Is WeWork Even Worth $8 Billion?

Richard B. Levine/Levine Roberts via ZUMA

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The WeWork saga is nearing an end:

SoftBank Group Corp. won approval from WeWork’s board to take control of the troubled co-working startup, in a deal that would hand co-founder Adam Neumann nearly $1.7 billion and sever most of his ties with the company….The deal is expected to value the company at about $8 billion, a far cry from what it was expected to fetch in an initial public offering earlier this year and even less than the $47 billion at which a January investment from SoftBank pegged its worth.

This whole thing is even crazier than it looks. For starters, the outside world has known for years that WeWork’s business model was nuts. The Wall Street Journal made that clear two years ago and there were plenty of hints years before that. The company was a nothingburger propped up by the mad stylings of Adam Neumann.

What’s even crazier is that SoftBank must have known this all along. It’s one thing for the outside world to be fooled, but Softbank was a major investor. They must have seen the books. They must have known about Neumann’s sketchy insidery deals. They must have known there was nothing really special about yet another office leasing company, even if it did “activate the space” and appeal to millennials. Space is space.

So how is it that within the span of ten months, SoftBank reduced its valuation of WeWork from $48 billion to $8 billion? Was their January valuation all just part of the scam?

And here’s another little nugget to chew on: even now, on a revenue basis, WeWork is valued at more than 5x the level of IWG, its stodgy old competitor that does pretty much the exact same thing they do. Even after all the revelations of the past few weeks, WeWork still looks plenty overvalued.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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