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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

#41

Post by fredley »

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?

Fancy space, lots of perks, terrible place to get stuff done. Glass walls mean everywhere is loud, you can hear everyone's phone calls on the entire floor. Desks were wobbly, offices cramped.

Once they hired a steel band to play in the reception area for most of Summer (as part of a branded event(?) called 'The Endless Summer of We'...). Bonkers.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#42

Post by markstos »

mchristen wrote: post #35
jbigelow76 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This seems to be a common practice. My parents live in a highrise that has construction defects and it took years to extract money to repair the building because the LLC that sold the building to the condo association had no cash or assets anymore.

My accountant advised our business to setup a separate business to own the building we wanted to buy. It silos the liabilities of each. Also, you have some flexibility in how much you charge yourself for rent. Depending on which company might owe more taxes, you may want to adjust that rate up and down. In our case, the property business outlived the primary business turned out to be another benefit of decoupling them.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#44

Post by reustle »

ben_jones wrote: post #30
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…

Totally agree, but I guess this is how they tried to brand themselves as a tech company and not just an office space provider.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#45

Post by yeahigotgoats »

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 dont mind at all when foolish 'investors' give me free money

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#46

Post by dustinmoris »

vraivroo wrote: post #36
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.

The comical thing is how often their systems are down. When I was in a WeWork we used to get free coffee all the time because they couldn't accept payments at the moment.

Coffee is always free at WeWork. The one from the machine as well as from the Barista.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#47

Post by qsymmachus »

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.

Careful! It's easy and fun to make fun of WeWork for calling itself a "tech" company, but we might be throwing rocks in glass houses.

How many of us are currently working at """tech""" companies right now?

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#48

Post by codesushi42 »

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.

I am even more baffled that 1500 engineers accepted an offer at a company that's clearly a fraud. And it would have taken one Google search about their prospective employer to have seen this.

If you work at or did work at We, what was your reasoning? Did you have any?

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#49

Post by bpt3 »

sasper wrote: post #19
rrdharan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

WeWork is the most expensive option in our city for managed offices, by a large margin. It's not cheap.

Have you tried to negotiate? If they have any competitors, they'll beat those prices just by asking in my experience.

Re: WeWork chases new financing as cash crunch looms

#50

Post by ganitarashid »

eric_the_read wrote: post #33
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 just visited my boss in a WeWork space in San Jose, and it is the closest thing I've found so far to my idea of hell. The offices there have a unique combination of feeling exposed (from all the glass everywhere) and claustrophobic (from the tiny offices everywhere).

That is hilarious. Best description yet that I’ve heard of the WeWork vibe
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