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Comment by jermaustin1 | Hacker News Reader

Coworking spaces existed before WeWork, but WeWork did cause an explosion of them (at least in NYC metro and Houston - the two places I've lived during this explosion). But the cost prop just isn't there in a lot of cases.

I just recently looked up a bunch of various coworking spaces in Houston, and the monthly shared desk pass averaged $450/mo with dedicated desks and offices starting at $700-1000.

And I find that weird, because all across Craigslist (in between the "executive office" and coworking spam) there are dedicated small offices (60-100 sqft) that go for around the same price as a shared desk. Almost always they include the same amenities (coffee, snacks, drinks), but it is in a boring office building or in another company's office build-out that they have no need for.

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> ..but it is in a boring office building

That is where their disruption strategy was. WeWork in hindsight had a brilliant idea. A readymade exciting, fun-filled work environment - the culture aspect. This would be virtually impossible to create by a single or handful of employees by themselves. Infact big companies struggle to create exciting culture for new age employees even with dedicated team and funds.

WeWork could have worked if it was managed well.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I dont want a fun-filled work environment. I want to work then go home to my family where we have a fun-filled home environment.

You (and I) are in the minority, or at least there are a good number of people that feel the opposite. Looking around me I see plenty of acquaintances that use work to get as far away as possible from their homes and families.

People are weird, man.

I don't think it's weird. Sometimes you just want to not look at the same 4 walls everyday, sometimes you just want to see a different set of faces. I like co-working spaces to mix things up from time to time.

Many entrepreneurs start their business from home. Before they know it, their isn’t a separation between work and life and that can take a toll. It doesn’t mean they need to get away from home or the family.

Or maybe you guys are too obsessed with your domestic life? It's pretty common for people to reach 50 years old and realize they haven't cultivated a vibrant social life outside their marriage. And that's also not ideal.

I'm not married. I have a girlfriend, no kids and live by myself. I see friends for lunch or dinner every day.

Maybe that's why I'm happy at home.

Now imagine not only having lunch, but also working (or coexisting in the same workspace) with enjoyable people. Wouldn't that be awesome?

A lot of people don't find "people", the general case, enjoyable to be around, every day, for most of the day. Finding friends I enjoy being around some of the time was/is hard enough. The chance a random co-working space will be full of people I enjoy being around is closer to lottery odds.

If such odds were more realistic, I would agree.

Eh, I think ( there is no credible data I could find ) people like you are in a minority. For whatever reason, people consider work and workspace their 2nd home ( hence all sorts of personal items on their desks, while mine is barren like I am ready to leave tomorrow... which I am, but that is besides the point ).

I am agreeing with you. Work can stay work. I don't need a contest for most scary cubicle. Still, some people go for that stuff. Let me them stay in office. For me, WFH all the way. I make my own fun there.

>For whatever reason, people consider work and workspace their 2nd home

Maybe because it's 1/3 of a person's life and they want to make the most of it.

Agreed. I guess it depends on how much time you spend at work.

Eg in France the legal worktime is 35h, the debate is "32h proposed by the left, going back to 39h proposed by the right", but when I read the twitter people having to do 80h/week under Musk not only do I feel so horrible for them, but I understand then why a "fun filled environment" might be required to avoid people all falling into depression ...

And also there is no way those people are anywhere near productive for more than half of those 80 hours.

Many people are young, single, and don't yet have a family. They want more opportunities to meet people.

Not that I think work should be where people find relationships, but rather that different age groups have different needs and desires.

This 100%. I'm an old shit but I too was younger once and paid rent and lived in/near the downtown area where I live. I totally regret throwing away all that rent money but anyway, here I am.

At my old company, there were two main offices - one in an office park in the suburbs for the "grownups" and a smaller one in a hip part of downtown for the "kiddies".

I worked remotely the entire time and that company also had a large percentage of remote folks like me, this was years before Covid.

tl;dr for a lot of younger/single people, work can be a big part of one's social life.

> Not that I think work should be where people find relationships...

Full-time employees spend nearly all of their active hours at work. If they do not find relationships / friendships there, where and when will they?

Clubs (activities or nightclubs), online networks, out-and-about (stores), from their existing friends network, etc.

I think this idea that one should not form friendships with coworkers is unnatural. It leads to isolation.

I wrote relationships, not friendships.

I maintain that having sex with coworkers is ill-advised, but not for the same reasons as employers and their HR departments.

Friendships are a form of relationship. I doubt who you're replying to only meant sexual relationships.

That’s doubly frustrating with the american culture of “declare your girlfriend to HR”. There’s both a problem with dating AND not being allowed to date at the workplace.

> If they do not find relationships / friendships there, where and when will they?

Because of the plitical climate. Very few people would be inclined to pursure romantic relationships with coworkers. Meanwhile people at the same coworking space is a fair game. I am speaking from my own experience. The bad thing is it also becomes like high school. Because there's no HR policy to keep people in check.

Don’t dip your pen in the company ink has been in the lexicon, since well, when you had to refill pens from ink pots. Lots of uncomfortable situations which can arise from dating within the company which have little to do with current politics.

> Full-time employees spend nearly all of their active hours at work.

Perhaps this is not ideal?

It is ideal for the ruling class, and they aren’t asking anyone else.

Not that I think work should be where people find relationships

Work relationships used to be not only completely normal, but expected and accepted.

I met my wife of 20 years at work. There were whole universities that had reputations as places where people went to get enough education to land an office job so they could find a spouse.

It is only in the last ten years it so that work relationships have become taboo, as HR departments seem to completely eliminate the risk of inappropriate relationships caused by a minuscule minority of bad bosses and the accompanying legal and financial response from eager lawyers.

I am only 50. I have only been legally working for 34 years. I have been advised by HR at various companies to avoid relationships with coworkers for more than "the last ten years".

While I find the notion of "inappropriate relationships" amusing and only really serving the interests of employers, I still consider it all-advised to have sex with coworkers. This really only matters where people have power or have a career to think about. People with low-accountability roles need not worry about it.

Regardless, I encourage single people to look outside of the workplace.

My own experience is that there is more than "a minuscule minority of bad bosses" that lead to problems.

And why wouldn't you want to have both?

I think “fun” is maybe a bad descriptor of the WeWork aesthetic.

Take a look at Office Space, that sort of sterile, glaring white environment was the norm for offices right up to the new millennium.

Yes, WeWork has some goofy themes (I had the misfortune of one that took Coney Island as an inspiration, so there were scattered silhouettes of Ferris wheels here and there), but at its core was warm, dark walls that were easy on the eyes, generally good interior design, and people who actually wanted to be at their jobs. I didn’t love it, but far from the worst place I ever had to work.

And once in a while I still drop by an authentic Manhattan office building, and it is like stepping back into the eighties. It’s no wonder jumping off buildings was so popular among stockbrokers…

The aesthetic has a name, "resimercial". Agreed that "fun" doesn't quite capture it, even though often times the arcade machine and corn hole boards give that inmpression.

I think tbh wework's vibe works quite well for temporary office/flex-space, low cost of entry.

The fact that everybody is somewhat of a transient at a wework creates its own cohesion too. e.g. I rented office space at a "real" office building once, and it was just weird for some rando telecommuter to share space with more established companies in more local industries. ymmv, but they did create something "new", or at least a niche office offering is now an established fixture in most metros.

This really didn't take off till closer to 2010.

There might have been outliers at places like Google and Facebook in the 2000s but it didn't start exploding till after 2010 when all the more traditional companies started thinking they needed to be like Google and Facebook.

Lots of boring offices got rehabbed into "culture" offices around 2010-2012, even if it was financially irresponsible. There was huge talk that it was required to have any chance of hiring millennials at the time.

It's not just the culture: managing perks such as hardware, tech support, and VC equipment seems like a useful proposition.

I could see WeWork working in 2012 by getting money from small startups and large company with overflow problems in their formal offices. They just missed the startup boom by a couple of years.

That sells very well in a boom economy, but when things are tight, companies are much more cost conscious. Think of how the Dollar Store has strong profits during recessions.

What I find interesting now is seeing which companies have structured themselves to survive recession-like economic times. Really shows who has sustainable business models and who doesn't.

And to be fair it's not only about "fun".

It's about having space, good sound-proofing, good chairs/desks, good internet connection, etc. Coffee/tea/water/snacks etc (even if paid).

A lot of the "boring" places don't have any of these.

At least in Germany the WeWork offices I saw were neither fun-filled nor exciting.

I had always imagined them to be similar to what I imagined the Google office to be like - lots of amenities, lots of space to goof around, lots of cool little and big things that are rarely found in offices.

Instead you get your plain old "overcrowded startup offices". Tiny desks, tiny rooms, average coffee, no real amenities. Some chic design elements here and there, but that's about it.

Nothing I'd pay 500 EUR / desk per month for.

People greatly underestimate the environment and aesthetics. This is the place you'll spend majority of your time everyday for a very long time.

I wasn't sold on WeWork in theory until I started going with a friend (as a guest) and I was sold immediately.

I tend towards the introverted side so its not the socialising or "networking".. It's the environment: - constantly kept clean - good view, aesthetics & lighting - productivity happening all around you. - Kewl kitchen area with expensive tea & coffee

All Access is gamechanger too, the idea that I can go to Miami, spend some time at south beach and then be super productive at Lex Avenue WeWork with a super kewl view is AWESOME! (I live in London)..

The idea that u can use the same keycard to work in a familiar yet different environemnt in London & Miami is super kewl. Its like the democratisation of the kind of lifestyle you'd have as a billionaire.

Yeah, and all that comingling woth people from other companies is fun until we talk about IP, material and confidential information... basically as soon as a business actually deserves that name.

The kind of work where IP, material & confidentiality matters usually happens in R&D labs.

Pretty much everybody who looks for co-working places are working in non R&D type stuff.

People from other companies "comingling" is usually a REALLY good thing for the companies. Usually the best stuff comes out of this (Steve Jobs & Xerox's PARC)

The big problem with WeWork as a business model is that they don't really benefit from economies of scale.

The biggest ongoing cost for WeWork is leasing the office space. This cost doesn't go down just because WeWork has some brand recognition. Even worse, there's nothing stopping a property owner from operating their property as a co-working space themselves, cutting WeWork out of the equation.

It's not that WeWork couldn't be profitable. But it was never going to pull in the profits of a successful tech company.

This is correct and only one half of the downsides of WeWork’s model. WeWork assumes the risk spread between a traditional commercial lease and a basket of short-term leases. The stability and creditworthiness of the short term leases is up for debate.

So as they scale they’re signing up for a huge liability with a fairly uncertain stream of cashflows on the other side. Since there are only so many high-quality businesses that want temporary office space at a WeWork in a given area they also need to accept additional risk as they grow revenue regionally.

Add to this the intense correlation of WeWork’s customer base to firms dependent on VC$ and you’ve got a lot of correlated risk sitting on one side of a nasty liability. Not good stuff.

> you’ve got a lot of correlated risk sitting on one side of a nasty liability

Not only was WeWork's customer base dependent on VC money, so was WeWork itself! So it's really VC money going around in circles until the music stops, which is now.

It reminds me of that old joke: startups are an inefficiency imposed on the transfer of wealth from VCs to landlords.

Based on my experience working at a company based in a London WeWork, the problem is that they didn't do the boring stuff well at all. Oh sure, I guess the atmosphere could be neat sometimes and there was food being served, but we ended up having:

- Internet outages that lasted for a significant amount of time (not great for a tech company) - Power issues - Bathroom/plumbing issues - Various key card issues - etc (I think a microwave exploded at one point)

It's nice if the fun stuff is there, but if they can't do the boring stuff of running a functional office space well, I'm not sure if it's worth it.

> fun-filled work environment - the culture aspect

This seems like a doomed idea. Every person I know who goes to a co-working space is because they want to get work done. They want good Internet and quietness. If they wanted a fun-filled work environment, they'd work from home. It almost sounds like WeWork based their model on the wrong part of office culture.

> A readymade exciting, fun-filled work environment - the culture aspect.....Infact big companies struggle to create exciting culture for new age employees even with dedicated team and funds.

Isn't the prevailing narrative about the current tech layoffs that there were simply too many of these types of employees and not enough productive ones?

WeWork is failing because their most profitable customers are the big corps that buy space from them, not the broke startups and hustlepreneurs that these spaces are marketed towards.

Lol, I had the 'pleasure' in 2018 to hang around a WeWork location in Berlin for a couple of months, and it was indeed a full broadside of the cliché 'startup culture' one would expect. Might be quite interesting from an anthropologist's point-of-view, but definitely not what I would describe as an 'exciting and fun-filled environment', on the opposite, I'd have a hard time coming up with a more shallow and depressing workplace.

Turns out, the vast majority of people in an office want to work and maybe silicon valley's stupid culture isn't the norm.

Gen Z doesn't want a beer fridge and ping pong, Gen Z wants fair wages and reasonable hours.

Who the hell wants a “fun filled” work environment. I like that my coworking space is nice and quiet and I don’t have to make small talk so I can go back home to my family and friends for those things.

Coworking spaces existed before WeWork

I think more municipalities should get into coworking spaces. Not everyone I needs full incubator support; they just need a place to work.

The State of Washington used to have coworking stations set up in the wide, mostly empty hallways of the convention center in Seattle. Comfy chairs, electrical outlets, a reliable location, and fast wifi is all some people need to get their company off the ground.

There's tons of "unused space" in every city every day - hotel ballrooms, conference centers, even unrented offices.

It would have been interesting if WeWork had aimed at utilizing that unused space - a hotel that didn't rent Salon G could set it with some tables and power in desk form, alert WeWork it was available the night before, and if you wanted a desk it could point you to it.

The hotel gets some revenue for a room that would have sat empty, you get a desk to sit at.

To be honest, this sounds like Airbnb for hotels, and wouldn't work long-term either. Conference rooms in hotels are specifically booked for business events, and the hotels aren't exactly losing money on those bookings.

Hotels also have an image to maintain for their target guest demographic, so they wouldn't want a gaggle of Bankman-Fried lookalike startup bros streaming in and out of their premises daily. At least the MLMs that book hotel conference rooms ask attendees to dress accordingly.

And the first time that I looked to purchase a comfortable work environment and instead got a flimsy plastic chair at a lunchtable style desk in the middle of a disused hotel is the last time I would use that service.

>Almost always they include the same amenities (coffee, snacks, drinks), but it is in a boring office building or in another company's office build-out that they have no need for.

There's a difference between the high and low quality versions of any amenities. I have learned some time ago that increased misery is not worth saving a relatively small amount of money. So I strongly prefer at least the decent versions of amenities such as coffee, conference rooms, natural light, desks, chairs, bathrooms, HVAC, etc.

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