41–50 of 78 posts
It's interesting they are offering employees the option to cash out. I wonder if that's usual?
It's so their founders can keep their wealth in the family. They grew up from upper middle class families, so they have a duty to themselves and the world to pass down large amounts of wealth. They also would want higher net worth so they can get tax benefits from donating to charity and in return it makes them look like they are so generous when in reality they couldn't care less about anyone else but themselves. Th…
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12560765 and marked it off-topic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Did you ever get your money back?
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 v…
I receive stock in compensation. I have elected to auto-sell it - this works even during trade window freezes.
Alternatively, they may end up getting 120 cents on the dollar, compared to other stock holders, if the stock rose in price between the time that other insiders could sell, and the time that employees could sell. If the company's on an upwards trajectory, this is quite likely.
> 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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Unfortunately my cs degree was from a state school and I've only worked enterprisey jobs with the current misfortune of an architect title. I still have other paths to financial success like consulting or management (hell no).
Why airbnb needs so much cash? They are not exactly subsidizing either side of the market?
Self driving RVs. It's the future of the hospitality industry.
Think about it: You could literally wake up, do your morning routine, and then step out of the RV and into your workplace. You come back that night... and the next morning you step out into Yosemite Valley for some hiking. You just rent RV berths -- everything from campgrounds (Yosemite) to high-rises (in major cities).
Anybody know its previous valuation before the $555M?
Why airbnb needs so much cash? They are not exactly subsidizing either side of the market?