WeWork is deluded about its own business prospects and may only be worth half its $47bn (£39bn) private valuation, the head of a rival office rental start-up has claimed. Amol Sarva, chief executive of the flexible office provider Knotel, said his larger competitor was pursuing the wrong strategy by ploughing an "ungodly" sum of investors' money into desks for freelancers and small firms rather than bigger offices for large businesses. He questioned the value of the office space giant, which has lost more than $900bn this year alone, saying it could go public at "easily half that" and that its financial pitch was "not rational". Mr Sarva compared the company to eBay and Myspace, saying that despite being early to the co-working trend, it would fail to capitalise on it. It comes as WeWork prepares to make its stock market debut on the back of an investment prospectus which promised to "elevate the world's consciousness", but which many critics have said showed the company is overvalued. "There was a time – not that long ago, 2005 – when eBay was worth twice as much as Amazon," said Mr Sarva. "That has reversed entirely. Amazon's worth fifty times fifty times more, because Amazon's insight was that it's not about the wacky things, it's about every thing.
Hot on the heels of a $400m funding round, Amol Sarva, CEO of flexible office provider Knotel, said WeWork was pursuing the wrong strategy. Sarva compared the co-workspace provider to eBay and Myspace, saying that despite being early to the trend, WeWork would fail to capitalise on it, highlighting that eBay was worth twice as much as Amazon in 2005 but lost ground fast by focusing on wackier things. “They’ve got an awful lot of money invested into this thing – it’s not going to be able to grow at all if they don’t get their act together,” he said. ’s members are enterprise clients, despite 90% of the office market being enterprise he said.