I know this has been covered before, but WeWork isn't really a tech company. They're a real estate company. They buy buildings and then rent space. And they certainly don't scale the same way tech companies do.
It scales. But you’re right, not in any way like a tech company.
The fact that they say tech is at their core is a joke. The only reason to use their app to to book a meeting room or remember your printing code.
I think the general WeWork idea is great. Investing in it is another story.
Can you elaborate on this?
Soft Bank invested what if has invested, expecting to get the return it would get on a tech company — not real estate.
The reckoning that is happening now is much deserved, but if WeWork got the benefit of being called a tech company when it was flying high (and it did — including here on HN), I’m not going to give the company or its investors an “out” now that it’s all falling apart.
This was a decidedly non-tech company that convinced its investors it was tech. And now that the rouse is up, the bloodbath that follows begins in earnest.
WeWork is obviously not a tech company like Microsoft or Apple are tech companies and nobody is arguing or should really even care about that, investors surely don't. But it also fails to check some of the boxes of new class of "tech" companies and that is being reflected in the current valuation battle. or maybe the underwrites just really overshot the mark after SoftBank pressured them with its own high valuation estimate.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wework-the-workspace-giant-want...
You are not a tech company unless you sell technology to other companies, and that is your main stream of revenue.
Uber’s a tech company because their technology for taxi dispatch allows them to dispatch millions of cars without a single human manning a telephone.
Amazon is a tech company because their inventory management system (unique at the time: when they didn’t have bins of identical items in their warehouses unlike their competitors in the early 2000s.
If Amazon was just using Magento then you’d have a point - but when a company’s beating heart depends on the canny exploitation of their own technology - they’re a tech company.
Facebook has network effect and Über has it's driver network, which is more important than the app itself. They are all very different types of companies.
WeWork is similar to Über: it has real costs of buying atoms instead of.juat handling bits.
I do think a tech company has to be creating technology yo be a tech company, but it can choose the method of generating revenue from that tech makes the most sense.
Are they, though? Their CEO owns another company that buys up properties and then WeWork rents to them. I don't know how much real estate WeWork owns anymore. Though I think you're closer calling them that than a tech company.
"Tech company" is an operating model, not an industry/market. "We" is a real estate leasing/operating company heavily enabled by tech.
They might be using AI/ML in other ways but RE in general is data-averse. Especially in office, most cities have a small area with most class A space and local brokers know it like the back of their hands.
The point here is that WeWork has been hyped and seen valuations as if it were solving the aforementioned sexy HN problems, when it’s really just a regular, unsexy tech company that is solving more mundane problems of office rental with a nice tech stack and UI. I’m sure it’s a solid $5B business.
This article is similar in nature to the one where Paul Graham claimed the word 'startup' to mean some narrowly defined entity that somehow embodied the ideal company to invest in for YC.
I don’t believe WeWork is a tech company by any stretch of imagination.
Is Uber a tech company? Well I personally don't see it, they just offer a dispatching service for cabs and without computers you could call in and book a ride much like people did for decades.
Is Microsoft a tech company? Yes, what is an OS without computers?
Is Amazon a tech company? I'll say no in one sense they are the next evolution of the Sears catalogue, but AWS, which is a huge part of their revenue, is obviously a tech company.
Is WeWork a tech company? Definitely not, they compete with hundreds of other real estate management companies, and all of their work could be accomplished with phones and paper.
I don't know I am sure someone can probably find some good corner cases, but my basic definition is that if a company is just using software to automate the bureaucratic processes that are required to run the company but could otherwise function without that automation I don't see them as a tech company. I think this goes to your thought that just because a company uses software for their accounting department, they aren't a tech company.
It is probably true of Xiaomi.
Motel 6 has a fully functional website and app where you can look up all their properties and reserve rooms/spaces. No one is calling it a tech company.