In August 2017, a New York co-working startup named WeWork was squeezed into a unicorn outfit and hurled on to the world stage by a $4.4 billion investment from Japanese conglomerate Softbank. By August 2018, as WeWork’s astronomical growth continued, we started to question our assumptions of this as a fad, contemplating WeWork as the start of a new era in commercial real estate and office design. While also warning that overfunding could lead to unrealistic expectations, thereby encouraging wastefulness, indiscipline and sloppiness. “Considering the money spent on somewhat-risky acquisitions, outstanding rent payments and net-loses, there are also fears that bringing in debt investors at this stage would put the firm in a financially precarious position. If, say, the tech bubble were to burst, WeWork might find themselves in free fall,” we said in a May 2018 article entitled WeWork, WeLive, WeGrow but Will We Succeed in the Long Term? In February 2019, we saw […]