Advice Line with Miguel McKelvey of WeWork

March 5, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

🎙️ The Voices & The Context

The Format: Live advice call-in show where entrepreneurs pitch businesses and get real-time guidance from a legendary founder.
The Key Players:
- Guest: Miguel McKelvey, WeWork co-founder, architect-turned-entrepreneur known for building a $47B workspace empire that spectacularly imploded; returns for his third appearance, offering battle-tested wisdom.
- Host: Guy Raz, sharp interviewer steering convos with curiosity and context.
The Vibe: Educational and optimistic, like a supportive mentorship session mixed with startup war stories—fun banter amid serious scaling challenges.

🗝️ Key Themes & Topics

The episode blends Miguel's reflections on past highs/lows with actionable advice for three bootstrapped founders facing growth hurdles: premium pricing, marketing in niche grief space, and fan acquisition for patriotic merch.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Miguel McKelvey**
2 (05:04) **Reflecting on WeWork Experience**
3 (06:55) **AI Valuations vs. WeWork Bubble**
4 (09:44) **First Caller: Jane Barthel (Copa Threads)**
5 (21:14) **Second Caller: Melissa Jensky (Good Grief)**
6 (34:33) **Third Caller: Lee Wright (History List Store)**
7 (44:34) **Miguel's Closing Advice to Founders**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Today’s callers: Jane in Minnesota wants to scale her artful pants brand while staying true to her locally-made mission. Then Melissa in New Mexico wonders how to respond to diminishing returns on digital advertising for her grief care packages. And Lee in Massachusetts hopes to decrease customer acquisition costs for his history merch brand ahead of America’s 250th anniversary.

Plus, Miguel reflects on his WeWork experience and the similarities he sees in today’s AI-dominated tech industry. Miguel’s latest venture, Unbound, seeks to disrupt healthcare in the United Kingdom.

Thank you to the founders of Copa Threads, Good Grief, and The History List Store for being a part of our show.

If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298.

And be sure to listen to WeWork’s founding story as told by Miguel in 2017, as well as his second appearance on the show in 2022.

This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Kwesi Lee.

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