Toby Howell

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What is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger.

It's the motto of the ironborn in Game of Thrones and also co-working spaces, which are having a surprise comeback.

A rags to riches tale I want to talk about on today's edition of Toby's Trends.

A lot of you likely remember peak coworking.

It was 2018.

WeWork was the largest occupier of office space in Manhattan, commanded a valuation of just under $50 billion, and CEO Adam Neumann's mission was to elevate the world's consciousness.

Yeah, that didn't work.

The pandemic soon upended office demand.

Coworking bore the brunt even more so than traditional offices.

And in 2023, WeWork filed for bankruptcy.

However, coworking has since flickered back to life.

Hybrid work has become the new normal for most employees, meaning companies are on the hunt for short-term office commitments with the option to scale space up or down quickly.

Industrious, a WeWork competitor, has quietly been on a heat or two, expanding to 50 new locations last year to bring their total footprint to over 250 spaces.

Even WeWork is making a comeback post-bankruptcy, renting smaller spaces, sharing some risk with landlords, and staying away from deals that rely on instant full occupancy.

Neil, feels like co-working was always a good idea, just maybe not on the massive scale that WeWork tried.

One thing that I think WeWork did get right is the fact that they made their spaces very nice to be in.

I mean, Morning Brew started in a WeWork.

You had the coffee on tap.