Live data from Hacker News

Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce

techcrunch.com

431–440 of 936 posts

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

#431
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

I agree that there is a general backlash against AirBnb in certain locales but this was a risk before COVID too. I don't see how COVID would compel cities to move FASTER to ban short-term rentals. During a time like this, aggressively cutting down a good business (for property owners) seems like a bad move in general.

The conversion of short-term -> long-term is a side effect of reduce demand. Once demand picks back up, supply will return.

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

#432

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…

That also means they have no expectation for the market to come back for at least 2 years.

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

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The pandemic doesn't end simply because quarantine is lifted. People will seriously question flying or passing through airports, especially as case counts are getting worse while the restrictions are being lifted.

But the pandemic ends eventually, one way or another. The question is what happens at that point: bacchanal or hermitage.

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

#434
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not these days. Europe is doing much better than the US in terms of unemployment - wonder why?

As a European I wouldn't be too fast to gloat - the EU is trying to keep jobs on hold but it's not clear to me what will come out of this - it seems like the restrictions are going to be here for a long time and keeping businesses afloat artificially could end up blocking restructuring. My biggest concern right now is that migration restrictions are going to kill seasonal manual labor migration and government unemplo…

Where is that? Many countries are already taking seasonal workers with 14 day quarantine.

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

#435

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?

In the US every company pays unemployment insurance. When employees are laid off, they receive unemployment benefits from this fund until they find a new job (for up to 39 months). Severance is the company "willing" to paying the laid-off employee more money than unemployment insurance.

> for up to 39 months

You spelled weeks wrong.

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

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're going to poach a ton of business away from hotels once things start opening back up. It's way easier to maintain social distance in an AirBnb (hotels have check-in processes, hallways where you have to pass other guests, etc), and I think more people will be travelling to rural areas where Airbnbs have an advantage.

Yeah but do you trust someone to sanitize their home properly after the previous guest or would you trust a hotel to do that correctly? Thats the question my friend circle has been thinking about...

They're probably about the same in my mind, but I have nothing other than my gut instinct to back this up.

Family-owned restaurants can be clean or dirty, and a corporate chain can be clean or dirty too.

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

#437
post #338

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.

But your pay would be $50k p.a. rather than $175k

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

#438

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?!

Do you realise you have to find a new job within those four months?! It's not 'time off', it's time desperately searching for a new job until you start eating into your savings and your children end up starving.

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

#439
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same with AirBnB. I’ve never contacted AirBnB support, but typically have 2-3 interactions with the host every time I stay at an AirBnB property. AirBnB are just a middleman.

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

#440
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get the idea that those are free lunches. They are factored as an expected value in your total compensation for sure. It's part of the reason that median incomes in the US are much higher than Europe and everywhere else: less benefits requires higher cash compensation for the same marginal product.

To put some numbers on that, AirBNB compensation is no joke. They're paying senior engineers 200k+ base and nearly 200k stock. https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb I have (regrettably) not found many companies in other countries which pay that well, except maybe Google Zurich, which is hard to get in I hear.

Link 404s for me. Do you know how many of their employees are in that range? And especially how many of those being let go are in that range?
Post reply on HN