The We Work Fallout
We Work was symptomatic of venture capital funded companies that tiptoed to the public markets with no profits to feed the beast.
In the case of We Work, the market finally woke up and said, “Hey, you don’t even have a plan to become profitable. Get outta here.”
We Work was further punished for the behavior of its leader, the inimitable Adam Neumann, who was treated to a hubris-crushing cure that resulted in his departure (though anybody who gets bought out with a more than a billion dollar send off will get no sympathy in the Big Red Car’s book, sorry).
What has now taken root is the quaint notion that companies — even before going to the beauty parlor to get primped for an IPO — are going to have to be within earshot of being profitable.