Comment by munin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by munin | Hacker News Reader

It seems like articles about WeWork take one of two tacks:

1. Isn't this "gig economy" thing weird? Isn't it strange that people don't have stable long term employment? What's up with that? Is it good?

2. Look at these weird people trying to make dating apps for dogs. This is so weird. Instead of working in a trading or ad shop and getting drunk at 3, they work for a tiny "internet company" and get drunk at 3. The sacrilege!

This seems to be a mix of both, though the article is definitely not trying to paint millennial entrepreneurs in a positive light, you can tell by the choice of focusing on a GS alumni.

I do think that anyone who complains about the WeWork aesthetic or whatever should try to rent their own short term office space (that isn't WeWork). It's fucking grim. You wind up in some ancient building with spongy floors, dodgy elevators, and signs in the bathrooms about how the pipes are bad so please basically don't flush anything. Or in a strip mall above a dentists office. Or the attic of a converted condo.

The WeWork goal seems to be to provide some space with decent amenities for a slight premium. What's wrong with that? Maybe their locations will vanish in a puff of smoke when demand dries up, but no one's asking you to invest your money in the future of WeWork. Would you go to a new restaurant opening and say "well yeah the food is good but most restaurants fail"? Who cares! Eat the food. Enjoy it while it's here.

We were in WeWork in Chicago --- there's 3 of them here, we were in West Loop --- for about a year. We left and rented an office, maybe 1100sqft?, about a 7 minute walk away. It has parking, relative (to WeWork) quiet, high ceilings, a kitchen, 2 private bathrooms, and conference rooms we don't need to reserve in a weird app or barter with friends for/with. We're 4 people (in this office). We pay less per person than we did at WeWork.

WeWork is useful! I think it gets a bad rap (though the atmosphere and the general vibe of the clientele probably does not).

But unless you're in SFBA or Manhattan, office space is just not that expensive. As soon as you're making payroll, it's pretty insignificant. If I start from 1-2 people again, I'll probably consider WeWork again. But I'll get out of WeWork much faster next time, too.

We're also in Chicago, have seen tons of space like WeWork, and decided for the pet person cost it was more effective to get a commercial lease. Yes it was unnerving to sign a 3 year lease (especially as a boot strapped startup), but we just renewed for our 4th year!

As for Co working spaces, I think they have a place, but once you hit 1 or 2 other coworkers, you need your own space. It's worth the lawyer for reviewing what you're getting in to, but I do agree, there's a lot of sketchy places with dodgy and gross problems. But you can find nice spots if you're patient and diligent.

Whats your startup do?

Automates workflows in health care provider offices.

The problem with leasing is if you grow too fast you're stuck, and if you have to make cutbacks you're also stuck with the lease.

This is the real advantage of them. Even if it costs x% more the value of not being stuck with a lease for a long time is definitely worth it. A lot of financial firms in London are moving to them, leases are typically long (10 years with a 5 year break), and with the uncertainty around brexit it makes total sense to transfer the risk to WeWork et al for not much money at all.

I have no clue what terms the UK has, but in Chicago, you can find places all across the spectrum. I've used shared spaces on month-to-month, and I think they can be quite valuable. But once we reached a certain size, we needed to have our own space. Plus, we work in healthcare, so we have other (read:HIPAA) concerns that need to be dealt with as well.

Again, there can be value, and places like WeWork, 1871, Blue1647, et al, serve specific needs. Like I said before, a lawyer and a willingness to hunt for the right space make all the difference. And right now, there's more empty spaces than filled, so it's easier to negotiate something that could even be just yearly...

I have used Regus. Very economical, clean, and professional with small private offices. Given the price, for our needs it was perfect.

Just don't get stuck on their email list... After unsubscribing countless times and still receiving emails from them, I had to threaten them with contacting the FTC to finally get removed from their mailing list.

I worked in a Regus facility. It got the job done, but it just felt extremely corporate and uninspiring, especially when I compare it to WeWork. If you're a solo entrepreneur, or small team it's really nice being able to have the perks you'd get in a bigger firm's office space.

Regus has converted many of its offices to a new modern style and call it “spaces”: https://www.spacesworks.com

I use Regus currently. I think it’s fine: coming from an open office plan at my last company, the fact I can visually and audibly tune out people via a door and walls is awesome. I hated being forced to live in headphones land. My only complaint about the regus space is the length of the lease: I’ve considered wework to move to once my year is up in a couple months so I can go to a month to month plan. Unsure if I want to go back to a noisier/visually cluttered environment though...

Use WeWork to negotiate for a month to month with Regus.

My company just switched from a regular office building to Regus, presumably for accounting reasons (or to fire the office manager?). I haven't seen it as I'm remote, but I saw the plan and they have 3 people per office.

I don't like open-plan or cubes but I wonder if having three people in one office is any better, and I also wonder how many companies do that when they go with something like Regus.

I despise open office plans but the Regus approach was workable. When you work within a team in a room, the tendency for random noise was minimal. The only problem was noise leakage from other offices.

Would you say the primary reason to be in wework is that it's month to month?

They're really nice spaces qua spaces: well lit, clearly designed by someone who is copying a better designer but executing very well at it, and they have everything you need to be a productive Internet person (power, fast wifi, somewhere to put the laptop).

At a previous gig we used some shared office spaces like WeWork on occasion and they were "ok". We decided to stop because it just didn't make financial sense in the end.

It turns out that renting a decent-sized office in most metros and furnishing it isn't all that expensive. It's really only in bizarre markets like SF or NYC where they really click.

My thinking is that they work much better for companies in the 1 or 2 person early stage and quickly stop making sense as you near some number approaching 10 people.

We did the office thing and the coworking thing (in Berkeley). And the plus side to coworking is not saving money. Rather, it is:

* toilet paper provided

* coffee made

* trash taken out

* Comcast negotiated with

* walls decorated

* lease docs who cares

* bikes not stolen

Running an office was a hassle more than an expense. Though the private bathroom was nice.

Coworking hits a sweet spot when you don't want to hire an office manager.

and

* quiet working conditions

I was at WeWork in SOMA ( San Francisco) this week for an interview with a Crypto Exchange startup. Was really surprise at how noisy it was, everywhere except the badge access room (which I'm guessing is very high fees).

The recruitment firm was working out of WeWork. That makes sense for them, cos they are on phone on all day, but what about software engineers and other techies? Do any of them work at WeWork? How do they deal with the noise? I don't see any way to do deep work in a place like this.

EDIT: This particular WeWork was unusually noisier than any other coworking places I've been at. Noisier than Workshop Cafe in Fidi, pariSoma in SOMA, and a couple of others that've since shutdown (I've been coworking on sideprojects nights, weekends since 2008).

There are a lot of developers (I am one of them) who don't feel particularly distracted by ambient noise and can still do deep work. Having people and some work buzz around you can also be motivating.

WeWork is super noisy, and even if you go when it isn’t busy, they play loud music through a speaker system that you can’t turn off. Also, there are only 21 songs in the playlist. It does not shuffle, it just loops.

Maybe it is hit and miss, but I was in a WeWork in London for 4 months and it was fairly quiet, but it was 4 people to a glass-separated 'room' (called a 'shared office'). So it would depend on the random draw for the other 3 people. The 'hot desking' area pretty much doubled as reception/cafe/breakout-area and was very noisy, however.

We just quit WeWork (WeWork Transbay in SOMA) because of the noise. I think most people don't realize that the hot desk area is supposed to be a quiet area. I repeatedly told the community managers to make sure people know that, but they didn't do anything about it.

At one point, there was even a family with 2 small kids eating lunch there.

Also for 1-2 months half of the tables didn't have a power outlet because they had to remove the extension cords (security reasons) and had to wait until they could install the cords below the floor.And they didn't even offer a discount or something in return. Neither did they inform the customers how long and why this is happening - I had to go up to them and ask. How can this happen?

For a business where operational excellence and customer support must be stellar, they are not doing a very good job. And don't get me started on their software. And we've tried out 3 locations in SF, with similar experiences.

Maybe it's different in other cities.

This was a huge problem for us, as well. People would make loud sales calls pacing back and forth in front of the empty phone booths.

That's the worst! (for people like me at least)

But I've had this experience working at private offices as well. It's basically a problem anywhere with a) open-office plans and b) sales/marketing people who are in the same area as developers (sometimes startups outgrow a co-working space but aren't big enough for a seperated office).

This is why I work with headphones on the majority of the time whenever I'm in an office (coworking or otherwise). I have enough trouble self-regulating my attention without having to distract myself from others.

I was in a WeWork for 2.5 years. Our floor had four phone booths but probably 20 or more people whose entire workday was spent on the phone, which led to multiple people pacing the halls while on a call. No amount of gentle reminders, glaring, or fighting back with my own noise would stop the loud conversations on the other side of the single-pane glass door.

There was a similar problem with the capacity of the men's bathroom.

WeWork should take more care that their physical infrastructure is not overwhelmed by subtenants who are mostly alike.

We have a local thing similar to wework here, it's OK but I find the aesthetic forced (fake brick wallpaper, fake wood tables, replica pre-distressed sofa's) and the absolute glut of offices around here makes it ridiculously expensive compared to the local market.

It's one redeeming feature is it hosts developer meetups free as a marketing move and has a decent room for that.

> Isn't this "gig economy" thing weird? Isn't it strange that people don't have stable long term employment? What's up with that? Is it good?

If you look at it purely from the perspective of economic theory, stable long-term employment is weirder than everybody being an individual contractor. Ronald Coase asks the question "Why do firms even exist in the first place?" [1] and comes to the conclusion that many transaction costs come along with marketplaces, and firms may be well-suited for dealing with those transaction costs internally. In this light, It may be observed that the gig economy firms "solve" transaction cost sub-problems, eradicating the bulwark of the firm and exposing the would-be workers to the competitive forces of the marketplace.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_the_Firm

Furthermore, people wring their hands over the gig economy mostly in some specific contexts like Uber drivers. They’re shedding far fewer tears for their plumber who isn’t available for another month.

It should be noted that Uber isn't cheaper to operate than a cab, they are just operating at a loss to destroy the taxi industry. As soon as it's done with that, prices should rise.

Yes, though they are avoiding permit fees as well.

Permit fees don't come out of nowhere, they come out of the transaction costs of finding reputable drivers, a cost that Uber is rediscovering.

I worked at a WeWork facility for 2 months in Bangalore. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn't think of renting a place again. It's a fucking nightmare here to deal with landlords, house keeping staff, electricity connection, internet connection and what not.

I just wish they had a better system for printing. It's a goddamn nightmare with the codes and printing queues. Just cut the crap out of printing administration and just make it free already.

I feel WeWork spaces are costlier in Bangalore, compared to the other co working spaces. I have looked around co-working spaces (mostly remodelled houses) which provides a quiet workspace with basic amenities for one third of WeWork's price.

You are bang on point about renting a place on your own. Absolute nightmare in Bangalore.

Personally I like to start my businesses in coworking spaces because I hate them and it makes me motivated to move out as quickly as possible.

I always thought WeWork was strange. Most people’s goal is the same, get out as soon as you’re ready.

>Or the attic of a converted condo.

That's literally my current situation - in a 3rd floor attic. When our lease is up later this year we're most likely just going to go WeWork.

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