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Adam Neumann seeks to buy WeWork back 5 years after being ousted as CEO

35 points by anigbrowl 3y ago

tonetheman 3y ago
[dead]
xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
> "It’s often under-appreciated that only one person has fundamentally redesigned the office experience and led a paradigm-changing global company in the process,” Marc Andreessen, of the venture capital firm, wrote in a blogpost in 2022. “For Adam, the successes and lessons are plenty.” Oh, The Places You'll Go! (With A Stadium's Worth of Venture Capital On Fire) Gotta love people who have lots of money continuing to give it to people who should never again be allowed to handle money because they can hype and flip it. There's some meta real estate witty remark to be made but I can't find it.
- dangus 3y ago
  “Fundamentally redesigned the office experience.” That’s hilarious. The only thing WeWork did to change the office experience was to make co-working spaces resemble the modern tech office rather than the old Regis boomer cube farm. The concept already existed, you just had to copy and paste it from your choice of trendy tech company. To be frank, the only lasting difference is the choice in furniture.
15457345234 3y ago
>> "“In a hybrid work world where demand for WeWork’s product should be greater than ever, my clients believe that the synergies and management expertise offered by an acquisition could significantly exceed the value of the debtors on a stand-alone basis,” the lawyers wrote. “WeWork should at least educate itself about that potential and not preclude itself from maximizing value.” > hybrid work > demand > greater than ever WAT
- kadoban 3y ago
  It's not _completely_ wrong necessarily. As having a giant office for every worker, every day stops being necessary, more flexible work spaces could make sense.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    I can see the demand for on-demand office space increasing, but CBD real estate is going to be such a choppy market that timing it is going to be horrifically hard so as not to end up on the wrong side of the trade. Also the real estate holders know that every bit of space they rent to WeWork is going to be re-entering the market to compete so they're not going to be inclined to give generous terms. Unless WW has a very good grip on the market direction and timing it's going to be very easy for them to take huge losses (again)
- vidarh 3y ago
  If I were to start another company, I would be less inclined than ever to lease fixed office space vs. look for options for people to grab co-working spaces on an as-needed basis or short term office space for specific projects. It might well be there's lots of room for growth for something well executed (but I'm not convinced that means WeWork) in that space as a way for companies to scale down their fixed office footprint.
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    I would agree with you that overall demand is likely to shift towards short-term flexible office space and away from long term leases, I just don't understand why large real estate holders will leave that piece of the pie there for third parties to arbitrage, unless they're genuinely desperate, and I don't think they'll become that genuinely desperate because the government will act to shore them up because of how critical central business district real estate values are in general to so many things. I see large real estate holders spinning up WW-like departments and following the WW model but I don't see a company that doesn't itself _own_ the real estate being able to prosper. WW managed to cultivate a very trendy atmosphere and all the associated types piled in accordingly but that only lasts for a while; sooner or later you run out of cash to burn. I have no idea why SoftBank threw money at WW like they thought they had to spend it all before the world ended, I'm not sure that they really know either.
mike_d 3y ago
Adam is the type of guy that will never understand that WeWork succeeded as much as it did despite him, not because of him. (Former WeWork employee and current shareholder)
- shmde 3y ago
  WeWork succeeded ? What ?
  - cmcaleer 3y ago
    If extracting billions from SoftBank isn’t a success then I want to be the biggest failure there is.
  - mike_d 3y ago
    Yeah. At one point the company had over 700k paying members, almost half of which were from companies with over 500 employees. At the peak the company was the largest holder of Manhattan commercial office space. The part the "documentaries" left out is that there was actually a really good business at the core. Giving companies of any size the ability to hire in any market globally and giving their employees the flexibility to live almost anywhere, while maintaining the amenities that tech workers have come to expect. We just had a chain of completely incompetent leaders who refused to see the company for what it was. Adam used the company to launch his own montessori school for his children because that was more exciting and "visionary" than building a managed service provider model and leasing laptops to member companies and providing unified helpdesk/IT at every location (which would have absolutely printed money). He bought a literal glass factory (to make cool windows) instead of leveraging our network of small business owners to have almost zero customer acquisition cost for high margin businesses like managed book keeping or HR/payroll.
    - david_shi 3y ago
      So the issue was in the leadership handoff? It seems like Uber executed tremendously well where WeWork fell short.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

35 points by anigbrowl 3y ago

[dead]

> "It’s often under-appreciated that only one person has fundamentally redesigned the office experience and led a paradigm-changing global company in the process,” Marc Andreessen, of the venture capital firm, wrote in a blogpost in 2022. “For Adam, the successes and lessons are plenty.” Oh, The Places You'll Go! (With A Stadium's Worth of Venture Capital On Fire) Gotta love people who have lots of money continuing to give it to people who should never again be allowed to handle money because they can hype and flip it. There's some meta real estate witty remark to be made but I can't find it.

dangus 3y ago
“Fundamentally redesigned the office experience.” That’s hilarious. The only thing WeWork did to change the office experience was to make co-working spaces resemble the modern tech office rather than the old Regis boomer cube farm. The concept already existed, you just had to copy and paste it from your choice of trendy tech company. To be frank, the only lasting difference is the choice in furniture.

15457345234 3y ago

>> "“In a hybrid work world where demand for WeWork’s product should be greater than ever, my clients believe that the synergies and management expertise offered by an acquisition could significantly exceed the value of the debtors on a stand-alone basis,” the lawyers wrote. “WeWork should at least educate itself about that potential and not preclude itself from maximizing value.” > hybrid work > demand > greater than ever WAT

kadoban 3y ago
It's not _completely_ wrong necessarily. As having a giant office for every worker, every day stops being necessary, more flexible work spaces could make sense.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  I can see the demand for on-demand office space increasing, but CBD real estate is going to be such a choppy market that timing it is going to be horrifically hard so as not to end up on the wrong side of the trade. Also the real estate holders know that every bit of space they rent to WeWork is going to be re-entering the market to compete so they're not going to be inclined to give generous terms. Unless WW has a very good grip on the market direction and timing it's going to be very easy for them to take huge losses (again)
vidarh 3y ago
If I were to start another company, I would be less inclined than ever to lease fixed office space vs. look for options for people to grab co-working spaces on an as-needed basis or short term office space for specific projects. It might well be there's lots of room for growth for something well executed (but I'm not convinced that means WeWork) in that space as a way for companies to scale down their fixed office footprint.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  I would agree with you that overall demand is likely to shift towards short-term flexible office space and away from long term leases, I just don't understand why large real estate holders will leave that piece of the pie there for third parties to arbitrage, unless they're genuinely desperate, and I don't think they'll become that genuinely desperate because the government will act to shore them up because of how critical central business district real estate values are in general to so many things. I see large real estate holders spinning up WW-like departments and following the WW model but I don't see a company that doesn't itself _own_ the real estate being able to prosper. WW managed to cultivate a very trendy atmosphere and all the associated types piled in accordingly but that only lasts for a while; sooner or later you run out of cash to burn. I have no idea why SoftBank threw money at WW like they thought they had to spend it all before the world ended, I'm not sure that they really know either.

mike_d 3y ago

Adam is the type of guy that will never understand that WeWork succeeded as much as it did despite him, not because of him. (Former WeWork employee and current shareholder)

shmde 3y ago
WeWork succeeded ? What ?
- cmcaleer 3y ago
  If extracting billions from SoftBank isn’t a success then I want to be the biggest failure there is.
- mike_d 3y ago
  Yeah. At one point the company had over 700k paying members, almost half of which were from companies with over 500 employees. At the peak the company was the largest holder of Manhattan commercial office space. The part the "documentaries" left out is that there was actually a really good business at the core. Giving companies of any size the ability to hire in any market globally and giving their employees the flexibility to live almost anywhere, while maintaining the amenities that tech workers have come to expect. We just had a chain of completely incompetent leaders who refused to see the company for what it was. Adam used the company to launch his own montessori school for his children because that was more exciting and "visionary" than building a managed service provider model and leasing laptops to member companies and providing unified helpdesk/IT at every location (which would have absolutely printed money). He bought a literal glass factory (to make cool windows) instead of leveraging our network of small business owners to have almost zero customer acquisition cost for high margin businesses like managed book keeping or HR/payroll.
  - david_shi 3y ago
    So the issue was in the leadership handoff? It seems like Uber executed tremendously well where WeWork fell short.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]