@@DacLMK Adam's WeWork disaster was well documented. Not only that, that dude's behaviors were far from ethical and got heavily reprimanded by the finance and start ups communities. It's natural for everyone to feel skeptical about this investment.
@@BiigiieCheeese people thought imaginary numbers had no practical use for centuries, and then we found the schrondinger equation. It can take a long time to find a use for it, but pure math gives us the tools, and eventually we find a use. And unlike companies, pure math has never destroyed more money than 99% of us will see in a lifetime.
Most people didn't own a farm, steel mine, tech factory, soap chemical plant and etc... Yet most people can get this product easily at affordable price. Private ownership is good but it's a mean to an end for efficiency and productivity, not the end of itself.
Expect his to get tons of ESG money with that aim. You will own nothing and you will be happy (by having *a sense* of "security", "community", and "genuine ownership").
So excited for Flow and its competitors to raise an unholy amount of money, buy out half the apartments in my area, triple the rent, and destroy the nations already shit rental market in like a year flat
Also, "Disrupting the future of Living" probably means to Adam that instead of $270,000 dollar homes going for $520,000 they should be at least $850,000
Nooo no no no. He is "rethinking the housing market by creating a branded product with consistent service and community features". Yeah. Whatever... that means.
@@vvenkat111 I think it's bold to even assume a stranger is a thousandaire these days. I personally know several people with Bachelor's degrees who usually have less than $100 to their name.
@@HülyeLó there is something 80% plus of these people have in common, and that level of nepotism and market control means you can continue to make profits for a very long time even when on the longest time scale you are destroying value and productivity. this is the essential nature of parasiteism. Small hats open big doors.
I'm calling it now: Flow will be basically a landlord with a smartphone app (so you can, e.g., order for a plumber). They'll ofcourse offer exorbitant leases for the privilege of "living in the future". They'll then try to pitch their app services to other landlords by getting a cut on the lease.
I am a landlord working through a very efficient independent management company who are responsive to renters' needs. They have been around for decades and I first knew them when I was a renter myself. So how is any of the BS new?
It's all about getting a lot of cash to pass through the business. It doesn't matter what lies you tell or how implausible or unworkable the business model is. If enough money is involved then it's easy to get a serious amount of wealth to stick to your hands before it goes belly-up.
"giving renters a sense of ... genuine ownership" lol so basically pay us and we will do our best to trick you into feeling like you actually own something. sounds about right for this guy.
Don't you want the sense of "community" the comes with living with 4 or 5 strangers? Wouldn't you enjoy listening the Brad and Tiffany fight in the next room about whether he did or didn't look at that waitress's ass while you're trying to sleep? What about the sense of ownership cleaning up after Amar'e who totally doesn't pay rent because his just staying with is girlfriend Kendal while he looks for his own place for 3 months and counting? What about the feeling of belonging that you could get from Cole and Phil trying to explain to you why the Netflix adoption missed so much of the subtly of the source material? And sure Colin makes a lot of noise but his streaming channel will take off any day now and with that and work it's totally understandable that he couldn't do his chores around the house.
Point taken but you can hardly call it failure when he's doing more or less what he set out to do. He's like Trump or Musk. He has no vision for the future. Everything he does is an instinctual response to the state of VC/PE where he sees opportunity to produce a high valuation with less-than-viable product.
He proves that the people you know is more important than having a product. He might be a genius at pitching but they're product geniuses who aren't getting the funding they need.
Does it matter? There is no negative consequence for his actions. Even if it does fail he will get another golden parachute. I'd say good on him I encourage everyone should do the same as he does! As investors have stolen so much money from hardworking working class people then throw it away onto people like him.
Most of the startup ecosystem works on the principal of the "Greater fool theory". Wework might have crashed but the investers who invested early did make money selling it to the people who joined late to the frenzy, and a lot of it. He may have been the reason for Wework's crash but he would still get investors to invest in any "idea" he can cook up, all they need is to find is the greater fool.
First rule Rich people never loose money. Those who have invested with him are generally connected with gov so even if he looses , gov will print more money to pay back investors or write off the loan. Which roughly translates to more inflation, which will be bore by public. Please name one rich investor of WeWork who is living on street because of WeWork disaster.
Knowing Adam's background, it's basically going to be some dystopian communal living situation that they charge an inordinate amount of money for. They're going to see the "you'll own nothing, and you'll love it" WEF quote come to life. Can't wait to see what it is.
The costs will be covered by the govt, during Biden's second term. Adam wants to do the housing for the disaffected, homeless, mentally ill, drug-addled people who will end up on Universal Basic Income. Housing that will be subsidized, then be run through FEMA after some false flag disaster.
Taking care of the home you own is a very fulfilling experience. Learning to DIY, meeting neighbours and getting recommendations, meeting local people who do lawns, these are parts of life that should not be replaced by an app.
It’s basically a subscription home rental service. You pay a monthly fee and you can choose from available properties and move around as your needs change. Meh. It’ll be expensive and the most popular locales will be fully booked.
And you'll be the one who pay mortgage for them with your monthly fee with this they can expand and expand until in the end Company will own every properties and people will have to rent it from them.
It might not be that expensive as they'll be operating thousands of properties but what happens when they increase their subscription price when you live is the actual problem.
You got to give Adam credit, he manages to get money from investors before he's even got any idea what the hell he's doing. That's a skill right there.
If you actually see the history of the most successful people in the world, they all have "relentless lying; ridiculous embellishments" in their bio. If you want to be successful, just lie until people perceive value i guess. ...and get adopted into an affluent NYC family who can afford to put you into a business college too
@@cameron_fairchild yeah, but even Bernie Madoff was arrested and sentenced. The FBI/DOJ/SEC are (hopefully) getting as much info as they can so they have an airtight criminal law case.
@@jeffw8218 Bernie Madoff there was no grey area to not prosecute. It was a straight up ponzi scheme. So was FTX but the lax regulation in crypto (even though FTX wasn't a real crypto company, it was a ponzi scheme) could give them the leeway to not prosecute a tribesman.
@@jbbrolic True, but SGF still committed a litany of crimes that apply to crypto, such as wire fraud, which could easily land him in prison for 20-years on its own. Add the other charges, and him, Caroline Ellison, and a few other people could face life in prison, or at the minimum 20-years.
Or that people would invest with him / in him. Guess people are greedy, similar to the people who invented in One Coin, she's been in hiding since 5 years or more.
Marc A.: "We (pun intended) have to do something about the housing crisis", Also from the same person: "Don't build multi-family housing in my neighborhood!" Translation, ideals are great, popular, and cheap, but equality takes humility and sacrifice.
Adam was all about "We" at WeWork, when it crashed he became all about "I", and ran off with $1.6bn while employees were getting laid off without pay or redundancy.
You know how it goes, hes just a vessel to integrate another unnecesary market. Further pushing down on the already expensive market that is renting/buying a living space.
This makes me think of Blackrock buying up huge amounts of rental properties and of course "You will own nothing, and be happy". Something smells rotten.
These people literally cannot wait until we have semi-autonomous robots that can do all manual labor so that they can begin killing all of the working class and below off. This is where the future is headed.
I'd hope this turns into another catastrophe for investors, but the problem is, if that happens, it'll probably also suck for his workers and customers. Also, notice the Alfred tagline and promise - "above-market rents". Really serving society there.
Yes, serving society means providing them the services they want as indicated by what they are willing to pay for. It doesn't mean making everything cheaper although even when that happens people still complain because someone, somewhere is being negatively effected by it. It's almost like some people just want a reason to complain.
Investors don't lose out working with people like him lol. They make plenty of money in the process. The only ones who get shafted are hardworking working class people, via disruptions in the rental market.
To those who wonder why they invest in him, I'll explain to ya: 1) Get initial funding. Build basic, barebone shit that 95% consists of PR. Get initial customers, by spending 90% of the funds of Google ads. 2) Another round of investment, from the different company. Investors in step 1 already made their money back, on paper. Here they either cash out or play the long game. On the funding the PR kicks into full gear. Customer base is inflated by any means necessary. 3) Repeat step 2 as much is you want 4) IPO. All that PR, buzzwords and ripe customer base, that might not even be real leads to a huge demand for stocks on the IPO. Everybody is FOMOed the heck out, which drives prices sky high 5) This is where you sell, taking the money from other people's pockets into yours. A glorified pump-and-dumb with extra steps to make it legal. THIS is why they give him money. They hope to play a game of hot potato and win. In fact it's a really easy game of hot potato because in the end you dump your shares on the stupid public. The tough task is to balloon the fk our of the thing, and take it through all the rounds to IPO. Newman nearly done that, and managed to hype up this to a ridiculous 47 billion. This is the skill they seek and give money for. Everything is extremely logical, and these people aren't dumb, like everybody here believes. They know what they are doing perfectly.
"Tech Entrepreneur" = rents individual desks in an office space flow will probably just have a streamlined eviction process, showing shared apartment spaces while kicking out the previous tenant
Tech "disruption" is just a means of sidestepping regulation, funny that we're seeing conditions that led to the demand for the regulation in the first place
This has inspired me to launch a startup. A new paradigm. WECEL. At WECEL, Adam can share a jail cell with Elizabeth Holmes despite their differences in gender and criminal preference.
I remember reading horror stories about WeWork’s corporate culture on Glassdoor way back in 2015, before people on the outside knew what was really going on. But those Glassdoor reviews certainly gave me a glimpse.
It was a destructive mix of wannabes posturing to be too cool to actually have to do something productive. I suspect many tenants were underachievers living in undesirable part of city that used wework membership to hang out with flashy crowd in nice location. Kind of like a gym membership for image nerds.
The game is about inflating the valuation so the 1st group of investors can drop it on the 2nd round of investors. It has nothing to do with actually creating anything of value, else than value for the 1st round of investors. Startups at this point are just speculation.
@@ingenieroriquelmecagardomo4067 Mining stocks in Canada and on small exchanges are just like that: get money into 25 outfits and hope ONE or two pay off. But that's the industry. This is a con, based largely in the "correct" cities of New York and London, maybe a few others. And you take a lot of people's money, too, in what is basically fraud/con/stealing. The "suckas" get bled in the second and third round.
A16Z already operates on this goddamn model, back when "initial coin offerings" (unregistered securities) were offered by tech startups they used to invest in those and then sell them to bag holders.
It is a public secret but nobody is allowed to say how this all is possible. He belongs to a particular group in society predominantly overrepresented in the financial world, and these members protect their position and each other.
I'm not one of them, but i do know that they have statistically higher iq in their group (look at nobel prizes percentage for their group), therefore succes. That simple. Only the resentful (or weak) say what you say. Read some goddamn nietzsche and become strong brother.
I'd strongly disagree with McKeever Conwell's statement about the situation. If the company sucked in enough money from the public or was heavily involved with the public then anything bad happening to it would most likely affect everyone. I hate the statement that "we are just here to make money" because when an event like the depression or the great recession happens then somehow the argument turns into a really bad strawman argument like the public should have not invested in him then. What worries a ton is the lack of regulation from any organization to make sure that anything financial involved let alone this big gets looked thoroughly and ensures clearly who gets hurt in the event of something bad happening. Funny enough ClearTaxView's channel had a video on how bad as big as the IRS is at enforcing regulations let alone having the moral to keep to abide by laws themselves.
"be a good person" is not explicit in the description of just about any job, but finance guys act like that's a license for immorality rather than realizing that the requirement transcends employment status.
@@perfectallycromulent finance people are the worst. They honestly are parasites to the economy because the only value they bring to the world is either to themselves or the company they work for. They bring no value to the economy. No products, not entertainment, no moral value. Parasitic capitalism.
under dubys they radically cut the irs tax atttorneys and auditers..the people who audit the rich. Abd obama and trump both approve of course. So the ira basically only has the ability togk after the lower classes whom it can bully ( trust me they can doanythi gthey want if youre not rich)
My uncle worked for we work in Manhattan for a few months before being laid off. My first thoughts walking through the workspace was how the company could make money when there work space was like a man cave. Coffee bars, pool tables, seats all over, you name it the offices had it I knew it seemed too good to be true but my uncle said he had a good time while there lol
went to one in mexico when I was there for a few week to do work while there, shit was actually pretty dope. But yeah, I just got swiped in by my homie & tbh I have no clue how they make money unless the companies are paying hella to have their employees work from there. It just was 99% of remote workers chillin hard & occasionally taking a call, but it was pretty decent & my friends personal office was dope & super well sound-insulated.
From what I remembered about my professor said. WeWork aims to be a place where new start ups gathering around. And when there are lots of start ups gathering, there are higher chance of a Unicorn to appear. Imagine owning a place where Unicorns are likely to appear.
@@toomanymarys7355 Wework could still have the advantage of being the few first ppl to interact and make deal with the Unicorns, since they own and monitor the area. Dont forget the network effect, if WeWork can establish itself in the start up community as the place where every Unicorn gathers. New start ups and especially investors will start flocking over. Remember that the major shareholder of WeWork is Softbank, who is extremely aggressive in seeking out Unicorns.
my mom always say that if you earn something through shady means and the money which doesnt belong to you, It will not stick with you for long. I have seen that happen many times and im seeing it again now. What a nice time to invest in real estate properties!!
I used to drive by a building in the domain that one day had "wework", written on the top of the building. I never knew what it was about. About a year of driving by, the wework disappeared and the building was for lease.
A couple thoughts. 1) What does redemption look like for someone like Neumann? and 2) What does unbroken VC look like? This is a nice video, as always, beautifully produced and articulated. But this video anyway, I found it hard to connect the threads and get a coherent thought outside of "here's a clever fund raiser with a sketchy past building again." /shrug
The older I get the more I feel like this world was made for the rich. Maybe we're in a simulation created by a quintillionaire and they're living through all the rich people and enjoying seeing the poor struggle.
The world is built for the rich by the poor. First it was monarchy and now it's capitalism. Neither of these systems are for the prosperity of those who work. They're for the prosperity of those who own stuff.
"billionaire being born" as if they didn't have old money to begin with. For every Jeff Bezos there are hundreds of Elon Musks who are basically gifted a golden spoon.
my guess is that the properties he bought got contracted to the flow company he created for free for a few year so that he could secure a major investment from a16z. a16z would then get a secure deal on getting a higher percentage of profit through renting without investing in property and Adam could always offload his properties in the future. A more happy scenario could be that with the properties he purchased he gives to people on a rent to own basis without paying a mortgage if they live within the ecosystem of flow or for a specific number of year. The reason of this is because the biggest struggle is getting a mortgage for rent.
P.S. I like how this people are portraited as "pioneers" or having "brainstorms" when talking about their products, but 5 minutes after you heard "he realized he needed to do this" you hear his partner is buying "his competition"........so is not he "realized" there was a need.......he saw what others were doing and decided to copy them, starting actually way after the competition.......the only difference it seems they get Phresh kosher money to increase the value of a company which basically is not doing anything because it barely has its name registered.
Privilege in action. Think of all of the 350 other actually decent companies A16z could have invested $1M apiece into, and instead all that is flowing into the pockets of a man-child who almost single-handedly obliterated billions of shareholder value. Nobody else gets this kind of leeway in society
You can hire fewer financial people if you lend out larger amounts of money at a time. The theory is I think that you can hire the best, at huge salaries no doubt, who will make fewer investment mistakes. Unfortunately this is not the reality, but does lead to the rich getting richer and the middle economy which drives most economic growth being deprived of capital.
This faith that the phone app will be solution for all problems... but you cannot save people from themselves... as usual, common sense is the most valuable asset.
Seems to me flow will use part of that $350 million to buy Alfred and giving Adam a huge payout for his Alfred shares. That’s kinda been his MO regarding VC capital , right?
I love this channel, with this and Internet Historian I feel spoiled with some of the best content on the internet. Watching this content for free feels like I am committing theft.
So, how does an investment of $350 million lead to the company having a value of 3 times that much? Did Adam contribute the rest? Is it trickery? Arcane magic? Also it's kinda bizarre to target millennials, famous for having money issues, with an unnecessary bespoke life management app. Actually I guess when you put it that way it makes perfect sense
As an older person, Neumann reminds me a lot of another Israeli who came to the US in the 1970s intending to make a fortune convincing people he had a special talent. His name was Uri Geller, and his talent was bending spoons allegedly with his mind, though it transpired he was in fact using his fingers. Geller took in a lot of people for a while, using the same self-confidence that Neumann excretes. With luck, his investors will become shirtless, but as others here say, the concern is that the housing market, already a disgrace, will became a tragedy of epic proportions.
10 years ago in my area, houses were very affordable for lower to middle income families. The houses in our city tripled in value over the course of 1-2 years. This is directly caused by investors driving up the prices, creating a situation making it impossible for middle income families to purchase homes. I for one, would be okay if they created legislation to regulate house purchases for families. If the government wants to do so good, then they can make sure houses are affordable for regular people.
@@laurenconrad1799 🙄 give me a break. There are many VC funds that cater ONLY to POC out there. Maybe the problem is that POC aren’t developing enough viable products…
@@laurenconrad1799 …white? Don’t be so blind to the truth which is right in front of you. And if you think all it takes for a person to be successful is to be white, then why are majority of people who are living in poverty in the US…white? And for the truth…he’s not white.
Neuman has a next level talent of conning people. He isn't wrong, matter of fact he is a hero in his own story, it's everyone else around him who believes in his ideas, who are idiots.
Hey dagogo love your videos so relaxing to listen to these preposterous stories, what a crazy world… can I ask what’s the closing credits song called? 🙂
Valuations are quite literally made up. Like good VCs will make a valuation based on the facts/metrics of the company but when the dude is white and already rich they just ignore it