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WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

reuters.com

21–30 of 347 posts

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#21
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 now.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#23
As someone living in SF, I don’t think anyone in SF or SV would ever consider WeWork to be a “Silicon Valley” company in the same way that Uber or Twitter or Slack is.

The company has 0 tech brand among employees (how many ex-FB or ex-Google engineers work there?) and outside of Benchmark’s early round none of the VCs are SV-based.

Point is the media is making this out to be an indictment on some SV tech bubble but people in SV are looking at this from the outside like everyone else.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#24
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, I think this is great to think about as far as the entire story of IPOing a big tech company in 2019. You start with the story the bankers sell you. They all want to tell you you're going to be bigger than you ever thought possible, because, well... those fees are awfully nice. "We're going to IPO you at 20% of $PREVIOUS_VALUATION" The counter-argument was, well, "We don't think you're worth that much,…

We is not a tech company.

I agree but are you saying that if it was a tech company, it would be worth the 48 billion? Also, is it THAT much different from AirBnB that is considered a tech company? What 'tech' does AirBnB offer that qualify it is a tech company?

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#25

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…

What a true unicorn.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#26
post #23

As someone living in SF, I don’t think anyone in SF or SV would ever consider WeWork to be a “Silicon Valley” company in the same way that Uber or Twitter or Slack is. The company has 0 tech brand among employees (how many ex-FB or ex-Google engineers work there?) and outside of Benchmark’s early round none of the VCs are SV-based. Point is the media is making this out to be an indictment on some SV tech bubble but p…

> how many ex-FB or ex-Google engineers work there?

This sounds like an awful metric.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#27

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…

I got a phone call from them recently. Not automated. Asking "how the experience has been". I wonder if they're increasingly panicking. I ordered less than a handful of boxes in the past few years with them.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#28

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…

This was a pretty good article about Blue Apron from last week: https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/recipe-for-disaster-the-...

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#29

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…

I got a phone call from them recently. Not automated. Asking "how the experience has been". I wonder if they're increasingly panicking. I ordered less than a handful of boxes in the past few years with them.

Ahem. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/please-forgive-us-at-blu...

That’s a parody from 2017. It’s probably more true now than ever. We actually cancelled our BlueApron last year in favor of another meal kit service - and might end up canceling them overall for grocery pickup from our local grocery chain.

Re: WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources

#30
post #23

As someone living in SF, I don’t think anyone in SF or SV would ever consider WeWork to be a “Silicon Valley” company in the same way that Uber or Twitter or Slack is. The company has 0 tech brand among employees (how many ex-FB or ex-Google engineers work there?) and outside of Benchmark’s early round none of the VCs are SV-based. Point is the media is making this out to be an indictment on some SV tech bubble but p…

> "Point is the media is making this out to be an indictment on some SV tech bubble"

Its not the media, I think its just true. Had WeWork IPO'ed under the same conditions a year ago, I think it would have been 'fine'. but the glut of SV unicorns losing money, hating investors, and slowing growth has got people highly concerned.

This list of companies (slack, lyft, Uber, Pinterest, beyond meat, crowdstrike, tesla, spotify, Pinduoduo, Dropbox, Snap, Domo, Blue Apron, Box, Shopify, Zillow) has 310 billion in market cap and -18.67 billion $ in revenue (back of the envelope calculation).

If I missed anyone or made a typeo/mistake, let me know how I came up with the numbers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L2ElCY853kgWACC3Q48Q...

EDIT: I am not saying all these companies are bad; I am invested in some of them! Just that the sheer size of these companies and their total losses are unnerving lots of people to such a point that the market had no appetite for WeWork.

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