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The We Company S-1

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161–170 of 346 posts

Re: The We Company S-1

#161
post #50

I’m really disgusted by how much recent tech IPOs inject pitch deck-style garbage into the S-1 filing, especially this one. I’ve always had a great amount of respect for the mediating nature of the S-1’s dry, candid, and ruthlessly honest assessment of business risks, and even though those things are still there, they’re blown out by marketing photos, full-page charts, and branding. This is basically like putting per…

> they’re blown out by marketing photos, full-page charts, and branding Companies get a lot of latitude with the first few pages. Seasoned S-1 skimmers peruse that stuff, but save the digging in for the risk factors, financials and the accompanying notes.

Nit, peruse means to read carefully with an attention to detail.

Re: The We Company S-1

#162
post #50

I’m really disgusted by how much recent tech IPOs inject pitch deck-style garbage into the S-1 filing, especially this one. I’ve always had a great amount of respect for the mediating nature of the S-1’s dry, candid, and ruthlessly honest assessment of business risks, and even though those things are still there, they’re blown out by marketing photos, full-page charts, and branding. This is basically like putting per…

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Re: The We Company S-1

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mix. Some locations they own, some they lease--including some that the CEO owns and they lease from him, which is an interesting arrangement.

A school I attended once had a similar arrangement with one of its board members. I also vaguely recall that board member defrauding the school of several million dollars and being federally charged...

It's different for a school though because there are regulations on related party transactions for nonprofits.

Re: The We Company S-1

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say those landlords are going to be in for an even bigger shock.

If WeWork goes broke it's mildly annoying to have to find other tenants, it's true. But it's not like they can't plan for that. For instance if WeWork goes down, there are still tenants that might want to stay in the building. That's a sensible place to start.

The tenants who want to stay in the building aren't going to be paying the same private equity subsidized prices that WeWork were. I'd imagine in some markets wework is such a big customer now that their collapse would cause massive repercussions.

Re: The We Company S-1

#165
post #37

I've disliked WeWork from the beginning, it pretends to be a tech company but it's just an old school real estate play. I still wouldn't short it, especially early on.

To me WeWork just looks like the stock market with leverage and extra management fees.

Re: The We Company S-1

#166
post #129
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To do what? I'm not too familiar with them but what more do they have other than a website to look at potential spaces with some photos and a description and sign up for one? Maybe process payments as well?

I'll see if I can dig up the article, but I think they're planning on tracking everything that workers do in their buildings and giving that data to employers. Edit - found this - https://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/wework-is-trying-a-creepy-ne... >WeWork's latest acquisition is a small software company with 24 employees. Euclid is a spatial analytics platform...Euclid's website says the company is "focused on redefining…

There are a couple of issues with this. It's a well-known effect in management theory that workers behave differently when they know they're being observed. Also, presumably most of their tenants employ knowledge workers not factory floor workers, and so data about how often they go to the bathroom or how many steps they take in an hour is probably a lot less relevant than tracking what they're doing on their computers.

Re: The We Company S-1

#167
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They (We) does have mandatory enforced veganism, however. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-te...

Actually it's pescatarianism, for whatever reason seafood doesn't count as meat.

Maybe it's because fish don't scream when you stab them, but idk.

Re: The We Company S-1

#168
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this how these things are usually calculated? Yes, it’s a run-of-the-mill back-of-the-envelope TAM [1] estimate. The point of this number isn’t to value the company. It’s to identify obvious limits to scaling. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_addressable_market

Thanks. But isn't making a claim that it's plausible that every square inch of office space in every modern city will be managed by WeWork actually doing the opposite of identifying some of the obvious limits to scaling? I suppose some of this is addressed elsewhere under other sections, and the fact that it's called the Total Addressable Market explains a lot, but it does seem remarkably arbitrary and to be of very…

They aren't making that claim though.

They are just doing simple back of the envelope math using their current metrics, but in word form.

No one is suggesting that those numbers will actually be achieved.

Re: The We Company S-1

#169
post #143
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To do what? I'm not too familiar with them but what more do they have other than a website to look at potential spaces with some photos and a description and sign up for one? Maybe process payments as well?

The biggest tech challenge they have is figuring out how many conferences rooms to build out per X number of offices. Not enough, and you have a huge queue to use them, too many and you have lost office space rental. Outside of that there isn't much tech to go around. We used them before they were WeWork, when they were still GreenDesk in Dumbo. Overall it was great, and it's a great product given the flexibility and…

>The biggest tech challenge they have is figuring out how many conferences rooms to build out per X number of offices.

Saving the world!

>Overall it was great, and it's a great product

Yes, much like Uber, Lyft, Tesla, Blue Apron and on and on, consumers love products priced far below their actual costs.

Re: The We Company S-1

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they don't have free lunch, which is quite strange for Silicon Valley companies

They (We) does have mandatory enforced veganism, however. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-te...

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