> That first innovation seems a little questionable. Like, there is an established competitive business of office rental in which real-estate companies own office buildings and rent them to companies; I am not sure why there would be a ton of room to compete with that business by interposing yourself as an expensive middleman. Why would a tenant want to pay a profit margin both to WeWork and to its underlying landlord, when it could just rent from the underlying landlord and pay only one profit margin? There is some room for a value-added middleman — and WeWork can add value not only by providing beer but also by splitting office rental into smaller space and time chunks than a big commercial landlord — but, still, it does not seem easy.
> But the second innovation is great. For one thing, it is great for the obvious reason: If you can get into a traditional mature highly competitive business, call yourself a tech startup, and get a multibillion-dollar valuation based on potential rather than cash flow, then you have achieved a profound arbitrage and really ought to be rewarded for it. But it also helps solve the first problem: WeWork’s tenants don’t have to pay two profit margins, because WeWork’s investors give it tons of money which it can then spend on giving tenants free rent. In a loose sense, WeWork’s business model is getting SoftBank to buy beer for software workers. Which is fine!
> That first innovation seems a little questionable. Like, there is an established competitive business of office rental in which real-estate companies own office buildings and rent them to companies; I am not sure why there would be a ton of room to compete with that business by interposing yourself as an expensive middleman. Why would a tenant want to pay a profit margin both to WeWork and to its underlying landlord, when it could just rent from the underlying landlord and pay only one profit margin? There is some room for a value-added middleman — and WeWork can add value not only by providing beer but also by splitting office rental into smaller space and time chunks than a big commercial landlord — but, still, it does not seem easy.
> But the second innovation is great. For one thing, it is great for the obvious reason: If you can get into a traditional mature highly competitive business, call yourself a tech startup, and get a multibillion-dollar valuation based on potential rather than cash flow, then you have achieved a profound arbitrage and really ought to be rewarded for it. But it also helps solve the first problem: WeWork’s tenants don’t have to pay two profit margins, because WeWork’s investors give it tons of money which it can then spend on giving tenants free rent. In a loose sense, WeWork’s business model is getting SoftBank to buy beer for software workers. Which is fine!