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I was alive for the .com bust but kind of forgot the scale. I looked up Pets.com. When they IPO'd they were valued at $290 million (about $294 million in inflat

I was alive for the .com bust but kind of forgot the scale. I looked up Pets.com. When they IPO'd they were valued at $290 million (about $294 million in inflation adjusted numbers). They raised $110.5 million in private capital and $82.5 million at IPO [0]. WeWork has raised $14.2 billion in capital to date[1]. In other words, pets.com only raised a mere 1% of the current total that WeWork has raised. If pets.com was the poster child for the dot com debacles then this new era of irrational startup exuberance exemplified by WeWork is another beast entirely. [0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sock-puppet-kills-petscom https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sock-puppet-kills-petscom [1] https://craft.co/wework/funding-rounds https://craft.co/wework/funding-rounds

perl4ever 7y ago
"When they IPO'd they were valued at $290 million (about $294 million in inflation adjusted numbers" That doesn't sound like the right amount of inflation. Maybe you mean $190M then or ~$435M now?
- heymijo 7y ago
  I could be wrong. I popped it into the first inflation calculator I Googled. 1998-Present and got the above.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Sure, but...common sense. 2% compounded for 20 years is about 50%. In fact, that seems to be very close to the correct amount.
    - heymijo 7y ago
      Thank you for pointing out my lack of common sense. Should I take this opportunity to point out that pet.com's $435 million is still a paltry sum compared to WeWork's $14.2 billion in capital, or has that larger point been rendered moot by my lack of common sense?
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        I have no idea if pets.com was actually a good comparison. Maybe there were others that raised far more? Here's an article listing some of the failures from the late 90s: https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/06/stock-crash-the-10-biggest-10-tech-ipo-fails/shanda-games https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/06/stock-crash-the-... Looks like eToys was close to $8B valuation around the time of its IPO. Although that doesn't mean they raised anywhere near that. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB927219879724795777 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB927219879724795777 So, WeWork may have gotten 100x more investment, but its valuation is more like double or less.

perl4ever 7y ago

"When they IPO'd they were valued at $290 million (about $294 million in inflation adjusted numbers" That doesn't sound like the right amount of inflation. Maybe you mean $190M then or ~$435M now?

heymijo 7y ago
I could be wrong. I popped it into the first inflation calculator I Googled. 1998-Present and got the above.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Sure, but...common sense. 2% compounded for 20 years is about 50%. In fact, that seems to be very close to the correct amount.
  - heymijo 7y ago
    Thank you for pointing out my lack of common sense. Should I take this opportunity to point out that pet.com's $435 million is still a paltry sum compared to WeWork's $14.2 billion in capital, or has that larger point been rendered moot by my lack of common sense?
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I have no idea if pets.com was actually a good comparison. Maybe there were others that raised far more? Here's an article listing some of the failures from the late 90s: https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/06/stock-crash-the-10-biggest-10-tech-ipo-fails/shanda-games https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/06/stock-crash-the-... Looks like eToys was close to $8B valuation around the time of its IPO. Although that doesn't mean they raised anywhere near that. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB927219879724795777 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB927219879724795777 So, WeWork may have gotten 100x more investment, but its valuation is more like double or less.