Oil is going up again, and that hits way more than gas. It drives up the cost of literally everything tied to construction. Steel, concrete, transportation, labor, all of it gets more expensive fast. It’s not crazy to see 25-50% increases when energy spikes.
And we’re in the middle of committing billions at peak pricing to a new HQ… right as commercial real estate is weakening and companies everywhere are cutting office space.
That’s the part that’s hard to ignore. This isn’t just a bad look, it’s bad timing. You’re locking into a massive, fixed-cost project while the market is moving the other way and the cost to build it is actively rising. (Again)
We could easily be talking about hundreds of millions more than originally expected just because of where energy and inflation are heading.
We’ve seen this pattern before. Big bets. Late timing. Expensive outcomes. Yet another blunder… It’s beyond being bad luck. This is an ongoing pattern of failure.