Live data from Hacker News

WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

reuters.com

131–140 of 347 posts

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#131

Semi related but Blue Apron will forever be my favorite IPO. 5 stock splits and 3 CEOs later, day one investors will receive roughly 2 pennies back for every dollar invested just 2 years ago. Only people who won were those who dumped free shares on the market (insiders), and maybe consumers for getting subsidized food of questionable quality. Once valued at 2 billion USD, a paltry 150 million will get the job done no…

Blue Apron and WeWork share a common problem, they’re viewed as tech companies, even when they’re clearly not.

Being tech companies means that they’re viewed as part of a group of companies who have pulled of billion dollars IPO, so they’re wrongly focus on “no less than the one billion”. Mentally the jump from 1 billion to 2 billion is also a lot less that the jump from 150 million to 1 billion, so why not go for 2 billion.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#132
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well people are actually using the offices so prices will go down if they backrupt but they'll catch up. It would feel like an adjustment and not a bubble bursting.

It's anecdotal but I've been in half a dozen WeWork properties in the last 2 months and I've yet to see one more than 50% occupied. There were a couple buildings in Seattle that seemed almost empty.

Despite all their shortcomings (and I have ranted about them on here a lot in the past), the seem to have close to a 100% occupancy in Berlin. It does often look like they are less occupied though (partial empty offices) because the claim of "you can easily move to a bigger office" isn't true and companies rent offices that are bigger than they need them to be.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#133
post #123
post #45

RIP Softbank Vision Fund 2.0

Delaying IPO buys some time for Sofbank. IPO with low valuation forces huge write-down for SoftBank. Now they can still pretend. I suspect that SoftBank & Saudi money will be the biggest casualty of current tech boom. They just throw money around.

In a world awash with negative interest rate investments, even loss-making enterprises are worthwhile. This may be the natural glide path at the end of growth: redistribution.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#134

WeWork is a real estate company and not a software company. They don't have any worthy propriety tech and their business model is collecting rent. How they were once valued at 47 billion just straight up doesn't make any sense.

I don't think big investors are that stupid. They don't think an office rental business is a tech business, that's just a really convenient story to tell. Because if it's NOT a tech company, you have to look at why it's worth so much and come to the conclusion that all the fundamentals point to. It's worth a huge premium because it's getting a monopoly. My suspicion is that WeWork thinks that they can use their scale to drive their landlords prices down the way Uber does to their drivers, and jack up the rent.

"We're going to really fuck anyone willing to do business with us" is not a compelling story for a company trying to grow, but it's great for investors. Also, I'm not just talking about the landlords and customers, you better believe the plan is for the lenders to get pennies back on the dollar too.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#135
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the tech they do have is crappy, error prone, and inconsistent. If they could figure out how to do printing without PCClient, now that would be a business worth 47B all on it's own...

Raspberry Pi + CUPS. Can I have some billions now?

If you're good enough at sales, probably.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#136
post #60

Recruiters from WeWork reach out to people with a pitch that they are unicorn tech company. They lose me with that line.

Not sure if I'm just young, but my friend's over 200k total comp would have made me think twice about an offer. It's not the highest, but seems fairly competitive in sf

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta say, I do hope Blue Apron survives. After all, if it goes under, who will sponsor the entire podcast ecosystem?

Zip Recruiter, until they fail also. I honestly use the ads in my podcasts as a way to know what companies not to invest in. Anyone want a used Quip toothbrush or some Me Undies?

Good thing you didn’t buy an Audible subscription, or use an Epson printer, FreshBooks invoicing, LastPass. Other podcast ads I’ve heard are for AmEx, Deloitte, LinkedIn, various conferences and educational institutions, and more. I agree that certain names always show up, but I’ve also been quite surprised over the years by who’s enlightened enough to advertise in podcasts. I’ll admit, though, I never did buy that Harry’s shaving kit. ;-)

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#140
post #138

The headline has been changed to "WeWork parent says IPO still on despite setbacks".

It's crazy how quickly we have come from newspapers having to print revisions and retractions to fix minor mistakes to an organization like Reuters changing an article to say the complete opposite thing in minutes.
Post reply on HN