101–110 of 126 posts
Does Softbank have more than ~$10bn to lose here, or is that it? Are there any extra liabilities they've underwritten? I loved the article, but even if it were valued at $0, would that decimate and "shutter" the Vision Fund?
Written months before the wework stuff started coming out: https://capitalistexploits.at/hold-my-beer/
The medium post linked to in Galloway's article is also a good read - https://medium.com/@henry.hawksberry/is-we-work-a-fraud-5b78...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brand is worth something. WeWork offices are designed to be appealing to young people (free beer, group activities etc) which makes it appealing to businesses. Also in real estate location, location, location is a differentiator.
No more free beer: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/31/18049142/wework-bee...
Really, The whole booze on tap in the work environment never made any sort of sense to me. It seemed like a short-term recipe for poor productivity (I could be wrong though) and worklplace conflict, and a long-term recipe for lawsuits 10 years out when alcoholics sue for their work environment facilitating or causing their condition. (yes, it's happened before, breweries used to allow it, but stopped)
I’d also argue that WeWork isn’t necessarily optimized for remote work e.g. they are optimizing for longer term office tenants who buy the actual offices and not just a hot desk because those make more money and it’s a more reliable source of income. If true remote work becomes a bigger reality then you’d expect to see a greater share of workers who only need a hot desk and not one of the glass cubes, which have smal…
AirBnB has network effect for the huge market of "a place to sleep at while travelling". This requires matching customers with providers frequently, and the same customer will use the same platform and a different provider.
Uber has the same for "a car to take me somewhere". Again, repeat customers, different provider every time.
WeWork seems to be... a company that runs coworking and office spaces. What advantage does it have over any other company that runs coworking spaces? Why would a customer choose them over any other coworking space/landlord in a city where they want a coworking space/office? Most customers don't make that decision often enough for WeWork to benefit from any sort of lock-in/network effect. Why do/did people ascribe more value to WeWork than to a random collection of coworking spaces with the same square footage? (Did they?)
As I was reading and reached: > To be clear, I’m not a journalist, nor a forensic accountant. Forensic accountant?? That reminds me of Snow Crash: > When she says, "Do you have any relatives in Afghanistan?" that's like a code phrase, it tells all of her spook gear to get ready, shake itself down, check itself out, prick up its electronic ears.
Forensic Accounting is A Thing: https://www.acfe.com/career-path-forensic-accountant.aspx
The last WeWork I went into felt super impersonal. If I was to be a solo freelancer, I’d have to work somewhere communal because I hate working at home, but WeWork doesn’t have the vibe of coworking. More like ultra-cubicles where talking to other people is even harder. Second, there is definitely a question mark on companies that have their main office at WeWork, like “this is temporary until we actually make money”…
I know they are known for hot desks and all, but that actually accounts for very little of their square footage. For a solo freelancer it is a nice to have. But have 6 people and growing, then it’s a different world. Hard to find places that aren’t WeWork. Get to 14 and growing still, and you are doing leases for expected size (say 65) and a long term lease. So you are getting much more than needed. Then you grow fas…
Granted, if you need truly flexible amount of space on a sub-yearly basis (both up and down), WeWork or other co-los are a better model despite the huge price premium, but I genuinely don't understand the demonization of the traditional office leasing market that WeWork supporters bandy about.
The last WeWork I went into felt super impersonal. If I was to be a solo freelancer, I’d have to work somewhere communal because I hate working at home, but WeWork doesn’t have the vibe of coworking. More like ultra-cubicles where talking to other people is even harder. Second, there is definitely a question mark on companies that have their main office at WeWork, like “this is temporary until we actually make money”…
I know they are known for hot desks and all, but that actually accounts for very little of their square footage. For a solo freelancer it is a nice to have. But have 6 people and growing, then it’s a different world. Hard to find places that aren’t WeWork. Get to 14 and growing still, and you are doing leases for expected size (say 65) and a long term lease. So you are getting much more than needed. Then you grow fas…
Unfortunately the real estate market (outside of a few key players) has struggled to change their offerings away from rigid fixed terms to accommodate the need for flexibility.
Their long term business models and predictions were based on the revenue streams from those rigid terms, but the segment of the market which requires flexibility above all else is growing fast.
However, that demand only had access to office space which specialised in the flexible office space market, meaning your choices are limited to providers which shove you in a generic box room, until you need to move to another bigger generic box room.
To square that circle, we launched FLEX by SquareFoot, where we work with clients to pick the terms of their lease with all of the concerns you listed, but without having to restrict their choices to providers which specialise in flexible solutions.
It's our way of exposing a lot more commercial real estate inventory that in the past required rigid commitments to the growing segment of the market which needs the flexibility.
https://www.squarefoot.com/blog/why-we-launched-flex-by-squa...