I think its a clear conflict and shareholders should protest, but this happens at every level of the economy. I used to work buying small businesses. Its common for business owners to also own the building in a separate LLC. And its great to hear them complain about how they always get paid last, when they have been paid every month through rent.
St. Louis, Missouri. You have a two top schools, WashU and SLU, along with several other strong colleges. The city has become the Chess capital of the US. And you can buy a house for $450K in a walkable neighborhood that would cost well over $1M anywhere else in the US. A very underrated city.
I am looking for office space right now, and I left the local WeWork office 30 minutes ago. Its very simple, they do things a lot better. That is the space I want to rent. When I talk to cheaper office's they feel cheaper. Also their contracts are simple. I want to think about my business, not building out an office space. Finally, the fact that I now have a meeting room I can reserve in multiple cities across the globe makes it almost a no brainier.
The drawback? They really know how to jam a lot of people into a very small space, which might be why their valuation is so high.