糖心视频

Morning Markets:听News that WeWork’s leading investor is ready to ditch its controversial CEO is notable. Most investors leave founders alone. But when another SoftBank Vision Fund bet looks sideways, drastic times call for unconventional methods.

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As (WeWork) stumbles towards an IPO at a price far under its final private valuation, its leading investor is considering working to remove its CEO. The possible reduction in the internal authority of , prior media darling and now international business pariah, is the biggest news of the weekend.

But there’s more going on at , a key WeWork backer, that I wanted to highlight. More precisely, it seems that the investment group has made some mispriced bets in recent years. Let’s talk valuations for a minute.

Down

The , observing that several SoftBank Vision Fund investments were either giving up gains or, in fact, losing money for their famous investor.

It appears that SoftBank CEO is underwater on his bet, and his various wagers into are losing altitude as well. The Journal goes on to note that the Vision Fund’s investment into has lost value as well, “potentially requiring [the deal] to be marked down.”

It’s not hard, therefore, to look at the most valuable Vision Fund deals and spy weakness. I want to extend the point today by reminding ourselves of a few other deals that the Vision Fund took part in that I reckon are also underwater.

To jog your memory, three Vision Fund deals quickly came to mind this morning when I tried to recall what felt like the group’s least conservative bets:

• $300 million from the Vision Fund. Wag provides pet walking services in urban environments.
• $375 million from the Vision Fund. Zume makes food on the go through robotic methods.
• $240 million led by the Vision Fund. Brandless offers low-cost goods at a flat price point through its own digital store.

Since then, , , and I never had much hope that was going to wind up being the near-term future.

Naturally, these are just a handful of deals from a huge investment bucket. There will be winners in the Vision Fund 1 — , , , perhaps — to offset other losses. But there are also some investments like WeWork and Zume that are more head-scratchers than wagers we understand.

What appears clear, however, is that a good chunk of the first Vision Fund’s deal makeup was either mispriced, fed too much capital, or both. That is not a recipe for success. But don’t trust your friendly local tech blogger. Listen to investor earlier this year:

I think the mentality of throwing money at companies and making them successful just doesn鈥檛 work. I鈥檝e never seen real examples of just, you take money and you crown a winner. That鈥檚 the philosophy, which I don鈥檛 believe that works. I think that鈥檚 the whole history of Silicon Valley, is that these upstarts with very limited resources and a bunch of misfits have rearranged every single industry, and they鈥檝e done it over and over again.

Capping it all off, the Vision Fund is a “Valuations Director.” 2019.

Illustration:听.