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What people actually do at WeWork
- elliotec 9y agoWow, this article is insufferable.
- kornish 9y agoThe content or the style?
- jogjayr 9y agoA bit of both. There's nothing here specific to WeWork itself. You could say a lot of these things about practically anyone who works their day job at any kind of co-working space. It feels like a bunch of anecdotes about freelancers and small business owners who happen to work under the same roof. There wasn't much actual substance and it was hard to tell whether any conclusions were going to be drawn at the end (I'll admit to giving up halfway).
- partisan 9y agoMaybe that was the point? There really wasn't any substance. Just some people killing time while playing with other people's money.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- swampthinker 9y agoThis article briefly touches upon what people actually do at WeWork. Nothing more.
- krisives 9y agoI bailed after the 2 paragraphs of filler intro about his morning time and coffee.
- GreaterFool 9y agoI can't decide whether the article is a pile of garbage or, somehow, smart and cunning and I just don't get it
- sputknick 9y agoI remember in early 2000 Newsweek did a whole "tech" issue. In it was a story about a woman who charged $600 an hour helping fledgling startups buy furniture for their offices. This article gave me the same vibe as that one. These tenants don't sound profitable (I could be wrong, they could all be wildly successful) and WeWork is expanding aggressively expecting their to be more of them. When they stop paying the rent, wework stops paying the mortgage.
- jdavis703 9y agoIt's not that dire. They simply wind up renting out entire floors of their real estate to "legacy" companies. Sure they can't charge the premiums that come from leasing small spaces, but they're a real estate firm which makes them a little more resilient to a startup downturn.
- matt4077 9y agoIt's easy to mock the aesthetics and trends in such a community. But, honestly, focusing on quality of life was long overdue, and has since spread far and wide. For many of the dot-com boom's startups, it may be the most permanent, and beneficial, legacy.
- jnordwick 9y agoDrink, a lot. And i don't just mean those floor hopping beer parties that start Friday around noon, but the weekly get togethers that are nothing less than cheap alcohol ragers. That place is impossible to get stuff done in (but a lot of fun to visit).
- jdavis703 9y agoYou can get noise cancelling headphones. It's like working at an open office floor plan at a big tech company. Also in California they're no longer allowed to have beer on tap; something about underage drinking (for those outside the U.S., the drinking age is set at 21). I'm surprised this hasn't become an issue in other states that are even more conservative.
- fourstar 9y ago> It's like working at an open office floor plan at a big tech company. Then what's the advantage again? LOL.
- BoorishBears 9y agoActive noise cancelling doesn’t really help with the type of noise you get from a lot of people talking in a space, and the best passive noise canceling headphones are generally not comfortable enough to wear for long periods of time.
- yeukhon 9y agoBut then why should I put on a headphone at the joys of others so often?
- ilamont 9y agoStartup theater. CIC in Cambridge had a bit of that vibe too, although it was possible to go to quieter areas or off times to get stuff done.
- busterarm 9y agoThis should be the first post. I can't even believe it wasn't mentioned in the article as far as I could tell. Is Esquire writing puff pieces for SoftBank now? Are they a major advertiser or a controlling interest in one? The binge drinking starts well before noon there -- nearly every single day, at least all over WeWorks in New York.
- GreaterFool 9y ago> The lavatories at the WeWork at 524 Broadway in Manhattan, incidentally, are terrific—enclosed stalls with clever toile wallpaper featuring a repeating print of surveillance cameras partially obscured by roses and leaves. This. The toilet stalls in US are the worst. No privacy whatsoever. Seems like their design is meant to oppress. Hurry you back to work, grunt! In WeWork I can go to a quiet dark room, with moody music, and take a shit, in peace.
- jdavis703 9y ago> take a shit, in peace Which is annoying, because there are only a fixed number of stalls (in my WeWork there are 7 total stalls for all the men in a 7 story building). I hate going from to floor looking for a place to take a shit. Unless you had something really sickening for breakfast or lunch, taking a shit should not take more than 2 minutes. I don't know what people are doing in the bathroom that takes them so long, but I suspect it's people taking a break from their work in privacy.
- ringwalt 9y agoAs of 3 years ago, the WeWork at Bowling Green was also tight on bathrooms, but the private stalls automatically unlocked after 5 minutes. It seemed like a genius idea, but there was still always a line of several people (and the building was so cramped that I didn't really blame other people for wanting to get more than 3 feet away from their coworkers for a few minutes).
- 9y ago
- munin 9y agoIt seems like articles about WeWork take one of two tacks: 1. Isn't this "gig economy" thing weird? Isn't it strange that people don't have stable long term employment? What's up with that? Is it good? 2. Look at these weird people trying to make dating apps for dogs. This is so weird. Instead of working in a trading or ad shop and getting drunk at 3, they work for a tiny "internet company" and get drunk at 3. The sacrilege! This seems to be a mix of both, though the article is definitely not trying to paint millennial entrepreneurs in a positive light, you can tell by the choice of focusing on a GS alumni. I do think that anyone who complains about the WeWork aesthetic or whatever should try to rent their own short term office space (that isn't WeWork). It's fucking grim. You wind up in some ancient building with spongy floors, dodgy elevators, and signs in the bathrooms about how the pipes are bad so please basically don't flush anything. Or in a strip mall above a dentists office. Or the attic of a converted condo. The WeWork goal seems to be to provide some space with decent amenities for a slight premium. What's wrong with that? Maybe their locations will vanish in a puff of smoke when demand dries up, but no one's asking you to invest your money in the future of WeWork. Would you go to a new restaurant opening and say "well yeah the food is good but most restaurants fail"? Who cares! Eat the food. Enjoy it while it's here.
- badwolf 9y ago>Or the attic of a converted condo. That's literally my current situation - in a 3rd floor attic. When our lease is up later this year we're most likely just going to go WeWork.
- tptacek 9y agoWe were in WeWork in Chicago --- there's 3 of them here, we were in West Loop --- for about a year. We left and rented an office, maybe 1100sqft?, about a 7 minute walk away. It has parking, relative (to WeWork) quiet, high ceilings, a kitchen, 2 private bathrooms, and conference rooms we don't need to reserve in a weird app or barter with friends for/with. We're 4 people (in this office). We pay less per person than we did at WeWork. WeWork is useful! I think it gets a bad rap (though the atmosphere and the general vibe of the clientele probably does not). But unless you're in SFBA or Manhattan, office space is just not that expensive. As soon as you're making payroll, it's pretty insignificant. If I start from 1-2 people again, I'll probably consider WeWork again. But I'll get out of WeWork much faster next time, too.
- late2part 9y agoCan someone tell me how I can short sell WeWork?
- codingdave 9y agoI'm resisting googling this Hater app because reading the whole tale of Brendan reads like the greatest satire of the startup world, ever. But I'm afraid if I Google it I'll find out it isn't satire...
- dawhizkid 9y agoSometimes I wonder if there is a class of startup founders who are basically only doing what they are doing for their own personal brand building and after a few years or whatever you become semi well known enough in tech circles to parlay that into something else or an acceptance into some b-school and go back to a real job.
- aidaman 9y agoThat's exactly the vibe I got from the "cofounder" who is Head of PR. At 2% equity and $1,500 a month, that has to be the rawest deal I have heard of for someone who is essentially responsible for all of the company's traction.
- watmough 9y agoYeah, that stood out as some serious asymmetry.
- Disruptive_Dave 9y agoWell, "PR" is FAR from an actual growth lead. PR is a tactic within the overall marketing stable. No straight-up PR person is going to actually create, manage, and optimize growth beyond just PR.
- dawhizkid 9y agoYeah, not sure how you live on $18k/year salary in NYC unless you're being supported by your family, which is what I'm guessing is happening here for both of them. Not many people have a network of exclusively friends and family to fund their seed round to the tune of a few $100k...
- 9y ago
- orblivion 9y agoI was looking for a twice a week office in Berkeley and tried out the WeWork. Unless you get the all access package with assigned seat, their offering is absurd. I literally could only hang out in the cafe, which had diner seating or some other awkward arrangements. Seemed all hip and no utility.
- Markoff 9y agoany idea how to unsubscribe from their mail list? this week I got at least three spasms from this shady company, yet I font remember providing them with my email address and they are missing unsubscribe link in e-mail, so my whole impression of this company summed to two keywords - shady spammers
- ramzyo 9y ago>> “Our valuation and size today are much more based on our energy and spirituality than it is on a multiple of revenue.” This is their CEO being quoted. If this isn’t Silicon Valley pixie dust I don’t know what is.
- zaroth 9y agoFor a pre-revenue or just recent revenue product, that’s exactly what valuation is based on. In a word: team.
- ramzyo 9y agoMeh, sure, for a smaller team, but I have a hard time agreeing with this explanation when a company has a $20 billion valuation.
- andrepd 9y agoA $20,000,000,000 valuation?
- ramzyo 9y agoYes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2017/07/10/wework-hits-20-billion-valuation-in-new-funding-round/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2017/07/10/wework...
- briandear 9y agoHow the hell is WeWork “pre-revenue” or even “recent revenue” — they have been around since 2010. Yet the CEO is admitting that the valuation is pretty much bullshit; how can “spiritually” make a single note but of difference for how much a company is worth? Imagine if a company said they were highly valued because they were committed to prayer and going to church every Sunday.
- hodl 9y agoIts pre unicorn. So value it like a unicorn dammit!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lerie82 9y agoWho is renting this space? Do people not have wifi and desks in their homes?
- Animats 9y agoAnd if you're over 45, you don't belong there. Their next venture should be WeDie, a chain of euthanasia centers for disposing of people who've outlived their sell-by date.
- CodeSheikh 9y ago"Plenty of big companies are now tenants with their own floors or wings in WeWork: Microsoft, IBM, GE, Spotify, Bank of America, NBC Left Field, a fledgling unit of the network aimed at cord-cutting millennials." I personally find this trend problematic. Getting in to WeWork is not a challenging task. ONLY requirement is that you are able to pay your daily/weekly/monthly dues. If all of this is being done by large corps. for PR purposes than I can understand the whole "connect to Millennials bandwagon aspect". But of it is being done to actually hire "good" talent then I am not sure if it is always guaranteed that 3 out of 20 WeWork-ers are more than "good" coders. For me WeWork is like that coffee shop that never closes, there is always a table available for the coder in you and you have to paya premium price for average coffee.
- nora4 9y agoI feel like for WeWork style business, it should be a race to the bottom (in terms of prices). Once the idea is validated, there would be (as there are) lots of local clones that would try to make a more cool indie version of WeWork. The resulting price-cutting and heavy competition make business rather difficult. As such, I'm not sure where the economy of scale will come from and why should this be a sustainable business? To be fair, Starbucks and other coffee/restaurant chains also have similar general business characteristics. Along this note, I don't understand why WeWork is a venture-backed business as opposed to a normal bootstrap business (with more emphasis on early cash-flow and less on growth) as it's usually the case with the above type businesses.
- matt4077 9y agoThere's a certain network effect, at least for some people: you can just take your business on the road and work in a different city every week. With the name recognition they're getting, they may also get really good deals on office space: I've personally witnessed a co-working space gentrifying a whole city block. The whole block was also owned by the same investor, who apparently gave them a 50% rebate on a ten-year contract. She has easily gotten a 10x ROI on it, since rents in the rest of the buildings tripled within two years.
- nora4 9y agoThat's a great point. Hip, cool, modern entrepreneur types can easily work as agents of gentrification which as you pointed out can lead to massive increase in wealth for nearby properties owners (at the expense of previous occupants/patrons, some will argue).
- opencl 9y agoThe decreased wealth of occupants is the entire source of the landlord's increased wealth when rent increases, are there really people who will argue that isn't the case?
- 9y ago
- aidaman 9y agoWow that guy from Hater is REALLY good at PR.
- dimastopel 9y agoWe started our company at WeWork and moved to our offices when we were around 7 people. It was a very convenient solution for a young company that just want to concentrate on what is important (the product). We never participated in any social activities and hardly knew out neighbors (if at all). I'd do it the same way again.
- ionwake 9y ago"...to coincide with some canny PR stunts—coverage on The View, Good Morning America, CBS’s Sunday Morning, and Fox & Friends; features on seven blogs embargoed for the same day; a viral public- art installation depicting Trump and Putin nude and locked in an embrace." Please could someone on HN tell me how the hell one organises, gets funding and pays for this type of PR. I can dev the apps but I am just unable to promote. Any help or information is appreciated, thank you.
- michaeljbishop 9y agoI worked at a startup that used WeWork (Denver) for about 9 months. When I first walked into the lobby, I wondered if I was in the right place, because it felt like a clothing-retail store, complete with constant runway-music playing from overhead. My first impression was "how am I supposed to work here?" I loved that they had cold-brew and beer on tap, a clean working-space, and interesting events. They seemed really optimized to provide a workspace that was fun. The problem was, I wasn't there for fun, I was there to get stuff done and for that I needed a place that was peaceful, quiet, with few distractions. The environment at WeWork wasn't optimized for that kind of long, deep work and in fact seemed to actively fight against it. If your work tasks consist mostly of light, interruptible "busy" tasks, like responding to email, or participating on Slack, WeWork is probably fine. If your work consists of long, deep-dive tasks, I'd recommend getting your own office space until WeWork starts providing an atmosphere that better accommodates peace, quiet, and isolation.
- sotojuan 9y agoTo be fair, a lot of tech company offices are not much quieter than a WeWork e.g. open plan office/many places I've seen put engineers right next to people that have to be on phones all day.
- w1ntermute 9y agoIf you get a private office at WeWork, you’ll get that peace, quiet, and isolation. Or you can just put on a pair of noise-canceling headphones.
- bsenftner 9y agoI ran a coworking space in downtown Los Angeles for about 3 years, at the same time that WeWork was rising. I'm also older, I was in my late 40's while operating the CoWorking space called DropLabs. I noticed that the people who preferred WeWork and similar LA coworking spaces were young, under 30, with family money they did not value, so the prospect of a trendy coworking space with lots of other young people for 2-6 times what we charged, seemed really odd to me. So, I tried working there for a week to see what the attraction is - it is all the other young people, WeWork's atmosphere, in the Hollywood one at least, felt like a high school dance, with a surprising amount of flirting and partying between the people at the space. I felt, perhaps a half dozen people out of the nearly one hundred there were actually trying to get work done. the majority behaved like they had no idea what work is. After that week, I returned to my non-fancy coworking space downtown and operated it for another year before closing. WeWork, in Los Angeles at least, captured all the young, flush with family cash "entrepreneur wannabes" and sucks their cash. WeWork is 1.5 to 2x the cost of a office. They figured out youth will pay to be around other youth, creating a "entrepreneur play zone" where they reinforce the idea they are not really wasting their family's money nor their lives.