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Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

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Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#51

Post by gameguy43 »

j4p3 wrote: post #17

Many people, including the author, skip the more interesting point in favor of the lazy critique: WeWork is not being valued by its investors as an office rental company. It's made the case that it is a business services marketplace, selling vendors' insurance and HR and legal and servers to as large as swath of the small business sector as it can grab with its fancy offices. It wants to own the app store for enterpr…

As someone who works in a WeWork, the "business services marketplace" aspect actually just feels like "oh also we bother you with advertisements all the time"

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#52

Post by gonehome »

A little off topic, but I think it'd be cool if you could pay someone (a hotel chain? Airbnb?) a monthly 'rent' to live in any of their locations. The locations are guaranteed to have highspeed internet and some easy standardized way to move between them.

This would be really cool for remote work since you could live everywhere and nowhere without having the overhead of having to do all the planning yourself.

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#53

Post by Brendinooo »

What are people looking for in a coworking space? What does your space provide you beyond a desk, Wi-Fi, and coffee?

Whenever I've researched spaces nearby, I've treated proximity, price, and hours as the three biggest selling points for a small business, work-from-home type like myself. But I guess that's only a small segment of the overall market.

I guess if you're a bigger business maybe you'd get comfortable with a brand name - WeWork in SF should be roughly similar to WeWork in NYC, and they already have your credit card on file.

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#54

Post by srmatto »

gonehome wrote: post #52

A little off topic, but I think it'd be cool if you could pay someone (a hotel chain? Airbnb?) a monthly 'rent' to live in any of their locations. The locations are guaranteed to have highspeed internet and some easy standardized way to move between them. This would be really cool for remote work since you could live everywhere and nowhere without having the overhead of having to do all the planning yourself.

Airbnb does have monthly rates. But no guaranteed internet afaik.

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#55

Post by erikb »

feelin_googley wrote: post #41
Mankhool wrote: post #2

Paywall . . .

s,com,&/amp, https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/wework-a-20-billion-startup... Then view in "Reader" mode. Most of the major browsers have it. Alternatively, extract the text from the page and leave the Javascript behind. The Javascript is not needed to read the text.

all of your links are walling again, AND deactivating reader mode in my browser.

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#56

Post by 627467 »

zaidf wrote: post #47
j4p3 wrote: post #17

Many people, including the author, skip the more interesting point in favor of the lazy critique: WeWork is not being valued by its investors as an office rental company. It's made the case that it is a business services marketplace, selling vendors' insurance and HR and legal and servers to as large as swath of the small business sector as it can grab with its fancy offices. It wants to own the app store for enterpr…

It wants to own the app store for enterprise services. If this is what WeWork is all about, then buying / leasing real estate worth hundreds of millions is a rather convoluted way of going about it.

Sounds as convoluted as McDonalds Corp business model...

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#57

Post by dsfyu404ed »

gonehome wrote: post #52

A little off topic, but I think it'd be cool if you could pay someone (a hotel chain? Airbnb?) a monthly 'rent' to live in any of their locations. The locations are guaranteed to have highspeed internet and some easy standardized way to move between them. This would be really cool for remote work since you could live everywhere and nowhere without having the overhead of having to do all the planning yourself.

Putting up work crews in cheap motels is not uncommon.

You generally have to do it a lot before the hotel will be willing to consider the kind of bulk discounts that make it profitable.

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#58

Post by [deleted] »

627467 wrote: post #56
zaidf wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wants to own the app store for enterprise services. If this is what WeWork is all about, then buying / leasing real estate worth hundreds of millions is a rather convoluted way of going about it.

Sounds as convoluted as McDonalds Corp business model...

[deleted]

Re: Critics say WeWork is an overvalued real-estate play

#60

Post by fitzroy »

optimuspaul wrote: post #42
neaden wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your metaphor is ridiculous. Plenty of people prefer Starbucks coffee to DD, claiming that going to Starbucks is a "lifestyle choice" in 2017 is absurd. People go to Starbucks because it has products they like, primarily a variety of coffee drinks that include milk, cream, sugar, or other flavorings. Comparing Starbucks to DD is a perfectly appropriate thing to do, as is comparing WeWork to Boston Properties is a rea…

Coffee in general is a lifestyle choice. Not disagreeing with you just saying that in my opinion everything about coffee is lifestyle.

Afternoon coffee is lifestyle; morning coffee is survival.
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