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Comment by exogeny | Hacker News Reader

Considering he has the votes to fire the entire board, I'd be shocked if this happens.

Softbank is completely fucked.

Adam has the votes, but not the cash. Softbank has the cash, but not the votes. Arrangements can be made.

Ironically, that's a problem for Adam precisely because We is not Theranos. Holmes had the votes and the cash, which hadn't been spent yet since Theranos wasn't a real business, and she could (and did) just coast for years on what was already in the bank without any need to go to any investors or banks or third parties (who would of course have demanded her ouster as step 1). But since We is a real business with real users and a successful one, We can't just coast on its cash (even if it stopped expansion).

> But since We is a real business with real users and a successful one, We can't just coast on its cash.

We have a very different definition of what does it mean to be a successful business.

It's successful in the sense that it could raise prices to make a profit and there's a possibility that it would still have enough customers left. Unlikely the oft-discussed "selling dollars bills for 90 cents" companies, WeWork is creating real value that its customers will pay for. The question is still open whether that value is more than the operating costs, but it's at least possible. I'd bet against it though.

Uber is also creating real value for its customers.

And Uber could be profitable and create real value for investors. The problem is that, in that case, Uber isn't a unicorn and isn't worth the billions already thrown into it.

Ye, but depends on how much loans Uber has if they can ever be profitable. But in theory yes. Just sack 95% of the RnD departement and raise fare prices untill supply and demand even things out.

It's also a successful business in that their growth plans could potentially deliver real value and economies of scale (talking purely hypothetically here). There's a very big difference between a startup which is profitable but would be far more valuable if it could grow using investments, a startup which is premised on economies of scale and so which fails if it can't grow fast enough to take off from its runway, and a startup like Theranos where the tech did not and probably could never work regardless of how many customers it had.

Even if We would fail for lack of further investments (because it's type #2), that doesn't mean it was #3, a Theranos. In both #1 and #2, Softbank has a lot of leverage over Adam, and in both it's kind of a game of chicken: neither Softbank nor Adam want to see lack of cash cause We either permanently curtail its potential (#1) or die (#2).

> But since We is a real business with real users and a successful one, We can't just coast on its cash.

If it were a real successful business it wouldn't need emergency cash injections to stay alive.

Financial Times is just reporting that _Softbank_ is the one asking him to step down, so that clearly complicates things: https://www.ft.com/content/ee652036-dd64-11e9-9743-db5a37048...

If he fires the whole board, wouldn't that add further doubt about the company's governance and reduce the expected value of any future IPO even further? It doesn't seem like that would be in his best interest.

> It doesn't seem like that would be in his best interest

Rationally, he might be able to extract more cash out of the business running it into the ground than by having it saved by someone else. Delusionally, he might think he's the only one who can run WeWork.

>If he fires the whole board

It's game over at that point. Kiss the IPO goodbye, kiss the $6B in lines of credit goodbye, kiss any further investment from Softbank goodbye. With their burn rate, they then have MAYBE another 6 months before they become insolvent. That having been said, it would be quite the Pyrrhic Victory for Softbank, might even mean their demise as well.

It depends, I suppose, on how soon We needs more investor money. If he actually exercises his right to fire the entire board, it seems like it would be hard to get somebody else to chip in big money.

On the other hand, it could be that Softbank knows it won't work, but feels they have to be seen attempting something.

"We needs more investor money"

I read this and heard Gollum saying "We wants it. We needs it."

I also feel that SoftBank has some turbulence in it's future, at least on the mega fund side of things.

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