Is $47bn WeWork the office of the future – or an overvalued confidence trick?

It is not every day that a corporate document filed with financial regulators begins with a sentence like: "We dedicate this to the energy of we – greater than any one of us but inside each of us."

Still, that is how WeWork, the rapidly growing office rental company with hundreds of elegantly-decorated beachheads in major cities around the world, began the official prospectus for its hotly-anticipated public float later this year.