
WeWork’s List of Potential Conflicts Adds to Questions Ahead of IPO - JoshuaJB
https://www.wsj.com/articles/weworks-long-list-of-potential-conflicts-adds-to-questions-ahead-of-ipo-11567808023?mod=rsswn
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sfifs
With so much bad publicity, it seems likely WeWork's IPO is dead in the water.
I'm surprised anyone's still willing to underwrite it.

The interesting question is going to be what questions will now get asked of
SoftBank Vision Fund if any by it's investors. Going by the Theranos example
probably nothing but raising capital for their next fund may also be dead in
water after so many of their high profile investments have had issues.

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chrisseaton
What does it mean to underwrite an IPO? Isn't it caveat emptor? What is being
unwritten?

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zb
The underwriter guarantees that the company will raise a certain amount of
capital, by agreeing to take up the shares themselves if nobody else does, in
exchange for a cut.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwriting#Securities_underw...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwriting#Securities_underwriting)

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rishirishi
Show of hands... Who is throwing shade on We while being a tenant?

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jrockway
What's good for customers and what's good for shareholders are very different
things. WeWork having an infinite number of locations for you to use your
membership at is great for you as a customer. It's pretty bad for
shareholders, though, when the bottom falls out of the market and WeWork is
stuck in leases for locations that nobody goes to.

I think a lot of the IPO criticism comes from that way of thinking. So I don't
think it's bad to "throw shade" at that business model while still being a
customer. WeWork is taking all the risk out of real estate for you, the
customer. That's good for you, but maybe bad for them.

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downrightmike
We have a bunch of upcoming actual tech IPOs coming ahead, like Cloudflare,
that provide a useful and valuable service. 'We' is just the left over husk
that the VCs are trying to get sold off because the founder took the value out
already.

