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WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#211

Post by ameister14 »

Havoc wrote: post #51

Author makes some good points but also comes across as quite aggressive himself. The entire article is just throwing shade on everyone in sight from their choice of clothing to their timing on the fraud boat...

It's interesting to me that so many people are picking up the clothing thing as mean - he literally said: "The new business model will be to beg investors to give money to the new co-CEOs, who will radically change the company by wearing suits to investor presentations instead of ill-fitting t-shirts."

That's not really saying 'look at this idiot in his ill-fitting t-shirt' it's saying 'this system supports snakes, and whether they wear suits or an ill-fitting t-shirt, they are still snakes.'

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#212

Post by [deleted] »

rchaud wrote: post #200
dehrmann wrote: post #186

I got halfway through, but I'm stopping. There's some valid points in here, but I don't find the author credible. > If you know Dimon’s actual reputation, him getting suckered isn’t surprising. Jamaie "doesn't give a shit about Bitcoin" Dimon. So he won't just hop on any bandwagon. > [Masayoshi Son is] an owner of Sprint, and he’s currently trying to force an illegal merger of Sprint with T-Mobile Not sure how it's "…

What the rich and powerful say in public is often different from what they do in private. People at Dimon's level are absolutely invested in crypto, they're just quiet about it so they don't spook the markets. Warren Buffet often spouts folksy sounding wisdom like "I don't like businesses I don't understand", and then talks about Heinz Ketchup or General Mills. But at the end of the day, he extended Goldman Sachs a $…

[deleted]

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#213

Post by legitster »

CitizenKane wrote: post #208
legitster wrote: post #35

> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…

I hope this doesn't get entirely buried at this point, but I think you bring up something interesting with driving marginal costs down. Ostensibly both Uber and Lyft are doing the same thing, but with the item that will bring the marginal cost down being self-driving cars. They've both bet big in order to capture the market, because it's likely that whoever owns the market before that transition will own it afterward…

I'm not sure if there was any thought beyond "make it really big and figure out details later".

It's certainly interesting. But I am doubtful about the self-driving cars being a factor. There are at least 4 companies developing the technology and there is really no indication that it will prove a barrier to entry at this point.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#214

Post by spookthesunset »

CitizenKane wrote: post #208
legitster wrote: post #35

> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…

I hope this doesn't get entirely buried at this point, but I think you bring up something interesting with driving marginal costs down. Ostensibly both Uber and Lyft are doing the same thing, but with the item that will bring the marginal cost down being self-driving cars. They've both bet big in order to capture the market, because it's likely that whoever owns the market before that transition will own it afterward…

Not to pick nits, but gambling your business on self driving cars being just around the corner is nuts. They aren’t gonna happen for decades, if ever. We may well have teleportation before self driving cars because it turns out that solving teleportation is easier...

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#215

Post by lwb »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #30

This doesn't excuse WeWork being excessively unprofitable but low or negative returns don't directly imply anything "Counterfeit". I like to point out that low or negative real returns on stores of value have historically been the norm. Before financial systems existed, almost all investment had negative returns if you didn’t put work and energy into them. To store value, you had to accumulate stuff, buildings or lan…

His assertion here is that "Endless money-losing is a variant of counterfeiting". I just don't see how that claim stands up to any real scrutiny. Counterfeiting is a totally different thing.

To your point about negative real returns: just because it's been that way in the past doesn't mean that it's not a tragedy or that it's not possible to have reliable assets that keep their value over time. This is an especially desirable quality in currencies, and why gold and now bitcoin are so important.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#216

Post by MaysonL »

janee wrote: post #78
legitster wrote: post #35

> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…

> with the idea of profiting later on via the surviving monopoly I don't understand...if you undercut your competitors so you're the sole survivor, I don't see how profiting is a obvious end result. When you return prices to market value wouldn't competitors just appear again. Is predatory pricing really such a bad thing, I'd assume the market would just corrects itself later?

Go look at the history of Diapers.com, now owned by Amazon.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#217

Post by spookthesunset »

polygotdomain wrote: post #72
legitster wrote: post #35

> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…

>Amazon saw what the marginal costs could be, and had a specific roadmap to drive investment into bringing them down. WeWork fundamentally has no way to drive down the margin on real estate in any meaningful way. Especially as a lessee. It absolutely has a way; hold landlords hostage. They've got another WeWork 4 blocks away. WeWork can walk, and leave landlords with a lot of space to lease and an expensive buildout…

Dunno why the downvoted but I’m glad somebody is willing to argue why it is a good idea WeWork leases all their offices. To me it seems nuts, but I am more than happy to hear arguments for why it makes sense.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#218

Post by munk-a »

legitster wrote: post #199
RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article I referenced boils down to dismissing fears of online privacy invasion as alarmism. Exploring his own site's dependencies, Ben concludes that the third parties phoned home to for every visitor are probably harmless. He recommends that discourse focus on striking a balance between technology being convenient and secure, and not worrying too much. This essay reflects a profound failure of imagination with r…

Wow. That is a SERIOUS mischaracterization of the article and his conculusions. The third parties in question were services like Stripe (since he monetizes with subscriptions, not advertising) or Cloudflare. His whole point was he takes privacy seriously, but fundamentalist policy punishes good and bad actors equally. But even all that aside, by your own words, it's not his treatments of the facts but his failure to…

Except that using CDN services is a privacy hole in itself - I don't know whether Cloudflare[1] currently collects or sells tracking data on usage (including referrer information) but there is definitely a technical capability there and no legal impediment. If they don't do it now then whenever a vulture capitalist scoops them up you can be sure they'll start.

1. To be clear, I am specifically referring to cloudflare because it's the service under question. I have no opinion on Cloudflare or knowledge of any specific and current privacy issues.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#219

Post by tamasnet »

luckydata wrote: post #194
askafriend wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ben is one of the greatest thinkers in technology writing today - period. You're only depriving yourself of an important perspective in this case. He's open to arguments and is extremely reasonable. If you're only looking for writing that agrees with what you already believe then you might be disappointed, but if you're looking for extremely thoughtful thinking on strategy and technology then you won't find anyone be…

I think Ben is one of the greatest writers, I'm not so sure about thinkers. It's pretty easy to sound smart in a very carefully calibrated format where you get the Monday morning quarterback things that have happened after you set all the rules for the game. He's said a few interesting things but how much of what he writes can you use to make better choices yourself? Almost nothing.

Who do you recommend reading for more actionable insight?

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#220

Post by spookthesunset »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #165
iamkroot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do private investors need protection? Why can't they be held responsible for the foolishness of their actions?

What would it take to convince you that unregulated markets lead to fraud? Are events like 2008 and dotCom bubble unimpressive to you?

Don’t forget crypto currency. Massive* unregulated market that is probably 99% fraud.

*of course because it is completely unregulated we have no real way to determine if it is truly a “massive” market or just a relatively small amount of people painting the tape with wash trading....

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