The general public's impression of WeWork isn't really relevant here, though. It's mainly the opinion of institutional investors that matters. And if they've had the wool pulled over their eyes and believe We to be a tech company, then... well, I'm even more worried than I thought for our financial system.

Actually, my feeling here is that institutional investors have realized that We isn't a tech company. That's why the IPO would probably only have fetched them at most a $20B valuation, rather than the higher valuation they've been awarded from the private markets as a supposed tech company.

So this may not be an indictment of "Silicon Valley IPOs" in particular, just investors saying "no" to a clearly overvalued non-tech company, and that company then deciding that it won't accept a likely more-reasonable valuation.

(Not saying there aren't plenty of overvalued tech companies! But this might not really have anything to do with that.)