I'm just curious about something ... do WeWork employees work in their co-working spaces? Or do they have their own office?
WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
331–340 of 404 posts
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
Massive paradigm shift in office leasing.
Please elaborate in what was innovative here, their technical infrastructure seems to be nothing to write home about and well appointed office leasing has been around for quite some time. The social focus is indeed different but I wouldn't call that alone a massive paradigm shift.
The friction eliminated and expanded flexibility from normal office leasing was quite pronounced. Add to that a huge block of delighted customers. Not sure how you are defining innovation but there is clearly a lot going on there.
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 rig…
There’s a HUGE secondary market for Peloton bikes. There’s an extremely active Facebook group with these. They tend to sell within hours from what I’ve seen.
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternatively, never be too quick to attribute to stupidity when there’s a strong incentive for malice to take advantage of that attribution to hide itself.
Alternatively, never attribute to malice or stupidity what can easily be attributed to greed and lack of incentive.
Greed and perverse incentives.
"It'll do a bunch of deals that'll crater the company within 3 years, but I'll cash out $700mil on the way and be long gone before everybody who stays is trying to climb out of the glowing hole in the ground..."
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#335I'm just curious about something ... do WeWork employees work in their co-working spaces? Or do they have their own office?
I recently interviewed with them. They have their own regularly leased office spaces like the rest of us.
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has been super interesting listening to Scott Galloway blast WeWork and their business model on the podcast Pivot.
Would be great to remove Kara Swisher's self-aggrandizement and name-droppery and isolate Galloway's takes entirely.
God, Kara Swisher is perhaps the most annoying tech journalist on the planet. Her "analysis" consists of inserting random name-drops that are completely unrelated to the topic at hand and then regurgitating the analysis of smarter people without any additional value add.
It seems Kara Swisher's entire reason for existing is for expressing disdain. In any organization she'd be that political person who adds no value to projects but rises due to her expertise at networking and name dropping.
I much prefer the journalists on the Economist podcast and the people on The Weeds (Vox) and FiveThirtyEight.
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#337I see lots of cheering which, to some degree, I understand given the public persona of Adam Neumann. I'm more interested in the ramifications, and I don't just mean the obvious ones like "potential tech recession" (maybe, who knows) or "more due diligence" (unlikely, or if so likely to swing completely the other direction). Given that "private markets are the new public markets" I wonder if this will just encourage m…
Staying private longer in the face of capital markets skeptical of money losing businesses isn't much of an option. Eventually, in order for the private investors to make money, they either need to get profitable or go public. AirBnB is a poor example of staying private longer in these circumstances because they are profitable. [0] [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/15/airbnb-sustains-profit-as-it...
Could also go strategic exit or PE route, though former tricky to put together and latter tough on valuation
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#338Cannot understand how they can restructure this. Even one new building in London which isn't anywhere near structurally complete WeWork has taken 18 floors on a 25 year lease (I think due to open 2020 or 2021). Is there a way they can walk away from all these commitments? I understand they have a SPE structure which potentially allows them to do that, but I imagine there must be some costs or downsides to it, otherwi…
Pay whatever cost is in the lease in order to break it or go bankrupt and pay out creditors first. The building management will then either find a new tenant and/or enforce other components of the lease and sue for their money per the contract agreement.
I had also thought that they had set up some leases through their own legal structures so they could limit some of WeWork's financial liability from the lease.
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#339Literally an office landlord. What a joke.
Re: WeWork says will file to withdraw IPO
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
“There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.“ -Margin Call SV ran out of the first two because they are much harder. We are left with the dying gasps of companies trying the third way.
> or cheat This is called "Being disruptive." Basically, just ignore the law, but make sure you get enough workers and customers that love you so that they turn against politics when you break the law.
You seriously have a twisted and static view of what society should be.
You don't ask the question, why should an app like Uber be illegal? Why should taxi medallion holders have a monopoly on on-demand transportation in a city? To make hedgefunds rich?
Transportation across cities in North America sucked before Uber. You are completely delusional if you think pre-Uber and pre-Lyft cities were some kind of transportation mecca. It was horrible. I used to wait in the rain at UCSF for 30 - 45 minutes on the curb waiting and hoping for a taxi and finally just pitifully walking home getting drenched.
I love having a ride-hailing app and not having to waste money on a car or motorcycle.
I really think people that love static bureaucratic states should go live in France or some communist nation.
Uber and Lyft can't start up in a city if they have to wait for all the politicians and bureaucrats to give them an okay, when these people are bought and sold by unions and hedgefunds. Only delusional people think there's a path to disrupt that kind of logjam by waiting in line like a "good boy".