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Investing in Flow

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Re: Investing in Flow

#91

Post by vagabund »

mtalantikite wrote: post #82

> The second model: you rent an apartment, but: it’s a soulless experience; do you even meet your neighbors, much less have any friends in your complex? Does it feel like home, or just a place to sleep? Are you proud to bring friends and family to visit, or hesitant? Excuse me, what? I've absolutely met my neighbors. In past buildings in Brooklyn I've gone out to dinner with some, spent hours on the stoop having conv…

This stood out as the weakest part of the thesis to me as well, but I think in general it's true that apartment living trends towards atomized, low-community existence. Even classics of modern high-density architecture like Unite d'habitation with its multi-floor, windowed interior hallways don't really function in their stated intent of building social spaces. Not that Adam Neumann is the person to solve it, but creating vertical communities that are as deeply integrated as horizontal ones has been a central open question in architecture and urban planning for nearly a century.

Re: Investing in Flow

#92

Post by resalisbury »

mtalantikite wrote: post #82

> The second model: you rent an apartment, but: it’s a soulless experience; do you even meet your neighbors, much less have any friends in your complex? Does it feel like home, or just a place to sleep? Are you proud to bring friends and family to visit, or hesitant? Excuse me, what? I've absolutely met my neighbors. In past buildings in Brooklyn I've gone out to dinner with some, spent hours on the stoop having conv…

The suggestion that renting is bad is wrong and insulting.

The US has made a series of poor choices to try to treat housing as a means wealth generation.

Housing can be affordable or a good investment it cannot be both. Ownership incentivize's NIMBYism, which has huge detrimental effects. Renting does not.

Re: Investing in Flow

#94

Post by neilk »

solumos wrote: post #80
rzazueta wrote: post #76

Quoted post unavailable.

Say what you will about Adam Neumann, but he didn't commit fraud

Neumann bought ownership stakes in properties which he then leased to WeWork. I don’t know if this meets the legal definition of fraud but it’s absurdly shady, a clear conflict of interest.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/16/we-company-ceo-in-hot-wate...

Re: Investing in Flow

#95

Post by mtalantikite »

iancmceachern wrote: post #88
mtalantikite wrote: post #82

> The second model: you rent an apartment, but: it’s a soulless experience; do you even meet your neighbors, much less have any friends in your complex? Does it feel like home, or just a place to sleep? Are you proud to bring friends and family to visit, or hesitant? Excuse me, what? I've absolutely met my neighbors. In past buildings in Brooklyn I've gone out to dinner with some, spent hours on the stoop having conv…

This is so classist (not your comment but op). To imply that folks who don't own their home shouldn't/couldn't be "proud" to bring their loved ones there. Are you kidding me? Entire generations, communities, families have lived and died in rental housing. Entire swaths of the population. This shows very little respect for them.

Absolutely. My mom grew up in a predominately working class Irish public housing complex that my grandmother lived in for almost her entire adult life. It was small, but 5 kids grew up there, and when they had their own kids, we'd go over every Sunday for dinner. Not once did anyone feel ashamed to have all the extended Irish family over in that small apartment. It always amazes me how people that know so little about the world try to tell the rest of us how we should live or feel.

Re: Investing in Flow

#96

Post by benjaminwootton »

neilk wrote: post #94
solumos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say what you will about Adam Neumann, but he didn't commit fraud

Neumann bought ownership stakes in properties which he then leased to WeWork. I don’t know if this meets the legal definition of fraud but it’s absurdly shady, a clear conflict of interest. https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/16/we-company-ceo-in-hot-wate...

Fraud: “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.”

Not sure that fits as I assume it was both legal and didn’t involve any deception.

Re: Investing in Flow

#97

Post by mtalantikite »

vagabund wrote: post #91
mtalantikite wrote: post #82

> The second model: you rent an apartment, but: it’s a soulless experience; do you even meet your neighbors, much less have any friends in your complex? Does it feel like home, or just a place to sleep? Are you proud to bring friends and family to visit, or hesitant? Excuse me, what? I've absolutely met my neighbors. In past buildings in Brooklyn I've gone out to dinner with some, spent hours on the stoop having conv…

This stood out as the weakest part of the thesis to me as well, but I think in general it's true that apartment living trends towards atomized, low-community existence. Even classics of modern high-density architecture like Unite d'habitation with its multi-floor, windowed interior hallways don't really function in their stated intent of building social spaces. Not that Adam Neumann is the person to solve it, but cre…

For sure, there certainly could be improvements architecturally, and I agree the Adam Neumann probably isn't the person to solve it.

I do love Brooklyn's planning for the most part, with mixed use commercial avenues and largely residential streets, but I'd also like more outdoor space to socialize in. Half my family is Algerian and I love the style of the Casbah, with interior courtyards surrounded by apartments or multi-use spaces. There's some good footage of this typical Casbah style building in a music video by the Blaze, for those that haven't seen it [1]. I've seen a similar style in Oaxaca as well.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54fea7wuV6s

Re: Investing in Flow

#98

Post by rchaud »

badpun wrote: post #48
rchaud wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are few industries as cynical as venture capital. They won't ever invest in projects explicitly designed for public welfare because "the economics don't work" or "the innovation isn't there". But they will invest eye-watering sums into financing student newspapers for the middle-aged (Substack) or 'turn your car into a public taxi' businesses, knowing that 90% of them won't amount to anything.

> There are few industries as cynical as venture capital. They won't ever invest in projects explicitly designed for public welfare because "the economics don't work" As oposed to which industries exactly?

"industry" wasn't the right word, as VCs don't produce anything. As investment philosophies go, it's very cynical.

Re: Investing in Flow

#99

Post by cma »

s1k3 wrote: post #77
msoad wrote: post #61

My guess: A network of apartment complexes across the country that you can own equity in the entire enterprise instead of one single home. You can "freely" move between the apartments without having to go through financing etc. This can be interesting with a massive capital and enough time to build out the network but seeing this cocaine addict's name in the mix make me feel this is going to fail fast. Real estate is…

Lot of people dunking on Neumann here. But the space is very interesting and certainly there is a market need. No one seems to understand that Neumann built a massively successful company, because they watch the documentaries and think he’s a scumbag for failing to deliver an IPO.

Wasn't he the guy that had the company license the trademark from himself privately, lease his own privately held properties and stuff? It was all very close to embezzlement if I'm remembering the right company.

Re: Investing in Flow

#100

Post by cma »

UmYeahNo wrote: post #2

Anyone know what this magical idea is? Color me skeptical, but the deliberately vague strawman arguments in the post read between the lines to be something like: "If you're a homeowner we want to your equity and if your a renter we want your rent". I don't harbor any illusions that flow wants to help anyone but themselves. I have no idea what flow actually is, but if it's something like "airbnb but permanent on the b…

My guess is it is a new way of quickly moving furniture so they can have you move locations every 29 days so you don't get any legal eviction protections. But your rent for this new venture buys into a blockchain ponzi scam and you get some kind of token out of it.
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