Live data from Hacker News

WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

cnbc.com

141–150 of 150 posts

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#141
post #14

In my opinion the writing for a way out of this mess has been on the wall for a long time now, post-Covid. This is with the only viable, but still heavily under-utilized product they have left: hot-desking and community workspaces. Having rented multiple dedicated offices from WeWork I can attest that the corridors are become more and more like a post-apocalyptic landscape as the tenants — no longer taking advantage…

Interesting. If companies are fleeing WeWork, it might explain a phenomenon that I've noticed over the past couple months: every cafe in my area has increasingly become a loud crowded hellscape of video chats, in-person meetings, phone calls, and groups working together for hours.

This is especially apparent on Tue/Wed/Thu, when previously cafes were recently less busy, due to these days commonly being in-office days for hybrid workers.

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#142
post #135

Honestly surprised WeWork is still around after that documentary on it in 2021

i've never even heard of it before so i doubt it's very mainstream

Fair point! It did win an Emmy and is distributed by Hulu though so it’s not super fringe.

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Neumann’s ability to negotiate such rich terms was helped by the fact that his shareholdings controlled 10 times the votes of a normal shareholder, and he was able to argue for a higher price to cede control." Correctly or, more likely, not - it seems the payoff was made in early 2021 at a time when valuations were soaring and there was a renewed push for an IPO. Neumann could have blocked that. If I'm parsing a qui…

> A snapshot at that time could be used to argue they paid Neumann $x00 million to realise a multi-Billion dollar valuation and $1Bn+ growth in market cap. This makes no sense to me. Why would you pay hundreds of millions of dollars to someone for a paper valuation and market cap? It was all meaningless.

Not meaningless, just temporary in a way they didn’t forecast.

Imagine you could buy a house for $200,000, live in it for a year, and then sell it for $1M. Would you take that deal, even if you didn’t like the seller?

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#144

I do not understand why Adam Neumann got that massive exit settlement from We Work? > WeWork founder Adam Neumann received $245m in company stock [....] In addition to the $245m grant, Neumann received $200m in cash, was able to refinance $432m in debt on favorable terms, and allowed a finance company controlled by the former chief executive to sell $578m in WeWork stock. [1] That guy got incredibly rich creating a c…

He built an enormous global business and brand, and the investors wanted to buy his shares and push him out in a transparent negotiated commercial transaction. He deserved every penny of it as far as I can see. What’s the alternative? That his stock and voting rights went to SoftBank for free?

He's a bare-footed scamming dopehead that belongs in prison.

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, quite the opposite actually

what would be the correct/ideal way it would function in that regard?

The founders of businesses that fail don't get billion dollar exit packages. They lost the competiton.

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, quite the opposite actually

The issue pointed out by these two comments come from a conflation of vocabulary (which is typically intentional at least at some point in the education). A truly "free market" would ensure that things like WeWork wouldn't happen because the ultimate material inputs and outputs of the company don't square. "Capitalism" is the seeking of profit at the expense of all others, where having a viable company no longer is a…

No capitalism is private ownership of capital. The profit seeking at the expense of others is a leftist caricature of capitalism just as laziness is the right wing caricature of socialism. No economic system exists to incentivize the stuff that happened during the rise and fall of WeWork.

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#147
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've never even heard of it before so i doubt it's very mainstream

Fair point! It did win an Emmy and is distributed by Hulu though so it’s not super fringe.

I only watch a couple documentaries a year and I saw it the year it released....

Frankly I'm a little saddened so few who consider themselves "in the know" about these things didn't at least know of the doc...

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point! It did win an Emmy and is distributed by Hulu though so it’s not super fringe.

I only watch a couple documentaries a year and I saw it the year it released.... Frankly I'm a little saddened so few who consider themselves "in the know" about these things didn't at least know of the doc...

HN is my favourite site by far (I lost my login details to my old acc but have been here for quite a few years), but, HN users tend to be very vocal on areas they don't really "know". My wife is an MRI researcher and I share most threads on that topic, normally saying some comment seems really cool, where she quickly shoots it down as flawed. If it isn't directly related to programming I have a large salt shaker nearby :)

To be fair I know I do the same no matter how much I try not to!

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only watch a couple documentaries a year and I saw it the year it released.... Frankly I'm a little saddened so few who consider themselves "in the know" about these things didn't at least know of the doc...

HN is my favourite site by far (I lost my login details to my old acc but have been here for quite a few years), but , HN users tend to be very vocal on areas they don't really "know". My wife is an MRI researcher and I share most threads on that topic, normally saying some comment seems really cool, where she quickly shoots it down as flawed. If it isn't directly related to programming I have a large salt shaker nea…

Oh it wasn't a comment on HN users but people in general.

So often someone will spout off on a topic as though they know a great deal but when I start actually trying to have discourse on it I discover they actually know very little.

Dunning-Krueger type thi g I'm sure, but it's just so common as to be mentionable.

Re: WeWork Warns of Possible Bankruptcy

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue pointed out by these two comments come from a conflation of vocabulary (which is typically intentional at least at some point in the education). A truly "free market" would ensure that things like WeWork wouldn't happen because the ultimate material inputs and outputs of the company don't square. "Capitalism" is the seeking of profit at the expense of all others, where having a viable company no longer is a…

> "Capitalism" is the seeking of profit at the expense of all others No, that's not what defines capitalism at all. That's a degenerate form more usually called "predatory capitalism".

We have the largest wealth inequality since the gilded age, and the Federal Reserve solution to runaway inflation was forcing workers to either settle for lower salaries or become unemployed.

In what was is predatory capitalism not the rule of the day?

Post reply on HN