Posted on 10/25/2019 2:24:03 PM PDT by Rummyfan
I haven’t been closely following the saga of startup WeWork, which has more or less crashed and burned after being touted as the hot new unicorn of venture capital prestidigitation. The Wall Street Journal today has a long feature article on its decline and fall, and some of the details read like they came from a Tom Wolfe satire of the new rich of our time. Savor a few of these details:
Just months before the spectacular fall of WeWork, one of the country’s most gilded startups, chief executive Adam Neumann summoned the heads of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to one of his homes in the Hamptons.
WeWork was going public and each executive wanted Mr. Neumann to list on their exchange. In return, he wanted their support for a cause he had championed—environmental sustainability—and asked them to ban meat or single-use plastic products in their cafeterias, according to people familiar with the matter.
NYSE President Stacey Cunningham offered to eliminate plastic cups and utensils but drew the line at meat. Nasdaq’s Adena Friedman offered to create a new index, the We 50, of companies committed to sustainability. Nasdaq won.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
The company has collapsed but Neumann walked away with about $1 billion... Thats a lot of surfing safaris.
Crime pays.
Poor WeWoke employee and investors .... they got it in the end.
The whole concept of branding a real estate company as a “start up” geared towards start-ups was absurd to begin with.
Real estate is real estate. They buyer goes to where they get the best bang for the buck, not because it’s trendy and millenniumish hipster cool.
What was this company supposed to be doing or selling?
Ah, it was a real estate company?
Oy.
It's kind of a "tech startup" version of Regus.
They bought up and leased a boatload of commercial office space in major cities and offered it from bare bones to turn key ready to occupy.
But since they were cool, hipster, silicon valley types they thought they could market to their peers and make bank.
I love how he lectures all these people to be more environmentally-aware and then he cleans house.
“But since they were cool, hipster, silicon valley types they thought they could market to their peers and make bank.”
—
As long as the guy didn’t get taxpayer funding, I’d file this under “fools and their money - parted”. Idiots.
And the article said is was “one” of his Hamptoms houses
These stinkin phonies are the biggest hypocrites
It’s probably a small energy footprint
WeWork?
NoWeDoesn’tBerryMuch
This outfit has been on credit hold at my company for over a year.
L
Good credit management at your company, IMHO.
We share a building with a WeWork that just opened. Most of the parking garage was repainted for WeWork parking only. Vastly empty. While now some of us have to now park illegally in a shopping center parking lot across the street. Not very pleasant in the winter.
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