A nonexhaustive listing of why Marc Andreessen and Adam Neumann have misinterpret America’s housing issues
When Marc Andreessen introduced that he was sinking $350 million of a16z traders’ cash into a brand new enterprise by WeWork co-founder and former CEO Adam Neumann, loads of jaws dropped. For one, there was the huge sum and equally huge valuation for a corporation that, as of as we speak, owns a couple of thousand rental items.
Then there have been the claims that Circulate may assist resolve inequality, nervousness, loneliness and numerous different social ills. Neumann’s concepts for Circulate, Andreessen stated, are “not missing in imaginative and prescient or ambition, however solely initiatives with such lofty targets have an opportunity at altering the world.”
That’s idealistic rhetoric, even by the requirements of Silicon Valley.
One thing didn’t really feel proper to us. Sure, there was the Neumann issue. However there was one thing extra. Neumann and Andreessen have been attempting to denationalise the neighborhood. Right here’s why we expect that’s not such an awesome concept.
There are some issues that enterprise capital can resolve. For instance, I discover it fairly nice that I can get a journey dwelling from a vetted stranger if I’m out alone late at evening and don’t really feel comfy strolling to the subway, then transferring to a bus to get dwelling.
However therein lies the crux of the issue: What if public transportation was merely simply higher? What if I didn’t have to resolve between dropping $25 on an Uber and strolling quarter-hour to the subway, standing alone underground, using the subway, getting out, ready for the bus exterior alone, then taking the bus dwelling at midnight?
By the identical notion, Adam Neumann’s Circulate needs to unravel what investor Marc Andreessen calls a housing disaster.