> ...The We Company, used to be called WeWork, but it changed its name. The new name was owned, Bloomberg’s Ellen Huet reports, by We Holdings LLC — so WeWork paid $5.9 million to acquire “we” and changed its name last month. We Holdings — you guessed it! — manages stocks and assets owned by… WeWork’s founders.
That's a huge conflict of interest. How would something like that be approved?
The board represents investors. And usually the big investors will have a seat on the board.
The board should have intervened here.
Edit: I pulled the trademark[1] on USPTO. I don't know much about IP law but it looks like the mark was only registered in December 2018. And WeWork "rebranded" as the "We Company" in January 2019.[2] Am I reading the trademark info wrong or is that suspicious timing? Could Dec. 17, 2018 be the date WeHoldings LLC assigned it to We Work Corp.?
[1] http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88232116&caseSearchType=US...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-08/wework-s-...
It's better than stocks or salary-- it's cold hard cash in an entity he wholly owns rather than partly owns :)