Goldman valued WeWork at $60B, as part of their sales pitch to lead the IPO. The context makes all the difference since the point of that valuation was to aid a sales pitch, not be an accurate assessment.
This is incorrect. They pitched this at $60b but couldn't get a bookbuild at that price which never happens.
The key distinction with pitching to lead to the IPO is they sought to find investors (as opposed to wework management) at this price too, but not enough people bit to fill the raise.
Softbank and WeWork reminds me painfully of the episode of Entourage I watched last night, where the boys are pitching their as-yet unseen prestige film at Cannes. Hyped to the extreme, on the verge of pulling a deal to make a boatload of money, but on closer inspection it's a huge stinker that falls apart disastrously.
Matt Levine made the point that to get chosen as one of the IPO banks, you had to pitch to WeWork that you could get them a good-yet-plausible valuation. I.e., take what their last (private) valuation was, and bump it up by a decent amount. Once you're selected, of course, then reality can take over.
