SoftBank and WeWork

This week, I’ll be moving down the hallway in my WeWork from a 7 person office down to a 3 person office. It just didn’t make sense to keep paying for a large office that has at best 3 of us in at a given time during the week. I have to give it up to WeWork though - the product has been pretty damn good. The flexibility for us to move around is great. The weekly happy hours have allowed me to get some social interaction.

It seems like WeWork, as a company, is in a bit of trouble as their CEO has stepped down amidst a lot of pressure from SoftBank. I don’t know what the future of WeWork will be. I hope they are able to stay alive and make it through. While far from perfect, I’ve enjoyed being a WeWork member over the last 6 months.

On the topic of SoftBank, they themselves seem to be having major issues with reported layoffs coming for a 1/3rd of the company with a focus on the Vison Fund staff. At this point in time, I’m ready to hang it up on the capital as moat strategy that SoftBank pioneered and others like Tiger followed.

It’s largely been a net negative on the startup ecosystem. We have a ton of otherwise great companies that raised at insanely valuations that may now be dead in the water. I met with some CFO who equated what these crossovers funds were doing as a ponzi scheme and it’s hard to argue with that point. They invested and hoped to get out before it came all crashing down.