Say you're a pretty large company and suddenly decide you want to open a dozen 'offices' in a dozen different countries. You just have to deal with one provider, one set of infrastructure etc. Plus if you decide you then want to consolidate to half-a dozen offices, it's easier to scale some up and some down.
However companies like Regus have existed for ages - so not quite sure what WeWork brings, aside from being able spaff away profits to get you in the door.
Weird hypothesis, but is what WeWork brings to the table that Regus doesn't is Silicon Valley brand recognition? Not that I'm in the market for office space, but I haven't heard about Regus until this comment.
AIUI, Regus won't talk to you if you're not willing to commit to a 12 or 24 month lease. If I had a stock position, it would be very short WeWork, but assuming you can make the month-to-month economics work, that's a pretty big benefit regardless of customer size.
I can assure you my regional office manager doesn't give a toss about "silicon valley brand recognition".
I think it's down to the customer. There's a post below about somebody being reassured "it's a We Work" office they'll be in.
When I've looked for a job, it's never entered by head to ask who manages the office (my assumption is that it's my employer and if I'm not happy, I'll take it up with my employer).
I can see if you've often worked in offices not run by your employer, you might have learnt to ask - but would think that's a small pool of people working frequently in shared spaces, having worked their frequently enough to have a preference.
Back to the OP - it's not a "hypothesis", this stuff's been going on for decades.
e.g. ~2000 I was working in Paris and visited our local guy in his local office on the prestigious "Champs Elysee" no less.
I went down the "Champs Elysee", then through a small door behind two shops, then walked back a couple of hundred meters, then through a warren of rooms, then in a room off a room, there was a desk... and that was our office. Hundreds of people all working at this prestigious address - we must have been silver-class as we had our own physical desk.
If you went right back to the entrance door, there was a receptionist you could specifically pay to 'represent you for the hour' and a set of very swish/generic meeting rooms you could pretend were yours to visitors.
Honestly as a programmer they have a name and reputation for providing nice offices that I can rely on. I recently agreed to take a job halfway around the world (interviewing via video chat), and when they asked if I had any questions about the office I was able to say "no, it's a WeWork and that's good enough for me". Surely that's got to be valuable to that tenant company.
Say you're a pretty large company and suddenly decide you want to open a dozen 'offices' in a dozen different countries. You just have to deal with one provider, one set of infrastructure etc. Plus if you decide you then want to consolidate to half-a dozen offices, it's easier to scale some up and some down.
However companies like Regus have existed for ages - so not quite sure what WeWork brings, aside from being able spaff away profits to get you in the door.