The Ridiculous Rise and Fall of WeWork
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 พ.ย. 2023
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WeWork recently filed for Ch 11 bankruptcy - let's go over the ridiculous story behind one of the largest venture capital failures in corporate American history.
Richard does not have a position in WeWork. This channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute financial advice - Richard is not responsible for investment actions taken by viewers. Please seek out a registered advisor if you require assistance (while Richard is a registered portfolio manager at WDS Investment Management, he does not provide advice through The Plain Bagel, which is not affiliated with his employer).
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Be eccentric, bro.
Here’s a challenge for 2024 : publish a video in french!
@@Matheo05 I have to learn how to ask for directions first, but maybe one day!
I know hindsight is 20/20, but it still blows my mind that the venture caps fell for this horse shit. I guess greed can make you stupid. 🤷
Dude literally BS's his way through life for 10 years, they call him out on it, and he says give me a billion and I'll go away. Insane.
Imagine him going to his HS reunion before 2019 and then after.
Probably the school weirdo that’s most likely to sell weed but then end up being WeWork CEO
….a different kind of weed
That makes him smart.
He played his cards right, got bought out before We crashed and burned. On one hand he's a tech bro foul up. Other devious hand he dealt himself out with the company paying him for his leases, overvaluation, and having his personality be the reason they forced them to buy him out. He's a devious jerk who played a lot of angles and got out ahead while he crashed the ship.
And then he starts another scam so he can do the same thing.
That white is delusional but people bought into his scam lol
So comforting to know he landed on his feet, so much talent at running a company should not be lost just cause he lost investors tens of billions of dollars, while himself becoming a billionaire. Phew!
@@ts8206hope you get banned
@@ts8206the issue isn't wildly speculative investing and a lack of legal repercussions but rather the Jews.
Guess we don't need to change the laws anymore. We found a scapegoat
That's not fair. It's like saying one of the millions of people who share your race happens to be a fraud, then everybody is a fraud. This guy is terrible but that does not warrant any reason for antisemitism. @@ts8206
@@ts8206homie just had to go there. U folks are becoming bold
@@ts8206 Jews bankrupted Germany, got genocided, fled to America. Now they're bankrupting America. To where next will they flee?
"Solving the problem of children without parents" could mean building an orphan-crushing machine. Never assume that an altruistic goal will be accomplished benevolently!
Orphan-crushing machine? How very Canadian.
@@JeanMarceauxHow progressive!
Yes, that's very obviously what the company intended to do 🙄
@@JeanMarceaux shh, don't give Trudeau ideas!
WeWork : a colossal failure who burned billions of investor's money.
WeWork's CEO : received a massive golden parachute.
We truly live in a meritocracy.
Well, in a sense he merited the money because the other guys were even worse shepherds of it. Imagine what else they might have invested in if it weren't relatively benign offices that aren't profitable? A diet pill made of botulism? It'd be something crazy and potentially dangerous for sure :D
To be fair, this is how competition works. Higher the rank, the fewer the positions and qualified talents that exist. Each company is trying to hire the best CEO to beat out the others, so they have to out compete each each other in compensation packages. And when it's the fortune 500 companies (or in this case billionaire funded venture capitals) fighting for the best CEOs, that's how these huge sums of money come to be. The thing is, most fortune 500 CEOs are indeed true rare talents, think of Google's, Apple's, but how they grew these companies to trillion of dollars is less interesting than the fewer but much more fun to watch belly flops like WeWork.
@@xiphoid2011 He didn't merit the money, he didn't earn it, the company is a flop, and the investors should never have given it. They're all epic failures. If it were a meritocracy, they wouldn't have had access to the funds to waste on his nonsense company, and he wouldn't have walked away with any money beyond a modest startup salary of enough to live on and not much more. Since you're supposed to merit the money, by actually achieving a viable company. They weren't hiring him as the CEO, he was the founder. It's not the same as BP picking a new fossil fuel muppet to destroy the world. Or Volkswagen getting rid of the guy who wanted EVs and hurtling toward their own imminent bankruptcy.
We certainly live in a Time
He's doing the gods work. VCs should invest in him again in the future
24 seconds in and things are already off the rails... How is a real-estate company mission to "solve the problem of children without parents and eradicating world hunger?!?!"
That's exactly the bullshit needed to sell the bigger picture to VCs and PE funds!
The investors in WeWork: "I dunno, but fuck it, I'll get my return before the stock collapses..."
Don't worry they're not a real estate company they're a high growth tech company 😮💨
The Silicone valley show hit the nail on the head with their “changing the world” joke
Yeah I was waiting for this guy to expand on that bc what 😂
Founders of companies like WeWork and FTX are proof that VCs are not all as smart as they perceive themselves to be.
but they spread their investment, and hope to hit a jackpot like Amazon.
Because they are looking for the next big thing and people like Newman play on their fears of Fear of Missing Out. Most VC's don't want the dull route of investing that Warren Buffet goes with.
Um. You're going to tell us about some bunch of people who are "all as smart as they perceive themselves to be"?
After watching shows like Dragon's Den and Shark Tank, I'm convinced many VCs don't actually know what they're doing at all. They either want majority control over your company and expects your revenue to already be in the millions and basically a sure-win, or they love that you don't wear underwear to work.
You might lose it all if you bet a billion here and there on the roulette wheel, but sometimes you hit the jackpot.
So the key to raising billions for your startup is to have out of control hair, walk around bare foot, play LoL on calls, and promise world changing plans…..and also the children….of course it’s all for the children.
I mean, SBF was also playing games during calls, so I guess that's true.
@@JohnDemetriou That's what he's referring to, I believe.
VCs are basically just pump and dump schemes if we look at WeWork, Theranos and FTX.
It helps if you're a member of the tribe.
You forgot cosplaying as Steve Jobs.
This story just convinced me that the gift of gab is the closest thing there is of a real life superpower.
Yup
More like reality distortion field aka Fooling Some of the People All of the Time.
Not newsworthy if he merely duped broke losers.
I really wish I had put my skills points into charisma instead of silly things like math and science.
Ehh you have to be able to get in front of the right stupid people for it to work.
You also have to be a sociopath.
I wouldn't wanna rent an office space at a company that has so much distractive, loud and disruptive environment from all the parties and alcohol
I mean, the meetup/networking events though we're kinda fun, though. Only went to one weWork networking event once as a new grad waiting to start my first job back in 2016 when I was still living in Manhattan. Did meet people all over the silicon valley/Wall Street area (this was a weWork in Wall Street). Didn't really go back since, opting for the Playcrafting NYC game development meetups before Covid and got holed up in my first job at a non-wework office that I didn't go back, but the environment wasn't really that bad. Just the main management and ownership got too full of themselves and burned their whole business that would never work in a WFH work environment
A classmate of mine worked at their offices in new york in the mid 2010s. the way she described it, they offered employees the ability to work and live close to each other, therefore these 'party' areas were really just "neutral spaces" that WeWork was trying to put all those places together. So you live at a wework property, you work at a startup at wework, and you hang out and socialize at wework. (I mean in 2015 Wework claimed that the plan was to have this co-living/working scheme to be 20% of its revenue...) it was freaking dystopic if you ask me.
WeWork
WeDidn’tWork
WeDidn’tWorkOut
@@gzer0x More like a southeast Asian work culture, where you're expected to go out and drink with your coworkers. Then go back to the office and work some more.
@@FF18Cloud I worked out of a similar space called WorkBar when I worked with a startup. It wasn't bad if you're a startup. You end up stuck at the workplace anyway _(due to startup entrepreneurship),_ so might as well make it interesting. I could only do it so long, tho, & needed more boundaries.
Everytime I hear about WeWork I learn a new crazy thing they did.
Apparently Neumann spent a boatload of money on a robot that would deliver your coffee
I saw another video that said WeWorks IT guy was a high school student, so when anything went wrong, they couldn't contact him during school hours
@ThisistheTale wait, are you being serious!?
@@RobVI Yes, haha, I'll see if I can find the video
@@RobVI th-cam.com/video/n3Q_4vjPMSE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=y1y4N53TscTqht1B Around 12:50 I guess it was just before they went super big
Some people are damn lucky. They can raise billions, run a company bankrupt, but still walk off with a golden handshake. Sometimes, it really feels that heaven no eyes.
It sounds like We Work did exactly what it was supposed to do: make Neumann rich.
Institutional investors: eh, all these plebs are dumb money
Also institutional investors: Awwww yiss, an office renting company with a crazy CEO, that's a moneymaker right there!
It’s not their money so they don’t care. They just operate on hyper FOMO.
Queue people using survivorship bias and single examples to try to make a counterargument to your point
The only explanation I have for this mind boggling lack of due diligence is that all these investors are probably so deeply afraid of missing the next Google, they jump on literally anything as long as it sounds insane enough.
The funniest part of the WeWork business model (aside from their ludicrous attempts to frame themselves as a tech company) is that they aren't even good at the main thing that they were trying to do, which is real estate management. Friends of mine who have worked out of WeWork offices always tell me that they're typically staffed by bored fresh college grads who sit at the front desk playing on their phones all day.
Yep, and if one has an appointment with their broker, they won't let them take a seat to wait, so welcome to standing outside in 120 degrees in Las Vegas. It looked like it had great potential, but what a disappointment when staffed by entitled, bored, condescending college students that regard anyone in business as bougie.
Who else would the front desk be staffed by?
Their main customers were startups who happen to be the most riskiest customer you could have because the failure rate is astronomical. Meanwhile these investors thought oh this is fine…
Me if I worked at WeWork
Adam Newman's terrible business ideas made him a billionaire. Such an inspiration....
terrible ideas. but a great salesman
@@Arigal3Yeah only because of his race and his religion. I’d like to see any other person who looks different and has a different religion be able to convince people to part with their money like he did.
Ummm,,,,how’s bout masayoshi son?
Cult leaders are especially good at separating fools from their wallets
At times I wish I had the ethics to be one of these startup bros… but then I remember I prefer to not disgust myself.
Part of me wanted to buy a share of WeWork for like $1, then request a paper certificate, then frame it and hang it up as a weird collectable/conversation piece.
You'd probably pay more for that paper certificate than the company is worth at this point
@@brokenphysics6146 Oh, for sure. Part of why I haven't exactly rushed out to do it.
@@brokenphysics6146the frame is the most expensive part of the project😂.
How about an NFT of a wewerk stock certificate?
@@chowsquidthat would be epic. I’d pay as high as $9.99 for that😂.
I was Chief of Staff at a company where I worked with the current COO of WeWork, USC. I recommended our CEO to fire him because he just wasn't good at his job. 2 months after I left the company, WeWork hired him with a huge raise and a penthouse, and then I find out that WeWork filed for bankruptcy... like, no wonder they're a failing business, they couldn't even hire someone capable for such an important position. The startup world is so messed up😅
Can't really expect a start up to start off completely professional tbh
At the beginning Adam Newman had experience and Masayoshi Son had money. Now Adam Newman has money and Masayoshi Son has experience.
Is this an example of a corporate rug pull? Neuman took 10 figures on his way out and left investors with absolutely nothing. Is it their fault for investing in a company that didn’t produce a product or service?
and he stay out of jail.
@@Allen_Leigh_Canadayeah cuz he didn't fool the investors by making fraudulent documents. It's just that investors didn't take into account the effects of pandemic on real estate income, demand of office spaces, increased interest rates, etc.
@@Zen-ow8xf yeah and he probably had no intention to cheat. Just bad business.
He and the insane wife should both be jail
They do produce a service
I worked indirectly with their ipo. Plenty of people saw this coming before the ipo even happened lol.
I worked along side the film unit that shot their commercial in London about 4 years ago. I never saw it as a viable business with longevity.
They only made 1 commercial
We put in a cannabis shop next door to a we work type office rental place... one day the guy who managed the office place came over for a visit... he was smug AF, rude and overall just a dick, saying we were stupid to get into retail cannabis and we deserve to fail..... we've been open 5 years now and businesses is crazy busy, ...he closed and abandoned his shop 18ish months ago.... havent seen him since.....
𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚞𝚝 𝚑𝚒𝚖😅
Ahh the "..."! That's how I wrote when I was on the chronic!
I once asked my polish landlord who had been living in this country since he was 19 and became a naturalized citizen in 2009 to describe America in one sentence, he said..."you have more money than brains"
Lol....that's what my Mexican Uncle said.
He told me you know what makes the the USA a great country????? Americans have more money than common sense. That's great for people like us though it keeps us working.
This didn't happen
@@jerbear7952 I wish you didn't happen, but the that was your parents decision
Amazing that a simple sub-leasing business wrapped in lots of hype attracted so much money. I really do wonder what SoftBank etc. thought the investment potential was?
I'm starting to suspect that venture capitalists don't know what numbers are.
He just thought Newman was another Jack Ma.
@@hedgehog3180 They invest based on vibes
The zero-interest rate era meant that any possibility of future profits was "worth" it. With 10-years treasury notes at 4,4%, that kind of BS doesn't work anymore.
Dude(masayoshi son) shed Boston dynamics, tried to shed ARM and is willing to sell part of it but not write off we work!!!!!! boggles my mind
“Omg how did this ceo just get away with making up a value for his company and people believed it?!”
Crypto holders: (don’t make eye contact with anybody)
Crypto itself isnt priced by anyone 😂 dont be a dumbass
sometimes i think this really is macro money laundering. like how are you valued so high when all your businesses suck? somewhere to park their money and profit before they eventually collapse.
Ummm….bitcoin? NFT?
It is definitely moving money from one source to another. Is it laundering? Maybe
That's what I honestly think about Banksy. I mean, it's right in the name...
@@chowsquid Elon Musk?
Another lesson for VCs not to equate eccentricity with genius.
A lesson they never learn...
Shhhhh you ars going to foil my grift
WeWork: we are a transcendent, communal, thought space, innovating the future of the human experience thru technology
Normal person: so you are tech company? How so?
WeWork: we have an app
My favorite thing is when these tech bro guys advertise the amount of money they’ve raised rather then the amount of money they’ve actually made….it makes me seriously question the judgement of the venture capital community. Anybody remember the laughably incompetent tech bro CFOs complaining after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed. They were so proud of themselves when they’d discovered short term treasury bond. No wonder there’s not been anything particularly interesting come out of Silicon Valley in about a decade.
Yep. One of my friends worked for Knock. The higher ups always talked about how much money they raised. My friend talked about how they weren't profitable.
Adam Neumann aka the love child of tommy wiseau and Elizabeth holmes
How do people who are spectacular failures get billion dollar investments? What is wrong with the world.
Confidence is everything
I'm a spectacular failure where's my money?
As usual, the only victims of narcissistic Entrepreneur's tanking startups are the small businesses whose money is tied up in whatever scam was pushed. And Timmy. Who has to give back the vodka water gun 💔
You should watch the video a few more times, since your listening comprehension skills are so poor. SoftBank is the business that shouldered the vast majority of the losses. They are one of the largest companies in the world, the exact opposite of a small business
My heart aches for timmy😢
Are you ignoring the investors who lost two digit billions?
@@tomlxyzRich people (whoever has more money than me) == no humans
Typical zoomer loogic
@@misterlinux9290good strawman, very braindead👍
Hey Richard, can you talk about the AirBnB bubble bursting? I'd like a more financially focused perspective on the collapse of the people who made it their whole personality including quite a number of youtubers. I've yet to see an in depth analysis of the sheer insanity and all of the legal impacts caused by AirBnB globally. It's been really chaotic.
Marc Andreessen really knows how to pick winners. Definitely a once-in-a-generation genius beyond our understanding and not a weirdo eggman with his head in his butt who struck it lucky one time.
I remember looking at some these offices. Yes they were nice but crazy expensive and sorry most businesses do not have the margin to pay for such costly places. Maybe I am old school but I believe a business should try to make a positive income and most of the folks renting these places I just don't see ever becoming a profitable business.
WeWork might have worked if they had stuck to non-traditional cities, had adults in charge, and not used terrible office design like modern open offices
Adam Neumann giving off big Jean-Ralphio vibes.
The most accurate comment.
Has this been a high risk Rent-A-Swag this whole time?
I guess world hunger won't be solved now.
I once got a stale cheese sandwich and bottle of water from a pack of wandering we workers. NO good deed goes un-punished. I got diarrhea about an hour later and had a burnin bunghole for three days afterwards as well as vomiting and stomach cramps.
A traditional office space rental company branded themselves as a Tech company and milked everyone of their money. Yes, it is ridiculous that they even got the money . . . let alone had even a second of air time on the news cycle. It is a situation that both should've never happened and was easily avoidable, but . . . humanity is stupid. The worst thing of all is that scam after scam keeps happening, working, and very few of them actually end up in prison for their inevitable fraud.
Its Worth pointing out that the wework model does work. In my city, there are LOADS of these sorts of offices set up for smaller companies. There is even rent by the hour office space.
Wework, if I remember correctly WAS a tech VC startup. What put them aside from others in the space was their subscription model and their on demand office space rentals.
They bungled it. There was a possibility it could have worked. It certainly was not a doomed ship.
are those companies with office space for smaller tenants middlemen like we work is? wasnt that one of the biggest problems with their model?
and i dont understand what of what you said about their subscription model makes them a tech startup, especially given the real estate focus
the mistake done by Adam was not using the buzzword crypto or blockchain or chain or block or chainblock in the company name, more suckers would have bought the idea that WEWORK is a tech company.
"The thing about WeWork is that they... never really... worked."
after chapter 11, they should change their name to "DonotWork". lol
Fellow Ottawa-Gatineau dude here, great video! And yeah, learning French is hell the older you are. I have lots of colleagues off on language training (silly government). They're too polite to openly say how much they hate it. I'm so glad I learned both English and French pretty much in parallel from childhood. Couldn't imagine starting from scratch now, even just picking up a tiny bit of spanish on vacation was so painful.
WeWork is comprised of a lot of posers. From the founder Shady Neumann to their customers who wanted to be seen looking cool. What jobs require the "creative collaboration" that comes from a noisy office that serves beer, has other workers playing foosball, and offers constant distractions?
My parent company has a gym, basketball court, foosball tables. It's a way to blow off steam n think when tackling hard solutions and it works. I'll add though they aren't used as much as people might think. Well the gym is. I'm actually kind of jealous about it. It also has a wide open area with tables, an onsite tinkering lab, and an onsite fab n machining area with a skilled machinist for prototyping.
The owner however believes in vertical integration so though he himself might offer some things WeWork does, he'll do it under his own roof as much as he can.
The common go to for modern companies is “We are not an X, we are a tech company”
I really do not understand how rich people have any money left when they keep making decisions this stupid.
Good decisions outweighing bad ones.
Because people don't get mega rich by playing it ultra safe and conservative. That is living comfortably. You take risks albeit calculated ones. And hope the winners are far larger than the losers.
Those investors fall into a few categories
A) they have so much money, they don't care. Probably makes up the minority.
B) they have more good decisions they make with their money, outweighs the bad ones.
C) inheritance. It's not uncommon for children to inherit vast amounts of wealth, and since they didn't earn it, they don't know the value of money. As such, they squander it.
@@InJunoWeTrust Thing is they feel comfortable doing so bc they're gambling with other people's money. Every time a startup or company crashes and burns, the people who have to reevaluate their entire livelihoods and start from scratch are never the execs who fucked everything up in the first place
It's other people's money
1:52 I’d argue that Masayoshi Son convinced himself to invest billions in WeWork. Neumann had crazy ambitions for the company. But Masayoshi basically said Neumann wasn’t being crazy enough and then handed him billions. What did anybody expect was going to happen?! 😂
we work a sub leasing company
with no tech (srsly why was it ever a tech company? because they had a website?)
charging any where from 3 x tox 10 the market price
never posted a profit
if ya invested in this bullshit you deserve to lose your money
“Now, as devastating as this probably is for KOMBUCHA DRINKERS around the world” 💀
6:44 why isn’t the Plain Bagel also a tech company? Your valuation could 10x.
Add-in mentions of AI as well.
Why did I see a Wework ad on TH-cam today if it's bankrupt? They should cut that cost
WeWork, where VC bros learnt to stop worrying and embrace their inner hippie
I’m employed for a Manufacturing corporation whom leases office space in a WeWork location in Mexico. It’s been the three years since the pandemic started occupying the WeWork office and often wondered how they managed to run even with all the location closing down in USA. I believe some of the reasons are pointing towards a sustainable growth and spending, reasonable terms with landlords and renting to bigger corporations than small business people. We’ll finally move out in 2024
mind boggling investors have this much money to lose
I’ll be sure to give you credit for my new Wetoke startup.
Who is the next charismatic shill on whom I can ride the ascension from the ground up?
There are probably a few shills in the AI market.
Somebody please explain to me why anyone would invest in Adam Neuman's new "venture."
people invest in known crypto scamers new scams, or known financial scamers new crpto scams
hard to say why
The same reason someone might knowingly invest in a pyramid scheme: Early investors get rich, later investors get screwed.
You just need to get out at the same time as he does.
I suspect many VCs operate sophisticated pump and dumps. They hype up some bs company with a gimmick and distracting leader to hide their mediocre numbers, then once the time is right, they list, dump the shares and move on to the next bucket of shit. Just a hunch, I simply refuse to believe people who seem to be THAT stupid passed high school, let alone manage billions in capital.
I saw an episode of American Greed about WeWork and after watching it, I was surprised that it lasted for this long. Some people thought it was a scam due to their practices but I don't know too much about it before coming up with an opinion of it before watching the episode of it. So yeah, I actually thought that WeWork would go under years ago after what they've been doing without any profits to speak of.
The thing that baffles me so much about things like this, is that after the fact, you talk about it so matter of fact like it wouldve been simple to figure out that this was gonna happen if you just took the time to look. But in reality, very few people profit off of situations like this.....makes me wonder what are the companies of today that are destined to go bust but we just havent recognized it yet, but 10 years from now, there will be videos like this about them. haha
Bitcoin
We need a series for DCF valuation.
Take cash flow
Discount back
End
@@benchoflemons398but at what discount rate?!?!?
@@David-jn5up you just summarized sell-side Investment Banking to a tee.
SoftBank (Son) seems to have a preternatural knack for sniffing out losers & companies which flop big!😆😆
and they sold their entire nvidia stock, after that nvidia went 4x. Son sure has a talent for picking losers and ignore winners
@@qweqwe9678 Quite right!
Guys, have I slipped into a Mandela effect? I could swear we went through this exact same drama with wework in 2020???
I think that was the IPO failure and Neumann's departure that you're thinking of
Hmmm, I enjoyed working at the offices. Even if a bit cringy, they were a world away from the tepid hired offices before. It was just MASSIVELY overvalued.
Adam Neuman and SBF are proof VCs have no idea what they're doing, they just gamble with OPM.
one punch man?
Curiously, both Neumann and SBF are Hebrew too (explains their natural sociopathy and greed).
It’s just really hard for me to feel bad for people falling for one of the dumbest and most obvious frauds
I sat through the ad at the end. Entertaining stuff
Love the language segment!!! A second or third is so important nowadays, ur mom still loves you! ❤
The stupidest thing about wework wasn't the way it feel or from how high it did fall, but rather how it raised up in the first place.
As an Ottawa resident who has grandparents from Gaspesie (Escuminac Represent!) very fun to know you have a similar background.
Hindsight is 20/20. but I am asking myself:"Would have I been able to know right from the beginning that the business model is flawed?
The way i see wework is as the luxurification of office buildings. Better said, it's just turning them into a single franchise. It's a horrible and expensive idea in general as it removes competition and forces a certain interior design style on everyone. Every wework i delievered to looked the same. Not an important note but one that is a bad sign to me.
You can pretty much say the same for most office buildings.
Most medical offices look the same. No lobby. Elevator…hallways of offices…
thank you for this video, subscribed just from watching it!
This is an incredible piece of journalism. Aprreciate your channel.
I used to work for wework, build their offices in NYC. Whatever shenanigans general public knows about wework it's just a tip of the iceberg of what was actually happening.
were listening....
Yes please explain
Honestly, maybe you should write a book about it
A collapsable heel and baby jeans?
I drive past WeWork buildings in Atlanta all the time and my first thought is always what do they actually do? And how did they survive Covid if offices were empty? This was inevitable
I love how these stories keep emerging and yet many people still think that just because you currently run a successful business that means that you must be really smart.
Obviously some smart people do run successful businesses, but that doesn't mean that running a successful business proves that they are smart.
The fact that the other investors pumped up WeWorks valuation before IPO shows they wanted to fleece everyone too. They probably already knew about their CEO's conflict of interest, but needed to offload a bad company onto the public. I find it hard to believe that they saw a sub-leasing company and thought it was a good idea. Whenever you bring up WeWork's business model to anyone just about anyone thinks it's a dumb idea. It's always... "why don't they just own the building in the first place?"
This is what happens when interest rates are so low for so long. There was a massive amount of money that had to go somewhere.
It could go anywhere as long as the lower 90% could not access it.
The issue was incompetentence, not low interest rates.
@@sebastianlucas704they were not mutually exclusive. it was incompetent people having access to too much money due to the artificially low cost of borrowing. it's both.
WeWork did do something in the leasing space by making it much much easier to rent space in multiple cities in a modern fashion for much smaller tenants. had the company grown slower and with more consideration to what they lease they had a great chance at being a profitable company.
instead venture capitalist pumped it shock full of money which the CEO blew every chance he got. but it is not illegal since the financial reports they handed to investors laid this out in the open (i have read one that was handed out to investors about WeWork financial situation and it was clear as day like 6-7 years ago that the founder was just pissing away the money and the company would never turn a profit.)
Only the best run companies will resort to SPACs...lol. Don't know what the stat is but the failure rate on companies using SPAC is quite high. I've seen so many go down. Stay far away from these companies.
Good job on the story! Thank you!
I can remember their spac deal, I thought the business idea sounded like the dumbest idea every and couldn’t figure out why everyone on WSB was in love with it.
I was really rather confused when Softbank (or probably just Son to be exact) went so hard into WeWork because I didn't really see anything about the company that really made it tech, revolutionary, or otherwise truly ground-breaking... but at that time I just assumed Son must have known or seen something about the company I simply couldn't comprehend. I certainly didn't expect it to turn into a huge black eye for Son but well... here we are.
And the irony advert for wework, when I pressed on this video!!
Their month to month business model ran the company into the ground during economic downturn.
WE BROKE
The crawlers thing is so hilarious to me. What do you mean “Just because they don’t tell you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt”? Babies can tell you 2 things: I’m hungry, and I hurt. If it hurts, they scream. It’s the first thing they can do! And they are not shy about telling you it hurts!
The stench of Adam Neumann is quite unbearable and he's coming back to do it all over again.
one wuold be a fool to give him captical again. fool me twice......
Interest rates were too low during the last deacade. thus capital too cheap. so gigantic misallocations of money happened. I regard a 5% base interest rate as healthy for the economy. excesses like this can always happen but it's a lot less likely if there is a healthy mix of investment opportunities.
How do you become a millionaire by investing in startup millennial tech companies? Start off as a billionaire.
I have a startup and I hate coworking. Always thought this is a awful bussiness. No wonder it fails.
I'm optimistic that this will encourage the affected areas to make some changes in order to make available real estate more attractive to people other than blind investors, whether that means addressing some of the excessive bureaucracy in places like new york, or revising zoning regulations so that the spaces can be used as something other than office space, or some new adventurous strategy that I can't think of.
I'd be interested in a video that explains how these startups have such high valuations in the face of such obvious issues (yea I know its even more obvious in hindsight, but they never explained how they were going to be different from other short term lease industries, like ever, yet people still bought in).
You are an optimist. I'm sure certain people out there are learning the real lesson of WW: never own anything. Always be Uber or AirBnB and put the risk on other people. I am just waiting for AirBnB to pivot to being a platform matching people looking for short term office leases to building owners who have absolutely nothing else they can do with their offices. Giving those owners just enough hope that they will continue to drag out the inevitable collapse, keeping all that floor space tied up in useless office space for absolutely as long as possible.
I'm almost afraid to write this but I'm sure that if I've thought of it other people with the money to make it happen are already working on it anyway...
What....the fudge. Why is Adam rewarded for this? I'd love to be a silly VC chucking money around to find out where it sticks...then STILL have enough to shrug my shoulders at the end and be like "crazy right? well at least I still have more billions!"
I had to install some phones at a WeWork one time, and they had beer on tap. Consequently I didn’t grab a beer, it was definitely different!
Ah, greetings fellow phone engineer, from London, UK. In 35-years service I've never seen beer on tap in an office but I've worked in many pubs!
The fact that the company paying for leases on buildings that Adam owned is somehow legally distinct from embezzling venture Capital to pay off mortgages is astounding
As a Kombucha drinker would just like to know why we are in it 😂😂😂😂😂
What the fuck is kombucha?
WeWork needs to disappear. Frata are barely tolerable at university, and only because they occasionally have a good party. We do not need that BS in the professional world.
I never understood why people would think this would work. It makes no sense