“When the idea of ‘We’ came in,” McKelvey told me, “it started as a ‘WeBlank: WeWork, WeLive, WeSleep, WeEat.’ That was the premise at the very start. Our aspiration is to be a holistic support system or lifestyle solution for people who are interested in being open and connected.”

A “holistic support system”—frighteningly Digital Age as that sounds—is the total infrastructure of a human life. Here's a helpful thought experiment for conceptualizing the grand scheme: What if a single company sanded off all the hard edges in life? What if you never had to search for an apartment on Craigslist again? What if you never had to wait for the cable guy, either? Or find a health-care plan on the open exchange? What if it was all just…there? You join the global network, and anywhere you go there are hardwood floors, good coffee, fast Wi-Fi, and, most important, like-minded friendly people interested in engaging and working alongside you. The things people used to have to piece together themselves (apartment, office, insurance, gym membership) would now be packaged and delivered by one provider. A few months after McKelvey and I talked, WeWork opened a fitness and wellness space called Rise by We. Later it announced plans to open elementary schools for young entrepreneurs. It was all happening.

Soon you'll be able to “feel like you're staying within your community, within the network, wherever you are,” McKelvey said. “It never feels like it's holding you back. It's just always there. It always works.”

The WeThing, then, was a globe-spanning network of cocoons, all sharing the positive vibes of productivity, a frictionless existence where you never have to deal with practical inconveniences or shortages of friends or the feeling of loneliness. And where everyone wears the same T-shirt.

"Sometimes it just feels good to succumb to the niceties and convenience. Even if, in the back of your mind, you know you're ceding something valuable."

The majority of start-ups these days make a business out of solving one very specific problem. WeWork belongs to the much smaller and potentially more lucrative class of businesses trying to solve literally every problem they can, the way that Amazon will sell you a new 4K television and, if you subscribe to Prime, brand-new content to watch on it.

“When we imagine a future for both WeWork and WeLive and the other things that we're doing, it really is about unlocking people,” McKelvey told me. In tech-speak, that means it's setting out on a conquest of Napoleonic scale for a monopoly over the entire breadth of its customers' primary needs. In theory, I'm repulsed by the idea of being “unlocked” in any fashion, and yet I'm clearly a total sucker for it, too—as proven by the fact that I couldn't resist moving in, that I gleefully partook of the free coffee and beer, and that when they screened a Star Wars marathon in the lobby, I thought about skipping work. The most successful businesses know what we want and how to give it to us. And sometimes it just feels good to succumb to the niceties and convenience. Even if, in the back of your mind, you know you're ceding something valuable.

Intellectually, I like the idea of living a life with minimal possessions, moving constantly between cities, confident that I'll have a welcoming network wherever I go (as long as I don't stray too far). It's refreshingly un-American—not focusing all your energy toward owning your own castle. And it plays into a new aspirational aesthetic that values materialism less and focuses instead on experiences, travel, wellness, and professional fulfillment. Of course that's appealing. Who wants to wait for the cable guy? Or wait out a lease when you're ready to move?