Finance

Adam Neumann’s inner circle, HBO Max power players, and the startups betting that your gut is healthcare’s next frontier

Hello!

Much has been written about WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann over the past couple of months, and for good reason.

But this week our team turned the spotlight on a few folks in Neumann’s inner circle, including a banker at the center of WeWork’s attempted IPO, the lawyer who helped Neumann nab a huge exit package, and the trio managing his millions. 

Separately, WeWork plans to do more tests on phone booths after discovering thousands of them contained the potentially harmful chemical formaldehyde, according to an email seen by Business Insider. Julie Bort and Aaron Holmes revealed that the toxic phone booths were designed internally by WeWork and built by a contract manufacturer in China.


A proptech explosion

WeWork’s rapid value destruction doesn’t appear to have put VCs off from betting on so-called property tech. As Alex Nicoll reports, venture funds have poured $24.6 billion into proptech so far this year — and there’s likely more to come.

In the commercial real estate space, landlords want to bulk up their office amenities, and a rush of startups are selling them tech to do it. And there’s been a rush of fundraising in the residential and travel business too. For example:

Established players in both finance and tech are taking note.

The CEO of Blackstone’s massive office portfolio called for landlords and operators to adapt “purposeful proptech,” for example, saying the tech should attract or retain customers, or else help real estate operators cut costs

Meanwhile, Google Nest just launched a pilot with the nation’s largest apartment manager — showing where it sees the next big opportunity selling smart devices.


Potential rivals to Silicon Valley

Thanks to those of you who emailed in with your ideas on potential rivals to Silicon Valley. Suggestions ranged from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Salt Lake City, Utah. Keep an eye out for more stories on the startup scenes in various tech hotspots in North America and Europe in the coming weeks and months.


The Drive Thru

Interested in the retail business? Our correspondent Kate Taylor is now serving up a weekly email breaking down the biggest stories in fast food, shopping and more, appropriately called The Drive Thru. You can sign up here, and catch the most recent edition here

We now have weekly emails delivering the inside scoop on what’s going on in industries including advertising, cannabis, healthcare and tech. Let me know if you want to get more/fewer/different emails, and what you’re interested in reading more about.

— Matt


Finance and Investing

Jim Rogers earned a 4,200% return with George Soros by investing in overlooked assets. He tells us what he’s buying now ahead of the ‘worst crash of our lifetime.’

Jim Rogers is not backing down from his forecast that we’re headed for the “worst crash of our lifetime.”

Inside the quest to reboot Personal Capital, the wealth manager grappling with its identity in the cutthroat robo-advisory age

Personal Capital has long tried to tell people that it’s not a robo-adviser. Now, it’s assembled a new team of execs and a big re-branding push to focus on its human advice. 

Digital Asset, a blockchain startup that nabbed millions from the likes of JPMorgan, Goldman, and Citi, has lost at least 25% of its staff since April

A once-buzzy startup deemed a key player in Wall Street’s adoption of distributed-ledger technology has seen significant employee departures, signaling the difficulty of building a business in the once-sexy tech. 


Tech, Media, Telecoms

Meet the 12 power players running HBO Max, AT&T’s big bet to take on Netflix and Disney Plus

The generals who will lead AT&T’s HBO Max into battle with Netflix and Disney Plus have emerged.

The cofounder of legendary VC firm Andreessen Horowitz on what almost killed Uber, what really led to WeWork’s downfall, and what happened after he passed on Airbnb

Andreessen Horowitz was designed as a venture-capital firm in which investors could support entrepreneurs beyond just writing them a check.

The CEO of Google Cloud explains how joining forces with a giant in IT services gives it more muscle in the battle with Amazon and Microsoft

Google Cloud is joining forces with a giant in IT services, in a move that CEO Thomas Kurian said will give it more muscle in the cloud against key rivals Amazon and Microsoft.


Healthcare, Retail, Transportation

These 9 startups are betting that your gut is healthcare’s next frontier, with millions in backing from investors like Marc Benioff and Vinod Khosla

Can the data from our guts be turned into a useful health product?

A hot cannabis startup just raised $18 million in a down market by promising investors it can more than quadruple sales in a year. See the slides that show exactly how 1906 plans to pull that off.

Raising money in the cannabis industry is hard. Peter Barsoom, the CEO of 1906 — a Colorado-based cannabis-edibles brand — can attest to that.

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