Made me think of when a famous person guest stars as themselves on a show and all the characters always use their full name because, contracts.
I worked from home for many years and also would go to public places because my home office was just so quiet and I’d get lonely. I would have loved a place like WeWork if it was available back then. Too bad it sounds like this implementation suffers the typical bro-xecutive problems.
It’s a lot of this. Also, from what I’ve read, that “landlord” is in some cases, the CEO himself… So the company is signing long-term leases on properties owned by the Founder/CEO.
we can post big images here if we cut them into x500 pixel pieces (or less)
Very nice. Thank you.
Gah I need to start doing this… It’s been about 7 years working solo for me now and I’m starting to feel it…
What exactly in the short term office rental world was there to disrupt? What does WeWork do that normal coworking spaces don’t do, both short and long term? How in the world is commercial real estate at all comparable to long term profit strategies for tech companies?
T-shirts and signs sport slogans such as “hustle harder” and “Thank God it’s Monday.” Employees are often big company boosters, creating a work-hard, play-hard office, with a millennial hipster vibe.
In the future we will note WeWork’s fall as the beginning of the end of hustle, or “peak hustle” if you will. Mark my words.
Exactly. When I show up some people literally say “It’s [Tiberius Gracchus]! Oh my god! Yay!”. The only thing missing is personal theme music playing in the background. The trick is not to do it too often (once a quarter at most), so they always want more. It’s kind of a treat for me to do an on-site like that.
I can see why the general concept of co-working spaces has appeal, even if WeWork’s execution of it isn’t for me. One of my happiest workplace experiences was being one of a number of freelancers and consultants renting a desk in a creative-industry office – everyone was willing to bounce ideas off of each-other despite our different disciplines, but also respected when someone had to go heads-down to complete their work.
If your work allows it, it makes a big difference even if you do it only once or twice a week. It’s not difficult to find a few places a reasonable walking distance away with Wifi where you can be a “regular” and interact with other humans.
The original idea probably was something along the lines of “providing office space to freelancers who want the workplace/campus experience of a corporate Silicon Valley company”, but focusing that experience on superficial amenities (e.g. “free” snacks and coffee, bookable conference rooms, foosball tables, decor, HR Culture team-building events and happy hours) instead of fostering what really matters (e.g. the desk-rental experience I described above). Then they added the WeLive concept, where young freelancers could also experience a highly corporate co-living situation – right above the office!
Not that any of that matters anymore. Now, as you say, they’re morphing into a dodgy real estate scheme masquerading as a disruptive and hip tech company with busy offices and creative-class “workers” all over the country.
Note to self: Find out when and where gracchius will be working next. Hide behind local ficus with an app that plays classic theme songs and has on demand audience sounds.
That right there is the dream situation.
I laughed audibly just now.
At least in the corporate dystopian hellscape created by The Onion’s BuzzFeed-alike, the fired employees still got to listen to the concert…
there will be a second dotcom crash and after that nobody will talk about these fucking phones anymore
I feel a sale coming on, perhaps to Zuck and Co. Alternatively, it will crash and burn in about 18 months. They could always fold into Gwyneth’s Goop, I suppose, since the weltanschauung seems to be similarly nuts.
Really, first in with, “Christ, what an asshole!”?
But, really, this guy’s schtick is beyond the beyond. Even in “New Greater America.”
Way back when they got tax breaks for it my entire team was sent home. We all sat in offices all over Puget Sound so it wasn’t like we were sitting together to begin with. We did have staff meeting (mostly to make sure we all took the required training and what not) weekly and that was on site at a temp desk area. It was just enough to keep us sane I think. It was definitely enough to keep me from going stir crazy from being home all the time.
Nobody has mentioned their shitty labor relations yet. They had a lease on some floors in the same building as my office, and they treated their janitors poorly to the point where the building got picketed. I doubt they learned anything valuable from the experience. So. Fuck 'em.
Blimey, pissing off the cleaners really is shortsighted.
I fully admit to not being schooled in the ways of chop-shop capitalism; but I’d be curious about what(if anything) would attract buyers prior to a bankruptcy fire sale.
They’ve got a brand and some trademarks that are presumably worth something; but they otherwise seem to have a bunch of customers with short term commitments and a bunch of suppliers they are locked into long-term leases with(also one of their major landlords is their god-CEO, so even if Legal could find a way to stiff the suppliers the odds that they would throw them under the bus first are less good).
That seems like the sort of thing that is only attractive if you can purchase the fragments piecemeal. Reproducing the ‘app’ side of things would be fairly trivial(especially for anyone who already has an app presence that would just need to be extended slightly); and long-term obligations to suppliers of things you only have short term customers for seems like a very mixed blessing.
Our company used a WeWork space for an offsite meeting once. It was definitely a leased space. For whatever that one anecdote is worth.
