"Let's talk about death" is certainly not a joyous way to begin or end your day, but bear with me. This won't end morbidly.

There are three attitudes that I've generally observed when someone talks about death:

• Evasion: You ask your mother about your sick grandma. "Ma, what happened to grandma? How is she doing?" To protect you, your mom lies, "She's just under the weather. Everything is fine, child!" I observed this a lot growing up. Even when my own father was going through medical troubles, he wouldn't reveal it. He would evade the question masterfully. "Appa, where are your blood test results?" [Pause] "Oh the doctor's office never sent me a copy; they just shared the results on a phone."

• Fear: This is probably more common once you grow up. We fear death as if it's a vile, unwelcome guest that's robbing us of everything we love and care of. Who hasn't heard stories of people sharing their greatest regrets right before they die? In fact, an entire book was written on this: The 5 Regrets of The Dying. The way death is portrayed in movies and media -- with violence, grief, and bloodshed -- it's natural that we fear it.

• Apathy: And then there are the people whose life mantra is YOLO. They don't think about nor talk about death. Not because they're evading it. Rather, they think, "We're all gonna die anyway. Why bother worrying about it? Let's make the most of every day."

I found a fourth attitude in a book I began reading a few days ago: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

This is how the author, Sogyal Rinpoche, describes the fourth attitude,

"Death is neither depressing nor exciting; it is simply a fact of life. According to the wisdom of Buddha, we can use our lives to prepare for death. We do not have to wait for the painful death of someone close to us or the shock of terminal illness to force us into looking at our lives. Nor are we condemned to go out empty-handed at death to meet the unknown. We can begin, here and now, to find meaning in our lives. We can make every moment an opportunity to change and to prepare -- wholeheartedly, precisely, and with peace of mind -- for death and eternity. In the Buddhist approach, life and death are seen as one whole, where death is the beginning of another chapter of life. Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected."

Instead of evading, fearing, or being indifferent to death, Rinpoche urges the reader to accept death while we're alive and use the knowledge of acceptance to prepare for it, by living a life that is fueled with meaning.

In my case, I've thought about the death of my loved ones significantly more than I've thought about my own death. I feel paralyzed with fear when I think about the death of the people I love; tears stream down my face before I finish a thought. But, reading this book is giving me a chance to view death differently.

I'll share more learnings on here as I keep reading it.

If you'd like to join me on this intellectual journey, subscribe to my newsletter, Making Of A Book, where I share short essays on interesting topics like this each week and share the behind-the-scenes journey of publishing my second book, Unshackled.

Introduction

Two great novels were published in 1932 and 1949.

Both prophesied a dystopian future where we're oppressed, depraved, and shackled. Except, the paths they charted were different.

One prophesied that we would be oppressed by a hateful external tyrant, called Big Brother. The other prophesied that our autonomy would be deprived not by something we hate, but by the technology we will come to love.

One feared a world where our oppressor would ban books. The other feared a world where there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

One feared a world that would deprive us of information. The other feared a world where we will be drowning in a sea of information rendering us numb and indifferent.

One of these novels, in fact, did manifest itself in our current world.

But it wasn't the novel that most people feared would come true.

1984 vs A Brave New World

1984 was written by George Orwell and published in 1949. A Brave New World was written by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932.

Orwell imagined a world where war was perpetual, people were severely oppressed by the government and everyone was under constant surveillance.

Barring the senseless war between Russia and Ukraine right now, it's safe to say that we're living in a largely peaceful world where at least those of us in the developed nations have autonomy and freedom to do what we want. No oppression. No surveillance. No Big Brother.

However, something far worse has happened. The world painted by Huxley in his novel -- a world where consumerism flourishes, entertainment numbs people of feelings, and technology controls our lives -- has come true.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

I just finished reading a book titled Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman. In it, Postman begins the book by talking about the irony between the aforementioned two novels, and how the one whose story most people didn't pay attention to has in fact come true.

He says,

For all his perspicacity, George Orwell would have been stymied by this (the present) situation; there is nothing “Orwellian” about it. The President does not have the press under his thumb. The New York Times and The Washington Post are not Pravda (a Russian communist newspaper); the Associated Press is not Tass. And there is no Newspeak here. Lies have not been defined as truth nor truth as lies. All that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and been amused into indifference. This is why Aldous Huxley would not in the least be surprised by the story. Indeed, he prophesied its coming. He believed that it is far more likely that the Western democracies will dance and dream themselves into oblivion than march into it, single file and manacled. Huxley grasped as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions. Although Huxley did not specify that television would be our main line to the drug, he would have no difficulty accepting Robert MacNeil’s observation that “Television is the soma of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.” Big Brother turns out to be Howdy Doody. (Location 1890)

The book, as a consequence of being published in 1985, primarily focuses on the impact of television on our minds (and our culture). Postman fears that we've willingly walked into a future where television has become the portal through which we learn about the world. He laments the decline of the written word and calls for us to question the medium through which we consume our information. Postman is not a Luddite who hates technology, however. No. In fact, he says that TV does have its place in our culture: to produce junk shows. The problem arises when we begin consuming important and serious information through our television. He says,

The best things on television are its junk, and no one and nothing is seriously threatened by it. Besides, we do not measure a culture by its output of undisguised trivialities but by what it claims as significant. Therein is our problem, for television, is at its most trivial and, therefore, most dangerous when its aspirations are high and when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations.

He goes on to talk about the importance of the medium through which we consume our information, why telegraphy began the destruction of typography, how we're drowning in a sea of entertainment and irrelevance and ends with sharing two lackluster solutions to these problems. Lackluster not because of lack of his effort; but because of the gravity (and complexity) of the problem.

My Takeaways

 Photo credits: Olivier Bonhomme

Reading Amusing Ourselves To Death in 2022 feels like reading the script for a movie that you've already watched, and acted in.

It feels banal for me to tell you that we're drowning in a sea of irrelevant information and distractions. Or that entertainment is cutting into our lives at a level that's scary.

I knew this already. You knew this already.

Yet, reading Amusing Ourselves To Death was worthwhile for me, because it gave me a chance to sit down and think about the following questions:

• What does my current information diet look like?

• How has my relationship with my phone and social media changed over the years? Is it for the better or worse?

• What role does a "medium" play in the information it's conveying?

• Where am I consuming my content from? Is it time to revisit and "revamp" this pipeline?

• Finally, what important questions are being shoved aside by all the distractions?

The late Clayton Christensen, a professor at Harvard and the founder of "disruptive innovation", published an article in 2010 titled How Will You Measure Your Life. There's a particular passage in the article that stuck out for me:

"For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra yearʼs worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasnʼt studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life. Itʼs the single most useful thing Iʼve ever learned. I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, theyʼll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered at HBS. If they donʼt figure it out, they will just sail off without a rudder and get buffeted in the very rough seas of life."

The opposing forces that distract you from what's most important will only keep growing with time.

Neil Postman predicted in 1985 (and Aldous Huxley in 1932) that we're heading towards a future where we will love the thing that controls us and keeps us captive. Like victims of Stockholm syndrome, this has indeed come true.

But I believe, that just by the act of recognizing the power that technology, entertainment, advertisements, and social media have on our attention, we can diminish it. By sitting down to think about our information diet, we've put up our shields. And by pondering upon the role that mediums of information play in our lives, we're taking back our control.

There are certain moments in your life when you embody the superpower of foretelling the next few seconds. These are the moments in the movies when the protagonist knows she is about to get hit by a car even though it's still a few seconds into the future.

I had one of these moments on July 22nd, 2021.

Fortunately, my moment didn't result in an accident. On the contrary, it resulted in me spending the weekend of September 10th, 2021, in Keene, New York, being part of the pilot episode for a TV show titled A Climb To The Top.

What is A Climb To The Top?

A Climb To The Top is the brainchild of my dear mentor, friend, and professor from Columbia University: Chuck Garcia. Chuck climbed his very first mountain, Mt. Rainier, on 9/11/2002, exactly a year after the 9/11 attacks that killed 2,977 people and set off a butterfly effect in the U.S. and around the world: Operation Enduring Freedom was initiated to oust the Taliban regime from Afganisthan, Department of Homeland Security was created to prevent future attacks, a Victim Compensation Fund was set up with funding extended until 2090, to state a few examples.

The 9/11 attacks also had a butterfly effect on Chuck's life. It led him into a career in mountaineering and leadership coaching. For 20 years, Chuck has been using lessons from his mountaineering journey to help people climb the metaphorical mountains in their lives. He published his first book, A Climb To The Top, in 2016 to serve as the go-to guide for improving your communication and persuasion skills. Soon after it became well renowned, he launched his radio show by the same name in late 2019 to feature people who have overcome life's challenges to climb their mountains (where I'm proud to be one of the guests!). With the success of the radio show, he then began thinking, What next?

This led to the ideation of a docuseries: bringing in people from various walks of life in every episode who are undergoing changes in their lives and helping them navigate the changes, while climbing a mountain. Chuck's vision (which I deeply resonate with) is to inspire people who watch this show to resonate with the stories and feel inspired to craft a new story for themselves.

I had the privilege to be one of the cast members who were part of the pilot episode of the docuseries A Climb To The Top that was shot in Keene, New York.

Behind The Scenes

It all began on July 22nd, 2021.

Chuck and I had just finished recording our episode for his radio show. I was decompressing from an hour of talking and sharing my experiences when Chuck began excitedly, Saun-dhaar-ya, I wanted to tell you about a project that I am currently working on... I listened with intrigue as he explained his vision for creating a television show -- an intelligent reality show -- that portrays the stories of a few brave souls in each of its episodes as they set off to climb a literal and metaphorical mountain with Chuck. My mind began racing with thoughts. Oh my! This sounds exciting. Wow, Chuck is venturing into television now. Hmm... I wonder why he's sharing this with me. Oh, maybe, maybe he's asking me to be a part of it?! That can't be it, can it? Wouldn't he have told me already? Maybe it's not it. Yet, my intuition tells me it is.

And it was.

 He didn't ask me to be a part of it; rather, he wanted me to apply for it, which I did, and as the stars aligned perfectly, the publishing agency liked my profile and ended up picking me to be one of the cast members.

So there I was: boarding an airplane on September 8th, 2021, to visit a city whose presence I hadn't felt in 2.5 years since graduating from Columbia University.

The pilot episode shoot lasted less than 72 hours in total but gave me memories worth a lifetime. I wanted to share my experience of being part of this magical project and talk about the people I met, the purpose that brought us together, and my foray into performing in front of a camera.

People

There were 21 people in total: 6 cast members (Chuck, Grace, Kenny, Rose, Ben, and myself), and 15 crew members who took care of everything from direction to sound to lighting.

It was one of those rare instances where every one of the 21 got along well with each other and infused an air of positivity into the entire experience, even though most of us met each other for the first time in our lives.

The night before we left to Keene, Chuck, Kenny, Rose, and I had dinner at a Greek restaurant in downtown Manhattan. I remember walking into that dinner feeling excitement with a pinch of nervousness. Even though I met the cast members via zoom calls in the weeks prior, I wanted to make a good first impression in person. Thankfully, within 10 minutes of us meeting each other, the ice was broken and we launched into a night of carefree storytelling. In a world where smartphones have hijacked dinner tables, the four of us broke the convention and intently listened to each other as we all got a chance to share our story (kudos to Kenny on this!).

I walked out of that dinner feeling emotionally rejuvenated, brimming with excitement for the upcoming few days.

On Friday, we set off at 9 AM from New York City in two big vans for a 6-hour drive to Keene, NY. Except for a 20-minute nap that I sneaked in mid-trip to alleviate my nausea, I was either conversing or listening to someone's conversation the rest of the time.

All of us in the cast came with an open heart to share our stories: Kenny was moving away from a 30-year career in screenwriting to launch his leadership coaching venture; Rose was contemplating her future as a professor and trailblazer in championing education for all; Ben wanted to change the world with his vision to harness renewable energy in an innovative way after working as a naval officer. As for me, I shared my vision of becoming an entrepreneur in the area of edTech, and more so a polymath who has creative autonomy and control over how my time is spent, while navigating the constraints of doing it as an immigrant.

I slept at 11:10 PM that first night and remember having this thought right before I entered my REM state,

"Magic happens when people come together for a common cause, and are present with each other without distractions. I learned so much about everyone around me today. What a beautiful day!"

Purpose

"When you know your WHY, you can endure any HOW." -- Viktor Frankl

This was the phrase I kept replaying in my mind as I walked the last mile of a day-long hike up and down the Algonquin Peak, an 8.5-mile hike with a 5115 ft elevation (and 3100 ft elevation gain). Although it's the second tallest peak in New York, its steep elevation and rocky pathway makes it the hardest of the 46 peaks to climb in the Adirondack Mountains.

Aside from actually climbing up and down, we paused every mile along the way to shoot scenes for the episode. Every time we paused, a part of the cast and crew would be busy shooting while the rest of us engaged in conversations and admired the beauty around us. I resorted to spending a lot of this time simply watching the clouds, sun, and trees. Having spent the past few months immersed in ideating, building, and running my course, having an opportunity to pause was a gift for me.

 I will be honest: I struggled the last mile both while climbing up and climbing down. I kept thinking, Are we there yet? Please let us be there. I would silently pray that someone passed our group or the crew wanted to shoot some B-rolls, just so it would give me a chance to pause and rest for a while. What helped alleviate this struggle and put it into perspective was watching the crew members climb not just with their backpack, but also with 50 lbs worth of expensive shooting equipment.

What they accomplished as a crew that day was herculean and they all deserve a badge of honor.

Climbing that mountain meant a great deal to me; to all of us. Amidst gasping for air, I knew it would become a story I retell over and over in my future. Of all the lessons I learned that day, the most impactful one was acknowledging the importance of community while climbing, and in life.

As Chuck beautifully writes in his book,

"Mountains are not climbed alone, neither are careers. Success depends on the generosity you are willing to extend to your colleagues. Known as the Law of Reciprocity, this universal principle is on display in so many other aspects of our lives.”

Performance

It was around 6:00 PM on Friday, September 10th.

I was lying down on a hard, short bench next to our cabin. Fueled by curiosity to learn something new, I opened YouTube and typed the future of learning. After scrolling for a few seconds, I landed on watching the TED talk by Mark Rubin on how to trick your brain into learning more.

Mid-way through that (enjoyable) video, I heard someone calling out for me. It was my time to go in front of a camera and share my story.

It was a surreal experience. There I was, sitting next to Chuck, as the camera crew ran through some final checks before giving us the green signal. While I've known Chuck for years, I was meeting the crew for the first time. It felt odd to share my deepest experiences in front of people whom I just met. But the moment Chuck and I began conversing, I lost track of those thoughts and immersed myself in the conversation.

In total, I spent a few hours in front of the camera: including three one-on-one conversations with Chuck, two group conversations with the entire cast, and a few journal entries which were just me talking directly into the camera. Every time, right before the action!, I would take a few breaths, smile at the people around me, and acknowledge the privilege I had. I felt touched watching everyone around me in the crew work so hard those few days to set up the stage for me and the rest of the cast. This entire experience gave me the opportunity to pause, reflect on the important questions, and share my story.

What greater privilege could I have asked for?

Chuck Garcia

I've known Chuck for 4 years. It took me only one email though -- his very first email -- to know he was someone very special.

On August 28th, 2017, I sent him an email at 9:07 AM, right after I sat through one of his classes on communication at Columbia University. I couldn't control myself: his delivery, diction, and body language were so compelling.

He is still the only person I can recollect who responded to a thank you-note with the invitation to have lunch. That lunch set off a butterfly effect over the next 4 years: while we lost contact for a year after I graduated, through the virtue of LinkedIn, we reconnected sometime in 2020 and began having an impromptu call every few months to be a part of each other's lives. Thank goodness we did!

If we hadn't, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to have spoken to him for ~8 hours, one-on-one, in these 3 days.

We spoke about everything from emotional intelligence to the power of money to the future of education. Chuck makes just conversing fun, with his insatiable curiosity, animated demeanor, and impeccable diction.

I developed a connection with him in the three days that feels unbreakable now. And thanks to Chuck, I also had the fortune to meet the rest of the cast members, all of whom I had such fun connecting and conversing with.

The moment to say goodbye to Chuck finally arrived Sunday night as we drove back to New York City. I hugged him thrice while saying goodbye. As soon as we dropped him off, I could feel the void in the car -- and in my heart -- which later turned to tears that brimmed up in my eyes.

I let it flow, just as all of our conversations did.

Closing Thoughts

We have no idea what the future of A Climb To The Top will look like.

Over the next few months, as the editing process begins and comes to an end, we hope to submit the pilot episode to all the streaming services: Netflix, Hulu, Discovery+, and more.

It might be picked up by one; it might be picked up by none.

If it does get picked up, you can expect to watch the episode sometime in late 2022. A part of me is scared for that day; scared that the Soundarya that the world watches will be an old Soundarya, not the present one.

What if I change so much that I don't resonate with the stories I shared anymore?

 I thought about this question a few times. For now, I've concluded with the following:

If I do change so much that I don't resonate with the story anymore, it's the best-case scenario: it's a sign of growth; of evolution. Because, I'd rather change too much than too little.

 When was the last time you opened up to someone about the most sacred moments from your past in an uninterrupted, non-judgemental setting filled with intent listening and empathy?

For me, it was yesterday.

A work-related call with a good friend yesterday turned into a 6-hour conversation of me opening up about the deepest (and in some way darkest) moments from my past.

After it ended, I felt emotionally carved out, in a good way. It was a fitting end to the worst year of my life (more on that in another article).

When I woke up today, I wanted to pen down some of my thoughts on why this experience was so deeply cathartic.

Blind spots

Let's take part in a short experiment.

Close your right eye with your right hand and focus your left eye on the black circle above. Slowly move closer to the screen and stop when the magic happens.

There is a certain distance at which the "+" will completely disappear from your view, although it's right in front of you.

This is your neurological and literal blind spot.

Yesterday, I learned about my emotional blind spots.

Three hours into my sharing experiences from the past, he told me something I hadn't heard before.

"You are too hard on yourself. You are taking too much responsibility for other people's actions and not being compassionate enough to your past self."

Without diving too deep into the meaning behind the above, it showed me that such realizations cannot happen in a vacuum. For most of this year, I was my own teacher, mentor, and therapist. But, there are limits to me being objective towards... me.

We all need someone else to spot these blind spots.

Starvation

This is how I see the scale of listening.

Figure: Soundarya's 6 Scale of Listening.

Sadly, most of our conversations are stuck in 2 and 3.

When you enter your next meeting or are in a group setting, observe how many times someone interrupts someone else.

We want to be heard so badly that we forget we cannot be heard without listening.

The call I had was the only such call I can think of from this year.

An entire year bygone in mostly shallow conversations and a few intentional ones.

John Naisbitt said, "We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge."

I can see a similar quote applied to this situation.

What we need from each other the most is what we lack from each other the most.

And that is empathy, compassion, understanding, and an intent to listen to each other.

Future?

I don't know what to write here.

I want to be hopeful about 2021.

I want to think that there will be more such conversations.

But, I know you can't try to change the world without changing yourself.

So consider this a public promise from me that I will try harder. I will continue to treat others the way I would want to be treated. I will listen more intently and be more compassionate towards the people I meet and speak to. And more importantly, I will be more compassionate towards myself and my past.

How about you?

Will you, too?

[This story was originally published in Hackernoon.com]

If you somehow navigate the mysterious path to reach the Notion HQ at 1:00 PM PST on a Friday, you would find an empty office with two golden poodles and a mutt running around. The entire team would not be far though, just shy of a mile away sitting at Barzotto and eating Extra-Long Noodles pasta over a glass of sparkling white wine. Add some soft serve gelato to that. This is just one of the many idiosyncrasies you would find in this 20 member start-up that has captured over a million users with their sleek product.

Microsoft Office 1.0 was released first in 1989 (for Macintosh that is, the Windows version would follow a year later) with the suite containing Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Their latest release of Office 2019 took place on September 24th, 2018 — this time, with five more tools added to the suite. Today, if you search for companies that built a productivity tool on Crunchbase, exactly 666 results would show up. But these weren’t enough for Ivan Zhao and Simon Last, who wanted to build a product so simple that anybody, irrespective of their ability to code, could use it as a canvas that fed their imagination.

‘There are too many apps and tabs that everybody needs to hops through, even to get basic things done. We noticed an appetite out there for an all-in-one tool. Something that will consolidate all the contemporary apps so that they complement and reinforce each other and can be used seamlessly. That’s what Notion is about.’ says Camille, the Head of Marketing.

In Notion, every single piece of content is considered a block. You can convert a word into a new page and condense pages into tables. When you open it for the first time, all you see is a white screen before you waiting to be populated with Kanban boards, toggle lists, all sorts of media and databases. While the flexibility can sometimes be overwhelming, it has led to a flurry of use cases ranging from acting as a cafe guide in San Francisco to being used by startups for their roadmaps. ‘I know it wasn’t made for this purpose, but Notion is the perfect tool to track and organize a Dungeons and Dragons campaign,’ says Dave Snider, a web designer, on Twitter.

Design — Inspiration and Process

The Notion office is a reflection of the tool — minimalistic, artsy and easy to navigate. The entrance has a huge woolen mat, and generally a dog, inviting you to remove your shoes and treat the office like home. Aside from the few rows of computers where all employees — including the CEO, Ivan — sit, the room is spaced out to pace around and spots comfortable couches for interviews.

While the execution happens downstairs, the thought-process is captured upstairs in a conference room with Cesca chairs and Aalto stools. Along the wall, rested atop a mantlepiece is a commissioned sketch of Douglas Engelbart, well-renowned for his inventions, one of which is the now evolved computer mouse. If an employee is not working, he or she is either reading a book on modern art or playing a masterpiece by Fritz Kleisler.

Aristotle came up with the idea of First Principles thinking 2,000 years ago. He was always looking for ‘the first basis from which a thing is known’ — the self-evident and indisputable truth. Ivan wants his designers at Notion not to look at Dribbble for inspiration. He wants them to take a step back and look at the long history of design itself. ‘Use first principles thinking, what some people call “systems thinking.” Don’t base your approach just on copying and tweaking a little bit what other people have done. Take a step back, and see how you can fundamentally solve it.’ he says in an interview.

Currently, there are two designers on the team, including Ivan. Most of their time is spent on Figma, a collaborative interface design tool. They spend their days researching user interactions and the latest design trends, creating a dozen prototypes followed by an insane amount of permutation testing. This applies to the illustrator as well. Ivan wants the team to hash out all the ideas — including the bad ones — so the mind is freed from the concepts. Dogfooding takes place once the code is pushed to production. If something doesn’t feel right, they go back to the design board.

In the battle of thoroughness, their design process is preceded only by their user feedback gathering. Their Intercom gets dozens of messages a week related to bugs and feature requests. ‘We created a system of tags in Intercom in order to label user feedback and feature requests. This data is piped directly into our product roadmap so we have a granular and well-developed understanding of what our users want to see created or changed’ says Camille.

Very often, you would also see Notion responding to users’ tweets gushing over their admiration with the product, or taking in tough user feedback.

Scaling — 0 To A Million Users

In 2015, Notion was on the brink of failure. They had burned through the cash they had, the tech stack they built was sub-optimal and users weren’t raving about the product. It took two and half years and an insane amount of design iteration and UX permutation until they reached a point to launch it again — Notion 1.0. It has been uphill ever since, with the fair share of rocky bumps akin to a start-up. Now, Notion 2.0 has over a million users and routinely turns away Venture Capitalists who send over proposals and dog treats to land the next big unicorn.

With the team poised towards making the product better every day, they release new features almost every week. One of their recent major launches were the templates feature, and the ability to duplicate someone else’s template—this pushes the users onto a platform that resembles a collective white-board where they can learn from each other’s ideas, rather than a siloed canvas.

Their revenue model is similar to most companies’ subscription model where you can use the free version until you hit a threshold. Want unlimited block storage and file upload limit? Shell out $4 per month. How about if you work at a start-up that’s looking for an alternative, or an extension, to Slack? The price goes up to $8 per member per month. While it might hinge on the slightly expensive side, the promise to clear out and organize clutter has attracted millions of users.

When asked about other cultural quirks they stick to, Camille says, ‘We have a staff meeting every week that rolls into a happy hour where one person shares their life story. We talk about the impactful moment from our lives by presenting it to everyone via Notion. It’s just a cool thing to do.’

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Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed the article. Check out my other stories here. If you would like to get in touch, please send an email to ask@bsoundarya.com. Join my mailing list where I answer anonymous questions every few weeks in detail.

I am indeed on the other alphabet soup of social media as well, if you are too: Personal Blog, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.

References:

How Notion pulled itself back from the brink of failure
The Only App You Need for Work-Life Productivity
First Principle Thinking - How Great Minds Think
First Principles: Elon Musk on the Power of Thinking for Yourself

[This was initially published in The Startup, one of the largest Medium publications.]

How GreenDesk became WeWork — The Initial Days

Miguel McKelvey thought he was just going to his friend Gil’s house to spend a Saturday night. But as he and Gil got on to the elevator, this tall Israeli guy walked in with his shirt off and began conversing with everyone on the elevator. Miguel, initially taken aback by his audacity, later learned that he was in fact Gil’s roommate. Apart from their 6 ft 8 inches frame, they had no commonality. Yet, as the adage that goes poles attract, Miguel McKelvy and Adam Neumann went on to become the Founders of WeWork. 

In hindsight, the fact that they stumbled upon this concept of a communal work-space is not startling. Miguel grew up in a home with five other women who were his best friends, living a hippie life and breaking all norms. Adam on the other hand came from Israel, where he served in the army for five years and traveled a lot. He had his roots of community upbringing as well. 

While Adam brought to the table the raw passion and an unwillingness to settle for a ‘no’ from landlords, Miguel brought his business acumen and knowledge of architecture from working as an architect for a New York firm. They first founded GreenDesk in 2008, focused on sustainable co-working spaces featuring recyclable furniture and electricity. Soon, they realized it was not scalable and sold it to their landlords while pocketing a million dollars each.

But the idea of a communal work-space never left their mind. So, enter WeWork (a Green Desk 2.0?). Founded in February, 2010 in New York’s SoHo district, WeWork got its first mysterious investor the same year — Joel Schreiber. A Hasidic orthodox Jew, Joel met Adam and Miguel for a potential real-estate deal. When that didn’t fall through, Joel instead called them up and offered $15 million to be a part of the company. You’d rarely find a picture of Joel online, who maintains an incredibly low-key lifestyle. Although he is said to have propelled the initial days of WeWork, he has a dozen law-suits against him for defrauding investors and not paying on time. 

Fast forward to 2018, WeWork has gobbled up over $6.5 billion in funding, is valued at a whopping $47 billion, built over 15,000,000 sq ft of office space in 300+ locations spread over 24 countries, and has ventured into tangential projects such building a kindergarten school and an artificial wave pool (not kidding). All in 7 years. 

So I’ll be playing the Devil’s Advocate for both sides to understand the supporters and critics (which are many) to give you a bulls-eye view of both sides. Whether you want to belong to the former or latter group, I’ll leave that up to you. 

‘Most Overvalued Start-up’ — What’s the Backstory?

Given the time frame and the value proposition of the company, scores of real-estate traditionalists and company executives have pointed fingers at WeWork calling it overvalued. 

“If you had positioned this as a real-estate company, it wouldn’t be worth this,” said Barry Sternlicht, who runs Starwood Capital Group LLC, with more than $50 billion of real-estate assets under management.

— Wall Street Journal Article

Let’s look at a few reasons why this is so. 

1. Volatility of the real estate market:

When asked this question, Adam retorts. “WeWork isn’t really a real estate company. It’s a state of consciousness, a generation of interconnected emotionally intelligent entrepreneurs,” he argues. However, when you remove the free spa and the hardwood floors, WeWork is indeed a real-estate company, and is subject to all the risks that one would speculate for that category. The business model is simple: rent arbitrage. It charges its users more than what it pays its landlords.

The current model requires WeWork to pay millions of dollars to its landlords over a decade, irrespective of economic calamities, like the 2008 crisis or the dot com bubble. In fact, another company that works on the same business model, Regus, filed for bankruptcy in 2003 when the bubble burst. If the interest rates go up or if start-ups begin to walk out the doors, WeWork is in big trouble.

2. Bigger competitors catching up

Although WeWork is enjoying a big share of the pie, it didn’t bake it. The concept of a communal work space has been there for decades, Regus (now IWG) being one of the big players with over 3,000 locations. When the CEO Dixon was interviewed, he says he is not worried about WeWork. “There’s no magic ingredient that they have that everyone else doesn’t have,” he says. In 2018, there were 19,000 co-working locations around the world*.

Keeping aside the egregious size difference, WeWork is, as you can see, not a cheap deal either. Some start-ups are seen moving out when the trade-off for finance tips over. A single desk starts at $400/mo and a private office for four is a whopping $1640/mo in NYC. Is it worth the price? or only as good as sitting at Starbucks for free while sipping a $3 cup o’ joe? 

*There are some notable upcoming competitors as well, including Krontel and RocketSpace, both raising $155 and $336 million respectively. 

3. Surprising lack of assets:

Although WeWork managed to spread out to 300+ locations, it still does not own any of the property. It signs 10–15 year lease contracts with landlords where it pays a fixed agreed-upon rate while it leases them for a higher price (it has $18 billion of lease obligations). But can they rake in more and more revenue this way even when markets crash? Critics don’t think so. 

Yet, unaffected, they keep growing ferociously. Their latest brainchild is Dock 72, a 16-story building in Brooklyn’s old Navy Yard that costed $400 million to build. This wavy, origami-like edifice is meant to become a pinnacle of co-working space — filled with office space, restaurants, bars, and luxury spas. 

4. Risky ventures in unfamiliar territory

In an ambition to widen the net, WeWork has ventured into two major areas: residential space and education, completing the cycle of life. WeLive is said to be a co-living space consisting of dorm-like apartments with a gym and spa. While its goal was to reach 68 WeLive locations by 2018, it reached a scanty two.

WeGrow, on the other hand, is said to be the first ‘entrepreneurial’ school for kids. When it opened in September 2018, 46 students were enrolled for classes, ranging from pre-K to 4th grade. For a typical 1st grader, it charges a yearly price of — hold your breath — $42,000. I guess molding early entrepreneurs come with a price.

These ventures, and more, don’t bring in a ton of, if any, revenue for WeWork. Does it seem ingenious or imprudent? Time will tell.

How Does WeWork Justify Its $47 Billion Valuation

It’s time to flip the switch and take a closer look. Although some success could be attributed to the massive investment and pure happenstance, a whole lot of it is buttressed by data-driven initiatives and novel approaches to communal work-spaces. 

1. Stream of acquisitions — some more shocking than others:

For a company that’s yet to file its IPO, WeWork has surely been active in the acquisition scene. They seem to have an average of acquiring one company every two months (including Naked Hub, Spacemob, Flaitron School, Meetup and more). What is surprising is the companies themselves do not seem to have a direct relation to communal spaces. They range from apps for construction workers to artificial wave pool generators to education technology. 

With the cushion of extensive funding, and a strong thumbs-up from the Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, WeWork seems to be building arms in various directions, hoping to connect them all into a holistic WeGroup company in the future. This also off-sets the risk of depending on real-estate as a one-legged chair. 

2. Technology begets data begets optimization:

As a company that added roughly 500,000 to 1,000,000 sq ft of space per month, it’s hard to be profitable without a rigorous and focused approach to using data. And WeWork knows it. The flowchart below demonstrates a very diluted version of the set of tasks they perform. 

What’s not shown in the above flowchart is the sheer detail to which they plan out their offices. 

Sensors and other measurement tools like facial recognition software let WeWork track how its office space is used, down to data as granular as how members adjust their desks and what parts of the office see the highest foot traffic. Eventually, these tools might even be able to track how focused members are in meetings.

 — CB Insights Report

A company that is putting over 1,300 employees just in architecture, interior design, engineering and related activities — an employee roster that makes it one of the biggest architecture firms in the world — is a company that takes its job seriously. 

3. Deep investor conviction (and pockets):

When asked about the supposedly inflated valuation in an interview, Adam is reticent but firm. He starts listing all the investors who back it up, including Benchmark Capital, Fidelity Investments, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Harvard Management Company, Wellington Management, and of course, SoftBank. 

These firms are known to have a string of successes, which points to their good instincts.

As for the Softbank CEO, he can’t stop raving about the company. Although he vastly downsized the $16 billion to a $2 billion investment due to investor pressures, he calls WeWork the next Alibaba. Walter Isaacson, the renowned biographer of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin proclaims that Mr. Neumann has some of the qualities as the aforementioned aficionados.Clearly, WeWork has a strong backbone.

4. Steady expansion and growth:

WeWork needs 60 percent of a typical office space to be occupied to break-even. Guess how much they’ve been filling? 81 percent. That’s right, they raked in $1.5 billion in revenue in 2018 and $482 million just in Q3. This is not to say it’s been smooth sailing, financially. They had a net loss of $1.2 billion. However, at the rate at which they are opening new locations, acquiring companies and expanding internationally, that’s expected.

One of these expansions that proved to be successful is the Powered by We initiative. WeWork’s greatest value proposition is also its Achilles’ heel. The flexibility given for start-ups to move in and move out anytime hurts long-term stability. Powered by We counteracts exactly this — by offering office space solutions to enterprises. This accounts for almost 30 percent of its user base right now. They’re also mitigating risks by shifting from leases to co-management deals, purchasing properties — a recent acquisition is the Lord & Taylor building in Manhattan — and making members sign long-term contracts. 

Although they’re riddled with market instabilities, at least they’re addressing them all. 

Conclusion — A Revolution or A Recession? 

One thing is certain — WeWork managed to break into a space that was populated by veterans and converted a blasébusiness model into a chic one. In the process, it also became an incubator for some of the most coveted start-ups and a networking ground for upcoming entrepreneurs. Our world is accelerating towards a sharing economy, and succeeding— as seen from Uber, Airbnb, Alibaba and the likes. WeWork is another great stride in this direction.

Whether WeWork creates a revolution or falls prey to recession depends upon three elements: a) strong advocation (and conviction) from current and future investors, b) decreasing dependency on leases from landlords and short-term users and c) diversifying its portfolio to enter more lucrative markets, in the U.S and abroad. When the next economic downturn comes, we’ll find out who was right: real estate traditionalists, or the ones trying to upend them.

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