Yahoo Finance CEO of company acquired by WeWork: 'We had an amazing time at WeWork'
This week, news emerged that the founder of an SEO and content marketing company called Conductor was buying back his own company from WeWork, which acquired it last year.
WeWork bought Conductor in March 2018 before the co-working company encountered a slew of struggles, including a failed IPO and the forced departure of its founder and CEO, Adam Neumann.
As TechCrunch reported Thursday, Conductor’s CEO Seth Besmertnik, along with the COO and an investor, are buying back the company nearly two years after it was sold. Still, Besmertnik told YFi AM on Friday that he does not regret selling his company to WeWork in the first place.
“As the company [Conductor] was doing the best ever, when it just kind of came in like a lightning bolt and we made a decision, zero regrets. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. We needed to do it,” he told Yahoo Finance. “We had an amazing time at WeWork. I mean, we got to invest a lot of money into the business. We doubled our engineering staff. We built new products. We learned a ton. We had amazing experiences, both ups and downs. I learned a lot about what it was like to be part of a bigger company, and the good and the bad of that, and see what the future will look like if we have incredible growth.”
WeWork was well on its way to an IPO before intense scrutiny on its losses put a laser focus on the company and its founder. By September WeWork’s valuation had been cut in half and the company had decided to postpone its public offering.
Besmertnik said his employees showed great confidence in Conductor’s leadership to stand by the company while WeWork endured scandals and business disruptions.
“I just broke down in tears for like three minutes in front of everybody. Because I was looking around the room. And we have offices all over the world. And everybody's been working so hard the last three months amidst all the chaos and all the crazy things going on,” Besmertnik said. “I was just so proud of them that they had the confidence in our leadership to really stick it out and really just zone in on the business.”
Ashley is a production assistant for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @actuallynelson.
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