Fool Me Twice: Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann Raises $70 Million For New "Crypto Carbon Credit" Startup
In the long line of annoying, inefficient, Silicon Valley-like CEOs we've been presented with over the last couple of years (names like Vlad Tenev and Jack Dorsey come to mind), none have held a candle to WeWork's Adam Neumann.
And Neumann, who is most famous for being paid more than $2 billion from WeWork as its valuation plunged from nearly $50 billion to less than $10 billion amidst reports of his erratic behavior, is back at it again.
He is now listed as "both a founder and an investor in the climate startup Flowcarbon," a new report from Bloomberg said this week. And Flowcarbon had no problem raising $70 million from venture capitalists that included Andreessen Horowitz, the report says.
Flowcarbon is a 35 employee company based in Berlin that sells carbon credits and keeps a record on the blockchain.
The company is aiming to shed light on what is mostly an opaque carbon credit market. Included in the VC's who helped raise capital for the startup were Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, General Catalyst and Samsung Next.
Neumann is also an investor through his family office and his wife, Rebekah Neumann, is also listed as a co-founder. And in case there was any doubt as to the massive contribution Neumann is making to the startup, Bloomberg wrote:
Adam Neumann told the Financial Times in March that he and his wife came up with the branding for the company. One of his favorite words is “flow,” which reminds him of the flow state found in surfing, a hobby.
Wow. He truly is a visionary…
In addition to raising money via traditional means, Flowcarbon also raised capital from selling its token, the Goddess Nature Token (no, we are not making that up), which "bundles together certified credits issued in the past five years," the report says.
Recall, WSJ reporters revealed in 2021 that Neumann and a group of his closest associates sold shares during every funding round for WeWork and that he made roughly $500MM from these sales. In 2019, Neumann pocketed $300MM from additional share sales. Then in May 2021, it was reported that Neumann received another award worth $245MM, bringing the total value of Neumann's exit package to nearly $1 billion.
Said former CNBC contributor Jeff Macke…
“The mistake with WeWork was it was too legitimate” https://t.co/nBEyUZSBod
— Jeff Macke (@JeffMacke) May 25, 2022
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/former-wework-ceo-adam-neumann-raises-70-million-new-crypto-carbon-credit-startup