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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

#511
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this part of the business model of these large, unprofitable VC-backed companies? Build a valuation to meet the 8.1bn threshold, then sell the shares to passive investors in S&P 500 index funds?

No. The S&P 500 is selected by committe. And it's 6.1bn, not 8.1bn. Mabye that's the plan for the Russell 3000, though. But it doesn't really matter except when the stock gets added to the index. The index funds and ETFs are going to rebalance their positions based on market cap and will not affect the price. These funds could affect the volatility though, since it's conceivable that with a lot of the shares locked u…

Not true. [0]

>...Unadjusted company market capitalizations of US$8.2 billion or more for the S&P 500..... are required.

[0] https://us.spindices.com/documents/methodologies/methodology...

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a Walgreens that was closed in less than a year because of poor location despite being across the street from a Rite-Aid. They aren't perfect either.

Walgreens will happily close a location and move it across the street to take advantage of a more advantageously shaped curb cut if they can't get the Illinois Department of Transit planner to approve the optimal curb cut from their current location. This is because they have extreme confidence in their ability to assess the business impact of curb cuts. A market commenter who believes that Google is not one of the m…

I know of Walgreens locations that have been profitable for 50 years or more.

MacDonalds is similar. If they have a franchise that is doing badly, they will pay to move the franchise to a new location. A suburban McD closing is rare, usually only the oldest ones on lots that are too small for contemporary usage patterns.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#514
post #13

Earlier 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.

It's more about the type of hype than the literal place something is run from. WeWork was getting the same kind of 'change the world' and crazy valuations that tech companies get, the kind that assume the company will take over an entire industry.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#515
post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Clearly false as there is no regulation to prevent the formation of very large companies (anti-trust laws don't apply). In fact companies tend toward giant behemoths in part BECAUSE of government regulation. Small companies can't afford the enormous fixed cost of compliance the way large ones can. Regulations are a huge incentive for market consolidation and large corporations love writing new barriers to entry regul…

This is a good point. My wife's company has a team consisting of a lawyer and 3 paralegals whose sole job is to review their marketing offers just to ensure they are in compliance.Every state has different rules.

Smaller company would need a smaller team but even a single salary on the books just to comply is a large expense for a small business. Multiply this by other areas now such as licensing, insurance, etc. Just ensuring your every day work is not breaking the law becomes financially prohibitive.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#516
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…

> 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 operating independent coworking spaces? The answer to this question isn't obvious to me. An advantage I see as a customer is that I can go to any WeWork across the c…

I don't really see that use case. If you're in a different city, presumably, you're there to visit something physically located in that city. If not, why travel there? So during the day there's no need for an office. You'll be visiting the factory, client site, etc. that brought you there. For the rest of the time your hotel room comes with a desk and you can work there.

Sure, there's probably some need for temporary surge office space like a insurance company setting up after a disaster. But that seems a pretty small niche to build a billion dollar business on.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 personally see value in it and could even see myself as a customer, at least to try it for 6-12 months and see what it's like. Sounds like a good way to meet other young people with a bent towards tech That said, I don't know the details of the program so can't speak to its practicality in this instance. But considering it's wework, there's opportunity for a good vertical there. At its face it seems like sound corp…

Living in a company town earning company scrip to spend in the company store is an old business model and one that had never, ever gone well for the resident-workers. There’s even a word for it: serfdom.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#518
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Burger King's strategy for the longest time used to be 'just build across the street from McDonald's'

Sounds smart, let maccers do the research.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#519

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…

I'm not sure anyone is knocking the service WeWork provides. We have an office in there, managed to negotiate a great discount. Staff are happy in there. I wouldn't invest in it though.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#520

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…

Hacker News helped me decide to never work for WeWork by prominently featuring this[1] article on the front page [1] https://time.com/5338287/wework-meat-vegetarian-company-envi...

That's actually a good thing. Meat is bad for the environment, your health, and it goes without saying - the animals.
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