No.
Yeah, we'll cut this part out.
We have a woodpecker happening.
Woodpecker situation.
This is a first on Acquired.
Dan's going to take care of it.
I love it.
Welcome to season five, episode six of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories behind them.
I'm Ben Gilbert and I'm the co founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and early stage venture fund in Seattle.
I'm David Rosenthal and I'm a general partner at Wave Capital, an early stage venture firm focused on marketplaces based in San Francisco.
And we are your hosts.
Today we tell an episode that in our initial season five planning calendar we had as an IPO episode and then that was pitifully canceled and we were just going to tell the crazy story of the antics that got it here, but now it's shaping up to be a tried and true acquisition episode for us.
So here on this episode we will dive into the existential question of if Wework A once $47 billion company can be saved by SoftBank's effective acquisition of the company.
And we are going to try to accomplish two goals.
First, to dive into the history of this company from the very beginning.
And second, to try and see the core economic forest through the under governed trees and understand precisely the position that the business is in.
Listeners, Dan's face during all of this is priceless.
If only we were a video podcast.
Which brings me to the only appropriate way that we know how to tell this story is with the expert help of Axios Dan Primack, who has been meticulously and astutely covering this company for several years.
Welcome to Acquired Dan.