Live data from Hacker News

WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

cnbc.com

151–160 of 291 posts

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors did not do due diligence (unless there was fraud, but I have not heard of that). It is therefore not surprising AN got away with it. There are several companies with the same business model as WeWork that do not have nearly the same valuation (before all the recent hullaballoo, that is). There have been a number good articles about this topic in the WSJ lately. There is no reason to compare Adam Neumann to…

>Investors did not do due diligence One (likely in my opinion) possibility is they did, and they were betting they could find a bigger fool.

Hey, it's the bank's fault they approved a 20K credit limit without even checking my ID. They should've done their due diligence beyond seeing the credit score /s

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#153
post #17

I still can't believe this guy gets to walk away with 1.7 billion dollars just for building up fluff while all the people who helped him grow have dire consequences both financial and personal. Unbelievable that this guy gets a clean chit, and all this isn't considered criminal. This to me is almost at the scale of Theranos. Only, this guy was smarter in the legal side of things, perhaps.

You could look at this as a shifting of talent. Instead of those 2,400 people wasting their time managing short term office rentals for yuppies, perhaps they'll move on to more meaningful work! Some will start companies, some will join companies that provide more value to society, some will spend time with their families.

Life isn't Economics 101 where labour is perfectly mobile and comparative advantage can be activated instantaneously.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#154
post #39
post #17

I still can't believe this guy gets to walk away with 1.7 billion dollars just for building up fluff while all the people who helped him grow have dire consequences both financial and personal. Unbelievable that this guy gets a clean chit, and all this isn't considered criminal. This to me is almost at the scale of Theranos. Only, this guy was smarter in the legal side of things, perhaps.

Well if you define a market simply as a mechanism of wealth transmission from dumb people to smarter people then I think that Adam Neumann deserves every single cent of 1.7 billion dollars.

Free market always means someone gets suckered into building someone else's wealth, so

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#155
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Investors did not do due diligence One (likely in my opinion) possibility is they did, and they were betting they could find a bigger fool.

Hey, it's the bank's fault they approved a 20K credit limit without even checking my ID. They should've done their due diligence beyond seeing the credit score /s

Your statement doesn't make sense to me. If you're claiming that this WeWork situation is similar to someone fraudulently obtaining $20,000 by claiming they are someone else, I have to disagree because there has been no misrepresentations in the WeWork saga that I am aware of.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#156
post #143

If I'm Neumann, I'm taking 200-250 million dollars of my 1.7 billion in winnings and giving it away to the laid off employees (about 90k each). Imagine the positive press you could drum up about yourself! All while keeping 1.5 billion dollars!

Why?

> Imagine the positive press

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#158
post #124
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being laid off gets you unemployment. Quitting doesn't.

It's not between sticking around or quitting. They could have gone out and found a new job. One that presumably pays more than unemployment and quite possibly given the current stage of the economic cycle, more than their current job.

It's not that easy to find a new job while working full-time.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#159

What on Earth is WeWork doing that requires TWELVE THOUSAND PEOPLE!? Holy fucking shit

WeWork has not only been in the business of running offices, they have been in the business of _producing_ new offices at scale. They have contracted and built out over 800 locations within 9 years. Probably 100-200 a year as of late - which requires a horde of lawyers, real estate people, project managers, area managers, recruiters and so forth. They even have their own factory for (cheap and shitty) tables and chairs. If every office location has 1000 seats, we are talking 100k tables a year.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#160

If I'm Neumann, I'm taking 200-250 million dollars of my 1.7 billion in winnings and giving it away to the laid off employees (about 90k each). Imagine the positive press you could drum up about yourself! All while keeping 1.5 billion dollars!

Well he's not you, so he's keeping 1.7 billion. No one cares at large. Investors actually respected Shkreli, and the masses don't even remember who that is. Just cover your legal bases lol
Post reply on HN