weword: After wework, will Hulu make a new documentary about another exaggerated start-up?

The Hulu network is launching a new documentary this weekend called, WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn. See trailer below.

It covers the rise and fall of wework, an American commercial real estate company that markets flexible and shared workspaces for technology start-ups and services for other enterprises. The company had a failed Initial Public Offering in 2019, and its valuation has since plummeted from the heights of its ride through the hype cycle.

This new documentary by Hulu provides important insights and cautionary tales for would-be MBAs but it has also inspired fans of ousted wework founder, Adam Neumann, to dream about their own start-ups, modelled on his messiah-like preaching style (quite fitting for an Easter long weekend).

One example of such a start-up is weword.

Sadly, it is one of my recently-graduated students who is behind this and he’s attracting interest and funding for what is destined to be a debacle, which might tarnish the name of The MBA School Of MBA Credentials.

What is weword?

As I understand it, weword is based on the concept, not of renting out office space, but of renting out words.

Here’s a quote from a weword brochure I found in the faculty bathroom.

Welcome to weword, or should we say **hospitable salutations** from weword? Of course, we should choose the latter because we have rented the term **hospitable salutations** for 30 days and have opted for the exclusive use upgrade. This means nobody else on the planet can use **hospitable salutations** without using quote marks, thus, “hospitable salutations”.

And with that simple introduction, you can now see the beauty, simplicity, and power of weword. We are restoring human pride in language, and we’re doing so by shifting the symbols of conspicuous consumption from German cars belching their fumes amid the chemically-induced aroma of **fresh leather**, to language, to words, to knowledge. This is the real seat of power.

By renting words, you can then create **star pars**, which is our proprietary term for any paragraphs using rented words, noting that you are required to add two asterisks on either side of your rented terms to ensure you can claim and defend your purchase. As you can see, though, these marks are like powerful stars and they will burn brightly on your behalf throughout the course of your hire agreement.

My former student, Alan Oldmann, has told some faculty members that he’s already raised AU$1.2m which he says isn’t seed funding; he calls it “kernel cash”. NOTE: None of us can use that term (unless we wrap it in quote marks) for another 7 days because he’s rented it with an exclusive use contract.

I despair for investors and consumers who will get drawn into this concept because if they don’t use MBA Thinking to evaluate it with the x-ray vision we  give them, they will have spent their money on **delusional phantasms** (yes, I rented that term as part of my investigation).

The dangers of speaking out about the Emperor’s new words and offices

I was fortunate enough to have been alerted to the Hulu documentary by one of the sharpest and grumpiest marketing voices on LinkedIn, Mark Ritson.

In fact, as you can see in this quote from LinkedIn, Professor Ritson doesn’t need to rent words from  weword:

This looks like being the big business documentary of 2021. And it’s very good to see the great Scott Galloway featured so heavily. Unlike most of the talking heads featured in the film now piling on, Galloway called it waaaaaay before anyone else. In fact while all the business titles were still blowing smoke up WeWork’s ass, Galloway looked like a lunatic with a grudge because he was so antithetical to the fawning adulation of everyone else in the twittosphere.

I checked on the temporary weword website, which exists only on the Dark Web at the moment (so I cannot legally share a link with you), Mark’s term, “fawning adulation” is currently valued at AU$67.53 for 7 days but is currently hired out until April 3. I hope this article doesn’t draw Mark’s “illegal” use of that term to the attention of Alan Oldmann because he specifies the penalties for breaching weword agreements:

Any person, entity, or entrepreneurial vision that uses, prints, speaks, or utters a term currently subject to a weword exclusive use contract, will be subject to 42 days of subversive retribution, including but not limited to:
– Vitriolic Glass Door reviews about entity or related entities, including use of personal insults generated by weworknastywordsgenerator (patent pending)
– Negative reviews in Google, TripAdvisor, UberEats, Tinder, and MyFavoriteProfessor, depending on nature of transgressing party
– Deep fake videos featuring transgressing party in compromising and inflammatory situations, which will then be leaked to CNN, FoxNews, or Parler
– Writs served based upon the Donald Trump Instant Writ Server 5000
– Listing created in the Self-Published Would-Be Guru Index

So, with Professor Ritson now facing an onslaught from the wework posse and myself also likely to come under attack, what can we do to defend ourselves from the repercussions of whistle blowing?

We need Hulu to feature us in a documentary.

This seems to be the next step for us, so Ms Paige Turner will be making contact with Scott Galloway next week, to see if he is available and still grudge-ready because that will make our pitch to Hulu more likely to succeed.

We need **eloquently cantankerous** (okay, I rented two terms) voices like Ritson and Galloway because, as Oscar The Grouch says, “Don’t let the sunshine spoil your rain. Just stand up and complain.”