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WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

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211–220 of 274 posts

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#211
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is success making lot of money for yourself. Or building a business that in general makes money and world a better place. That is generates societal wealth.

The most fucked up thing I heard is about people investing in artificial wombs. You want to know the actual reason they’re doing this? It’s not because some restrictive laws were passed or to keep the physical toll low on the mom, etc. maybe it is, but that would be found in the marketing slide. “We are too generous with how much leave we offer” Everything is to extract as much value out of everyday things as possibl…

What does an artificial womb have to do with parental leave? Mothers already spend historically low times recovering in hospitals post delivery.

Parental leave is about bonding with the child and providing care for it while it is especially vulnerable. That's why it is called parental leave- some countries and a growing number of companies offer it to fathers as well.

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most fucked up thing I heard is about people investing in artificial wombs. You want to know the actual reason they’re doing this? It’s not because some restrictive laws were passed or to keep the physical toll low on the mom, etc. maybe it is, but that would be found in the marketing slide. “We are too generous with how much leave we offer” Everything is to extract as much value out of everyday things as possibl…

As predicted in the final episode of Max Headroom, titled Baby Grobags. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4jl2mm I don't know if it's the best intro to the series, it was the final episode in fact.

TIL that George R R Martin wrote an unproduced "Xmas" script from the cancelled second season.

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#213
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most businesses do not "make the world a better place". It was a mistake to ever believe that it's realistic that every business can do that and really only served the egos of those who have uttered those words. Most businesses are providing a service or a product, that thing may be useful, but there's a pretty high bar from that point to "making the world a better place".

Well, for their customers they are making the world a better place. Given there's no absolute standard for that, people wanting your product or service so much they'll pay you money for it is about the best measure we have.

Well, in that case, WeWork definitely was a better place for a bunch of creatives and entrepreneurs in NYC and other cities.

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#214
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy a stock for 100 dollars, and due to a series of bad results which led to price adjustments, the stock is now worth 1 dollar, you lost 99 dollars. Nobody else picked up those 99 dollars. Asset depreciation is a fundamental concept that you should be familiar with, as it influences several aspects of your personal finance: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/depreciation.asp

In order for the stock "price" to move, somebody sold. Stocks don't reprice without transactions.

[deleted]

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#215
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is personal. If your goal is to increase the amount of wealth for everyone then go for it. With that said, remember the following. While the economy is not zero sum and we can increase the amount of wealth in the world, power is zero sum. Power is finite and very scarce. You can create tremendous wealth and later find out it ended in the hand of a single person. And that person is not willing to share.

On your deathbed, is “I made so much money and earned so much power” really going to be satisfying? As opposed to family/charity/invention/politics/etc. Not a rhetorical question, honestly curious what you think

For me, it will suffice. I grew up without it and I made it and my family will enjoy it. All else is secondary.

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is personal. If your goal is to increase the amount of wealth for everyone then go for it. With that said, remember the following. While the economy is not zero sum and we can increase the amount of wealth in the world, power is zero sum. Power is finite and very scarce. You can create tremendous wealth and later find out it ended in the hand of a single person. And that person is not willing to share.

So would you have considered Bernie Madoff successful?

He was successful, then failed. The two are not mutually exclusive.

He clearly set out to make a lot of money with his scheme, and he did that successfully. Then he failed.

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#217
post #95
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specially because those offices were so noisy you could never get any work done. Best places however for finding a date... "What people actually do at WeWork" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292423

Coworking in general is a hideous working environment. The offices are fishbowls. There's no privacy. It's worse than open plan offices, because at least at the office, everybody works for the same company. The only times I've found decent coworking spaces, they've been ad-hoc affairs to make use of an old building on cheap real estate. No software startups, nobody chasing VC money, no espresso machines, no free snac…

There is a cowoking place well hidden near my home. It has 3 quite passable conference rooms, 6 "working bays" where you can use with a laptop in a very uncomfortable way, and a free desk at the side of those bays.

It looks like the perfect place to do a meeting and go away, and indeed it looks like people do use it that way a lot. Also, you can rent it at the moment, without any planning. I imagine it's successful.

It is indeed not the kind of place you want to go to do quiet work. But spaces leading to quiet work are plentiful anyway.

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#218
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As predicted in the final episode of Max Headroom, titled Baby Grobags. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4jl2mm I don't know if it's the best intro to the series, it was the final episode in fact.

TIL that George R R Martin wrote an unproduced "Xmas" script from the cancelled second season.

Holy moly, I don't know how I never knew about this.

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2017/03/30/max-headroom-...

Mine was supposedly to be… hmmmmm, let me see now… the fourth episode of the series. My title was “Mister Meat.” Now, TV writing in those days was a two-step process: “story with option to teleplay,” they called it. You wrote a ‘story,’ a short plot outline with all the major beats and characters. Then, when the showrunners, studio, and network all approved it, you went on to write the teleplay.

“Mister Meat” never got that far, alas. The showrunners and my fellow Maxxies loved it, as I recall, but when ABC saw the story they reacted with horror. Way too disturbing and offensive, they announced, driving a spike firmly through my concept and sending me on my way. Which I why I never got hired onto MAX HEADROOM and wound up on staff on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST instead.

I got a second chance when MAX was picked up for a second season, however. As a freelancer, I got the choice assignment of writing the Christmas episode. And this time I went to town. Wrote the story, rewrote the story, wrote the teleplay, revised the teleplay. “Xmas” was the title of the episode, and it got as far as pre-production…

And then the show was cancelled. Rather suddenly and unceremoniously, I must say. America was spared from celebrating Xmas with Max.

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Uber's losses are deliberate at this point, like Amazon's lack of profit. If you look up their losses per journey it's something completely trivial like 50c. Uber's customers are not that price sensitive so if they really did want to make a profit they could probably just raise their prices a little bit.

It's actually profitable https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1543151/000154315123... But I think the consensus is that (unlike Amazon) there is no more scale for them to reach which would make their business model profitable enough to justify the valuation - their only route to large profits is to destroy the rest of the competition and raise prices. "On Monday morning, an Uber from Manhattan to JFK Airport was $…

But that won't work will it. Here in Karachi, when careem (the rideshare company uber bought) raises prices, you just have two other ride share companies (bykea, and indrive) undercut it.

You can make cabs dissapear, but copycats are a paradox because you are "validating" their business model with your "success", so they will cannibalize you

Re: WeWork has frittered away $46.7B in value as the stock sinks below ¢50

#220
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is personal. If your goal is to increase the amount of wealth for everyone then go for it. With that said, remember the following. While the economy is not zero sum and we can increase the amount of wealth in the world, power is zero sum. Power is finite and very scarce. You can create tremendous wealth and later find out it ended in the hand of a single person. And that person is not willing to share.

On your deathbed, is “I made so much money and earned so much power” really going to be satisfying? As opposed to family/charity/invention/politics/etc. Not a rhetorical question, honestly curious what you think

You mean my cryogenic freezing chamber, and that's not cheap.
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