We dedicate this to "the energy of we"

What a difference two years makes. Also, 7 other things worth your time.

I had a lot of fun two years ago this month, when WeWork filed to go public. I sat down to read their SEC prospectus with no idea what I’d find.

The thing was amazing. As an experience, it was right up there with going to see There’s Something About Mary on a date in 1998 and not knowing ahead of time that it was a comedy.

Utterly hilarious, totally unexpected, laughed so hard I cried—both times. Here’s what I wrote in 2019:

Each page of the S-1 filing revealed yet another turn of phrase—another leap—more fascinating than the last.

The prospectus starts with an epigraph, which is something you don't see every day:

"We dedicate this to the energy of we—greater than any of us, but inside each of us."

It only gets better, as the first two sentences of the actual prospectus itself read like a parody:

"We are a community company committed to maximum global impact. Our mission is to elevate the world's consciousness."

On and on, page after page. There was an entire section explaining the myria…