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WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

mattstoller.substack.com

361–370 of 440 posts

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#361
> Adam Neumann is not “quirky,” he is not “charismatic,” and he does not have “an unorthodox leadership style.” He is an untalented and abusive monster who lies to get what he wants. And he was given an unlimited credit line from which he could legally steal.

'Charismatic' is often a trait found in sociopaths. I'd say Adam IS charismatic, but that is often a problem - charisma charms people and blinds them to the bad parts.

> Time to Restore Honest Capitalism

It takes a long time to scale something, and it inevitably loses money in the beginning. How do we tell the difference between 'counterfeit' companies and real ground-breaking concepts?

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Humans can drive cars, but not teleport. Driving cars is definitely easier.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree with the last pint, people completely tend to ignore the effort and attention to detail Amazon puts into executive and planning. That plus a very sound strategy. Also Amazon was profitable, even if just barely, for the most time while growing appr. 20% constantly. Not comparable to, say, WeWork from what I know. But it shows how powerful that narrative can be.

I'm pretty sure Amazon was profitable all along - it's just that the profit was all spent on expanding the business. Hence, there was no taxable profit. Amazon was also able to make money selling products at little or no markup by taking advantage of the float. They'd collect money from the purchaser immediately, and would pay the vendor after 90 days. Then, Amazon would make interest on that money for the 90 days. I…

I worked for a book publisher from 1998-2002

At the time Amazon relied on huge 'subsidies' from the book publishers, they had huge trade debts, but the publishers couldn't afford to pull the plug as they'd loose that revenue

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#365
It should have been obvious to any layman that WeWork is a house of cards. My previous company moved into (what I think was) the first WeWork in East London in 2016. There is now 15!! I know they have empty floors in some of these buildings as current company got moved due to a rat infestation. If this isn't a flimsy facade I don't know what is

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Amazon was profitable all along - it's just that the profit was all spent on expanding the business. Hence, there was no taxable profit. Amazon was also able to make money selling products at little or no markup by taking advantage of the float. They'd collect money from the purchaser immediately, and would pay the vendor after 90 days. Then, Amazon would make interest on that money for the 90 days. I…

> Amazon was also able to make money selling products at little or no markup by taking advantage of the float. Amazon's margin for a long time was rorting the tax system, something they enjoyed via federal regulatory capture. Their competitors were paying state and local taxes. They weren't.

(Dict, for convenience - that's a good word, mate ;-)

rort - verb - AUSTRALIAN/NZ

gerund or present participle: rorting

engage in sharp practice.

- [...]

- work (a system) to obtain the greatest benefit while remaining within the letter of the law.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#368
post #250
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bookstores provide a lot of service value, a decent bookstore will allow you to find similar material, allow you to browse as you please (instead of the skimpy sample pages), usually contain an expert that can offer advice and allow you to walk out with your purchase. Additionally it's common to see a heavy effort at investing in the atmosphere. Amazon has succeeded at beating bookstores in none of these categories -…

> Bookstores provide a lot of service value, a decent bookstore will allow you to find similar material, allow you to browse as you please (instead of the skimpy sample pages), usually contain an expert that can offer advice and allow you to walk out with your purchase. Additionally it's common to see a heavy effort at investing in the atmosphere. The key part is “decent”. Outside of the “walk out” part, none of thes…

So much this -- and it applies not only to bookstores but to retail in general. So many times I've thought "I should give these retail shops some support"; I go looking for something particular I want, spend several hours of my own time only to come up empty-handed because nobody had what I wanted in stock. Example: I read about some really cool Etymotic musician's earplugs. I thought great, there's actually an instrument store near my work. Walked there; nope, none in stock. Or reading about one of those induction cooktops. Went to my local big-box electronics/appliances retailer. Nope, nothing. Pretty much anything that's even slightly niche, it seems like retail just doesn't have it.

As for books in particular - Kindle wins hands-down on convenience and portability for me, over bookstores (the 'walk-out' part is definitely covered). In my particular case, as I'm vision-impaired, Kindle ALSO wins hands-down on usability, because I can make the text any size I want. That's important enough for me that it can mean the difference between actually being able to read a book and not being able to read it.

I think I have 451 Kindle books. I can carry all of those in my pocket on my phone or in my backpack on my tablet, if I want. That's another huge advantage.

I should probably mention that given all that, I _still_ like physical books! I remember walking the aisles of Borders, but that was because they were huge and they had books in the niche I was looking for. I fondly remember a small bookstore that used to specialise in software development and IT books and they had a great selection of game development books. I used to love that place! For me though, that was all before I got a taste of the convenience of Kindle. Getting the book is worth more to me than stopping and having a nice coffee at the bookstore.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#369
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not paying sales tax on mail order was the norm. The time period you're talking about, Amazon, and the internet in general, hadn't penetrated to the general public. 1995-96 was just when a small minority of people were waking up to the idea they needed to be on the internet and getting their first direct PPP dialup account. People still went to physical book stores because, for one thing, you couldn't preview a book…

> Not paying sales tax on mail order was the norm. You're forgetting that mail order wasn't the norm--even if you ordered from a catalog you picked it up in person at the store. So, not collecting tax on mail order wasn't a big deal until Amazon flattened bookstores with it.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and the claim simply isn't true. My family mail-ordered all the time, and it was nearly always delivered to the house.

I get that it feels neat and tidy to say that Amazon and Uber had the same growth model of skirting regulations, but the facts don't match that.

This doesn't mean that Amazon is good--I think that what the effect of what they've done to retail is awful. But using Uber as the key piece of a kind of Godwin's Law doesn't really help matters.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#370
WeWork has no franchising business model nor is it acting as a middle man like Uber that pushes the risk to the users of the platform. Instead it is the worst of both worlds. They lease the office space and basically resell it at a loss.
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