Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Fall of WeWork (by Reeves Wiedeman)

This book scratches a bit of the same itch as Bad Blood, about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. Adam Neumann, megalomaniacal CEO (who is besties with Jared Kushner, so that tells you something) somehow convinces people to give him billions of dollars for a company that doesn't make much money, and then spends it on ridiculous shit. He and his equally insufferable wife talk a lot about being spiritual and "changing the world," apparently by getting as rich as possible and then buying stuff for themselves.

When WeWork faces public scrutiny, it falls apart and Neumann is forced out. Of course, the people who really suffer are the employees he exploits; he and his awful wife are still rich and I'm sure he'll find plenty of assholes to shower money on him in the future. You read this and end up thinking I knew capitalism was broken, but damn, it's really broken.

Definitely read some of the articles (or watch the inevitable documentary) about this douchebag, because the details are fun. (He flies to one of his five mansions in Hawaii to surf, which involves being pulled out into the waves on multiple jetskis, films himself with a drone as he surfs, and then hangs up a giant print of himself surfing in his office.) Oh and do I even need to mention the company is a cesspit of sexism?

Even from the beginning, looking at the cover, I was like "there's something about this guy's face I don't like." By the end I knew it qualified for the Read Harder challenge in the category of "book with a cover you don’t like." I hope this guy ends up in jail somehow, but I'm not counting on it.