What I don't understand is how do things get this far down the road before a good old fashioned sanity check happens? I have got to think that Soft Bank knew/knows the valuation was off. The fact that they pushed on means they either intended to try and get away with it/take the money and run as I cant believe incompetence is the reason here. How did this get so far along???
As for Adam N, I have to think some part of him knew that it was a bullshit valuation and all the hand-wavy "we are a tech company that also happens to do real estate" doesn't pass the smell test to me. He has personally enriched himself quite a bit so even if the whole thing falls apart he will be ok. I don't know if there is a bubble in SV or not, but it seems that the last couple of really huge unicorn companies have all been based on BS(We Work), Fraud(Theranos), and untenable business models (Uber). I'm far removed from that whole scene so maybe I'm showing my ignorance by stating this. I am, however, very curious to hear about any startup unicorns that are profitable or at least have a clear roadmap to profitability and not based on a business model that will be outlawed in a few years.
As for Adam N, I have to think some part of him knew that it was a bullshit valuation and all the hand-wavy "we are a tech company that also happens to do real estate" doesn't pass the smell test to me. He has personally enriched himself quite a bit so even if the whole thing falls apart he will be ok. I don't know if there is a bubble in SV or not, but it seems that the last couple of really huge unicorn companies have all been based on BS(We Work), Fraud(Theranos), and untenable business models (Uber). I'm far removed from that whole scene so maybe I'm showing my ignorance by stating this. I am, however, very curious to hear about any startup unicorns that are profitable or at least have a clear roadmap to profitability and not based on a business model that will be outlawed in a few years.