(Bloomberg) -- For the past four years, WeWork Inc. has been trying to deliver a turnaround story — one in which the rowdy co-working startup transforms into a stable, profitable public company. It sloughed off Adam Neumann, its rambunctious co-founder and former chief executive officer, and replaced him with an industry veteran boasting a reputation of saving troubled real estate companies.

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WeWork was not saved, and the co-working company now says there’s “substantial doubt” it will even be able to stay in business.

The New York-based company is bleeding cash, and customers of its office rentals are canceling their memberships in droves, WeWork said in a statement Tuesday. Its shares fell 17% in premarket trading on Wednesday.

WeWork’s stock has plunged 98% since the company went public in October 2021, wiping out nearly $9 billion in market value. The stock was trading at 16 cents early Wednesday. Its bonds are also at deeply distressed levels. The company’s 7.875% unsecured notes due in 2025 last changed hands for 33.5 cents on the dollar, according to data from Trace.

Listen to the Podcast: Foundering: The WeWork Story

Few companies have risen to such towering heights only to crash so badly. WeWork was built on the idealism and charisma of Neumann, who started the business in 2010 with the designer Miguel McKelvey. Their vision was to lease office space and then rent smaller parcels of it to customers.

The startup expanded slowly, then quickly, then at blinding speeds, fueled by a zero-interest-rate financial environment in which venture capitalists dumped truckloads of money into startups that showed impressive growth rather than profits. By 2019, WeWork was the biggest private occupier of office space in Manhattan and London, operated millions of square feet in dozens of countries and was valued at $47 billion, which made it one of the most prized startups in America.