Warning signs of grandiose spending surfaced years before WeWork's bankruptcy  

A key part of WeWork’s corporate culture included the annual summer blow-out for employees and customers, which featured canoes full of beer, rah-rah speeches from executives and headlining music sets from artists such as Lorde

Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey started WeWork in 2010 selling desks and an ideal of what an office should be like.

For close to a decade, WeWork seemed unstoppable. The company grew rapidly and spent extravagantly but it has finally declared bankruptcy in the US. 

While the co-working company could eventually emerge from the Chapter 11 process and survive in some form, the move marks a new low for a business that was one of the world’s most valuable start-ups as recently as 2019. There have been key moments in the company’s rise and fall.