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Adam Neumann: This Is How You Build Iconic Companies
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Arriving in America: Immigration, Dyslexia, and the American Dream
At 12:58 · chapter starts 11:30
Neumann's arrival in the US has the feel of a myth: four days after finishing the Israeli Navy, he flew to New York ostensibly to check on his younger sister, a supermodel living there, and ended up staying for over two decades. He enrolled at CUNY Baruch College — not an Ivy League school, he acknowledges, but after the army, academic assignments felt trivially easy by comparison. What he doesn't mention without prompting is that he couldn't read until third grade. His dyslexia was severe in both letters and numbers, and was only discovered when his grandmother — a lawyer — handed him a menu at a restaurant and watched him struggle for 20 seconds before marching to the principal's office [1] — Adam Neumann "Neumann couldn't read until third grade and still texts in typos today. But dyslexia forced him to build systems, rely on listening, and al…" 11:30 . The principal's response was actually encouraging: the kid is going to be fine, he'll always have someone reading for him. Neumann says dyslexia taught him three things: there is always a solution, standard solutions won't work for you so you have to invent your own, and having any difficulty makes you deeply empathetic to others with difficulties. He also notes AI as the first technology genuinely useful to dyslexics — ChatGPT handles the spelling that dictation never could.
Neumann couldn't read until third grade and still texts in typos today. But dyslexia forced him to build systems, rely on listening, and always find an alternative solution — habits he says make dyslexics natural entrepreneurs and early AI power users.
At Baruch College, Neumann pitched 'Concept Living' — an idea about building community in apartment buildings — and was the only team not to advance in the competition. The dean told him the industry was too big, he was too young, and the idea was unrealistic. That rejection haunted him for a decade until WeWork proved every part of it right.
