51–60 of 380 posts
I hope they make it through. I have a WeWork right in walking distance and would love to work there regularly if I ever get a remote job.
Crazy valuations for startups like WeWork remind me of the Dot Com bubble, when companies put up a shiny new "high tech" facade in front of entirely traditional business models, then expected to be valued at a large multiple of a normal company with that well trodden value proposition. We all know how well that ended. Companies that want the sky-high valuations of innovative high tech should be, you know, actually in…
> " Given WeWork’s opaque financials and its self-made metrics such as “community-adjusted Ebitda,” you can see why investors might be rethinking a company that has relied a lot on confidence, optimism and faith." I understand why companies occasionally report results as GAAP and non-GAAP, but "community adjusted EBITDA" is absurd, even for a private company.
If they ran themselves like a real estate company then their central function would probably be a few attorneys to process deals and some people handling paperwork. Instead they have huge central costs which they want people to ignore via these metrics.
Simple non-GAAP is one thing but most of these invented metrics scream “our financials are terrible so we made up this metric where if you ignore our real costs we look less terrible”
>The Gulf investors backing the Vision Fund seem to have decided that WeWork is not a tech bet but simply an aggressive punt on real estate. This is the bogey man of a huge number of current 'tech startups' - What if it turns out Tesla really are a car company! Or if We Work are actually an office rental company! OR gasp Uber is a cab company! (1) We now have a glut of companies operating in traditional markets that…
In 1999 there was an email going round about how ridiculous dotcom valuations were. Taking Amazon, I think, as an example it said it would have to earn more than Kodak, Boeing, Caterpillar etc to ever be worth it's valuation. There was a general sense of "it's just a bookstore". Now I know everything is more mature and the situation is different, but I also remember feeling very confident that Amazon was waaay overva…
It’s all relative
>The Gulf investors backing the Vision Fund seem to have decided that WeWork is not a tech bet but simply an aggressive punt on real estate. This is the bogey man of a huge number of current 'tech startups' - What if it turns out Tesla really are a car company! Or if We Work are actually an office rental company! OR gasp Uber is a cab company! (1) We now have a glut of companies operating in traditional markets that…
I don't agree with the "rubbish part". WeWork single handedly changed the way we work. It is way easier to build a tech startup with the help of a co-working space company than before. I suspect that WeWork's business model ain't the problem but it's competitors, for example in London, UK. Competition drives prices for new real estate, crashed margins.
>The Gulf investors backing the Vision Fund seem to have decided that WeWork is not a tech bet but simply an aggressive punt on real estate. This is the bogey man of a huge number of current 'tech startups' - What if it turns out Tesla really are a car company! Or if We Work are actually an office rental company! OR gasp Uber is a cab company! (1) We now have a glut of companies operating in traditional markets that…
In 1999 there was an email going round about how ridiculous dotcom valuations were. Taking Amazon, I think, as an example it said it would have to earn more than Kodak, Boeing, Caterpillar etc to ever be worth it's valuation. There was a general sense of "it's just a bookstore". Now I know everything is more mature and the situation is different, but I also remember feeling very confident that Amazon was waaay overva…
Besides, Amazon, Kodak and Boeing were never exactly in the same market. The parent is comparing companies that ostensibly offer similar services.
If I can trust Wikipedia by 1999 Amazon "also sold video games, consumer electronics, home-improvement items, software, games and toys in addition to other items." That meant that it was already an online retail store, not a mere bookstore.
I hope they make it through. I have a WeWork right in walking distance and would love to work there regularly if I ever get a remote job.
What is attractive to you about it? Serious question, I’ve worked in their spaces before but we leased an entire floor and I wasn’t wowed or pissed at it. What makes you excited?
"The Gulf investors backing the Vision Fund seem to have decided that WeWork is not a tech bet but simply an aggressive punt on real estate." If you have earlier invested in WeWork as a tech startup then one should be questioning your investment strategies and research methods.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right on Tesla and WeWork, but not on Uber. Uber doesn't buy and own the car, which means it requires much less capital. This small change has many implications, and the tech helps solves many of the problems that come up. I am not saying it is properly valued (over or under or whatever). Just that given the choice between an Uber (or Lyft or yourlocalapp.com) or a cab company with the same fleet, customers, a…
Uber does plan to own the cars though, since they're doing their own self-driving car work and have a deal in place with Volvo for up to 24,000 self-driving SUVs. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/uber-signs-d...
I don't think they will get there with self-driving, but by the same token they're not going to end up owning a zillion cars either.
>The Gulf investors backing the Vision Fund seem to have decided that WeWork is not a tech bet but simply an aggressive punt on real estate. This is the bogey man of a huge number of current 'tech startups' - What if it turns out Tesla really are a car company! Or if We Work are actually an office rental company! OR gasp Uber is a cab company! (1) We now have a glut of companies operating in traditional markets that…
You're right on Tesla and WeWork, but not on Uber. Uber doesn't buy and own the car, which means it requires much less capital. This small change has many implications, and the tech helps solves many of the problems that come up. I am not saying it is properly valued (over or under or whatever). Just that given the choice between an Uber (or Lyft or yourlocalapp.com) or a cab company with the same fleet, customers, a…
They burned through billions of dollars of capital. That's quite a lot for a business that requires very little capital. What would they burn if they needed lots of capital? Trillions of dollars?