WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn • Hacker News Board

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#71

Post by twic » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 11:43 PM UTC

swarnie_ wrote: post #55

microtherion wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way in which Pinterest is an outlier in this list is that its user base skews heavily female (>80% according to one source: https://www.omnicoreagency.com/pinterest-statistics/ ). I wonder whether some "Moneyball Factor" could be at work, in that this led to it being underpriced for its potential. Snapchat users also skew somewhat female, but they are also quite young compared to other sites, and "youth" may…

Young women are paying dividends apparently, check out the Becky / Basic index - performance year on year is spectacular.

A rare case where r/investing and r/wallstreetbets are in alignment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/9n31xf/introduci...

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/a1jokv/beck...

Mugatu off of finance twitter calls this "white chick beta":

https://twitter.com/SuperMugatu/status/1102678639366287361

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#72

Post by waitwhatwhere » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 11:43 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #68

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #39

The City of London is having a skyscraper boom at the moment - two major 100+ floor buildings are going up and you can hardly turn a corner without some crane or building work going on. I personally (and without any empirical evidence) think that there is no way London needs this much more office space, partly because "Brexit China Tariffs", but mostly because remote working and "just not in the office five days a we…

I wonder what happened to the concept of the garage startup that Silicon Valley's foundation is famous for? Too much money from profits and not enough people or ideas to invest in? Paying for an office space is an extremely inefficient use of resources, especially when plenty of cafe space - or just, you know, your living room, kitchen - or garage - are useful even for teams of 20+ because will be rare to need everyo…

IMO we’ve taken to conflating “work” with “job”.

The social meme has shifted from find work you connect to, to find job at “Happy Cult Incorporated”.

We owe management our time or they’ll take their money and go somewhere else is the messaging.

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#73

Post by hnick » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

gnulinux wrote: post #8

danso wrote: post #7

Tangent: the article includes a chart titled "Unicorns Gored" with the caption, "Many of the highly valued young technology companies have not done well as public companies". It features 9 relatively recent tech IPOs, including Lyft, Dropbox, Spotify, and Snapchat. All of the companies have a negative delta in terms of initial stock price, from -47% to -2%, except for Pinterest, which is +77%. I actually had forgotte…

Huh didn't even know Pinterest is still a thing. Is it like Instagram?

It is generally good for 'mood boards' and other designer type stuff where you want to collect a bunch of images to fit a theme or inspire an idea. In my experience it's been more popular with women and crafty/DIY types.

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#74

Post by laurex » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #39

The City of London is having a skyscraper boom at the moment - two major 100+ floor buildings are going up and you can hardly turn a corner without some crane or building work going on. I personally (and without any empirical evidence) think that there is no way London needs this much more office space, partly because "Brexit China Tariffs", but mostly because remote working and "just not in the office five days a we…

I had a previous job where the owner bought a building in NYC and made the top floors apartments, one of which I was offered at a low rate. I am very glad I said no, because imagine the golden handcuff scenario of having a below-market place to live ONLY if you keep working for a person/company who, at least in that case, turned out to be pretty creepy.

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#75

Post by twic » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #39

The City of London is having a skyscraper boom at the moment - two major 100+ floor buildings are going up and you can hardly turn a corner without some crane or building work going on. I personally (and without any empirical evidence) think that there is no way London needs this much more office space, partly because "Brexit China Tariffs", but mostly because remote working and "just not in the office five days a we…

> cities have a new brighter car free future, where Barcelona's mega-blocks will meets the density of skyscrapers. But it needs ... looking after.

Without detracting at all from a really interesting speculation, this does sound like the opening crawl of a hopepunk Judge Dredd film.

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#76

Post by ggm » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #69

I have a bit of knowledge of the co-working industry. I’m good friends with the founder of the first and long-dominant tech/creative co-working space in my Australian city, and I served on its advisory board in the past couple years, through what turned out to be a distressed sale of the business to its landlord, after it became insolvent and unsalvageable. There are several fundamental flaws with the concept that ma…

When I consider my options to not sit in a company office, the cost points of what is out there very quickly indicate the buried cost of a desk, and good snacks. They are way way north of what people "think" would be reasonable.

A friend in ICT who will remain nameless has found a bookshop in a disused chapel near his home (and mine!) which holds great promise, but as a space its limited to maybe 2-5 people and would never be economically viable. But still, towers of books outside, and a congenial bookshop keeper to bum coffee off..

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#77

Post by jngreenlee » Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 11:55 PM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #69

I have a bit of knowledge of the co-working industry. I’m good friends with the founder of the first and long-dominant tech/creative co-working space in my Australian city, and I served on its advisory board in the past couple years, through what turned out to be a distressed sale of the business to its landlord, after it became insolvent and unsalvageable. There are several fundamental flaws with the concept that ma…

I really like your analysis here and it made me think.

Ultimately, for control of many of these issues, a localist approach is superior..understand the local culture, etc.

Maybe a coworkery in La Jolla would have surfboard racks and a tacit understanding that surfing comes first...so allowance for wet gears (and showers) might be needed. Maybe a location in Boulder has community climbing gear and/or a bouldering wall.

So, does scale lend _any_ benefit? Certainly the "network" of locations might help...but what % of tenants are really and truely jet-setters off to many major cities, versus those that stay close to home and just need a regular space out of the house. I don't think scale is that vital in this view.

Next, deals...I suppose scale can lend itself to leasing deals with major brokers that have multi-city inventory. But that benefit is only on the supply side, and unless the _same_ landlord is involved, they won't come down in price just because.

At the end of the day, more, 'localist' coworking spaces probably wins and is a more dynamic market (and thus resilient) than some attempt at "winner-take-all" scale. Also, to reinforce that...I suspect many times a good coworking location is probably an individuals labor of love...they like their town, had access to the commercial space, and they wanted it first-and-foremost for themselves. Any subscribers are just helping to pay the bills and making new friends.

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#78

Post by dikdikvandik » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 12:00 AM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #69

I have a bit of knowledge of the co-working industry. I’m good friends with the founder of the first and long-dominant tech/creative co-working space in my Australian city, and I served on its advisory board in the past couple years, through what turned out to be a distressed sale of the business to its landlord, after it became insolvent and unsalvageable. There are several fundamental flaws with the concept that ma…

This is really interesting. What are the profit margins like? Can't imagine it would be easy to substantially undercut any traditional office space.

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#79

Post by rhizome » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 12:09 AM UTC

loceng wrote: post #68

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #39

The City of London is having a skyscraper boom at the moment - two major 100+ floor buildings are going up and you can hardly turn a corner without some crane or building work going on. I personally (and without any empirical evidence) think that there is no way London needs this much more office space, partly because "Brexit China Tariffs", but mostly because remote working and "just not in the office five days a we…

I wonder what happened to the concept of the garage startup that Silicon Valley's foundation is famous for? Too much money from profits and not enough people or ideas to invest in? Paying for an office space is an extremely inefficient use of resources, especially when plenty of cafe space - or just, you know, your living room, kitchen - or garage - are useful even for teams of 20+ because will be rare to need everyo…

>I wonder what happened to the concept of the garage startup that Silicon Valley's foundation is famous for?

Killed by housing costs and a mature industry.

Who can rent most of a house right out of school (HP), or bang around in their childhood home (Apple) in SV? Not only are the costs prohibitive, but most residents are from somewhere else, so no childhood home in existence anyway. Moving to SV is done to parachute in to the success that previous generations had to create for themselves.

Oversimplifying a bit, but the point is that both the economics and the demographics have swung way far away from "scrappy young geniuses" to "Ivy League careerists." It's almost a different universe, and would be completely distinct by now had Starbucks not been invented.

Re: WeWork IPO Shows It's the Most Magical Unicorn

#80

Post by txcwpalpha » Thu, Aug 15, 2019, 12:11 AM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #39

The City of London is having a skyscraper boom at the moment - two major 100+ floor buildings are going up and you can hardly turn a corner without some crane or building work going on. I personally (and without any empirical evidence) think that there is no way London needs this much more office space, partly because "Brexit China Tariffs", but mostly because remote working and "just not in the office five days a we…

>two major 100+ floor buildings are going up

Which buildings? According to this [1] there isn't a single building in London (completed, under construction, or even proposed) that is 100+ floors. The tallest building in London (The Shard) only has 80 floors and there are currently no buildings planned that would be taller.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_...