Live data from Hacker News

WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

wsj.com

191–200 of 551 posts

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested about the buildings. A lot of people bullish on WeWork say -- "Oh, they'll just walk away from the leases. Each lease is owned by a different subsidiary. That subsidiary will just file bankruptcy. Problem solved. They'll just cut the losers, and turn up the dial on the profitable buildings." Adam got a $750M loan from WeWork, right? I'm assuming he used that loan to secure more loans to buy the buildin…

> "Oh, they'll just walk away from the leases. Each lease is owned by a different subsidiary. That subsidiary will just file bankruptcy. Problem solved. They'll just cut the losers, and turn up the dial on the profitable buildings." Ugh. What an awful culture we live in where this is considered perfectly normal behavior.

Limited liability is a great concept which allows businesses to be run by people who don’t have the personal capital to absorb all possible losses of the business. Our society would be more unequal without limited liability. There are also many legal safeguards in place to prevent it being used for fraud, negligence, etc.

Are you really worried for big commercial landlords who know exactly what they are dealing with and how corporations work? Commercial landlords are not typically thought of as especially trusting and vulnerable entities who need special protection.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#193

I'm so glad I read hacker news. I almost took a job at WeWork just 2 months ago with a recruiter working very hard to convince me I'd be rich when they IPO. Now I'm at a much smaller startup called Weave which is a really phenomenal place to work. I didn't discover until recently that it's also a YCombinator company. edit: to clarify, hacker news has been extremely skeptical of WeWork for some time, due to this, I wa…

> I almost took a job at WeWork just 2 months ago with a recruiter working very hard to convince me I'd be rich when they IPO.

Independently of what you read here, you saw right through this as total bullshit, right?

Right?

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#196

Not to generalize, but if you relied on Hacker News for recruiting you could wind up in all sorts of wonky, dubious or failed companies. Like people were such sweethearts for Juul and Alt Schools. They’re also really skeptical of Google, which for all its faults is, without a doubt, the single best deal for employees in the history of the world, at least since the time that anyone was legally or culturally allowed to…

this reads like a rant but I am not sure what it's ranting about. I've read it three times but I am still not sure whats going on. People having opinions? I read a lot of great advice (also about recruting) on HN and I don't really get why I should be concerned. Also starts with "Not to generalize" but then has a really wonky generalization.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#198

I had concerns earlier this year when I interviewed at WeWork—which was the worst interview experience I’ve ever had. I applied for a data science role. The first two hours of the on-site were painful—they seemed to be asking questions tailored to be outside my experience. The third interviewer came into the room and said, “I, uh, just looked at your resume and I have to ask, why do you want to be a backend engineer?…

WeWork is basically a real estate company. Why would they need a data science engineer?

Real estate is a data play: figuring out which locations are going to be valuable. McDonalds famously does tons of research on locations, so much so that "be mcdonalds-adjacent" is an acceptable strategy.

I'm not entirely sure what a data science engineer does, but somewhere between "making it easier for the DS team to find what they need to find" and "figuring out where we should buy/lease next".

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#199
post #156

I'm guessing the "Non-Executive Chairman" position will just be a temporary one until they can come to agreement on how much money they need to pay him to go away. Professor Galloway called this the other day. His next prediction is that We will sell off all the bullshit vanity projects like WeLive and WeGrow along with the other nonsense Adam bought (like the wave pool company so he can practice surfing at work). Th…

I don't think they will shut down WeLive. The entire premise of WeWork, and WeLive, is that they can sell you more than real estate -- they can sell you a "tribe." There are so many reports in recent years about growing social isolation and loneliness, that if something can be successfully packaged into a simulacrum of a community, it will be a hot item indeed. That's the only way WeWork can justify its stratospheric…

I'm sorry, but while there is some logic to the co-working idea, I don't see any serious demand for co-living. Quite frankly, I find the idea of having on-premise yoga instruction, cafes, bars, shared hot tubs, shared kitchens, etc. so you never have to leave your apartment building (except, presumably, to go to WeWork) to be absurd.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#200
post #156

I'm guessing the "Non-Executive Chairman" position will just be a temporary one until they can come to agreement on how much money they need to pay him to go away. Professor Galloway called this the other day. His next prediction is that We will sell off all the bullshit vanity projects like WeLive and WeGrow along with the other nonsense Adam bought (like the wave pool company so he can practice surfing at work). Th…

I don't think they will shut down WeLive. The entire premise of WeWork, and WeLive, is that they can sell you more than real estate -- they can sell you a "tribe." There are so many reports in recent years about growing social isolation and loneliness, that if something can be successfully packaged into a simulacrum of a community, it will be a hot item indeed. That's the only way WeWork can justify its stratospheric…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN