对于 WeWork 首席执行官来说，周五是穿运动鞋的日子。有时是这样。在《商业内幕》举办的 The Long Play 活动上，John Santora 告诉副新闻主管 Cadie Thompson，他重建 WeWork 的部分做法是在员工间建立起一种信任感和得体感。为达成这一目标，Santora 为员工制定了着装规范，但也给了他们每周一天在家办公的机会。
For WeWork's CEO, Fridays are for sneakers. Sometimes. At Business Insider's The Long Play event on Thursday, John Santora told Deputy News Chief Cadie Thompson that he rebuilt WeWork in part by establishing a sense of trust and decorum among employees. In pursuit of that goal, Santora instituted a dress code for employees, but also gave them one day a week to work from home.
“我没有能力去看我儿子下午 3 点的棒球比赛，”Santora 说，并补充道，“我们必须给员工这种灵活性，让他们能做所有这些事。”Santora 曾任房地产公司 Cushman & Wakefield（世邦魏理仕）的首席运营官，2024 年成为 WeWork 首席执行官，当时这家曾经备受追捧的办公初创企业刚从一场灾难性的第 11 章破产保护申请中走出来。
"I didn't have the ability to go watch my son play a 3 o'clock baseball game," Santora said, adding, "We have to give our employees that flexibility to do all that." Santora, formerly the chief operating officer at Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate firm, became WeWork's CEO in 2024 as the once-buzzy office startup emerged from a disastrous Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
Santora 回忆说，他只有很短的时间决定是否加入这家摇摇欲坠的公司。而且这绝非易事。“我当时有点处于‘我该不该退休？’的阶段，”他说。“我女儿 Nancy 说：‘爸爸，你知道我们爱你，但你要是闲得太久，就会让人烦得要命。’”自 2019 年那些惨淡的日子以来，WeWork 的估值曾从 470 亿美元暴跌至约 80 亿美元，随后获救，公司已趋于稳定。
Santora had a short time to decide whether to join the faltering company, he recalled. And it wasn't exactly an easy choice. "I was kind of at that point of, 'Should I retire?'" he said. "My daughter Nancy said, 'Dad, you know we love you, but when you have too much time on your hands, you're a pain in the ass.'" Since those deeply red days in 2019 when WeWork's valuation plummeted from $47 billion to roughly $8 billion before it was bailed out, the company has stabilized.
它已连续八个季度实现 EBITDA（息税折旧摊销前利润）盈利，并预期将迎来第四个连续的现金流盈利季度。2025 年，公司营收约 23 亿美元。尽管尚未重回往日估值，但公司能够复活本身就令人惊叹。WeWork 成立于 2010 年，出租办公空间，进行装修，再分租给自由职业者、初创企业和其他公司。其首任首席执行官兼创始人 Adam Neumann 曾大肆宣称，WeWork 将通过向初创企业出租办公空间来“改变世界”并“提升世界的意识”。
It posted eight quarters of EBITDA profitability and expects a fourth straight quarter of cash-flow profitability. In 2025, it reported about $2.3 billion in revenue. Though it hasn't hit the valuation it once had, the fact that the company could be revived at all is remarkable. WeWork, founded in 2010, rents out office space, spruces it up, and parcels it out to freelancers, startups, and other businesses. Its first CEO and founder, Adam Neumann, made bold pronouncements that WeWork would "change the world" and "elevate the world's consciousness" by renting out office space to startups.
但在一次搞砸的 IPO 后，新利益相关者清楚地认识到，急需一位不同类型的领导者。结果证明，Santora 就是那位领导者。
But after a bungled IPO, it became clear to the new stakeholders that a different type of leader was sorely needed. As it turned out, Santora was that leader.
桑托拉在世嘉维克（Cushman & Wakefield）工作了47年，拥有纽曼所缺乏的房地产经验，尽管他不具备硅谷神童那种魅力。“从领导力的角度来看，我是一个非常有条理、自律的人，”他说。“我是那种穿西装打领带、一丝不苟的房地产人。”桑托拉回忆起早期去一家办公室考察，发现员工穿着牛仔裤、睡衣、拖鞋和短裤。
Having worked for 47 years at Cushman & Wakefield, Santora had the real estate experience that Neumann lacked, albeit without the magnetism of a Silicon Valley whiz kid. "From a leadership standpoint, I'm a very structured, disciplined person," he said. "I'm a suit and tie, buttoned-up real estate person." Santora recalled an early trip to one of the offices, where he discovered employees wearing jeans, pajamas, slippers, and shorts.
“我叫来了我的人力资源主管，”他说。“看到没？我不想再看到这种情况了。”桑托拉曾一度自称“来自史泰登岛的老胖子”，他不仅强制要求员工在重要会议上穿运动夹克。用他的话说，这其中有一些“给予与索取”。“我不关注他们几点下班、几点上班，”他说起自己的员工，“只要他们把工作做好，让客户满意就行。”而桑托拉给自己留了一项西装领带形象的例外。“周五我其实有时会穿运动鞋，视我的日程安排而定，”他说。
"I grabbed my head of HR," he said. "See that? I don't want to see it anymore." Santora, who at one point described himself as an "old chubby guy from Staten Island," didn't just force employees to wear sports coats to important meetings. In his words, there was some "give and take." "I don't look at what time they leave, what time they come in," he said of his employees. "As long as they're getting their work done and they're keeping their clients happy." And Santora allows himself one exception to his suit-and-tie persona. "Fridays, I'll actually sometimes wear sneakers, depending on what my schedule is," he said.