Adam Neumann Quotes

It used to be presumed that if you weren't at your desk working, you weren't working, But we said, 'Why can't we make a workplace where casual meetings are as important as working at your desk?' Sometimes that's where your better creative work happens.

It's kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work.

I think it's important to have flexibility to work wherever is best for you. I actually encourage people to work at the cafe - or from home or wherever works best for them.

It's fantastic that the world is becoming more open to different ways of working, but we still have a long way to go in terms of changing perceptions.

Creating a flexible working culture is about trust. How much can your employees rely on each other to get the job done without the benefit of supervision?

If working remotely is such a great idea, why isn't everyone doing it? I think it's because we've been bred on the idea that work happens from 9 to 5, in offices and cubicles. It's no wonder that most who are employed inside that model haven't considered other options, or resist the idea that it could be any different. But it can.

The surprising question we get is, 'How many people telecommute at Google?' And our answer is, 'As few as possible.'

To make flexibility work, it is not only necessary to change our attitude about who is a good worker and who is not, but we have to train managers at all levels to recognize the difference between the number of hours worked and the quality of work produced.

Meetings, clearly, can take place anywhere, and wouldn't it be nice to see your coworkers lounging on the grass with their shoes off?

Huge open source organizations like Red Hat and Mozilla manage the collaboration of hundreds of people who don't know one another and have spent no time hanging around the water cooler.

As far as the mechanics go, working with other people on received ideas was for me a very interesting technical problem. I can't say that any of my collaborations engaged my heart, but they engaged the craftsman in me.

I have an office in my house and one about five minutes from my house. I worked solely out of my house for many years, but find, with children, that I have to be in a different ZIP code to think.

Employers need to recognize that the world has changed and there are people who would like to help them provide solution in ways that are new, modern and that add value to companies.

All white-collar work is project work. The single salient fact that touches all of our lives is that work is being reinvented.

The notions of going to work, putting in set hours, and getting 'face time' are increasingly antiquated ideas. Because of technology we have entered a modern era of work where we can work from wherever we want, whenever we want and we can be more productive and make greater contributions than ever before.

I wish I had more control over my career, but making movies is something you do with lots of people.

Amazon deliberately provides cafeteria space for only a third of its employees, which encourages people to venture out of the office.

As far as employees are concerned, clearly I like to communicate with them, since we are more than 40,000 people. I like to communicate either through e-mail or through video conferencing, which we do very often, and stream out videos and interviews. But more than that, I believe in traveling to my branches.

If you offshore, if you telecommute, if you do anything to minimize your company's physical real estate, there are real consequences to its culture and cohesion.

True flexibility is a symbiotic partnership between employer and employee and between technology and culture.

People think, 'Well, because you're at Google, you can work from anywhere.' Yes, you can work from anywhere, but many just commute to offices... Working from the office is really important.

A desk for $350 a month in a common area is not as cheap as a coffee shop. But a lot of people would say they're empowered by that environment in a way that makes it worth it.

As far as working with Kanye and Solange, that was amazing. After 'Swing Lo Magellan', I needed a change. Getting to work in that capacity, writing for other people and working for other people as a writer and as a person who's not representing it as the front person or whatever - it's such a different perspective you can get.

When we launched WeWork back in 2010, we saw our opportunity to build community by bringing people together.

Me and Vince are like cool, man. Good relationship with Vince, man, and I've been on a lot of trips with Vince, as far as with overseas, going to visit the military. And even at work, man, ideas, he's open to a lot of people, everybody, pretty much. If you have a good idea, he wants you to go in there and prepare with it.