Miguel McKelvey | Hustle Con 2017

About this video

Miguel McKelvey, co-founder of WeWork, shares five key lessons from building the company over the past decade. He discusses the importance of complementary co-founder partnerships, breaking down organizational silos, maintaining perspective during fundraising negotiations, establishing healthy company culture that respects work-life balance, and viewing entrepreneurship as a long-term journey of personal growth rather than a quick exit.

Key takeaways

• Miguel emphasizes choosing co-founders with different perspectives and strengths than yourself, then creating decision-making structures that require mutual agreement to ensure both viewpoints are considered before moving forward
• Miguel describes how involving the entire team across departments in shared company challenges—like building openings—breaks silos and helps people understand each other’s perspectives beyond their day-to-day roles
• Miguel recounts how he and co-founder Adam almost rejected Benchmark Capital’s investment offer over a valuation disagreement, but realized that the partnership value of a strong VC far outweighed the ego of negotiating a higher valuation
• Miguel stresses that founders with unlimited energy must intentionally build a healthy company culture that respects work-life balance and allows team members to be their authentic selves, not just optimize for business objectives
• Miguel advocates viewing your company as a multi-decade or lifetime journey focused on personal growth and self-actualization for founders and employees, rather than optimizing for funding rounds or exit events

Episode details: published July 24, 2017 · 2.1K views · 21:31 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The business ideas, figures and results discussed are the hosts’ and guests’ own claims, shared as brainstorming and entertainment — not verified facts and not investment advice.

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