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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

#531

Post by JohnFen »

lmm wrote: post #529
JohnFen wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "no, it's a WeWork and that's good enough for me". Surely that's got to be valuable to that tenant company. Probably, but that knife does cut both ways. I know a number of people (including myself) who wouldn't be willing to use a WeWork facility again.

Oh, interesting. Anything in particular I should be watching out for? (Though I've taken the job so I'm committed for now)

Well, it's not a matter of whether WeWork is good or bad, it's a matter of what you're comfortable with.

Among the people I know who dislike WeWork, there are two main things that they complain about: the surveillance, and the actual environment.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#532

Post by _edo »

hinkley wrote: post #526
_edo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could serve a lot of people, it's probably easier. Sell something for $10 that's worth $12 to the buyer and costs you $8 to make. Repeat a billion times. The people you did business with got an extra $2 billion, you got $2 billion, everybody's better off.

To paraphrase what others said: that’s a great way to become a multimillionaire, but to get to a billion you have to step on a lot of toes. I think Bill Gates observed that your quality of life doesn’t really change after about 50 million. Even with inflation, by the time that’s a billion, billionaire won’t be what people target. Hell, 40 years ago people dreamed of being millionaires. Inflation adjusted that’s only…

You realize that a billionaire has almost nothing to do with their money but invest it in better equipment or people? That's what investing is and that's what billionaires do with their money.

So on the front end the billionaire had to give more than a billion dollars of value to society in order to get people to voluntarily do business with them. Then on the back end they have to turn around and invest most of that money back into society. In doing so they're shouldering the burdens of market research, diligence, and risk.

Society wins twice from this and in return the billionaire gets to spend a lot of money. Society wins there, too, because the economy benefits from their ridiculous spending.

Does this work perfectly? Absolutely not, but nobody has a better system that I've seen.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#533

Post by the_watcher »

JJMcJ wrote: post #513
patio11 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chipotle's former CEO (and I believe founder) often mentions that Chipotle's time under McD's ownership hammered home that the single most important element of the company's success was excellence in real estate. It's also why getting a McDonald's franchise is generally very expensive - they'll give you as de-risked a location as possible and a proven operational playbook. It's not easy to run a franchise at all (you have to be available on days your manager calls in sick, deal with vendors, inventory, etc), but you don't need to figure out the business model at all.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#534

Post by rconti »

eclecticsceptic wrote: post #453
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their criticism of just about anything rings hollow since two of the hosts basically hate just about everything associated with money and capitalism, despite their staggering ignorance of many corners of it. Their guests and Anna Szymanski are the only non-embarrassing parts of the show for me, but I still eventually just gave up and stopped listening.

I think you've got that backwards. Anna is an unabashed capitalist who refuses to criticise even the shadiest goings-on in finance, start-ups etc. Felix and Emily seem to have a good nose for nonsense, like wework.

Well, it looks like we've covered both sides of the arguments :)

I guess my take is somewhere between these two comments. I sometimes hate the way it feels like Anna plays a "contrarian character" no matter what, and yes, Felix and Emily can sometimes be a bit too.. "NPR do-gooder, feel-gooder" for my taste. But I really enjoy the show regardless. It's a saturday morning long-run staple for me.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#535

Post by opportune »

goatinaboat wrote: post #517
opportune wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except you’re not employed by them, you’re just renting office space and potentially living space from them. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to; I am interested in it for the social aspect of it and the 0 commute

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#536

Post by Judgmentality »

rwmurrayVT wrote: post #82
human20190310 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point do these deranged estimates start damaging the credibility of the estimators?

It would seem like never. Matt Levine had another interesting take on that as well. [0] >... Well, I just got through saying that there’s not really any reward for being pessimistic and right about valuation when you are pitching an IPO. Your optimistic competitors will get the mandate, and then spend some time walking the company back ... On the other hand it is a repeat game and there are occasionally penalties for…

Your link is 404'd for me. Googled and couldn't find it either.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#538

Post by edmundsauto »

vcxy wrote: post #507
edmundsauto wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that useful to say they aren't perfect. The better measure would be how they compare to other stores, and/or how their own churn rate has changed over time.

This also misses the point. The point was that optimizing for number of stores closed is the wrong metric to begin with. Who cares how they rank on a metric that doesn't matter?

The original point wasn't that # of stores closed is an optimization problem, but that it was a valid way to judge the abilities of the people making the decisions.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#539

Post by Zanneth »

_oqcu wrote: post #523
Japhy_Ryder wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're being ridiculous. We're literally evolved to eat meat. _Excess_ is bad for your health (such as drinking 1 liter of vegan olive oil).

There are plenty of cultures around the world who have been surviving on a plant-based diet for centuries. Saying we’re “evolved to eat” anything is what is ridiculous.

Re: WeWork’s Adam Neumann Steps Down as CEO

#540

Post by JJMcJ »

the_watcher wrote: post #533
JJMcJ wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chipotle's former CEO (and I believe founder) often mentions that Chipotle's time under McD's ownership hammered home that the single most important element of the company's success was excellence in real estate. It's also why getting a McDonald's franchise is generally very expensive - they'll give you as de-risked a location as possible and a proven operational playbook. It's not easy to run a franchise at all (you…

McD requires franchise holders to be involved in day to day operation, and the investment is quite large, well north of 1 million.
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