Why did Masayoshi Son, who successfully invested in Alibaba, fail to invest in WeWork?Nikkei Chinese website

Text | FT Chinese website columnist Zheng Zhigang

On November 7, WeWork officially filed for bankruptcy protection in New Jersey, USA. This “unicorn” of the sharing economy, which was valued at US$47 billion at its peak in 2019, collapsed. Founded in 2010, WeWork started as a shared office space in New York. It leased and renovated the house for a long time, then divided it into different office spaces, and then subleased it to other companies on a short-term basis.

Among the VCs who invested in WeWork, the one that suffered the most was SoftBank, which had successfully invested in Alibaba. Since 2017, SoftBank has invested more than 10 billion US dollars in WeWork. Masayoshi Son once regarded WeWork as the next “Alibaba”, but now all this has come to nothing.

Our question is: Why did Masayoshi Son, who successfully invested in Alibaba, fail to invest in WeWork? For an increasing number of new economy companies that choose to seize the track and create demand through the “burning money” model where “current earnings cannot cover costs”, what benefits does Son Masayoshi’s failure to invest in WeWork bring to the design of corporate governance systems for new economy companies? What about inspiration?

First, any flaws in the design of the governance system will become the fuse for future governance failures of new economic enterprises.

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