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WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#191

Post by rchaud »

helen___keller wrote: post #52
legitster wrote: post #35

> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…

> The subprime crisis is completely unrelated! And if anything it was proof that money-making assets should be scrutinized more. The subprime mortgage crisis is basically godwin's law for finance. Want to make something look awful? Compare it to CDOs or mortgage-backed securities.

I think the point the author was trying to make with "counterfeiting" wrt the subprime crisis is like this: counterfeit goods offer superficial similarity to the real thing, but are made of inferior materials when you unpack them.

During the GFC, toxic mortgages were bundled in with mortgages with a high probability of repayment. Since the debt rating agencies gave those mortgage backed securities a AAA rating without doing quality assurance, they entered the market on the same footing as legitimate AAA-rated debt.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#192

Post by Ididntdothis »

nradov wrote: post #170
Ididntdothis wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A return that lets you retire in this lifetime seems to be the minimally acceptable return.

Return by itself is meaningless. If you want to discuss retirement then you have to account for the other variables: consumer price inflation, risk, contribution levels, lifespan, etc. For individual workers the most practical suggestion is to save more instead of expecting high returns.

Most people don’t make enough money to save that much money so they can retire.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#193

Post by disjhshava »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #132
legitster wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't recommend the Stratechery piece enough (or Stratechery in general).

On the contrary, given the author's myopic and rosy perspective on surveillance capitalism as espoused in the article "Privacy Fundamentalism"[1] (and apparently amended in a follow-up which is paywalled), I find it hard to take anything on that blog seriously. [1] https://stratechery.com/2019/privacy-fundamentalism/

You're bringing up an unrelated article to make an ad-hominem attack on the author. Seems like a fundamentalist response to a heretic.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#194

Post by luckydata »

askafriend wrote: post #150
RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, given the author's myopic and rosy perspective on surveillance capitalism as espoused in the article "Privacy Fundamentalism"[1] (and apparently amended in a follow-up which is paywalled), I find it hard to take anything on that blog seriously. [1] https://stratechery.com/2019/privacy-fundamentalism/

Ben is one of the greatest thinkers in technology writing today - period. You're only depriving yourself of an important perspective in this case. He's open to arguments and is extremely reasonable. If you're only looking for writing that agrees with what you already believe then you might be disappointed, but if you're looking for extremely thoughtful thinking on strategy and technology then you won't find anyone be…

I think Ben is one of the greatest writers, I'm not so sure about thinkers. It's pretty easy to sound smart in a very carefully calibrated format where you get the Monday morning quarterback things that have happened after you set all the rules for the game.

He's said a few interesting things but how much of what he writes can you use to make better choices yourself? Almost nothing.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#195

Post by wolco »

tlb wrote: post #112
legitster wrote: post #35

> WeWork then used this cash to underprice competitors in the co-working space market, hoping to be able to profit later once it had a strong market position in real estate subletting or ancillary businesses. > This is of course Amazon’s model, which underpriced competitors in retail and eventually came to control the whole market. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The difference is Amazon saw what the marginal costs coul…

There are two ways to get to positive margins: Either drive down costs (as Amazon did) or increase price. Part of WeWork's plan is presumably to increase prices once tenants are locked in. The big question is how much lock-in they can achieve. The lock-in is largely caused by employee loyalty. Employees who like beer and camaraderie in the evenings may be hard to persuade to move to a soulless office park. It's a mic…

Would 50-80% of employees quit if a company moved to Sunnyvale? Was that a serious fact?

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#196

Post by [deleted] »

mbesto wrote: post #172
KoftaBob wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the LPs who fund VCs aren't only using wealthy individual's money, people's pensions are in there too.

I generally agree with this, but: 1. Pensions are diversified for exactly this reason and VC isn't usually a large % of the fund. 2. This should be exerted through other pressures at that LP level: political, regulatory, etc...not at the GP level.

[deleted]

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#197

Post by coldtea »

kizer wrote: post #127
coldtea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking some comedic/low effort jabs should not invalidate from one's main (and valid) arguments. IMO. Else it's low effort on the listener's part.

"comedic"

Well, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die".

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#198

Post by inscionent »

dehrmann wrote: post #186

I got halfway through, but I'm stopping. There's some valid points in here, but I don't find the author credible. > If you know Dimon’s actual reputation, him getting suckered isn’t surprising. Jamaie "doesn't give a shit about Bitcoin" Dimon. So he won't just hop on any bandwagon. > [Masayoshi Son is] an owner of Sprint, and he’s currently trying to force an illegal merger of Sprint with T-Mobile Not sure how it's "…

Not sure able illegal, useless maybe. Sprint couldn't compete after it merged with Nextel... I'm supposed to believe that it will this time?

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#199

Post by legitster »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #160
askafriend wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ben is one of the greatest thinkers in technology writing today - period. You're only depriving yourself of an important perspective in this case. He's open to arguments and is extremely reasonable. If you're only looking for writing that agrees with what you already believe then you might be disappointed, but if you're looking for extremely thoughtful thinking on strategy and technology then you won't find anyone be…

The article I referenced boils down to dismissing fears of online privacy invasion as alarmism. Exploring his own site's dependencies, Ben concludes that the third parties phoned home to for every visitor are probably harmless. He recommends that discourse focus on striking a balance between technology being convenient and secure, and not worrying too much. This essay reflects a profound failure of imagination with r…

Wow. That is a SERIOUS mischaracterization of the article and his conculusions. The third parties in question were services like Stripe (since he monetizes with subscriptions, not advertising) or Cloudflare. His whole point was he takes privacy seriously, but fundamentalist policy punishes good and bad actors equally.

But even all that aside, by your own words, it's not his treatments of the facts but his failure to account for the worst possible hypothetical situation that you have imagined in this specific area that is most important to you that makes him an unreliable journalist on any-and-all subjects? I would challenge you that this is an unhealthy purity test for him to pass.

Re: WeWork and Counterfeit Capitalism

#200

Post by rchaud »

dehrmann wrote: post #186

I got halfway through, but I'm stopping. There's some valid points in here, but I don't find the author credible. > If you know Dimon’s actual reputation, him getting suckered isn’t surprising. Jamaie "doesn't give a shit about Bitcoin" Dimon. So he won't just hop on any bandwagon. > [Masayoshi Son is] an owner of Sprint, and he’s currently trying to force an illegal merger of Sprint with T-Mobile Not sure how it's "…

What the rich and powerful say in public is often different from what they do in private. People at Dimon's level are absolutely invested in crypto, they're just quiet about it so they don't spook the markets.

Warren Buffet often spouts folksy sounding wisdom like "I don't like businesses I don't understand", and then talks about Heinz Ketchup or General Mills. But at the end of the day, he extended Goldman Sachs a $5bn lifeline in September 2008 in a highly complex deal. [0]

[0] https://qz.com/67052/heres-how-warren-buffett-made-3-1-billi...

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