Building A Better Office

WeWork thinks it’s optimized the workplace for creativity and productivity. Has it?

- Laura Bliss

IN MARCH 2017, the New York City–based editors and writers of The Atlantic moved to a WeWork office in Brooklyn. I remember our first morning vividly: It was like entering the Millennial id. Craft beer and cucumber water poured from kitchen taps. Laptoppers in jeans and toques clacked along to MGMT in the wood-paneled common area. A WeWork “community manager” showed us to a glass-walled office so small that my colleagues and I could clasp hands while seated. We sat. Had we arrived in the future of work?

The Atlantic told us this arrangement would be temporary while our real office was renovated. As of this writing, we’re still here. If We Work had its way, we’d stay forever, along with much of the 21st century workforce.

WeWork is the world’s leading co- working company and the sixth-most-valuable start-up, according to VentureSource. Last year it was valued at $20 billion, a staggering sum for a company renting out short-term office space, mostly to small businesses and free lancers. But like Uber and Airbnb, WeWork positions itself grandly, as a disruptive revolutionary. It promises to “humanize” work, making the office a more creative place, with the right lighting, the right snacks, and, crucially, the right people.

WeWork would say it’s well on its way to transforming white-collar labor: It seats 175,000 “members” in 207 locations across 20 countries, with plans to double in size this year. Its leaders describe it not as a real-estate venture but as a “community company.”