in Italy, I believe it used to be a crime to mismanage a company such that people lost their jobs. Anyway, such large job losses would trigger a criminal probe.
You're right. But man, they tried really hard to sell it as a tech startup. From their S-1 filing (emphasis mine):
"We pioneered a “space-as-a-service” membership model that offers the benefits of a collaborative culture, the flexibility to scale workspace up and down as needed and the power of a worldwide community, all for a lower cost. Through iterative product development at scale and significant investment in technology infrastructure, we have demonstrated that we can build better solutions for less money. We are changing the way people work globally and, in the process, we have disrupted the largest asset class in the world—real estate."
Edit: I just noticed that it continues with a MUCH better statement on the next page:
"Technology is at the foundation of our global platform. Our purpose-built technology and operational expertise has allowed us to scale our core WeWork space-as-a-service offering quickly, while improving the quality of our solutions and decreasing the cost to find, build, fill and run our spaces. We have approximately 1,000 engineers, product designers and machine learning scientists that are dedicated to building, integrating and automating the complex systems we use to operate our business. As a result, we are able to deliver a premium experience to our members at a lower price relative to traditional alternatives."
So uhh, honest question. What were they trying to build with those 1,000 engineers/designers/ML scientists? The company literally leases (not buys) office space to then lease out to their customers. I never understood why this business model needs "significant investment into Tech infrastructure"
In jurisdictions where mismanagement is a thing, it means something other than people losing their jobs. For example, the Dutch High Court has dismissed all cases for mismanagement so far. It has established that the standard is that 'no reasonably thinking decision maker would have made the same decision under the circumstances'.
On an unrelated note, Italy has never had a tech startup worth a billion dollars.