Masayoshi Son's optimism — and lack of challengers — led SoftBank to overvalue WeWork, sources say
Arora and Sama did a lot of the early detective work around WeWork for SoftBank, advising Son that he should not invest in WeWork in 2016 at an $8 billion valuation, two of the people said.
But Fisher and Son liked Neumann's drive and saw potential in WeWork's expanding growth, believing the company would be a good fit as a Vision Fund investment — a potentially dominant company in an industry that needed substantial growth funding to expand globally. WeWork cited China 173 times in its IPO prospectus, most of which related to its ChinaCo joint venture. While most U.S.
Misra eventually came to agree with Fisher and Son, saying in 2018 that the company will "be a $100 billion company in the next few years,"And growth did seem to be there. WeWork's revenue more than quadrupled to $1.82 billion from 2016 to 2018, according to its S-1 filing. In just the first half of 2019, sales were $1.53 billion. But losses also deepened, to about $690 million over the same six-month time period in 2019.
Others around Son began to push back on his excitement with WeWork, including Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which was about committing so much of the Vision Fund's proceeds to one company. That led Son to pull back on a proposed $16 billion infusion of capital of 2019 and make a much smaller $2 billion investment.
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