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blang | 6 years ago

I think that's why the parent put "tech" in quotes.

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LargeWu|6 years ago

I guess I was referring to the quote that was posted, which certainly seemed to lump WeWork in with tech IPO's.

filmgirlcw|6 years ago

Well, although many now understand WeWork isn’t a tech company (and some of us were saying this YEARS ago — I personally said this at least twice on CNBC as far back as 2014), WeWork raised money and did it’s IPO roadshow and achieved the valuation it has achieved by positioning itself as a tech company, even tho it is just a real estate company with slightly complicated owning/leasing structures.

Soft Bank invested what if has invested, expecting to get the return it would get on a tech company — not real estate.

The reckoning that is happening now is much deserved, but if WeWork got the benefit of being called a tech company when it was flying high (and it did — including here on HN), I’m not going to give the company or its investors an “out” now that it’s all falling apart.

This was a decidedly non-tech company that convinced its investors it was tech. And now that the rouse is up, the bloodbath that follows begins in earnest.