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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

#321

>According to Chesky’s missive, Airbnb anticipates its 2020 revenue coming in under 50% of 2019’s total Very optimistic. They should be happy to get around 25% of 2019 totals.

Once places open up in a few months, I expect a massive short-term surge in demand for AirBnB lodging. I know for a fact that by the end of summer (assuming places open up like planned), I will start traveling again. And I will be doing no less traveling this year than I would any other year. Of course, that won't be the case for everyone, but keeping that in mind, the 50% revenue drop seems like a pretty reasonable…

Our CEO emailed today we are work from home until September. I'm told Amazon tech are work from home until October.

At this point I doubt I'll see my office in 2020. I definitely won't be travelling.

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

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first I misread this as 14 days and was wondering why everyone is calling this such a "lavish" severance. Now I get it.

I first misread it as "14 months" (as usually you count in months), but it was way out of bounds.

really? i've always counted weeks, since every week is the same lenght (and paid fortnights, since every fortnight has the same lenght). i get paid by the month now and it's super weird to me, as if i'm worth more in february than in march.

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

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow 14 weeks also seems less than 3 1/3 months, even though they’re the same.

And slight more that a quarter of a year seems more to me again...

But those all seem pale next to 98 days.

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

#324

Aw and you went to coding school to learn Ruby of Rails for the IPO and are now stuck with an irrelevant skillset. AirBnB is the only reason the bay area uses Ruby. All those startups stuck maintaining old code bases can only find talent because of attrition or rejects from AirBnB.

Stripe, Doordash, Gusto, Flexport, Shopify

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

#325

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…

Do employees have to waive filing unemployment to accept the severance package? In California those can last up to six months.

I don't think they're legally allowed to waive your unemployment insurance payout.

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

#326
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first misread it as "14 months" (as usually you count in months), but it was way out of bounds.

really? i've always counted weeks, since every week is the same lenght (and paid fortnights, since every fortnight has the same lenght). i get paid by the month now and it's super weird to me, as if i'm worth more in february than in march.

Larger companies tend to prefer weekly/biweekly as you don't get that month-length variance. On the other hand, many employees don't like it as much because their biggest bills tend to be paid monthly so they'd prefer their paychecks to be aligned.

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

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of tech companies have relied on BPO (business process outsourcing) like TaskUs for call center workers. They try to take on fresh college graduates as employees in the Philippines for about $400/salary + benefits and try to resell them to companies as outsourced talent for about $1800/month.

I know a few people who work over at airbnb, they are very generous with who they call an employee. Unless things have changed in the past year or so security guards and food staff(people who make meals onsite) are all full fledged employees who I assume get stock, I think this is awesome as a lot of these folks come from low income backgrounds and having full insurance and a extra bit of cash via salary and stock op…

Things have changed (unless they changed back). Food hasn’t been in house for nearly two years. Only a small portion of customer support are direct employees. Most physical security was outsourced too.

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

#328

If Airbnb is willing to pay 14 weeks (3.25 months) of severance, they must believe this is going to go on significantly longer than that. Or they're using this as an opportunity to cut underperformers at the same time. Because if they believed things would start to recover by fall, wouldn't you just pay the people as normal and make a judgement call around then? You're spending the payroll money either way -- 14 week…

I think it's quite obvious that tourism isn't going to recover back to 100% where they were in 3 months, no...

Note that '100%' includes the growth prospects that Airbnb still had in January 2020. 'startups' like airbnb hire for growth. 25% workforce cut is roughly the growth prospects (20-30% per year) that airbnb had last year.

So no, that recovery won't come in just a few short months. For one because there's still a global pandemic related global lockdown. Second, because an effectively rolled-out vaccine is not expected until at least next year. Third because tourism is hardest hit in a normal economic crisis, in a recession and 20% unemployment figures like now, the first thing you stop doing is taking international trips for fun. Fourth because in a virus pandemic, tourism (concentrated populations gathering in hotspots like a museum, bus, airplane etc, and transporting the virus across borders) is a high-risk activity that gets restricted way more than other economic sectors like farming, manufacturing, or work from home office jobs. Fifth because most of airbnb's stock is caught up in one of two categories: people renting out their home when they're away on vacation, these people are staying home and aren't making their real estate available. Or professional airbnb companies which purchased real estate that's only economic with large revenues, financed with leveraged mortgages, many of these companies are set to collapse in a 3-month shutdown, let alone a 6-month low-activity industry. A lot of these will be folding and selling their properties. Both the demand side and supply side is going to take a hit, airbnb will run much less business for the next year at least and will need to bounce back. It won't be easy. Especially in an industry where you'll see dirt-cheap hotel prices competing for a few years.

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

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally suspect that travel related industries will be one of the last to recover, both due to consumer reticence and due to lower levels of disposable income during the recovery.

> lower levels of disposable income during the recovery. There's also going to be a lot of pent-up demand from people who didn't lose jobs and had no outlet for leisure spending during the quarantine. I'm not sure which will win out.

But most people are capped to how much they'll spend on leisure by their vacation time. So there probably isn't much headroom to be gained for people who are regular travellers post this pandemic.

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

#330
post #68

I'm shocked that 2020 revenues will come in only 50% below 2019. I don't think anyone will be travelling for the bulk of this year, especially with the looming threat of potentially getting sick in a foreign country or away from your home. It will take 5+ years for them to get back the same level of inventory/hosts/customers as they had in 2019. Many hosts will foreclose on their rented properties during 2020 or conv…

> 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 wouldn't mind considering going somewhere else for a few months now that I can work remotely for a while.

So... you want to take a holiday during a global pandemic?

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