The Wing的折翼：打败共享办公空间的不只是疫情
2020年春天，主打女性的联合办公空间公司The Wing开始裁员，并且关停了11个地区的业务，当时它曾在一篇博文中誓言：“我们会回来的，而且我们会变得更好。”
但是最终，这两句话都没能完全实现。
两年多后的2022年8月，The Wing宣布永久关闭。它在发给会员的电子邮件中说，疫情过后，它曾重新开放过6家场所，无奈“运营环境极具挑战性。”
随着女性创业热的兴起，美国迅速有人吃上了这波红利，而The Wing就是“女性创业乌托邦”中的代表。这家公司是由奥黛丽·格尔曼和劳伦·卡桑在2016年创办的，估值在巅峰时期一度达到3.65亿美元。凭着“为女性赋能”这一神圣目标，该公司吸引来了WeWork的亚当·诺伊曼、红杉资本的杰茜·李、足球运动员艾历克斯·摩根等一票投资人为其背书。
它的办公空间也吸引了希拉里·克里林顿、亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯和詹妮弗·洛佩兹等名流前来参观，另外还有成千上万人排着队想进来。会员们非常吃The Wing展现出的职业女性和自由创业者相互扶持和姐妹情深这一套。而且它的各种设施堪称豪华，各种内饰粉粉嫩嫩的，特别适合在Instagram上发图，有游客甚至称它像子宫一样舒适。
但揭开光鲜的外表，它的内里仍然爬满了虱子。2019年的一场官司迫使The Wing取消了对男性会员的禁令，此前男性只能以游客的身份访问The Wing的办公空间。另外，会员和员工们指责管理层对一些涉及种族歧视的事件处理得不妥当。The Wing雇佣的小时工多数是黑人或棕色人种，她们公开称自己受到了不公平的对待，这与The Wing公开打造的“为女性赋权”的人设大相径庭。2020年6月，格尔曼的离职引发了一轮权力争夺战。新冠肺炎疫情爆发以来，The Wing被迫关闭办公空间并裁减员工。后来一家规模更大的联合办公公司收购了The Wing的多数股权。在新东家领导下，The Wing在2021年雄心勃勃地重新开放了六家门店，但只持续了几个月便再度关门大吉。
格尔曼拒绝对本文置评，卡桑没有回应《财富》的置评请求。
在去年试图重新开放时，The Wing也的确想弥补以前的失误，但时移世异，疫情引发的远程办公革命，加上共享办公空间面临的严峻经济形势，使得The Wing已经没有了生存的土壤。它失败的另一个原因是，The Wing貌似更喜欢扩张和打造完美的公众形象，而不是认真打造一个符合它的初心的办公空间。本文根据《财富》和其他媒体的以往报道，并通过对该公司创始人、投资人、高管以及6位员工和3名会员的报道，为您解密The Wing的兴衰背后的真相。
创业之路
The Wing的点子是奥黛丽·格尔曼想出来的。2015年，格尔曼在公共事务和政治咨询公司SKDK任公关副总裁。有一天她在星巴克的洗手间换衣服时，突然来了灵感——能不能创办一家公司，让职场女性在奔波之余有一个能从容梳妆打扮的空间呢？
“她们都在制造无人驾驶汽车了，为什么我们不能给她们提供一个这方面的解决方案呢？”格尔曼2016年11月接受《福布斯》采访时说。
到2015年底，格尔曼已经拉到了超过250万美元的种子资金，并且得到了包括塞雷娜·威廉姆斯在内的7位投资人的支持。这些投资人都被“扶持女性创业”的主题所吸引了——当然，同时她们也相信格尔曼本人的能力。
查理·奥唐纳是Brooklyn Bridge Ventures公司的创始人、普通合伙人，也是The Wing的种子投资人。他表示：“所有人都说：‘只要你有机会，你就应该支持她，她很了不起，而且她身上有一股力量。’所有人都一致给了她好评，所以我愿意下注在她身上。”（除了奥唐纳，The Wing的其他投资人都拒绝了《财富》的置评请求，或是未予回应。）
2015年，格尔曼联系上了天使投资人艾历克斯·卡桑，他虽然拒绝为The Wing投资，但是却将格尔曼介绍给了他妻子劳伦，劳伦时任ClassPass公司的业务开发总监。格尔曼和劳伦·卡桑一拍即合，劳伦·卡桑以创始人的身份加盟，并且建议将The Wing扩展成一个联合办公空间。两人也明确了分工——劳伦·卡桑任首席运营官，负责公司日常事务；格尔曼担任CEO，负责品牌和创意。
2016年10月，The Wing的第一个联合办公空间在曼哈顿的熨斗区开业了。一年后它在SoHo开了第二家门店。它的内部装修和陈设简直就像一个年轻女权主义者的梦想成了真。它有办公空间，有洗澡间，有花样齐全的餐厅，甚至还有日托机构，极尽奢华和舒适，而且所有色调都是粉红色的。会员每年要支付2700美元的费用才能进入联合办公空间，并且加入The Wing的专属俱乐部。当时人们几乎是排着长队想挤进The Wing办公。它还请来了希拉里和梅丽尔·斯特里普等名流当作演讲嘉宾，这些活动又进一步打响了The Wing在职场女性中的知名度。
The Wing的融资速度也是惊人的。到2018年底，它已经从NEA、凯鹏华盈、WeWork以及SoulCycle的联合创始人朱莉·赖斯和伊丽莎白·卡特勒手中融资1.17亿余美元。
格尔曼的名头也越来越大。她甚至带着明显的孕肚登上了《Inc.》杂志的封面，此外她还登上过香奈儿的广告，并且与运营总监卡桑、财务总监迪德拉·纳尔逊共同入选了《财富》2019年的“40位40岁以下的商界精英”榜单。
到了2020年初，The Wing的发展进入了鼎盛时期，它在美国和英国一共开了11家联合办公空间，并且计划在当年年底前增加到20家。巅峰时它拥有500名员工，注册会员超过1.2万名，此外还有3.5万人排在等候名单上。
但是随着业务的增长，扩张似乎变成了公司的重点，而不是达到目的手段。
The Wing的一名匿名高管表示：“公司的战略并没有太大的透明度。在我们看来，只有一个很酷的地方工作和免费的拿铁是不够的。而这就是我们开始感到沮丧的时候。我们会想：‘等等，公司在幕后有什么计划？我们到底在做什么？’”The Wing并未回应《财富》多次的置评请求。
查理·奥唐纳表示，格尔曼斯乎不太愿意寻求别人的帮助。“我认为她没有很好地利用投资人的力量。在她从大投资人那里拿到一大笔钱之后，她就没有花太多时间经营与投资人的关系。有些小投资人可能也想为公司的发展出力，但她并未真正与他们互动。有一次她跟我解释道：‘我正忙着经营这家公司呢，我要让这些家伙都大赚一笔钱。’”
奥唐纳认为，之所以出现这种情况，一定程度也是因为风投圈对女性创业者的要求高于男性。“作为一名女性创业者，你必须要表现出自信，要让人们觉得你有这个能力。”
争议不断
2016年起来，美国年轻女性中掀起了一股反男权思潮，The Wing的发展正是借助了女权发展的东风。The Wing号称为职场女性提供了一个由女性设计、为女性服务的安全空间。它的图书馆里所有的书都是女性作家的手笔，它还提供了哺乳室和日托服务，而且室温总是保持在怡人的22度。它鼓励女性卸下这个世界强迫她们扛起的防备。因此，当会员和员工的真实体验远未达到The Wing承诺的美好图景时，这就不仅仅是服务或者劳资关系欠佳的问题了，而是让会员和员工感到了一种信任的背叛。
2019年5月，在The Wing的西好莱坞办公点发生了这样一起事故，据称一位白人访客因停车纠纷，骚扰了会员艾莎·格兰特和她的访客（两人都是黑人）。工作人员并未将涉事白人女性赶出大楼，而是告诉格兰特，她们觉得自己“没有权力”去面对这名白人女性。只是给格兰顿提供了一份免费餐食作为补偿。事发后，The Wing向黑人女性刊物《Zora》证实了这一事件，并表示那名白人女性指责格兰特对她施加了恐同诽谤。作为一名女同性恋者，格兰特“强烈”否认了这一指责。后来The Wing在声明中表示：“对于此事，我们已经想方设法做到正确处理，同时深感抱歉。”
一名曾在该办公点担任咖啡师的匿名员工表示：“管理团队对待这件事的态度，就好像双方都有错一样。”The Wing公司花了三个月才对此事做出正式回应。格尔曼和卡桑在2019年8月写给《Jezebel》杂志的一份声明中承诺，“将以透明和迫切的态度，正面解决在我们的办公空间发生的种族主义问题。”
2020年3月，有26名The Wing员工对《纽约时报》爆料称，她们遭到了不公对待和梦想的幻灭。据称在某次活动上，一位白人会员曾对着员工照片墙评论道：“在这儿工作的有色女孩真不少。”会员们还经常对着工作人员大喊大叫或哭泣，而且员工们只要拒绝会员的任何要求，就会被扣上“反女权”的帽子。（接受《财富》采访的这位咖啡师也曾有过类似经历。）
格尔曼对《纽约时报》表示：“听到有人有这种经历，我很难过。”她承诺要改革The Wing的结构，提高员工工资福利，并且引入会员行为准则。
员工们则表示，尽管领导层提出让员工畅所欲言，但员工一旦报告自己被会员虐待，领导层又总是置之不理。
“每次问题出现的时候，这些办公点的总经理们都不会迅速处理。”一名2020年6月辞职的黑人高级员工说。由于曾与公司签署保密协议，因此她也要求匿名。
员工们对The Wing的报告机制越来越不满。员工们就算向纽约总部投诉，也极少获得回复。上文的那位咖啡师回忆道，她曾投诉过某名厨房员工的不当言论，包括使用“黑鬼”等称呼，但是没有收到上面的任何答复。“每当我们想投诉时，我们就去找管理层，他们就告诉我通过这个管道发信息，可是所有信息都石沉大海了。”
据《纽约时报》报道，各个办公点的一线员工有相当一部分都是有色族裔，公司正式员工中也有40%都是有色族裔。但是据《Jezebel》报道，在从办公点一线员工中擢升到正式职位的人中（这是一项公司在招聘时就许诺的福利），大多数获得擢升的都是白人。
“我相信，我是仅有的四位从办公点擢升到公司总部的有色女性之一。”米凯琳·威尔克森说。2018年，她加入了The Wing布鲁克林办公点的前台团队，一年后被提拔到公司的品牌合作团队中。威尔克森表示：“你有这么多人才，却没有好好利用，我想这一定伤了很多人的心。”
领导层“转型”
新冠疫情和弗洛伊德之死，让本已紧张的员工关系进一步发酵。当年6月，The Wing向“黑命贵”运动捐款20万美元。而就在捐款的同一天，公司却通知员工称，没有足够现金支付此前承诺的被裁员工可以申请的500美元补助金。
在此事引发的轩然大波中，格尔曼辞去了CEO一职，取而代之的是一个新的“CEO办公室”，成员由卡桑、运营高级副总裁阿什利·彼得森和市场高级副总裁塞莱斯汀·马迪组成。格尔曼保留了公司10%以上的股权，并且又在公司董事会中待了一个月。格尔曼在给员工的电子邮件中写道：“我希望通过加速转型，重建大家的信任和信心，将The Wing重新塑造成一家让我们所有人都感到骄傲的公司。”在格尔曼离职后，员工们举行了一场线上罢工，要求公司付出更多努力来履行它的使命。
值得一提的是，一些员工对疫情期间The Wing处理裁员的方式还是给予了好评的。办公点的员工都拿到了两个月的离职补偿作为缓冲，而且公司还把他们的保险都延长了两个月。一位名叫雷切尔的员工评价道：“他们以这样一种有风度的姿态处理这件事，这是我真正没想到的。”
重复以往的错误
2021年2月，瑞士的灵活办公空间先驱IWG公司收购了The Wing的多数股权，不过交易金额并未披露。不久后，The Wing宣布Care.com的前创始人、CEO希拉·利里奥·马塞洛将成为新任董事会主席，公司还将成立一个顾问委员会，以便“在公司重新开放办公空间时，为领导团队提供运营和多元化方面的必要指导。”
2021年5月，The Wing重新开放了纽约的三个共享办公空间，貌似决心开启新的篇章。卡林·特克斯勒在2021年6月入职The Wing，成了洛杉矶共享办公空间的一名值班经理，她回忆道：“让我印象深刻的是，他们在我第一次面试时就提到了以前的丑闻。这种感觉就好像：‘这些事情的确发生了，我们承认，而且我们想做出改变。’这种感觉很吸引我，而且给我留下了深刻的印象。”
然而，公司很快就踩了以前的坑。特克斯勒表示，还不到几个星期，公司领导层又开始着手开设新的办公空间。在宣传纽约店重新开张的新闻稿中，公司还在暗示将在其他城市开店，尽管它的8家现有的办公空间仍然关闭着。而且公司经理们还要求办公空间的一线员工在上完9个时的班后，还要在晚上和周末来公司接受额外的培训。
员工与会员的矛盾也再度浮上水面。特克斯勒表示，在她接触过的会员中，有80%都很友善，但剩下的20%“要么把你当佣人对待，要么会说一些不合时宜的话。”
员工们正常申诉的问题也再次被无视了。虽然办公空间的入口处贴着所谓“家规”，但是这些“家规”被违反之后，却什么也没有发生。“这让员工失去了很多信任，这也是员工开始纷纷出走的起点。”特克斯勒说。IWG则拒绝回答关于会员行为的问题，并指出The Wing是一个独立的业务。
后疫情时代：The Wing、WeWork、Chief
The Wing的领导层也再度发生人事变动。卡桑于2022年2月卸任CEO，取而代之的是原市场总监Jen Cho，而她也在5个月后离职了，接任的是IWG的首席商务官法蒂玛·柯宁。马塞洛则担任了15个月的董事会主席。以上几人均未回应《财富》的置评请求。
The Wing最终只重新开放了11处共享办公空间中的6处，便再度完全关闭。而即使在重新开放的场所中，多数设施也因防疫而处于关闭状态。
“我们是在疫情中重新开放的，所以没有餐食，洗手间虽然可以使用，但是不能洗澡也没有洗漱用品，几乎什么都没有，只有一堆消毒湿巾。”特克斯勒说。
生育健康应用Expectful的联合创始人、CEO娜塔莉·沃尔顿2021年到访The Wing的旧金山办公点时，它已经是一片死寂。“不管我什么时候进去，它都是空的。我不禁想，它怎么可能维持得下去？”
后来，The Wing宣布，由于“活跃会员已经无法恢复和增长到能够维持财务可持续运营的水平”，公司将最终关闭所有共享办公空间。IWG公司CEO马克·迪克森也在一份声明中称，越来越多的会员表示，他们更喜欢郊区的办公地点，而不是The Wing提供的市中心办公空间。
瑞穗美洲高级分析师维克拉姆·马尔霍特指出：“共享办公空间就像一家酒店一样，你需要员工和设施吸引人流。而且共享办公空间本来就不是一个高利润的行业，所以如果你在市场和设施包括咖啡、打印机等消耗品上投了太多的钱，那就会有问题，因为如果你的使用率没有达到70%到75%的水平，成本就会开始压垮你。”
其他共享办公空间已经根据后疫情时代的工作方式做出了调整。The Wing曾经的投资者WeWork公司表示，今年第二季度，它投资的38个国家的780个办公地点的使用率达到了72%，比上一季度增长4%，会员人数也比上季度增长了5%，并且较去年同期增长33%。WeWork除了为个人客户服务外，还为企业客户服务。所以随着很多雇主削减办公室的规模，WeWork反而成了一个受益者。
Chief是由Alphabet公司投资的一个女性高管社交团体，它已经成了一家“独角兽”公司，并于10月初宣布将在伦敦开设俱乐部。Chief的会费比The Wing高出很多，从每年5800美元到7900美元不等，而且它除了线下俱乐部，还提供了一些线上项目，比如与Spanx的创始人萨拉·布莱克利、米歇尔·奥巴马和格洛丽亚·斯泰纳姆的独家对话等等。
The Wing的一位前高级员工表示，最近共享办公空间市场的新进者都吸取了The Wing的教训，比如Chief只瞄准了企业高管。“The Wing的一个核心问题就是，他们不知道自己服务的对象是谁……女性也是一个庞大的群体。”
改革后的the Wing也未能成功洗刷过去的污名。梅格·梅西是一名居住在华盛顿的会员，在看到关于会员虐待员工的报道后，她重新思考了自己与the Wing的关系。她表示：“我没有亲眼看到（虐待），但是我也是一个白人女性。但这真的让我质疑，我怎么会参与到这种事里？”
再比如，马塞洛甚至没有在领英（LinkedIn）的个人履历里写上自己曾担任The Wing董事会主席的经历。威尔克森也表示，虽然她已经从The Wing的经历里走出来了，但是每当她和别人提及自己在哪里工作时，人们的反应都很冷淡。“我不断遇到对The Wing不感冒的人。而现在，作为一名黑人女性，我还得为自己没有做过的一堆破事而感到羞愧。”（财富中文网）
译者：朴成奎
2020年春天，主打女性的联合办公空间公司The Wing开始裁员，并且关停了11个地区的业务，当时它曾在一篇博文中誓言：“我们会回来的，而且我们会变得更好。”
但是最终，这两句话都没能完全实现。
两年多后的2022年8月，The Wing宣布永久关闭。它在发给会员的电子邮件中说，疫情过后，它曾重新开放过6家场所，无奈“运营环境极具挑战性。”
随着女性创业热的兴起，美国迅速有人吃上了这波红利，而The Wing就是“女性创业乌托邦”中的代表。这家公司是由奥黛丽·格尔曼和劳伦·卡桑在2016年创办的，估值在巅峰时期一度达到3.65亿美元。凭着“为女性赋能”这一神圣目标，该公司吸引来了WeWork的亚当·诺伊曼、红杉资本的杰茜·李、足球运动员艾历克斯·摩根等一票投资人为其背书。
它的办公空间也吸引了希拉里·克里林顿、亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯和詹妮弗·洛佩兹等名流前来参观，另外还有成千上万人排着队想进来。会员们非常吃The Wing展现出的职业女性和自由创业者相互扶持和姐妹情深这一套。而且它的各种设施堪称豪华，各种内饰粉粉嫩嫩的，特别适合在Instagram上发图，有游客甚至称它像子宫一样舒适。
但揭开光鲜的外表，它的内里仍然爬满了虱子。2019年的一场官司迫使The Wing取消了对男性会员的禁令，此前男性只能以游客的身份访问The Wing的办公空间。另外，会员和员工们指责管理层对一些涉及种族歧视的事件处理得不妥当。The Wing雇佣的小时工多数是黑人或棕色人种，她们公开称自己受到了不公平的对待，这与The Wing公开打造的“为女性赋权”的人设大相径庭。2020年6月，格尔曼的离职引发了一轮权力争夺战。新冠肺炎疫情爆发以来，The Wing被迫关闭办公空间并裁减员工。后来一家规模更大的联合办公公司收购了The Wing的多数股权。在新东家领导下，The Wing在2021年雄心勃勃地重新开放了六家门店，但只持续了几个月便再度关门大吉。
格尔曼拒绝对本文置评，卡桑没有回应《财富》的置评请求。
在去年试图重新开放时，The Wing也的确想弥补以前的失误，但时移世异，疫情引发的远程办公革命，加上共享办公空间面临的严峻经济形势，使得The Wing已经没有了生存的土壤。它失败的另一个原因是，The Wing貌似更喜欢扩张和打造完美的公众形象，而不是认真打造一个符合它的初心的办公空间。本文根据《财富》和其他媒体的以往报道，并通过对该公司创始人、投资人、高管以及6位员工和3名会员的报道，为您解密The Wing的兴衰背后的真相。
创业之路
The Wing的点子是奥黛丽·格尔曼想出来的。2015年，格尔曼在公共事务和政治咨询公司SKDK任公关副总裁。有一天她在星巴克的洗手间换衣服时，突然来了灵感——能不能创办一家公司，让职场女性在奔波之余有一个能从容梳妆打扮的空间呢？
“她们都在制造无人驾驶汽车了，为什么我们不能给她们提供一个这方面的解决方案呢？”格尔曼2016年11月接受《福布斯》采访时说。
到2015年底，格尔曼已经拉到了超过250万美元的种子资金，并且得到了包括塞雷娜·威廉姆斯在内的7位投资人的支持。这些投资人都被“扶持女性创业”的主题所吸引了——当然，同时她们也相信格尔曼本人的能力。
查理·奥唐纳是Brooklyn Bridge Ventures公司的创始人、普通合伙人，也是The Wing的种子投资人。他表示：“所有人都说：‘只要你有机会，你就应该支持她，她很了不起，而且她身上有一股力量。’所有人都一致给了她好评，所以我愿意下注在她身上。”（除了奥唐纳，The Wing的其他投资人都拒绝了《财富》的置评请求，或是未予回应。）
2015年，格尔曼联系上了天使投资人艾历克斯·卡桑，他虽然拒绝为The Wing投资，但是却将格尔曼介绍给了他妻子劳伦，劳伦时任ClassPass公司的业务开发总监。格尔曼和劳伦·卡桑一拍即合，劳伦·卡桑以创始人的身份加盟，并且建议将The Wing扩展成一个联合办公空间。两人也明确了分工——劳伦·卡桑任首席运营官，负责公司日常事务；格尔曼担任CEO，负责品牌和创意。
2016年10月，The Wing的第一个联合办公空间在曼哈顿的熨斗区开业了。一年后它在SoHo开了第二家门店。它的内部装修和陈设简直就像一个年轻女权主义者的梦想成了真。它有办公空间，有洗澡间，有花样齐全的餐厅，甚至还有日托机构，极尽奢华和舒适，而且所有色调都是粉红色的。会员每年要支付2700美元的费用才能进入联合办公空间，并且加入The Wing的专属俱乐部。当时人们几乎是排着长队想挤进The Wing办公。它还请来了希拉里和梅丽尔·斯特里普等名流当作演讲嘉宾，这些活动又进一步打响了The Wing在职场女性中的知名度。
The Wing的融资速度也是惊人的。到2018年底，它已经从NEA、凯鹏华盈、WeWork以及SoulCycle的联合创始人朱莉·赖斯和伊丽莎白·卡特勒手中融资1.17亿余美元。
格尔曼的名头也越来越大。她甚至带着明显的孕肚登上了《Inc.》杂志的封面，此外她还登上过香奈儿的广告，并且与运营总监卡桑、财务总监迪德拉·纳尔逊共同入选了《财富》2019年的“40位40岁以下的商界精英”榜单。
到了2020年初，The Wing的发展进入了鼎盛时期，它在美国和英国一共开了11家联合办公空间，并且计划在当年年底前增加到20家。巅峰时它拥有500名员工，注册会员超过1.2万名，此外还有3.5万人排在等候名单上。
但是随着业务的增长，扩张似乎变成了公司的重点，而不是达到目的手段。
The Wing的一名匿名高管表示：“公司的战略并没有太大的透明度。在我们看来，只有一个很酷的地方工作和免费的拿铁是不够的。而这就是我们开始感到沮丧的时候。我们会想：‘等等，公司在幕后有什么计划？我们到底在做什么？’”The Wing并未回应《财富》多次的置评请求。
查理·奥唐纳表示，格尔曼斯乎不太愿意寻求别人的帮助。“我认为她没有很好地利用投资人的力量。在她从大投资人那里拿到一大笔钱之后，她就没有花太多时间经营与投资人的关系。有些小投资人可能也想为公司的发展出力，但她并未真正与他们互动。有一次她跟我解释道：‘我正忙着经营这家公司呢，我要让这些家伙都大赚一笔钱。’”
奥唐纳认为，之所以出现这种情况，一定程度也是因为风投圈对女性创业者的要求高于男性。“作为一名女性创业者，你必须要表现出自信，要让人们觉得你有这个能力。”
争议不断
2016年起来，美国年轻女性中掀起了一股反男权思潮，The Wing的发展正是借助了女权发展的东风。The Wing号称为职场女性提供了一个由女性设计、为女性服务的安全空间。它的图书馆里所有的书都是女性作家的手笔，它还提供了哺乳室和日托服务，而且室温总是保持在怡人的22度。它鼓励女性卸下这个世界强迫她们扛起的防备。因此，当会员和员工的真实体验远未达到The Wing承诺的美好图景时，这就不仅仅是服务或者劳资关系欠佳的问题了，而是让会员和员工感到了一种信任的背叛。
2019年5月，在The Wing的西好莱坞办公点发生了这样一起事故，据称一位白人访客因停车纠纷，骚扰了会员艾莎·格兰特和她的访客（两人都是黑人）。工作人员并未将涉事白人女性赶出大楼，而是告诉格兰特，她们觉得自己“没有权力”去面对这名白人女性。只是给格兰顿提供了一份免费餐食作为补偿。事发后，The Wing向黑人女性刊物《Zora》证实了这一事件，并表示那名白人女性指责格兰特对她施加了恐同诽谤。作为一名女同性恋者，格兰特“强烈”否认了这一指责。后来The Wing在声明中表示：“对于此事，我们已经想方设法做到正确处理，同时深感抱歉。”
一名曾在该办公点担任咖啡师的匿名员工表示：“管理团队对待这件事的态度，就好像双方都有错一样。”The Wing公司花了三个月才对此事做出正式回应。格尔曼和卡桑在2019年8月写给《Jezebel》杂志的一份声明中承诺，“将以透明和迫切的态度，正面解决在我们的办公空间发生的种族主义问题。”
2020年3月，有26名The Wing员工对《纽约时报》爆料称，她们遭到了不公对待和梦想的幻灭。据称在某次活动上，一位白人会员曾对着员工照片墙评论道：“在这儿工作的有色女孩真不少。”会员们还经常对着工作人员大喊大叫或哭泣，而且员工们只要拒绝会员的任何要求，就会被扣上“反女权”的帽子。（接受《财富》采访的这位咖啡师也曾有过类似经历。）
格尔曼对《纽约时报》表示：“听到有人有这种经历，我很难过。”她承诺要改革The Wing的结构，提高员工工资福利，并且引入会员行为准则。
员工们则表示，尽管领导层提出让员工畅所欲言，但员工一旦报告自己被会员虐待，领导层又总是置之不理。
“每次问题出现的时候，这些办公点的总经理们都不会迅速处理。”一名2020年6月辞职的黑人高级员工说。由于曾与公司签署保密协议，因此她也要求匿名。
员工们对The Wing的报告机制越来越不满。员工们就算向纽约总部投诉，也极少获得回复。上文的那位咖啡师回忆道，她曾投诉过某名厨房员工的不当言论，包括使用“黑鬼”等称呼，但是没有收到上面的任何答复。“每当我们想投诉时，我们就去找管理层，他们就告诉我通过这个管道发信息，可是所有信息都石沉大海了。”
据《纽约时报》报道，各个办公点的一线员工有相当一部分都是有色族裔，公司正式员工中也有40%都是有色族裔。但是据《Jezebel》报道，在从办公点一线员工中擢升到正式职位的人中（这是一项公司在招聘时就许诺的福利），大多数获得擢升的都是白人。
“我相信，我是仅有的四位从办公点擢升到公司总部的有色女性之一。”米凯琳·威尔克森说。2018年，她加入了The Wing布鲁克林办公点的前台团队，一年后被提拔到公司的品牌合作团队中。威尔克森表示：“你有这么多人才，却没有好好利用，我想这一定伤了很多人的心。”
领导层“转型”
新冠疫情和弗洛伊德之死，让本已紧张的员工关系进一步发酵。当年6月，The Wing向“黑命贵”运动捐款20万美元。而就在捐款的同一天，公司却通知员工称，没有足够现金支付此前承诺的被裁员工可以申请的500美元补助金。
在此事引发的轩然大波中，格尔曼辞去了CEO一职，取而代之的是一个新的“CEO办公室”，成员由卡桑、运营高级副总裁阿什利·彼得森和市场高级副总裁塞莱斯汀·马迪组成。格尔曼保留了公司10%以上的股权，并且又在公司董事会中待了一个月。格尔曼在给员工的电子邮件中写道：“我希望通过加速转型，重建大家的信任和信心，将The Wing重新塑造成一家让我们所有人都感到骄傲的公司。”在格尔曼离职后，员工们举行了一场线上罢工，要求公司付出更多努力来履行它的使命。
值得一提的是，一些员工对疫情期间The Wing处理裁员的方式还是给予了好评的。办公点的员工都拿到了两个月的离职补偿作为缓冲，而且公司还把他们的保险都延长了两个月。一位名叫雷切尔的员工评价道：“他们以这样一种有风度的姿态处理这件事，这是我真正没想到的。”
重复以往的错误
2021年2月，瑞士的灵活办公空间先驱IWG公司收购了The Wing的多数股权，不过交易金额并未披露。不久后，The Wing宣布Care.com的前创始人、CEO希拉·利里奥·马塞洛将成为新任董事会主席，公司还将成立一个顾问委员会，以便“在公司重新开放办公空间时，为领导团队提供运营和多元化方面的必要指导。”
2021年5月，The Wing重新开放了纽约的三个共享办公空间，貌似决心开启新的篇章。卡林·特克斯勒在2021年6月入职The Wing，成了洛杉矶共享办公空间的一名值班经理，她回忆道：“让我印象深刻的是，他们在我第一次面试时就提到了以前的丑闻。这种感觉就好像：‘这些事情的确发生了，我们承认，而且我们想做出改变。’这种感觉很吸引我，而且给我留下了深刻的印象。”
然而，公司很快就踩了以前的坑。特克斯勒表示，还不到几个星期，公司领导层又开始着手开设新的办公空间。在宣传纽约店重新开张的新闻稿中，公司还在暗示将在其他城市开店，尽管它的8家现有的办公空间仍然关闭着。而且公司经理们还要求办公空间的一线员工在上完9个时的班后，还要在晚上和周末来公司接受额外的培训。
员工与会员的矛盾也再度浮上水面。特克斯勒表示，在她接触过的会员中，有80%都很友善，但剩下的20%“要么把你当佣人对待，要么会说一些不合时宜的话。”
员工们正常申诉的问题也再次被无视了。虽然办公空间的入口处贴着所谓“家规”，但是这些“家规”被违反之后，却什么也没有发生。“这让员工失去了很多信任，这也是员工开始纷纷出走的起点。”特克斯勒说。IWG则拒绝回答关于会员行为的问题，并指出The Wing是一个独立的业务。
后疫情时代：The Wing、WeWork、Chief
The Wing的领导层也再度发生人事变动。卡桑于2022年2月卸任CEO，取而代之的是原市场总监Jen Cho，而她也在5个月后离职了，接任的是IWG的首席商务官法蒂玛·柯宁。马塞洛则担任了15个月的董事会主席。以上几人均未回应《财富》的置评请求。
The Wing最终只重新开放了11处共享办公空间中的6处，便再度完全关闭。而即使在重新开放的场所中，多数设施也因防疫而处于关闭状态。
“我们是在疫情中重新开放的，所以没有餐食，洗手间虽然可以使用，但是不能洗澡也没有洗漱用品，几乎什么都没有，只有一堆消毒湿巾。”特克斯勒说。
生育健康应用Expectful的联合创始人、CEO娜塔莉·沃尔顿2021年到访The Wing的旧金山办公点时，它已经是一片死寂。“不管我什么时候进去，它都是空的。我不禁想，它怎么可能维持得下去？”
后来，The Wing宣布，由于“活跃会员已经无法恢复和增长到能够维持财务可持续运营的水平”，公司将最终关闭所有共享办公空间。IWG公司CEO马克·迪克森也在一份声明中称，越来越多的会员表示，他们更喜欢郊区的办公地点，而不是The Wing提供的市中心办公空间。
瑞穗美洲高级分析师维克拉姆·马尔霍特指出：“共享办公空间就像一家酒店一样，你需要员工和设施吸引人流。而且共享办公空间本来就不是一个高利润的行业，所以如果你在市场和设施包括咖啡、打印机等消耗品上投了太多的钱，那就会有问题，因为如果你的使用率没有达到70%到75%的水平，成本就会开始压垮你。”
其他共享办公空间已经根据后疫情时代的工作方式做出了调整。The Wing曾经的投资者WeWork公司表示，今年第二季度，它投资的38个国家的780个办公地点的使用率达到了72%，比上一季度增长4%，会员人数也比上季度增长了5%，并且较去年同期增长33%。WeWork除了为个人客户服务外，还为企业客户服务。所以随着很多雇主削减办公室的规模，WeWork反而成了一个受益者。
Chief是由Alphabet公司投资的一个女性高管社交团体，它已经成了一家“独角兽”公司，并于10月初宣布将在伦敦开设俱乐部。Chief的会费比The Wing高出很多，从每年5800美元到7900美元不等，而且它除了线下俱乐部，还提供了一些线上项目，比如与Spanx的创始人萨拉·布莱克利、米歇尔·奥巴马和格洛丽亚·斯泰纳姆的独家对话等等。
The Wing的一位前高级员工表示，最近共享办公空间市场的新进者都吸取了The Wing的教训，比如Chief只瞄准了企业高管。“The Wing的一个核心问题就是，他们不知道自己服务的对象是谁……女性也是一个庞大的群体。”
改革后的the Wing也未能成功洗刷过去的污名。梅格·梅西是一名居住在华盛顿的会员，在看到关于会员虐待员工的报道后，她重新思考了自己与the Wing的关系。她表示：“我没有亲眼看到（虐待），但是我也是一个白人女性。但这真的让我质疑，我怎么会参与到这种事里？”
再比如，马塞洛甚至没有在领英（LinkedIn）的个人履历里写上自己曾担任The Wing董事会主席的经历。威尔克森也表示，虽然她已经从The Wing的经历里走出来了，但是每当她和别人提及自己在哪里工作时，人们的反应都很冷淡。“我不断遇到对The Wing不感冒的人。而现在，作为一名黑人女性，我还得为自己没有做过的一堆破事而感到羞愧。”（财富中文网）
译者：朴成奎
When female-focused co-working space the Wing laid off employees and closed 11 locations in spring 2020, it made a promise: “We’ll be back. And we’ll be better,” the startup said in a blog post.
In the end, neither statement was fully realized.
More than two years later, in August 2022, the Wing announced it was shutting down for good. It had reopened six locations after COVID, but the “operating environment” had proved “extremely challenging,” the company said in an email to members.
The email represented the culmination of the epic rise and tumultuous fall of a business built around what its founders once billed as a “women’s utopia.” Founded by Audrey Gelman and Lauren Kassan in 2016, the Wing saw its valuation peak at $365 million as investors like WeWork’s Adam Neumann, Sequoia Capital’s Jess Lee, and even soccer player Alex Morgan flocked to the mission of empowering women through community.
The space drew visits from the likes of Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jennifer Lopez, and had a wait list tens of thousands of people long. Members were sold on the sisterhood of professionals, freelancers, and creative types the Wing had cultivated, its plush amenities, and its Instagrammable, millennial-pink interior that visitors likened to a womb.
But scandal chipped away at the Wing’s polished veneer. A 2019 lawsuit forced the Wing to drop its ban on membership by men, who were previously only allowed to visit as guests. Members and staff criticized management for mishandling an allegedly racist incident. Hourly employees, most of whom were Black or Brown women, went public with reports of mistreatment that contradicted the Wing’s uplifting, empowering brand. Gelman’s exit in June 2020 kicked off a round of CEO musical chairs. COVID forced the Wing to shut its locations and shed staff. A larger co-working company eventually bought a majority stake in the startup; under new ownership, the Wing staged an ambitious reopening of six locations in 2021 that lasted just months.
Gelman declined to comment for this story; Kassan did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite attempts to make up for past missteps, the Wing’s comeback collided with the tough economics of a shared office space market remade by the pandemic’s remote work revolution. But it also failed because the Wing seemed more devoted to expansion and its picture-perfect public image than building a workspace—and workplace—that lived up to its original mission. This account builds on past reporting by Fortune and others; for this account, Fortune contacted the founders, investors, and former executives and spoke with six former employees of the Wing and three former members of the co-working space.
The Wing’s origin story
The idea for the Wing dawned on Audrey Gelman, then senior vice president of public relations at public affairs and political consulting firm SKDK, in 2015 as she changed clothes in a Starbucks bathroom. Gelman dreamed up a business that offered on-the-go women a place to freshen up between appointments.
“They’re making self-driving cars. Why can’t we come up with a solution to this?” Gelman told Forbes in November 2016.、
By the end of 2015, Gelman had raised over $2.5 million in seed funding supported by seven investors, including Serena Williams’s Serena Ventures. Investors were drawn to Gelman’s woman-focused concept—and to Gelman herself.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, if you have the opportunity to back her, you should. She’s amazing. She’s a force,’” says Charlie O’Donnell, founder and general partner of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures and a seed investor in the Wing. “I got serious thumbs up all the way around. So I made a bet on her.” (Aside from O’Donnell, investors in the Wing declined or did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.)
In 2015, Gelman connected with angel investor Alex Kassan, who declined to back the Wing but introduced Gelman to his wife Lauren, then-director of business development for ClassPass. Gelman and Lauren Kassan hit it off. Kassan joined Gelman as a founder and suggested expanding the Wing into a co-working space. The two divided business responsibilities—Kassan became chief operating officer, running the company day-to-day, and Gelman assumed the role of CEO, handling brand and creative.
The Wing’s first location opened in Manhattan’s Flatiron District in October 2016. Its second location, in SoHo, opened a year later. Inside, the spaces looked like a young feminist’s dream come true. They featured workspaces, showers, full restaurants, even a daycare—all of it luxurious and ultracomfortable, all of it in hues of pink. Members paid as much as $2,700 annually to access the co-working space and join the Wing’s exclusive club. Lines to get into the Wing’s spaces stretched around the block. Events boasting household names like Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep as speakers drew hundreds of women.
The Wing fundraised at a breakneck pace. By the end of 2018 it had raised over $117 million from the likes of NEA, Kleiner Perkins, SoulCycle cofounders Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler, and WeWork.
Gelman’s profile grew too. She appeared on the cover of Inc. magazine while visibly pregnant, appeared in Chanel ads, and was featured in Fortune’s 2019 40 Under 40 list alongside Kassan and chief financial officer Diedra Nelson.
At its peak in early 2020, the company had 11 spaces in the U.S. and the U.K.—with plans for 20 by the end of that year—along with 500 employees, over 12,000 members, and a waitlist 35,000 long.
But as the business grew, expansion seemed to become the point, rather than a means to an end.
“There wasn’t a lot of transparency around what the strategy was at all,” said a former executive who asked to remain anonymous to speak openly about her previous employer. “Just having a cool place to work and free lattes wasn’t enough for us. That’s when it got frustrating. We were like, ‘Wait a second, what’s behind the curtain here? What are we doing?’” The Wing did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
O’Donnell says Gelman seemed reluctant to ask for help. “I don’t think [Gelman] leveraged her cap table of investors well. Once she started getting the big money from bigger investors, she just didn’t really make as much time for investor relations,” says O’Donnell. “Some of the small investors felt like they wanted to be helpful. She wasn’t really interacting with them. She said to me one time, ‘I’m busy running this company, and I’m going to make these folks a bunch of money.’”
O’Donnell partly blames the VC ecosystem that holds women to higher standards than men. “Being a female founder, you have to exude confidence,” he says. “And you have to make people feel like you’ve got this.”
Co-working controversies
The Wing had tapped into the post-2016 outrage among many American women who were fed up with systems of power built and controlled by the patriarchy. The Wing promised a safe space designed by women, for women. Its libraries were lined with books by only female authors. It offered lactation rooms and daycare services. Its thermostat was always set at a comfortable 72 degrees. It encouraged women to let down the guard that the world forced them to put up. So when the real-world experiences of members and employees didn’t meet the expectations the Wing set out, it wasn’t just a matter of bad service or poor employee relations. It felt like a violation of trust.
At the Wing’s West Hollywood location in May 2019, a white guest allegedly harassed member Asha Grant and her guest, both Black, over a parking dispute. Instead of removing the white woman from the premises, staffers told Grant they did not feel “empowered” to confront the woman. They offered Grant a free meal instead. The Wing confirmed the incident to Zora, a Medium publication for Black women, after it happened, and said the white woman originally accused Grant of using a homophobic slur against her, which Grant, a queer woman, “vehemently” denied. “In this specific incident, we struggled to get it right and we are deeply sorry,” the Wing said in a statement.
“The management team [was] treating it like it was both [members’] faults,” said a former barista who worked at the location at the time, and requested anonymity because of a non-disclosure agreement. It took the Wing over three months to formally respond to the incident. In a statement to Jezebel in August 2019, Gelman and Kassan vowed to “address racism head on with transparency and urgency, both internally and directly in our spaces.”
An exposé by the New York Times in March 2020 included accounts of mistreatment and disillusionment from 26 staff members. At one event, a white member reportedly eyed a photo board of Wing employees and remarked, “There’s a lot of colored girls that work here.” Members would often scream at employees or cry at them, and it was common for members to tell staffers that it was antifeminist to deny them whatever they wanted, the Times reported. (The former barista who spoke with Fortune recalled similar treatment from members.)
“It’s hard to hear that people have had this experience,” Gelman told the Times, vowing to overhaul the Wing’s structure, offer higher wages and extended benefits, and enforce a code of conduct for members.
Despite requests from the Wing’s leadership for open feedback, staffers say, management ignored their reports of member abuse.
“Whenever problems arose, the general managers in those locations were not quick to handle them,” says a Black former senior staffer who quit in June 2020, and requested anonymity because she signed an NDA.
Staffers grew frustrated with the Wing’s reporting portal, which sent complaints to the New York headquarters and rarely garnered a response. The former barista recalls unanswered complaints about inappropriate comments by kitchen staff, including use of the N-word. “Anytime we had complaints about them, we would go to management, they would tell us to message this portal, and it would just go into the void.”
Much of the space staff were people of color, whereas the corporate team was 40% people of color, according to the Times. Of the few that were promoted from spaces to corporate positions—an opportunity the Wing dangled when recruiting—most were white, according to Jezebel.
“I was one of, I believe, four women of color who were able to move from the spaces into headquarters,” says Michelene Wilkerson. She joined the front-desk team at the Wing’s Dumbo location in Brooklyn in 2018 and was promoted to the corporate brand partnerships team a year later. “You had this remarkable pool of talent that was never utilized,” says Wilkerson, “and I think that’s what broke so many people’s hearts.”
A leadership ‘transition’
Employee tensions that were already simmering boiled over as COVID hit and protests over the killing of George Floyd rocked the U.S. In June, the Wing pledged to donate $200,000 to Black Lives Matter; on the same day, it informed employees it didn’t have enough cash for the $500 grants it had previously said laid-off employees could apply for.
Amid the backlash, Gelman resigned as CEO, replaced by a new “Office of the CEO” made up of Kassan, senior vice president of operations Ashley Peterson, and senior vice president of marketing Celestine Maddy. Gelman retained an ownership stake of more than 10% of the company and remained on the board for another month. “My hope is that this accelerated transition will help rebuild trust, restore faith, and remake The Wing into something we can all feel proud of,” Gelman wrote in an email to staff. After her exit, employees staged a virtual walkout, demanding the company do more to live up to its mission.
To the Wing’s credit, some staffers were impressed with how it handled layoffs during COVID. Space staff were paid two months’ severance, compensated for unused PTO, and had their insurance extended for two months. “They handled it with a level of grace that I really was not expecting,” says Rachel, a former team member at a New York location who declined to share her last name.
Repeating past mistakes
In February 2021, flexible-office space pioneer IWG, based in Switzerland, bought a majority stake in the Wing for an undisclosed sum. Soon after, the Wing announced former Care.com founder and CEO Sheila Lirio Marcelo as its new chairwoman and established an advisory board “to provide the leadership team with essential guidance on operations and diversity as the company reopens its spaces.”
It reopened three New York City locations in May 2021 and seemed determined to start a new chapter. “I was impressed that in my first interview they mentioned the scandal,” says Carlin Traxler, who joined the Wing as a shift manager in Los Angeles in June 2021. “They were like, ‘This is what happened, we’re owning up to it and we want to change that.’ I found that enticing and impressive. Like cool, I’m glad you own up to your bullshit.”
But the company soon fell into the same old traps. Within weeks, leadership set sights on opening new spaces again, Traxler says. In the press release touting its NYC reopening, the Wing hinted at launching in new cities, despite eight of its existing locations still being closed. Corporate managers started asking space staff to come in on evenings and weekends for additional training after working nine-hour shifts, Traxler said.
Problems with members resurfaced as well. Traxler said 80% of the people she worked with were pleasant, but the remaining 20% either “treated you like you were the help” or “said things that were not appropriate.”
Once again, any concerns raised by space staff were ignored. A poster near the entrance listed “house rules,” but nothing happened when they were violated, Traxler says. “That lost a lot of trust with the staff. And that’s where people started checking out,” says Traxler. IWG declined to answer questions about member behavior, noting the Wing operated as a separate business.
The Wing vs. WeWork vs. Chief
The company suffered turnover among its leadership too. Kassan stepped down as CEO in February 2022 and was replaced by marketing chief Jen Cho, who herself stepped down five months later. She was replaced by IWG chief commercial officer Fatima Koning. Marcelo lasted 15 months as chairwoman. Cho, Koning, and Marcelo did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
The Wing ultimately reopened only six of its 11 locations before shutting down entirely. Even at the clubs that did reopen, most of the amenities were closed as a precaution against COVID.
“We reopen with COVID; there’s no food, the restrooms you can use, but there’s no showers, no products, no anything. Just a bunch of sanitizer wipes,” says Traxler.
When member Nathalie Walton, cofounder and CEO of the fertility, pregnancy, and motherhood wellness app Expectful, visited the Wing’s San Francisco location in 2021, it was dead. “Whenever I would go in, it was really vacant. And I was thinking, how is this going to stay around?” she said.
When the company announced its final closure, it said it had been “unable to recover and grow the level of active membership and event activity necessary to run a financially sustainable operation.” In a statement, IWG CEO Mark Dixon said members increasingly told the company they would prefer suburban locations rather than the downtown ones that the Wing offered.
“Co-working is just like a hotel where you need the staff, the facilities, the amenities to draw people in,” says Vikram Malhotra, a senior analyst with Mizuho Americas. “Offices were not a high margin business to begin with, so if you’re spending a lot on marketing and facilities, all the consumables, coffee, printers, et cetera, that’s going to be an issue, especially if you don’t hit 70 to 75% occupancy. If you’ve not recovered occupancy-wise, the costs are just going to burn a hole.”
Other co-working spaces have adjusted to the post-COVID way of working. WeWork, a one-time Wing investor, said occupancy rates had hit 72% across its portfolio of 780 locations in 38 countries, in the quarter that ended June 30, a 4% increase from the prior period. Memberships were up 5% from the quarter before and 33% from the same quarter last year. WeWork has the advantage of serving corporate clients in addition to individuals and is benefiting as employers downsize their offices.
Chief, an Alphabet-backed networking group for female executives founded in 2019, has hit unicorn status and announced in early October that it’s opening a clubhouse in London. Chief’s membership fees are far higher than the Wing’s—ranging from $5,800 to $7,900 annually—and its community extends beyond its physical locations by offering virtual programming such as exclusive talks with Spanx founder Sara Blakely, Michelle Obama, and Gloria Steinem.
The former senior staffer says more recent entrants to the co-working space have benefited from witnessing the Wing’s missteps. Chief’s narrow focus on executives is one example. “The core issue with the Wing is they [didn’t] know who they were serving… [women are] a huge demographic,” she says.
The relaunched Wing also couldn’t shake the stigma of its past scandals. Members like Meg Massey in D.C. rethought their association with the brand after reading allegations of mistreatment of staff. “I didn’t observe [mistreatment],” she says. “But I’m a white woman. It really made me question, how was I complicit in this?”
Marcelo, for one, doesn’t list her Wing chairwomanship on her public LinkedIn page. While Wilkerson says she has now moved on from her experience at the Wing, she recalls frosty responses from people when she told them where she worked. “I kept running into people who were just not crazy about the Wing. Now, as a Black woman, I have to carry the shame of shit I didn’t do,” Wilkerson says.
