Could this be a turning point in the current tech bubble ? Might be a good opportunity to bring valuations back to sane levels before things get too extreme and damage lots of livelihoods.
Except that WeWork is not a tech company
WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
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Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#232My interview with WeWork was for a dev role.. Recruiter emailed me a 'homework' assignment. This homework assignment was basically work they needed to get done and offed it on candidates to finish.. I noped out of that pretty quick.
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely just another failed tech bro pump 'n dump scheme headed to the dustbin of history. I seriously doubt that. I think they're overvalued too, but I predict WeWork is still going to be around in another decade. There's clearly a ton of demand for what they provide.
> but I predict WeWork is still going to be around in another decade. There's clearly a ton of demand for what they provide There's also a TON of rent-a-desk places. The big questions are: - What's the benefit to a large corporation doing this instead of lots of small companies? (The economies of scale need to outweigh the large corporate overhead.) - What's WeWork's secret sauce or first mover advantage?
Another value of their large network, WeWork has relationships with large companies (like Amazon) to manage satellite offices across the country. Some of those are just a corner of a WeWork carved out, and some of those are entire floors of office buildings that WeWork handles administrative, custodial, and break room for.
I don’t know how much that impacts their profitability or value as a company, but it feels like a very cloud computing model of work space where you get what you need where you need it, so that you can have local employees in cities across the country to serve customers there.
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't include the economics of the business model in the evaluation, you could say exactly the same of Juiceroo. There's clearly significant demand for juice presses.
Not a valid comparison -- Juicero didn't really manage to sell its product, while many people and companies rent WeWork's space
Sure, but that's because the economics of the specific way that the business model doesn't make sense is different for the two - with Juicero, they attempted to screw over the end user, while with WeWork they were trying to screw over (public) investors.
Edit: or to borrow a popular saying - with WeWork, it's not the furnished rental office stuff that is the product, it's the IPO.
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#235I can just imagine Prof Galloway taking victory laps and talking about how the big dog is awesome !
https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux https://twitter.com/JordanBitterman/status/11765494016213483...
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#236I 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?
Why do taxi companies like Lyft and Uber need so many engineers? And why have they been utterly helpless to improve rider experience?
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I would have gladly lived in such a place from age 22 to ~28.
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
WeWork has been an obvious fuckup to even casual observers for years, if people inside the company couldn't see this I really don't know what to say.
I can see how their leadership is a bit bush league and they are potentially overvalued, but it’s not obvious to me that their basic value proposition sucks or is that far off the mark.
They sell things for less than cost at scale, what basic value proposition is that? Read that S-1, it's an absolute hot mess.
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were always a real estate company, they just didn't get to IPO under the SV hype because as it got closer people looked closer at the company and realized the valuation was ridiculous and the CEO was lining his own pockets acting as landlord to his own company. Now that that's happened and it's all come out he has to step down.
Why "SV" hype? WeWork was founded and HQd in New York.
"SV" isn't just a place. It's a state of mind ;)
Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I predict WeWork is still going to be around in another decade. There's clearly a ton of demand for what they provide There's also a TON of rent-a-desk places. The big questions are: - What's the benefit to a large corporation doing this instead of lots of small companies? (The economies of scale need to outweigh the large corporate overhead.) - What's WeWork's secret sauce or first mover advantage?
>What's the benefit to a large corporation doing this instead of lots of small companies? (The economies of scale need to outweigh the large corporate overhead.) I like this way of thinking. WeWork isn't doing anything "new" - coworking spaces have existed for years. What's the upside of having a giant corporation owning all coworking spaces, versus having many small and independent small businesses running and opera…
> What's the upside of having a giant corporation owning all coworking spaces, versus having many small and independent small businesses running and operating independent coworking spaces?
Advantage to customers? Likely minimal.
Advantage to the company itself: economies of scale and, likely more importantly, lack of competition allowing them to increase prices.
The very clear trend across all sectors is that companies trend towards giant monopolistic behemoths unless some very strong regulatory force prevents it. People act like healthy, competitive, transparent markets just appear out of thin air, but they are an artificial creation of government.