VC investors are the dumbest most credulous motherfuckers on the planet earth and I hope they all get leprosy
― president of deluded fruitcakes anonymous (silby), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 17:06 (four years ago) link
as discussed above, not necessarily credulous, just thinking they can find a bigger fool. But this might turn out to be a situation where they can't.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 17:25 (four years ago) link
the 2008 financial crisis left commercial real estate in a smoldering crater but I'm sure this idiot has a plan to avoid that happening at we work before the next recession hits
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 17:39 (four years ago) link
I was trying to figure out when the GoPro CEO bought his $40m yacht and came across these sigh engulfing wiki facts.
To finance the business, Woodman borrowed $200,000 from his father (an investment banker in Silicon Valley), who still owned a 6.4% stake in May 2014.[17] Nick also borrowed $35,000 and a sewing machine from his mother, which he used to sew camera straps while experimenting with early designs.[18] Nick and his future wife Jill generated an additional $10,000 by selling shell necklaces they bought in Bali (for $1.90) from their car along the California coast (for $60).On June 26, 2014, GoPro went public β closing the day at $31.34 a share. In 2014, Woodman was the highest paid US chief executive, paying himself $235 million while GoPro earned profits of $128 million.
On June 26, 2014, GoPro went public β closing the day at $31.34 a share. In 2014, Woodman was the highest paid US chief executive, paying himself $235 million while GoPro earned profits of $128 million.
― Yerac, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 17:54 (four years ago) link
paying himself $235 million while GoPro earned profits of $128 million
Now there is a person who understands capitalism.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 18:04 (four years ago) link
ATH GoPro stock closing price was 93.85 on October 07, 2014. It's ~$4.50 today.
― Yerac, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 18:07 (four years ago) link
I worked on an intellectual property case involving a start up and VCs and that whole world just seems like it entirely consists of hype filled powerpoint presentations and business dudes exchanging contacts and favors
― officer sonny bonds, lytton pd (mayor jingleberries), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 18:32 (four years ago) link
So is this the thread for this story?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-not-the-way-everybody-behaves-how-adam-neumanns-over-the-top-style-built-wework-11568823827
And this...anecdote?
After firing hundreds of staff, the WeWork CEO held a somber all-hands meeting explaining why it was a necessary move, but then trays of tequila were handed out and DMC from Run-DMC burst into the room and performed "It's Tricky" https://t.co/t9oGq8ebTb pic.twitter.com/cuq0aM1Tqi— Tom Gara (@tomgara) September 18, 2019
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 18:41 (four years ago) link
oh cool it finally happened pic.twitter.com/cyLCjLcNAg— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) September 18, 2019
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 18:47 (four years ago) link
https://boingboing.net/2019/09/18/wework-sounds-like-a-real-piec.html
― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Thursday, 19 September 2019 22:12 (four years ago) link
zerohedge i know but
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wework-business-model-systemic-risk-economy-feds-rosengren-warns
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Friday, 20 September 2019 22:26 (four years ago) link
WeWork's largest investor, SoftBank, and others moving to oust Adam Neumann as CEO https://t.co/BiXN6Zwo19— Eliot Brown (@eliotwb) September 22, 2019
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Sunday, 22 September 2019 17:07 (four years ago) link
lmao
― president of deluded fruitcakes anonymous (silby), Sunday, 22 September 2019 17:56 (four years ago) link
*NEUMANN EXPECTED TO STEP DOWN AS WE CEO: DJ— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 24, 2019
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Tuesday, 24 September 2019 17:06 (four years ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/business/dealbook/wework-ceo-adam-neumann.html
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Tuesday, 24 September 2019 17:09 (four years ago) link
aw man the party was just getting started
― adam, Tuesday, 24 September 2019 18:20 (four years ago) link
the party is just getting started
pic.twitter.com/1NQytV21NR— Zach Scott (@weinventyou) September 24, 2019
― Sally Jessy (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 24 September 2019 18:24 (four years ago) link
lol
― Tart Prepper (Sufjan Grafton), Tuesday, 24 September 2019 18:37 (four years ago) link
oh my GOD
― maura, Tuesday, 24 September 2019 19:36 (four years ago) link
I swear every time the stock market takes a hit there is "news" of optimism regarding a trade deal with China so it goes back up. seems odd but idk anything about this shit
― (β’Μͺβ) (carne asada), Wednesday, 25 September 2019 21:38 (four years ago) link
maybe you should buy a bunch of shares after it takes a hit and sell after modest gains. you'll stop before the hit sticks. it is easy to stop.
― Tart Prepper (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 25 September 2019 22:48 (four years ago) link
thereβs this thing in macroeconomics called the equity premium puzzle, which basically says bonds are way overpriced relative to stocks given what we think of as reasonable preferences for risk, in classical asset pricing models. anyways one of the most famous attempted reconciliations of it was to suggest that peopleβs risk preferences (and more generally their beliefs about the economy) are shaped by the economic fluctuations theyβve observed in their lifetimes. so people who were old enough in the 70s are really afraid of inflation, etc. reading this thread makes me think of that; you guys are all a bit older than me, prob most of you experienced the dotcom bubble as adults whereas i was like 8 years old and 2008 was my βfirstβ recession. i find it puzzling that yβall are often trying to read macro trends from stuff like tech IPOs. like, wework, really? but i think itβs just this weird form of generational learning forming our perception of the economy
― flopson, Thursday, 26 September 2019 05:38 (four years ago) link
we're not weird you're weird
look at your name, flopson, what kind of name is that, a weird one
― j., Thursday, 26 September 2019 05:43 (four years ago) link
wow owned
― i'm not a garbageman i am garbage, man. let me handle my garbage, damn (m bison), Thursday, 26 September 2019 10:54 (four years ago) link
Sonned in late night American beef
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Thursday, 26 September 2019 10:57 (four years ago) link
Wait, why are you guys over here when we're over here?
Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism
― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 26 September 2019 11:38 (four years ago) link
i've been posting my wework content here for months on the basis that it's a credible global financial contagion and it's not really a tech company Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Thursday, 26 September 2019 16:44 (four years ago) link
flopson is eagerly awaiting their own traumatic financial black swan event.
― Yerac, Thursday, 26 September 2019 16:50 (four years ago) link
Yeah, this is clearly not just old people's PTSD from stock markets past. Nothing about the current moment suggests that the fundamental laws of gravity no longer apply to today's market.
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Thursday, 26 September 2019 17:03 (four years ago) link
so why is wework uniquely poised to create a global financial crisis? it's a tiny little thing
― flopson, Thursday, 26 September 2019 19:16 (four years ago) link
i'm not trying to like, roast you guys for being old; it's really just a matter of a few years. it's interesting imo that such a small change in experience can have such a strong effect on our priors about the likelihood of some tech startups being overvalued sinking the economy
― flopson, Thursday, 26 September 2019 19:21 (four years ago) link
see zerohedge post above
― mookieproof, Thursday, 26 September 2019 19:22 (four years ago) link
:/
― flopson, Thursday, 26 September 2019 19:34 (four years ago) link
i thought this thread just randomly started focusing on wework because of ridiculous valuation and drama going on.
― Yerac, Thursday, 26 September 2019 19:34 (four years ago) link
yerac otm. there may have been a suggestion that wework was some kind of 'Bear Sterns' harbinger of market craziness becoming exposed, but that was pretty farfetched. wework does exemplify some of the craziness at work in the markets, but it is not a linchpin. it is more an illustration of too much money chasing high returns and the misallocation of capital away from productive investment into stupid speculations.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 26 September 2019 19:46 (four years ago) link
Wework is not going to cause a global financial crisis
It is notable that one of the most talked about IPOs appears to have been built on exactly nothing and that several other notable internet companies have been built on similarly dubious foundations. There are certainly echoes to the tech bubble in the early 2000s.
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Thursday, 26 September 2019 20:05 (four years ago) link
Itβs the largest renter of commercial real estate in New York, Chicago, and other cities.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 26 September 2019 20:06 (four years ago) link
And there is serious reason to think they will not be able to meet the financial obligations required by their massive leases.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 26 September 2019 20:08 (four years ago) link
βwhat WeWork has undertaken... is in fact $34 billion... of rent obligations to landlords... over the next 15 years... This for a company that grossed less than $2.6 billion in sales for the 12 months through Juneβ https://t.co/90sHEdl76c— Edward Harrison (@edwardnh) September 25, 2019
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 26 September 2019 20:11 (four years ago) link
Yikes, ok, maybe they will take down the economy, lol
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Thursday, 26 September 2019 20:13 (four years ago) link
apparently if you had $47bn you could *buy* half the commercial real estate in the US. that's how insane the valuation is.
we've done the "could this be a contagion" thing on this thread before iirc. probably not on its own. but a major tech bust (which "we're done with IPOs for a while" could initiate) absolutely could (e.g. via california being way, way too dependent on tech IPOs for general tax revenue).
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Thursday, 26 September 2019 20:34 (four years ago) link
No, that's not correct. The total value of all commercial real estate in the US is over $6 trillion. Office alone is $1.7 trillion.
It's also not the right comparison since (in theory, if WeWork's model actually made any sense), the valuation of a WeWork company should be tied to the value of its income, not to real estate values (it doesn't own many properties).
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 26 September 2019 20:54 (four years ago) link
yeah the wework numbers are tiny, the fact that they're the largest owner of commercial real estate in new york and wherever just shows how low the concentration is in those cities
― flopson, Thursday, 26 September 2019 21:06 (four years ago) link
WeWork is in no way a tech company. Everything it actually, functionally does could be accomplished with a telephone and a ledger.
― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Thursday, 26 September 2019 21:13 (four years ago) link
xp- there's a reason why zerohedge say "single biggest tenant" but doesn't report its share, it's 260 locations in NYC
― flopson, Thursday, 26 September 2019 21:15 (four years ago) link
yeah i was thinking "that sounds like bullshit" as i was typing it but i decided to post it and be legends.
it was a misremembered version of this $100bn figure from levine yesterday
If a company is a mid-tier office landlord, I mean, the total equity market capitalization of all publicly traded office real estate investment trusts in the U.S. is about $100 billion; also many of them are profitable. If WeWork just replaced all of them tomorrow, then youβd about double your money from that $47 billion valuation. Nobody gets into venture capital because the best-case scenario is doubling their money. For WeWork, maximal office-landlording success would be kind of disappointing.
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Thursday, 26 September 2019 21:55 (four years ago) link
still, if the office space is worth 1700bn, their IPO was claiming they were worth ~1/20 of the purchase value of all the office space in the US.
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Thursday, 26 September 2019 21:58 (four years ago) link
ok kate pic.twitter.com/Gy57jEIPW0— darthβ’ (@darth) September 26, 2019
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Thursday, 26 September 2019 22:04 (four years ago) link
(source https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/d93grv/adam_neumann_barefoot_in_nyc_hours_before_being/)
― π ππ’π¨ (caek), Thursday, 26 September 2019 22:06 (four years ago) link
The new Pivot podcast episode, from Toronto, has a good conversation about WeWork about 10 minutes in. (See also: the previous 10 or so episodes as well.)
― ... (Eazy), Friday, 27 September 2019 21:31 (four years ago) link