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WeWork Employees Caught Spying on Competition (nypost.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The battle in the red-hot co-working space business is heating up. WeWork, the No. 1 player in the sector, allegedly sent two spies to infiltrate rival Knotel -- to steal info and some customers, Knotel claimed. The spies showed up at seven Knotel properties in Manhattan last month in a "systematic attempt to pilfer Knotel's proprietary information and trade secrets," according to a cease-and-desist letter the smaller company sent to WeWork. The Post has obtained a copy of the letter. The corporate espionage rookies may have pulled off the caper except, in a totally random happening, a Knotel employee recognized one of them as a friend of a friend, according to sources close to Knotel. While the pair used fake names to gain entry, according to the letter, a call to the Knotel worker's pal got the spy's real name -- and a couple of social media inquiries turned up the fact that he worked for rival WeWork, sources said. The letter to WeWork asks for a reply by Oct. 13 -- but so far Knotel hasn't heard a peep from its rival, according to CEO Amol Sarva. While inside the Knotel offices, visited Sept. 12-14, the luckless spies posed "as the founders of a fast-growing startup" and said they needed space for their six-person company, according to the letter.
Have they actually done anything wrong? I'd be very surprised if hotel chains, airlines etc. didn't send people to try out the opposition from time to time.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Someone please explain in a few words, what kind of "sector" that is supposed to be.
So, this company, whose service is providing chairs and tables and coffee, just bought a $850 million building? What. The. Fuck??
I don't respond to AC's.
I think they are in the business of finding space to cram a bunch of temp-workers in for an overnight call center, which will go out of business before it is time to pay taxes and then it will lease that same space to a small start-up which believes strongly that work can't be done remote, and requires space-holders to sit in cubes to function. Basically short-term landlords targeting business.
I think it's like Starbucks but instead of selling you overpriced coffee they charge you rent. And then sell you overpriced coffee.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's Maker Space for would be entrepreneurs
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
If you have a small business that's just getting started and will hopefully be expanding quickly, there are two ways to get a place to work:
1) Rent an office, and then when you hire more people you have to move to a bigger office so you're always either paying for more space than you need today or spending time moving; arrange people for all the things that are required for a usable office like cleaning, setting up a network, etc...
2) You call WeWork and say "I want offices for two people in your Boston building". You get the offices, and there are shared conference rooms that you can reserve as you need them. WeWork takes care of cleaning, the network, a cafeteria, etc (which you are paying for as part of your rent, but at least you don't have to worry about setting it up). When you expand, you tell WeWork you now need a third room, and they give you more space, so your existing people don't need to move (or only move around in the same building), and you don't need to waste your time dealing with the real estate market.
Number two is significantly more expensive in dollars, but number one is significantly more expensive in your time investment; if you are a well funded startup, you don't mind spending a lot of money, but you'd rather spend your time working on your business rather than worrying about office space. If you are a poorly funded company, or a large enough company that you are using large blocks of space and can afford to hire someone to deal with the details, #1 is the better choice, which is why the classic real estate market is in no danger of vanishing.
I'm struggling to figure out just what "trade secrets" there might be in a co-working setup. The billing system? The facilities? The sort of coffee they have? The network setup? The way they control print costs?
It's hard for me to imagine just what a co-working group has to really hide that's so proprietary.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
In case you thought apartment rents were high, WeWork charges about $400/month for a "hot desk" with coffee. Contrast: Planet Fitness charges $10/month for a "hot treadmill" with showers. Maybe you don't spend 30-40 hours/week at the gym, but still....
It's a synergized working environment to achieve advanced cyber results while optimizing office space to achieve maximum just-in-time productivity curves and dynamic staff allocation that adjusts to holistically fit customer-adaptable technology with cutting edge business needs. The future is in human clouds and your staff can be cloud-ready today!
Table-ized A.I.
We are working on AI translators that convert back and forth between English and MBA.
Example:
MBA: "Our organization has adamantly decided not to tolerate any memos, emails, or documents which reduce our reputation among potential clients."
English: "Bash us and you're fired!"
Table-ized A.I.
Wow. You filled every square in my Buzzword Bingo sheet, except the center one ("AI").
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain