Imagine for a moment that Adam Neumann, the co-founder of WeWork and until several days ago its chief executive, came to you looking for a job. He is barefoot (he has been photographed walking around Manhattan this way), he talks about his ambition to live forever, to lead the free world and to “solve the problem” of “150 million orphans” through the growth of a desk-rental company seeking to “to elevate the world’s consciousness.”

Would you make him a branch manager at Staples? Or would you call his mother?

Modern capitalism’s fundamental myth is that acquiring money is the equivalent of achieving success. If you have several houses, an island, a ranch, a vegan pastry chef and a spot on top of the cliffs of the meritocracy, few people up there with you, as it turns out, will question that you are very good at what you do, even if they would be challenged to explain it.

For the latest example of what it takes for the myth to unravel, you need look no further than the prospectus issued in conjunction with the We Company’s plans, now ignominiously sidelined, for an initial public offering.

Mr. Neumann bedazzled rich people for a long time. It was the 220-page document, filed this summer with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that finally managed to awaken investors, as if from a trance, to the realization that while he was very good at making himself lots of money, he showed considerably less talent for building a profitable company that would put shareholders on a path toward owning three weekend places within a few hours drive of Gramercy Park.