How CEO John Santora Is Helping WeWork Grow Up

You probably know the story of the crash and burn of WeWork, the co-working startup that, under founder Adam Neumann, soared to a valuation of $47 billion before plummeting to bankruptcy in November 2023. John Santora is writing the company’s second act. The longtime executive, who had been at commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield for 47 years, took the helm of WeWork in June 2024, as it emerged from bankruptcy. He is trying to steady the company, which still has more than 45 million square feet of real estate across 120 cities and 37 countries. TIME met Santora in WeWork’s Manhattan office, where the beer on tap has been replaced with coffee, and the flashy neon signs have disappeared. Santora is trying to make WeWork a more stable and traditional co-working company. TIME talked with him about how he’s planning to do that and whether the company’s business model can still succeed.

You were at the same company for decades; why did you make the leap to something new at WeWork? 

I was 47 years at one company and have been married for 46 years. I don’t change too often. But when [software billionaire] Anant Yardi acquired a majority share in WeWork, I picked up the phone at Cushman Wakefield, as I had for 30 some odd years, and I said, “Hey, you just bought a real estate company. How can we help?” 

We got together, and we talked about ways to work together. And then he called me about three days later. He said, “I want you to think about something. I want you to come in as the CEO, and as we exit bankruptcy, I want you to take it from there.”

What made you decide to make the change?

It was exciting.  At Cushman Wakefield, I started out in an engine room and ultimately became the global COO under a couple of different CEOs. But this was a chance, in my own way, to put my own mark on something.

Is WeWork’s business model still the same—that you lease spaces and then sublease them—or is it changing a little?

We have three types of agreements—management agreement, revenue share, and a traditional lease. 

With a traditional lease, we lease the space for a period of time and all the risk is on us to keep our members in there, and keep it full. And all the upside is on us as well.

Now we also have about 130 locations where we have management agreements or revenue shares with our landlords. So it’s a little de-risked. In a revenue share, we’ll pay a lower rent, but once we reach a revenue of X, we’ll share part of that above with you.  

A management agreement is just that. The landlord provides the space. We manage the space and the opportunity, bring in our members, and we have a management fee, as opposed to getting the revenue that we create. So it’s an upside for the landlord. It de-risks it for us. 

Do you own any buildings?

Not anymore. 

And do you see yourself owning buildings going forward?

No reason to own the real estate, from my perspective. 

Are you in expansion mode?

We did four deals with Amazon and there are deals we’ve done with other companies that haven’t hit the streets. So yes, we’re expanding from that perspective, but we did pare back our portfolio during the restructuring phase. We will opportunistically expand, but we’re really being very disciplined and structured in that. 

I think that’s one of the things I bring—after 47 years of experience in real estate, I understand, and have been through all the cycles during those years. So before I make any long-term commitments, or even short-term commitments, we’re going to look and analyze it all. It’s not a complete de-risk, but it’s to manage the opportunity and manage the risk.

I’m sensing a theme here, which is de-risking, is that right?

Yeah, de-risking yet capitalizing on the opportunity.

What’s the mandate from the owners? 

It’s about stabilization. It’s growth. It’s profitable growth. It’s about making it a stable, financially secure business. 

Now we’re spending $80 million to $90 million this year on updating our spaces. We call them refreshes. We went through a period there where there was little, if any, investment. We have to make investments. The space has got to be warm and welcoming and usable for our members.

There are other companies that do what WeWork does. How do you convince potential clients that you’re the best choice?

First of all, our brand is great. Our brand is the flex working brand in the world, without question. Nobody has the depth, breadth and scale that we have for all those components: the little entrepreneur, the mid-sized business or the enterprise business. We cover all three. We’re not competing on a global basis with anybody.

Where do you think we are in the return-to-office push and where do you see it going?

Executives are going to require people in the offices, I think four days a week, understanding that there are flexible needs people have. They have elder care, they have child care. They have doctor’s appointments. You have to give employees some level of flexibility, but you also have to establish their need to be in the office because of the collaboration and collisions that happen there.

Where are we in the cycle? From a real estate perspective, it’s settling out.

Is there an upside to you of companies still figuring out their policies? 

Any disruption and movement is good for us. Because we fill that gap. We fill the short term need, we can fill the long term need. 

Even when they figure it out, there have been surveys that show that 80% of real estate executives and CEOs and CFOs say that 20% of their portfolio will be flexible. We just went through a period of time where everybody took way too much space. You get hit with the pandemic and now you’ve spent the last three or four years trying to get rid of space, writing off the cost of space. And you want to go back to locking into 15-year leases? No. A lot of our clients are saying, Let’s do these two-year, three-year, four-year leases.

It must be tempting to see the commercial real estate market as it is now, with the vacancy rate, and go in and swoop up a bunch of buildings. 

We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. We will be very disciplined and structured and measured in how we take down new space.

I remember someone once said about WeWork that it was going to be the next Google or Facebook. Is that something you still see for the company?

No. I see the company as providing a great product in all the right markets around the world where our members need us and want to be. We will have very good, reasonable returns for our investors and the ability to pay our people.

Is the company profitable?

The company has never been profitable. Our last quarter was a break even quarter for us from an EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] perspective, for the first time ever in the history of the company. So we are well on our way.

What about the design side of things? Are you toning that down at all?

I think our design is getting better and better. It is maturing in ways. You’re not going to see the pool table in the middle [of a space] unless it’s a demand from a specific client. 

This office does seem a little subdued compared to the WeWork offices I’ve been in. Is that on purpose? 

This is an evolution of our designs. If you went into the latest one in Dublin, it would look like a traditional corporate headquarters. The common area has all kinds of mahogany woodwork. If you go into a conference room, you’ve got the custom cabinetries. The screens are built into a cabinet. Gray marble countertops. It’s fun, it’s warm, but it’s upscale. 

Why go back to the traditional corporate headquarters look? 

I would say it has that feel, but it has enough warmth in it. There’s plants all around. It’s a high quality finish with the warmth of a WeWork. 

So it’s almost like the design went a little too far before?

That was the original design that the leaders at that time felt was important. We brought it more towards the flight to quality. 

You think about what WeWork created. If you went to corporate headquarters 15 years ago, you got off an elevator bank, you walked down the hallway to some receptionist that’s sitting there, and there’s a couple of couches that cost a fortune. You waited until somebody came out to get you. 

You now walk into a headquarters. Forget WeWork. You walk into a headquarters now, there’s usually some couches there. Somebody’s gonna offer you a cup of coffee. There’s TV screens going so you can watch what’s going on in the market, or a little video about the company. That was WeWork that changed that.

How do you keep that original spirit while doing what clients want?

I think that’s why clients come to us, because we can balance that. We can give them what they want but with that excitement and warmth and that sense of community. 

Would you say the company is growing up?

It’s matured. It’s maturing

Does it lose something by maturing? 

I think you could still have that excitement. I love to walk our spaces around the world. And I see the energy, even over the last six months, coming back. That’s a matter of business getting better, more people going back to the office, and more excitement around our brand again. 

At its heart, is WeWork still a real estate company?

It’s not a technology company. It’s a combination real estate hospitality company.

I think a lot of people thought that this was a business model that doesn’t work. Were they right?  

It does work. There’s a need for flexible space. There’s a need for this type of environment, for every type of company.

What is one thing that you had to change about the way you did things when you came over to WeWork from Cushman?

There was a level of energy and excitement and youth here that I love. I struggled with how I dress, and I’m still in that middle mode.