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by threeseed 2436 days ago
Softbank's model won't be proven for decades. It invests in brands that they believe will dominant their industry and still be around in 50 years time.

And as Gitlab and others have found many people simply don't like working at home and want to be around other people. And also need infrastructure like meeting rooms on the odd occasion. WeWork provides that in almost every city. And 500,000+ people today currently see it as a useful service.
1 comments
bduerst 2436 days ago
Which is still to my point: Softbanks Vision Fund model is not proven yet. It is just as probable it is more a vehicle to find a place for Middle Eastern money to sit than a true 10x fund strategy, which is becoming more evident since they're already working on Vision Fund 2.

Requiring Gitlab doesn't translate into requiring office space either.

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threeseed 2436 days ago
Back of a napkin:

* Growth in remote workers = 9% per year.

* Percentage of remote workers who want an office = 20%.

* WeWork market share = 90%.

= 1.62% of all workers each year will potentially shift to WeWork.

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gbear605 2436 days ago
You think 9% of all workers will switch to being remote every year starting now? By that logic, there won’t be any non-remote workers left in 15 years. The current number is only about 3% [1], so a more reasonable growth number (although still large) is 0.25%, which means (by the rest of your numbers), only 0.045% of all workers (in the US) each year will switch to WeWork.

[1]: https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/04/2018-remote-work-statisti...

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flukus 2436 days ago
> * WeWork market share = 90%.

I think that's where the error lies. WeWork has no lock-in, there's no good reason to choose them over a competitor and it doesn't take much capital to start a local competitor (and there are many already).

I was looking at offices like this recently and the most important factor was being close to home which had local competitors. When I look at WeWork locations, they're mostly in the CBD, so they're not even attracting anyone with a local office.

It's not even a new business model, just SV hype.

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ohashi 2436 days ago
90% market share of office space? That's hilarious
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