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Comment by smeeth | Hacker News Reader

I am surprised to see so many negative responses.

I bet most of the people here agree 100% with the problems and structural shifts this memo identified, and that technological innovation in the housing space to facilitate both social cohesion and affordability would be a *very good thing*.

Sure, Adam had some highly publicized issues at WeWork. Also, a16z is on a lot of people's shit list right now. Still, why do so few people seem to be rooting for their success? If you're prone to cynicism I get it - the only way this can end is grift - but personally I would like to see more companies trying to address these issues and Adam seems like he genuinely cares about it. Maybe a little too much, even.

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A lot of the negativity comes from the fact that Adam Neumann is involved. He's incredibly dishonest and a borderline scam artist. He set fire to billions and came out incredibly wealthy. You may not care about the people he took money from, but what he did was still wrong.

Another point is that there is no concrete business or idea. The memo at least doesn't explain the actual business. It's vaporware. There are thousands of people with track records that want to open real cashflow businesses and can't get funding. And then there's someone like this that can manifest billion dollar companies with an idea. It just strikes them as unfair.

My impression is that there is an idea, and they are intentionally not explaining it to the public yet

> technological innovation in the housing space to facilitate both social cohesion and affordability would be a very good thing.

Sure, just not one led by Adam Neumann or a16z, certainly not one led by both.

Maybe they will do something legitimately good, but from what we know of both of them, it's highly likely that they will optimize for what will increase their respective net worth as fast as possible, no matter the consequences and not for what will have the best impact on society.

And sure they don't have any obligation to optimize for social good, but you can't ask us to be excited about it.

Neumann already had bought close to 4000 apartment in January, presumably linked to this venture. So if you are somehow expecting them to come up with a solution to the affordability crisis, I think you are deluding yourself. It's far more likely that we end up with an airbnb-like for long-term stays that will continue to push the cost of the housing market ever higher, greatly enriching Neumann and a16z in the process. But hey, at least you will be able to book your place for the next 6 months right through an app with a nice UI, you won't need to line up to visit an apartment and it will even come pre-decorated WeWork-style to make you feel right at home!

The problem is that Neumann walked away with an absolute fortune, leaving investors and much more importantly employees holding the bag. He operated with what could charitably described as accounting methods of questionable ethics.

If this investment has some term that makes it so Neumann does not personally see one penny of this money unless the company is wildly successful and everyone else involved gets paid first, maybe it'd be worth considering. Instead, there is a very likely outcome here where he takes home tens to hundreds of millions while once again doing nothing of actual substance to change the market.

Basically, he's a huckster who enriched himself at the expense of others. People tend to root against people like that, and they don't like it when they're handed huge sums of money.

The problem is that you can be a well meaning person, take a bunch of capital and unintentionally cause huge problems. Look at Airbnb, for example, which is causing havoc in the rental markets of major and minor cities across the globe. Airbnb certainly didn’t set out to cause harm, and I’m sure the founders would actively argue to this day that what they’ve done is for the greater good… same with Uber.

If you accept that the markets are inherently good and the most profitable outcome is the best outcome, then it’s easy enough to look at this as a positive move… but if you see capital + technology as a force for bad when unchecked, this is just more of the same — success for Flow could come at the expense of others.

Adam’s history is one of not caring about rules or expectations, he caused significant financial harm to a lot of people with WeWork and while I am not particularly cynical about Flow, I think the cynicism from others deserves more credit — it’s not just contrarianism, the housing market is very vulnerable (see all the private equity that pushed up American house prices recently).

Perhaps it's because:

[1] Marc Andreesen himself is NIMBY. Which is what is contributing to the housing problem across the USA (and parts of Europe). The inability to build new housing leads to the insane property pricing and the very housing crisis that they are trying to solve https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/marc-andre...

[2] Adam Neumann is a self dealing grifter.

You have two dishonest actors proposing a solution for problems they may be causing directly...

> and that technological innovation in the housing space to facilitate both social cohesion and affordability

My gut reaction to the news is totally negative. I agree with your above point, but I see that innovation coming from outside Silicon Valley-VC bubble. We need communities to organize and modernize zoning. We need modular housing to drive down the cost of construction. We need to focus on the basic economics (supply & demand) of housing.

If I had to guess, a16z & Adam are going to throw money into being shitty landlords. They are going to get their cut. I'm very skeptical they will make the world a better place.

What are you talking about? What "technological innovation" would Adam possibly bring to housing that improves social cohesion and affordability? Like, an app?

I sure hope you work in pr at A16Z

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