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‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

theguardian.com

71–80 of 95 posts

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#71

Adam Neumann jacked $10B in funding from dumb, rich, foreign investors (SoftBank). Over 80% of that money was pumped into salaries and domestic real-estate deals. Why are people mad about this? Dude is a modern Robin Hood -- a national hero. Let him keep the $1.7B change.

[deleted]

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#72

SoftBank and their investors deserve this. SoftBank wanted to take wework and jam it on the stock market, then pull their money out. They knew this company was trash, they are no better than Adam Neumann. Congrats to Adam for exposing and exploiting softbanks attempts to exploit the USA stock market. In the end this will stop future cases of investors trying to jam garbage companies into the public markets, essential…

There are no good guys here. Neumann, by taking money from SoftBank, was completely complicit. He knew his financials, he knew the company was a flaming dumpster, he knew he had no plan to fix it, other than buying a wave pool company and assigning his family to high-level positions. You really think if the company had gone public, Neumann would have what, stepped up and said "see, this is why we need to add more inv…

The easiest person to con is a con.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#73

I don't have the sources for this atm, but I heard last night that SoftBank doesn't actually have the $9.5B it needs in funding to secure its controlling stake in WeWork. Which means the guy hasn't gotten his $1.7B yet. So Softbank needs funding to buy out the controlling stake in WeWork. They're reaching out to Japan's largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ, for that $9.5B. As of last night, MUFJ refused to lend money to Soft…

What dominoes might Softbank topple?

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#74
post #7
post #2

The guy is getting $1.7bn. That is gluttonous. To put that into perspective, if you took even just $100m and divided it among the 1,000 workers laid off each one would get $100,000. Yet they get nothing. And this one man gets $1.7bn from a company that isn't even healthy enough to survive while nickle and diming janitors who get paid $24k/year. This is what late stage capitalism looks like.

Turns out the neoliberal startup crowd who downvoted you doesn't want people calling out this glaring problem. Edit: ah, here they are to come downvote me

"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(Regardless of my agreement or disagreement with your points otherwise.)

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#75
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in Italy, I believe it used to be a crime to mismanage a company such that people lost their jobs. Anyway, such large job losses would trigger a criminal probe.

In Italy, I believe it used to be a crime to mismanage a company such that people lost their jobs. On an unrelated note, Italy has never had a tech startup worth a billion dollars.

Three tech firms make the list of Italy's top-ten export companies:

- Telecom Italia (telecommunications services): $83.6 billion, up 12.5%

- Atlantia (infrastructure, mobility networks): $48.7 billion, up 17.3%

- Leonardo (aerospace, defense): $30.1 billion, up 12.4%

http://www.worldstopexports.com/italys-top-10-major-export-c...

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#76
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WeWork still has a ton of customers and rapid growth. I think their eyes were bigger than their mouths when it came to expanding offerings into unrelated nonsense and they were being extremely undisciplined in their spending, but the business is still extremely viable. The new leadership are taking a giant ax to all the excess to get it over with and then can rebuild from what is still a very strong base. It will tak…

I can sell dollars for $0.90 each and have a tremendous amount of customers and growth.

Ah yes. The Moviepass model.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Capitalist but I approve this message. There has to be a sense of morality somewhere even when running a company. I truly believe that a company can make great profits while taking care of its people. I also believe that it is ok for the initial risk takers like founders/CEO to make a hell lot more money BUT not by destroying other people's lives. I don't think any private company should have any interference…

> I don't think any private company should have any interference by the Govt. BUT every founder/owner/CEO should think about their people first. This amounts to an ideological viewpoint, however it doesn't map to reality. If the government doesn't step in, the worst of the worst will sift up to the top, and the most complacent will sift to the bottom. It's how things naturally fall into place. Exploitative people in…

> consumer protection or corporate protection

Pick one. Couldn't have said it better. This is what people ALWAYS have to remember. And as a reminder, the corporation will always take care of the corporation.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. I don't know why you are getting downvoted, capitalism in its present form is clearly broken. The payout sum here is ludicrous, it is certainly not justified in terms of value created for society. This money has to come from somewhere and ultimately the common folk will be paying the price.

Isn't the money coming - if it comes - from SoftBank? Would it be better for the common folk if they kept it?

Better for our pension funds, yes. The stock price of SoftBank has halved in value over this event. I'm expected to fund my old age using stocks.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think any private company should have any interference by the Govt. BUT every founder/owner/CEO should think about their people first. This amounts to an ideological viewpoint, however it doesn't map to reality. If the government doesn't step in, the worst of the worst will sift up to the top, and the most complacent will sift to the bottom. It's how things naturally fall into place. Exploitative people in…

> consumer protection or corporate protection Pick one. Couldn't have said it better. This is what people ALWAYS have to remember. And as a reminder, the corporation will always take care of the corporation.

I think it depends on the size and nature of the corporation. For a small bootstrapped private company (I run one), I always think about taking care of employees along with making a profit. For us, customers come second because I have the freedom to decide that (no outside board/investors to answer to). So I would say it depends. Corporation is not just about taking care of the corporation. There can be a middle ground even though I agree that a corporation is not a charity and the goal is obviously to make money. I personally don't believe in "Profits over people" even though I have the freedom to believe and act accordingly. perhaps once you get VC funding and the hockey stick growth pressure, all that goes outta the window ?

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#80
post #2

The guy is getting $1.7bn. That is gluttonous. To put that into perspective, if you took even just $100m and divided it among the 1,000 workers laid off each one would get $100,000. Yet they get nothing. And this one man gets $1.7bn from a company that isn't even healthy enough to survive while nickle and diming janitors who get paid $24k/year. This is what late stage capitalism looks like.

in Italy, I believe it used to be a crime to mismanage a company such that people lost their jobs. Anyway, such large job losses would trigger a criminal probe.

Wonder how that played out IRL

if the company made a bad hire and kept that person around does that count as mis-managin? What if they had to fire them to save the company?

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