There was a great Money Stuff blurb about that w/r/t Adam Neumann. I can't find it to quote it directly, but the gist was that if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense.
The truly amazing thing, especially the second time around, are the supposedly sophisticated investors who fall for it. "Oh, he's learned his lesson -- he won't do it again!".
Some of those sophisticated investors are also engaged in shameless capital extraction. Their investment thesis is based on the "Greater Fool Theory": they're gambling that they can dump the inflated assets on another bag holder before it blows up.
> ...if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense.
Sort of. I get the capital extraction part, but you also need to be a good steward of capital and make a profitable business out of it. He failed badly at the later part, and his reputation is an obstacle for the former.
Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
IMO you're being unfair; he talked his way into getting paid half a billion dollars for wework, and he's now a billionaire. That's a massive success at capital extraction.
This is too cynical for even a turbo cynic like me.
Basically, you’re saying he mislead investors and got a bunch of money, so those investors see themselves being ripped off as a valuable skill, so they invest in him again. Wut?
I say again — why would investors trust him if his only track record is losing investor money?
I misinterpreted you; I was arguing that he's already succeeded completely, so it doesn't matter if anyone gives him more money.
But, IMO the reason they're still giving him more money is that they're stupid and greedy. They know WeWork was a disaster, but it was a huge disaster. That shows them he's good at running a con, and they want to get in on the next one.
Class solidarity doesn't hurt either. Being a billionaire makes him an actual person in the eyes of other rich people.
EDIT: Also, it's funny you used a16z as an example:
> Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
because Andreesen Horowitz are the ones investing in his new WeWork 2.0 startup Flow.
If you know he is good at duping investors then you know he is good at gaining investors, and if you think you will be able to well time your exit you will make a shit ton of money off the other investor's investment. Many investors are just straight up gamblers and risk is just part of the game.
Its like people who invest into a ponzi scheme knowing full well it is a ponzi scheme, just thinking they are smart enough to leave before it all comes crashing down. And once you get enough critical mass, other people will invest based entirely on the fact that there is a lot of other investors and a rising price.
Yeah, two easy fixes here: don't make the sidebar jump back to the top after loading a message, and sort by date. Otherwise I appreciate the view into this heartless sociopath's mind.
>Otherwise I appreciate the view into this heartless sociopath's mind.
I really don't think it's fair to characterize someone that way.
>>I've decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster. We typically manage out people who aren't meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we're going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle. This is going to be an intense year.
Second, they raised a shit ton of money under the bull case of mass consumer adoption, which is going to be impossible if that said consumer feels it is rigged.
Let’s all be real here; for 95% of their use cases both now and in the future, they’re a sportsbook. Which is fine! But they’re not going to get to anywhere near returning a multiple on their manic valuation until they act like one. And the first thing to do is to stop with all of the pseudo-academic bullshit about what a prediction market is. And the second is for them to hire someone, anyone, who knows even the first thing about sports because everyone even tangentially connected to this market knows that before six months ago, Tarek and Shayne couldn’t differentiate between a football and a buttplug.
Interesting that this author was out ahead of this theme a full twelve years ago. Kudos.
It's not all that complex though, really. Just a bunch of adult children who were bullied mercilessly and now have convinced themselves, through the magic of Dunning-Kruger, that they are both eminently more suitable to run things and eminently justified in using that power to exact revenge on their (largely imagined) tormentors.
When LinkedIn went down this morning, unlike most of you I didn't panic. Instead, I was reminded of what's really important in life. That's right: My clients.
I decided to give my client Bob a call as I hadn't heard from him since I called him two days ago, and he hadn't picked up that time, or the seven times before that. But this time was different.
This time, he answered, and what happened next will surprise you.
Oh, the LinkedPocalypse of early 2026. I remember this time fondly as my family huddled around the campfire in the living room as we watched, for a glimpse, all humanity fade and return and fade and return as a broken light bulb that would flicker, not knowing its time was up.
“Why don’t you just watch tv?” you might ask. Can’t. Service update bricked my Samsung TV’s wifi capability.
You're right. I guess that means we should deny them any due process, target them (and anyone who looks like them, even vaguely) indiscriminately, and murder anyone who deigns to get in our way.
There's a lot of really interesting stories about the Eastern Bloc defections into the NHL in the late 1980s. IIRC, Alexander Mogilny, who was the best prospect in the world at the time, hid in a suitcase and defected during the World Junior Championships -- talk about bravery!
Once Mogilny defected, it was impossible for the system to hold. Mogilny (along with Pavel Bure and Fedorov) were groomed and training together to be the next great line combination in hockey; two years later, all three were in the NHL.
They won't collapse, but they won't reach their full potential. I would hate to be a16z sitting on their $10B post-money valuation Kalshi bags, that's for sure.
That opened my eyes to the world of Assembly, which in turn turned me on to the demoscene, and off I went into a truly magical subculture!
reply