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WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

bloomberg.com

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Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#171

Post by sudosteph »

mi100hael wrote: post #103
kgwgk wrote: post #93

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/wework... "In addition to the corporate finance weirdness: “Going forward, the company will no longer be called WeWork but rather The We Company.” (“The switch is not a legal name change,” okay.) And: “Rather than just renting desks, the company aims to encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds,” which is—and I have spent years w…

When life imitates art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)

In case anyone is wondering: not worth the read unless you're just interested in the history of dystopic fiction. The characters are boring and everything drags on far too long.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#172

Post by Fomite »

rrggrr wrote: post #145
holoduke wrote: post #129

I really wonder why and how companies are willing to rent at these places. It's full of arrogant pricks and the failure rate of startups is insane. I founded a company few years ago. Was offered space at we work for about 3k for just 100square feet. Few days of searching through local real estate companies brought me a 300square feet office for 1.5k at a similar location. Only no freebeers and fancy entrance.

Just looked at a WeWork space today. The use case is an attractive place for a remote employee to work for us in a job that attracts (and is best done) by a highly social person. I can't get the right person leaving them at home, and I can't relocate them to me.

While I agree with this use case (and is why I hate co-working spaces for what I do), that's a pretty narrow slice of the market given their current valuation.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#173

Post by vkou »

EliRivers wrote: post #164
kgwgk wrote: post #93

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/wework... "In addition to the corporate finance weirdness: “Going forward, the company will no longer be called WeWork but rather The We Company.” (“The switch is not a legal name change,” okay.) And: “Rather than just renting desks, the company aims to encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds,” which is—and I have spent years w…

a still evolving business that currently includes an elementary school and a coding academy. Education is like catnip to these people. It's like some kind of attractor industry. They're all convinced they have the magic formula.

That's because everyone has an opinion, and everyone's[1] gone to at least elementary school.

If I were made king of the world, I'd have a lot of ideas about how to reform education (after I'd take some time to throw sand in Billy's face, as payback for three years of playground bullying.)

[1] Just about everyone, at least.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#174

Post by gojomo »

mi100hael wrote: post #103
kgwgk wrote: post #93

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/wework... "In addition to the corporate finance weirdness: “Going forward, the company will no longer be called WeWork but rather The We Company.” (“The switch is not a legal name change,” okay.) And: “Rather than just renting desks, the company aims to encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds,” which is—and I have spent years w…

When life imitates art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)

And, another novel about living under oppressive conditions from a Russian-born author:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_the_Living

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#175

Post by jillesvangurp »

village-idiot wrote: post #132
oh_sigh wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound too bad if your employee payroll is going to be >= $1M/yr. To put it another way, I'd rather have a dedicated space for 10 employees than have 10.5 or 11 employees all working from their bedrooms and starbucks.

You gotta compare it to the cost of a traditional commercial real estate lease, that’s what makes it a good or bad deal. (I don’t actually know what a comparative traditional lease would cost).

You also have to consider that signing an office lease is a long term commitment and can be a lot of hassle. WeWork is probably worth the price for young companies that just want to focus on getting more important things done than renovating and decorating an office that may end up being too small (or too big) after a few months.

I'm working out of the Factory in Berlin for about 100 euro a month. Very nice space facilities, nice people, etc. and it matches my "I might drop in a couple of times a week" type usage. There are loads of co-working spaces here.

I've been in one of the local WeWorks as well (apparently they have 9 offices now in Berlin) and in my experience the space is alright but a bit less so than the Factory. But it did suit the project I was on at the time perfectly and we were there for a few months before we outgrew the space. I'd say it's perfect for seed funded companies or well funded corporate projects. It makes less sense for indivduals looking for a desk as they tend to be comparatively expensive to competitors or coffeeshops. I suspect their corporate revenue is a bit more lucrative.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#176

Post by gojomo »

kgwgk wrote: post #93

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/wework... "In addition to the corporate finance weirdness: “Going forward, the company will no longer be called WeWork but rather The We Company.” (“The switch is not a legal name change,” okay.) And: “Rather than just renting desks, the company aims to encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds,” which is—and I have spent years w…

We: Also, We won't let We eat meat. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-te...)

Me: But I like meat!

We: Not if you want to be We, you don't. Are you sure you're We material?

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#177

Post by dazc »

reaperducer wrote: post #114
zrobotics wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been in a WeWork office, though? IME all shared offices are incredibly noisy, I don't understand why anyone would want to rent there.

IME all shared offices are incredibly noisy I did a lot of co-working from 2009-2012 in several cities. The atmosphere was always very quiet and professional. People were very cautious about creating noise, and few people every spoke aloud unless they were on the same team. I'm not sure what changed. Was it the bro-ification of the tech industry? Did coworking get a lot cheaper, and brought in a lower class of people…

Cheapness is the answer, I expect. Based on my albeit limited experience, people who are actually making money are getting on with it and being productive as possible.

The problem people can't be making much unless there is a way of monetizing noisy phone calls that I am unaware of?

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#178

Post by pmart123 »

mikestew wrote: post #144
Traster wrote: post #4

>The Gulf investors backing the Vision Fund seem to have decided that WeWork is not a tech bet but simply an aggressive punt on real estate. This is the bogey man of a huge number of current 'tech startups' - What if it turns out Tesla really are a car company! Or if We Work are actually an office rental company! OR gasp Uber is a cab company! (1) We now have a glut of companies operating in traditional markets that…

Somewhere along the way I think we got it flipped around. No one was calling Sears a tech company in 1969 just because they bought an IBM 370 to computerize their accounting and inventory. By probably 1975, if you were Fortune 500 and still doing your books by hand you were probably just a dinosaur rather than your computerized competitors being so advanced. Uber, Tesla, okay, maybe there is an argument to be made fo…

A book that really made me understand this early on was "Fortune's Formula" in that it illustrated how technology transformed the speed of information arbitrage, but the real human problem was getting information as quickly as possible from point A to B.

Having a website in 1997 to sell goods was a better means to reach customers unable to visit a store location than a mail catalog due to better inventory management, personalization, etc.

One blog I've enjoyed reading is Chick-fil-a's technical blog as it really demonstrates how a company in the restaurant business is leveraging technology to make its customer experience or operations more efficient, much in the same way, Mcdonald's used milkshake machines to be more efficient. But, Chick-fil-a is willing to admit it is a restaurant!

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#179

Post by bobthepanda »

kgwgk wrote: post #93

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/wework... "In addition to the corporate finance weirdness: “Going forward, the company will no longer be called WeWork but rather The We Company.” (“The switch is not a legal name change,” okay.) And: “Rather than just renting desks, the company aims to encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds,” which is—and I have spent years w…

Ah, the Nintendo strategy.

Why anyone at Nintendo thought that the Wii U was a good name for a completely new console is beyond me.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#180

Post by fhbdukfrh »

pkaye wrote: post #134
mcmoose75 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really? I can imagine there's room for innovation in helping people to honor and grieve the passing of their loved ones.

The innovation would be to not demand obscene prices from the loved ones at their time of grieving.

This isn't necessarily the fault of the funeral home. It's a much the traditional and society pressure that says this is what you do when you die.

Aside: How come airlines give you a bereavement discount while a caterer doesn't?

Nothing stopping your family from a simple cremation and open tab at your favorite social spot for a couple of hours of celebration

Or a picnic...

Or a concert with your favorite local bands ...

Or a bike/hike into the mountains to scatter your ashes...

Etc. The point is you don't have to have a funeral service followed by internment in the ground. We've just been trained this is "the right thing to do".

My dad always (only half joking) says his dying wish is to have the last cheque he writes bounce.

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