
WeWork Accepts SoftBank Takeover Offer - mcgwiz
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wework-softbank-group/wework-board-accepts-softbank-rescue-deal-source-idUSKBN1X11JN
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untog
[edit: deleting comment]

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vkou
Well, he did spend 12 billion dollars building a 8 billion dollar company, so
surely, he deserves some reward for his efforts..?

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untog
[removed]

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SirensOfTitan
I strongly dislike WeWork, even may have issues with its fundamental business
model, but it's difficult for me to understand how someone could label it as a
failure. WeWork is not Theranos: they have a product offering that works well
for a lot of businesses.

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xkjkls
A single product offering doesn't make a sustainable business. Ultimately, for
it to work for these businesses, they need to prove that they can sustain the
business model without capital injections.

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tibbydudeza
Softbank ... now offically the Pets.com of 2019.

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basch
Softbank was the Pets.com of 2000. Their market cap dropped from $200B to $2B.
Masayoshi Son was "worth more" than Bill Gates for 3 days.

It's their playbook. Although they left the dotcom crash losing 99% of their
value, they walked out with a stake in Alibaba now worth over $100B.

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jjakque
Planet money has a podcast episode on WeWork and Masayoshi:
[https://www.npr.org/2019/10/04/767379358/episode-943-unicorn...](https://www.npr.org/2019/10/04/767379358/episode-943-unicorn-
cowboy)

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neural_thing
What I don't understand is why Softbank didn't just buy the bonds and take
control of the company during a restructuring. Would've been much cheaper, no
need to pay Neumann anything.

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xkjkls
Partly to probably save face on all of their other investments in the Vision
Fund. They still have a number of other companies in their portfolio that they
hope to one day take public, and compounding this disaster wouldn't be helpful
to them

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nostromo
I'm confused as to why this is so terrible.

He created a very valuable company, worth billions of dollars. It makes sense
that he should capture some large fraction of that wealth.

Yes, some people will lose their jobs. But it's worth noting that those jobs
wouldn't have existed in the first place if he hadn't started the company.

His mismanagement has cost him and Softbank billions, which is appropriate as
well.

I say this completely aware of what a shitshow WeWork is.

edit: For context this was a response to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21325431)
but the mods detached it for... some reason?

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Barrin92
>He created a very valuable company, worth billions of dollars

he created something that may very well lose its investors billions of dollars
without ever turning a dime of profit. What the company is evaluated as on
paper by people increasingly disconnected from reality isn't really
meaningful.

I'm not really sure what the market function or social function is of
rewarding people with billions of dollars who create money-losing machines. If
anything it's an indication that some part of the system is increasingly
broken.

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nostromo
Perhaps I'm just not seeing any real victims here.

Softbank and the Saudis wanted to roll the dice on some overpriced unicorns.
They went into the deal with eyes open. And it looks like they're taking a
massive haircut. Play stupid games...

I do feel sorry for some WeWork employees that will lose their jobs. But,
again, many of them joined hoping to get some upside when the company went
public -- which was a gamble that didn't pan out. Thankfully it's a good time
to be on the job market.

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filmgirlcw
Dude, come on. They have 15,000 employees. Most of them are going to lose
their jobs. Those are the victims.

I agree I don’t weep for Soft Bank or the Saudis, but plenty of people took
jobs not just on the promise of IPO riches. And laying off a company of WeWork
and its subsidiaries size is more than just a handful of people entering the
job market — a market that isn’t as good in every city, which is something to
consider since We has quite a distributed workforce.

Edited: it is 15,000 people — not 12. And most of them will end up losing
their jobs. That’s a lot of people.

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smeyer
>which is something to consider since We has quite a distributed workforce

Wouldn't a distributed workforce mean a less impactful layoff for the
employees? Much better to be part of a N,000 person layoff but one of only 200
people in your town then entering a local job market with all N,000 people at
once.

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pashabitz
If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the (soft)bank $100
million, that's the bank's problem.

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hef19898
In the latter case you also kind of own the bank.

