So is this company's business just selling baseless promises to investors? If yes, how did they bootstrap this?
You may have answered your own question.
Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
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Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#22I know most HN readers look down upon the site, but I really like Zero Hedge's take on this. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-09-09/2-letters-20-billi... > Super-voting stock – Zuck did that and it worked out in the end > Accelerating losses – Look at all that revenue growth > Zero possibility of profits – Hasn’t mattered for years > Convoluted insider dealings on property leases – Property GPs always double dip s…
Zerohedge is entertaining, I always look for the sources in the articles I find interesting, so I can sometimes just read those instead or cite those.
ZH's formulaic way of writing sensational bearish pieces gets a little tiresome after you notice it (posted submitted by guest readers like this one don't follow this format):
Intro about main point
Background on main point
Quote from the source about the main point, repeating the background section but in italics
Controversial next point, with a bolded section
Quote from the source about the controversial next point, repeating the exact prior section, but in italics
Tweets
Two line conclusion, with a finance pun.
I try to just read Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal directly. But Zerohedge's decade long bear market porn is so entertaining.
They used to have credit market specialists writing, but it seems they don't stick around for long.
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#23I know most HN readers look down upon the site, but I really like Zero Hedge's take on this. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-09-09/2-letters-20-billi... > Super-voting stock – Zuck did that and it worked out in the end > Accelerating losses – Look at all that revenue growth > Zero possibility of profits – Hasn’t mattered for years > Convoluted insider dealings on property leases – Property GPs always double dip s…
Maybe Adam should expand his ventures to the business of overhyped music festivals for the tech crowd, they could call it WeBurn or something.
Not that anything like that ever had major problems
But on the topic, ZH is good some 20% of the time, the other 80% is just packaged talking points on "long big recession" (I mean that's actually the motto they follow), EUphobia and some amount of Russianphilia
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#24Corporate governance for startups is such a joke sometimes, it’s unbelievable. And investors bring it upon themselves.
You want sustained hockey stick growth, regardless of the cost to the team and the business, no matter what? Then you’re gonna find some founders that are much better at making the business look promising by hitting certain metrics than actually building a solid operational foundation for the business.
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#25Evidence we are not in a bubble and that markets are mostly sane currently.
Evidence against?
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#26Tangential, but does anyone else find techcrunch UX absolutely dreadful on desktop?
Agreed.
Very untidy to my eyes.
I'm not a fan of the moving ad bar at the top, or the progress tracker thing either.
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#27We must be pretty important for Softbank as a signal - even if they didn't believe in the company, allowing such a major investment take such a big hit would be rather bad. Worth them pouring a few $bn more in instead of an IPO, if only to shore up faith in the rest of their portfolio? All that being said, someone needs to be mentoring the CEO, like right now. That S1 was... not... great.
Softbank invested at a $47 billion valuation.
An IPO at $20bn, that may tank afterwards, would really hurt their paper profits.
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#28We're going to look back on this company and say to ourselves "why did we fund a company to sign rental agreements". I jest, but WeWork is one of those strange entities that's greater than the sum of its parts. If the magic goes or the brand tarnishes a little, then the whole thing goes poof.
> We're going to look back on this company and say to ourselves "why did we fund a company to sign rental agreements".
Because there is just too much dumb money floating around and waiting to be invested after a decade of QE monetary policy. But instead of governments (worldwide) using said dumb money to invest in their future e.g. by building (or even maintaining!) infrastructure, teaching young students, fixing up environmental issues or helping people rebuild their savings/retirement, the money is forced into such "investments".
Next recession is gonna hit hard.
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#29We must be pretty important for Softbank as a signal - even if they didn't believe in the company, allowing such a major investment take such a big hit would be rather bad. Worth them pouring a few $bn more in instead of an IPO, if only to shore up faith in the rest of their portfolio? All that being said, someone needs to be mentoring the CEO, like right now. That S1 was... not... great.
SoftBank business model: make an investment at valuation X. Make another investment at valuation 2X. Declare that the value of the first investment has doubled!
The wheels come off when anyone else gets to value the investment. That’s happening now. I wonder how other SoftBank businesses like ARM will be impacted.
Re: Troubles Mount for the We Company as Softbank Reportedly Calls for Shelving IPO
#30[deleted]