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WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

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Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#3

I wonder when this trend of calling companies "tech companies" — just because they happen to use technology — will end. WeWork clearly is a real estate company; Uber is a taxi company with an app; etc.

Yeah its mostly a factor of what VCs they tap and their portfolio companies coupled with how a company spends. High burn high growth Draper Capital? Tech company.

Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#4

I wonder when this trend of calling companies "tech companies" — just because they happen to use technology — will end. WeWork clearly is a real estate company; Uber is a taxi company with an app; etc.

A hell of a taxi company with that many engineers and research and development areas. But I agree on WeWork as a real estate company. They are not creating anything.

Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#5

I wonder when this trend of calling companies "tech companies" — just because they happen to use technology — will end. WeWork clearly is a real estate company; Uber is a taxi company with an app; etc.

When it stops making someone money.

Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#6

I wonder when this trend of calling companies "tech companies" — just because they happen to use technology — will end. WeWork clearly is a real estate company; Uber is a taxi company with an app; etc.

I think it's the trend of bringing tech to an existing market. When that stops, we'll probably stop calling it tech companies.

Uber is the perfect example of a "tech company" - they brought technology (and in this context "tech", arguably, means "the internet") to an industry that was previously dominated by standing on a street and waving down a cab/taxi.

However I think it is rather pithy to just call them a taxi company with an app, right? There's a lot of tech "magic" involved in Uber from the real-time connections on a such a massive scale, to the geo-fencing, price/route estimations, and the massive amounts of infrastructure management and maintenance needed to bring that to however many millions of people use the service.

Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#7
For the number of engineers they have you'd think they'd have figured out how to build a decent wifi network with some actual security in it. Instead every WeWork has the same password for the wifi (literally a variant on `P@ssw0rd`) and it is super easy to spy on other people's connections. The hilarious thing is they actually built a secure wifi network for their staff, so they clearly recognize the need.

They also use the dumbest access points- they don't support roaming and connect you to the least congested point regardless of speed. It used to be a morning ritual of mine to toggle wifi on and off again until I had a decent connection.

Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#8

I wonder when this trend of calling companies "tech companies" — just because they happen to use technology — will end. WeWork clearly is a real estate company; Uber is a taxi company with an app; etc.

It's a logical extension of the ponzi scheme that exists in the venture capital/startup world in tech. The fact that so many startups fail is irrelevant to the early investors in these companies, as long as you get in at or before Series A you have a good exit 90% of the time. Just force some artificial growth and wait for the next round of investors.

Everyone who comes later... not so much. Very few good outcomes. So they're now just adding some more levels to the pyramid to try and push the scam down the line to the IPO market.

It should be illegal, and would be if we had a functional SEC instead of what is effectively an empty building.

Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#9

I wonder when this trend of calling companies "tech companies" — just because they happen to use technology — will end. WeWork clearly is a real estate company; Uber is a taxi company with an app; etc.

I agree on WeWork, but Uber is clearly not a taxi company. They're closer to being a mobile app developer, though that still feels like it falls short of an accurate description.

Re: WeWork isn’t a tech company; it’s a soap opera

#10
post #7

For the number of engineers they have you'd think they'd have figured out how to build a decent wifi network with some actual security in it. Instead every WeWork has the same password for the wifi (literally a variant on `P@ssw0rd`) and it is super easy to spy on other people's connections. The hilarious thing is they actually built a secure wifi network for their staff, so they clearly recognize the need. They also…

Wifi is largely insecure anyway. You should largely assume that the network is malicious no matter what and just rely on application layer security.
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