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WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

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Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#21

Post by magashna »

rrdharan wrote: post #16
joshstrange wrote: post #2

Does anyone here on HN use WeWork spaces and enjoy them? I'm not suggesting they are bad, I honestly don't know. Ignoring the business model, the CEO, the failed IPO, do YOU or do you not enjoy that actual offering of WeWork?

Turns out most of us enjoy any exchange in which we receive goods whose value far exceeds what we pay for them. Same reason I love cheap ride share trips[1] and NYC ferry rides[2]. I'd probably really enjoy winning the mega millions jackpot with a $5 ticket too (though perhaps not? [3]). [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjew8/were-all-killing-u... [2] https://ny.curbed.com/2019/3/28/18285731/nyc-ferry-swimming…

Who knew venture capitalists would unknowingly fund this socialist dream?

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#22

Post by keltex »

lordnacho wrote: post #20

Perhaps someone in the property business can illuminate something for me. I read somewhere that WeWork runs each site as a separate business. Can this really be true? It would seem to allow them to let each entity go bankrupt, which doesn't seem to be a sensible thing for the landlord to want to expose himself to. Sure he gets the building back, but you'd think there's then no advantage to renting it out to WeWork, s…

Don't know for sure but they might run each one as a separate business but have the parent company guarantee the rent. I don't think many landlords would sign long expensive leases otherwise.

[Edit] Actually looks like the parent company only guarantees a small percentage of leases:

https://allwork.space/2019/08/wework-guarantees-a-small-port...

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#23

Post by AgloeDreams »

remarkEon wrote: post #8
sasper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been fantastic for our fast-growing SaaS startup. We've been able to spin up offices in 4 international cities in the last 18 months with very few issues, and our teams are productive and happy with the spaces. I manage one of the new offices and have LOVED the responsiveness of the local WeWork team, the facilities, the infrastructure, and it's lightyears better than the previous office we were occupying. I don…

It seems like the value that they are offering is just outsourced-office-management then. Am I wrong in thinking that? It's hard for me to parse what WeWork was "trying" to become. A real estate company that manages offices? An office management company that also does real estate?

Management, location, and community. Hospitality. Basically, Wework is a hotel for awake business-focused people, with all the tweaks needed to make that work. It's kinda why Arlo SoHo NYC (hotel) reminded me of one. The real estate line never made much sense to anyone who ever was in one, I think Bloomburg started it. (Though real estate was the business that Adam used to screw everyone so, maybe that was his personal business lol)

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#25

Post by AgloeDreams »

youngtaff wrote: post #15
xwdv wrote: post #10

Can’t wait to see WeWork crumble. If they had done an IPO I was hoping to open up a short position. If WeWork does run out of cash, I’ll be pulling money out from my tech stocks and holding cash for a while.

Don't understand your linkage to tech stocks… WeWork are a property company

I think their comment is a little apocalyptic but I can say that wework going under could possibly trigger a large number of mid-small-size startups losing their spaces and possibly ending up out of business.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#26

Post by jbigelow76 »

lordnacho wrote: post #20

Perhaps someone in the property business can illuminate something for me. I read somewhere that WeWork runs each site as a separate business. Can this really be true? It would seem to allow them to let each entity go bankrupt, which doesn't seem to be a sensible thing for the landlord to want to expose himself to. Sure he gets the building back, but you'd think there's then no advantage to renting it out to WeWork, s…

I did some consulting once for a company that managed rooftop space for building operators to lease to telcos and what not and it was totally normal one company to "own" multiple buildings but for each building to be its own LLC.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#27

Post by tedmiston »

joshstrange wrote: post #2

Does anyone here on HN use WeWork spaces and enjoy them? I'm not suggesting they are bad, I honestly don't know. Ignoring the business model, the CEO, the failed IPO, do YOU or do you not enjoy that actual offering of WeWork?

I have used WeWorks on occasion when traveling and was always happy with the offering. Currently I use the major local coworking space when I need one or a coffee shop. If there were a WeWork in my city, I would consider it again.

There aren't tons of them, but I really prefer the Galvanize coworking spaces [1] -- the crowd is a more diverse mix of people, and they feel more laid back to me.

[1]: https://www.galvanize.com/entrepreneur#campuses

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#28

Post by cpwright »

joshstrange wrote: post #2

Does anyone here on HN use WeWork spaces and enjoy them? I'm not suggesting they are bad, I honestly don't know. Ignoring the business model, the CEO, the failed IPO, do YOU or do you not enjoy that actual offering of WeWork?

Our company has a 9 and 6 person office in NYC. The space is clean, there are conference rooms available when we need them, and mostly everything works well enough. We mostly don't care about any of the community stuff, just that it is an effective way to get space without a long term lease or the need to worry about an office build out.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#29

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

remarkEon wrote: post #8
sasper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been fantastic for our fast-growing SaaS startup. We've been able to spin up offices in 4 international cities in the last 18 months with very few issues, and our teams are productive and happy with the spaces. I manage one of the new offices and have LOVED the responsiveness of the local WeWork team, the facilities, the infrastructure, and it's lightyears better than the previous office we were occupying. I don…

It seems like the value that they are offering is just outsourced-office-management then. Am I wrong in thinking that? It's hard for me to parse what WeWork was "trying" to become. A real estate company that manages offices? An office management company that also does real estate?

The bet behind WeWork is that there's a ton of value currently being left on the table in outsourced office management; that everyone's doing it wrong, and doing it right is worth untold billions of dollars.

I'm not sure I can get behind that bet, but it's not an inherently absurd idea. Imagine explaining to someone in the early 70s why Wal-Mart is going to grow from a Southern department store chain to the largest company in the US.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#30

Post by ben_jones »

cgh wrote: post #24

I don’t understand how this company employed 1500+ programmers, PMs and data science people. What did they do? I guess not much, as 500 of them got laid off recently.

Analytics, logging, "Artificial Intelligence", the latest Fad in devops/application development, System administration duties, help desk duties, hiring/interviewing duties (you don't get to 1500+ without A LOT of this!), the refactoring after the clusterf* of using the latest Fad in devops/application development.

"BIG" data pipelines, managing an Elasticsearch cluster, PM for the design of app 1, PM for the design of App 2, (for probably dozens of apps), QA teams, Design teams, Localization teams, Accessibility teams, SEO and marketing automation teams, teams to build out their CRM, and the all important management layer to interface all these teams together!

This, this ladies and gentlemen, is how Silicon Valley changes the world.

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