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A comment on WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources. Parent comment

Re:WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources by GCA10 on Monday September 16, 2019 @11:51PM (#20991284)
On the merits, yes, We is not a tech company. But bear in mind that the company has gone to extraordinary lengths to cloak itself in the unicorn-tech narrative. It masquerades as a platform for other services; it ascribes its losses to a work-setting variant of the Uber fast-growth strategy; it draws parallels to Airbnb's disruption of the hotel business, etc.

Yes, Silicon Valley's smartest minds may see through it all. But in routine media coverage, the company's own version of its story (OVOIS) gets much of the ink. It takes a while for more investigative reporters to call BS and defy the company's OVOIS.

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Re:WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources by kelnos on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @06:02AM (#20993362)
The general public's impression of WeWork isn't really relevant here, though. It's mainly the opinion of institutional investors that matters. And if they've had the wool pulled over their eyes and believe We to be a tech company, then... well, I'm even more worried than I thought for our financial system.

Actually, my feeling here is that institutional investors have realized that We isn't a tech company. That's why the IPO would probably only have fetched them at most a $20B valuation, rather than the higher valuation they've been awarded from the private markets as a supposed tech company.

So this may not be an indictment of "Silicon Valley IPOs" in particular, just investors saying "no" to a clearly overvalued non-tech company, and that company then deciding that it won't accept a likely more-reasonable valuation.

(Not saying there aren't plenty of overvalued tech companies! But this might not really have anything to do with that.)

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Re:WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources by GCA10 on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @09:14AM (#20994615)
All good points. At the same time, there's a bit of "No True Scotsman" going on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
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Re:WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources by perl4ever on Thursday September 19, 2019 @07:15PM (#21021682)
Not every time when someone says "X is not an example of Y" is the "No True Scotsman fallacy".

Now you may accuse me of the "No true 'No True Scotsman fallacy' fallacy".

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Re:WeWork parent pulls IPO following pushback: sources by notfromhere on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @10:06AM (#20995217)
The fact that WeWork has received multiple billions in VC money is a pretty damning indictment of the financial sector
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