The case of Adam Neumann

I’m a couple days late on this, but I’ve been talking about it quite a bit with colleagues and friends so I wanted to write about it. Marc Andreesen and a16z is leading a $350m round into Adam Neumann’s next venture called Flow.

The details are sparse, but I can imagine that the business is effectively creating WeWork but for residential rentals. The company will acquire large apartment buildings, spice them up to be WeWork-esque and then rent them out. I’d imagine this becomes some sort of membership where residents will be able to visit other cities and stay in those Flow’s as well.

First, I have to admit that I think this seems like an interest idea. Just like WeWork as a product has been largely good for the customer, this seems like an interesting idea. Rent a place with other like-minded folk. Be able to travel to other cities and have a place to stay. I’m not sure how it would work and it may be flooded with a bunch of douchebags that I don’t want to call my neighbors, but who knows. I’m interested.

Of course, a lot of the attention has been put on Marc Andreesen for leading this round. Given Adam’s previous venture, there’s a lot of rightful critics. I don’t disagree with a lot of what has been said about Adam and his antics. He crossed the line on many areas and navigated the grey often.

With that said, if you take the top 20% of Adam Neumann’s antics off the table at what he did with WeWork, then perhaps this doesn’t seem that crazy to fund his second venture. I presume that Marc Andreesen is hoping that Adam Neumann has learned from his mistakes and will eliminate the bad 20% the second time around.

I don’t know how this will all end. Maybe we’ll get WeWork part 2 or maybe we’ll get a really good residential realty company that takes the country by storm. I’d imagine the answer is somewhere in between. If that happens, then Marc Andreesen’s $350m bet may not be that crazy afterall.