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WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

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Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#281

Post by mandevil »

komali2 wrote: post #171
metalliqaz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I had a remarkably intense series of frontend... ish interviews for a really difficult to define project. As in, I was working very hard in the little 5 minute slices of time I got for "do you have any questions" figuring out just wtf the job was and what the team was doing, and nobody could really explain it. It was some sort of "connectivity and identification team" working to identify people/customers/tenants/what…

"WeWork used [a sensor network that tracked everyone throughout the building combined with machine learning] to learn that people drink coffee in the morning so they should hire a barista."

Source: https://twitter.com/modestproposal1/status/10855834347880202...

Sounds like a reasonable use of tens of millions of dollars of VC money.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#282

Post by chrismarlow9 »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #264
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #206

Earlier 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.

There is ton of demand for what they provide, but what they provide can easily be copied, and the copycats will not have a mountain of debt/investment caused by irrational drive for growth at any price that they need to pay back. Right now, no-one is competing against We because they are selling a dollar at 60 cents to their customers. The second they stop doing that, there will be a dozen clones. We is worthless.

This is my thought. It's about real estate. If starbucks decided to go full throttle into this concept they would kill it. They've essentially been the unwritten king of co-workspace since they showed up.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#283

Post by pb7 »

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 understand and support your frustration, but what exactly makes it unfair? The two have little in common. Computer engineers aren't taking your jobs.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#284

Post by klodolph »

gwbas1c wrote: post #217
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #206

Earlier 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?

> What's the benefit to a large corporation doing this instead of lots of small companies?

From what I understand, WeWork is structured as many small companies, so they can negotiate favorable terms with long-term leases on office space and the smaller company can fail without leaving WeWork on the hook for the rest of the lease.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#285

Post by icelancer »

kerkeslager wrote: post #111
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #26

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.

Shrug. Takes two to sign a lease. The commercial landlord knew what they were getting into.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#286

Post by lpellis »

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…

Hackernews is skeptical of many things though, sometimes hard to filter through the noise.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#287

Post by mrguyorama »

RandallBrown wrote: post #133
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else would they be able to determine that people like to drink coffee in the morning? https://twitter.com/modestproposal1/status/10855834347880202...

I mean, that's not what the writing said at all. The data said that the line for coffee was too long, so they hired a barista to help out with the line.

I think the tweet is really pointing out that offices all over the world have managed and figured those things out without building out a complex sensor network and platform for 50 years.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#288

Post by j_shi »

paggle wrote: post #156
DebtDeflation wrote: post #18

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…

This is the bull case for We that justifies a stratospheric valuation: it is the extranational life infra and connection market maker for the otherwise hyperalienated worker of tomorrow -- where corporations have surpassed "legacy" social and political units of organization and identity.

Where the valuation came down to earth was when public investors evaluated We as an incrementally better office rental company, and didn't buy the idea of We as creating and monetizing a religion.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#289

Post by scott_s »

gwbas1c wrote: post #217
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #206

Earlier 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?

In addition to the advantages others listed, I think a big advantage of a large corporation is risk management. If you're a "small" company managing a handful of buildings, and something catastrophic happens to one of those buildings, that could threaten the company's existence. More so if those handful of buildings are in the same city, and all suffer from the same event (flood, hurricane, earthquake, etc.). A large company managing hundreds of buildings spread across the entire country would more likely be able to handle a one-building catastrophe.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#290

Post by bduerst »

likpok wrote: post #198
metalliqaz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Precisely - Real estate boils down to financial operations on assets that have a number of factors and signals that go into predicting market prices. This also includes demand for commercial space.
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