
SoftBank Is Selling Wag Stake Back to Company - kgwgk
https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-is-selling-wag-stake-back-to-company-sources-11575916341
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farisjarrah
I wonder if Softbank's horrific investments, and the fact that companies are
staying private for so much longer due to Softbank style investments, have
saved the American economy from a 1999 style dotcom bubble?

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onlyrealcuzzo
Saved from a bubble? Or created a bubble? Or prevented the bubble from
popping?

I find it unlikely SoftBank saved us from a bubble. Did they create one?
Possibly. Did the prevent it from collapsing? That implies there is a bubble
-- which, who knows?

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benatkin
Did they try as hard to manage their reputation as they did to advertise? I
saw a lot of cute ads of a dog moving around a map, with a stop to poop, but
also saw posts about something bad happening to peoples' dogs, and both
customers and dog walkers getting ripped off, and for me, the posts cancelled
out the ads, which otherwise would have enticed me. Their reputation is also
important for recruiting dog walkers, and the bigger the pool of walkers, the
less they have to pay. I'm not sure it's worse than alternatives, because
screening animal caretakers is a difficult problem. If it wasn't, I wonder
what they could have done to calm peoples' fears.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
> I'm not sure it's worse than alternatives, because screening animal
> caretakers is a difficult problem.

The big issue is that once you find an animal caretaker that you like through
Wag, it is in both your interest to cut out the middle man, and pay the person
directly. It will be cheaper for you, and the caretaker will actually get more
money.

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distant_hat
This is happening with Uber and Ola in India too. A lot of the times when I
have taken a cab from the airport, the cabbie has given me his card or number
and suggested that for long rides I directly call them. Last time I needed a
cab, I directly called the guy and he arrived a full hour before the time and
had a better cab ride than I got when I go through the app with cancellations
and peak hour pricing and other crap.

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rvz
Thats the problem. The companies that cannot justify their own valuations are
very quick to take the VC route to grow at the speed of light. For many, all
of a sudden their balance sheets are riddled with negative numbers with no
profit to be seen whatsoever. Their products alone have the equivalent impact
of a rolling tumbleweed.

I think SoftBank is starting to become sober from funding these dreadful,
unprofitable startups like Wag and the infamous WeWork.

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barbecue_sauce
Has SoftBank finally looked in a mirror and seen its emperor's new clothes?

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dang
Ongoing related thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21754492](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21754492)

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xfour
Non-Paywalled [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/09/softbank-sells-stake-back-
to...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/09/softbank-sells-stake-back-to-wag.html)

