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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

#161

Post by leroy_masochist »

My lasting impression of the year-ish I spent at one of their NY locations was:

- The coffee was free, and great

- The person behind the front desk had recently graduated from Princeton and seemed way too smart for the job and bored

- The beer on tap was free after 5, was locked up before then, and was invariably some weird fruity craft beer that probably cost a lot

- Printing a single page involved first waiting in line for 5-10 minutes and then entering a 10-digit code into a really crappy office printer touch screen, then manually re-authorizing the job you had just set to print. Like DMV level inefficiency

All told, general impression was, "wow, they actually pulled off getting a tech valuation for a real estate play".

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

#162

Post by hinkley »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #145
freehunter wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be amazing to see a co-working brand have locations absolutely everywhere, like 24 hour gyms. One price gets you into any of them and they're all the same. It would help with customer retention because they've already paid $300/mo to get in, so if they move or travel they're not paying someone else. They're sticking with you. I'm surprised WeWork locations are so few and far between, while Snap Fitne…

Gyms have many more members than capacity. They would have to dramatically raise the price if people actually used their memberships. OTOH co-working spaces likely have much higher utilization since pretty much everyone goes to work.

Not only that, for the people who do show, they are expected to be there less than 1/5th as long as a WeWork member would show up. So now you're well above an order of magnitude difference in occupancy rates.

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

#163

Post by tempestn »

nostromo wrote: post #106
tempestn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approved by whom? Someone might look at it after the fact, but nothing stops a company from buying or selling with its shareholders. (In fact it's quite common for private companies to pay owners for things like office space.) But yes, it should be at fair market value; you're not supposed to buy something for one price just to flip it to your company for a higher price (effectively taking compensation as a capital g…

In theory, the board. The board represents investors. And usually the big investors will have a seat on the board. The board should have intervened here.

Ah, yes, in that case I agree. I thought the parent comment was referring to an agency like the SEC.

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

#165

Post by aeorgnoieang »

ak217 wrote: post #72
jrochkind1 wrote: post #40

> I am just going to drop The We Company’s org chart here because it honestly leaves me speechless... Indeed, I suspect that kind of a weird org chart of inter-related legal entities is pretty typical for a real estate company... because, as the OP suggests, that's really what they are.

Also morbidly fascinating is why real estate companies are so much more into compartmentalizing themselves into all these LLCs/LPs/corps. Most of the time they seem to do it to maximize the tax advantages and entitlements (and contain losses) in specific locales. In California, most commercial buildings are held by a trust designed to never transfer majority control, to preserve Prop 13 property tax breaks.

I think it also pertains to how individual deals sometimes include additional investors or other parties to the deal/transaction, e.g. the parent company partners with another local company for a specific deal and thus creates a separate LLC/LP for just that deal.

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

#167

Post by inflatableDodo »

SamWhited wrote: post #66

This is the place where literally every one has the wifi password "P@ssw0rd" (or something similar, I forget) and instead of just connecting an HDMI cable to your laptop in the conference rooms you have to download some spyware that only works on Windows and Mac (despite the fact that their primary client is tech companies, many of whom use Linux or other OS's). Also never try printing, that just doesn't work, and th…

>that's what coffee shops are for.

I know someone who seems to do nearly everything from coffee shops. He maps out a variety in each city, so he knows which are suitable to host potentially noisy meetings (he usually imposes on Starbucks for that), which are good coworking spaces, and which are really nice ones he can hide in and get stuff done by himself. He then spends all day wandering between them.

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

#169

Post by galkk »

knd775 wrote: post #55
zachware wrote: post #20

What's so structurally fascinating, in a very morbid way, is the difference between the balance sheets of the most heavily-funded late stage companies. I have an opinion but regardless of it, if a no-asset/no-liability company is losing money and the music stops, they can cut costs and survive. It's messy but it happens. WeWork is a completely different beast. It's occupancy costs + G&A are 105% of revenue. If it can…

One of the founders pulled $700m out of the company, bought properties with that money, and now leases them back to the company. This could've been a solid company if it owned the properties directly.

That's insane. I believe that investors should sue for that.

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

#170

Post by kasey_junk »

freehunter wrote: post #143
mikeryan wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised WeWork locations are so few and far between Where are you located? They have 562 locations, In many large cities, (SF, NYC, Phil - in Mexico City too) at least you can't go a more than a few blocks without getting a WeWork. Its pretty ubiquitous for me when I travel, but I've got a limited circle of cities I hit

I live in the Midwest. There are two locations in Detroit, 12 centered in downtown Chicago, and one in Columbus. That's it for the entire Midwest.

They have Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Louis & Kansas City locations as well.
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