Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 551 posts

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#271

Post by hobofan »

jamestimmins wrote: post #28

I get the impression that SoftBank learned the wrong lesson from Uber. While Uber also raised billions of dollars and had a CEO get forced out by investors, it was broadly understood that his sin was creating a toxic/sexist culture. It wasn't related to business fundamentals, per se. WeWork's sins were less of rampant sexism, and more closely related to an unreasonable valuation and a business that wasn't prepared fo…

> it was broadly understood that his sin was creating a toxic/sexist culture. It wasn't related to business fundamentals, per se.

So it had nothing to do with:

- General disregard for regulation

- Blocking regulators from the plaform via Greyball

- Corporate espionage - Waymo vs. Uber

From my impression at the time he was forced out primarily because of actions like those last two (only few of many), because they have the potential to cost Uber serious money (sexism sadly not so much).

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#272

Post by jen20 »

munificent wrote: post #240
cj wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 compani…

The advantage to me with Spaces (which I believe is owned by Regus) is that I can do guest co-working in any city they happen to be present - and since I travel extensively, the bigger the network the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Sadly WeWork do not appear to offer this option (or didn't last time I looked).

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#273

Post by [deleted] »

88840-8855 wrote: post #253
ngngngng wrote: post #17

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 must say, I am jealous. It seems a bit unfair to me how computer engineers are getting hired and paid so well, while my economics degree is useless and I have to fight like crazy to get a job that pays WAY less than engineers get. Honestly, I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well - that was one of the key criteria - and now I am standing with little money and a job I hate. It sucks.

[deleted]

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#274

Post by dang »

an_opabinia wrote: post #182

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…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21062373 and marked it off-topic.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#275

Post by warent »

88840-8855 wrote: post #253
ngngngng wrote: post #17

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 must say, I am jealous. It seems a bit unfair to me how computer engineers are getting hired and paid so well, while my economics degree is useless and I have to fight like crazy to get a job that pays WAY less than engineers get. Honestly, I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well - that was one of the key criteria - and now I am standing with little money and a job I hate. It sucks.

I'm a software engineer and I wrestled with this for a long time too. It seemed bizarre that we should be getting paid what we do and I had an intense experience of being an imposter. Eventually it clicked with me that the work I'm doing directly affects millions of people on a daily basis, or it affects a smaller number of people in a big way that's unique and hard to reproduce. Viewed from that angle, it makes a lot more sense I think.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#276

Post by ben509 »

joshpadnick wrote: post #210

I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this, but I actually just signed up to be a (thankfully month-to-month) WeWork customer for a HotDesk today in Phoenix, and it's actually been a pretty great experience: Great space, nice people, reasonable IT, I was up and running and working within 30 minutes of doing my tour. And yes I've had a cup of the famous We Kombucha. This particular location just opened 3 weeks ago and is ap…

My company was in WeWork for roughly 2017.

I had your initial impression, it does look good and you can certainly get up and running quickly.

But after a while, my feeling was that it really seemed to be poorly thought out as an office space. I get the appeal of natural light, but you were looking right at your neighbors. The hardwood floors look great, but everyone with heels is banging away, and there was generally no soundproofing.

So many decisions seemed to prioritize looking hip over being functional.

And the details weren't well done. Their tech platform, their attempt at social media, the printers and space reservation and such, all look nice at first and then you realize how unpolished they are after using them for a while.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#277

Post by ngngngng »

syedkarim wrote: post #263
88840-8855 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must say, I am jealous. It seems a bit unfair to me how computer engineers are getting hired and paid so well, while my economics degree is useless and I have to fight like crazy to get a job that pays WAY less than engineers get. Honestly, I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well - that was one of the key criteria - and now I am standing with little money and a job I hate. It sucks.

What originally led you to believe that an economics degree would result in well-paying jobs?

Seems ironic to me that the study of wealth production, consumption, and transfer wouldn't lead to making money.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#278

Post by tjbarkley »

88840-8855 wrote: post #253
ngngngng wrote: post #17

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 must say, I am jealous. It seems a bit unfair to me how computer engineers are getting hired and paid so well, while my economics degree is useless and I have to fight like crazy to get a job that pays WAY less than engineers get. Honestly, I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well - that was one of the key criteria - and now I am standing with little money and a job I hate. It sucks.

Why do you think it seems a bit unfair?

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#279

Post by warent »

icelancer wrote: post #260
88840-8855 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must say, I am jealous. It seems a bit unfair to me how computer engineers are getting hired and paid so well, while my economics degree is useless and I have to fight like crazy to get a job that pays WAY less than engineers get. Honestly, I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well - that was one of the key criteria - and now I am standing with little money and a job I hate. It sucks.

I was an dropout studying Economics who made the transition into data science / data analysis fairly smoothly. I'd recommend doing so. Many programmers are jealous of quantitative analysts' salaries inside tech companies. EDIT: I guess I should add I really did not care for the work and stopped after 2-3 years to start my own company. I do a lot of the same work today, but as the Founder, I obviously control the comp…

I think it's worth noting that there's a lot more to it than just the money. Sure, data scientists make more than I do as an engineer, but I would feel absolutely fucking miserable doing the job of a data scientist every day.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#280

Post by icelancer »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #199
paggle wrote: post #156

Earlier 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.

This is a successful sector of real estate leasing in NYC amongst well-paid, 20-somethings. It's definitely not absurd (as far as the market thinks).
Post reply on HN