Until this week, I didn’t know I had a superpower. Sure, my parents told me I was special, but at some point it became clear that I wasn’t special like Peter Parker or Jessica Jones. I resigned myself to being special but not super. Normal, really. Until WeWork told me I did have a superpower, and said it would help me unleash it.
Before you get jealous, you should know that WeWork also plans to unleash your superpower. “To unleash every human’s superpowers” is a literal goal of WeGrow, a subset of WeWork, which as of this week has newly rebranded as “The We Company.”
In addition to unleashing superpowers, the We Company, which goes by “We” for short, wants to “build a world where no one feels alone” and “create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.” It plans to do this with office buildings that are more than square footage, investors who provide more than dollars, and, obviously, a community of users who are more than mere humans, once they’ve been transformed into superbeings.
Getting all this done will be expensive. There are an estimated 7.7 billion people in the world, waiting for their superpowers to be unleashed. We—They? Us? This rebranding will take some getting used to—has raised more than $10 billion, which is a lot of money, but also only comes to a bit more than $1.30 per person for superpower unlocking.
That’s if all of the funds go toward superpower-related services and not “elevating world consciousness,” another stated We goal. There are also more mundane expenses to consider, like “marketing,” “employees,” and “beer on tap,” all of which cost We more than $1 billion in the first nine months of 2018. We was supposed to get about $16 billion from SoftBank, a powerful Japanese investor, but announced this week, along with its name change, that SoftBank had decided to commit only another $2 billion.
That is why I encourage you to lend We your support immediately. The easiest way to promote the cause is by sending a check for $190 to WeWork, the best known subset of We. This will let you sit in one of We’s many common rooms for a month, where you can scope out other superbeings-in-training and forge alliances for our coming era of heroes. (Also, free beer.)
So far, I haven’t been able to find out much about how We plans to unleash everyone’s superpowers. I emailed the company’s communications team asking whether they know what my superpower is, but I haven’t heard back yet. I’m thinking a super-sharp bullshit detector. Or something with lasers.