<story><title>WeWork Is Raising Funds at $35B Valuation</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-13/softbank-executive-says-wework-is-raising-funds-at-35-billion-valuation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>z0a</author><text>If the tech bubble and real estate bubble had a baby, it&amp;#x27;s name would be WeWork. How is a company that had a net loss of $933 million and that owes $18 billion in rent even remotely worth $35 billion. I&amp;#x27;d consider the lemonade stand on the corner to be more of a business than WeWork in the true sense of the word. What&amp;#x27;s inherently hard about what WeWork is doing? With enough money, anyone can rent out buildings, chop it up, and make it appealing to hipsters with some interior work, then over charge companies and individuals to rent out tiny spaces.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>shimms</author><text>I find this whole “owe $18b in rent” thing that’s come up recently interesting.&lt;p&gt;They only &amp;quot;owe&amp;quot; $18b in rent the same way any company leasing office space &amp;quot;owes&amp;quot; their landlord money. The word &amp;quot;owe&amp;quot; is thrown around here in relation (almost exclusively to WeWork) to imply they&amp;#x27;re in arrears to the landlords to the sum of sum of $18b.&lt;p&gt;It isn&amp;#x27;t anything like that - they have leases over the next 10-15 years with a contract value of $18b.&lt;p&gt;Over the length of their leases they have an $18b obligation, but that isn&amp;#x27;t the same as the way &amp;quot;they owe 18b&amp;quot; is used colloquially to mean currently in arrears&amp;#x2F;default.&lt;p&gt;It is the same as entering into any agreement - over the agreements length you have an obligation, which if you can&amp;#x27;t service you&amp;#x27;re insolvent.&lt;p&gt;I guess I find the narrative that they &amp;quot;owe&amp;quot; $18b to imply a far greater extent of distress than the reality of their leasing obligations actually entail.</text></comment>
<story><title>WeWork Is Raising Funds at $35B Valuation</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-13/softbank-executive-says-wework-is-raising-funds-at-35-billion-valuation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>z0a</author><text>If the tech bubble and real estate bubble had a baby, it&amp;#x27;s name would be WeWork. How is a company that had a net loss of $933 million and that owes $18 billion in rent even remotely worth $35 billion. I&amp;#x27;d consider the lemonade stand on the corner to be more of a business than WeWork in the true sense of the word. What&amp;#x27;s inherently hard about what WeWork is doing? With enough money, anyone can rent out buildings, chop it up, and make it appealing to hipsters with some interior work, then over charge companies and individuals to rent out tiny spaces.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>code4tee</author><text>When you consider that much of WeWork’s revenue is likey just VC dollars paying the expenses of their tenants then the whole thing looks even crazier. VC money paying revenue of a startup that uses that revenue to justify raising more money from VCs. I have some bridges to sell.</text></comment>