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I'm just impressed by how well the fallout has been predicted by Scott Galloway[0] and Matt Levine. Has been an incredible learning experience for me on the un

I'm just impressed by how well the fallout has been predicted by Scott Galloway[0] and Matt Levine. Has been an incredible learning experience for me on the unicorn class in general. Looking forward to unicorn report for 2019 [1]. [0] https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux [1] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/03/20/the-unicorn-ipo-report/ https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/03/20/the-unicorn-ipo-r...

joezydeco 7y ago
Yeah, it's pretty impressive in this day and age that someone read the S-1.
jetti 7y ago
It has been super interesting listening to Scott Galloway blast WeWork and their business model on the podcast Pivot.
- codq 7y ago
  Would be great to remove Kara Swisher's self-aggrandizement and name-droppery and isolate Galloway's takes entirely.
  - TheMagicHorsey 7y ago
    God, Kara Swisher is perhaps the most annoying tech journalist on the planet. Her "analysis" consists of inserting random name-drops that are completely unrelated to the topic at hand and then regurgitating the analysis of smarter people without any additional value add. It seems Kara Swisher's entire reason for existing is for expressing disdain. In any organization she'd be that political person who adds no value to projects but rises due to her expertise at networking and name dropping. I much prefer the journalists on the Economist podcast and the people on The Weeds (Vox) and FiveThirtyEight.
    - arbitrary_name 7y ago
      I really bought into the hype and gave her a try - she adds absolutely nothing to the conversation. The a16z podcasts are way better - I can't recall the name of the ladies who generally host that but they are much more effective interviewers and analysts.
gist 7y ago
I wouldn't give that much worship to Galloway it's not like he is always right or my guess even close to that (and nobody is). For example this post circa 2017 about the bubble. I can't tell you how many people have not called the bubble since the last bubble correctly. Galloway is one of them: https://www.profgalloway.com/every-seven-years https://www.profgalloway.com/every-seven-years Market was at 21,600 (very roughly) on the approx. date of that post and now is at close to 27,000. It did not go lower than 22,400 in the interim. To wit (that post): > There are several hard metrics for why we may be nearing full-monty bubble, including things my NYU colleagues spend a great deal of time thinking about, and understand much better. But you don't need a Nobel to see the similarities between 1999 and 2017. (Btw, NYU Stern has three active Nobel Prize winners… We. Rule. But that's another post.) Very generally if you are predicting a collapse ala 1999 you need to be a bit more accurate than that. I didn't do a great deal of work to find that post either, it was linked in the post you gave. Edit: Also love his being so proud of the anointed 3 active nobel prize winners. Would like to remind everyone that until recently the game in business was making money or a great product or being loved by your customers not winning academic awards and platitudes.
- ENGNR 7y ago
  I think it's deliberate, he never gives a 'maybe this, maybe that' answer. He does the analysis, but then does an intuitive glance at the end and takes a side one way or the other Sure he's wrong a lot, but at least he's never half-right half-wrong
- maehwasu 7y ago
  Yeah, if you’re bragging about Nobel prizes in economics, you’re doing it wrong. They make the Peace Prize seem rigorous.
- dkrich 7y ago
  Galloway's strength is that he's an amazing communicator and very arrogant. People eat up what he says without a moment's thought. And to be fair he's had some great calls, ie, Amazon's stock run in 2017 and this WeWork fiasco (although the WeWork one wasn't that hard to predict after the reports on the corporate malfeasance came out). Combine an arrogant and vociferous personality with a couple of correct calls and you have something that sells. But he's also made some really bad calls. For example he predicted that Spotify was going to be the next FANG and that the stock price would double last year. That's not a crime, nobody knows what is going to happen in the future, but it's the arrogance and condescension and air of certainty that bothers me. He was so adamant about the dominance of voice and how Alexa was going to take over and largely disrupt touch screens. That was the call that I never agreed with and made me more skeptical of what he says. More than once I saw him on tv talking very condescendingly to people who questioned that call and in the end, two years later, I still don't know a single person who has ordered anything using Alexa. To this day it remains a cooking timer and a way to control audio equipment (if I'm really lazy). Galloway called it the most transformative device in ten years. Really?
austenallred 7y ago
Galloway always predicts that every tech company is a bubble. Every now and then he's right.
- roymurdock 7y ago
  Levine is skeptical/amused by the nonsensical valuations but takes a more neutral stance, probably because he was never truly invested in/familiar with/cared that much about new technology and what people promise it can do. Galloway is more idealistic and Levine is more practical taking things at face value and breaking them down. They're both very knowledgeable and worth reading.
  - jackgavigan 7y ago
    > ..probably because he was never truly invested in/familiar with/cared that much about new technology and what people promise it can do. Where's the technology in WeWork?
    - roymurdock 7y ago
      It's a cornerstone of their brand relative to other office space leasing companies, and tech investors are how/where they got a lot of their funding. Check out their S-1, they mention "technology" 110 times: "Technology is at the foundation of our global platform. Our purpose-built technology and operational expertise has allowed us to scale our core WeWork space-as-a-service offering quickly, while improving the quality of our solutions and decreasing the cost to find, build, fill and run our spaces. We have approximately 1,000 engineers, product designers and machine learning scientists that are dedicated to building, integrating and automating the complex systems we use to operate our business. As a result, we are able to deliver a premium experience to our members at a lower price relative to traditional alternatives." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519220499/d781982ds1.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519...
      - kortilla 7y ago
undefined3840 7y ago
I wouldn’t say he “predicted” anything unless I’m missing something. He commented on the S-1 after it was released. He also gave a glowing take on Smile Direct Club the day before the IPO, which has tanked 50% in a few weeks and had the biggest IPO flop in a decade, so YMMV.

joezydeco 7y ago

Yeah, it's pretty impressive in this day and age that someone read the S-1.

jetti 7y ago

It has been super interesting listening to Scott Galloway blast WeWork and their business model on the podcast Pivot.

codq 7y ago
Would be great to remove Kara Swisher's self-aggrandizement and name-droppery and isolate Galloway's takes entirely.
- TheMagicHorsey 7y ago
  God, Kara Swisher is perhaps the most annoying tech journalist on the planet. Her "analysis" consists of inserting random name-drops that are completely unrelated to the topic at hand and then regurgitating the analysis of smarter people without any additional value add. It seems Kara Swisher's entire reason for existing is for expressing disdain. In any organization she'd be that political person who adds no value to projects but rises due to her expertise at networking and name dropping. I much prefer the journalists on the Economist podcast and the people on The Weeds (Vox) and FiveThirtyEight.
  - arbitrary_name 7y ago
    I really bought into the hype and gave her a try - she adds absolutely nothing to the conversation. The a16z podcasts are way better - I can't recall the name of the ladies who generally host that but they are much more effective interviewers and analysts.

gist 7y ago

I wouldn't give that much worship to Galloway it's not like he is always right or my guess even close to that (and nobody is). For example this post circa 2017 about the bubble. I can't tell you how many people have not called the bubble since the last bubble correctly. Galloway is one of them: https://www.profgalloway.com/every-seven-years https://www.profgalloway.com/every-seven-years Market was at 21,600 (very roughly) on the approx. date of that post and now is at close to 27,000. It did not go lower than 22,400 in the interim. To wit (that post): > There are several hard metrics for why we may be nearing full-monty bubble, including things my NYU colleagues spend a great deal of time thinking about, and understand much better. But you don't need a Nobel to see the similarities between 1999 and 2017. (Btw, NYU Stern has three active Nobel Prize winners… We. Rule. But that's another post.) Very generally if you are predicting a collapse ala 1999 you need to be a bit more accurate than that. I didn't do a great deal of work to find that post either, it was linked in the post you gave. Edit: Also love his being so proud of the anointed 3 active nobel prize winners. Would like to remind everyone that until recently the game in business was making money or a great product or being loved by your customers not winning academic awards and platitudes.

ENGNR 7y ago
I think it's deliberate, he never gives a 'maybe this, maybe that' answer. He does the analysis, but then does an intuitive glance at the end and takes a side one way or the other Sure he's wrong a lot, but at least he's never half-right half-wrong
maehwasu 7y ago
Yeah, if you’re bragging about Nobel prizes in economics, you’re doing it wrong. They make the Peace Prize seem rigorous.
dkrich 7y ago
Galloway's strength is that he's an amazing communicator and very arrogant. People eat up what he says without a moment's thought. And to be fair he's had some great calls, ie, Amazon's stock run in 2017 and this WeWork fiasco (although the WeWork one wasn't that hard to predict after the reports on the corporate malfeasance came out). Combine an arrogant and vociferous personality with a couple of correct calls and you have something that sells. But he's also made some really bad calls. For example he predicted that Spotify was going to be the next FANG and that the stock price would double last year. That's not a crime, nobody knows what is going to happen in the future, but it's the arrogance and condescension and air of certainty that bothers me. He was so adamant about the dominance of voice and how Alexa was going to take over and largely disrupt touch screens. That was the call that I never agreed with and made me more skeptical of what he says. More than once I saw him on tv talking very condescendingly to people who questioned that call and in the end, two years later, I still don't know a single person who has ordered anything using Alexa. To this day it remains a cooking timer and a way to control audio equipment (if I'm really lazy). Galloway called it the most transformative device in ten years. Really?

austenallred 7y ago

Galloway always predicts that every tech company is a bubble. Every now and then he's right.

roymurdock 7y ago
Levine is skeptical/amused by the nonsensical valuations but takes a more neutral stance, probably because he was never truly invested in/familiar with/cared that much about new technology and what people promise it can do. Galloway is more idealistic and Levine is more practical taking things at face value and breaking them down. They're both very knowledgeable and worth reading.
- jackgavigan 7y ago
  > ..probably because he was never truly invested in/familiar with/cared that much about new technology and what people promise it can do. Where's the technology in WeWork?
  - roymurdock 7y ago
    It's a cornerstone of their brand relative to other office space leasing companies, and tech investors are how/where they got a lot of their funding. Check out their S-1, they mention "technology" 110 times: "Technology is at the foundation of our global platform. Our purpose-built technology and operational expertise has allowed us to scale our core WeWork space-as-a-service offering quickly, while improving the quality of our solutions and decreasing the cost to find, build, fill and run our spaces. We have approximately 1,000 engineers, product designers and machine learning scientists that are dedicated to building, integrating and automating the complex systems we use to operate our business. As a result, we are able to deliver a premium experience to our members at a lower price relative to traditional alternatives." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519220499/d781982ds1.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519...
    - kortilla 7y ago

undefined3840 7y ago

I wouldn’t say he “predicted” anything unless I’m missing something. He commented on the S-1 after it was released. He also gave a glowing take on Smile Direct Club the day before the IPO, which has tanked 50% in a few weeks and had the biggest IPO flop in a decade, so YMMV.