MIGUEL MCKELVEY

We know the number of conference rooms and phone booths that make a building successful.

Apart from differentiating our spaces with design, we also look for buildings that have distinctive character. We make sure every seat is a good one.

I still want an entrepreneurial culture to exist forever.

Partitions and cubicles can be oppressive. They are so boring.

You can only stay up all night so many times.

I want to be a person who says 'Hey, if something is going on, come and tell me about it.'

I've seen how business can transform communities.

Trends start and then explode very quickly, and pretty soon it's everywhere, including McDonalds.

When you have no idea what to do or how to do it, you just need to see and absorb as much as you possibly can and just fill your vocabulary and your brain with as much as humanly possible.

I like to be next to the center of attention.

It's so uncommon to have a place where no one can call you.

Commerce is a core component of pretty much any successful society.

When you're in the moments of greatest stress, those are the most memorable.

People need a space that they can go to make a conference or Skype call. It's important to create those spaces and create a company culture that supports those spaces.

Many of the things we looked to solve initially were services like Internet and desk space. Then we got into the game of connecting people.

Look, I'm 41 with a six-year-old son, and even though I live in a building with a million kids, he doesn't have one friend there because there's no context for making that happen. I think there's a huge market for a connected building where I could broadcast to other parents that I want to set up a playdate for my child.

When we imagine a future for both WeWork and WeLive and the other things that we're doing, it really is about unlocking people.

Rather than trying to fit a prescribed need for office sizes, we try to go with the flow of the building as much as possible.

We're not competing against other people who have similar ideas but we're competing against ideas of work in general. There are still traditional office spaces that are not friendly to human beings that are not designed for connection and collaboration.

We've set this forever ambition to make WeWork the best place.

People can connect in different ways. If you do a rope course with someone you otherwise wouldn't meet and you share this incredible challenge, then you have perhaps formed a bond that could last forever.

When you go to a normal architecture firm they aren't going to be innovative in terms of their systems. They're not going to be thinking of the whole lifespan of this project, or how do we document every single light bulb, or every product, so that when a chair breaks in a conference room, we can replace it right away.

A desk for $350 a month in a common area is not as cheap as a coffee shop. But a lot of people would say they're empowered by that environment in a way that makes it worth it.

More and more people are getting turned out of their corporations and laid off. As more people leave that behind, they're tapping into their own skill sets and talents and doing something for themselves.

I'd eat bowls of soft-serve ice cream until I felt sick.