I'm so glad I read hacker news. I almost took a job at WeWork just 2 months ago with a recruiter working very hard to convince me I'd be rich when they IPO. Now I'm at a much smaller startup called Weave which is a really phenomenal place to work. I didn't discover until recently that it's also a YCombinator company.
edit: to clarify, hacker news has been extremely skeptical of WeWork for some time, due to this, I was extremely wary of their offer and leaned towards (and eventually chose) other options.
Same here, and only by reading the headlines. A WeWork recruiter reached out to me. I laughed out loud and added it to the list of companies I would never work for. Not only do they do nothing interesting, but they are apparently unethical as well.
No doubt another failed tech bro pump 'n dump scheme headed to the dustbin of history.
> I'm so glad I read hacker news. I almost took a job at WeWork just 2 months ago with a recruiter working very hard to convince me I'd be rich when they IPO.
Did a 2-month old HN comment foretell WeWork imploding which informed your decision to decline their offer, or reading HN in general helped you determine that their offer would be close to worthless, compared to your options at that time?
My company has about half a floor in a WeWork, and we're planning on moving out in the next year. I've been wondering if we'll be forced to move a bit sooner if WeWork fails
I must say, I am jealous. It seems a bit unfair to me how computer engineers are getting hired and paid so well, while my economics degree is useless and I have to fight like crazy to get a job that pays WAY less than engineers get. Honestly, I studied economics because I wanted a job that pays well - that was one of the key criteria - and now I am standing with little money and a job I hate. It sucks.
I had concerns earlier this year when I interviewed at WeWork—which was the worst interview experience I’ve ever had. I applied for a data science role. The first two hours of the on-site were painful—they seemed to be asking questions tailored to be outside my experience. The third interviewer came into the room and said, “I, uh, just looked at your resume and I have to ask, why do you want to be a backend engineer?” :facepalm: I showed him my application for a DS role, so he left and came back with a DS guy who made up an interview on the spot. I (fortunately?) didn’t get a call back.
Haha, I had an interview many years ago in Australia, was a full 2 hour technical interview in MS technologies. Nailed all the C#/.NET/SQL Server questions. Nailed everything they threw at me. I felt really proud of myself because I thought I was doing very well.
After they were done with me I started asking questions. I asked what they would have me doing?
"Oh the back-end system & api is done by a different team, you would just be doing the HTML/CSS for the front-end team"
I had a similar experience a month or so back with a large consulting firm I was interviewing for in the DC area. It was also a data science role and they kept asking me webdev questions. In this case they knew it was for a data science role but I could also tell the guy hadn't a clue about most machine learning and data science topics. He was probably just as uncomfortable as I was. I didn't take the job.
Well, corporate governance was one of the main factors why the market refused to accept anything close to their last private valuation, so this makes sense. Note that they desperately need the public money before the end of December in order to avoid running out of cash [0].
My bet is that they will now try to remarket We as a shareholder-controlled company, will maybe even eliminate the multi-class stock structure in order to get included into the passive funds. I am still not sure they will ever become profitable through. The only way to disrupt the incumbents in an established market like this one would be to spot a new opportunity in the market and capitalize on it faster than the slow 30-year-old companies like Regus. Except the only market opportunity We has successfully exploited by now are the desperate investors ready to shove billions in your hands if you pretend to be a cool techy thing they don't fully understand.
There was an article yesterday where Softbank was saying that they think they can renegotiate those LOCs to go forward even if there is no IPO this year. They might end up being a lot smaller and have worse terms for We though. I wouldn't be surprised if pushing Adam out was the first demand the banks made in that renegotiation.
Softbank wants to delay the IPO now because it would mean a massive writedown of their investment value.
I just don't see them wrestling control away from the deranged, cult leader. He truly believes he is destined to be president of the world and revolutionize.. well every thing. There best bet would be to drop the multi-class structure to get into passive funds.
Corporate governance was definitely a factor, but getting cut down from $47B to $10-15B is... a lot. Public market investors clearly have a much worse opinion of We's fundamentals than SoftBank did.
Unless I am completely misunderstanding the value of WeWork, this ship seems to have already sailed. At least locally, Regus has offerings that are substantially the same in price and features to what WeWork has.
From "We Wants a New Boss"[0], written yesterday in Money Stuff:
> ...it’s terrible for SoftBank! The message from SoftBank is pretty much “your [Neumann's] job was to extract billions of dollars out of us, and you succeeded at it admirably; now that you’ve served that purpose, we should replace you with a real-estate CEO to salvage the value of your investment and ours.”
>...Or I guess maybe the IPO bankers leaked it because they want Neumann gone, to make the IPO easier, and want to commit Son to it by leaking. Or because they love messy drama maybe? It’s not their company.
The even funnier part of the segment is when he gets into what some of the banks actually put out as a reasonable IPO valuation.
>...JPMorgan told WeWork executives the company could be worth between $46bn and $63bn in the listing. Goldman pegged the equity at between $61bn and $96bn. Morgan Stanley estimated WeWork’s valuation at between $43bn and $104bn in a presentation in 2018, though a pitch for the IPO set it at a more modest $18bn-$52bn.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this, but I actually just signed up to be a (thankfully month-to-month) WeWork customer for a HotDesk today in Phoenix, and it's actually been a pretty great experience: Great space, nice people, reasonable IT, I was up and running and working within 30 minutes of doing my tour. And yes I've had a cup of the famous We Kombucha.
This particular location just opened 3 weeks ago and is apparently already at 70% capacity with a mix of enterprises and startups. Even my Hotdesk membership can't start officially until Oct 1 because they're apparently sold out (though walking around there's plenty of space).
Based on these surface observations, the core business at least seems "plausibly profitable". But all the crazy side businesses like co-living just seems like overexpansion to me.
I'll politely decline as an investor, but I'm happy to sign up as a lowest-tier, month-to-month customer.
This is some dense shit. I can't imagine how working for WeWork feels like, right now.
I have worked for companies where all the employees were eagerly waiting for the day the company will go public. It was seen as a pivotal moment both financially and professionally.
In any rational world that's a landmark moment. A significant milestone for founders, investors and early employees. For WeWork it has been the complete opposite. They filed to go public and everything is going south since then. Must be surreal that what seemed to be the start of a bright future may be very well the start of a dark end.
I'm guessing the "Non-Executive Chairman" position will just be a temporary one until they can come to agreement on how much money they need to pay him to go away.
Professor Galloway called this the other day. His next prediction is that We will sell off all the bullshit vanity projects like WeLive and WeGrow along with the other nonsense Adam bought (like the wave pool company so he can practice surfing at work). Then they will fire all non-core employees. The clock is ticking if they want to save this company.
I don't think they will shut down WeLive. The entire premise of WeWork, and WeLive, is that they can sell you more than real estate -- they can sell you a "tribe." There are so many reports in recent years about growing social isolation and loneliness, that if something can be successfully packaged into a simulacrum of a community, it will be a hot item indeed. That's the only way WeWork can justify its stratospheric investments, and it is the market they will aim to dominate.
I work in one of the companies WeWork acquired. The first time I heard Adan in a townhall I kept wondering, what kind of hell is happening to the world so that guy was sitting in a massive pile of money thanks to VCs. His nonsense and lack of business mindset were evident in every interaction and announcement. So IMHO he deserves that.
The issue is that now we have +10k people wondering about their future because they have bills to pay and a hard path ahead. Meanwhile, Galloway brags about how he was right during all this time and suggest massive layouts to save "investors."
I get the impression that SoftBank learned the wrong lesson from Uber. While Uber also raised billions of dollars and had a CEO get forced out by investors, it was broadly understood that his sin was creating a toxic/sexist culture. It wasn't related to business fundamentals, per se.
WeWork's sins were less of rampant sexism, and more closely related to an unreasonable valuation and a business that wasn't prepared for the current IPO climate. In other words, they were things for which the investors are also culpable.
I'm not a founder, but I'd be very hesitant to raise from SoftBank if I was (and very nervous if I had already raised from them). With Benchmark (and Uber's other investors), I'd only be worried if the toxic culture I created was putting their investment seriously at risk.
People work for people. Not the company. That said, I've spoken to lots of WeWork employees in the past. If you had a simple job, Adam wanted to know how you could do it faster, or automate it (with you out of work). If you worked on the tech side which seemed to be Ruby on Rails with Bootstrap, well, you were in New York at first, but then Adam would accuse techies of not thinking big enough, or not delivering 5 points worth of features in the time it took 1, and where's the mobile app? The guy knew absolutely nothing about technology, and when he outsourced the reservation system to India, then I knew it really had nothing to do with innovation. What's worse is lots of folks worked there expecting six figures before the outsourcing, but got nickel'd & dimed to something way under six figures. All without a PIP.
Edit: removed exact salary amounts because my sources said it would out them.
WeWork's Bond Prices are falling rapidly.These are the only financial instruments that measure market appetite. Someone thinks they might not be paying back the money they are borrowing.
WeWork's business model is convincing investors they are a tech company with a dozens-of-billions valuation. I am glad HN, amongst others, have torn down this real-estate company wearing a tech-unicorn-mask.
There are a lot of large and small ironies at play, but the one that irks me the most is the interrelation between `investment` in the financial sense and `investment` in the dress sense, for the word has its root in the word `vestment` which means `clothing` (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=investment)
I keep asking myself how startup culture has gone so far off the rails in terms of professional business tropes, even while they court traditional financial backing to the point where the emperor's new clothes scenario is playing out in front of us and we barely even notice? One word: entitlement
Could this fellow have stood a chance if he wasn't so nonchalant with his appearance opting for the messianic playboy look rather than the modest preppy techie?
I'm sure this comment will get downvoted to oblivion but what are imaginary internet points for if not spending on counterculture opinions?
I say the reason this all fell apart is because the guy is simply unlikeable and his shitty entitled-looking Keith Raniere-esque stage presence did nothing to help
Interesting point. Although if they broke the leases, I'm sure that would also line his pockets (from early termination fees) without necessarily getting anything out of it?
My interview with WeWork was for a dev role.. Recruiter emailed me a 'homework' assignment. This homework assignment was basically work they needed to get done and offed it on candidates to finish.. I noped out of that pretty quick.
Could this be a turning point in the current tech bubble ? Might be a good opportunity to bring valuations back to sane levels before things get too extreme and damage lots of livelihoods.
This is some dense shit. I can't imagine how working for WeWork feels like, right now.
I have worked for companies where all the employees were eagerly waiting for the day the company will go public. It was seen as a pivotal moment both financially and professionally.
In any rational world that's a landmark moment. A significant milestone for founders, investors and early employees.
For WeWork it has been the complete opposite. They filed to go public and everything is going south since then. Must be surreal that what seemed to be the start of a bright future may be very well the start of a dark end.
[+] [-] ngngngng|6 years ago|reply
edit: to clarify, hacker news has been extremely skeptical of WeWork for some time, due to this, I was extremely wary of their offer and leaned towards (and eventually chose) other options.
[+] [-] codesushi42|6 years ago|reply
No doubt another failed tech bro pump 'n dump scheme headed to the dustbin of history.
[+] [-] JohnFen|6 years ago|reply
When a recruiter makes that argument to me, I consider it a huge red flag all by itself, and am much less interested in working there.
[+] [-] lpellis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Larrikin|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://time.com/5338287/wework-meat-vegetarian-company-envi...
[+] [-] alasdair_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickstinemates|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sah2ed|6 years ago|reply
Did a 2-month old HN comment foretell WeWork imploding which informed your decision to decline their offer, or reading HN in general helped you determine that their offer would be close to worthless, compared to your options at that time?
[+] [-] mando75|6 years ago|reply
Edit: I'm on the 5th floor, feel free to come party
[+] [-] kiloatl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TomBombadildoze|6 years ago|reply
Independently of what you read here, you saw right through this as total bullshit, right?
Right?
[+] [-] joachim4|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaklee3|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ballas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|6 years ago|reply
Is that even legal?
[+] [-] dwighttk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 88840-8855|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgearhart|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philliphaydon|6 years ago|reply
After they were done with me I started asking questions. I asked what they would have me doing?
"Oh the back-end system & api is done by a different team, you would just be doing the HTML/CSS for the front-end team"
I was furious when I left...
[+] [-] metalliqaz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theferalrobot|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scottlegrand2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] john_moscow|6 years ago|reply
My bet is that they will now try to remarket We as a shareholder-controlled company, will maybe even eliminate the multi-class stock structure in order to get included into the passive funds. I am still not sure they will ever become profitable through. The only way to disrupt the incumbents in an established market like this one would be to spot a new opportunity in the market and capitalize on it faster than the slow 30-year-old companies like Regus. Except the only market opportunity We has successfully exploited by now are the desperate investors ready to shove billions in your hands if you pretend to be a cool techy thing they don't fully understand.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/wework-loan/clock-ticking-do...
[+] [-] DebtDeflation|6 years ago|reply
Softbank wants to delay the IPO now because it would mean a massive writedown of their investment value.
[+] [-] rwmurrayVT|6 years ago|reply
It needs $8.1b market cap to get into S&P500.
[+] [-] joshcain|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egdod|6 years ago|reply
That’s not at all clear.
[+] [-] rootusrootus|6 years ago|reply
Unless I am completely misunderstanding the value of WeWork, this ship seems to have already sailed. At least locally, Regus has offerings that are substantially the same in price and features to what WeWork has.
[+] [-] conroy|6 years ago|reply
> ...it’s terrible for SoftBank! The message from SoftBank is pretty much “your [Neumann's] job was to extract billions of dollars out of us, and you succeeded at it admirably; now that you’ve served that purpose, we should replace you with a real-estate CEO to salvage the value of your investment and ours.”
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-23/we-wan...
[+] [-] rwmurrayVT|6 years ago|reply
From "WeKeepGoingWithThisHuh"[0]
>...Or I guess maybe the IPO bankers leaked it because they want Neumann gone, to make the IPO easier, and want to commit Son to it by leaking. Or because they love messy drama maybe? It’s not their company.
The even funnier part of the segment is when he gets into what some of the banks actually put out as a reasonable IPO valuation.
>...JPMorgan told WeWork executives the company could be worth between $46bn and $63bn in the listing. Goldman pegged the equity at between $61bn and $96bn. Morgan Stanley estimated WeWork’s valuation at between $43bn and $104bn in a presentation in 2018, though a pitch for the IPO set it at a more modest $18bn-$52bn.
[0]https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/don-t-...
[+] [-] joshpadnick|6 years ago|reply
This particular location just opened 3 weeks ago and is apparently already at 70% capacity with a mix of enterprises and startups. Even my Hotdesk membership can't start officially until Oct 1 because they're apparently sold out (though walking around there's plenty of space).
Based on these surface observations, the core business at least seems "plausibly profitable". But all the crazy side businesses like co-living just seems like overexpansion to me.
I'll politely decline as an investor, but I'm happy to sign up as a lowest-tier, month-to-month customer.
[+] [-] DebtDeflation|6 years ago|reply
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/24/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-is-e...
[+] [-] whoisjuan|6 years ago|reply
In any rational world that's a landmark moment. A significant milestone for founders, investors and early employees. For WeWork it has been the complete opposite. They filed to go public and everything is going south since then. Must be surreal that what seemed to be the start of a bright future may be very well the start of a dark end.
[+] [-] DebtDeflation|6 years ago|reply
Professor Galloway called this the other day. His next prediction is that We will sell off all the bullshit vanity projects like WeLive and WeGrow along with the other nonsense Adam bought (like the wave pool company so he can practice surfing at work). Then they will fire all non-core employees. The clock is ticking if they want to save this company.
[+] [-] paggle|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] postit|6 years ago|reply
The issue is that now we have +10k people wondering about their future because they have bills to pay and a hard path ahead. Meanwhile, Galloway brags about how he was right during all this time and suggest massive layouts to save "investors."
I'm getting tired of this.
[+] [-] jamestimmins|6 years ago|reply
WeWork's sins were less of rampant sexism, and more closely related to an unreasonable valuation and a business that wasn't prepared for the current IPO climate. In other words, they were things for which the investors are also culpable.
I'm not a founder, but I'd be very hesitant to raise from SoftBank if I was (and very nervous if I had already raised from them). With Benchmark (and Uber's other investors), I'd only be worried if the toxic culture I created was putting their investment seriously at risk.
[+] [-] byeadam|6 years ago|reply
Edit: removed exact salary amounts because my sources said it would out them.
[+] [-] jchallis|6 years ago|reply
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wework-ipo-debt/wework-bo...
[+] [-] freddie_mercury|6 years ago|reply
It fell 1.1%, which is not rapid, especially for something that was already rated a junk bond.
And without any data on the bond's previous price volatility it isn't impossible to say whether 1.1% is worse than it had, say, the week before.
[+] [-] WhompingWindows|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] artsyca|6 years ago|reply
I keep asking myself how startup culture has gone so far off the rails in terms of professional business tropes, even while they court traditional financial backing to the point where the emperor's new clothes scenario is playing out in front of us and we barely even notice? One word: entitlement
Could this fellow have stood a chance if he wasn't so nonchalant with his appearance opting for the messianic playboy look rather than the modest preppy techie?
I'm sure this comment will get downvoted to oblivion but what are imaginary internet points for if not spending on counterculture opinions?
I say the reason this all fell apart is because the guy is simply unlikeable and his shitty entitled-looking Keith Raniere-esque stage presence did nothing to help
[+] [-] jedberg|6 years ago|reply
Essentially they solved the self-dealing issue by removing the self instead of removing the deals?
[+] [-] cbanek|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mataug|6 years ago|reply
https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux https://twitter.com/JordanBitterman/status/11765494016213483...
[+] [-] buboard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bombas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thewarrior|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whoisjuan|6 years ago|reply
I have worked for companies where all the employees were eagerly waiting for the day the company will go public. It was seen as a pivotal moment both financially and professionally.
In any rational world that's a landmark moment. A significant milestone for founders, investors and early employees. For WeWork it has been the complete opposite. They filed to go public and everything is going south since then. Must be surreal that what seemed to be the start of a bright future may be very well the start of a dark end.