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Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

Was anything of value lost?

The idea, as I understand it, was co-working spaces. They were there to optimize that, extracting the maximum profit in the way they leased stuff. Ok, fine.

Is co-working still going on? Has something desirable been lost? Were they creating any value that couldn't be recreated by someone else.

I can't care one way or another about fake valuation of market cap. But I do care if work is getting done, and that people are trying to find new ways to do it.

So can someone tell me if there is a there there or if this is just very rich people complaining that they didn't get richer?

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Coworking is absolutely still going on. My wife and I go to https://kiln.com/ which is a fantastic option if you are in SoCal or Utah. They seem to be thriving. The workspaces are fantastic, they get us all the benefits of going to a (very nice) office with none of the downsides (we choose when to go, and they're a five minute bike ride from the kids school.) Lots of opportunities to meet other members, network, and a place to go to when we need high speed internet and an environment conducive to work. At $325/mo on SWE salaries it seems like a no-brainer.

But it will never be a good fit for VC funding. It's just a high quality, profitable small business with happy customers. The WeWork valuation never made any sense.

I’ll never understand why you would want to subject yourself to an office AND pay for that experience. Networking aside (why can’t that be done outside of a co-working environment), I don’t see any benefits.

I would rather dump the $3,900 per year into my mortgage or other debt tbh.

And that’s totally fine because unlike a corporate office, the only people there are those who find value in it. In my case, my house is often a circus of kids, grandparents, and caregivers so it’s well worth it to have a place I can escape to work. And if my circumstances change, it can be cancelled in 30 days unlike a long-term CRE lease.

It’s a great service for those of us who value it, and it’s popular enough that it’s not going anywhere. It is not, however, a billion dollar company lol.

yeah, if you don't see the appeal of an office, you're never going to be able to relate to someone who will literally pay extra money for it.

Cool location. Quiet working space (if you have an office). Fast internet. No home distractions.

It was poorly allocated capital. Akin to building an expensive bridge to nowhere. Sometimes there are silver linings to those situations - eg dark fibre after the dot com crash. Here there will be discounted coworking space. Regardless, failure in the market demonstrates that there are better things the effort could have gone to as far as we know at this moment. Therefore it's justified to say that value was lost.

Poorly allocated indeed. I still remember the outrage over how the founder of WeWork used the company to buy stuff like branding assets and real estate from himself at very good (for him) prices...

One could speculate whether things would have turned out differently if Covid and the raise of the home office had not happened? If Covid emptied out WeWork's spaces like it cleared out corporate HQs, companies probably just dropped all those contracts and stopped paying WeWork?

I can also imagine individuals and very small companies that might have defaulted to co-working spaces pre-pandemic who have been in home offices for a few years, are used to working that way now, and just default to keeping things the way they are. (There's also very little call for companies to lease overflow space at the moment.)

I'm sure co-working is still going on but I work at a fairly remote company and I don't know the last time I've been on a call with someone in a co-working space.

OTOH WeWork became an attractive option for small enough businesses that they terminated office leases during Covid and afterward wanted to have an office space available for employees that can't/don't want to WFH full time. At any rate the Wework building I'm in seems fully occupied - I suspect it would be even if they shrunk some of the "shared spaces" that don't seem like particularly efficient use of real estate (there's 6 floors, all with nearly half dedicated to it!).

For me, a couple things stand out, mcdonalds like consistency. I've been to wework in several countries and each time it's quick to get setup and on with your day. Generally, they're run in a consistent manner with an overarching corporate, which takes some of the interesting local customs out of doing business. Think about renting an office for a month in a 3rd world country.

They're community spaces also, group get togethers of similar minded people abroad. The spaces are generally pretty good too. I've been to a bunch of events at my 'local' foreign wework.

They're expensive, but when you're working sometimes that doesn't matter so much or is paid for by your company.

Like Uber, they're not perfect but they enable a cool way to live for me.

If WeWork goes out of business and closes down, many people will lose their jobs and many people will lose the place where they work. That seems like something of value will be lost.

Yes, coworking is still going on for many sole proprietors, small teams, and remote workers. Remote work does not mean work from home.

> If WeWork goes out of business and closes down, many people will lose their jobs and many people will lose the place where they work.

Why? Assets don't usually just vanish; they merely change hands. The spaces will physically be there. If an individual space is viable and has existing customers then the creditors will sell it to someone who will likely continue to run it. If it is not viable then it will go, but then it's hard to argue it had value.

WeWork did not seem all that of an exemplary place to work

tabloid-y source: https://nypost.com/2021/07/17/the-shocking-ways-weworks-ex-c...

It’ll be replaced with other short-term, small commitment office space leasing providers. Some will surely be less efficient, meaning more people are employed in total.

Coworking will continue even as the providers of it come and go.

No the offices will be bought by someone else. The coworking lease will be cheaper. Most of the jobs will be preserved. Everyone will be happy except WeWork investors.

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