In just 41 days, everything fell apart. A simple decision triggered a series of stumbling blocks that ended the house of cards that Adam Neumann had built over almost a decade.To refer to a billionaire who uses unorthodox or highly questionable practices, the "eccentric" euphemism is always used. However, there came a time when the decisions of the Israeli businessman filled the patience of WeWork investors, the co-working giant that he founded together with Miguel McKelvey.Controversies and successes of an entrepreneur who could turn part of the essence of his upbringing into a business with a lot of potential, although he still failed to take off completely in his finances. At the same time, the market began to lose confidence in its projections. Now, the company faces a big question: can it survive without the head from which the idea came out?"Although the business was never better, the scrutiny directed towards me has become a great distraction, so I decided that the best thing for the company is to stop being its executive director."With these words, Neumann left his post on September 24, ahead of a decision that the board had already taken. Since submitting the documentation to go public, many doubts have arisen regarding his leadership and the transparency of his actions."We don't build a company just for the sake of making money, just part of creating value is not maximizing," he says. And he adds: "My super power is change, and change can be painful."In recent times, his main financial partner, the Japanese holding company SoftBank, had released his hand, which over the years disbursed more than $ 10 billion. Of course, to fall, you must first climb.Kibbutz 2.0Despite his youthful face, Neumann was born 40 years ago in Beersheba, a city in southern Israel located in the Negev desert. After the divorce of his parents, at 9 he moved with his mother to Indianapolis, United States, although in 1990 the family decided to return to Israeli territory.The place chosen to settle was the Kibbutz Nir Am, a few kilometers from the Gaza Strip. The feeling of community and collective work inspired him to chart the principles of his enterprise years later. "Now we make a capitalist kibbutz," Haaretz told the Israeli media in 2017.Another of the facts that planted WeWork's seed was his experience of moving to New York, where his sister Adi lived. In the early days in the department of the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan, Neumann was greatly disturbed that there was not much talk among the neighbors and there was no interaction when traveling in the elevator. That is why a challenge was proposed with Adi: the one who managed to become more friends in a month would win.Despite losing the bet, he confesses, by the end of the month they had managed to generate a feeling closer to the community. Meanwhile, he had begun studying Business at Baruch College, a public university in the city.During an entrepreneurship contest, he decided to present something similar to We Live, the housing unit developed in 2016 by his company, although he failed to pass the second round.There came a time when the desire to start your own business increased and that led him to leave the studies four credits (so called in the US to pending subjects) before graduating, a process that could be completed just a couple ago of years.Among several failed startups, finally in 2006 he founded Egg Baby, a children's clothing brand whose flagship product was a little piece with knee pads. Soon, a common friend introduced him to the architect Miguel McKelvey who, after a long talk, convinced him to move his offices to the same building where he worked, in Brooklyn.Both shared the idea that there was a little explored edge in real estate: the rental of empty offices for other companies. That's how they created Green Desk in 2008, after convincing Joshua Guttman to let them rent a flat in his building."Then we realized that this was not the business but that there was something bigger behind it: we had to generate interaction, let people talk to each other, share common places. We thought about putting beer barrels, free coffee and glass walls "highlights. Thus, in 2010 he rented a space of 300 m2 in the Little Italy neighborhood, New York, where WeWork was formally born.A good idea but in redThe WeWork business model is based on two pillars: lease spaces in buildings for a long time to be used by the brand, generate added value to those places and then sub-rent them for short term to entrepreneurs, companies and people who want to use them.He calls his tenants 'members' and, according to their own founders, the ultimate goal is for them to help each other, become better and their projects evolve by collaborating. Just after the firm was founded, we created WeWork Labs, an incubator to support some of its members.First it was New York, then Los Angeles and later San Francisco. Meanwhile, investors knocked on their door interested in their strategy. In 2014, international expansion began with the opening of a space in London.Latin America would only appear on the map in 2017 with the inauguration of the offices in San Pablo. WeWork landed in Argentina in the middle of that year, when it raised the blinds of the floors in the Bellini Tower. Currently, it has about 528 spaces in 29 countries.Two years ago came the financial injection that I needed to boost its growth. Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, had promised Neumann that he would tour the company's headquarters in New York. However, the Japanese businessman was late and told him he only had 12 minutes.In that period he only managed to visit the R&D center, but it was enough. Son invited the executive director of WeWork to his car, where he quickly drafted a disbursement agreement on his tablet, which included an initial one of $ 3 billion for the company and another $ 1.4 billion to expand the brand to the market Asian.WeWork was worth more than $ 47,000 million, but Neumann insisted that this had nothing to do with their numbers but with their "energy and spirituality." However, in the papers, the firm was a machine to lose money.Although between 2016 and 2018 it managed to increase its turnover by 300% (from US $ 429 million to US $ 1.8 billion), its red also continues to increase. Last year it lost $ 1.6 billion and in the first six months of 2019, another $ 700 million. For worse, from the company they assure that they do not have a plan to reverse this situation.The hard fallNeumann's personality became one of the main obstacles of the company: although outside doors he is a cultivator of "passion" and "purpose" as the main drivers of work, the truth is that in the confines of his offices is A very different person.Ask for 20% of the staff to be laid off every year, distribute tequila shots after making those layoffs or drinking alcohol during job interviews. All this is part of the list of anomalies that can be counted.Of course, he was forced to change some issues. "Adam used to believe that fear was a positive thing, but he realized that it was not effective. Now he understands that treating people with respect and stimulating them with positive energy gives better results," says McKelvey, community director at WeWork.To these attitudes, which relocated their own and others, some professional practices were added that did not fully convince the board and investors. By case, his wife Rebekah Paltrow, had a voice and vote in the firm to elect the next CEO in case his partner did not follow the command.In addition, it was discovered that several of the properties that WeWork leased were, in part, owned by Neumann. "I did it simply to boost the business. If I didn't use my own money, why would other property owners have the courage to buy?"The drop that overflowed the glass was the S-1 form submitted to the SEC so that WeWork can make its public offering of shares. This document undressed the true numbers of the company, in addition to contracts that involved Neumann and the power that this would accumulate after the debut in Nasdaq.Given the low interest of several potential investors, the board made a series of decisions, such as reducing the participation of its then CEO to 10 votes per action, removing his wife from the decisions and limiting the amount of titles he could sell after the debut stock exchange, since in the last months it had detached from US $ 700 million in shares.A curious case was the rebranding of the firm in January 2019, when it was renamed We Company. Therefore, he had to pay almost $ 6,000 million in shares to Neumann as he had the right to use the word ‘We’ brand. This also came to light by the documentation submitted to the SEC. Before the wave of criticism, he had to return the sum.SoftBank no longer held it. The first hint occurred earlier this year, when Son told the Israeli executive that he would invest only $ 2 billion and not the $ 16 billion that Neumann intended. Later, the Japanese holding company, as a result of investors' doubts, asked him to postpone his public offer.The media claimed that WeWork was willing to cut its value to $ 20 billion in order not to extend its stock market debut. While the Board met to decide on the future of Neumann, since his figure seemed to be the main obstacle to the development of the company, a report by The Wall Street Journal reported his crazy life away from work, with drugs and alcohol included.The impact of this entire whirlwind was huge: the market value dropped to "barely" $ 12 billion and continues to plummet. Those 41 days were fateful for the businessman, who will serve as non-executive president. It remains to be seen if, with their departure, WeWork's problems are resolved or they are even deeper than expected.