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WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

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Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#361

Post by everybodyknows »

mikeryan wrote: post #154
mikestew wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Similar I have issues with Compass Real Estate getting 440M in funding to basically buy traditional real estate companies with some sort of mythical special tech to make home buying “better” https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/27/safe-as-houses-compass-400...

Indeed. What value does Compass bring to the market that Redfin (standardized deal flow) and Zillow ("coming soon") haven't already?

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#362

Post by mbesto »

jacques_chester wrote: post #287
mbesto wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because "tech" isn't a vertical but an operating model. As I've said before: https://twitter.com/mbesto/status/1017116663676919811 "IMHO the idea that companies are either "tech" or "not tech" has been peddled by VC's to convince buyers that all companies considered "tech" either have or will potentially have high gross margins regardless of current state and thus high valuations." "When working with my client…

I work in tech, I think how people work is a key advantage. But the concepts underpinning agility and leanness can be traced back as far as you please. We didn't invent them and we don't own them.

> I think how people work is a key advantage.

Yup, which is precisely what an Operating Model is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_model

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#363

Post by JohnFen »

mcguire wrote: post #278
TylerE wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, haven't they pretty much already done so? Would not surprise me if a majority of both inventory and sales are actually marketplace sellers by now, that pay Amazon for fulfillment.

So, Amazon is a major tech company attached to a warehousing and logistics operation.

I think that's fair. Their retail operations don't qualify them as a "tech" company -- that just makes them a tech-savvy retail company.

However, their cloud (and other IT) services do qualify them as a "tech" company.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#364

Post by JohnFen »

Fomite wrote: post #161
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What separates them from their competitors? Scale. One can reliably get an Uber almost anywhere. That makes it attractive to travelling businesspeople and jet setters, two price insensitive customer segments that Uber almost singularly dominates. Network effects. Ubers are almost always among the fastest transportation options in most cities. Breadth. I never use Uber Eats, but apparently it’s doing quite well. (I…

Ironically, where I live getting a Lyft or an actual taxi is easy. Getting an Uber is far more difficult.

Agreed. I use actual taxis because (in my area) they're faster and easier than Uber or Lyft.

(Also, Uber is a terrible company that doesn't deserve my money.)

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#365

Post by JohnFen »

_the_inflator wrote: post #13
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…

I don't agree with the "rubbish part". WeWork single handedly changed the way we work. It is way easier to build a tech startup with the help of a co-working space company than before. I suspect that WeWork's business model ain't the problem but it's competitors, for example in London, UK. Competition drives prices for new real estate, crashed margins.

> WeWork single handedly changed the way we work

It has?? Not so much that I've actually noticed it...

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#366

Post by Fomite »

JohnFen wrote: post #364
Fomite wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, where I live getting a Lyft or an actual taxi is easy. Getting an Uber is far more difficult.

Agreed. I use actual taxis because (in my area) they're faster and easier than Uber or Lyft. (Also, Uber is a terrible company that doesn't deserve my money.)

The latter is how I discovered the former.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#367

Post by icebraining »

AlexandrB wrote: post #105
rconti wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it's different, sometimes it's not. Tech allowed a company like Amazon to scale. Tech allows a company like Uber to allocate rides vastly more efficiently, tech allows a company like AirBnB to enable property owners to extract more value from their property. But tech doesn't allow Tesla to sell 10x more cars than Toyota (for example).

> Tech allows a company like Uber to allocate rides vastly more efficiently It's more accurate to say that venture capital allows Uber to subsidize rides more aggressively. I see no evidence that Uber is substantially more efficient (when you include the driver's costs) than traditional taxi companies. Edit: Uber has also managed to skirt a bunch of labor laws by claiming their employees are contractors. I guess that…

Uber has also managed to skirt a bunch of labor laws by claiming their employees are contractors. I guess that's a kind of "efficiency".

In the US, taxi drivers were always considered contractors, Uber just followed the existing model. In fact, they used to pay to work[1], starting each day in the hole. Only after Uber et all appeared have drivers started unionizing nationally and suing taxi companies to change that.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-d...

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#368

Post by rconti »

AlexandrB wrote: post #357
rconti wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's unquestionable that tech like Uber's can/does allocate cars and rides more efficiently. The taxi model relies on drivers circling looking for a fare and phone dispatch with, at best, a dispatcher seeing GPS cab location on a screen and trying to eyeball-match it to the caller's location. (or, at worst, caller-reported location, and radioing a bunch of cabs asking them "hey, where you at?") At its most ef…

> At its most efficient, an Uber model can automatically and predictively allocate rides based on realtime rider and driver current and predicted locations with realtime traffic/travel data. [emphasis mine] This seems like a bizarre claim. Precisely when a specific rider will call for an Uber is inherently unpredictable (at least without a lot of surveillance). Meanwhile Uber drivers are not paid to drive from place…

Yes, perhaps the best example I can think of was actually a failure -- my Uber that was supposed to arrive in "5 minutes" was actually driving away from me at the time, turning into FB HQ a minute later, and then spending easily 10+ minutes getting lost driving from building to building on the campus. But their algorithm can predict (usually!) which car will be nearest me the soonest; not which car is currently closest to me (regardless of occupancy) or which car is empty and nearby.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#369

Post by joejerryronnie »

ajaxaddicted wrote: post #351
joejerryronnie wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, the day my employer bans meat is the day I walk out, right after ordering a side of beef delivered to the CEOs office.

Aka, the company wants to take a moral stand for once and I am going to retailate with an immoral posturing and kill some innocent animals and shove my immoral views in their face, before i leave.

This is not a moral stand, it is an ideological stand. A moral stand is “We won’t serve meat that is not processed in a humane manner”. We’s stand is the same thing as saying ”Only Christian idolatry may be practiced in our offices”.

Re: WeWork Gets a Visit from Financial Reality

#370

Post by ajaxaddicted »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #369
ajaxaddicted wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aka, the company wants to take a moral stand for once and I am going to retailate with an immoral posturing and kill some innocent animals and shove my immoral views in their face, before i leave.

This is not a moral stand, it is an ideological stand. A moral stand is “We won’t serve meat that is not processed in a humane manner”. We’s stand is the same thing as saying ”Only Christian idolatry may be practiced in our offices”.

"Meat processed in a humane way" - there is no such thing. "Humane meat" is an oxymorone. 1) What is the definition of humane 2) Whatever that definition is, i really doubt it includes killing a sentient being that does not want to die.

Also moral stand is - an injustice is happening and you refuse to support it- in this case innocent animals are killed, the environment is trashed for future generations. etc. Ideological stand - I personally belief in A and B. An Ideological stand or belief is by definition subjective. A moral stand - there is a victim involved.

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