As far as I can tell, he did not commit any fraud. Seems like he’s just a good salesperson who landed a whale.

Personally purchasing buildings to rent out to the We company definitely crosses some lines. Same with purchasing the “We” brand which he generously licensed to WeWork for some $5 million.

All of which was properly disclosed. Sophisticated buyers knew the risks and chose to take them.

Those seem like bad faith actions, disclosed or not.

Success is had by bending the rules without breaking them.

Self dealing is very much breaking the rules. Sure, maybe the powers that be let it slide, but it is not playing fair.

Edit: in fact, when the musical chairs stopped and the IPO failed, there were lawsuits about the self dealing. So long as people were making money the board were willing to look the other way.

Only if you view rules as pointless adversaries to be beaten. But often rules exist for good reasons to keep people safe and keep interactions fair and trustworthy.

Bending rules isn't something that you should take inherent pride in, and personally, it always lowers my opinion of such people.

That is a lazy take used to justify the actions of bad people.

This is a lazy take on morality. Neumann enriched himself from wealthy, supposedly sophisticated investors. So sad. He took (not stole, took) from the rich (which they willingly handed over), gave to himself, and walks around free with no criminal prosecution to speak of.

We might disagree on what constitutes “bad people.”

Dishonest ones is a good start

Everyone lies. Context and intent is what matters.

Wow… much insight.

How about the ”context” that those investors were investing in his company which had hundreds or thousands of employees who also had stakes in its financial health? And he stole the company’s money from those stakeholders and handed it over to himself personally?

How many degrees in Advanced Moral Gymnastics do you need to figure that one out?

We just disagree on morality and the subjectivity of truth and human opinion (see Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy writings for more on this), that's all, no gymnastics required.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_S%C3%B8ren_Kierk... ("Wikipedia: Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity")

Don't worry, I'm aware that people can have different moral frameworks. I'm also totally comfortable saying that if "lying in order to enrich oneself at the expense of others" is not a solid indicator of "bad person" in your moral framework, then you're an asshole.

Note also that "asshole" has different connotations to different people. And yet... still a very useful descriptor to help isolate bad actors from the rest of society.

I see no reason to assume what someone was or was not thinking in this case. Both parties had sufficient resources to do due diligence, and both parties engaged completely voluntarily under zero duress.

Qualifiers tell me all I need to know, 'sufficient resources'. Playing others and not the field

it's not illegal. The investors needs to caveat emptor and they did(nt).

Not talking to the legality; someone can do bad things and still be following the law.

My heuristic is that whenever someone insists on emphasizing that something iS NoT iLlEgAl, then they're probably trying to obscure that something is wrong.

> Sophisticated buyers

... as in, himself?

No, the people who bought the equity with which Neumann was able to enrich himself. Neumann sold the equity.

That was known and the board allowed it. I am on the fence about this because this kind of fraud is team effort. The board and the investors avert their eyes for things that are unethical or even illegal because the "founder" is the golden goose that can do no wrong. They also seem to like being lied to.

"Due diligence" is a dirty phrase in that world. They are geniuses, man. Movers and shakers!