31–40 of 171 posts
It’s been quite hilarious for me watching this saga unfold. All I needed to hear was that this man literally took out loans from WeWork and used the proceeds of the loans to purchase real estate that he then leased back to WeWork. Lol!
Genuine question: is that legal? That seems incredibly shady.
I 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…
We'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…
I 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…
It’s been quite hilarious for me watching this saga unfold. All I needed to hear was that this man literally took out loans from WeWork and used the proceeds of the loans to purchase real estate that he then leased back to WeWork. Lol!
And sold the rights to 'We' for like $5mil in stock...to the company he founded. Matt Levine has had a great time ripping him apart for this.
We 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.
I don't think many investors dispute the ~$28b valuation that Softbank paid for ARM.
This was going to be my first short, shame.
It’s been quite hilarious for me watching this saga unfold. All I needed to hear was that this man literally took out loans from WeWork and used the proceeds of the loans to purchase real estate that he then leased back to WeWork. Lol!
Genuine question: is that legal? That seems incredibly shady.
Alice says to you, right up front, “I need to make one billion dollars, or I look for a different partner.”
Are you going to accuse Alice of being greedy, when your entire business consists of making money? You don’t cure the sick, or bring the Internet to rural communities, or manufacture safe transportation, or serve healthy food. You just make money.
So you say, “Fine, Alice, but a billion dollars is a lot of money.” Alice says, “How much do you need to make, such that my dream can come true?”
So you work out how you can make ten billion, while Alice makes one billion.
Now the conversation becomes, “How does Alice take her one billion out of the business, tweaking the knobs for risk, tax advantage, estate planning, and so forth?”
You bought into Alice making a billion dollars, so everything else is just details about when she gets the various bits of her billion.