What happens to the New York and Chicago commercial-real-estate markets where WeWork was the biggest and the second-biggest tenants? [...] The reverberations here are going to be pretty dramatic. WeWork [...] went to zero in 30 days. That’s more value destruction than the three biggest losers in the S&P 500 lost all year. — New York
An eye-opening interview with NYU Stern School of Business professor and vocal WeWork critic Scott Galloway in New York Magazine raises questions regarding the potential built environment ramifications of WeWork's spectacular collapse.
The uncertainty comes as commercial real estate property values drop across many global cities and as architecture firms see negative growth in the number of commercial sector projects they are asked to take on.
I mean, "eye-opening" interview with Scott Galloway? Maybe. More like a fun, snarky article that lays out some realities in flamboyant language while keeping eyes tightly shut to how completely commonplace this kind of behavior is in contemporary stock business.
A better factual article on the timeline of this fiasco is this one at Business Insider by Dakin Campbell.
All 7 Comments
"If you want to talk about real toll here — the real toll is that there’s somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 WeWork employees who took a job and a big part of their compensation — the reason they took these jobs was because of equity value. And it’s impossible not to count your money 30 days out from an IPO. It’s impossible to tell your husband to not start looking at houses. It’s impossible not to tell your parents, “Let’s think about going on a family cruise together.” It’s impossible not to start thinking that you can afford that new car. $47 billion? We’re probably talking about several thousand people who were going to be millionaires. Now most of them are probably thinking that in the next 30 days there’s a one-in-two chance I don’t have health insurance. You want to talk about the sheer human toll? The notion that Adam Neumann was fired? My God, he got on the last helicopter out of Saigon."
I’m not feeling bad for wankers like that archie who left a good job for a $300k salary for drinking beer while waiting for stock potions to make him rich.
U$A!
Here, here! Everyone I know that went to WeWork did it solely for the money.
Anything done solely for money is guaranteed to be shit.
have to admit I’m confused about this company. It seems like they have a very good core business — renting space to small businesses — and a terrible, bloated management. So, all they have to do is fix the later and they’re fine. Not sure why it’s so complicated.
Think it through.
The same people hyping it up are the same crying disaster. Think that through
Um, really?
They're racking up a lot of losses renting and sub-leasing these spaces. And unlike a tech company, their costs doesn't decrease over time on a unit basis - despite their best efforts to lower the cost of fit-outs with BIM. The worst case scenario for them is what happened to another co-working giant in the 00s - when their subleasers fled and the company was left with very long leases.
The real core business is Neumann’s personal real estate portfolio. WeWork was supposed to be the astronomical multiplier.
Neumann is a grifter. He isn't hurting, he just didn't get as much of the take as he felt he should have. Don't shed a tear for that shit stain, and fuck this company.
Even the most rudimentary web search will tell you that stock options in a startup don't always work out. The generous salaries at WeWork seemed to be way above other places in the building industry, so I think a lot of these people did pretty well. They are still walking away with more salary money than they would have earned in the same amount of time in a regular architecture or construction firm.
Irrational exuberance (Alan Greenspan)
I mean, "eye-opening" interview with Scott Galloway? Maybe. More like a fun, snarky article that lays out some realities in flamboyant language while keeping eyes tightly shut to how completely commonplace this kind of behavior is in contemporary stock business.
A better factual article on the timeline of this fiasco is this one at Business Insider by Dakin Campbell.
https://www.businessinsider.com/weworks-nightmare-ipo
great post
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.