Control/ownership/structure aside, the interesting line here is: "The financial disclosures make it clear that WeWork — which, it should be said, is a commerce

Control/ownership/structure aside, the interesting line here is: "The financial disclosures make it clear that WeWork — which, it should be said, is a commerce office leasing company and not truly a tech company" Lots of tech companies (eg uber) take VC funded losses to grow at tech startup rates. This can create unsustainable business models and mask sustainability issues. But... ..But, in tech, the potential payoff driving all this investment flow is getting to a monopoly (in the Thiel sense). Out of this world business models like Google's or FB's that generate massive revenue with near-zero marginal costs. Software economics, basically. The winners win incredibly big. This makes the massive-multiple investment case rational. Tesla, WeWork and such have much more normal, non-software-like economics. WeWork will never lease office space for that much above market rates. No matter how good Tesla's cars and/or manufacturing tech gets, they are never going to sell cars at a 40% margin^. That's why Elon had to sell all the Tesla share and take loans. It takes a lot of resources to build factories and cars. Office space can be leased, so WeWork hasn't needed as much financing, but it comes out of operating margins instead. You basically cannot achieve software startup money-machine goals with atoms and marginal costs. ^Self-driving aside.