[Quequau]

I'd sooner see all residential spaces become nationalised and collectively maintained than to see this looser cooking up some new machination that promises investors will get rich quick through sneaky exploitation and delivers yet another bad debt inflated housing bubble.

[roenxi]

You'd get much better results seeing a world where good things happen to bad people. Adam Neumann can't do a fraction of the damage a nationalisation program would before it got rolled back.

And the politicians who administer such programs are almost invariably more scummy than people like Neumann.

[newsclues]

Given the private public partnerships, I fear geniuses like Adam are empowered and funded by the government to nationalize housing in a epic disaster.

[kolbe]

I don't know why you're getting downvoted so hard. People here really don't understand the corruption behind even things like section 8 housing. They get so blinded by jealously that Neumann made hundreds of millions in a failed enterprise, but don't care that there are a hundred people worse than him making hundreds of millions by renting out $400 places for $1000 using the taxpayer's money.

[drdrek]

Answer is pretty simple, its because people without strict anti-establishment sentiment do not believe that someone like Neumann is actually better than governments.

[lnxg33k1]

I believe that people like Neumann are the reason why we have some bad people in governments, like the chicken and egg? Was the corruptor born before the corrupted? I think so?

But yeah I trust government more than privates, if anything because there are three branches in governments that oversee each other and are independent and because people can try but somehow the justice comes

And most importantly, are elected

[refurb]

I don't think anyone argued Neumann was better than the government.

The point was that when Neumann fucks up, a few limited partners get screwed over. Maybe a few building owners too.

When the government fucks up, everybody gets screwed over, but mostly you and me, the taxpayer.

[refurb]

Not only that, with the pace that government operates, the point around trashing the housing market, is true.

It's often years between the time a government policy is recognized as a failure and when it actually changes. At least companies go under eventually if they aren't profitable. There scale is obviously much more limited as well.

People seem to forget that NYC landlords paid people to burn down their apartment buildings due a combination of rent control and rising costs. Cheaper to just collect insurance than lose money on each unit you rent.

[pineaux]

I live in Holland. It works quite well here. We only have a government that believes "the market" will fix the housing problems. The problem is that "the market" has no incentive to do so. So I am really happy that social housing is quite functional here.

[shusaku]

He’s being downvoted because he turned a clearly hyperbolic statement in to a tired political argument.

[roenxi]

> I don't know why you're getting downvoted so hard.

Me neither. It is because of comments like this that I don't downvote people. The signal is too vague. I can report from the front that this is a surprisingly polarising comment; the early score is all over the place.

Just in case the sibling theory is correct ... Contextualising to the US I would have thought it uncontroversial to say that a schizophrenic Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden producing system is not one you want controlling your house. Because that is what politics is. At least half that group should concern any reader, ideally 4 for 4 for people who are more interested in results than intentions.

[wil421]

Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden systems has almost 0 impact on what my city/county/state decide to do about housing. I don’t what the feds controlling my housing and they do not.

[roenxi]

If you take the national out of nationalisation that is an improvement. Then shove a "personal" in and we're at a good spot.

We want more people to have control over their own home, not less. I'm accepting of the fact that I live in someone else's house and it isn't my choice if I'm here in 12 months - but it is hardly an ideal state of being.

And pretending national politics isn't a big driver of what happens locally is a bit naive. Sticking to the US, the federal government is 20% of the economy. Most other first world countries are probably similar ballpark. That has a huge influence on everyone.

[whack]

Why so angry? This "looser" was a guy who built a company from the ground up into something that is now a unicorn. a16z is hardly a gullible investor that is falling naively for some schmoozer. Who exactly are you worried he's going to exploit?

[larksimian]

How is this meme of WeWork being a unicorn taken seriously?! They raised $22 billion and currently are valued at under $10 billion. All of that valuation is probably the real estate they bought.

I can literally give you better returns. Give me $20 billion and I'll give you $11 bill back.

Insulting to people who have actually built unicorns to put WeWork in the same category.

[vu0tran]

ehh... to be fair, lots of companies did much worse. Lots of companies in Fintech during the run up.

[wahnfrieden]

it's a landlording scheme, it's obvious

[ttyprintk]

A legit but marginal worry is that Neumann is convincing enough that he will, at some point, succeed in a government bailout.