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Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

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Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#221

Post by notJim »

dominotw wrote: post #50
keiferski wrote: post #10

Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the res…

I found COBRA to be extremely expensive. I instead enrolled in obamacare via job loss exception.

When I left my last job, I "lived" in Arizona. There was only plan on the Obamacare exchange there, and it was the same price as my employer's plan with much shittier coverage.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#222

Post by ProAm »

random42 wrote: post #149
ProAm wrote: post #52

I called this 3 weeks [1] ago and no one believed me. Were are going to see A LOT of this the next 3-4 months as large companies experience bad quarters. These are the companies that were setup and run well (i.e. not day to day, burning stacks of money with no revenue). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22901720

Such an odd 'I told you so' comment in a thread about thousands losing their livelihood.

I guess I was bitter because of the argument I got when originally discussing it on HN. I do feel validated. It sucks for these employees but everyone working for a VC fueled startup lives in this same boat. They had to know at any moment they might get tossed overboard, they were going to have layoffs prior to IPO as is.

And AirBNB has caused plenty of strife in the communities they operate in over the years, impact is always relative to ones perspective.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#223

Post by 112012123 »

disiplus wrote: post #90
KoftaBob wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In many countries, the severance pay is a lump sum that increases with the employee’s tenure in the company and their wage level. In the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain, employees with service of up to one year are entitled to severance pay (in most cases one month’s pay), while in Luxembourg employees have to have a minimum of five years within the organisati…

yup, it's better then what you would get in most of the europe. does US have an unemployment plan. how long and how much do you get ?

Yes. It depends on your salary, but given the current covid crisis, most airbnb technical employees are eligible for around $4200 per month for 26 weeks.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#224

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

gaukes wrote: post #43
vkou wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but instead of buying several AirBnBs, they could instead buy dozens of smaller startups that are not operating in the hospitality industry - which is going to recover much slower than most forms of B2B or B2C.

Those industries would also be hurting less which means a smaller discount. Meanwhile, long-term prospects for AirBnb have not changed. Disease existed before COVID and will exist after COVID.

> Meanwhile, long-term prospects for AirBnb have not changed. Disease existed before COVID and will exist after COVID.

Not sure I 100% agree with this. AirBnB's bread-and-butter was urban rentals. Even before Covid, there was huge backlash against AirBnB in a lot of those locales. Now, especially after you saw huge numbers of AirBnB's convert to long term rentals (really laying bare the nonsense of the "AirBnB doesn't take from long term rental stock" argument), I think you'll see tons of cities accelerate their plans to ban lots of short-term rentals in their current form, and these cities and society at large will become a lot more hostile to AirBnBs in residential neighborhoods.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#225

Post by dangwu »

user5994461 wrote: post #207
dangwu wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us why you think 7,500 employees is too high, in order to implement, maintain, and grow an online lodging and experiences marketplace in 191 countries.

hotels.com managed just fine with only 500 employees in their headquarters.

Apples and oranges. Hotels.com is a middle-man. When you have a problem with your stay, you talk to the actual hotel, which has its own front desk, customer service, legal, engineering, business, marketing, blah blah blah, teams.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#226

Post by pb7 »

julesqs wrote: post #210
pb7 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't look like more to me. Roughly same salary duration (would bet a pretty penny that Kickstarter doesn't pay nearly as much as Airbnb to begin with), significantly less health insurance, nothing about equity. That's what a union came up with for such a microscopic layoff compared to Airbnb? Sounds like the free market is better off deciding these things.

oh I might be confused about the COBRA situation actually. I can't tell if Airbnb is actually paying for COBRA. aside from that, assuming that non-engineers get paid better at Airbnb than elsewhere is a big assumption.

Will agree on the point regarding non-engineers. I would bet all else being equal they do, but will not fight over it as it's just an educated guess.

With regards to COBRA, the premiums are certainly covered by AirBnb as COBRA is available to employees for 18 months by default and 36 months in California where AirBnb is headquartered.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#227

Post by Schweigi »

disiplus wrote: post #71
duxup wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the average for Europe?

afaik in some countries its not required (switzerland?) and in others it depends on the number of years the person worked in company. i think it depends on the country.

No severance pay required in Switzerland but there will be a mandatory one month to three months notice period. A company can decide to send their workers home earlier but they would still be required to pay salary for that period. Though when laying of 25% there will be some additional government requirements as it would be classified as a mass-layoff and will need a social plan.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#228

Post by vkou »

gaukes wrote: post #43
vkou wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but instead of buying several AirBnBs, they could instead buy dozens of smaller startups that are not operating in the hospitality industry - which is going to recover much slower than most forms of B2B or B2C.

Those industries would also be hurting less which means a smaller discount. Meanwhile, long-term prospects for AirBnb have not changed. Disease existed before COVID and will exist after COVID.

The industries may be hurting less, but they may be in need of funding, that has dried up, and is leaving otherwise reasonable businesses in a bind.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#229

Post by mgiampapa »

spacefearing wrote: post #176
keiferski wrote: post #10

Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and health care coverage through 2020 in the res…

I'm not a fan of Airbnb's business but this is highly commendable. The severance package is the core metric to judge a company that is doing layoffs. In this case, it sounds like Airbnb did the right thing. Airbnb fired people well in advance of when they were actually forced to. This enabled them to provide an ethical severance. Some companies wait until the last minute and then provide two weeks or similar. These c…

I wouldn't judge them too softly, they did after all promote having an internal services food team for years and virtue signaled all over the place that they wanted them to be team members and not contractors like every other tech company (they got stock, sick days, vacation, benefits etc), then fired them all over Christmas break one year and replaced them with contractors.

Re: Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

#230

Post by speby »

ping_pong wrote: post #110
eganist wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm shocked that 2020 revenues will come in only 50% below 2019 This is a fair point, but it also suggests strongly that a significant minority of their business is month to month rentals, possibly in place of leasing. And hey, being frank, I wouldn't mind considering going somewhere else for a few months now that I can work remotely for a while.

I would too, but the thing holding me back is if the shit hits the fan, and I need to do something like buy a freezer to store extra food, I can't conveniently do that in an Airbnb. And if I somehow get sick, I'm at the mercy of the doctors and hospitals in this foreign land. I'd rather be in my own home with the doctors and hospital system that I'm familiar with. I think more than 50% of people feel this way, which…

If shit hits the fan, there won't be freezers to be bought... they'll get panic purchased instantaneously and, if you did manage to find one for sale, expect it to cost multiple times what you otherwise might have paid.
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