Co-Working Giant WeWork Is Going After the Kindergartners

WeWork says its mission is to help people do what they love. Now the office-sharing giant is testing that ethos on kindergartners, according to Bloomberg.

The $20 billion startup, built on a vast network of hip co-working spaces where entrepreneurs and freelancers rent desks, is making its move into children’s education, launching a private elementary school for “conscious entrepreneurship“ inside a New York City WeWork next fall. A pilot program of seven students, including one of the five young children of WeWork founders Adam and Rebekah Neumann, is under way.

“In my book, there’s no reason why children in elementary schools can’t be launching their own businesses,“ Rebekah Neumann said in an interview. She thinks kids should develop their passions and act on them early, instead of waiting to grow up to be “disruptive,“ as the entrepreneurial set puts it.

The students, this pilot crop is five to eight years old, spend one day at a 60-acre farm and the rest of the week in a classroom near the company’s Manhattan headquarters, where they get lessons in business from both employees and entrepreneur-customers of WeWork. Neumann said she’s “rethinking the whole idea of what an education means“ but is “non-compromising“ on academic standards. The students will have to meet or exceed all of the state’s benchmarks for subjects such as math and reading.

Education ambitions are the latest offshoot of the rapidly growing company’s “We“ brand, which promotes a seamless integration of meaningful work and a purpose-driven existence. Last year, the company unveiled “co-living“ residences under WeLive, furnished apartments in buildings with shared amenities, planned events and communal spaces. Last month came Rise by We, a facility that features gym equipment, co-ed saunas and yoga classes that connect “wellness“ and spirituality with entrepreneurism, and a coding boot camp.

With their foray into schooling, the Neumanns join a growing list of entrepreneurial billionaires trying to reshape American education with their influence and investments. Facebook’s Mark  Zuckerberg, along with other tech entrepreneurs, for example, are investing in public, charter and private schools that use technology to foster personalized education. While there’s broad agreement that the nation’s education system has its failings, the solutions are especially fraught because the beneficiaries, or guinea pigs, are children.