Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 404 posts

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#31

Post by [deleted] »

bjtonline wrote: post #13
dcchambers wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many engineers does WeWork actually employ though? From everything I've read on here they're not really a tech company. I can't imagine that, even if it all goes up in flames, there will be many SWEs looking for new jobs from this. Uber is another story. They've got a sizeable engineering force.

WeWork has done a significant amount of hiring in New York City for SWEs with very generous compensation, and honestly hasn't really had much for them to do.

[deleted]

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#32

Post by meritt »

cj wrote: post #9
Hongwei wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even simpler: it's fraud and they got caught. Hopefully it doesn't paint other great IPOs in a bad light.

> Hopefully it doesn't paint other great IPOs in a bad light. Are you thinking of any in particular? Attention toward IPOs (especially on HN) go almost exclusively to bad IPOs. Fair offerings seem to get ignored. Edit: Peloton is one that comes to mind. Nearly $1 billion in sales, up 40% YoY. Although even they are posting a net loss of a quarter billion.

Zoom [1], Cloudflare [2], and Datadog [3] had a fairly warm reception on HN and they're solid companies with high gross margins.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19465860

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20706702

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20781610

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#33

Post by Ozumandias »

S_A_P wrote: post #19

What I don't understand is how do things get this far down the road before a good old fashioned sanity check happens? I have got to think that Soft Bank knew/knows the valuation was off. The fact that they pushed on means they either intended to try and get away with it/take the money and run as I cant believe incompetence is the reason here. How did this get so far along??? As for Adam N, I have to think some part o…

Your first paragraph reminds me of the "Go Fever" phenomenon associated with the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_fever

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#34

Post by mikestew »

roland35 wrote: post #10

Wow what a huge rise and fall in the past few weeks! What I don't understand is how the S-1 filing ever saw the light of day? How could nobody reviewing that see any of the red flags that were obvious? I think this just shows how hard it is to be objective when there are so many cultural/financial/etc influences affecting your judgement. Obviously their team bought the hype (and as a sad Browns fan I can totally symp…

How could nobody reviewing that see any of the red flags that were obvious?

The Emperor's New Clothes is not just about rulers and their fashion choices. I've caught myself doing the same thing with much smaller investments that are rolling over tits up. I wanna believe, because the alternative is most unappealing ("You were wrong, Mr. Mikestew, and you are going to lose money on this. Most of it, in fact.") So I'm guessing when reviewing the S-1 when your financial testicles are lying on the block, you can easily skim right over the uncomfortable parts.

Of course, the rest of us with no financial stake, or other incentive to look at the S-1 with only one eye, look and ask, "WTF?"

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#35

Post by puranjay »

S_A_P wrote: post #19

What I don't understand is how do things get this far down the road before a good old fashioned sanity check happens? I have got to think that Soft Bank knew/knows the valuation was off. The fact that they pushed on means they either intended to try and get away with it/take the money and run as I cant believe incompetence is the reason here. How did this get so far along??? As for Adam N, I have to think some part o…

It's amazing how they could even delude themselves into thinking they're a tech company.

The only "tech" part of WeWork is their app and related community. Which is a ghost town used mostly by businesses to spam their services to uninterested members.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#36

Post by puranjay »

dcchambers wrote: post #6
mharroun wrote: post #4

Incoming layoffs... between wework and uber the market will be "flooded" with talent. I wonder if having wework on your resume is a good or bad thing.

How many engineers does WeWork actually employ though? From everything I've read on here they're not really a tech company. I can't imagine that, even if it all goes up in flames, there will be many SWEs looking for new jobs from this. Uber is another story. They've got a sizeable engineering force.

I honestly think Uber has over-invested in engineering. The problem they're trying to solve isn't so complicated that it needs their current engineering force. They don't have to add new features at as rapid a pace as a true software-focused company like, say, Stripe.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#37

Post by inscionent »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #17
ixtli wrote: post #12

I feel bad for the stary-eyed kids one year out of college that are going to get mass fired. They're all really young and naive :/

Hopefully they'll learn something from it. Losing a job really isn't the end of the world if you don't have a mortgage and a family (which will be the case for most entry level hires).

Losing your job is never the end of the world; no matter your indebtedness to a bank.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#38

Post by Hongwei »

harryh wrote: post #23
Hongwei wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even simpler: it's fraud and they got caught. Hopefully it doesn't paint other great IPOs in a bad light.

In order for something to be fraud there has to be deception. This was never the case with WeWork.

I think the shenanigans they were pulling (crazy governance, conflicts of interest enriching the founder and wife, bad acquisitions) were obvious to the HN and analyst community, but possibly they hoped it would be over the heads of retail investors.

Now obviously, in this case, it was too blatant and stunk bad enough that even retail investors shied away.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#39

Post by axiak »

S_A_P wrote: post #19

What I don't understand is how do things get this far down the road before a good old fashioned sanity check happens? I have got to think that Soft Bank knew/knows the valuation was off. The fact that they pushed on means they either intended to try and get away with it/take the money and run as I cant believe incompetence is the reason here. How did this get so far along??? As for Adam N, I have to think some part o…

I think the pure tech plays in 2019 are doing just fine. Zoom, Cloudflare, and Datadog all look like good companies. They're just not over-hyped and overinflated.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#40

Post by oillio »

S_A_P wrote: post #19

What I don't understand is how do things get this far down the road before a good old fashioned sanity check happens? I have got to think that Soft Bank knew/knows the valuation was off. The fact that they pushed on means they either intended to try and get away with it/take the money and run as I cant believe incompetence is the reason here. How did this get so far along??? As for Adam N, I have to think some part o…

After a while living in an echo chamber of yes-men, you start to believe your own bullshit.

Also, valuations are so nebulous and ungrounded in reality at this point. Who is to say what anything is worth. You put something out there and someone is willing to pay billions for it, who are you to say that isn't the right value. There are a lot of problems to pin on Adam, I don't think the valuation is one of them.

Post reply on HN