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WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

reuters.com

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Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#61

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

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…

In many enterprises people know that sh happens. But saying so is usually a career limiting move.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#62

Post by i_am_proteus »

axiak wrote: post #39
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.

The smoke and mirrors plays need mass hype/media blitz to "succeed." The companies that actually add value only need to market to the audiences for which they're economically relevant.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#63

Post by mtgx »

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…

Because everyone involved in the IPO would have benefited from making the company public?

Powerful incentives are a hell of a drug.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#64

Post by joezydeco »

myth_buster wrote: post #15

I'm just impressed by how well the fallout has been predicted by Scott Galloway[0] and Matt Levine. Has been an incredible learning experience for me on the unicorn class in general. Looking forward to unicorn report for 2019 [1]. [0] https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux [1] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/03/20/the-unicorn-ipo-r...

Yeah, it's pretty impressive in this day and age that someone read the S-1.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#65

Post by claudeganon »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #62
axiak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The smoke and mirrors plays need mass hype/media blitz to "succeed." The companies that actually add value only need to market to the audiences for which they're economically relevant.

Spot on. Many of these companies have devolved into little more than pump-and-dump schemes for executive compensation. All that’s undergirding them are their BS “disruption” and PR narratives, gobbled up and regurgitated by the media.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#66

Post by sk5t »

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.

> Peloton is one that comes to mind

Is it not possible that both investors and the public will find the shine off the apple of pairing two independently somewhat unattractive things--a stationary bicycle and a hefty monthly fee--as used models start to hit the secondary market?

Have you ever tried to sell a used stationary bicycle? It ain't easy! The evidence of the gulf between good intentions and regular use is right there.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#67

Post by appkate »

kossae wrote: post #59
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not knowledgeable in this area, but I think it's telling that SoftBank is the same people who gave a dog walking startup a 300M valuation: https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/30/on-demand-dog-walking-app-...

Note, the _investment_ was 300M, meaning the valuation was actually higher than that! According to Crunchbase: > Wag has a post-money valuation in the range of $500M to $1B as of Jan 30, 2018 according to PrivCo.

I'm not surprised they are pivoting to a cat-walking startup to get a higher valuation.

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#68

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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 :/

> They're all really young and naive

And now they'll be a little less of each.

The lessons they can learn from this experience could put them ahead of the pack. We have an entire generation that knows nothing but post-crisis bull markets. When the next downturn comes, those tempered by bad experiences have the opportunity to position defensively and react nimbly. (Or at least more defensively and nimbler than their peers.)

Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO

#70

Post by goatinaboat »

goobynight wrote: post #52
scandox wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you mean flooded with "talent"?

The people at these companies actually handling individual contributor level execution are pretty talented. It's just that the plan/model they work under is not sustainable.

Cultural fit is so important these days and every one of them was a cultural fit at an extremely shady company. Even if they weren’t participating in the rampant excesses, they were still willing to go along with it.
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