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Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

bloomberg.com

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Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#21

Post by eric_h »

buckbova wrote: post #7
_RPM wrote: post #3

Hey Airbnb founders/employees. Fuck you. Working for you isn't rocket science, so fuck you and all your elitist attitudes not even considering me for employment because I didn't go to Harvard|Stanford|Insert Top 10 school here.

I been there, getting rejected for what amounts to a CRUD job because I didn't have the right pedigree. Shake it off and move on.

From what I can tell from comment history, the GP is quite young and still in school.

While I learned a long time ago that a degree (and even a master's degree, can't speak to fresh PhDs as I've not had the opportunity to work with any) from a prestigious university is not worth the paper it's printed on as far as judging someone's ability to actually ship good code, it seems that lots of SV firms hiring people right out of college think it is.

It's foolish on the part of said firms, but the answer is to take a job at a company that's not a "unicorn" and build up experience (and proof of experience, e.g. shipped products) such that one's "pedigree" is fucking irrelevant.

Honestly, if the job was just a CRUD job, and you're fresh out of college, you don't fucking want it. You need to get out of your comfort zone if you want good experience.

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#22

Post by holman »

pritianka wrote: post #4

It's interesting they are offering employees the option to cash out. I wonder if that's usual?

It's becoming fairly normal at this point for more mature private companies, from what I can tell. If you've been at a company for 4-7 years with no IPO in sight, it can make some sense for the company to do a buyback. I know Uber has a tenure-based buyback program, Palantir did at least one in the last year or so, etc.

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#23

Post by dominotw »

_RPM wrote: post #3

Hey Airbnb founders/employees. Fuck you. Working for you isn't rocket science, so fuck you and all your elitist attitudes not even considering me for employment because I didn't go to Harvard|Stanford|Insert Top 10 school here.

Oh man. I thought I was the only one, my first interaction with the interviewer was him bemoaning the fact that my degree was not from an IVY league university, right to my face.

I had the most humiliating experience of my life interviewing with AirBnb couple of years ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300104

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#24

Post by effinggames »

_RPM wrote: post #3

Hey Airbnb founders/employees. Fuck you. Working for you isn't rocket science, so fuck you and all your elitist attitudes not even considering me for employment because I didn't go to Harvard|Stanford|Insert Top 10 school here.

This guy got a job at AirBnB coming out of App Academy: http://haseebq.com/farewell-app-academy-hello-airbnb-part-ii...

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#25

Post by [deleted] »

_RPM wrote: post #3

Hey Airbnb founders/employees. Fuck you. Working for you isn't rocket science, so fuck you and all your elitist attitudes not even considering me for employment because I didn't go to Harvard|Stanford|Insert Top 10 school here.

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#26

Post by jdoliner »

palakchokshi wrote: post #2

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong in assuming this but it seems a company like AirBnb would only raise private capital instead of going IPO because it's financials suck. I mean if you were doing really well and had profits that you were pumping back into the company you would want to IPO to raise money for lower dilution right? A private round might cause much more dilution than an IPO. Maybe I'm missing somethi…

The standard operating practice for Silicon Valley startups now is to put of IPOing as long as possible. Facebook actually got several exceptions from the SEC so that they didn't have to go public. Going public entails a ton of hassle, for example if Airbnb went public and had one of their programmers accidentally introduced a bug that misreported the number of users they had they could be liable for fraud. There's very little benefit to going public except that it creates a market for the stock which gives employees liquidity. However public markets are actually pretty crappy for that too because in order to avoid insider trading employees are often confined to a narrow window of time when they can sell their stock. Because they are lots of employees who want to convert their stock into money to but things this window gets flooded with sellers and employees wind up getting 80 cents on the dollar compared to other stock holders.

So yeah, you are missing something. Public markets are basically strictly worse than private investors. Also it's not like there are a bunch of private investors waiting to write $555M checks to company's whose financials suck... how could that make any sense?

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#27

Post by dominotw »

1_listerine_pls wrote: post #5
_RPM wrote: post #3

Hey Airbnb founders/employees. Fuck you. Working for you isn't rocket science, so fuck you and all your elitist attitudes not even considering me for employment because I didn't go to Harvard|Stanford|Insert Top 10 school here.

How true is this?

Happened to me too. I thought it might have been an exception or some sort of a fuck up. They called me all the way to SFO to tell me that my degree is not from elite schools so I can go home. No not in some sort of an indirect way, like right to my face. The interviewer asked me where I went to school, made a face told me 'oh not from a top university?' .

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#28

Post by dominotw »

effinggames wrote: post #24
_RPM wrote: post #3

Hey Airbnb founders/employees. Fuck you. Working for you isn't rocket science, so fuck you and all your elitist attitudes not even considering me for employment because I didn't go to Harvard|Stanford|Insert Top 10 school here.

This guy got a job at AirBnB coming out of App Academy: http://haseebq.com/farewell-app-academy-hello-airbnb-part-ii...

250k for what amounts to basically a CRUD website.

Re: Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding

#30

Post by toomanybeersies »

hkmurakami wrote: post #17
ameyamk wrote: post #10

Why airbnb needs so much cash? They are not exactly subsidizing either side of the market?

Personnel costs and marketing costs as they expand to new markets. Further experimentation with vertical integration (Airbnb owning room servicing teams, or Airbnb owning actual apartments/hotels).

> Airbnb owning actual apartments/hotels

Wouldn't that just make them literally a hotel chain, with no disrupting difference to any any other? I'm fairly sure I can book a room online at the Hilton.

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