Actually says something beautiful, said Rebecca and add them. I want to apologize to both of you. You guys were 10 years ahead of your time. It could be that if you had the keys to this car, when you needed the keys to the car, we would have been in a different place. It is what it is. We are where we are now. The money will be in your account 30 minutes before you plan C section. You have my word, but separate from it, you will see it. You do not need to go forward with the litigation. It's me, partners. I'm going to bring in a CEO. I'm going to choose to do things my way. I know to call you if I need to. I respect you, respect me. Let's move like that. I say thank you Marcel. I look at Rebecca. She goes, "All good." She says, "You're not worried." "I'm not worried." This is all good. Say thank you. At 4.30 a.m., don't ask me how they know money could transfer. 4.30 a.m., it hits that count. 9 a.m. or in the birding room. Our six son Moses was born. Four month later is the television show. Wow. That is the true story. That's what I actually have. That's amazing. The fact that they chose to make her the villain, because it's easy. By the way, he chose you a lot about society. But not only is it not true, whenever people hear something I've learned, when you hear two stories, there's a small group saying one story in a large group agreeing. Listen to that small group and really take your time listening. This will be the last piece and then I think we can part ways with reward once and for a year into this, with this CEO. I see that they're not managing right. Stock starts dropping. We're like, "Oh my God, they're doing not one thing that we would have suggested." I call a few people. We have money at this stage again. They say, "Hey, if I put a big check, would you guys come in with me?" Immediately. One day, commitment is still a billion. Now it's not that we didn't send the documents, we didn't do, but it was so quick that it would have come, we would have raised more if we needed it. Because I told people exactly what I was going to do. And again, Corona was happening. Buildings were empty. It was very clear, this to us, what the right thing would be to create a movement back to deal with the situation, because these moments of change for creatives were in their field. Those are the biggest moments. This was my market. This was office. This was a change. Wasn't the end of office. It was time for a new office. And I called the CEO, I was like, "Look, we have soft commitments for a billion, but we're ready to go. I want to share with you the strategy. I want to see this. We will invest into the company. We will buy in. We want to support. We just want to make sure we have the same this. We want to share it with you. And we want to help you. Let's make this company successful. Corona should be the win, not the loss. Schedules it all with us. Our investors, top guys on the plane. We're all on our way to go. Send me a text. I'm sorry, Adam. Whatever reason. It's a pass. I will pass. Cancel the meeting. Never takes it. Wow. Shives the company all the way to bankruptcy. We were ready to put our money. We brought new money. And we brought a new plan. Now, I'm not telling you that it would have worked. No, you can't. All I know. Can't know. All I'm telling you would have been different. I'm telling what happened. And that was that. That's wild. So you asked how it's all connected. Is all of this is happening, Mark and Jason is calling us called the first time we missed the fact. Called the second time. Then an article in the Wall Street Journal comes up saying that Adam Newman's family office is purchased over a billion dollars worth of real estate in South Florida. We've moved to Miami at this stage. And he calls Mark and he says, "Hey, Adam, I thought, because every time Dan and every call said, if you're going to do something, let's talk." Said, "I thought we said that we're going to talk. You're doing something." He said, "Yeah, of course we are." Said, "You're obviously doing something. You bought a lot of real estate." He said, "No, Mark, that's just real estate." He said, "No, it's not. It's your idea for the future of living. It's a new brand. It's we live, but better." I say, "Well, honestly speaking, yes, I've been having thoughts, but it's not that. So do you have an idea?" Said, "I do." Said, "Are you clear about how you're going to do it?" Said, "I don't care about how it starts." Said, "Do you have a name?" Said, "I don't." Said, "Do you want to talk about it?" Said, "Whatever you want." And we're going to really connect it. And he said, "Let's talk about it." Said, "Okay, I'm sort of living in the air. I still don't follow up." Tell me when that call was back to the timeline. The first call is happening 2020 end of winter, second call, but half a year later. This third one is happening before the television show. Our six child was born on Rebecca's birthday, which is February 26. So that's 2021. So this needs to be 2022. So the team is now very worried because we have worked one foot after the other to build ourselves from the beginning business-wise and reputation-wise. A lot of people believe this false story. Suddenly, and again, I'm walking into room every time, needing to explain what really happened and they're worried. And the store is going to come out and that's a horrible thing. But we have more congestion that's been calling us. And then one of the team members has an idea, great idea. What if you call more congestion? And he will interview you because we know what he thinks about you. He's the best investor in the world. He'll interview you about what really happened. And not only that, what if we do it in South by Southwest? Because the show Apple was very smart about it because it was a tick-oriented- -to premiere the Southwest. -The premiere the Southwest. The premiere the Southwest. The first time anything was done like that. So you were going to do a live- My idea was- No, my personal gave me the idea. A live- -interview with the biggest investor in the world. -The biggest investor in the world. What the truth? The same time it premiered. Great idea. Great idea. So I scheduled, I text to Mark, which in this time I've never taken, I've never jumped in 20 discussion. And I ask his assistant, and this is for Friday. And the show is scheduled whatever month after. I need to talk to Mark. Wanting to ask him, I don't have a close relationship. Would he be willing to do that? You've only talked to him three times? Only three times. This is the third time. One to talk to him twice. So only twice before and the calls, how long we should host? The good calls. The first one is 20 Mark as you know. An amazing guy to talk to. The great calls. I let them go as long as he's- as long as he's interested now on the call. The great calls about many topics. But always coming back to that same topic of the calls basically being Adam, when are you getting back in the ring? That's like the theme of the call. Very motivating by the way. Very powerful. Better than most of the friends I had, and we didn't even know each other. I really appreciate it. And so I'm scheduling this other call. And I'm going to basically try to convince him to come, I know it's hard to travel to Southby, or if you can't travel, I was going to- my idea was I'll come to you and they'll zoom it in. But no matter what, we're in front of a live audience in Southby. Or maybe he's not zoom in. I'm live, but whatever if I can get him to come then. Maybe. We'll schedule the call for a Friday, and a few days before. Because again, I'm just starting to understand what the word "wo" means and this whole media and social media. And I'm starting to learn what I went through. Suddenly I have this thought in my head. What if Southby Southwest wouldn't want- what if I'm offering Mark something that they wouldn't put on stage? Yeah. And I asked two people, "What are you talking about Adam?" This is the biggest thing that's happening, is this show getting premiered. How would you and Mark talking on stage not be good for the conference? If you're running Southby, are you letting this interview go? I would say yes. Of course. I would think so. But I suddenly, because I'm starting to understand how the world works. Or at least how it works, now how it should work. Or regretfully how it does sometime. And I realized actually, I should ask someone before I ask Mark. And I call someone that's very close to the people running it. And I say, "Can you check if I get Mark to say yes, would they be interested in this interview?" And this fireside chat live. And they call me an hour before I call with Mark. And I'm planning to say, "Adam, you won't believe this." Answer is no. Said, "No." Now I'm really, like, the show is coming out. I'm already- the take down already happened before it. And I said, "Please tell me why no." And I said, "Interesting." Because I asked, because I knew you were going to ask me. Starts with Mark sitting on the board of Facebook. And they hate Facebook. He says, "20-22." So that's reason number one. I said, "But he's a board member. He says, "This is what they said." You, on the other hand, they're willing to have next year, depending on how the show comes out. If the show comes out and you're an evil villain, no. If the show comes out and people like you, they'll have you next year. I was like, "Fuck then." So now I'm an hour before the call with Mark. I really have nothing to say. And this is back to that same story. I call my partner Elon. It's like Elon, "I'm canceling the call." It goes, "No, you're not." It's like I'm canceling the call. It goes, "Why?" Mark was excited about the call. He's finally, you're talking. Like, Mark's excited. Don't cancel. I said, "Well, I don't have anything to say." So, "Yes, you do." You have a vision in your head. It doesn't have a name. It's a new business. You have the vision of the future of how people are going to live. Telling that? I said, "I'm not clear about it yet." It said, "Solada, I'm your partner." It's hiding inside of you. It's your perfect founder market fit for this thing. It's always been there. It's your original idea. Your original idea was no rework. Your original idea was called concept living when you're in college. It's from the keyboards. It's how people live. It's the future of living. Telling that. I say, "Elon, I'm not ready to say it. It's the biggest investor in the world. I don't want to have thought idea." It's not articulated clear. It was no problem. Telling you love to do it face to face. So I invite you. It's going to take a second. We're going to get a second to get our act together. We'll do it then. Call us about to calm on sweating. I can't believe why my sweating is after all this stuff. Why am I again acting like my 32-year-old? What am I stressed about? We all know the stuff we're doing. We're building. building or after my family. I've learned a lot. I mean, in much better place, I feel happy. I'm stressed again, like I'm pitching to an investor at age 28. At the exact same time that I have that thought, my second feeling is like, wow, I like this. I miss this. This is how it feels to be in the ring. - Yeah. - I feel alive. I get on the call and very honestly, I say what I say, I say I wanna do it face to face. Top-fraff and I about other stuff said would be my pleasure. A week later invites me. We go to Mali Bu four weeks later. We sit down and the whole way-- - It's the first time you meeting him in face to face. Never met before. Didn't know he was that tall. - Very tall. - He taller than me. - Him, his head of his crypt of fun, Christixson and other tall guy. All of them, first time. We're in Mali Bu. We walk in and we start talking. High-level, that, that, that, that, everybody sits down. And Mark starts saying, "So Adam, we're all here. "We're like to here." I say, "Mark, I would like to talk about "we work first in my lessons learned." 'Cause you don't need to. I said, "I understand I would really like to." And goes, "Adam, let's be clear." We called you here. It's 'cause we know what we think has happened. Assume that we've spoken to most people that have ever worked with you. Definitely to an engineer that has ever worked with you. And all of your board members, let's talk about the future of living. I say, "Mark, I really appreciate it. "I've never spoken to you about this. "Especially if you know so much about it, "maybe I can learn one more thing. "I know I learned a lot, "but maybe there's one more lesson hiding there. "I wanna talk about it." And this, for those people who know Mark, he'll say twice. But if you let him lose, he's gonna go. And there is no filter. And it's going to be some of the smartest things you've ever heard in your life. He almost does a version of this. So, "Okay Adam, let's go." And we go for it. And for the next hour and a half, not only do I share what I share, I learn at least five new things about it. The craziest one being he goes, "Hey, when you took the money from benchmark, "did you ever check how many founders they ever ousted?" And I said, "No, it was interesting. "Jack Dorsey, Travis Kalamack, "and then he names five other ones. "Goth are known for it." So it's not that they said they're great investors, but it has happened there many times. Did you even know that? Did you ever say no, I didn't? It was okay, so we learned one thing about you. You did not do your homework. Said, "No, I did not. "I trusted." And it was okay. We then talked for the next three hours, then we talked about the future of living. Said, "Adam, what would you want to solve?" If you solve, what do you think the two biggest problems? Said loneliness and ownership. It was great. How are we gonna solve that? And then we talked about how I think we're gonna solve that. And at the end, he goes, "So, "what do you think about considering your partners?" 'Cause by this point, I'm finding the business 100% on my own. I don't want partners. I don't need partners, I'm traumatized. I said, "I genuinely didn't think about it." He goes, "Well, how about you do your homework and call a lot of people who we've been investors of." 'Cause we've already called a lot of people that know you. See what you think. And basically for the next six months, we get to know each other. But as we're getting to know each other, we shape. The business already existed. There were buildings already bought a small tech company that we were using. There were things that were occurring already. But we shape it even bigger and Mark is playing a very active role. And every time I think big, he thinks bigger. But not the way Masa thought bigger, grow faster. The way things longer build a better product. Take your time. Don't worry about profitability. Not because you're chasing revenue. Don't worry about profitability because if we can actually challenge loneliness and ownership in a real way, we're gonna have a world changing business. And Mark says to me, "And I am here to build a big one, not the middle one." So it's again that energy of wow, we're here someone thinking as big or bigger than me. But he's not telling me go crazy, he's teaching me history. Said, "Great tech teams are small, they're not big." Starts naming every single great tech product that was built and how it was built. And as we do this partnership and Ben Horowitz is starting to jump in, but the first board meeting was only Mark and starting the second band joins. The one thing we agreed in advance is when comes to technology, they will help choose the leaders. - Great. - Amazing. They will help choose the leaders and on our board meetings, we're gonna spend time talking about the whole business but we're really gonna spend time talking about tech. 'Cause when comes to building a brand, a global movement or real estate, they truly trust me. Comes to building technology. They wanted me to truly trust them. Now even though my investors before tech investors, not once, did they give any advice? I love this, I'm like, "Great." And then Mark has the ha ha moment that even takes it to the next level. Said, "How much money looked at all "of my real estate portfolio?" He said, "Choose the best, tell me how much equity it is, "and that's what we're gonna invest." So I put 350 million in the form of equity, of real estate, not that, not value of real estate, just the equity, and they put 350 million cash. We both at Skin in the Game. We won rule between the two of us. They told us, "I don't wear a line with you." Even though you weren't actually misaligned with your investors, 'cause you didn't do anything wrong, not only was there the perception of misalignment, you found yourself misaligned. It's make a rule. When you buy, we buy, when you sell, we're together. I said, "Great rule." "Great rule." "Can't wait to be with you, aligned." And just to lend this point home, and then we'll take it to what it is that we've been building. It's time to find a CTO. Sounding people don't know about flow, flow spends more money on technology than anything else, not on real estate. Really? We'll explain a second why. So it's time to find a CTO, and we go on this six month journey of interviewing the best on the planet, 'cause we're not gonna make that mistake again. We get to four final candidates, and I choose my final one, and then I introduce all four to Ben, and Ben Horowitz, an amazing CEO himself, but also a coach of C-E-E-Ls. He's a great recruiter and hireer, seen it all done at home, and Ben interviews, I interview. Ben calls me, goes, "Hey Adam, I finished my four interviews. I know my pick." Said, "Great, he goes first, "I'm gonna tell you who you picked." Said, "Let's go Ben, 'cause you picked Amazon guy." I said, "Yes, I did. Goes great pick. He has the experience. He's a great guy. He worked in a great company. He checks all the boxes. He's not your guy." So why Ben? 'Cause you guys are what's up, guy? So why is my guy's the what's up guy? I was not gonna tell you something, I'm a Scott. I'm gonna tell you something about Scott that Scott doesn't know about himself. Scott is extremely smart. Scott had to architect a very complicated situation, and what's up, and dealt with billions and billions of users, and huge numbers that you've never imagined the numbers that he dealt. And we know about his engineering team, and how he clinked it up, and how he did the architecture, and there's a lot of really good things that we did our diligence on. But Scott has one quality that builds excellent tech teams that you need. Said, "What is that?" So when someone says something stupid next to Scott, Scott does this with his face. He can't help it. He doesn't even know he does it. I get, and Ben, that's important for our tech team, 'cause it's the most important. I said, "Why?" 'Cause I'm gonna tell you sick at about tech teams, and like small tech teams are great. One bad apple, rooms the whole thing. We always manage to the lowest faces, not to the highest. He can't help it. Even if you won't be able to tell them you're fired, they will see on his face that he thinks they are not great, and they will go find another job. This, for flow, flow's tech team needs to be world class, 'cause flow's trying to solve very large problems. And it's gonna take time to build what you wanna build, and we have to make sure the core is correct, because if our foundation is not there, we won't be able to deliver on this big mission. He's your guy. Again, all that I'm, I'd have argued. New Adam chose his partners because of what they know, and what they, and what they, and what they bring. Yeah. I don't know if Ben thought this was gonna be an argument or not. I said, "Great, yes." He was like, "That's it?" I said, "Of course, that's it." That's why, that's why we're partners. I know you know more than me, and obviously I didn't do a good job last time on this topic. Bring it up. Yeah. And we recruit Scott. How many CTOs did you hire in the past? Six. And how many has he hired in the past? He's hired so many entrepreneurs, by the way, who act as CTOs at the beginning, who act in pure tech companies, were more than just a tech company. In pure tech companies, many times the founder is the CTO at the beginning, and then they all have to hire CTOs. So he is of a thousand companies. So he's done this over a thousand times, this way or that way, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. So no questions asked. At some level of experience that feels good trusting. It's also disconnects to our past. It's we work because we were trying, especially now, we know the story at some point to start chasing revenue. We were trying to build systems that can count and manage. It flowed from the first day our mission was oneness, oneness for a person in themselves, person in their community, and a person in the natural world. To achieve that, you need to build technology. Now we talk a lot about AI to think instead of humans. At Flow, we talk about AI to empower humans to be the best version of themselves. Beautiful. Create spaces that empower humans to be the best version of themselves. Our technology does not need to think for us. It needs to make everything so smooth and make things work so organically that we can be part of something greater than ourselves. And that's why our CTO is such an important pick. So now it starts and it's three weeks into the job. And Councilor says, have good news and bad news. The good news is I have an idea of the architecture that would build what we need to build to deliver on your vision of serving ownership and solving loneliness and on creating this energy of oneness or togetherness. The bad news is current real estate technology is built on databases and does not put the resident or the member first puts a lot of other things first but not that we're going to have to build it from scratch all of it. Back to the we work days I was told by many cities I need to build from scratch I built all the time from scratch and I had nothing very little to show for it. So it's got I'm not sure I'm ready for this adventure but you're in luck. I have a board meeting next week I truly trust my partners. If you're ready to walk in and present how you're going to build real estate from scratch architecture be my guess I'm just telling you this might be a short partnership for the two of us and I really started to like you it's only been three weeks but I like the energy because I'll take my chances because by the way I'm here to fulfill your vision instead of one explain to you something that I'm going to tell them your vision is going to change so many times. If I don't give you an extremely flexible system that's truly rethinking everything I won't be able to keep up with you I might at the beginning but one day you're going to ask for something I can't do. I'm going to preempt it but it's going to be tough for you because then I'm going to tell you any day year for you not to bother me and all the little things that our CTOs might have built for you nice apps and front facing and all the gimmicks you're going to have any gimmicks. When I'm done with what I'm doing you're going to have a powerful system that can basically tackle on the future of how we live. It goes into the board meeting and you should have been there they go at it for three hours I don't have a lot to say because it's not my field. Mark is very strong in architecture then is very strong in use cases and how it's used and they just go and after three hours they say we agree. We agree and then go out to dinner and they argue between themselves for another two hours about it. Wow big decision. It's a very big turn and the guy just started it's a lot of trust. And then the end of it Ben is like Adam on good I said why goes because Mark is good we've been working together for 30 years and I love this by the way for me this is no problem. We've been working together for 30 years and I know when to trust my partner is good on good side you guys are good on good. We start this journey of rethinking how the architecture for nice architecture in the digital architecture in a way that will allow us to put the resident the member. Why is digital architecture so important in housing I don't know because without giving away all of our secrets I'll explain to you how it's built today think of it as a database. Build data on data on data on data and now you want to put a eye on top of it you're really getting the top layer. You're not actually understanding everything and if you want to leverage technology in a way that truly understands everything you have to re architect how the data is stored from the beginning from the beginning you have to actually rethink it. This is where we got luck here then smart this is two and a half years ago block chain is in place. A is in place not the way it is today but it's all starting so everything is built taking in mind the newest way of doing things it's the edge of the edge of how to build things. I told you that we're going to have a board meeting in two days we're going to present for the first time how not only it all comes together theoretically how it's working and how it's starting to deliver and it's going to only work better from here but we see the results and how do we see the results and much more profitable buildings but we also seen much happier residents much more connected. How many buildings are there now so flow now has nine buildings foreign to us and five in Saudi Arabia. And flow is how these communities come together and we're doing it by tackling the technology the brand of what it represent and the experience and we're really doing it one thought at the time and again the big difference from the past we're not rushing we're going after the right product and we're doing it in a way that's truly going to make you the user. Feel like you're having this experience that's truly unique and when we talked about this two years ago said mine body and soul and how it all comes together people maybe had a lot of time everybody wants to feel like they're in flow everybody understand what flow status for them everybody is connecting to it and the buildings are really starting to show each time that you have a new building do you learn new things about what works and what doesn't work. What a great question. We just launched a new building in Brickle and Miami 632 apartments very large brand new completely empty and flow is not just able to run buildings flows now developing the beginning of small neighborhoods so it's a single building but there are three more plots at 6.2 acres which for Miami is a very large block to build over 2,200 apartments with office space with retail with a school that we're considering. All community and as you start thinking about it as a community start saying well what does the community need you're limited to just a single building saying what are obvious things will community what they need to barber shop and needs a nail salon needs but then it needs to fill and it's a coffee shop and you start adding all these things that make it your sense and what else does community community loves music community loves food community loves art and you start thinking of all those things bringing together and before you know it we get to not just experience all these things but experiment that. So give an example do you know how many times you've driven by empty construction sites that are fenced up. Yeah. So we had 3 of those because we have one finished building and 3 construction sites we take one of them and this was where because idea actually and we plant we put send to make it like a beach. We put palm trees we put a little you know the indigenous structures that they love to create in Miami like a teaky hut but the large one that's going to have a floor or like working the music here 3 times a week and here's to 4 trucks and we're going to open it up. For the public beautiful like a park like a park cost very little to do but for the next 2 years instead of living in empty construction site you gave to the community this one is under river we say hey what about a farmers market we lunch farmers market. Great. We have this amazing woman her name is Shelley remember gelinas she used to be the CEO of gelinas if you remember gelinas you know what she does the best food the best food and from what I hear from a lot of people the best experience. She brings it all together so we say to Shelley all we have to say is we want the farmers market with intention. It's like an AI you just give the problem you come to the farmers market every wood has a story this mother this daughter this local this and they will so inspired now people start walking it and they're so inspired. And now you're giving to local community but we really doing is also attracting a lot of people and you're starting to tell the flow story and it actually starts and at the beginning but we can't get a lot of people there because now I'm so heard of this farmers market so with more yoga class and we lunch a runs club and we're watching some people for walking then running and before you know it over a thousand people coming there was one I didn't see the last one because I was here with you there was one yesterday. And it's every week and the more exciting the environment is downstairs the more affects the upstairs and people starts coming in and now all these tours are coming and because we're leveraging and then we write a sign on the building what if it all goes right and two weeks ago someone goes on their boat on the river and takes a video what if it all goes right this is a woman was 13,000 followers she gets 22 and a half million views. She won viral and she writes sometimes it only takes one sentence to lift you up she must have not been the only person it was shared over 1.8 million times it was huge numbers. All it said is what if it all goes right but it was on a building landlords don't usually say thanks no and would you think by the way came up with that sentence the person of people like to make a villain. Of course classic way back classic because it's so says it was a simple as I really come up with that sentence she said it's you you think it always going to come no matter what happened to your life you found a way to think what if it all goes right you stand for it so I put it on the building. She is a way of building brands that is so authentic I am now understanding there's so much depth there by the way she does three hours a week the rest is all us because we don't need more than that. She doesn't need to get she gave us more than that we couldn't keep up and she's full time mom and just lunch the school and is doing all these different things that she's doing is full time mom just lunch the school is doing a lot. She's tackling the world away she sees in a way to make a difference but you suddenly have this flow building it has a farmers market it has a part everybody's coming in tours are flying in we don't know what to do with them and because of our same architecture that digital architecture spoke about it works very well connecting to social media. We can count and measure every lead that comes in we can start pulling a lot we can do a million things that other landlords can do we start pulling that lever in that new building and it's filling up so fast. First of all I'm slowing down for a second because when something is working that well you got to take a second take a breath to say wait maybe it's priced wrong maybe but it's filling up at least at five times the speed of the market it traditionally would take 18 months to fill up a building with 400 apartments that's the market number. This building is 632 apartments it will fill up in six months and that's just the beginning we're going to say I to keep it maintained with a team to do that because it's a lot of work. is very creative, leveraging a lot of tools. But afterwards, to maintain it, you'll do it with a lot less people. And the other thing that we've done in this community, another lesson from the past, we have ambassadors that live there. Each one of their choices a topic that they love, they host the events. They make it all happen. We just empower them through the app, through the tech to be able to do. Once a month, each one of them, five of them, so once a month, so that's five events a month, then the trainers are from the building, the yoga instructors are from the building, the meditation is from the building, and people are really reacting well to it. - Beautiful. - Tell me, since you and Rebecca started, your spiritual journey together, how it has grown. - So, spoke about Shabbat a little bit. When my boys were born, we had an experience with a rabbi that wasn't willing to get paid. He did the breasts, and he wouldn't take the money. His name is Rabbi Helmer. And he's a very special person. And no matter how much we chased him, he wouldn't take the money. Until I sort of didn't believe, I was like, Rebecca, this guy's just playing a show. I'll force him to take the money. And I go to his house, thinking there's some trick up his sleeve or something, and I see a very humble house, and a very humble man, an amazing wife and amazing kids. I'm so inspired and impressed that I said to him, we gotta find a different, he's not gonna take the money. It's a no, he's a no. Let's do something else. And he encourages us to practice more on practice, starting by the Friday night and this, and then he encourages us to try Shabbat one time. What are the rules of Shabbat? So, the rules of Shabbat, forget the religious rules. Let's do the spiritual rules. The rule is that you take one day a week, and you disconnect from 24 hours. From the external world, and you connect to the internal world, yourself, your wife, your kids, your close friends. No technology, no technology, no cooking, no working. You don't talk about business, no matter what, no talking about business, Shabbat. Best ideas, by the way, for business. Come on Shabbat. Don't talk about it, but it's the time. And it's a rule that existed 3,000 years ago is when it comes from. As relevant as it was then, I think it's never been more relevant than today. And I tell this to people all the time, forget the religious part. Take your phone and put it in the cookie jar, up there, close it, and take 24 hours. And I say, here's what you're gonna experience. Notice how many times for the first three hours you're gonna put your hand in your pocket to grab that phone, which means you're addicted. Just notice it. But then make it through the night, and going to the next day. And I say, "I don't think if you didn't say that day, or Sunday, choose your day." Not the Pope, that passed away. He used to call it the technology Shabbat. You would breach it. Say, "Technology Shabbat, technology Shabbat." And the next day, be disconnected from the phone. Drive, do everything else you wanna do. Just don't use your phone. Make your plans in advance, so it works. Tell me afterwards if you had a better week. If you had a better week, do it again. - You are allowed to read a book. You're encouraged to read a book, courage to read a book. So again, in my practice, you would also pray Friday night, you pray on Saturday. But I'm putting myself on the side first again, and I'm saying, "Anybody who tries this, when you disconnect from your phone, when you're giving a gift to your kids, you're disconnected. They're disconnected, but you're all much connected to each other. Especially for people who work very hard. - Yes. - Imagine the gift of 24 hours. Before you know it, they're gonna be 18. They're gonna be out of the house, and you mess this beautiful thing. When we do it, we don't touch anything. - When did you start doing it? - 10 years ago. 10 years ago, my boys are 10, so right after their birth, so 10 years ago. - Would you say of the different things you've done that was one of the life-changing decisions? - I would say without a doubt, that the biggest move that I've made spiritually is keeping Shabbat. On those days, the biggest channeling of ideas for Rebecca and I happened at 8 a.m. Saturday morning. Now remember, we don't write also, 'cause we don't this, so we just remember them. But the action happens Saturday morning. And then we also host sometimes the Shabbat, where everybody comes together and reads the Torah. We host the Shabbat. So then we're hosting other people and we're bringing them together. And then everybody shares this experience. And we sit in a circle and we talk before the Torah reading about this week's portion. We share how is it relevant to our everyday life? But sometimes we just take the Saturday off and we don't participate in that. And we're just with our kids and our friends. - Beautiful. There's something happening now. I don't know if you know about it called the quiet revolution. - Tell me about it. - Young people are interested in going to church. For years and years and years, the people who went to church, we're getting older and older and the amount of people was declining, declining, declining, declining. And something happened in the last few years. We young people are interested in going to church. More Bibles are being sold. Something's happening. - 100%. It's everywhere you go. People are more open. People are ready for it. It's natural. As technology is going to make us more and more digitally connected, we're going to feel more and more disconnected. The more disconnected that we feel, the more we're going to crave a real connection. A real connection will never come by buying another car or buying another house or owning another material good. A real connection comes from the inside. A person who is unity from the inside has unity to the outside. Here is what I think. We'll connect it to this weak sporsche. We all have something that we're slaves to. We all have an addiction to anger, to ego, to power, whatever it is, idol worship that we have. We all have an Egypt. We all need to leave that Egypt. Come out of it. When we come out of that Egypt, we all face a red sea. When we see that red sea, we all need to have the courage to walk into it so far that we drown. Only when we're willing to drown will the red sea be split. We'll go to our next level. When we go to our next level, we see the red sea split, it's like, "Oh, everything is okay." And we forget. The moment we forget, we step into the desert. We all have to walk to our version of desert. That desert is for the past and God, no one else. The only decision we get to have is how long we're going to journey through that desert. Are we going to journey for 14 days? Like the children are the ones who are supposed to? Or are we going to journey for 40 years because we're not learning our lesson? Our choice is not, are we going to get into the desert or not? It's how long we'll begin. And once we go out of that desert, we all have our version of the promised land. And if we have the courage to look inside, see our own correction, our own limitation. Look at it clearly now and say, "I see you." And I'm going to get over it. I'm going to learn, I'm going to grow. I'm going to understand that life is not about falling down. It's about how I'm going to get up. I'm going to fall a thousand times. So I can get up a thousand and one times. And in that last time when I get up and I'm actually ready to go to my next level, I'm going to wish for you, for me, please. May we have the courage to go to our next level because we know that the promised land is waiting right after it. And may we not be afraid when the whole world is saying this or that about us. Who cares? So what do you think? Or your wife thinks, or your kids think? What do you universe thinks? Tetragramatine is a podcast. Tetragramatine is a website. Tetragramatine is a whole world of knowledge. What may fall within the sphere of tetragramatine? 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