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WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

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Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#191

Post by marcusverus »

slumdev wrote: post #89
jbob2000 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which new reality? The one where most of the population can read and write and where most hold degrees and diplomas? This isn’t the 1900s industrialization era, where employees were picked out of the farm fields to work in factories, having never gone to school. People are smart these days, layoffs aren’t as destructive as they used to be.

> layoffs aren’t as destructive as they used to be. Student loan debt cannot be discharged. Unsecured personal debt is at all-time highs. Nearly half of Americans have less than $1000 in savings. You are wrong.

Federal student loans are eligible for deferment during periods of financial hardships, including unemployment, for up to three years.

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/deferment-forbearan...

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#192

Post by cdolan »

Ivoirians wrote: post #118
JackFr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had gotten that level of sympathy as a software engineer at an investment bank in 2008. In fact, rather than sympathy, more often I was told I was the problem.

Not that I would personally blame you, but the collapse of WeWork hasn't directly affected peoples' jobs, home values, or retirement savings. The implosion of the company has left the rest of the world pretty unscathed.

It has not imploded because it was privately bailed out.

If it did implode (Ch 11 or Ch 7 BK) - it will start to have major impacts on the NYC and other real estate markets. It’s the largest lease holder in many cities.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#193

Post by landryraccoon »

neya wrote: 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.

I’m pretty neutral. Why does he deserve it less than the billionaire VCs who didn’t do due diligence before handing it over? I don’t see moral superiority on either side of the table from where I’m standing.

Besides by that principle his employees didn’t deserve to get paid either, since by your reasoning his employees were only paid by the fruits of fraud. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#194

Post by boernard »

dragontamer wrote: post #175
Justsignedup wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if your lifestyle doesn't require the full payment, you can think of it as a half-pay long vacation. I for one wouldn't mind being unemployed for 3 months.

> I for one wouldn't mind being unemployed for 3 months. A 3-month hole in your resume will be something you'd have to explain to your future employers for the rest of your life.

any place that would give me a hard time because of a 3 months gap in my resume is a place I'd rather not work at

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#195

Post by kmonsen »

rollerboi wrote: post #116
AlexandrB wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> was phenomenally successful at building a large, real business What? How? He built an 8b business with 16b in investment. Anyone can do that. Take 16b, put it in index funds, call yourself an investment bank. You'd get better returns than -50%, for sure.

Not just anyone gets 16b of funding to lose 50% on it. You need to be a very charismatic CEO - maybe borderline cult-leader status

I think you also need some "special" investors. In this case softbank appreciated the crazyness of the CEO.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#196

Post by gwbas1c »

p1esk wrote: post #123
stickfigure wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Events like this are the modern moral equivalent of the giant, gaudy, gilt-encrusted palaces of the 17th century. I think this vastly overstates it. Versailles cost some significant fraction of France's GDP - possibly as much as 25% in some years. WeWork's $10B is a mere drop in the US' $20T GDP.

Not to mention Versailles was built with taxpayers money.

It's not as straightforward with VC money. VCs have to answer to investors.

(Hopefully someone more knowledgable can chime in,) but I always thought VC was a mix of government, private, and institutional funds?

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#197

Post by dreamcompiler »

AlexandrB wrote: post #99
berberous wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really see why it’s his fault investors over valued his company — he believed in his own spin and was phenomenally successful at building a large, real business. This was not like Theranos where he was straight up lying about a product working — anyone could analyze the business based on the fundamentals, and investors seemed ever willing to invest at high valuations. The self dealing was reprehensible and ev…

> was phenomenally successful at building a large, real business What? How? He built an 8b business with 16b in investment. Anyone can do that. Take 16b, put it in index funds, call yourself an investment bank. You'd get better returns than -50%, for sure.

Or as Matt Levine might say, take the $16b, light half of it on fire, and put the other half under your mattress. Boom: You've just beaten negative interest rates.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#198

Post by mosdl »

kp98 wrote: post #142
neya wrote: 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.

I think you could consider WeWork worse than Thernanos in many ways. Far more people understood what was going on at the highest level, and when all was said and done Elizabeth Holmes walked away with nothing but criminal prosecution. Both screwed their investors, arguably Thernanos did worse, but investors prepare for potentially big losses. The employees on the other hand are all screwed: at Thernanos Holmes was th…

Didn't people pay for Theranos tests that lied about their abilities? That is way worse.

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#199

Post by p1esk »

SwiftyBug wrote: post #148
p1esk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the elite less protected in 17th century?

They ended up having their heads cut off, so, yes.

According to [1] there have been more revolutions in the last 10 years than in the entire 17th century.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebe...

Re: WeWork lays off 2,400 employees

#200

Post by JeremyNT »

berberous wrote: post #63
neya wrote: 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.

I don’t really see why it’s his fault investors over valued his company — he believed in his own spin and was phenomenally successful at building a large, real business. This was not like Theranos where he was straight up lying about a product working — anyone could analyze the business based on the fundamentals, and investors seemed ever willing to invest at high valuations. The self dealing was reprehensible and ev…

Ah yes, "if it's legal, it's not his fault." It's not "his fault" for the gross incompetence that lead to this outcome? Whose was it? I would suggest that it is in fact "his fault," but why would he ever have cared? He lacked any incentive to fret any potential negative outcomes for the business, since after a point he had assured that they all ended in him being astronomically wealthy regardless.

This sort of thing sends ripples across peoples' lives. Normal people (outside of the idle rich who can afford to waste money on speculation with effectively no consequences) do lose out when things like this blow up.

The lack of regulation and legal accountability here is shocking. The fact that regulation doesn't currently exist shouldn't be used as a justification for excusing the behavior of bad actors!

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