Former WeWork CGO on the new job search and how the sharing economy is changing

Dave Fano, Former WeWork Chief Growth Officer and Teal Founder joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move to break down his time at WeWork and weigh in on the challenges the economy is facing over the coronavirus crisis.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: You're watching Yahoo Finance Live. I'm Julie Hyman. As we've been talking about, the jobs report for April was dire, down 20 and 1/2 million. That's how many jobs the US economy lost last month. The unemployment rate going to 14.7%.

Let's talk about what you do if you're out of work and you're trying to find something new. Dave Fano is the founder of Teal, which aims to help people along in their careers. He is also the former WeWork Chief Growth Officer. He's joining us from New York. Dave, thank you so much for joining us.

So first, talk to us about Teal, because my understanding is it's designed not just sort of as a job placement service, but as sort of sticking with you throughout your career, and helping you move up and move on.

DAVE FANO: Yeah, absolutely. That's-- you know, when you look for a job is probably one of the major tentpole moments in your career. But a lot of what people have been accustomed to is companies really used for stewarding you from your start to your end date at the company. They give you the career development, career pathing.

And now with job tenure getting shorter and people really being quite diligent about pursuing a career that's fulfilling, they don't have anything that travels with them from job to job. I think once you get a little more senior in your career, you can get access to things like executive coaches, and you can build up a personal infrastructure. But early on, you really don't have it.

And so that's what we're looking to do, is to leverage a lot of that technology and data to help people from the day they start working to the day they retire.

ADAM SHAPIRO: I'm curious how, you know, given the new realities of unemployment-- we saw that laid out before us in a horrid way with this morning's report-- how people are using what you're providing to move forward?

DAVE FANO: So we're a six-month-old company. We had ambitions to sort of stay quiet for a while and build technology. But given our mission and where the world was, we figured we need to do something right now.

And I just sort of dug into my tool chest of having been a teacher, and said, OK, well, job-- I sort of combined my combination of teaching and sales, and said job hunting is like sales. And it's also a thing that's been very-- it's very isolating and lonely. But so many people are going through it, and starting at this same exact time. So there's an opportunity to help people do this together.

And so what we've done is we've created job searching cohorts, of groups of up to 20 to 30 people that are all job searching together. And they're in different phases of their career, different industries. But they're all-- you know, they're all feeling anxious about how to write a resume.

They're all feeling anxious about how to make their LinkedIn look good. Do I change this setting to say I'm seeking, or does that send-- signal a bad thing to the few companies that are hiring? And now people have a safe space to talk about these things that are really overwhelming, and can actually be quite heavy.

And so we're-- you know, we said job searching doesn't need to be lonely anymore. And that's really what we're focusing on doing right now.

JULIE HYMAN: You know, Dave, I'm sensing a through line here from your last position, this idea of community at work. Because, of course, as I mentioned, you were the Chief Growth Officer at WeWork, which one of the aims is to sort of serve as a community for different people who are working at different places in the same physical space. Obviously WeWork has been much in the headlines over the past year.

And I'm curious, as you look back on your time there, first of all, did you leave at the right time? And what do you think the future of a WeWork looks like coming out of this?

DAVE FANO: Well, for myself, I left at the right time for me. You know, I don't really think about in terms like the arc of the company. We had just had our second child. I had been there for four years. I kind of like to start things, and sort of had been thinking about things.

So I think it worked out well for me. And then subsequently, a lot of things sort of happened in the news, and things like that. So I feel good about my decisions.

Where they are and where they're going is-- it's TBD. You know, I think that the pressures on running an office space are going to be higher than ever. And it's going to be something that's going to be really difficult for companies to do on their own, because the level of specialization is going to be higher than ever. And so I think that there's a tremendous amount of opportunity in specializing on bridging the gap across the various environments in which people work, and building a unified-- like a consistent and cohesive culture is actually going to be harder than ever.

And it's going to expand beyond the realm of what typically HR would do, or what typically facilities would do. And so I think that there's a really interesting opportunity for companies to come in and help large organizations do that. And I think they're well positioned to do it.

But I don't really stay in touch, so I'm not sure if that's part of their plan.

DAN ROBERTS: Dave, Dan Roberts here. As you mentioned, you know, WeWork very much in the news lately. And if I could just push you a little further, having worked at the company and now left, when you look at kind of the coverage of the company-- and obviously, it continues. I mean, just within the last week, there's been another development in this sort of Adam Neumann versus Softbank legal battle.

What do you make of the coverage? And I guess what I'm really asking is do you think there is something that people, whether it's the media or just people in the public, get wrong about the company, or get wrong or misunderstand about Adam Neumann?

DAVE FANO: Well, I'll speak to the people. I think that it's by far the most amazing people I've ever worked with in my career. I think that it speaks to having a good mission. And that, you know, regardless of what happened and the finances, that the mission really rang true. And a lot of people really suited up every day to deliver on that mission.

And it attracted a phenomenal set of people that came in and busted their humps daily to serve the members. And I think a lot of that-- you know, the people that are still there from the time that I were there are still-- you know, they wake up every day trying to help their members. You know, there are people that are going into those buildings to try to help people and help their businesses succeed. So it's exciting to see that.

JULIE HYMAN: Dave, I'm-- I'm curious, as you look across the sort of so-called sharing economy landscape, right, whether it's a WeWork or to Airbnb, or some of the ride share companies, like Uber and Lyft-- what do you think is going to have the most staying power? What do you think-- I mean, because there was so much hype about the sharing economy several years ago. Once all is said and done, what do you think is sort of the realest, most viable of all of those?

DAVE FANO: Well, I think one of the consistent things across all of them is experience and experiences. And I don't think that that's going to go away, from like the human desire. We're just going to have to come up with new ways to create shared experience.

And I think one of the-- so a few beautiful things coming out of this situation is that we're all finding a way to connect. You know, I FaceTime with my parents daily now. They live in Miami. I live in New York. There was no reason I couldn't have done it before, but I do it now.

And so I think we crave connection, and we crave experience. And I think we will find a way and persevere to continue to do that. It just may not be physically in the same place for a little bit.

But I think in terms of the human connection is critical. And I don't think we'll lose that.

JULIE HYMAN: This has definitely-- this time has definitely proven to us that that is more necessary than ever. Dave Fano, thank you so much for joining us. He's the founder of Teal.