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I feel like WeWork would be one of the first companies to go under in case a recession hits the US market. Everyone who works there is probably going to decide

I feel like WeWork would be one of the first companies to go under in case a recession hits the US market. Everyone who works there is probably going to decide en masse that they can do the same things from home or a Starbucks

addajones 8y ago
Sounds about right. Spent a couple years at a WeWork in Los Angeles. It's a luxury, a glorified co-working community. People enjoy the beer. One shake of the economy and everybody will cut WeWork and go back home or somewhere considerably more affordable.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  One shake of the economy and everybody will cut WeWork and go back home or somewhere considerably more affordable Or even free. When I was in the Seattle tech scene about ten years ago, the State of Washington had free co-working space at the convention center as a way to stimulate local entrepreneurship. The desks were a little strange, but they were free!
  - sriram_sun 8y ago
    Do not forget your local community college and city libraries!
    - sixstringtheory 8y ago
      Remote coder here, this is my jam. I can get a whole conference room all day and kick back in my local library, which I can lock behind me if I want to jump out to use the bathroom or eat. Granted, this is in Fairbanks, not LA or SF :) But even living in Boston I never saw the libraries super packed, usually plenty of room in the top-floor old-school reading room at the central branch on Boylston. Maybe not on holidays, but those sucked for cafes too in the city–better to just stay home or not work those days. Internet can be a crapshoot, but I can do most of my work tethered to cell anyways. I always have that one cafe with awesome WiFi I can go to for downloading OS/IDE updates.
      - sbov 8y ago
        This made me curious so I checked our local library that has study and meeting rooms. But looking at their online calendar, they're all reserved for most of the day. At least it's nice to know people are using our library.
    - komali2 8y ago
      Libraries are amazing and I'll sing their praises all day, but I have two complaints and they both revolve around pooping, which genuinely distresses me when considering where to work for the day. 1. At a library, when it's poop time, you gotta bag everything and bring it with you. Mildly annoying if you're using a mouse and notebooks etc. 2. If you're in a major metro library, no matter how hard they try to keep it clean, the bathrooms are full of people using the sink as a shower, and the toilets are foul beyond measure.
      - 0db532a0 8y ago
        Just put the poop in the bag. For your health!
  - addajones 8y ago
    That's a great point!
- felipemnoa 8y ago
  >>somewhere considerably more affordable. Your local library. It has desks, internet, restrooms. And there are more than one so you can pick the one that best fits your needs.
sky_rw 8y ago
Or better yet, realizing spending $60k/year for three years on over-priced month to month office space is not always a better solution than signing an old-school lease.
- gizmo385 8y ago
  Where do you see this 60k/year figure? Estimates that I'm don't even come /close/ to 60k/year for a WeWork space.
  - rickyc091 8y ago
    In New York, it's around $60k a year if you get an office for 7-10 people. https://www.wework.com/buildings/154-grand-st--new-york-city--NY https://www.wework.com/buildings/154-grand-st--new-york-city...
    - oh_sigh 8y ago
      That doesn't sound too bad if your employee payroll is going to be >= $1M/yr. To put it another way, I'd rather have a dedicated space for 10 employees than have 10.5 or 11 employees all working from their bedrooms and starbucks.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        You gotta compare it to the cost of a traditional commercial real estate lease, that’s what makes it a good or bad deal. (I don’t actually know what a comparative traditional lease would cost).
        rickyc091 8y ago
        At least in NYC, it's comparable, but there are a lot of other factors like location and time that goes into it as well. As a founder, do you want to spend your time negotiating contracts, handling the admin stuff like setting up the internet, electricity, build out if necessary? To compare the original WeWork location I posted, a 1,000- 1,5000 square feet place would be around $15,000/mo in an older building. But that space would be a lot larger than what WeWork is offering, without any ammenities. At the same time, you can move it to a less convenient location and cut some costs. It really depends on what the company's needs are at the time and how much they want/need to invest in their own office at the moment. WeWork has month to month contracts for smaller desk spaces so you can adjust as needed. They also offer to build you out offices to customize to your needs. Many larger companies typically have remote offices at WeWork. For example, at a WeWork we were working at, there was a Blizzard and GitHub office.
whalesalad 8y ago
We (2 of us, expected to grow to 4 quickly) toured WeWork, Spaces (Regus) and a few other one-off spots here in Orange County. Everyone was pretty pricey, like 2500/mo for 100 square feet. WeWork was definitely the worst and was the most overcrowded... but hey they have beer on tap! (sarcasm) Ultimately we grabbed a lease on Pacific Coast Highway with a sweeping view of the ocean for less with about 3x the room in a freshly renovated building. These coworking spaces are terrible.
- auiya 8y ago
  > These coworking spaces are terrible. They're like Monkey Joe's for tech bro's.
  - whalesalad 8y ago
    It's not really tech bro's ... I don't encounter those people very often. I think that fraternity style vibe has kinda gone by the wayside. It's everyone else who aren't really technologists but want to get in on the gold rush. The social media marketing companies, the wordpress/magento factories, the crypto people, the uber-for-xyz... there is a lot of noise both literally and figuratively with these groups.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Don't forget the bootcamps. A company I departed about two years ago was in a Regus spot. We watched 4 bootcamps in 3 years pop up for 6-8 weeks at a time, graduate a "class", pack up and leave.
    - badwolf 8y ago
      I'm currently "officing" in a WeWork dedicated desk. Out of all the desks immediately around me, I'm the only person working for a "tech" company. There's a building contractor, a couple designers, electrical engineers, and a Realtor, and a marketer for some distillery/alcohol co.
      - whalesalad 8y ago

addajones 8y ago

Sounds about right. Spent a couple years at a WeWork in Los Angeles. It's a luxury, a glorified co-working community. People enjoy the beer. One shake of the economy and everybody will cut WeWork and go back home or somewhere considerably more affordable.

reaperducer 8y ago
One shake of the economy and everybody will cut WeWork and go back home or somewhere considerably more affordable Or even free. When I was in the Seattle tech scene about ten years ago, the State of Washington had free co-working space at the convention center as a way to stimulate local entrepreneurship. The desks were a little strange, but they were free!
- sriram_sun 8y ago
  Do not forget your local community college and city libraries!
  - sixstringtheory 8y ago
    Remote coder here, this is my jam. I can get a whole conference room all day and kick back in my local library, which I can lock behind me if I want to jump out to use the bathroom or eat. Granted, this is in Fairbanks, not LA or SF :) But even living in Boston I never saw the libraries super packed, usually plenty of room in the top-floor old-school reading room at the central branch on Boylston. Maybe not on holidays, but those sucked for cafes too in the city–better to just stay home or not work those days. Internet can be a crapshoot, but I can do most of my work tethered to cell anyways. I always have that one cafe with awesome WiFi I can go to for downloading OS/IDE updates.
    - sbov 8y ago
      This made me curious so I checked our local library that has study and meeting rooms. But looking at their online calendar, they're all reserved for most of the day. At least it's nice to know people are using our library.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Libraries are amazing and I'll sing their praises all day, but I have two complaints and they both revolve around pooping, which genuinely distresses me when considering where to work for the day. 1. At a library, when it's poop time, you gotta bag everything and bring it with you. Mildly annoying if you're using a mouse and notebooks etc. 2. If you're in a major metro library, no matter how hard they try to keep it clean, the bathrooms are full of people using the sink as a shower, and the toilets are foul beyond measure.
    - 0db532a0 8y ago
      Just put the poop in the bag. For your health!
- addajones 8y ago
  That's a great point!
felipemnoa 8y ago
>>somewhere considerably more affordable. Your local library. It has desks, internet, restrooms. And there are more than one so you can pick the one that best fits your needs.

sky_rw 8y ago

Or better yet, realizing spending $60k/year for three years on over-priced month to month office space is not always a better solution than signing an old-school lease.

gizmo385 8y ago
Where do you see this 60k/year figure? Estimates that I'm don't even come /close/ to 60k/year for a WeWork space.
- rickyc091 8y ago
  In New York, it's around $60k a year if you get an office for 7-10 people. https://www.wework.com/buildings/154-grand-st--new-york-city--NY https://www.wework.com/buildings/154-grand-st--new-york-city...
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    That doesn't sound too bad if your employee payroll is going to be >= $1M/yr. To put it another way, I'd rather have a dedicated space for 10 employees than have 10.5 or 11 employees all working from their bedrooms and starbucks.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      You gotta compare it to the cost of a traditional commercial real estate lease, that’s what makes it a good or bad deal. (I don’t actually know what a comparative traditional lease would cost).
      - rickyc091 8y ago
        At least in NYC, it's comparable, but there are a lot of other factors like location and time that goes into it as well. As a founder, do you want to spend your time negotiating contracts, handling the admin stuff like setting up the internet, electricity, build out if necessary? To compare the original WeWork location I posted, a 1,000- 1,5000 square feet place would be around $15,000/mo in an older building. But that space would be a lot larger than what WeWork is offering, without any ammenities. At the same time, you can move it to a less convenient location and cut some costs. It really depends on what the company's needs are at the time and how much they want/need to invest in their own office at the moment. WeWork has month to month contracts for smaller desk spaces so you can adjust as needed. They also offer to build you out offices to customize to your needs. Many larger companies typically have remote offices at WeWork. For example, at a WeWork we were working at, there was a Blizzard and GitHub office.

whalesalad 8y ago

We (2 of us, expected to grow to 4 quickly) toured WeWork, Spaces (Regus) and a few other one-off spots here in Orange County. Everyone was pretty pricey, like 2500/mo for 100 square feet. WeWork was definitely the worst and was the most overcrowded... but hey they have beer on tap! (sarcasm) Ultimately we grabbed a lease on Pacific Coast Highway with a sweeping view of the ocean for less with about 3x the room in a freshly renovated building. These coworking spaces are terrible.

auiya 8y ago
> These coworking spaces are terrible. They're like Monkey Joe's for tech bro's.
- whalesalad 8y ago
  It's not really tech bro's ... I don't encounter those people very often. I think that fraternity style vibe has kinda gone by the wayside. It's everyone else who aren't really technologists but want to get in on the gold rush. The social media marketing companies, the wordpress/magento factories, the crypto people, the uber-for-xyz... there is a lot of noise both literally and figuratively with these groups.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Don't forget the bootcamps. A company I departed about two years ago was in a Regus spot. We watched 4 bootcamps in 3 years pop up for 6-8 weeks at a time, graduate a "class", pack up and leave.
  - badwolf 8y ago
    I'm currently "officing" in a WeWork dedicated desk. Out of all the desks immediately around me, I'm the only person working for a "tech" company. There's a building contractor, a couple designers, electrical engineers, and a Realtor, and a marketer for some distillery/alcohol co.
    - whalesalad 8y ago