2,000 WeWork Employees To Lose Their Jobs As Former CEO Adam Neumann Prepares To Walk Away With at Least $1 Billion (bloomberg.com) 261
WeWork's value has tumbled, about 2,000 employees are being cut and many investors are nursing losses after the firm's bailout. But founder Adam Neumann is still a billionaire. From a report: SoftBank's proposed rescue package of WeWork involves Neumann selling about $1 billion of stock and getting a $185 million consulting fee from the Japanese firm even as the deal values the struggling office-sharing company at $8 billion, according to people familiar with the transaction. That's down from an estimated $47 billion at the start of the year. Neumann will leave the company's board though he still can assign two seats. On these terms, Neumann's net worth would be at least $1 billion, according to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. While that's a fraction of what it was on paper in January -- the last time SoftBank made an investment in WeWork -- it's a remarkable return from a business that has never made a profit and seen its initial public offering spurned by skeptical investors. Box CEO Aaron Levie quipped, "I've read almost every book on startups, and somehow have just completely missed the chapters that covered this part of the strategy."
Ah, capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
This system certainly rewards people for getting educations and working hard and playing by the rules. Yup.
It's right in the name (Score:2)
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Are you referring to the capital that is the "We" logo?
Re:Ah, capitalism (Score:5, Informative)
My thoughts went along this line: "capitalism" - one turd gets more money than they'll ever need, while a bunch of people lose their livelihoods. Sounds great!
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Well I mentioned this once before as a joke but more and more i'm starting to think it might be a good idea to have a maximum wage in addition to a minimum wage.
Re:Ah, capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
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this is Japanese capitalism. SoftBank is a Japanese company and the largest investor in WeScam
The USA way is to let it go bankrupt, have some pieces bought up in liquidation and everyone's stock cancelled. Just like toys r us and every other company where investors got haircuts
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What about the "too big to fail" banks? Honestly, your distinction between American and Japanese capitalism is a false one, obviously concocted just to defend our own status quo. How's that boot taste? Tell you what, pal, we'll pay you $1.50 per hour to stand on a street corner and shout about the great taste of Master's Brand Jackboots.
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This isn't Capitalism, but Protestant work ethic.
Now on the average the Protestant Work Ethic will put you in a better position in a Capitalist society.
Because Capitalism is mostly driven by Supply and Demand. So being a hard worker who is easy to work with is a desirable trait for an employee, something that isn't necessarily easy to to obtain. High demand and low supply. So you would normally get paid more on average.
That said, there are a lot of other factors involved. Just because you are say the w
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Maybe that's the "getting an education" part...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The CEO isn't getting $ billion. Headline mislead (Score:5, Informative)
Yet another misleading headline. Thanks msmash.
They aren't paying the CEO a billion to leave. That's false.
I, and millions of other people, own stock in AutoZone, Walmart, and lots of other companies. I don't work at any of those companies, I'm part owner of them. I work at a company where I don't own any stock. Owning stock in a company and working there are two separate things.
I've also invested my money and time into founding companies. I owned the businesses I created, in the same way that I own a piece of AutoZone.
At one of the companies I founded, I owned most of the company (stock) AND I was also employed as the CEO for a while. Like any other employee, I got a paycheck (a small one). At the end of the year, any leftover money went to the owners (stockholders). Two different checks for two different reasons. One was the paycheck, for working there. Separately, owners would get any extra money. After I while I resigned, I didn't work there anymore. So I didn't get a paycheck. As an owner/stockholder, I WOULD get any leftover money at the end of the year. No work, no paycheck, just like AutoZone doesn't send me a paycheck since I don't work there.
This guy is a 12% owner of Wework. Also, and quite separately, he worked there. His job was CEO. Adam, the CEO, is getting fired. The stockholder, Nuemann, is also selling his stock, his ownership interest, which is worth a billion. The billion dollars is what he's selling his stock for, his ownership. That doesn't have anything to do with the job of CEO. (Other than that the stockholders can choose a CEO, through the board). The dude is selling some stock for it's current value. That's a separate transaction from getting fired from his job. It just so happens that he also worked at the company he owned stock in, but they are two separate things.
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Ps the other owners DO think it's time for a new CEO, because while the current CEO did a good job of building thr business from nothing to $8 billion, he's not the right person to lead the company now that it is larger. So they fired rhe CEO.
His job as CEO paid however many million and he got fired because it was time for a new one. That has nothing to do with the stocks he bought, and is now selling.
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
A job is where you get paid a pittance on a regular schedule. There is no advantage to doing this. You don't get some security for taking a lower pay except maybe lower liability. Below are certain class we're all expected to do our jobs, because there is not an alternative.
Now if you're part of the group pulling the levers of capitalism. You aren't working a job, you get paid according to a contract. Often as a lump sum. You found yourself here through connections and luck. Being a complete slacker won't get you here, but you can be a complete useless fool if you and your connections and convince others that you're a hard working innovator.
That's how the system works today. You can howl all you want, but that won't change the system.
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That's how the system works today. You can howl all you want, but that won't change the system.
Curious, do you think that there exists something that can change the system?
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Violence, would be my guess. ...and then following through with it.
The trouble with that, is after all the bloodshed settles, coming up with a better alternative...
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Curious, do you think that there exists something that can change the system?
Short of making sociopathic behavior a jail-able offense? No.
Achievement Unlocked (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the result of the current economic climate: borrow billions to set up an unworkable "disruptive" business, become famous, walk away with a fortune and spend the rest of your life eating out on being the "unlucky" guy who's brilliant idea just didn't get off the ground because "reasons".
You'll be interviewed about things you know nothing about (such as running a successful business), invited to conferences, and offered lots of other chances because no one except the mugs you employed will remember that you are a big old pile of walking failure.
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This is the result of the current economic climate: borrow billions to set up an unworkable "disruptive" business, become famous, walk away with a fortune and spend the rest of your life eating out on being the "unlucky" guy who's brilliant idea just didn't get off the ground because "reasons".
You'll be interviewed about things you know nothing about (such as running a successful business), invited to conferences, and offered lots of other chances because no one except the mugs you employed will remember that you are a big old pile of walking failure.
This has been going on for ~20 years now.
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And let's not forget about the book - "Elevating Conscience (but Mostly Wealth)"
Pitchforks and guillotines (Score:2)
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Wework rents office space (Score:2)
That business has been around for many years, it is not in any meaningful sense a great disruptive new paradigm whatever.
If they can charge enough rent to pay their costs and make a bit of profit they will succeed.
If they don't, they won't.
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If they can charge enough rent to pay their costs and make a bit of profit they will succeed.
If they don't, they won't.
It doesn't matter if they can make profit or not (hint, they aren't making profit). The same guy who basically just got a $1 billion+ golden parachute also happens to own a sizable number of the buildings wework leases then subsequently rents out to customers. The whole thing wasn't designed to make a profit, it was to make sure the founder made as much money as he possibly could.
Ashamed to belong to this species (Score:3, Insightful)
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First, it won't take centuries, we're talking decades, maybe even years at this point. Second, the whole 'money' thing is going to end. Sadly, you can't understand it, it would be like explaining breathing air to a fish, but don't worry, it's going to happen.
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What do you think will replace money? post scarcity econ, or a regression due to global warming?
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Unicorn farts.
Money is just a proxy for other people's labor. As long as people need to do shit for other people there will be money, any other opinion is just commie fantasy bullshit.
Only thing that changed was investor appetite (Score:5, Insightful)
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Theranos (Score:2)
Holy crap (Score:2)
"... and getting a $185 million consulting fee"
Holy shit, and I thought my billing was a little towards the high end.
Define:startup ... (Score:2)
As the saying goes: A startup is a way to funnel investor money into the founders' bank account.
So many business types work on this premise, and some do succeed.
Companies need to limit CEO compensation more (Score:2)
These are wild shenanigans.... If investors are suffering due to business failure, then management has failed, and management should not be walking away enriched having failed.
And by limit... I mean make all personal compensation for executives or contractee performing executive role above a modest salary not vest a substantial amount for at least 4 or 5 years and be so bound to success of the business that it will amount to little if the business fails.
I would suggest that it be a legal limit for busin
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There are a zillion reasons why this will never happen. The first reason is that if you want to bribe a politician today, you can't given him money. You offer him a highly paid job as a "public relations manager" / lobbyist. See? Then it is suddenly perfectly legal!
The second reason is that if CEO fees are limited, shareholder fees will be next. And guess who's in charge?
On top of that, someone whose conscience is not in the way of plundering his subordinates is exactly the kind of person the shareholders w
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why people are starting to rebel against capitalism.
Yes, but the real question is, how is this version of capitalism any worse or less corrupt than it was 30 years ago when you simply didn't hear about it at the speed of social media?
It's like learning about crime from the evening news. Everyone simply assumes we live in violent times that are far worse today than ever before because that is what is broadcast, all damn day long. The worst of the worst gets our gawking train-wreck society clicking, not stories of what is good in our world, or even what has improved (like a crime rate in considerable decline over the last few decades you never hear about).
It's one thing to rebel against corruption, but rebelling against capitalism is throwing the baby out with the bath water. And only morons too stupid to learn from history are eschewing in socialism as the solution to 21st Century capitalism.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:4, Informative)
It's significantly worse. The gap between the billionaires (remember when rich people used to be millionaires?) and the rest of us plebes with jobs is much greater than it was 30 years ago.
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Yes, but the real question is, how is this version of capitalism any worse or less corrupt than it was 30 years ago when you simply didn't hear about it at the speed of social media? It's significantly worse. The gap between the billionaires (remember when rich people used to be millionaires?) and the rest of us plebes with jobs is much greater than it was 30 years ago.
And the gap between extreme poverty and the rest of the lower class has also grown considerably. Unemployment is at an all-time low as well. I'm not saying the middle class has nothing to complain about (it's obvious wages have been stagnant), but the gap between the CEO and the average worker is not the sole indicator of capitalism gone bad, just as my example of decimating poverty is not the lone metric of capitalism working well.
And yeah, I do remember when "rich" people were millionaires. That was al
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the gap between extreme poverty and the rest of the lower class has also grown considerably.
According to the world bank: "despite remarkable progress, in some rich countries—notably the United States—a fraction of the population still lives in extreme poverty. This is the result of exceptionally high income inequality. [ourworldindata.org]"
And yeah, I do remember when "rich" people were millionaires. That was also when a new car cost less than a single semester at college. No one is paying $10K for a new house anymore, so let's try and step out of the 1960's when talking about today's issues.
1,000,000 1960 dollars are worth about $8,000,000 today. Not $1,000,000,000. It's not just a matter of inflation.
if we really want to look at rich people, then go back a few hundred years in history. You'll find people that make today's billionaires look broke by comparison.
That didn't end so well. I don't imagine it will turn out any better this time. On a related note, my company is offering a discount on guillotines this month: https://www.etsy.com/market/gu... [etsy.com] (jk)
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You guys with your guillotine jokes crack me up. I'm sure it makes you feel like a real rebel with a cause, but nobody takes you seriously. For every time the little guy wins by some huge poor people rebellion there are about 5 where they don't, but you always seem to forget that.
Personally I like the balance, poor people have the numbers and vote but usually don't all that much except once in a while to shake things up, rich people have the money and platform. Either side gets out of whack and things go ba
Re:The Great Leveler (Score:4, Insightful)
The part that you "student of history" guys miss is that the context around "inequality" is different now, especially in the first world. You don't have some billionaire up on the hill eating goose liver and throwing rotten, wasted food over the fence while laughing at the starving people around him. You have people whose basic needs are met (in the US/Europe, again) and who in fact have leisure time and entertainment. They don't have jets and yachts, but they have iPhones and Xboxes, they are fed - often overfed hence the obesity crisis, they have shelter, etc..
There are certainly people struggling in the US, but "struggling" does not mean the same thing now as it did 3000 years ago, or 300 years ago, or even 100 years ago. Do you imagine the rabble are going to go around chopping heads because they can only afford 2500 calories a day, live in an apartment they can barely afford but manage to anyway, have only basic clothing, and can't afford the latest iPhone so are stuck with one 2 years old? Good luck organizing that group...
You act like it's Les Miserables vs The Great Gatsby and "any day now" violence will erupt. It won't, barring something like climate driven famine or a massive world war or something like that.
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Most Americans have a hard time being able to afford to see a docto
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Plebes.. I'm going to assume you fit the profile of an average SlashDot person and make at least a very comfortable upper middle class life. If not, don't worry, most of the rest of us do. I could give 2 shits if some billionaire in San Francisco is living the ultimate rich guy life, it doesn't affect me. I'm not angrily envious of him.
If you're that greedy that sounds like a you-problem.
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If you don't think it affects you, you're vastly ignorant of how interconnected the world is.
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Don't get me wrong - I'm all for getting my pitchfork all pointy or whatever - but this story seems to be a "guy took $6B from mostly-Saudi investors, squandered a good chunk of it, leaves an $8B company, and owns $1B of stock in it."
Oh no! Won't someone think of the poor investors?! They only made a 20% return!
What about the founder who has $1B after building an $8B company! That's not fair!
Its not fair to the employees that they had jobs which squandered investor money... and now they don't have them?
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The founder. How is that not obvious?
There are 2000 employees who trusted him to run a successful company where they could have a career, and now they're potentially not even going to be left with references as they scramble to find new jobs. Worse, they'll likely be competing against each other since a lot have the same skills and live in the same area. Sure, they might get enough severance to tide them over for a month or two, but his shitty management upsets the lives of 2000 people.
What's the founder's punishment? A golden parachute worth enough that he could spend $20,000,000 every year for the rest of his life and not run out of money. For most people, if they got 10% of that much one time they'd be able to think about retiring. 5% of $2m is $100k, so if you can invest that with at least a 5% return, you're paying yourself $100k a year. The founder is making 10,000 times that much money on this deal.
Lets say for fairness, we split his parachute, and give half to the employees that he screwed over. That would leave our poor founder with only $500m to dab his tears with, so he could only pay himself $10m every year for the rest of his life and never work again. The other half could pay $250k to every employee who's losing a job because of him.
That's still a massive wealth disparity, but it's at least approaching fairness. Even in silicon valley, $250k would take care of everything for someone for a year or two, which is plenty of time to get their lives back in order.
It's not the layoff that's the problem - those happen all the time. It's the mindblowingly massive windfall the founder gets for failing, while the people who are impacted get effectively nothing.
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America is not going to last long. I'm already surprised the sporadic uprisings over racial mistreatment hasn't grown into an overall war...
Racism in America is far better than it was in the 1960's. That is not even a questionable statement anymore, so I'm struggling to understand how you feel the level of "mistreatment" is somehow far worse today, and enough to justify an all-out war. If that's true, then America should have ended itself dropping nukes on 1960's racism.
I'm starting to question what is worse for society; actual racism, or broadcasting the ignorant message that racism is systemic and somehow at its absolute worst, while standi
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You're more ideologically pure than Lenin [wikipedia.org]. IMHO, ideological purity is the real shit in the water. I'm glad neither side has completely won in the USA.
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Re: What the actual what? (Score:2)
As opposed to the Russian or Chinese systems where individuals still held immense amounts of power (ãfZàçSà)ãfZ
What's hilarious to me is the fact that the champagne socialists and college commies wouldn't survive in the Soviet Union. Back in those days, you had to have a job in order to eat. No job, no food or shelter. Most of America's so called socialists want something for nothing.
Seriously, America has far more staying power than you'd like to believe. There won't be a revolutio
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I wonder if WeWork is still going to be paying Neumann millions a year in rent after this. This guy certainly knows how to bleed the maximum personal profit out of an unprofitable business.
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this isn't American capitalism but Japanese capitalism where zombie companies are fed money to keep them alive
Re: What the actual what? (Score:3)
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this isn't American capitalism but Japanese capitalism where zombie companies are fed money to keep them alive
Right, because the US [wikipedia.org] doesn't [wikipedia.org] do [wikipedia.org] that [wikipedia.org].
Re: What the actual what? (Score:2)
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How are people rebelling besides talking against it?
Re:What the actual what? (Score:4, Insightful)
This has little - if anything - to do with capitalism.
This has everything to do with capitalism. Corporatism is just late stage capitalism.
Anyway, it really doesn't matter to you unless you're a sucker, er, investor in the company.
Or one of the 2,000 employees losing their jobs.
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We've been "late stage" for over 50 years. Coming very soon is the Exorcist stage
Re:What the actual what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait.. so 2000 people got employed in a scam bullshit company and made money over the period they were employed. Had said scam bullshit company never existed they never would have had any jobs there.
Seems better to have had a job and lost it than to never have had a job at all, no? I mean, that doesn't sell well on silly anti-capitalist stickers but here we are.
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Seems better to have had a job and lost it than to never have had a job at all, no?
Only in an imaginary world where those were the only two choices.
In the real world, passing up opportunities for stable jobs with advancement opportunities to spend 2 years on a sinking ship generally isn't better. Especially if you're counting on references from that company which quite likely won't exist in the future.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so you imagine these poor dummies (which you must think them based on your comments) were just too stupid to realize they were going to work for a dumb sounding startup and actually expected to have jobs for the next, say, 20 years?
Ridiculous. You always take that risk working for a startup, especially an idiotic one like that.
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The average time at any software jobs nowadays is 2yrs, isn't it? What exactly was your point?
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Seems better to have had a job and lost it than to never have had a job at all, no?
I agree with the general thrust of your message here; however, you are not taking into account opportunity cost. They may have rejected an offer from another company and continued their life without disruption had this "opportunity" not come along.
Yes, there will always be winners and losers. The "crime" here was setting up 2,000 people to lose; however, we do not know if that was the intention all along.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the actual what? (Score:4, Insightful)
What does capitalism do to filter out the greedy snakes?
Some greedy VCs made a bad investment and lost their money. The IPO failed, and no one in the broader public lost money.
In this case, the filters worked properly.
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If the company had never existed, they wouldn't have had jobs in the first place.
No, they'd most likely be working for a different employer. But it's a lovely attempt at a false dichotomy.
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What does capitalism do to filter out the greedy snakes?
Capitalism makes the greedy snakes run a gauntlet of other greedy snakes. You're making the mistake of thinking that you are not also a greedy snake. But, let me ask you a question. Would YOU turn down the billion if you could get the other greedy snakes to give it to you?
You think LAWS can keep up?
Do you think ANY of the laws are actually TRYING to keep up? The law isn't looking for greedy snakes. It does look for fraudulent snakes. It doesn't and shouldn't try to protect people from giving their money to support a stupid idea
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The law does protect us from greedy snakes. For example, a greedy snake may build a house with 2x2s and sell it for the same price as another house. We have laws to prevent that behavior. So should there be laws to prevent this behavior.
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> Uber's investors will be leaving wealthy
SOME of Uber's investors. People are still needed to be the ones left holding the bag. Ever play hot potato as a kid? This is the adult version.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
"No true capitalist would start a useless company and walk away with a billion dollars." is about the dumbest "No True Scotsman" fallacy I can think of, because it's just false on the face of it. Every god damn capitalist in the world would love to do just that.
And it absolutely does matter. Your take on things is like saying "If a stranger is murdered, it doesn't matter to you." Yes it fucking does. Crime matters, even if it doesn't impact me directly at the time. Ignoring crime undermines the rule of law. The rule of law is what stands between we, the people, and the tyranny of the rule of man.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
"No true capitalist would start a useless company and walk away with a billion dollars." is about the dumbest "No True Scotsman" fallacy I can think of, because it's just false on the face of it. Every god damn capitalist in the world would love to do just that.
And it absolutely does matter. Your take on things is like saying "If a stranger is murdered, it doesn't matter to you." Yes it fucking does. Crime matters, even if it doesn't impact me directly at the time. Ignoring crime undermines the rule of law. The rule of law is what stands between we, the people, and the tyranny of the rule of man.
Bit of devils advocate here, what crime did he commit? Your post while passionate seems to be misguided. He didn't break any laws.
I don't like it but the guy built the company, of course he's walking away with money. He's walking away with exactly as much as Softbank thinks he deserves. Obviously they perceive value there or they wouldn't be paying.
People keep poking at capitalism here. No one eve says Capitalism is perfect, the argument is that it's better than everything else which it objectively is. In this scenario he is walking away with a billion dollars. In every other scenario he shoots you and walks away with a billion dollars. In this situation your recourse is to not buy products or services from these entities. As long as people continue to make purchases the bad behavior will continue. And before someone says "no no that doesn't work" it very explicitly does work as shown by how companies bend to the will of China and Twitter mobs on even the slightest bad press.
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Considering "everything else" contains systems that haven't been tried as well as things that have yet to be thought up, you most definitely cannot make that claim.
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No, I'm saying that ignoring wrongdoing is bad. Even if the wrongdoing isn't technically a crime. Yes, whenever a con man fleeces people, it affects me. That money could have been spent on legitimate things that grow the economy and increase overall human happiness. I want my justice system to punish people who fleece others. I want real anti-trust legislation and enforcement. I want too big to fail companies to be broken up. I realize that this sort of scheisty shit is not currently illegal, but it should
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Capitalism is about the acquisition of capital. Full stop. It is not a "Way to run a country" at all. How could it be?
Capitalism is all about the concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands, that is the whole point: those with the money get to set the agenda for everyone. Capitalism is simply about who gets control over the means of production. It does not require decentralization, any more than socialism forbids it: e.g. democratic socialism is all about decentralized decision making.
Nothing about capi
He put his capital in, got capital back out (Score:2, Flamebait)
He put in the capital (money/resources) to get the company started, so he owned 12% of the company.
Later, when the company was worth $8 billion, he sold his 12% to other people who want to put capital in, meaning he got capital back. Capital in, capital out. Yep, that's capitalism. The headline could be misleading by appearing to suggest that the billion has anything whatsoever to do with his job. It doesn't. He was getting a paycheck for doing his job, just like anyone else. He got a billion dollars by
You can. Buy GOOGL (Score:3)
You can do exactly what he did to make the big money.
He invested in a stock, and later sold that stock. You can buy Wework stock too if you want to, or buy GOOGL. Your return in the stock has nothing to do with your performance at your job. You can suck at your job as much as you want and it won't effect your stock.
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It is slightly more complicated than that... he had huge loans against the value of his shares, so the money effectively cancels out that debt. Plus pay taxes....
The alternative was that the company goes Chapter 7, which would be worse for the other investors.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
A founder fleeced venture capitalists out of a billion. I see no problem with that.
Are the employees who lost their jobs in worse shape than if WeWork had never existed? Maybe? I suspect across all employees people come out ahead of there never having been a WeWork.
Maybe people who object to capitalism don't realize that's the alternative? Start-ups only exist in capitalism. While most end in tears, as with any risky venture, they seem to produce a pool of jobs that wouldn't otherwise be there.
The guy walked away with $1 billion after destroying the lives of 2,000 WeWork employees and you see no problem with it? That is not how capitalism is supposed to work. Company CEOs, and that includes the startup founders, should not be richly rewarded for being abject and miserable failures at business. This guy wasn't even a good capitalist, real capitalists create things of lasting value, this guy is nothing more than a common chisler a thief. There was a time when people were looked down upon and even socially ostracised for running businesses into the ground, today people like you celebrate these abject failures as successful business geniuses and seek to emulate them. Times certainly have changed.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The guy walked away with $1 billion after destroying the lives of 2,000 WeWork employees and you see no problem with it?
Why do you say their lives are destroyed?
They may have lost their jobs, which is unfortunate for them, but that's a very long way from having
your life "destroyed".
There's probably a good chance they can get new jobs. (And maybe they're getting some type of layoff package?)
Re:What the actual what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs they never would have fucking had in the first place without WeWork. Seriously listening to the mewling commies in the replies to this article is crazy, none of them make any sense. Sometimes you roll the dice and get Amazon, sometimes you roll the dice and get shit like WeWork. That's life.
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Jobs they never would have fucking had in the first place without WeWork.
Only if you're dumb enough to think these people could only be employed by WeWork.
Re:What the actual what? (Score:4, Insightful)
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That is EXACTLY how capitalism is supposed to work. Venture Cap funds a startup and it's all a RISK. Everybody gets in knowing this but they all want to be there when the company hits it big and they all get lots of $$. In this case, the company has failed.
No risk, no reward.
No, that is how the kleptocratic abomination that passes for capitalism these days works. Classical capitalism as described by the likes of Adam Smith was about creating things of permanent value. If you read his 'Wealth of Nations' the one thing he can't ever seem to shut up about is creating value. The business geniuses of modern capitalism, that you admire, are nothing more that the modern equivalents of the robber barons and pirates that plagued the merchant of the middle ages. They are thieving scum th
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