Adam Neumann

I was born in Israel. I moved 13 times.

By 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 the first day. How those 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 keyboards. For people who don't know what the keyboards 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 keyboards. I didn't remember how small it was. The entire house, bedroom, kitchen, and children's room. My sister and I shared a room was 450 square feet,

and I don't fit in the door. So I started there. When I went there, I was like, "Oh, wow." The door doesn't fit. The sister older, younger.

The younger sister, three years younger. And what was your relationship like? Growing up, separate from moving from place to place, which means I was very close. When I was about eight, my parents got a divorce.

And after my parents got a divorce,

“we moved to the US, my parents are both doctors.”

And we moved to the US for two years, because my mother had to fellow. She's a oncologist. She followed an Indian in the Anapolis. I was a hooger for two years.

I went to Pracers Games in Indy 500. And that's where I learned how to speak English, because I'm very dyslexic. And for very dyslexic people, one of the toughest things in your language.

And I remember all those people said, "Well, how dyslexic are you?" And I would say when we moved to Indiana,

I'd ask my mom when I went to school the first essay.

"Why are you going to do 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." So I learned peanut butter and geling.

And for the next two months, every day I wait in line, and everybody gets there, and they hoard their hamburgers, and their fries,

and they're chicken nuggets. And I like and say it's peanut butter and geling. And one day after two months, I was like, "I can't eat one more peanut butter and geling." And I had the carriage,

and I said the word "hat dog." And from there, I started learning. And that was the two years. So this stage, my parents are divorced.

It's my mom, my sister and I, we're living alone in the US. And as we go back to Israel, my mother wanted us to have a special experience. And that's how we got to the keyboards.

And in the keyboards, because everybody has a job, she was the doctor at night. And in return for her being the doctor at night, we got the place to live.

So she worked the whole day in the hospital, and then at night she was the doctor. The reason the keyboards for me, so relevant, close my life for 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, when he was afterwards diagnosed, it's bipolar,

and growing up,

the patients were always the most important.

And I think it taught me a lot, because she was too careful of her patients so beautifully. When she would come home, there was less patients for us. And there would be a lot of fighting and screaming,

and hitting, and things flying, and a lot of things would occur.

“And I remember that no matter how bad the night was,”

there was always three neighbors checking on me. There was friends that I could go to. No one ever judged me, everything was always open. I was felt like I was part of it, and that feeling of safety,

is something that not only stayed with me, wherever I went to in the world, I sort of finally self-bearing people together. And when I moved to the US, which was actually following my sister,

so my sister left the Israel in 2016. She was a mysterious Israel. She moved to the US. She became a very successful model. And when I finished the army,

I moved to the US for days later, and I lived with my sister. And from the first day that we were sharing an apartment together, this was right after September 11th, a month later,

and we lived very close to where it happened, because that's where you got the money from the government, that that was the most affordable thing we could do. I remember going up and down that elevator, and what's so surprised that in America,

people don't introduce themselves. So I would see the same neighbors every day. No one says hello. Until after a month, my sister's name is Adi.

What do we do? Experiment. Let's introduce ourselves to everybody, and in a month we're going to throw a party on the roof, there's a shared roof. And that party will see who comes,

and we did it, and we threw the party, and half the building came, and the energy in that building changed. And it was very obvious for me

this Kibut's energy, is something that we could bring to the United States, in a form of a business. So this is now 2007. I've had three failed businesses by this point.

Two fashion businesses, and then baby closing business called crawlers, baby turns with knee pads on them, to protect the baby's needs. Good idea.

At the time I thought, today being the father of six kids, no one ever complained about the needs. I actually think they've extra skin and they've built for it.

But the universe started that one. But by this stage,

I'm already after my third business,

and I meet with Rebecca. And when I meet with Rebecca, the first stage, first time we met, I don't 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. And we do that twice, and the third time she goes to Adam,

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, and my money is in the business. She goes, I don't know what kind of entrepreneurial are,

but if your money 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 it not only intriguing, I was like wow, and I said no, you don't understand how business works, and it 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. It was talking to the Chinese manufacturers of the baby closing.

I was screaming at Mr. Mao, Mr. Mao, Mr. Mao. And she woke up, and when she said, if you wake me up one more time,

screaming at your Chinese manufacturer, for company that makes no sense,

and it's probably never going to make any money,

it's really going to be an issue. That 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 relationship,

and said, well, because I like being challenged, so 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 tell you one observation, I have about you. You love real estate. So I don't know anything about real estate.

So 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 listen. And the next morning I walk, and I notice 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, start talking about my baby clothing business, and tells me how horrible it is. And I said, and I was,

Mr. Gottman, I said, Mr. Gottman, why would you say my business is so bad? I 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. Gottman, how much real estate do you own? It says everything. As far as the eye can see.

And I said, well, it looks empty to me. You know, a lot about real estate.

And we would go back and forth for six months. In 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. Yeah.

You know, it's like your time. Maybe you think you own it. When it comes out of nowhere, you could give it bigger than you.

Came from something bigger than me. I said, well, Mr. Gottman, 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 $5,000 in rent. Well, charge $1,000 in space. I think we can fit 15 spaces. We'll get 15,000.

We'll pay the receptionist to $2,500. You'll get $7,500. I'll keep the difference. He said, interesting.

I went home. Not thinking anything about it. Yeah. I come the next day. He calls me so excited.

He said, I don't. 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, who was at my co-founder at the time, is an architect. I do it all architect.

And in one night, the business, the business cards everything gets created. It was called Green Desk. It was early mover on the environmental movement.

The back then coworking was not the concept that loved people knew. And the lunch was May of 2008.

“And you weren't aware of coworking before the idea.”

Interesting question. At the time, I go to Baruch College. I actually had the person sitting next to me. A woman, who was older. And her son had some version of coworking,

but it was very different than this. And did not have a brand behind. I had no purpose. It was just, let's split space. And we actually had an entrepreneur through competition.

And she joined me to the competitions. Her dose here at the store is of our son. And our concept was called Concept Living. And was the building on an office space. We shared services.

It was flow. But a long, long, long, long time ago. Yeah.

I never made it even to the second stage of the competition.

Because the dean of the business school 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 wasn't aware of it. It was something that brings to people together. I never thought about it as the place where that same community, that same kid was that as a child made me safe with 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, "The business is not going to succeed."

And I said, "Why?" Because real estate always goes down when the economy goes down. As the world is not real estate. It's going to be counter-cyclical. More people are going to want to be here.

More people are going to because 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. We started it start. We put five ads in Craigslist.

No money. We're looking at five ads.

The first flow was 92% full within five business things.

What did the ads say? Wow. Probably. We're going to have to check. Yeah.

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, "You see, my idea is so good." I said, "Yes." Mr. Godwin, you're there's the best.

Yeah. And he said, "To me, let's open another 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. 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. Yeah.

But it was, she felt that this is a great time to start a spiritual practice. So you were not spiritual, well, enough. So I don't know, and you would be a better person. What do you consider spiritual? A meditation practice, praying, going to temple or church,

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 me, sister. I think if she was here, she would say, that 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 going to be very successful one day in the future. And how we're not going to have these issues. And how it's all going to 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 positive way. So you were optimistic, but maybe you wouldn't use the word spiritual. No, I had 100% with not used of a spiritual.

I was not spiritual. I was very optimistic.

“But the only thing that was spiritual about me”

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Do it today. [Music] Tell me more about the kaboots. Would you feel like the other people in the kaboots were like an extended family or no?

So as we said, they entered 13 communities in childhood. The toughest community to enter was the kaboots. The kids 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 kaboots. It was a very successful social movement.

But it worked for the first generation.

And the second generation, their kids not so much. And by the third generation, the whole thing collapsed. Funny enough, lately, there's a 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 kaboots, 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. Where the child ends, 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 kaboots felt that way. I left the kaboots at the 11th grade. I lived 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 kaboots,

I'll share a few things that were different. I think we can learn so much today from the past. In our kaboots one day a week, there was no school.

“Everybody volunteered and worked at the job.”

Interesting thought. In our kaboots, every morning, we all went to the dining hall to our breakfast. It was so convenient. 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 cream cheese. 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 no fifth grade, sixth grade, all the kids are together.

And we're talking and we're excited. We're in this and everybody goes to the bus. And from the bus trade to school. And then 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 it was interesting. I was wearing shoes. Yeah, how did you make it better? I have the best friends and his name is Angel Finkelstein. That's the same party that I told you about, that my sister and I,

threw on the roof for a one or two invite everybody from the building. Yes. Angel'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 has a very heavy accident. Invited me to hang out in his apartment. You go to, oh, they's really invited you to hang out in his apartment. I am coming. And 20 minutes later, I knocked 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 I'm like without my shirt. Oh, being very, he calls me very, your trash. Is the way he would refer to it, whatever that means. And he starts making fun of me.

Oh, you told my girlfriend this and this and for every word he tells me. I'd 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, but anything.

And we become best friends instantaneously. For the next two years, we just hang out together.

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. They're English to this. Did that. He 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 American culture. And he's my age. 46 is 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, 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 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 moved to LA. And I've never met Rebecca Disport.

And he starts his career. He's a very successful Hollywood agent today. And always tells me about Rebecca. And from her side, I was tells her about the crazy Israeli. Never introduce us.

Then two years later, I'm now by this stage. I'm 28. Rebecca is moving back from LA to New York. And he's 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 10.”

Rebecca, you know, anything you need in New York. I can help you get. She was born there. And I guess this idea of her shape. She was going out to clouds and she was 14.

And that was that. And a week later, she just kind of nowhere calls. And says, Hey, if you want to hang out. I mean, my friend, I'm hanging out. You can come and say hello.

And I do that. And I go at the time. I have no money. I write my bicycle. I go to that first meeting.

I walk into her apartment. She's with the friend. We talked for a few minutes. And then she tells the friend she can go. And it was just an instant connection.

And you really moved 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 at 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.

I was like, well, what do you mean? And she goes, the way you're talking, it's like you're so successful. And I can literally tell that you're broke. So it's a little ridiculous. Yeah.

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 taking a taxi. 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 leave me 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 from your ready, but I don't want to hang out until then. I was like, okay. Wow. And I go for two, three days.

And if there was like, that was weird. Why would you miss her? I don't 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 send anything because it's father's day. You're going to 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.

Activity. And I just, we hang out. And we go to her father's day. I made her entire family. 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 if you're just losing money, rolling it, making ends meet, making things come together.

“She comes to me and she goes, how things going to work out between us?”

This is now a month in and I'm, I am head over heels because I think you say here. And so what you mean, 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.

And you really don't have one.

And I believe you're interested in one. And therefore I don't think it's going to work out, but it's okay. You're going to do great and very good looking. A lot of girls are going to be interested. Don't worry about you're going to do 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. Is that 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 like it because she knows very anti-religious. Anything religious being Israeli, love people don't know this. You don't like religious. If it's forced or new 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. Yeah. That's a lot of the split.

There's the stories from the outside that we're hearing. There's what actually happens. There's a big divide in it's will turn religious and non-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 pay our taxes. We do what we think is our civil responsibility. Remember serving from age 18 to age 21 in my kids,

still almost 23, I almost did five years because I was a Navy officer. Serving. It's such a young age. I think it's 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. It depends what your position in the army is.

I was specifically a Navy officer. I did it age 21 within the US. They do it age 28. Well, they have less money. Yeah.

And they need to get things. You have tremendous responsibility. But even if you're a soldier working. You have future responsibilities and there's many, many lessons I learned there. I want 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. You general if you haven't been a good soldier. You can't.

You can be an okay general or okay 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 keep on trust. 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 that everybody bathed in it.

And then they emptied it 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 mastered martial arts. And he brings an interpreter and goes to that guy and says, excuse me,

he looks to me like doing martial arts, but you're cleaning the pool. How are you doing? He said, I'm doing what my father taught me. And he said, what did your father used to do? He used to clean the pool.

And who taught your father? He said, his father, my grandfather. And he used to clean the pool. This pool is healing for people. We take every move that we make in the 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. Or view it as a horrible tour and be very busy complaining. Beautiful story.

That's what you learned in the army.

“If you want to or not and someone with my characteristic, it's a must.”

Because 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 are two different things. How would you describe you before and you after? You know, maybe four hike up in the ski boots.

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 was one place 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 arrived into the U.S.

This is after September 11th, so there's just a horrible terrorist attack. New York, if you remember the time is changing, there's the New York before and the New York,

Afterwards, for 10 years, at least from 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.

It's thought 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, think that's where trouble comes. Now Rebecca, who's literally just starting with me, he's 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. Yeah. So she takes me to this first cabala class, and without getting into the deal already been doing cabala or no. She was doing cabala once a week, but not as a practice saying,

not with any religiosity. I would really separate between sometimes people's out of her. Are you religious or spiritual? I'm going to say, how do you define, I say, so I keep shabut. And when did that start?

Ten years ago, which is four years into it.

But I'll go back to the first cabala class.

I go to that first cabala class to prove to this woman I just meant, that I can do anything. And she's going to say, she's not going to 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.

If 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 there will be a pause, what a wonder. Pause, what a wonder. Then interact again.

You'll need your reaction. Take a breath. Let the universe come in or new language. Home that antenna. And let it receive for a second.

There's a certain speed that this travels in. And then, and those that those are class. Class ends, I'm like whatever. But I still want to prove that. So I go and talk to the, I'm going to ask this teacher someone,

something and show her. And I ask the teacher something, and this one is a very wise teacher. To take 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 going to show her back.”

I took her teacher's book. Meanwhile, I go outside. I look at the book. The class ends, oh my god, this teacher tricked me. Oh, I got to come back next week and give that this book.

I'm not going to not return the book. And the next day, I go back into my baby clothing business. I was genuinely not succeeding. And I have this saleswoman who's very powerful, but we argued every day.

And she gets added again. And this is something that I think people don't know about me.

Even when 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 pausing. What a beautiful dialogue.

And we come up with a new idea of how to do something. Wow, we execute her time. First time. You know the book, The Alchemist? Yes.

He talks about beginners 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.

And we can go to the next level. And it works, and I love things I work. And I come there the next week now. I'm hungry. Now I'm spiritually hungry.

Now I want more. Because it already changed your life. It already worked. I wouldn't say that I don't recognize this point that already took some of the biggest moments of our life.

A 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 an up and down?

Are we going to learn from our lessons? Or 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.

I was just intrigued.

“And the moment that started things started”

to collect being in the flow state. Once I hit that flow state, things started moving fast. That. That to green desk. Let to rework.

Let to our first child. Let to everything. Or that's all the way here today. And it only started with one class. Yeah.

And one teacher. And one sentence. And then you started going every week. Then I started going over. 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. 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 rework.

“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. Katma. Mr. Katma.

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. Katma 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.

I encourage you to go first. 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 numbers 3 million. We own 50% with another partners. So a million and a half. We're going to buy a million.

That is only willing to give us 300,000 of our million.

“The rest is installments for the next four years.”

To ensure that we don't enter Brooklyn. What's our new business? So we don't compete. He just wants Brooklyn. Yeah.

By the way, back then, I'll Brooklyn no big deal. Well, Brooklyn became quite a big deal. He wanted Brooklyn. And he wrote the company in Brooklyn as well. First of all, it still exists.

And it's successful. So he has to grow it. But not with the concept of community and the soul behind it. Yeah. But it still exists today.

And it's still successful today. And in co-working is the 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 we get an I want to start. We work. 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. I knew it was right. We really experienced a lesser version of it. Earlier we had a higher intention than the first business.

And with percent true, this one had time to put thought. And this one had me gill and I sitting with the 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 drew.

Wow. I will send it to you. 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 him and tell him we're going to marry each other.

He stopped talking to us for three months. He had a relationship. Nothing to do with when him and Rebecca. He was so upset because he knew that him. He knew was 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 friends.

We called Rebecca and said, all the whatever words things you could say about me. Wow. And there's a lesson there also because if you call someone and tell them I just shouldn't 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. And I'm a very loyal person. And I commit. I'm not 99% committed. I am 100 to a fault. So Andrew ends up not talking to us for three months.

But then again, becoming very close.

And we never forgot the hatred to us.

But instead of you somehow hurting her, she may do better. That's what happened. And I think for her. The point she meets me, she was celibate for six years. She at age 23, she was 29.

He 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 chief among teach. She was certified. And she would meditate. And she would tell the universe, send me my soulmate or no one at all.

She was zero interested. So by 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 curse starting to take off. And he has and has always been an unbelievable agent.

Cooper writer and speaker.

And you know, like the Marty Supreme that just came out. He put together represents the director. He represented a lot. He didn't write and directed his day agents. But he helped it become a reality.

I was there for the whole process. And I called him. I said, I need your help to come up with the name. And I got to his house. And we hang out the way we used to hang out.

And we are really, this is now 2 a.m. 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 was still jobs had it wrong. It's not eye book. I found me. 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 2 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. We were so at the end.

We were done and it wasn't going to happen. Yeah. And he says it. And I look up at the universe by this point. I'm already practicing more as it.

“Please let me remember it in the morning.”

I wake up and I call Miguel, trademark. We work. Let's go. Boom. Amazing.

But it reminds me. It just said something. I think very important. It reminds me of a story. Joseph.

In the Bible. He's born. He has all these dreams. It dreams his father and his mother and his brothers. Well, by bow to him.

And his brothers hate him for it. And they put him in the cave. They want a kill him. And 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 me.

If you don't remember the story. They sell him. He moves his slavery. He becomes slave to one of Pharaoh's right hand people. He then rises.

Always. Whatever. He always is blessed. It says. God's will.

And he rises. There is a slave. He starts running the house. Then the woman of the house. And then was.

She really. She wants to sleep with him. Because he was defined as beautiful from the end and from the out. It's very handsome. Very smart.

And she chases me. 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.

Then in prison. Climes to the top. He's helping run the prisoners. God's will. And till after 10 years.

Those two people come. The two ministers. They have dreams. And interpreters dreams. One says.

Pharaoh will save you. And the other one says he will die in three days. And the one says. Pharaoh will save you. He says to him.

So please don't forget me. He suddenly gives up. The belief that he hadn't till then. But that it's God's will. God's will.

He forgets 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 snipe where he is done.

He's ready to give up. He says God. Maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe I need to be in prison. I will never.

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 for him. That law is 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 law. Boom. 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. He says.

I met a slave in prison. That that interpreted my dream. He brings him to Pharaoh. And interprets Pharaoh's dream. And goes from a slave.

To basically the CEO of Egypt. The number two to the king. And one day. All the way from here to that. And to finish that story.

When his brothers. There's a 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. So that them. It was never you.

I was here. So we all could be saved. It's God's well. So I think what you're saying. It's 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 he 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.

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 tried 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. No.

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. Yes. 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 your patient is at anxious. But I bet you're also patient.

Because if you're patient enough. The next chapter is. 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 last and greatness without patience.

You could taste it. You could taste it. We all know so many stars. I've been part of one of those stars. 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 it to accept the fact that sometimes even though you don't know.

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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 it was like one of those very tight landlords.

And I convinced him to pay us enough to build it. Had five floors. The idea was we'll rent the top floor and we'll do so well. Then we'll rent the floor below the floor below. And the reason you start in flow five.

We need to construction afterwards. You're also doing below people and not above their head. That's nice noise was the thought. And I convinced him to do the deal. But he has one thing.

We must put $300,000 in the letter of credit. Otherwise we can't do it. The exact same $300,000 that we got from the cell. 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. Yeah, to a slightly more intention oriented idea. Now it's there. And we were on their construction. We do the first one.

We get a very small budget from him. Which is 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. Yeah.

It's what takes us to the next level. And we we design it. We build it. I still remember the night before Miguel was about to have his first son.

We had a few employees. We'll go and finish it.

“And the place just it fills up before within a month.”

Ninety nine percent 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 do building too. We have no money. We raise our first round. And that's where it starts. Where is building too?

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 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 child like. 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. Meat packing is starting to happen. There was a club called Lotus.

We used to go there every Tuesday night. Danny A was at the door. And we we just loved the meat packing.

“It was so I don't remember meat packing back then.”

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. He also seems like as you have success. It's easier because you have examples.

We're not there yet because this is same year. This is the early success. So it is success. But I remember real estate people. Very good at saying no.

They know everything. Their business is cyclical. So they've been there done that. But at the same time. If you remember, you're now 2010.

Office is only starting to be at the rise. So there's all empty space. Which gives us an opportunity.

So we do meet packing, which is amazing.

And I want to do San Francisco. And the reason I want to do San Francisco. I wanted to be a national brand. And my head was like, OK, 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're 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.

But can just, you can just talk to. To share the struggles and the successes with people in a like minded place. Was relevant all over the planet. In a tremendous amount of sense back then. The only time I would say it makes more sense.

It's today because the more people are getting connected digitally. The less they are connected physically and the more they crave it. But back that it was unbelievable. San Francisco's answer. And then did you do more in San Francisco or did you spread out for this?

This is where I'm a little, this is where Adam back then is very busy doing. Just 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 wanted London and people were like, "Adam, you can't 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, London is the inventor of the original coworking. Readjust. 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.

“Then 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 few 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 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 know, brief you work. This is physical labor. This is architecture in all these languages.

This is construction. This is mine. 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 just met one of them. A few weeks ago, he works in an awesome news start and not even near. They're publicly traded.

He works in an 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 to work. And I said, I didn't teach you how to work in a vertical take of drum company. Like, what does construction have to do with that? He 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 for nominally 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 keyboards. It's the learning how to serve at the age of 18. It's living with a de-my sister in New York City and 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.

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Tell me about your relationship with soft bank and massive.

“First, I'll start with the most important thing to say about Massa, because for me, it's Massa.”

It's self-bank is the company that he created and self-bank is great, but it's Massa.

When Massa walks to first-time into we-work, he goes like this, it smells like a factory of dreams.

Wow. You're not my new faction, business here. You're making dreams. What a beautiful statement. And I am, I get shivers all over my body, and I was like, Adam, he just met someone who thinks bigger than you. Yeah. I didn't even know where it came from.

And then he just kept talking, 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, this, in the 12 minutes, he says that, and my headquarters, my wife said,

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 were customers were their members.”

So I could always hear from them and they'll later, they love telling me what's wrong and I love hearing. Yeah. So I introduced him to two residents to members. And he says what he says, he looks at me, he goes, "This is great. I need to go up town. We'd like to join me in the car. We could talk some more."

I said, "Of course, we go into the car. Have this whole presentation." Close it, always like, "Forget your presentation." So do I do. 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 green dust. Never stop being profitable. You would just slow down building and you'd be profitable even better.

You stop. You let the machine catch up with you because you've done so much. You actually take account, even to revert your ad, which there is no way to grow as fast as we were one of the fastest. Maybe fastest, physically growing business on the planet. No matter how good at 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. Are everybody in the right roles? Do we have enough employees to have too many employees? It's our technology working.

What do we need to do? We take a moment. Close 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've told me after our meeting that you need to take ten minutes and meditate before you go downstairs.”

Because you would've felt that because that energy, I think you'd've loved it. But that energy was electric. We were flying. And used to say outside of my door, we do the impossible everyday miracles once a week. And we meant it.

Yeah. We meant it. I didn't happen. It happened. We meant it.

It was happening. So we have this board meeting. Tell me now. How big is we worked in 2016? I would need to go back.

It's been so long. Secondly, 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 it. You're running revenue. Which then doubles your expenses and the growth and everything that comes.

So 450 million growing into a billion in revenue. It's a 16 billion dollar company of it last valuation. It's probably in. It's for sure in Europe in the United States and in Latin America. Wow.

At this point. And we're flying. And we're working. We are working many, many, many hours. Everyone.

Then please, myself. Everyone's working nonstop. We have the board meeting tonight 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 to know me. I keep my word. I say we're going to double by this number. I do it.

If I say we're going to hit this goal, I do it. 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.

Yeah. And 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 setting leases. We're going to take the company public.

And not only are we going to take the company public. It's a 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 that 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 a day of work. Yeah, you had proof. We had proof.

Yeah. We had belief. We had everything we needed to know. And the plan was solid. You slow down for a second.

And the next morning I made masa. And we sit in this car at the store. I told you it happens what happens. Invites me into this car. What's the deal and how much you're looking for?

Yeah. So again, happened the night before. And I'm already by this stage. I am studying spirituality.

“And I believe there's no, it's not causing effect.”

I believe in causing effect. But I believe, wow, we said it yesterday. And it's happening today. So I'm going to tell him the number we said. Raising 300 million at the 20 billion dollar valuation.

Because the last one was 16. He looks at me and goes, I don't know. I'm masa. 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 dollars. 300 million dollar checks. Don't you have a bigger vision and bigger picture?

Said, well, Tom, if you could do anything, how big can this company be? I said this company can be as big as as much money as you inject into it. Put money on one side. You get growth on that. I haven't missed my numbers one.

Remember, by this point, 2010 to 11. I go 3x, 3x, 3x, 3x and then 2x to extract. 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 kick depends how much money you want to put in the machine.

“And he says to me, well, what do you think about Southeast Asia?”

Said I've never been there.

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, well, 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, unless that comes to our China, Latin America, Europe, and the US, and China already is the first time in company that we raise locally at the two billion

dollar valuation. 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 witness 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 story about Yahoo Japan.

And how it's on point, Yahoo Japan was bigger than all of Yahoo. And so, okay, we could do that together. And then in the China, you could go much bigger in China.

And 300 million requests becomes three billion.

Big change. Big change. 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 20 minutes, 22. And he's writing all of the down on an iPad.

Then he looks at it and he goes, and I said, I can't take this much dilution. Maybe I could take, you know, maybe a billion, it's okay. So now that we will fund Southeast Asia as a separate company. China already was separate. Japan will be separate.

So this way. So he don't just have, we work as one valuation. You have all the 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 four billion. I said, 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 know where I would put it. Were 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 dotted 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 sea. It's here.

There's numbers. These are really from the keyboards. I 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. And I go, what am I going to do with another building?

Said you'll 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. Okay. And I should have been scared.

I wasn't. I should have been scared.

I've never thought about this before.

I should have been terrified because that was way more. I should have done that first lesson that I learned in Kabbalah. Pause. What a wonder. But I didn't.

I took that pen. And I signed that document. Right there. On this spot. On this spot.

He offered it on the spot. I signed on in the art of the deal. It's 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 appreciate. He trusted. He saw the vision. He trusted completely. Yeah.

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. 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. Straightaway. I walk out of that car.

Again, in hindsight, I couldn't know at that moment. That's when a mission driven company that was based on belief. I came from keyboards that came from all the right things with all the right energies. Switched to become about growth. Money and valuation.

And because you've 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're putting the situation of multiplying it by a hundred times.

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 thought about this many times. I could have not not signed. That wasn't in the car.

It's not that Adam then, not maybe Buddha could. I could have not not signed. 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 not what he 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 first second about my spiritual studies by this point about five years.

And when things come really easy, we tend to not appreciate them. And we don't appreciate them with 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 and our 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 they said, I have a beautiful relationship where I get given feedback all the time. With the executives where the teacher that we worked with there a lot of controls around us to keep it. But he 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 revenue 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. Yes. I had them don't operate that way. I cannot build a company that way. And then we really started growing fast.

The 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 could not move forward with that. So I appreciate you saying that. I'll view my words that I just said is hard.

I cherish that moment. Because in hindsight, that is what made me who I am today. Yeah.

“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 in its 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 in 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 that 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 perceive as working out. You're like, oh, man, 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 future. It's 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, they 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 have the capacity to build things that are tremendously larger as you said. If keyboards was here, then green disk was there. Then we work was 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 more consideration and Ben Horowitz as my partners.

And I'm saying this from knowledge because I've gotten to know them. I sit with them wherever 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 it up is the nine hours of sitting with Mark 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 my opinion the best investors in the world. They've 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 Adam, we need to have a serious stock. Maybe taking me somewhere, blocked the door from the key. And said, okay Adam, you've proven that you're the fastest growing company in the world. You've proven that it's time to prove profitability. Because if we're going to mature to our next stages of 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 well 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 muscles 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 lists, we haven't talked, we don't need to get into the details of the business, but we were taking these long-term lists 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 they were so they paid. 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 you. 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 the revenue group from zero to huge.

We should bring in a professional CEO that should do it daily, and you should become charmer. 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, 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 Masa 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 Masa saw us go from 450 to 900 million. A lot of companies promised him that we're the only ones who hit. 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 South Bank was going through their own set of challenges, and their own public stock challenges, and the Japanese stock market. And this is not 2019, it's 2018.

In March of 2018, Masa comes to me and says, why don't we buy, we work from all your investors,

and it's $20 billion valuation.

How many investors did you have at that time? Not that many. It's the institutional investors, the biggest ones. Best ones, the biggest ones.

“You know, 7 to 8 institutions plus 10 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. 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, whilst we'd want to understand it, but he understood it, he wanted to grow to a way bigger revenue,

and then do the pause and the cleanup. I see. He wanted to kill you. He wanted to wait longer before the cleanup. He wanted to truly, on 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, you offer the $20 billion valuation.

$10 billion for all of our investors, and employees, and $10 billion on the bank account.

the company's losing about a billion A to 2 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 and that's it. I was keeping everything because I'm aligned with him. And we had goals, but the deal, it was a deal of 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. It was just a very big goal, but we believe we could hit it. We would only 51% and he would only 49. Everybody would get more equity. It was a big plan, it was a big thank you.

I know they had hiding in it, not just we work. They 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 and accepting the deal. So the board did what's called a special committee. And that special committee's job was to negotiate with Masa. And do whatever they need to do.

“And I think they made, again, mistakes, everything the way you night talk about mistakes.”

I think they were greedy because instead of saying we'll take the win,

we'll take it 20 billion dark companies, the 10 billion by the way, these investors,

these 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.

They also have momentum. Again, I'm sitting on a board and there's a founder like me. And the founder brings a 20 billion dollar position 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 be with me. But if he says yes, and it has happened to me. And I've done it multiple times. The founder said, I just did it on a company three months ago.

If Anders 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 Masa told him 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 until in Christmas, they finally decide, okay, we're not negotiating. Little before, not negotiating anymore. They agree to everything and they pass it to Masa.

Now here's the problem. Because this is all happening. Masa and I are the planning 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. And there was a guarantee there was a protection that if it doesn't happen. Masa still needs to invest a certain amount. And I trust Masa because we've done this before. I've invested.

So we're we're signing deals. We're running really, really quickly. This is not happening. And then suddenly, our special committee decides, okay, now it's time to agree. I just want to say one thing.

You're women quickly, and this is what Masa wants. Exactly what he wants. 100%. To the tip, the speed he wanted. You didn't go rogue in trying to build the company fast.

This is what you signed up for with Masa and you were doing it. I did the opposite of going rogue. People who know me will know that I make a partner that keeps his word. If you're not a partner, and I'm going to change something. If 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. And then 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, so what we took the money for. Also, our partners world are with us.

And remember, then, please are killing 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 gifts and maybe's had the board special committee. I don't plan the next day.

Said Masa, or they have two boards. It's in the company, you know everything. We don't disclose anything. 20 billion here's a term. She hears 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.

Three minutes away from here. I got a phone call from Masa. Adam, I am so sorry. The Japanese market has changed.

Our stock is down 30%, I see a photo told me that if I go through with this 20 billion dollar acquisition.

Our stock will crash. My first responsibility is 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 in it. So the kids are next to the kitchen and everyone is hanging out. They're eating. They're drinking.

They're selling. They're really having fun. I decided I'm not going to say anything today. I just went and hung out. I took many, many deep breaths.

That night, whenever it was sleeping, I told Rebecca what happened. She had a nice relationship with Masa also. So let's go see her. Where's Masa at the same time? Can you guess where it would be?

“Because the universe, remember who's writing the story.”

If you were directing the story, it would Masa be. Not far. Exactly. Has to be not far, because the movie set can go too much. Yeah, yeah.

He's 15 minutes away. Unbelievable. We don't. And you didn't know that. Didn't have a clue.

Didn't have a clue. That's how that's when you're in flow. That things are 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.

It might be seen bad. We go 15 minutes away. We walk in. We discuss. Again, in hindsight, legal, you 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 to you.

Not at all. You could see it. No. No. It was not easy for him.

He didn't want to make the call. Of course. It was a steam. It was a steam disk.

“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, this is not Master San Mani. No.

This was soft bank money. Yes. And vision. But soft bank. So this is the other thing.

But then say, this is not vision. This is a soft bank acquisition. Small vision. Big soft bank. So it's soft bank money.

He did the right thing. So then we talked. We said, well, what are we going to do? We've been spending. We're greeting an amount that will still go.

Yeah. It was still very supportive. At this very large valuation. That's where that $40 billion valuation comes from. And I walk out.

And now. It's January of 2019. We have this big off site in L.A. rented universal studios. Again, a moment of reflection.

I could have gone on that stage. Told everybody what happened. Hold the stories.

“What I really, really would not like to be in any similar”

insurance 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. Yes. Which was doable. Hundred percent doable.

Hundred percent doable. But. I get on that stage. I say, light version of it. But I said, we're going to get serious to that.

I had one close person on that board. I was 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.

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. Yeah.

Are they for you? He comes and sees me. I was in somewhere around here. It comes to 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. Because we're the leaders. We know where everything is buried.

We know exactly what to do. To do it. And then my CFO goes to the left IPO. This is like a month later. We're warming up to use it to do.

And it's on fire. And it's all about revenue. It has nothing to do with profitability. He was out on based on their value. We're worth it.

It was on their revenue. We have more. And they're getting multiple revenue. And again, the fire starts. Now, the IPO story.

And the fire starts. And basically, he says, and 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 was still kept. That show the valuations that we're going to go public in. And they'll make sure to go about 40 billion. Because that's the last valuation. Because they're making a sell again.

All stuff that today I understand back then I had no clue. Yeah. And basically, if you keep obtaining growth of this magnitude,

the markets will understand that you can always pull deliver and turn profitable.

Grow more.

“We'll tell you the company public for this gigantic number.”

And home run. And what happened? Life 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. It also we keep burning because we're told it's going to be a multiple of 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. There's this split that happens in the public markets a lot. Where it goes in one second from we all want revenue multiples of revenue.

Do we want profitability? You're living in a world today where you're going to see. You're going to see some very valuable AI companies go with huge revenue. A lot of losses. And they're going to get some mega valuations.

And I hope for all of them that they can turn this switch whenever they need and do whatever 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 is this. And now something 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.

But the two banks that are fighting on us are 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 evaluation is not there. And it's not going to be 40, it's going to be 30. There's this thing in both companies.

You can't catch it 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.

Some looking good things are not working well. Let's rethink. Let's regroup. But the leaders around me. And this is the big big choice.

And again, I'm saying this again, so it's hard again. I take full accountability. But the leaders that I put around me. And when did I 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 like me. They all wanted that IPO. Everybody was doing math. And they're pushing IPO and the bank and everything. And as 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 the story, I think about again, this is why life and experience is so important today.”

That was advising me as it closed 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. Masa, son, you trusted me so much. I am grateful and appreciated. 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 to 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. Yeah.

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.

And 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 to write advice are very small.

“Remember also that at that time I'm very good at this.”

Yes, I have a spiritual practice. And yes, I'm very good at this. Going into a retreat for a week. And stopping everything and breathing and meditating. And really asking myself, "Do I have that I can trust?"

And going and talking to them would have been there. Why is 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.

Or the most powerful people in the business world.

We're talking about the heads of the banks. We're talking about the biggest venture capitalists on the planet. We're talking about, we're talking about a lot of the board members. We're talking about people that have built this repertoire for a very long time. Yeah.

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 two voices called me that I missed.

Mark Benioff calls me. He wasn't such a weird close friends, but not the closest. Yeah. Said Adam, I don't need to know a lot. To know what's happening.

I can read the press. You don't know. I go public. I pulled back. I reshuffle. They did it again.

“You must pull back and fire your CFO and general counsel.”

And I don't need to know who they are. Just now they're not advising you right right now. Miss that one.

There was another super powerful person.

I'm comfortable saying Ruth Paratt. Super star. Same story. Sends me someone from a different bank to advise me. Said Ruth sent me.

But I missed the science. So much noise. And I'm not talking to Masa. And the noise is all around me. And he's not talking to me.

And now the bank was supposed to go out public. He's telling me we're having really issues. And this is moving really fast. And the articles are coming in the distance. And again, everyone keeps telling me how soft like is doing this to me.

And soft like 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 different things. And I remember talking to him saying, but I don't think someone else is going to understand how to understand what needs to be done. This is, 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 it's often not the case. I think so. I also think he truly believed in what he was saying. I actually think his thing told him that it's possible. And maybe they didn't understand what the magic of we work really was.

That's what I'm saying. I don't think he did. So I'm not so. Again, I don't know how much he knew himself. Yeah.

Because he has a big team. And he's doing a lot of things. This is one other meeting. We got no blaming at all. No.

“And 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 through individuals. And I'm like, OK, we're going to need to look 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. And 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 it says to me, I don't like you of a 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 money.

I said, no, he wouldn't. And he's they want to told me he'll protect me, I don't like it. So we go and we bring it up. Or if 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. And 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 a trust. And I step down on the board meeting on the board call. And nine minutes later. I receive an email from the same back.

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 dollars.

Which, of course, I didn't have. And there's no chance I could have that. That's unbelievable. And just sort of clear about the nine minutes. And bank cannot create a document in nine minutes or in a day.

It has 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 execute. I walked right into it. Carable story.

And then no, there's not a terrible story. It is. At this point in the story, it's a terrible story. It's interesting.

I've never told it by the way.

Yeah.

I think this story is occurred, but we never hear these stories.

“I think there are versions of this story.”

I think they happen more often than that. 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'm at the same time articles are coming out. And the 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 to call 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'm starting.

And I said, but no one knows the 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 out of them. Just call to say 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 want 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. It was wrong.

We actually studied two things, but they're similar. I will only study two things. One, treat other people the way you want to be treated. But it's just commentary. Two.

And this is the real one. The darkest moment of the night is a second before dawn. I want you to know something. It 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're flying like this, no one's ever seen something like that happened before. That's not believed. That's you'd be an idiot if you don't believe in that happens.

Belief 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 past. And it 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're 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. And adults. 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 which never seen me cry.

You're together. Ready? 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 10 years. Because you cry. So yes, it goes why?

Said because it's all gone. Said what? They said everything. It's all gone. They're going to take it all away.

It's gone. I did. I made this mistake. I read everything. I go everything.

“Because 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 yes, 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 sign on a personal guarantee. The space for you. You really want to understand.

Because we're going to go public that that I had. 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 the IPO, it's personal guarantee.

But my lawyers 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. I'm in relationship.

I think we'll 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.

She took a deep 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.

Take our five kids. We're going to 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 deliver the state. Kids will be homeschool. We'll serve for a few days. Or work out either way.

No matter what, you got me in the kids.

What are you crying about? At this moment, I understood something when we're children. And with 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've won close friend of the whole world. For a few close friends, for 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.

I'm not. She didn't get me over the house. I'm still a little depressed. And it's not like me because I don't get depressed. As she goes and bite away. Something I've meant to tell you.

When we met, you were broke. I find you much sexier broke than I do with money. Then I smiled. Now I wasn't happy. I walked downstairs.

Remember at 15 days to pay back from 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 officers who came just joined me a few months ago

to manage all this money that now we don't have. And I'm smiling six a.m. We started at six a.m. because we had to deal with this horrible situation. And 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. There's the very thing 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, Donnie's coming.

It's going to take a deep rest going to show itself. And my wife thinks I'm sexy. [laughs] [laughs] Okay.

Do you know who saves the day? If you wrote the movie, who saves the day? But how? Who's his messenger? Do you know that by talking? Do you know I'm actually understanding myself what happened?

Do you know how many times you told me that I should talk about this? And I haven't.

“And you're like, I don't know what you 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. Massa saves the day.

How? He pays back the debt. Wow. He calls through more cello. With his team, they call Marcelo calls me for a meeting. So here's, okay, so now we're going to connect.

And this is all going to connect. This is back to belief. I celebrate the holidays. I'm celebrating John Keyport that day of atonement. It's at their 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 Russia, Shana, and then you'll keep poor. And in Russia, Shana, I close friend of mine comes with me. And he's, everybody around me is down by the way. I'm really, really affected by what happened.

And I'm very affected because I feel extremely bad for them. Please and for everybody that was entertaining with me. The investors, all the investors, except for Massa, have all made money already multiple times. I have the sense of belief. I don't know how it's going to work out.

And we do the Russia, Shana, and this. And then between Russia, Shana, and Yom Kippur. And then Yom Kippur happens. And we're praying. And there are many different, without getting into injuries.

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. We do not get along with each other with it's a shame. It's the truth. All three of them send representatives to pray with me that Yom Kippur. All of the biggest Rabbi sends his sons.

They've never not prayed with him in Yom Kippur.

The other one, the head of the organization. And his number one, I comes. A ton, the guy that spoke and his. Michael Bird, all these people come together around me. And we are praying.

I, there is no tomorrow. We're praying for America. And suddenly before it ends, Max, one of those three cops.

“I still need space here. Something really important to tell me.”

It's a mess. It's all business. Don't talk to me. Twenty-fourers. No talking to this. No business. And he's sitting there. He can't help himself. We keep trying to want to tell him.

And I said, Max, please. Unless it's life and death, I need you to let the San Goddard participate. Enjoy. Join us.

And it ends.

“And he says to me, "We want to believe this.”

Our cell is inviting you for a meeting. We want to work the situation out. I go and meet Marsello. We basically says, "How them?" We trusted you.

We've invested for a minute somehow. We want to take the company the way we see fit. We would like you to give us the kiss. In return for that, we will pay your debt in full. So none 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. It was what was really happening. If I would have gone before 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. It's supposed to be even more. We will pay back your debt.

A hundred percent an in full and on time. And we're going to invest in a month in the company. So the company can go to its next level. And we will buy from you. And from all the other shareholders at the discounted valuation.

The production valuation of $10 billion. So last valuation was 40. 30 percent. Which will be a billion to you. And two billion because they're on 30 percent of their float.

Everything minus their peace. And then there was the Miguel part. And two billion to everybody else. All your investors, all them plays everybody. And we said yes.

And I stepped down. And they put Marcelo the beginning was running it himself.

Main interactions from Marcelo were always whatever he promised.

I was happy. And then he chose the CEO that he chose. He asked me to not be as close. Again, this is back to the old playbook. This is the playbook of keep the founder.

The way he liked this. And they come in. And the thing on the first day they do is they fire all the people closest to me. The problem is there were the ones and you everything that we want to know. Not only ones of you, they lived it and breathed it.

But it's an old playbook. You take out the king, then you kill all of his loyalists. They called me. The two biggest loyalists called me. Saddam should we stay because the business will go down.

I said, of course you should stay. They got fired first. They put a new CEO. And we negotiated it.

“And remember when in a coat, there was a nice step down.”

Also, in the reason I accepted this, 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 it's 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 hates March. And the last day of March, we get a letter from South Bank saying, "For smudge, you know, it wasn't in the contract. We're not paying. It's all the money.

But I thought it was coming. It was going to go. By the way, by this point, I'm a practice samurai.

The breath in Rebreka a month before said it's never coming.

It was never coming. It was never coming. It was never coming. It was like to be true. We're guessing 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. 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.

And people reading it or watching a TV series about it. What's that light? You know, connecting towards your night to 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. And then in one day, I stepped down. Which to the eye, that's not experience. Probably means he must have been wrong.

Everything it did was wrong. Otherwise, he wouldn't have given them back the keys. The story that you just heard, the builder, they didn't know on you any of it. That's something I now understand. So I handed over the control over my narrative.

He would never accused of doing anything illegal.

He would never brought up on any charges. It was all just in New Window storytelling. It was me being an novice to the game of life when it comes to communication. Yeah. And media.

“I remember the first time I met you, you did not need to hear the story.”

And another person when we met both of you at the same time, and we were in Malibu, Mark and Theresa.

Knowing that because he heard so much noise from the media, that he knew what the story wasn't. He didn't know the story was in hindsight, now that I know him and Ben so much better. We're talking 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. Yes.

Something's going on about. It's not being said. Okay. The 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 Theresa. I'm investors. Mark. Now exactly who you are.

Hey, six things. These are 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 you 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 you.

Forgot what actually happened.

This is like the first time.

It's where they call like I love this guy. This is amazing. I said, oh, Mark. Yes. You might be right.

Because we do like me to tell you what we think about you here at A6 in Z. He said, please, he said, you're the only company in our entire portfolio at the time about 400 today over 1000. You're the only company in our portfolio who every single startup that we have either is using today or used in 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. It means that we were said, you know how many pages we get under. We work with this and we work with that.

You created a category. That's what we think. I said, thank you so much. And I hung up the phone. We think the fact that you actually wanted to do some business or get an only better.

Because I was at that stage, but back to your question. I handed over the mic. Yeah. And I didn't understand that by doing so. The story is going to run away from me.

But because whenever I 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 watched it and people watched it and the stories in 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 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 with it. Somehow, the truth. Even in something that was supposed to be smear-free, floated to the top. And I'll tell you a little bit how I think.

So Jared Leno, so we talked about Andrew Finkelstein. The 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, it's very powerful.

But not this one. He doesn't get to write himself out of this one. Andrew Finkelstein keeps getting emailed from Jared Leno's agent. St. Jared's gonna play at him. 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 him. They're driving crazy."

Can't we take one meeting with the guy? He'll come in and come out. His movie starts on Oscar when they're be fun. So I have the information all the time, and we're when the show's gonna come out. We're like, "How's it legal? How can Apple tell a story about us using our name? But we haven't approved that we haven't read that we didn't write."

As 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. It's social media today, or in a different place. But I remember talking to the lawyers, said, "Look, Adam, if it's so horrible." Because Jared Leno is also a producer, and it's 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 to write story.

Whenever I got a response from Tim, we did get a response from his lawyers that read the following. You're gonna like this one. We reviewed the 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 your wrong or you're this or you're that.

So that was that. So then we say, "Okay, to Jared Leno, we say fine." And we meet him in Miami. He walks into the house. She would've met him before.

He was shorter than me. He looks up, which is hand on my face like this.

“And in his version of my accent, I think it's very good accent.”

Very good, but very good demeanor. I think he added. In a demeanor in his version of Adam Newman, start stalking to me and saying, "How has been located me for three months?" And this and this and I'm not familiar with Hollywood.

I've never met my third ex.

There's the whole thing from his little bit. Outrageous. And we just do this thing for the next hour and a half. And then Rebecca's and her stoking. Then one point in looks at Rebecca goes, "You know, there's the same one.

When you and I are stupid, it goes Jared. You and I are not stupid. It is a television show. It is not the truth. She's laughing. But it's a surreal moment.

Yes, how does that feel? I'm looking and 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 stalking in.

And they say, "Who is this?" And I said, "This guy's going to play me in a television show." It only goes like, "Well, he's shorter, but he doesn't look like you." But this and every 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 walk Jared outside.

“He asks me if we can have a picture together.”

I am the interesting thing for him, which is, I'm sure usually he's the one that people take pictures. Yeah. It looks like we go to listen. You're calling it a smear-pist.

It's supposed to be a take-down. 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 is 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.

Said a twice. But don't worry about it. You're going to come out like a rock star. Just do me favor. Don't watch the show.

I said, "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?

Dipeo is supposed to be my big moment. Yes. The moment I was going to be amazing ends up being a total utter catastrophe whenever you 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. Yeah.

And yet it comes out. And a day after it comes out, the Inbound starts. Entrepreneurs wanting investments. Partners wanting to partner.

Employees, everything. It was, it's satellites.

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 free. 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 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 to Jews." He wakes up in the morning and says to the king, "God spoke to me." Don't curse to Jews.

And even though he wasn't, he was working for day. The negative side, even people work for the negative side, have their own connection to the universe. It takes power to be in both side. And three times, and eventually, the king forces in,

paced in the fortune forces into this. They go in a mountain and he's starting to curse the Jews. And the blessings come out. It's cursing to Jews and the blessings come out. Eventually, it's his last curse.

He foresees Messiah 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.

“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. Yeah. And even though a lot of our close 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.

She was not the worst of it. Is it 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. You know how many times I think when things like this happen, the woman gets portrayed even worse. But anyway, let's be clear.

I was CEO and Chairman. Yeah. The 100% it wasn't Rebecca. But they negated the fact of what she brought to you, which you recognize.

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 could have loved it as Miguel did. That other original hammer breaking the original Macintosh computer. A little bit of a, I think of 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 in the other words, authenticity. For people to know Rebecca, 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 first 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 space. Of course the money was never going to come in. Like yeah, you guys are geniuses. Warren Israel at the time, because 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 prisons felt like we were secluded and the whole world was open. And we were like locked up. Suddenly everybody was sort of where we were.

Yeah. But we had six months heads up. We were already in the bunker when that hit.

“Remember from the story, we did have the original amount of money that was given to us.”

We got the money where we got the 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 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 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 part of how I approach life. I could child. Okay. It's a new day. Now there's corona.

What is that? What's going to go up now? What's going to go now? So as all of that is occurring. This is the beginning.

The seeds were started. What's going to get said? Residential. Residential is going to be interesting. Because even if people stop going to the office.

The homes were the hardest. So part of the side.

“The litigation starts because we want to.”

To get paid the three billion. That was promised not just to us. We're third of it. But the other two billion is all the investors. 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 Hampton. And you think this thing is living right next to us. Another interesting thing about Ham. So many close friends that I had.

Disappeared on this happened. I do think that's probably the saddest thing of the whole thing. It disappeared. And I forgive. I don't 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 you? I'll rent a house next to me. You're going through a tough time.

We'll do our own co-working space. We'll make a we work out of day 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. It sounds amazing, Andrew. And he moves in. So he's there with us. And he's in the house next door.

And we're 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 the money in the business. And they control the business now.

So we can't get an information.

And I am a person until this point that is always negotiated with power and leverage.

Very good at momentum.

I'm very good at negotiate. But now I have no leverage. No power. I'm completely on the outside. That thing I can do we're litigating.

“The litigation doesn't look like it's headed in the right direction.”

Because of variety of reasons. But also because we work not really partnering with us. Because we're the founder that was from the outside with the start. And at this point, if you're in, we work you believe a hundred percent not 90 to all the press that you read. Because that's.

And I do think the world's different today. I hope people today don't believe everything they read. But this is still 2020. People are just rising up. And I remember going.

And I was doing these meditation sessions of an hour each. And I'm doing one of those. And as I'm like very deep while listening to music. I suddenly had this. Again, moment of vision.

Which basically what I see is that if a different person,

if I found someone who could get excited about we work. And would want to take we work public stacks for the time. So it's back. Then must sign soft bank and all people fighting pain that people wouldn't. Wouldn't want to the company 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 on very close to. He's actually right outside of here hanging out right now waiting for me.

He was surfing with me this morning. And I say dad, I have an idea. I'll find the guy he'll say he wants to invest. Take the company public. Stuff like we're settled, everybody will get paid, stuff we'll 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.

“And 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. There's no. I believe that I have a very talented son. I say, okay, he's the last cause.

I said, okay. And I call UBS. He said, 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 sends me back and it's up to taking a public. He knew Steve Jobs was just this. He was part of the coming back. He knew this story.

That's where we had all these stories in his head. Let's 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 lovers to pop. Yeah. I told him exactly what to do. So now you understand, 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 and 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. They're going public was good.

But not enough to push it over that. And part of what happens when you do the 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. We're going to say all these things about this.

And this happened. I'm in tier fault, our fault. And we're getting very close to and the contracts going to say this, 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 with 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 money will get paid after.

And this is four days before Rebecca gives birth. And at the lawyer at the time, who ran his own firm. And I was Eric Siler, now he's a partner with me. And he and I reached his settlement. It's all happening when Zoom.

Because this is Corona. So this all things happening with Zoom. There are lawyers. They spend ten times as much as we're spending them. The biggest learn the world.

And Andrew Finkelstein, our Hollywood friend, is sitting right behind the screen. And for three weeks, this negotiating is going, he does not work. He's just doing that. The end of the day, Andrew. You need to work.

So that I'm on in Hollywood. I show in the world is happening right now in front of my face. And I'm not missing a beat. Let me be. Wow.

“Corona, remember, no acting or 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 month. And 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 go back to Rebecca.

I can tell her in six months.

It's not going to work. Go to school, Rebecca. And I want to talk to her. She's four days before giving birth. We call that stage.

Six kids. We've sent it a few times. Couch command. That's when she's on the couch. Orders are given couch command.

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 and 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 month after the IPO.

After this. After that, with all these may be the next. I'll just ask. All them clues. 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 thought taking it 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 as my business. She supports it. It's our business and equity holding. But she's very respectful. I'm very respectful of her businesses.

But they didn't pay us. We had a contract. We didn't get paid. One time you do it to us, we learned a mistake. Second time, why are we agreed as a settlement?

For all of us, not just for us. For them, please, for to get a permanent year and a half. Please, go back and set no deal. I'll see you in court. I said, no, you don't understand.

The IPO will blow up. The whole thing. I said, no, they'll fault the bluffing. They're acting like a bully. And my father was a bully.

“And there's the only one way to deal with a bully.”

Gunned to your head. They're bluffing. And I'm, this is after. It's like, is there a motion or roller coaster? I go over Andrew Knight to get Andrews with me.

He's like, ah, 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.

Because 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. They're for I work for her, not for you. I said, well, I feel like I work for her. Because I know that all my blessings come from my wife. Yeah.

And if she feels strongly about something, I support her. I there's no question. She is better intuition than me. So I support her. You support me.

Then yes, we're going to go with her way. It goes okay then. I 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 did they do? She's right.

And they do it because you don't understand. They gave all these promises. I said, Eric, we just litigated for a year. But all these promises about a contract. That's what's a promise.

They did the money's in the bank. It's not. So. He goes, okay. Let's get on the cold.

It's going to be a very bad zoom. We get on the zoom with the litigate. They're just with this, with the general council. I'm scaring the visuals.

I'm 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 of the court date, which is the bris of mine, your son. That's going to be born.

I will master bris. Or I will do it in the court from. But I will see you in court. Boom, explosions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And to behind the scenes is like this, tragedy.

Done. Done. If we were watching the movie, do you know I would be like, that's it. It's gone. We're seeing in court. Next scene, court.

With the bris happening outside of the court. With the right bike. With the more help. For hours later, our cell calls me. Some of the walker with the video you're seeing going.

Saddam. Please call Rebecca in. Say, okay, Marcelo. Call Rebecca. Can't just Marcelo no litigators nor anyone else.

Actually says something beautiful said Rebecca and Adam. 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, what you needed the keys to the current.

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. Let's be partners.

I'm going to bring in a CEO.

I know to call you if I need to. I respect you. Respect me. Let's move like that. I say thank you Marcelo.

I'm not worried. I'm not worried. This is all good. I say thank you. At 430 a.m.

“Don't ask me how they know money could transfer.”

For 30 a.m. It hits that count. 9 a.m. And the burden room. Our six son Moses.

I was born. 4 month later. Is the television show. Wow. That is the true story.

That's what actually. That's amazing. The fact that they chose to make her the villain. Because it's easy. By the way, it shows you a lot about society.

But not only is it not true. And whenever people hear something I've learned. When you hear two stories. There's a small group saying one story. And a large group agreeing.

Listen to that small group. And really take your time listening. Yeah. This will be the last piece. And then I think we can.

We can. We can. Part ways with we work once and for all. 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. And it said, hey, if I put a big check. Look, guys, come in with me immediately.

One day.

Commitments still billion.

Now, it's not. We didn't send the documents. We didn't do it. But it was so quick that it would have come. We would have raised more for me.

Because I told people exactly what I was going to do. And again, Corona was happening. Buildings were empty. It was very clear. It's to us.

What the right thing would be to create the movement back to. 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 winner of the loss. Schedules it all with us. Our investors top guys on the plane. We're all in our way to go.

Send me a text. I'm sorry Adam. Whatever reason. It's a pass. I will pass the meeting.

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'd all not know. Can't know.

All I'm telling you would have been different. I'm telling you 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.

And we're going to move to Miami at this state. And he calls Mark and he says, hey Adam, I thought because every time then of every call said, if you're going to do something, what's dark? Said, I thought we said that we're going to talk for you doing something.

I said, yeah, of course we are. So you're obviously doing something. You bought a lot of real estate. Said, now I'm Mark, that's just real estate. Because now 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 a 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 clear about how it would start.

Said, do you have a name? Did I don't? Said, do you want to talk about it? Said, whatever you want. And we're going to really connect it.

And I 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 and the winter.

Second call. About half a year later. This third one is happening before the television show. Our sixth 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 under the beginning business-wise and reputation-wise. A lot of people believe this whole story is suddenly.

And again, I'm walking into them every time we think to explain what really happened. And they're worried. And start 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 Mark and Jason? And he will interview you because we know what he thinks about us. He's the biggest 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.

But it's weird to South the Southwest the first time anything was done like that. We're going to do a live.

“My idea was, no matter the person will give me the idea, a live interview with the biggest investor in the world.”

What the truth? The same time it premieres. Great idea. Great idea.

So I schedule a text to Mark, which in this time I've never taken, I've never jumped in to any discussion.

And I ask his assistant, and this is for a Friday. And the show is scheduled whatever a 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. We talked to him twice at this. So only twice before and the calls.

How long reach are those? So good calls. The first one is 20 mark is, 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, I'm on the call.

The great calls about many topics. But I always coming back to that same topic of. The calls, basically, Adam. When are you getting back in the ring? That's like the theme of the call.

Very motivating, by the way. Very, very powerful. Better than most of the friends I had than 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 said, 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 zooming. I'm alive, but whatever if I can get him to come there. Maybe.

We'll schedule the call for a Friday in a few days before. Because again, I'm just starting to understand what the word woke means and this whole media and social media. I'm starting to learn what I went through. Suddenly, I have to start in my head. What if Southby Southwest wouldn't want?

“What if I'm offering March something that they wouldn't put on stage?”

Yeah. And I asked two people to say, what are you talking about, Adam? This is the biggest thing that's happening is this show getting premiered. How would you in 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. But I suddenly, because I'm starting to understand how the world works. Or at least how it works, not how it should work. I regretfully how it does sometimes.

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 marked to say yes? Would they be interested in this interview? It's fire side chat live.

And they call me an hour before my call with Mark. And I'm planning to listen. Say Adam, you won't believe this. Answer is no. Said no.

Now I'm really like the show is coming down. The take down already happened before it. Is that please tell me why no? I said interesting, because I asked because I knew you were going to ask me. It starts with Mark sitting on the board of Facebook.

And they hate Facebook. This is 2020, Tom. So that's reason number one. I said, but he's a board member. He's this is that.

That's what they said.

“You on the other hand, they're willing to have next year.”

Depending 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 Ilan. Like Ilan, I'm canceling the call. It was not your last.

Like I'm canceling the call. It goes, why? Mark was excited about the call.

He's finally you're talking and like Mark's excited.

Don't cancel. I said, well, I don't have anything to say. So this you do. You've envisioned 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. Tell him that. I said, I'm not clear about it yet. He said, sir, I don't want 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. There was no way work.

Your original idea was called concept living when you're in college. It's your original idea. It's fun to keep it. It's how people live. It's the future of living.

Telling that. I say, Ilan, I'm not ready to say. It's the biggest investor in the world. I don't want to have thought idea. It was a articulated clear.

It was no problem. Tell him you'd 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 is about to calm on sweating. I can't believe why my sweating is after the all the stuff. Why am I again acting like my 32 year old? What am I stressed about?

We all know the style we're doing. We're building or the family. I've learned a lot. I'm in a much better place. I feel happier.

How am I 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 written. Yeah. I feel alive.

I get on the call. And very honestly, I say what I say. I say I want to do face-to-face. Talk for half an hour about how the stuff said would be my pleasure. No week later invites me.

We sit down. And the whole way.

It's the first time you meeting him.

First time meeting face-to-face. Never met before. Didn't know he was that tall? Very tall. He was taller than me.

“Him, his head of his crib to fund for sticks in another tall guy.”

All of that. First time. We're in Malibu. We walk in. And we start talking.

Just high level. That. That. Everybody sits down. And marks like start six and so on.

We're all here. We like to hear. I say, Mark, I would like to talk about we work first. And my lessons learned. Because you don't need to.

I said, I understand. I would really like to. I can go to Adam. Let's be clear. We call you here.

Because we know what we think has happened. Assume that we've spoken to most people that have ever worked with you. Definitely tuning in, junior, 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 want to talk about it.

And this for those people who know Mark. He'll say twice. But if you let him loose, he's going to go. And there's no filter. And it's going to be some of the smartest things you've ever heard in your life.

He almost does the 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. How 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 asked it?”

I said no. It was interesting. Jack Dorsey, Travis Calamac, and then he names five other ones. Goes there, known for it. So, this is not that they said they're great investors.

But it has happened there many times. They didn't even know that. He said, no, I didn't. It was okay. So, we learned one thing about you.

He did not do your homework. I 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, I don't know what would you want to solve if you solved. What do you think the two biggest problems? Said loneliness? An ownership.

It was great. How are we going to solve that? And then we talked about how I think we're going to solve that. And at the end, you go so. What do you think about considering new partners?

Because by this point, I'm finding the business 100% on my own. I don't want partners. I don't need partners. I'm talking about ties. I said, I genuinely didn't think about it.

It goes, well, how will you do your homework? And call a lot of people who we've been investors of. Because 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 where the bought a small tech company that we were using. There were things that were carrying already. But we shape it even bigger.

“And Mark is playing a very active role in every time I think big he thinks bigger.”

But not the way Masha thought bigger grow faster. The way think 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 going to have a world changing business. And Mark says to me, I am here to build the big one, not the middle one.

So it's again that energy of wow here someone thinking as bigger 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 then Horowitz is starting to jump in. But the first board meeting was only Mark and starting the second bench lines. The one thing we agreed in advance is when comes to technology. They will help choose the leaders.

And on our board meetings, we're going to spend time talking about the whole business. Or we're really going to spend time talking about tech. Because 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, they gave any advice. I love this. I'm like, right. And then they have the, 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 going to invest.

So I put 250 million in the form of equity over real estate, not that not value of real estate.

Just the equity. And they put 250 million cash. We both, it's getting the game. The one rule between the two of us, they don't say the other word line with you. Even though you weren't actually misaligned with your investors because you didn't do anything wrong.

Yeah. But 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'll use a word together.

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. Something people don't know about flow flow spends more money on technology than anything else, not a real estate. Really? We'll explain a second. What?

So it's time to find a CTO. And we're going this six month journey of interviewing the best on the planet. Because we're not going to make that mistake again. And we get to four final candidates. And I choose my final one.

And then I introduce all four to Ben.

And Ben Horitz is an amazing CEO himself.

But also a coach of CEOs. He's a great recruiter and hireer. I've seen it all on it home. And Ben interviews. I interview.

Ben calls me. Because hey, I know I finished my foreign interviews. I know my pick. So great. Because first I'm going to tell you who you picked.

So let's go, Ben. Because you picked Amazon guy. I said, yes, I did. It 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?

Because you're guys the WhatsApp guy. So why is my guy the WhatsApp guy? Because I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to tell you something about Scott. That Scott doesn't know about himself.

Scott is extremely smart. Scott had to architect a very complicated situation in what's up. And dealt with billions and billions of users and huge numbers.

You've never imagined the numbers that he dealt.

And we know about his engineering team and how we cleaned it up. And how he did the architecture. There's a lot of really good things that we did our village and some. But Scott has one quality that builds excellent tech teams that you need. So 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 guess, and Ben, that's important for our tech team.”

Because it's the most important. I said, why? Because I'm going to tell you a secret about tech teams. And my small tech teams are great. One bad apple runs the whole thing.

We always manage to the lowest basis, not to the highest. He can't help it. Even if he 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, close tech team needs to be world-class. Because flow is trying to solve very large problems. And it's going to take time to build what you want to 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 of that, I have argued. New Adam chose his partners because of what they know. And what they do.

And what they bring. Yeah. I don't know if Ben thought this was going to be an argument or not. I said, great, yes. That's it.

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 scots. 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, or act in pure tech companies, or 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 has a thousand companies.

So he's done this over a thousand times. This way that we sometimes directly sometimes indirectly. So no question that. Some level of experience that. It feels good trusting.

It's also disconnects to our past. It's we work because we were trying, especially now, we know the story. It's something to start chasing revenue. We were trying to build systems that can count and manage.

It flow from the first day.

Our mission was one this. One is for a person in themselves. Person in their community. And a person in the natural world. So achieve that.

You need to build technology. Now we talk a lot about AI. To think instead of humans. Let's flow. We talk about AI to empower humans to be the best version of themselves.

Beautiful. To create spaces that empower humans to be the best version of themselves. Art technology does not need to think for us. It needs to make everything so smooth. It makes 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 we start. And it's three weeks into the job. In council says, hey Adam, have good news and bad news. The good news is, even 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 one nest or togetherness. The bad news is, current real estate technology is built on databases.

And there's not put the resident or the member first. Put a lot of other things first, but not that. We're going to have to build it from scratch. All of it.

I was told by many CTOs.

I need to build from scratch.

“I built all the time from scratch and I had nothing very little to show for it.”

Yeah. 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. But he goes by the way, I'm here to fulfill your vision. Instead, I want to explain to you something that I'm going to tell them. Your vision is going to change so many times that 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 I need a year for you not to bother me. And all the little things that our city was might have built for you nice apps and fun facing and all the gimmicks.

You're going to have any gimmicks. I went out and done with what I'm doing.

You're going to have a powerful system that can basically tack along 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. They don't have a lot to say because it's not my field. Mark is very strong in architecture.

Then it's very strong in use cases and how it's used and they just go. And after three hours, they say, we agree. And then go out to dinner. And they argue between themselves for another two hours about it. Wow.

Big decision. So very big turn. And the guy just started. It's a lot of trust. And the end of it, Ben is like, oh, I'm good. I said, why?

Because Mark is good. We were 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.

He's good. I'm good. It's like, you guys are good. I'm good. And we start this journey of everything.

How the architecture for a nice architecture. I mean, 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 understand. So without giving away all of our secrets, I'll explain to you how it's built today. Think of it as a database that's built 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 the 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 locked here, then smart. This is two and a half years ago. Blockchain is in place. AI 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. And 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 in much more profitable buildings, but we also see much happier residents, much more connected. How many buildings are there now?

So flow now has nine buildings, four in the US and five in Saudi Arabia, and floors how these communities come together. And we're doing it by tackling the technology, the breadth of what it represents, and the experience. And we're really doing it one thought at the time.

And again, the big difference from the past, we are 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,

it said mine, body and soul, and how it all comes together, people may be had a little tough time. Everybody wants to feel like they're in flow. Everybody understand what flow state is 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, in Miami. 632 apartments, very large, brand new, completely empty. And flow is not just able to run buildings, flow is now developing the beginning of small neighborhoods.

So it's a single building, but there are three more plots. It's 6.2 acres, which for Miami is a very large plot, to build over 2,200 apartments with office space, with retail, with a school that we're considering. The whole community, and as you start thinking about it,

as a community starts saying, well, what does a community need? You're limited to just a single building. What are obvious things? Well, community, well, then it's a barber shop,

and it needs a coffee shop, and you start adding all these things that make it tremendous sense.

“And what else does community loves music?”

Community loves food, community loves art. And you start thinking of all those things bringing together and before you know it, to not just experience all these things, but experiment them. 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 three of those, because we were one finished building, and three construction sites.

We take one of them, and this was where, because I did actually, and we planned, we put sand 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 Tiki hat, but a large one.

That's going to have a floor, like we're in the music here three times a week, and here's two foot trucks, and we're going to open it up for the public. Beautiful, like a park.

Like a park. Costs very little to do, but for the next few years, instead of living an empty construction site, you gave to the community. This one is on the river,

we say, hey, what about a farmer's market? We land to farmer's market. Great.

We have this amazing woman,

“her name is Shelley, do you remember Julinas?”

She used to be the CEO of Julinas. If you remember Julinas, you know what she does? The best food. The best food, and from what I hear from all of people, is experience.

She brings it all together. So we say to Shelley, all we have to say is, we want the farmer's market with intention. It's like an AI, you just give it a prom. You come to the farmer's market.

Every food has a story. This mother, this daughter, this local, this, and they also inspired. Now people start walking it, and they're so inspired. And now you're giving to your local community.

But what you're really doing is you're also attracting a lot of people, and you're starting to tell the flow story. And it actually starts, and at the beginning, you can't get a lot of people there, because no one's ever heard of this farmer's market. So with Laura yoga class, and we lunch her runs club.

And we're at your walking club, because some people prefer walking than running. And before you know it, there were 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 it affects the upstairs. And people start coming in. And now all these tours are coming. And because we're leveraging and then we're right aside 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 with 13,000 followers. She gets 22 and a half million views.

She went 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 the building. Landlords don't usually say thanks. No. And we do think by the way, came up with that sentence. The person who people like to make a villain.

Of course. Classically back up. Classic. Because it's so say, I said, where did you come up with that sentence. She said, it's you.

You think it's always going to come up. No matter what happened to your life,

“you found the way to think what if it all goes right?”

Yeah. You stand for it. So I put it on the building. She is the 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. And she doesn't need to give. If she gave us more than that, we couldn't keep up.

And she's full-time mom. And just lunch the school. And it's doing all these different things that she's doing. And she's doing as full-time mom just lunch the school. She's doing a lot.

She's tackling the world the way she sees in a way to make it different. But you suddenly have this flow building. It has a farmer's 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 we spoke about, it works very well. Connecting to social media.

We can count and measure every lead that comes in. We can start pulling other.

We can do a million things that other landlords can do.

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's well. You've got to take a second and take a breath.

It's a 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 has 632 apartments. It will fill up in 6 months. Wow. 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 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, other lesson from the past, we have ambassadors that live there.

Each one of their chooses a topic that they love. They host 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 yoga instructors are from the building. And people are really reacting well to it.

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 breast and he wouldn't take the money. His name is Rabbi Helner. 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 is just playing a show out. 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 we're going to find a different way. It's not going to take the money. It's no way to know. But 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 war came. Don't talk about business, no matter what.

No talking about business on 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.

It's 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 going to experience.

Notice how many times for the first three hours. You're going to 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'm going to do it on Saturday or Sunday. Choose your day. Not the pope that passed away. He used to call it the technology Shabbat. You would breach it.

Say the technology Shabbat. The technology Shabbat. And the next day, be disconnected from the phone. Drive. Do everything else you want to 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. So again, in my practice, you would also pray Friday night. You pray on Saturday. But I'm putting myself on the side for a second.

And I'm saying, anybody who tries this. When you disconnect from your phone, 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 they're going to be 18. They're going to be out of the house. And you missed this beautiful thing.

When we do it, we don't touch anything. When did you start doing it? Ten years ago. Ten years ago, my boys are 10. So right after they were 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. And I remember we don't write also because 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 tour 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 were 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 person who is unity from the inside has unity to the outside.

Here is what I think. We're connected to this week's portion.

“We all have something that we're slaves to.”

We all have an addiction to anger to ego and to power. Whatever it is, either 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 the Red Sea.

When we see that Red Sea, we only have the carrots to walk into it. So far that we drown. Only when we're willing the drown will the Red Sea this split. And we'll go to our next level. Then go to our next level. We see the Red Sea split. It's not going to be like,

"Oh, everything is okay. No way 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 Tats 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 of Israel will suppose 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 will we 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 all world is saying this or that about us. Who cares about what do you think or your wife thinks or your kids think or what the universe thinks? Tetra Grammatin is a podcast. Tetra Grammatin is a website. Tetra Grammatin is a whole world of knowledge.

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