I think that's why the parent put "tech" in quotes.
Soft Bank invested what if has invested, expecting to get the return it would get on a tech company — not real estate.
The reckoning that is happening now is much deserved, but if WeWork got the benefit of being called a tech company when it was flying high (and it did — including here on HN), I’m not going to give the company or its investors an “out” now that it’s all falling apart.
This was a decidedly non-tech company that convinced its investors it was tech. And now that the rouse is up, the bloodbath that follows begins in earnest.
WeWork is obviously not a tech company like Microsoft or Apple are tech companies and nobody is arguing or should really even care about that, investors surely don't. But it also fails to check some of the boxes of new class of "tech" companies and that is being reflected in the current valuation battle. or maybe the underwrites just really overshot the mark after SoftBank pressured them with its own high valuation estimate.