The Blubber

Flow’s main financial backer, A16Z, which has sunk $350 million into Neumann’s project, reportedly its largest-ever check to a single company.

Neumann said when he turned to the topic of how he would instill that sense of community and ownership. “A very funny example,” he said, “is if you’re in your apartment building and you’re a renter and your toilet gets clogged, you call the super. If you’re in your own apartment, and you bought it and you own it, and your toilet gets clogged? You take the plunger,” he added, making plunging gestures in the air. “It’s the difference from feeling like you own something to just feeling like you’re renting.”

Neumann also did outline the four “pillars” of the Flow business model: 1) a “technology-first” property management company handling day-to-day operations; 2) a real-estate asset-management company that owns the buildings; 3) a financial-services company; and 4) “this mechanism that’s going to take some of the value and share it with the value creators.”

Leaked reports said it sought to “disrupt the world’s largest asset class” by introducing a model that purportedly combined the best parts of apartment renting and homeownership.