Ten days before the end of 2018, WeWork’s new $US60 million ($90 million) Gulfstream took off from a small airport north of New York and set a course for Kauai, Hawaii’s garden island. On board was Adam Neumann, the company’s messianic co-founder, who had a plan to hit the waves with surfing legend Laird Hamilton and a $US20 billion secret. It was less than a decade since the Israeli had sketched out a plan with his friend Miguel McKelvey for turning dull offices into empowering communities for restless entrepreneurs.