FIRST DRAFT LIVE: WeWork CEO John Santora On The Revival Of A CRE Icon — And Why Office Still Matters

Bisnow’s First Draft Live is a weekly series featuring live conversations about the critical stories impacting CRE right now — from market volatility and economic uncertainty to the growing influence of artificial intelligence. First Draft Live is a companion to The First Draft, Bisnow’s daily, flagship CRE newsletter. Register here to get The First Draft in your inbox. Subscribe to First Draft Live on Apple and Spotify, or scroll down to view in your browser. 

Few companies in history have a story more interesting than WeWork. The coworking giant experienced skyrocketing success in 2019, but it all came crashing down, and the company filed for bankruptcy in 2023.

Today, the company has restructured and branded itself as a stable, mature organization led by a team of real estate veterans, including longtime Cushman & Wakefield executive John Santora as its CEO. 

After spending years trying to reduce its portfolio, the company is now adding new locations and looking toward the future with more than 550,000 members, 77% occupancy across the globe and $2.2B in revenue collected in 2024. 

So what’s next for WeWork and what role will the company play in the complex modern office market? 

To answer these questions and more, Bisnow Editor-in-Chief Mark F. Bonner sat down with Santora on Tuesday at the CREtech New York 2025 event for a special edition of First Draft Live. 

Santora is big on the return-to-office movement, saying he has always been the type of person who is in the office “five or six days” a week, but by and large, companies have settled on four days a week. 

Bonner said the pandemic and artificial intelligence are reshaping how people work, impacting headcounts and pressuring office demand.

But there are things that happen in the office that don’t happen on a Zoom call or Teams meeting, Santora said. 

“It’s the conversation before the meeting, the conversation at the coffee bar, those collisions, as you call them, in the space where things happen, where ideas come about, where innovation comes about,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want my career to be getting up, leaving my bedroom, going to sit in my kitchen and getting on a computer,” he added. “That’s not my view of what life’s all about and how you’re going to grow your career.”

Watch the full conversation below, including Santora’s plans for WeWork’s future: