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Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

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Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#71

Post by supernovae »

MichaelGG wrote: post #29
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless, they fix this and get more people to review honestly. I think they're going to run into a lot of problems. I don't airBnB, but a friend who does was recently berated by a host after leaving a 4-star review; that host claimed (don't know how true this is) that many hosts will refuse to rent to you again if you leave anything but a 5-star review. That and other things I've seen and heard about airBnB reviews…

Isn't that why AirBnB is pushing the Instant Reservation system really hard?

Nah, that's mostly to reduce the long tail of rentals.. in some cases it takes months to turn a person into a customer and book now/instant reservation helps shorten this cycle and reduce off platform fishers/scammers.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#72

Post by puranjay »

kilroy123 wrote: post #15

I'm not surprised to see Airbnb became profitable. They've expanded everywhere. I nomad around and always use Airbnb, I've booked places on several continents. However, I'm definitely feeling the effects of their growing pains. For example, many people have bought places to only rent on Airbnb full-time. Most of these people suck at being an hotelier. It's clear people get lazy and are just trying to make money. Thin…

When they started out here in India, they had professional photos for all properties.

I think they don't have that requirement anymore because most properties I see locally have smartphone camera quality pictures with improper lighting.

I get that it's cheaper, but after a certain age, I just want to be comfortable on a vacation, not have to think "will it be terrible?"

The only exception is if the property offers something hotels don't (like a lodge in the forest or a rooftop apartment overlooking the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem)

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#73

Post by [deleted] »

kilroy123 wrote: post #15

I'm not surprised to see Airbnb became profitable. They've expanded everywhere. I nomad around and always use Airbnb, I've booked places on several continents. However, I'm definitely feeling the effects of their growing pains. For example, many people have bought places to only rent on Airbnb full-time. Most of these people suck at being an hotelier. It's clear people get lazy and are just trying to make money. Thin…

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#74

Post by csturtevant »

zenlikethat wrote: post #66
bfwi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a profitable private company, aren't you legit?

In some sense, yes, but check out Sarbanes-Oxley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act . Public companies are under much more scrutiny in terms of compliance, and they have a certain type of pressure to post good quarterly results that private companies don't.

What is the incentive to go public in today's environment other than an initial fundraising, and an unpredictable monetary bonus for employees?

Edit: Appended another question.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#75

Post by nradov »

alehul wrote: post #16
maxxxxx wrote: post #12

They should stop calling companies like Airbnb "startups". They are big companies now and should be treated as such.

Working for a company like Google, FB or even Airbnb or a questionable 'startup' is still much different than working for any other type of company. It's even markedly different than working for tech companies that would never be referred to as startups, such as Samsung, AMD or even HP. These large companies (FB, Google, etc) may no longer be bootstrapped and employees may no longer have versatile roles, but they sti…

Many large companies — including some that you wouldn't think of as "tech companies" — have changed or are in the process of changing their corporate cultures to be more "startup" like. So I don't think culture is a useful discriminator any more.

It might be more useful to differentiate based on target or expected future growth. Real startups are intended to be scalable. A company can only reasonably be described as a startup if it expects to grow >10× in revenue or employee count over the next few years.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#76

Post by dragonwriter »

antisthenes wrote: post #57
Tloewald wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole system of review curation that infests online markets is a problem waiting to be solved. Right now we basically have to parse reviews on the 4.4-5.0 scale because anything outside that is meaningless. It's amazing to go read a novel rated 3 stars (because it operates outside this loop) and find it transcendently good.

Reviews are a problem, but not for novels. Perception of books and concepts covered within are entirely subjective. However, when it comes to service or product quality, you can be almost entirely objective in its value judgment.

> However, when it comes to service or product quality, you can be almost entirely objective in its value judgment.

No, all assessments of value are subjective (and for most services involve subjective weighting of multiple different subjective quality factors.) And the mapping from an internal value judgement to a star rating is something which is a separate subjective evaluation, and one on which research has shown substantial cultural variation along ethnic and other lines.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#77

Post by harryh »

csturtevant wrote: post #74
zenlikethat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some sense, yes, but check out Sarbanes-Oxley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act . Public companies are under much more scrutiny in terms of compliance, and they have a certain type of pressure to post good quarterly results that private companies don't.

What is the incentive to go public in today's environment other than an initial fundraising, and an unpredictable monetary bonus for employees? Edit: Appended another question.

That is how most investors cash out and turn a theoretical return into an actual one.

It also makes the value of your corporate equity much clearer which can enable acquisitions.

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#78

Post by ghaff »

antisthenes wrote: post #57
Tloewald wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole system of review curation that infests online markets is a problem waiting to be solved. Right now we basically have to parse reviews on the 4.4-5.0 scale because anything outside that is meaningless. It's amazing to go read a novel rated 3 stars (because it operates outside this loop) and find it transcendently good.

Reviews are a problem, but not for novels. Perception of books and concepts covered within are entirely subjective. However, when it comes to service or product quality, you can be almost entirely objective in its value judgment.

>Reviews are a problem, but not for novels.

Hmm. I'm willing to accept that the average reader is a more sophisticated and thoughtful consumer than for some other product categories. And there may be less overt tribalism and fanboyism in book reviews.

But, in my experience, there's still a lot of people who will almost unthinkingly give 5 stars to a favorite author or genre. (And I know some of those people who are pretty uncritical about SF books or whatever.)

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#79

Post by baus »

kilroy123 wrote: post #15

I'm not surprised to see Airbnb became profitable. They've expanded everywhere. I nomad around and always use Airbnb, I've booked places on several continents. However, I'm definitely feeling the effects of their growing pains. For example, many people have bought places to only rent on Airbnb full-time. Most of these people suck at being an hotelier. It's clear people get lazy and are just trying to make money. Thin…

It goes both ways. I'm an Airbnb host and renter(1). Mostly I have had good experiences, but I have had more problems on the hosting side lately. I take pride in my property and lived there myself for years.

But I've gotten guests who nit pick everything and then ask for a refund. I had one guest ask for a refund because there was snow in Tahoe, and they stayed for the full time anyway. Another guest wanted a refund because my shower curtains were expanding tension rods and not permanently mounted.

Generally it still makes sense for me, but running an Airbnb well takes a lot of effort. I have a great support team, and I still struggle at times.

(1) https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/12247150

Re: Airbnb raises $1B at $31B valuation, became profitable in 2016

#80

Post by conanbatt »

maineldc wrote: post #27
jlgosse wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying this is the case with this round in particular, but it's not unheard of for early employees to take money off the table in a round like this

There was a very "insider baseball" moment in 2011 with regards to AirBNB and a well known investor "discussing" taking money off the table. Note, the investor was basically saying that if the founders get some liquidity, you should offer the same to employees. I will never forget how much that raise my esteem him. [0] So yes, if they were willing to do it in 2011, I am sure that they are doing it in this round too.…

To me it sounds like an argument the investor would make to leverage founders not getting equity.

Investors get paid before employees. What if airbnb had answered to him "we will do that, but also, you cannot make any money at all until employees get it, otherwise this shady way of things will harm you long term".

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