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Unrelated to this is the distinction between money and wealth. The challenge for a company like Weework is that it's hard to identify what wealth they generate
by emacsen 3y ago
Unrelated to this is the distinction between money and wealth.
The challenge for a company like Weework is that it's hard to identify what wealth they generate- at least for me.
In other words, what are they making (goods) or doing (services) that provides value to the world (wealth).
I suppose they'd say that their core value is making it easy to rent space quickly. This is certainly providing some value, but I hardly think it's one that's heavily differentiated.
I bring this up because the conflation of money and wealth is so often what gets people in trouble. Decoupling the two lets us examine what the value of a company is, at its core.
- bluepizza 3y agoIt's simpler than that! They just need to charge more than they spend. The fundamental economics of WeWork never worked because they were a con by its founder, who used WeWork to buy buildings in his name and rent them back to WeWork, amongst other financially boneheaded decisions. WeWork was never meant to be a successful business, it was meant to enrich the founder. Post founder, WeWork was finding itself as a scalable office provider, where companies were willing to pay a premium for a flexible contract, and add or remove seats as needed. It was an interesting idea, and there were signs of growth. Then COVID happened. I'm surprised they are even still operating.
- wizofaus 3y agoWeWork certainly provides value to the companies that rent their offices (including the one I work for). If someone else were looking for office rental options I'd recommend WeWork on the basis of the experience I've had working within their office space over the last 8 months or so. But obviously it was massively oversold as being a lot more than an office remodeling/ maintenance/ cleaning/subletting service.