Unlike some once-hot startups, the problem with WeWork is not that it has a business model that could never work. jbarro writes on the actual biggest threat to the company
Sure, but it’s a commodity business. Photo: Jackal Pan/Visual China Group via Getty Images To explain why I remain a WeWork bear even as the company cleans up its governance act, fires its weird CEO, gets out out of dubious non-core business to focus on trying to make money as a shared-space office middleman, I want to revisit a column I wrote four years ago about another hot startup that once thought about going public: SoulCycle.
The tentative answer I reached at the time was that SoulCycle should be able to sustain its high profits, even as it grew and matured. If you ask the same set of questions about WeWork, you get a different answer: It’s in a commodity business where competitors can copy its model.
Hot startup companies typically lay claim to the first condition or the second . You can argue about how the numbers pencil and, for example, whether consolidating market share will ever make Uber profitable. But I don’t even know how WeWork would begin to argue that its key advantage comes from unique intellectual property or network effects.
Does WeWork, like Southwest, have a secret sauce that would stop competitors from copying its success? Is it really, really hard to build a co-working environment so pleasant and so space-efficient as WeWork’s, such that customers will persistently prefer it over other office providers and also pay a premium price?
Brasil Últimas Notícias, Brasil Manchetes
Similar News:Você também pode ler notícias semelhantes a esta que coletamos de outras fontes de notícias.
The WeWork IPO fiasco of 2019, explained in 30 secondsAttempting to go public stirred up a lot of drama — in finances and leadership — for WeWork, the nine-year-old coworking company.
Consulte Mais informação »
Replacing Ousted CEOs At Juul, eBay And WeWork: How To Mitigate RiskWeWork, eBay and Juul all fired their CEOs this week. Others are going to talk about why. This article is written for those considering taking their jobs:
Consulte Mais informação »
SoftBank is in talks to boost its $1.5-billion pledge to WeWorkSoftBank is in talks with WeWork to increase a $1.5-billion investment the Japanese technology group has agreed to put into the office leasing company.
Consulte Mais informação »
WeWork to put up three businesses for sale: The InformationWeWork owner The We Company will try to sell three companies it had acquired in ...
Consulte Mais informação »
SoftBank likely to funnel $1 billion more into WeWork after delayed IPO: FTSoftBank Group Corp is planning to pump an extra $1 billion or more into WeWork ...
Consulte Mais informação »
Even if WeWork is in trouble the office is still being reinventedBeyond the fiasco at WeWork, white-collar workers are facing a two-tier office system
Consulte Mais informação »