4 ms·
A chronically unprofitable company and attempted to IPO at an extremely inflated value and lost more than 50% of its valuation when investors raised those red f
by rvz 3y ago
A chronically unprofitable company and attempted to IPO at an extremely inflated value and lost more than 50% of its valuation when investors raised those red flags with the founder exit scamming with hundreds of millions of dollars afterwards.
Going through the SPAC scam route finished them off with one more pump and dump on retail investors and unsurprisingly ending up bankrupt. Would never have happened in an environment with near zero interest rates and quantitative easing for decades and infinite money from the VCs.
First WeAreGoingBankrupt [0], then 28 days later, WeAreBroke [1] and now WeAreBankrupt.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37750481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37750481
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38092599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38092599
- kingTug 3y agoIn addition to the ticky tack scams he managed on his way out, his golden parachute was historic. Neumann may have lost his company, but he didn’t leave empty-handed. He walked away with what many called a “golden parachute,” a package that was valued at nearly $2 billion. “Adam Neumann will essentially get a king’s ransom for grossly mismanaging the company on his way out,” Amy Borrus, deputy director of the Council of Institutional Investors, told the Washington Post. The New York Times called Neumann’s deal one of the greatest examples of someone failing upwards. https://time.com/6158804/wecrashed-true-story/ https://time.com/6158804/wecrashed-true-story/
- AlexandrB 3y agoThe punchline is he got funding to do it again - this time in residential real-estate[1]. Hard to reconcile stuff like this with the idea that SV is somehow meritocratic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(real_estate_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(real_estate_company)
- fakedang 3y agoFunnily enough, with the exact same play book. We used to joke back in investment banking and private equity that Softbank investments are steaming piles of shit we should stay away from. Perhaps a16z should be added to the gang too.