Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by actaeon169 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #320

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…

Sounds amazing, I wish someone would lay me off like that, damn. Four months PTO with healthcare?!

As I recall, COBRA is pretty expensive.

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

#342

Post by conanbatt » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #338

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…

As a European, that isn't great. (options excepted). Usually I thought you get 14 weeks plus a month for every year of service, not a week.

And typically much higher unemployment numbers

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

#343

Post by xenospn » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

niij wrote: post #337

xenospn wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really strange to me that companies in the US can just determine how much severance they're "willing" to pay. Why is it even up to them?

Because it's coming out of their pockets.

Same in Israel, but it's mandatory to pay a months' wages for every year you worked at the company. The employer has to pay into a fund that the employee can cash out when they're let go.

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

#344

Post by user5994461 » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

ThisIsTheWay wrote: post #286

user5994461 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked there a few years ago. Should be double now since they've extended to and filled a new building. The whole group with Expedia was something around 15k if I recall well. It includes more than a hundred independent brands and products, plus a few massive white labels, covering an order of magnitude more languages and currencies than AirBnb. So better not compare the whole conglomerate to AirBnb (except as an evi…

Wikipedia lists ~12K employees at AirBnB, so I agree that some additional clarity would be needed to understand the discrepancy. If you compare the ratios of operating income vs headcount between the two, the companies are nearly identical based on the metrics available in Wikipedia today.

I don't see how you could do a comparison since neither of the company publish any metrics? They're not public and not required to publish any financial or operational information. Turns out it's not even possible to figure out how many employees they currently have. ^^

Just one tip. Don't do the mistake of taking Expedia in place of hotels.com. Expedia is a large conglomerate of many companies that is not representative of just that one. It's like confusing the mobile related business of Samsung versus Samsung as a whole.

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

#345

Post by talideon » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

vzidex wrote: post #253

dorchadas wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, hopefully, just hopefully, governments will actually step in and stop the supply from going back to AirBnB, helping alleviate some of the housing crisis in their country (I know AirBnB is a huge issue in Ireland, and several of my Irish friends are praying it fails to force all those apartments and houses back on the market; I am myself, as I'm possibly moving there this fall for a masters.)

The funniest case will be if governments don't even have to step in - I've read cases of AirBNB hosts being extremely overleveraged in their "investment" properties. With some luck, they'll be forced to sell or convert to long-term rentals (which are _very_ strongly protected where I live) to avoid defaulting on the cheap debt they gorged on.

There is, unfortunately, the risk of others doing the exactly the same thing subsequently, because they'll see this as a black swan event that will clear out the market of smaller overleveraged AirBnB "hosts", leaving them to purchase the properties in question. There are some big players, such as "The Key Collection", who are heavy users of AirBnB, with a large number of properties, as well as more legitimate properties like hotels, guesthouses, &c.

There are a few important things to keep in mind.

The Irish government has not been very good at enforcing the law around this kind of thing, and I see no reason why that should change, especially as the biggest party on the government side of the Dáil was the main party in the last government, and their records on housing (they're basically Tories) is notoriously bad. The other party in the proposed government is an ideologically similar party, and the one the caused our economy to implode due to property speculation in the 2000s.

The outlook is not positive.

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

#346

Post by filoleg » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

ashconnor wrote: post #321

filoleg wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good for you. For us, it was announced as an optional WFH, entirely at the employee discretion (unless they are in a role that has hard requirements of being in the office, like hardware engineering), until October.

To me, that sounds like a perfect opportunity to work remote on a nice beach during the day, and enjoy my time during the evening in a new place, without having to take days off for that. I get concerns of some people like you, and I am not trying to diminish your choice to stay at home. But your take on this is not representative of what everyone else will be doing (and neither is mine, hence why I expect AirBnB to still have that 50% revenue drop), so I wouldn't discount my original point based on that.

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

#347

Post by notjustanymike » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

supernova87a wrote: post #249

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…

Take any sane model of the virus and you'll see that we're headed for a rebound due to early re-opening of states. I'm starting to bet against this entire year at this point.

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

#348

Post by icelancer » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

justaguyhere wrote: post #197

pedrosorio wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting salaries in half guarantees they lose all the top performers, and probably more than half, instead of the 5 they pick. I don't believe that is the goal.

Yes, during normal times. But these are not normal times - like, who is hiring now? If I were a top performer, I'd take a salary cut if it means saving my colleague's job. I get what you are saying though. They are a business and I guess they're doing what is best for their business. The severance package is generous (relatively speaking), so there's at least that. Edit : I guess I didn't word this properly. I was sa…

>> Yes, during normal times. But these are not normal times - like, who is hiring now?

Lots of companies with cash reserves, picking up good talent on the market.

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

#349

Post by talideon » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

dorchadas wrote: post #215

Apocryphon wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb hosts converting properties into 6-month or longer term rentals --> decreased supply for Airbnb

And, hopefully, just hopefully, governments will actually step in and stop the supply from going back to AirBnB, helping alleviate some of the housing crisis in their country (I know AirBnB is a huge issue in Ireland, and several of my Irish friends are praying it fails to force all those apartments and houses back on the market; I am myself, as I'm possibly moving there this fall for a masters.)

One hilarious part of all this is that I'm not strongly contemplating getting a mortgage and buying a place _purely_ on the basis that between taxes and repayments, it would cost me 2/3 the amount I currently pay in rent.

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

#350

Post by r00fus » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #326

ferzul wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've seen both and as an employee the semi-monthly is the best - it's about biweekly but you don't have to wonder why some months you only see 2 paycheck vs. 3. Predictable is really good.

From a company standpoint, not having to accrue the liability on the ledger simplifies the accounting auditability & ability to close your books monthly.