tech

SoftBank's plans for second mega-fund hit by WeWork debacle

15 Comments
By Anirban Sen

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15 Comments
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I never understood why people were so excited about WeWork. It’s just rental office space during a time when work from home, and BYOD makes more sense.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Greed, greed, greed.

Banks are awash with cash and churning out massive profits yet interest on savings are pitiful.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

As a former long-suffering Softbank customer, I am watching Son's fiasco with laughter and glee. Seriously, he and all that Saudi money should be kept away from Silicon Valley, as it's the fuel devastating tech bubbles are made of. 

Japan's cash-rich and greedy - but incompetent - investors and speculators created the most damaging financial bubble in history, in the 90s, whose effects still linger today, The US doesn't need that. The Vision Fund is already wrecking the US's tech IPO field and it has the potential to do even worse.

Bingo!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@Blacklabel

WeWork was successful because the economy was still working towards normalizing and people couldn't really find stable work. So many individuals were taking odd jobs and a lot of startups were coming into place. The WeWork model was successful for that moment. It was never sustainable in the long run. It was mixing long term costs (buildings) with short spurt gains (office space when people needed it). So no one sees it as a viable long term thing.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Cities in the US already have opened places where offhce space is shared. Like the hive in New York City. With the tariff war between China and the US in full swing. I do not see alibaba keeping such a high value. It too may crash and burn since sales to the US have slowed.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

The hive in New York City is like 7 or 8 years old and I think the space is free to use and has wifi. Wework can not beat that.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Many larger office building owners in the US will be bypassing WeWork and cut out the middleman. Why rent to them when these owners can each copy the WeWork business model for themselves (at least for part of their portfolio).

1 ( +1 / -0 )

As a former long-suffering Softbank customer, I am watching Son's fiasco with laughter and glee. Seriously, he and all that Saudi money should be kept away from Silicon Valley, as it's the fuel devastating tech bubbles are made of.

Japan's cash-rich and greedy - but incompetent - investors and speculators created the most damaging financial bubble in history, in the 90s, whose effects still linger today, The US doesn't need that. The Vision Fund is already wrecking the US's tech IPO field and it has the potential to do even worse.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Japan's cash-rich and greedy - but incompetent - investors

You win some, you lose some.

Son's 20 million dollar punt on Alibaba returned 100 billion dollars.

I would not call that incompetent.

gary

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Son's 20 million dollar punt on Alibaba returned 100 billion dollars.

He has spent a career making tons of risky investments and one bet pays off, congrats. The last I heard, his company was running a net debt of $96 billion, that that analysts said it was skating on thin financial ice, especially since its risk management policy is locked inside a black box, assuming it even exists. And that was a few months ago, just before the wework disaster and the loss-inducing IPOs.

With an economic slowdown happening and a possible US recession looming: Son's highly leveraged shenanigans could trigger a real widespread meltdown.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I got an investment for Son San- he can double his money with it..,

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Now Amber light in Soft Bank and if he can't pass Amber and then the Softbank will caught Red Light in near future. His Softbank expansion was too fast and too big.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Everything I hear about this fund is smoke and mirrors, how there's "potential" profit "on paper" but most of these companies are just losing money and may not even turn a profit in the future. So he got lucky on Alibaba and some other stocks 10+ years ago and suddenly Son is a financial guru? He's just lucky that they had a controlling stake in Yahoo which had the Alibaba connection. Can't wait for this whole house of cards that the current tech industry is living in to come down.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Softbank's Son, needs to look carefully at whom he employs, particularly since these days the CCP has its fingers in a lot of markets in an attempt to manipulate matters for their gain.

WeWork was a fraud operation, and the (former) CEO needs to be arrested and prevented from starting up new Companies.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I never understood why people were so excited about WeWork. It’s just rental office space during a time when work from home, and BYOD makes more sense.

Then you've missed the whole point of wework, which is about the networking.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

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