Not spelled out there is that the real estate portion of the business was advantageous to Kroc. When it became the vast majority of the business he could use his resources to leverage out the McDonalds.
I don't see the relevance for the WeWork discussion.
WeWork shareholders are potentially harmed when the CEO gives money from the company to himself.
If I understand the deal, the McDonald's brothers sold back the royalties they got from McDonald's (the company) for $2.7mn. If McDonald's (the company) got access to the money that the McDonald's brothers demanded by being smart with real estate operations, good for them. Everyone got what they wanted.
"The brothers did get a percentage of the profits. The original deal was 1.9 percent of a franchisee's profits. It went to the McDonald's Corporation and 0.5 percent of that went to Dick and Mac McDonald. The falsehood in the movie is that Ray screwed the brothers out of that half a percent. Basically what happened was Ray and the brothers were at odds. He went to them and said, look, what is it going to take to make you go away? They said $2.7 million — we want a million dollars each and $700,000 to pay our taxes. That's how practical they were. And they were happy with that. It was 1961 and the problem was that Ray didn't have anywhere close to $2.7 million. It's important to remember that McDonald's was precipitously close to folding at every step of the game once Ray got involved, because he didn't have the right scheme to make McDonald's grow until he met Harry Sonneborn who came along and told him it's not about hamburgers, it's about real estate. So basically Ray couldn't find $2.7 million to pay the brothers off. Harry found the $2.7 million. And if he hadn't, the situation, the agreement would have continued on the way it was in place with the 0.5 percent going and lining the brothers' pockets in a really lovely, passive income. But Harry saved the day. He was able to convince these men, who they later called in McDonald's lore "The 12 apostles," and those guys came up with the cash that allowed him to buy out the McDonald's brothers and make them go away. The movie says that they got screwed, but they didn't."
