WeWreck
Curtains on coworking
Good morning, my hardworking colleagues ready to rise and grind. This is your Stock Market Rundown for August 10th, 2023. Thanks for joining me. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: WE WERE, UNTIL WE WEREN’T 🏢
WeWork, the Fyre Festival of tech-bubble companies, has just disclosed that there’s “substantial doubt” the company will be able to stay in business. Rarely has a businesses taken such a tumble—from sexy VC catnip, to epic devastation.
Founded in 2010, WeWork provided shared workspaces that fostered community and collaboration. Picture this: you’re a freelance sneaker designer at a WeWork, enjoying a cappuccino alongside the founder of a startup that puts parking tickets on the blockchain. Yep, during the pre-panny tech bubble, this was the pinnacle of cool.
WeWork, despite really just being an office space rental business, somehow managed to convince VCs it was a “tech company”, and raised billions. But founder Adam Neumann was, suffice it to say, problematic.
In addition to encouraging a “cult-like” vibe, he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, smoking so much weed on his jet that the crew had to wear oxygen masks. Snoop Dogg would be impressed.
Neumann eventually engineered an exit that included a vomit-inducing $445 million payday. Later, the company ended up going public via a SPAC transaction in 2021, and has been struggling ever since. Now, management is saying the company’s losses and negative cash flows “raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.” Terrific.
Let it be a lesson, folks: don’t trust a charismatic founder who creates a cult of personality… particularly if part of his schtick is walking around Manhattan barefoot. Ew.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Unilever, who probably made the soap and shampoo you lathered up with in the shower this morning (they own brands like Dove, Axe, and Vaseline), jacked up prices in Q2 due to wage inflation. Even prices of ice cream were up 12%. News flash: I’m gonna blow my grocery budget on Mint Chocolate Cookie Ben & Jerry’s.
Grimace, the weird-as-hell purple eggplant-looking McDonald’s character, went megaviral on TikTok, leading to sales that popped 10% for McDonalds in Q2.
DoorDash reported robust Q2 results as consumers spent more on food delivery. The company raised full-year guidance, profiting from your lazy habit of ordering tacos on the app rather than eating gross leftovers.
Bacon prices are spiking due to new California laws requiring pigs to have at least 24 square feet of pen space. I get that the piggies need to be comfy, but do they really need more room to spread out than I had in my first apartment in college?
Did you know that Meta (the organization formerly known as Facebook) launched “Ray-Ban smart glasses” two years ago? I definitely didn’t, and it appears most people are unaware, since they’re struggling to catch on. OK, Zuck, we know you’re a buff MMA guy now, but please: stop trying to make augmented reality happen.
That’s it for today, see you bright and early tomorrow. Yours in capitalism, The Axe