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‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#41

Post by seem_2211 »

rollerboi wrote: post #30
nknealk wrote: post #25

I'd love to hear from WeWork customers about recent events. Are customers watching this thinking "oh man, I don't know if my workplace will be the same in 6 months, better start looking for alternatives?" Is the atmosphere in their offices any different now?

I might be revealing too much here, but I work for a company that leases space from WeWork, so I go to a WeWork every day and in the evenings I read about its eventual demise. (Might explain why I'm so morbidly curious about this company) The running joke in my dept is they're going to start cutting back on amenities (watered down mouthwash, less cut up fruit in the fruitwater, etc.) and we won't see as many maintena…

Yep. I rent a private office, and the lease is coming up next month. I'm not planning to renew.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#42

Post by rexpop »

pastor_elm wrote: post #27

A company that hires somebody 'at-will' has no obligation to keep them employed forever. Employees at places like WeWork, which are transparent with their unsustainable nature, should understand that and act appropriately. IMO, it's a detriment to worker's rights to believe in this sense of Big Brother Capitalist altruism.

"obligation" is an interesting word to use, though I agree that naïveté is detrimental to one's capacity to advocate for less-precarious working conditions.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#43

Post by lacker »

fdswefsad wrote: post #26
zelon88 wrote: post #2

The guy is getting $1.7bn. That is gluttonous. To put that into perspective, if you took even just $100m and divided it among the 1,000 workers laid off each one would get $100,000. Yet they get nothing. And this one man gets $1.7bn from a company that isn't even healthy enough to survive while nickle and diming janitors who get paid $24k/year. This is what late stage capitalism looks like.

in Italy, I believe it used to be a crime to mismanage a company such that people lost their jobs. Anyway, such large job losses would trigger a criminal probe.

In Italy, I believe it used to be a crime to mismanage a company such that people lost their jobs.

On an unrelated note, Italy has never had a tech startup worth a billion dollars.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#44

Post by wmeredith »

tootie wrote: post #36
corporateslave5 wrote: post #11

SoftBank and their investors deserve this. SoftBank wanted to take wework and jam it on the stock market, then pull their money out. They knew this company was trash, they are no better than Adam Neumann. Congrats to Adam for exposing and exploiting softbanks attempts to exploit the USA stock market. In the end this will stop future cases of investors trying to jam garbage companies into the public markets, essential…

WeWork still has a ton of customers and rapid growth. I think their eyes were bigger than their mouths when it came to expanding offerings into unrelated nonsense and they were being extremely undisciplined in their spending, but the business is still extremely viable. The new leadership are taking a giant ax to all the excess to get it over with and then can rebuild from what is still a very strong base. It will tak…

I can sell dollars for $0.90 each and have a tremendous amount of customers and growth.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#46

Post by ummonk »

arcticbull wrote: post #38
tootie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WeWork still has a ton of customers and rapid growth. I think their eyes were bigger than their mouths when it came to expanding offerings into unrelated nonsense and they were being extremely undisciplined in their spending, but the business is still extremely viable. The new leadership are taking a giant ax to all the excess to get it over with and then can rebuild from what is still a very strong base. It will tak…

They have customers who cost them money on an incremental basis. More customers, less money. They don't deserve to be valued any differently than like Regus, approximately 8X their annual profits or 1X their annual revenue. In this space, net margins are approximately 15%. That values WeWork somewhere between -15.2B and 1.8B based on their 2018 performance data. Measured against their competitors, they're still about…

They have significantly higher brand value than Regus, which does merit a premium though probably not 5x.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#47

Post by arcticbull »

ummonk wrote: post #46
arcticbull wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have customers who cost them money on an incremental basis. More customers, less money. They don't deserve to be valued any differently than like Regus, approximately 8X their annual profits or 1X their annual revenue. In this space, net margins are approximately 15%. That values WeWork somewhere between -15.2B and 1.8B based on their 2018 performance data. Measured against their competitors, they're still about…

They have significantly higher brand value than Regus, which does merit a premium though probably not 5x.

Brand value, maybe (even after this?) but they definitely haven't proven that they can turn that brand equity into higher margins. I believe if two offices were priced the same, someone might pick WeWork, but would people pay WeWork more than Regus for a comparable office? I'd imagine not much.

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#49

Post by stevespang »

arcticbull wrote: post #35
corporateslave5 wrote: post #11

SoftBank and their investors deserve this. SoftBank wanted to take wework and jam it on the stock market, then pull their money out. They knew this company was trash, they are no better than Adam Neumann. Congrats to Adam for exposing and exploiting softbanks attempts to exploit the USA stock market. In the end this will stop future cases of investors trying to jam garbage companies into the public markets, essential…

There are no good guys here. Neumann, by taking money from SoftBank, was completely complicit. He knew his financials, he knew the company was a flaming dumpster, he knew he had no plan to fix it, other than buying a wave pool company and assigning his family to high-level positions. You really think if the company had gone public, Neumann would have what, stepped up and said "see, this is why we need to add more inv…

Can't wait to see the lawsuits rolling in . . .

Re: ‘We were sold off’: WeWork’s staff face uncertain future as company collapses

#50

Post by icebraining »

grumpyprole wrote: post #6
zelon88 wrote: post #2

The guy is getting $1.7bn. That is gluttonous. To put that into perspective, if you took even just $100m and divided it among the 1,000 workers laid off each one would get $100,000. Yet they get nothing. And this one man gets $1.7bn from a company that isn't even healthy enough to survive while nickle and diming janitors who get paid $24k/year. This is what late stage capitalism looks like.

Completely agree. I don't know why you are getting downvoted, capitalism in its present form is clearly broken. The payout sum here is ludicrous, it is certainly not justified in terms of value created for society. This money has to come from somewhere and ultimately the common folk will be paying the price.

Isn't the money coming - if it comes - from SoftBank? Would it be better for the common folk if they kept it?
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