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I lived through the dot-com bust. In Silicon Valley, there were scores of "technology parks" that were completely abandoned for years afterwards when the bust h
by docker_up 7y ago
I lived through the dot-com bust. In Silicon Valley, there were scores of "technology parks" that were completely abandoned for years afterwards when the bust hit.
This is a company that can thrive in a Fed-fueled ZIRP economy that only goes up. If we don't dip into recession and keep growing for the next 15 years, this company will be genius.
But if there's ever a stumble in the road, it's also the type of company that immediately collapses on itself.
I also can't stress enough how detrimental Softbank has been and will be to Silicon Valley. They are dumping billions into companies that have no business being alive and if/when the econonmy collapses, it's going to be bad for the entire world. It's like preventing forest fires that clean up dead brush and instead sets up for a huge uncontrollable forest fire.
I'm personally trying to figure out how to protect myself, whether it's through buying US Treasuries, or gold or diversifying my cash in various currencies. But personally I don't think the fund is going to survive and there will be terrible repercussions from it.
- petra 7y agoWhat repercussions do you see for the fund not surviving ?
- docker_up 7y agoThe biggest repercussion I see is many, many companies goes belly up all at the same time, with lots of unemployment and a massive shock to the economy. Companies going bankrupt happen all the time, but if their demise is prevented because they keep getting capital injections from Softbank, then once there's a systemic event so big that they can't get their next infusion, then they will all go bankrupt in one fell swoop with a bunch of companies going bankrupt, the companies providing those companies services going bankrupt, hundreds of thousands out of jobs, etc. Imagine if WeWork went bankrupt right now. All their employees would be fired, and all the companies that provide services (catering, janitorial, Salesforce? AWS/GCP? etc) would layoff those employees. The bankruptcy trustees would be making a mad dash to try to sell their assets before the markets collapsed, depressing the markets. This is obviously a worst case scenario but that's what basically happened during the dotcom bust.
- aczerepinski 7y agoThere’s also a possibility that the economy grows indefinitely, but remote work overtakes hour-plus commutes to city centers as the preferred working arrangement for startups.
- ghaff 7y agoOTOH, you also have at least somewhat of a trend of those young urban professionals wanting to live near those city centers rather than commuting out from the suburbs. And those that do end up living in the city probably don't have nicely appointed offices in their apartments. People's preferences vary of course but I imagine that, under those circumstances, a lot of those remote workers would like an office they could go into--at least some of the time.
- mocha_nate 7y agoJust dropping in to say the comment threads on this page are refreshing! Way better than what you’d find on reddit, Twitter, etc
- orky56 7y agoThis is part of WeWork's expansion plan. People aren't going to switch fo full remote work overnight. As companies sprawl from the top 100 cities to the top 500, WeWork's additional locations will address this so that employee who commutes an hour can now just walk/drive 15 min to their nearest WeWork.
- unreal37 7y agoYeah Softbank is awful. They'll be the ones leading a group of companies into the black hole. "Follow me!"
- myth_buster 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin