WeWork is announcing its first-ever CTO in the form of Laurent Paris. Paris joins WeWork from Spotify, where he held the VP of Engineering position for five years. Before that, Paris spent almost ten years at Yahoo where he worked on various engineering teams. Paris will be focusing on the combination of WeWork’s digital and physical products to offer the most seamless end-user experience possible. “I’m interested in looking at how we blend physical space with digital technology,” said Paris. “Take the internet of things, for example. We can bring sensors into the management of the space to get data on how people interact in their offices and tailor that experience.” Over the next 12 months, Paris wants to focus on building out a strong engineering team and laying the foundation to put WeWork in the same ring as other tech giants, with regards to attracting top tech talent. Long term, Paris is focused on fostering sustainable growth at the fast-rising company, which went from zero to $20 billion in valuation over the course of six years. Paris will report directly to CEO Adam Neumann. The new CTO said the greatest challenge for WeWork is both sustaining that crazy growth and showing the complexity of the technical challenges involved in managing physical space, hopefully pulling top engineers into the WeWork fold.
Flexible office space provider WeWork has appointed Spotify's former VP of engineering, Adam Neumann, as its first-ever chief technical officer. Reporting to CEO Laurent Paris, Paris will work to provide a seamless customer experience using the firm's physical and digital products. “I’m interested in looking at how we blend physical space with digital technology,” Paris said. He cited the internet of things as an example of a technology that could be deployed to improve the management of office space. In the next year, Paris will focus on building a strong engineering team and bringing top tech talent to WeWork.