Mr. Neumann, who controlled a majority of the shareholder votes, was ultimately the one who decided to step down. But he did so after he lost the support of some of his key backers, including SoftBank, the Japanese technology giant, which is WeWork’s biggest outside investor.

On Sunday, Mr. Neumann met with the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, and later in the day had dinner with Bruce Dunlevie, a partner at Benchmark Capital and a director of the We Company, to discuss his options. Then on Tuesday, Mr. Neumann and his board met at the Midtown Manhattan offices of JPMorgan to nail down the management shake-up, according to two people familiar with the meeting.

In a statement, Mr. Neumann said the scrutiny of his personal life and management was hurting the company. “Since the announcement of our I.P.O., too much of the focus has been placed on me,” he said in a note to employees that was reviewed by The New York Times.

The management shake-up is the most significant step the company has taken to win over Wall Street after the botched initial public offering and signals that power may be swinging away from the founders of fast-growing businesses toward investors. Other high-flying start-ups, including the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft, have also struggled this year, and their share prices have fallen sharply after their stock market debuts.

“Investors saw through Lyft, and they saw through Uber as well,” said Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, a Washington think tank. “This one has simply been rejected. Investors are saying, ‘We’re not going to tolerate this nonsense anymore.’”

One of investors’ biggest concerns has been that Mr. Neumann exercised too much control over the company through special voting shares. He will now lose much of his power over the company.

Each of his special shares will have three votes, down from 20 votes earlier this year, according to two people briefed on the change, who were not authorized to disclose it. Mr. Neumann will not be able to control more than a minority of the board’s directors, and he won’t have control over any of the board’s committees, according to one of those people.