Venture capitalists are driven by emotion. They swing between Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and what I called Fear of Losing Everything (FOLE). I think the FOMO peaked out in August when WeWork was thinking it would be able to go public at a valuation well above its January 2019 valuation of $47 billion.
But WeWork pulled its IPO and a big investor, SoftBank, decided to pour billions more into the company at a $7.5 billion valuation — 84 percent below where it invested at the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, ride sharing giants Uber and Lyft are trading well below their IPO prices.
