When WeWork filed to go public this summer, we learned an incredible detail about its cofounder Adam Neumann: He was paid a whopping $5.9 million by the company he runs for use of the word “we.” From a report: The logic was laid out as such: Ahead of its initial-public-offering filing, WeWork reorganized and rebranded as The We Company. To rebrand itself around the word “We,” the company paid its own CEO nearly $6 million for trademark rights. The transaction was handled through a private company that Neumann is a managing member of, We Holdings LLC, which owned the trademark rights to the word “we.” Moreover, WeWork characterized the nearly $6 million payment as “fair market value.” In his analysis of the company following its IPO filing, the New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway characterized the situation as such: “Adam also owned the rights to the ‘We’ trademark, which the firm decided they must own and paid the founder/CEO $5.9 million for the rights. The rights to a name nearly identical to the name of the firm where he’s the founder/CEO and largest shareholder. YOU. CAN’T. MAKE. THIS. S—. UP.” On Wednesday, in a newly filed Securities and Exchange Commission document, WeWork walked back that arrangement.
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https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/09/04/1653253/wework-ceo-returns-59-million-for-we-trademark-to-company-after-criticism?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed