When Miguel McKelvey was first featured on How I Built This in 2017, his company was growing at an astounding rate. WeWork was considered the unicorn of unicorns. But after reaching a $47 billion valuation in 2019, WeWork’s tide began to turn. Investors raised concerns about the company’s rapid expansion and unsustainable spending. Miguel’s co-founder Adam Neuman faced accusations of mismanagement and was forced to resign. The company withdrew a long-anticipated IPO filing, and not long after, Miguel left the company he had worked so hard to build.
Since then, the cautionary tale of WeWork has become a bit of a cultural obsession, retold on podcasts, a Hulu documentary, and even an Apple TV series this year.
