The WeWork spaces I've been in have been more professional than most tech company offices I've been in. I'm not a fan of WeWork but I don't think this is at all a fair criticism.

All the WeWork spaces I've been in advertise a happy hour. In the office space. Starting at 5 or 6, before most professionals are out of the office.

Meanwhile, Regis has quiet facilities, with dedicated offices, cubicles, and conference rooms. It may not be sexy, but it's not trying to be.

The WeWorks I've been also have quiet facilities, with dedicated offices and conference rooms --- in fact, on a smarter, better tiny-office plan than open-office and cubicle offices. I don't like WeWork, but again, this isn't a valid criticism.

We must have been to different facilities. The dozen I've been to are all primarily open-office spaces with a small handful (literally countable on one hand) of offices and conference rooms.

For Regus, the opposite is true--most of their spaces are cubicles/offices with only a handful of locations offering "open-office" style spaces.

The space we rented from in Chicago had an open-office first floor and then several stories of small private offices --- where the majority of the tenants worked. Everyone I've ever conf-called with who was in a WeWork, including our NY team, when they were in a WeWork in NY, was also in private offices†, or the WeWork phone booths, which are also better than what most private-office startups have.

I don't know what WeWork you're seeing, but the startup employee experience in WeWorks is generally better, from a professionalism and productivity perspective, than typical startup offices --- if only because they've found a way to scale up cost-effective small private offices.

We ultimately moved to a fairly large private office in Chicago (Chicago commercial space is cheap), and I like it more than I like WeWork, and I don't like WeWork the company at all. But the notion that WeWork isn't providing professional office space is just false; the space they provide is, by a wide margin, more professional than tech industry norms provide.

Unless WeWork outside of NY and Chicago is starkly different than WeWork everywhere else, I don't see how this is even a viable argument. I'm eager to see the counterexample you'll provide.

† (I'm not talking about the WeWork conference rooms, which are excellent and highly professional, so much so that people I knew in Chicago would borrow our WeWork conference credits to hold client meetings in even though they had their own non-WW offices)

I'm remote but my company works out of a WeWork and happy hour is a great time to have business development meetings. We also have an office for those that need quiet.

Are you saying that having beer on tap is either unprofessional or not conducive to actual work? Color me shocked!

Didn't wework have to switch to kombucha after someone realized that a place where you pay money to hang out all day and drink is in fact a bar and you need a liquor license?

> Are you saying that having beer on tap is either unprofessional or not conducive to actual work? Color me shocked!

>> Didn't wework have to switch to kombucha after someone realized that a place where you pay money to hang out all day and drink is in fact a bar and you need a liquor license?

A "liquor" license and a "beer and wine" license are 2 different things. A beer and wine license is a few hundred bucks (depending on your location), and just requires some paperwork. A liquor license can be over $100k depending on your location.

In California, you do not need a license to "give away" beer or wine for free or in exchange for something like a ticket.

I thought that was only in certain jurisdictions. Maybe it was universal though.

I'd assume it'd be certain jurisdictions. You definitely don't need a liquor license to serve beer and wine universally[1].

[1]: Which leads to insane decisions like restaurants that make "Bloody Marys" with beer...