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WeWork is now worth $5 billion.
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WeWork is a four-year-old company that rents office space to startups and entrepreneurs. Tenants (called members) get their own office, but share the rest of the area, like the bathroom and kitchen.
2015-01-11
It sounds like a simple idea, but WeWork — with 25 offices worldwide — is now one of the most valuable startups in the world: last month, it raised $355 million at a $5 billion valuation.
We visited its two office spaces in San Francisco this week, and were blown away by how nice they were.
WeWork's newest San Francisco office is at 25 Taylor Street. It's in the Mid-Market district of San Francisco, a downtown area that's getting gentrified.
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Zendesk's main office is right across the street. Twitter is a few blocks away.
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The reception area's pretty modest. You can get your packages checked in here.
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There's a pretty cool bench made of a Burton snowboard at the entrance.
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WeWork uses the whole building. We started from the 7th floor and were greeted by this huge open space.
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There's lots of free food. Everyone shares the kitchen area.
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It even has a wine cellar.
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A beer keg, too!
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This is the other part of the common area. Lots of big desks and open space.
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The common areas are really spacious. Each floor has different interior design and furniture.
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On one floor, there's a white ping pong table.
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Another has a shuffleboard table.
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There's golf putting mat in one hallway.
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And you can't call yourself a startup without a foosball table.
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The floor space is pretty straightforward. All the cubicles are leased out by different companies. The Golden Gate office has about 150 companies as members.
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Buzzfeed is one of the members here. Other big companies like Bloomberg, Getty Images, and Qualcomm Ventures have offices, too.
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This is what a standard room looks like. Since most members are startups, they rent out small spaces, like this two-desk cubicle.
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They have bigger rooms, too, like this four-desk office. All members sign monthly contracts. Each desk costs on average $400 to $600 a month.
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A lot of offices are occupied by one person, like this one. These are mostly law offices or accountants.
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There are also some really big offices with their own couch. The number of people in each office ranges from one to 20, WeWork says.
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It was hard to find any empty rooms. WeWork says there's a wait list of 300 people at the Golden Gate office, and they have to wait on average two to three months to get a spot.
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The walls are decorated with cool art pieces. There's definitely a hip vibe throughout the whole building.
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It's got a lot of private phone rooms, too. All utility costs are included in your monthly rent.
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Each floor has its own copy machine and office supplies.
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This was our favorite floor. The big couch and stairwell in the middle give off a relaxed yet professional feel to it.
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Some of the rooms have recording equipment.
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This is one of the small conference rooms. Every conference room is equipped with a big flat screen.
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Here's the other WeWork branch in San Francisco. This one is on 2nd street, in the SOMA area. Once upon a time, Business Insider had its west coast office here.
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The SOMA branch is a lot smaller than the Golden Gate office. This is the common area.
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The kitchen is a lot smaller, too. But it has everything you'd expect, like a microwave, coffee machine, and a fridge.
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Smaller conference rooms, too. There seem to be more single-person offices in the SOMA branch than in the Golden Gate office.
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The only big common area at the SOMA office is this one on the ground floor. There are also pool tables in the basement.
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The SOMA office also has a shower room. Not sure if anyone uses it.
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But at least there's a beer keg!
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Now that you've seen one of the hottest office spaces in San Francisco...
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Eugene is Business Insider’s Chief Tech Correspondent, where he leads coverage of Amazon. His reporting spans the company’s retail and logistics operations to AWS, Alexa, and its internal culture.Previously, he worked at CNBC, Fortune Magazine Korea, and Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun. He holds degrees from NYU and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.In 2022, Eugene reported on internal documents indicating that Amazon allegedly used deceptive tactics to enroll customers in Prime and made cancellation difficult. The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon the following year, citing his reporting. The case ended in a record $2.5 billion settlement in 2025.His work has received multiple honors, including the SF Press Club’s Bay Area Journalism Award and SPJ NorCal’s Excellence in Journalism Award.Eugene lives in the Bay Area. Contact him via email at ekim@jkmperu.com, or Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 650-942-3061. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.