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WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

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41–50 of 229 posts

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#41
post #10

I like that WeWork is finally forcing us to have the conversation about WTF a "tech company" even is. A company that sells software? Or one that employs a lot of engineers? Or companies that use a lot of tech in their operations? Companies with a presence in San Francisco and Kombucha on tap? Are big banks tech companies? Insurance providers? Hospitals, auto manufacturers, oil and gas... What isn't a tech company?

Tech companies are defined by their VCs. The end. More specifically by VCs which would invest in companies with horrible financials that can inflect at a quantifiable amount of capital and scale.

[deleted]

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#42
post #32

I really don't understand the negativity on HN towards WeWork. In principle, how it is different than AirBnB or Uber in regard of being a tech company? It's not like Uber or AirBnB's core compentancies are tech, I'm sure WeWork can also build a dev team making frameworks and research that some day might be used in their core business. The article argues that the difference is that Uber, AirBnB, Yelp, Twitter is a tec…

> In principle, how it is different than AirBnB or Uber in regard of being a tech company? It's not like Uber or AirBnB's core compentancies are tech, I'm sure WeWork can also build a dev team making frameworks and research that some day might be used in their core business.

Some day, maybe they could?! But their current business is selling short term office space leases. They have massive liabilities in their long-term leases. If Uber (an absurd business in its own right) bought all the cars and paid their drivers salaries, that'd be a closer approximation to what WeWork is doing. It would be just another taxi company, and worth at least an order of magnitude less than it is today.

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#43
post #6

Why would anybody claim it's a tech company? What kind of tech do they leverage to differentiate?

Tech companies get way higher and much more generous valuations than boring old real estate companies so it's advantageous to brand yourself as a tech company. No one really knows how to properly value a technology so it becomes more about the hype a company can produce about just how much of the world they say can eat. Real estate though should be easier to evaluate, there's a market rate for office space in an area and you can know exactly how much space the company owns.

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#44
post #20

It's a 1920s (pre-FDIC) bank, or a 2008-style risky financial instrument, like an Auction-Rate Preferred. WeWork's business model is "borrow short, lend long." That is, they accept very short term promises to pay (month to month leases from customers), and aggregate them to make very long term promises to pay (mutli year leases from suppliers). Keep the spread. This works as long as there are lots of customers who wi…

This isn't that dissimilar from lots of industries. Every airline that takes a loan to buy a plane is banking on future demand for air travel, for example. Or take Amazon Web Services, which is building data centers to lease out on a short term basis. Yes, there are tremendous risks involved, depending on the lease terms. But it's not at all unusual.

I don't really buy that, WeWork is benefiting off of a demand that is constantly shifting hands - people who are using the workspace should be using it temporarily - maybe they're a contractor on sabbatical, maybe they're starting a company and don't have the momentum and size to consider a lease... but those needs will change. Airlines live an entirely different business, nobody but the super ridiculously rich will ever own their own plane - and AWS benefits from economy of scale, they can deliver computational power below the cost of inhousing the ops cost in all but the most extreme circumstances, running a room full of servers has a lot of costs that don't scale down gracefully.

WeWork might be able to survive long term on two factors

1. Prestige & Environs - working in this sort of shared space may be viewed as luxurious in the long term due to rubbing elbows with other well-to-do folks, sorta like going to the opera.

2. Reliability of cost - Owning a condo is a strictly better decision than renting an apartment, but there are spikes in costs when appliances break down and building work needs to be done... though I think to properly reap the benefit of this WeWork needs to be and remain extremely proactive in maintenance, if some vulture capitalists get into the decision making process and let maintenance slip for a bit it'll erase all of this value by forcing the cost (in terms of inconvenience and unavailability) onto the consumer - it's possible this could also be lost if they fail to keep a nice margin of capacity above usage... again, as soon as someone wants to go to work and is unable to secure the space and is forced to either rent or lease conventional office space their competitive edge will dissolve.

I am highly skeptical of the long term prospects if WeWork fails to maintain their prestige and banking your company on prestige is an inherently risky approach IMO.

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#45
post #33
post #23

A lot of "tech" companies aren't. One reason, to avoid the scrutiny describing their actual business would expose them to more scrutiny, e.g., Uber is transportation company, not a software company. Once the BBC described Google as an "American advertising company", now that's cold.

I think, from the article, that the reason that Uber would be considered a tech company and not a transportation company is a matter of assets and how it can scale. Uber is not a bus company. It does not own a gigantic fleet of cars or large depots to store them in, nor does it employ mechanics and cleaners to tend to them, or have long-term contracts for gates at stations around the country. Uber is a tech company b…

Uber is probably more of a contract labor firm

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#46
post #20

It's a 1920s (pre-FDIC) bank, or a 2008-style risky financial instrument, like an Auction-Rate Preferred. WeWork's business model is "borrow short, lend long." That is, they accept very short term promises to pay (month to month leases from customers), and aggregate them to make very long term promises to pay (mutli year leases from suppliers). Keep the spread. This works as long as there are lots of customers who wi…

I might be confused, but isn't it the opposite here? Borrowing long (long-term leases from suppliers) and lending short (month to month leases to customers)?

You yourself said "long term promises to suppliers keep going", which sounds like borrowing to me?

I could just be dense here, feel free to correct me

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#47
post #26
post #10

I like that WeWork is finally forcing us to have the conversation about WTF a "tech company" even is. A company that sells software? Or one that employs a lot of engineers? Or companies that use a lot of tech in their operations? Companies with a presence in San Francisco and Kombucha on tap? Are big banks tech companies? Insurance providers? Hospitals, auto manufacturers, oil and gas... What isn't a tech company?

Is it really that important to define the term precisely? It doesn't seem like the term is used precisely, so what's the point in defining it precisely?

So what's the point in the term at all? What are you using it to do if you know the person you're speaking to cannot infer anything at all from the word?

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#48
post #20

It's a 1920s (pre-FDIC) bank, or a 2008-style risky financial instrument, like an Auction-Rate Preferred. WeWork's business model is "borrow short, lend long." That is, they accept very short term promises to pay (month to month leases from customers), and aggregate them to make very long term promises to pay (mutli year leases from suppliers). Keep the spread. This works as long as there are lots of customers who wi…

Their business is structured in such a way that the leases they signed on their locations aren't really enforceable against WeWork itself, but rather against "special purpose vehicles", I'm guessing one per lease?[1] It costs a bit in insurance but substantially limits their liability. So, in a downturn, even if "short termers are done", they can shed properties too, basically with impunity. [1] https://stratechery.c…

Sure, assuming you assume away the reputational risk. They’re going to have a tough time finding future counterparties if they walk on a lot of leases.

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#49
post #32

I really don't understand the negativity on HN towards WeWork. In principle, how it is different than AirBnB or Uber in regard of being a tech company? It's not like Uber or AirBnB's core compentancies are tech, I'm sure WeWork can also build a dev team making frameworks and research that some day might be used in their core business. The article argues that the difference is that Uber, AirBnB, Yelp, Twitter is a tec…

Isn't the point that they are not doing the things you say? If they did (siccessfully) they may well deserve a higher multiple.

Re: WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company

#50
post #20

It's a 1920s (pre-FDIC) bank, or a 2008-style risky financial instrument, like an Auction-Rate Preferred. WeWork's business model is "borrow short, lend long." That is, they accept very short term promises to pay (month to month leases from customers), and aggregate them to make very long term promises to pay (mutli year leases from suppliers). Keep the spread. This works as long as there are lots of customers who wi…

This isn't that dissimilar from lots of industries. Every airline that takes a loan to buy a plane is banking on future demand for air travel, for example. Or take Amazon Web Services, which is building data centers to lease out on a short term basis. Yes, there are tremendous risks involved, depending on the lease terms. But it's not at all unusual.

It is dissimilar though. In the examples you gave, the airline or Amazon are taking on debt to purchase a plane or a bunch of servers themselves, so if the demand decreases in the future, they can sell off those assets. They would probably incur a loss, but at least they could recoup some of their investment. WeWork on the other hand is not a landlord and does not own anything other than the furniture in the offices. If (when) the market turns down, they're going to have a really hard time unloading those liabilities because who's going to want to pick up their lease?
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