from Hacker News

WeWork is planning to lay off up to 25% of its employees

by 11eleven on 10/3/19, 9:27 PM with 47 comments

• by itcrowd on 10/3/19, 10:40 PM

  Running the numbers here. WeWork has 12.500 employees with 500 locations. That means on average 25 employees per location. That sounds absurd for workspace management, especially since construction / renovations / cleaning are most likely outsourced.

  Let's cut them some slack and assume that half the workforce is focused on expansion (6250 employees) and that one in 25 are secretarial or HR (i.e. not related to daily operations of a workspace). That STILL means >10 workers per location full time.

  No wonder the financials don't add up.

• by Mockapapella on 10/3/19, 9:58 PM

  I first heard of WeWork a few months ago. Seemed like just another company (admittedly I did very little to look into it). How is it that this company went from filing for public offering to laying off up to 25% of it's work force (along with a ton of other things I can't think of specifically at the moment) in just a few short weeks?

• by bithavoc on 10/3/19, 11:30 PM

  > Minson and Gunningham are also looking to sell some of the companies WeWork purchased in recent years, as well as the Gulfstream G650 the company bought last year for $60 million

  That is just obscene.

• by kasperni on 10/4/19, 3:29 AM

  http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/what-happened-at-we-w... is a really good read.

  Neumann does come away as a bit over the top:

  > “I rarely give away my power, and when I do, it’s to my wife,” who he said was “99 percent right,” according to multiple people who watched the speech. Neumann concluded with yet another moment of life coaching: “Change your inner self. Change the world.”

  > "The S-1 detailed the extent to which Neumann controlled his company, and had benefited personally from his position: he had bought buildings in which WeWork then took out leases, and received $5.9 million in exchange for selling a set of We-related trademarks to his own company. One clause called for Rebekah to name a successor in the event of Adam’s death. The entire thing was dedicated, in an epigram, “to the energy of We — greater than any one of us but inside each of us.”"

• by xfour on 10/3/19, 10:07 PM

  Was almost an inevitability it seemed like with all the other news, IPO ended etc. While this is a huge deal, is it really going to change anything about the underlying business?

  Let's say there's only 10% of employees or some very low number. Would then the Real Estate deals put in place vs. the Revenue received for re-leasing them pencil out positive?

• by rubicon33 on 10/3/19, 10:10 PM

  Lot's of lay offs happening lately. I know two people at two different semi-hot tech startups that are laying off people.

• by einpoklum on 10/4/19, 12:07 AM

  We Don't Work.

• by sg47 on 10/4/19, 1:16 AM

  WeOuttaWork

• by big_chungus on 10/3/19, 9:48 PM

  I hope everyone can take break from the we-work-bashing for a few minutes and agree that regardless of screwy business models, almost four thousand people being laid off is sad. I suppose everyone is partially responsible for understanding the viability of his company and taking that risk in an informed fashion, it's still not a good thing.