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Airbnb S-1

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Re: Airbnb S-1

#171

Post by wombatmobile »

I just started hosting with AirBNB and experienced a bug with the platform. It offered the wrong price ($100 instead of $278) and the guest accepted before I could intervene because the platform defaulted to AutoAccept.

When I reported the problem, the support rep claimed it happened that way because I had "Smart Pricing" on. It was set ON by default. But AirBNB's own documentation says the Custom Price I set for the dates in question (Xmas week) override all other pricing.

Even if "Smart Pricing" had applied, it shouldn't have offered the lowest price for the highest demand week of the year, because AirBNB's own calendar shows the demand peaking high for the week, not low.

Now I've been 3 days trying to get a response from tech support.

They deny responsibility, and promise to escalate it to a supervisor, then close the case without responding to my detailed evidence.

What can I do? Does anyone know how to escalate to an AirBNB IT person? I would have thought AirBNB would like to know its platform has a serious bug.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#172

Post by pathseeker »

newguy1234 wrote: post #139
kart23 wrote: post #104

I like airbnb. They need to get better at weeding out fake/scammy listings, that tend to plague many online marketplaces where things can be listed for free. Maybe some in-person verification system, or a fee that gets refunded if you have a certain number of guests. There are plenty of listings with huge/exclusive homes, yet no reviews and extremely cheap prices. I don't know what people get out of these listings, b…

Easiest solution is to force new hosts to provide a "surety bond" to basically be an honest host. Maybe make them pay 10-25k lump-sum in cash. After a certain amount of guests have visited the offering then the money can be returned. If the host is a scammer then the money can be used to reimburse the guests for their troubles. The risk vs rewards under this system would discourage bad hosts from joining the platform…

>Maybe make them pay 10-25k lump-sum in cash. After a certain amount of guests have visited the offering then the money can be returned.

This is so detached from reality. It would wipe out probably 99% of listings from people not doing it professionally.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#173

Post by kspacewalk2 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #165

In my view, AirBnb made the travel pie substantially larger. More people can afford to travel when rooms in far away places can be rented for small amounts. If the choice is not traveling at all vs. putting up with the friction of finding the property and getting the key, reviewing the house rules and then stripping the bed and taking out the trash before you check out, many people will choose the convenience hit and…

The other segment where Airbnb filled a huge market need is medium-to-large family travel. I went to Italy last year with 4 family members ranging in age from 3 to 70. Staying in hotels would have been prohibitively expensive and more cramped, so we probably would not have gone. They definitely made the pie larger in the category.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#174

Post by pathseeker »

beambot wrote: post #122
godelmachine wrote: post #72

>> the board of directors reduced Mr. Chesky’s base salary from $110,000 to $1, set his target bonus at $0, and granted him a long-term, multi-year equity award comprised of 12,000,000 RSUs (the “Multi-Year Award”). Its quite surprising that CEO of Airbnb should make just $110k/ annum in base salary before the company goes public. I would expect it to be around $500k.

It's much more tax efficient for Chesky to get loans against his equity in lieu of cash compensation -- especially if he believes that the equity will grow dramatically in value due to an IPO.

I've heard this before, but what advantage does the loan have? Doesn't the CEO still pay just as much tax when he/she sells the stock to pay down the loan? Is it just to allow the stock a chance to appreciate?

Re: Airbnb S-1

#175

Post by pathseeker »

nickjj wrote: post #166
TedShiller wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the items you mentioned cost much

> None of the items you mentioned cost much The average private driver salary's in NYC is about 60k a year according to Google btw[0]. The average yearly -household- income in the US is 68k. It's a massive luxury to be able to afford such a thing. [0]: https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-full-time-driver-cost-...

"or Ubers"

Re: Airbnb S-1

#176

Post by ToFundorNot »

yreg wrote: post #119
ToFundorNot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, half of those companies you've mentioned are in the top 50 spenders for marketing [1]. I'd hazard to say that they are all in the top 100 in global spend. [1] https://howmuch.net/articles/worlds-top-50-biggest-advertisi...

Considering their revenues they would be in top 100 ad spend even with conservative ad budgets. However, I think H8crila meant that they did not spend that much on advertisement around the time they ipoed.

I understood what was meant. Companies don't just start marketing once they have multi billion dollar profitability.

If you're consumer focused, you spend on marketing, if you're business focused, you spend on sales. There are few examples to the contrary (Google, Atlassia, for example).

AirBnB early on was sniping Craigslist vacation listings[1], and now they have the resources, and scale to market directly. If AirBnB isn't doing it right, what constitutes the 'right' time to spend on marketing?

I'm curious as to how some folks would respond to this, and why.

[1] https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/airbnb

Re: Airbnb S-1

#177

Post by whymauri »

grumple wrote: post #151
tyre wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what's up with 2019. Like 2020 is understandable for a hospitality during a pandemic, but why would 2019 be the same ?

Ramp up into the expected ipo. If not for COVID, 2020 would probably have looked great.

The Olympics were gonna be huge, a lot of momentum going into 2020.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#178

Post by benmller313 »

pathseeker wrote: post #174
beambot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much more tax efficient for Chesky to get loans against his equity in lieu of cash compensation -- especially if he believes that the equity will grow dramatically in value due to an IPO.

I've heard this before, but what advantage does the loan have? Doesn't the CEO still pay just as much tax when he/she sells the stock to pay down the loan? Is it just to allow the stock a chance to appreciate?

I'd guess just savings on paying capital gains tax vs income tax?

Re: Airbnb S-1

#179

Post by marcinzm »

pathseeker wrote: post #175
nickjj wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of the items you mentioned cost much The average private driver salary's in NYC is about 60k a year according to Google btw[0]. The average yearly -household- income in the US is 68k. It's a massive luxury to be able to afford such a thing. [0]: https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-full-time-driver-cost-...

"or Ubers"

Uber XL or black (need space and comfort to work efficiently) for 1 hour a day probably adds up to $200/day or around $50k/year. Which isn't cheap.

edit: That's a rough estimate and probably a low estimate. You'd be using Uber for commuting, going to work social events, driving kids on weekends, driving out of the city on vacation, etc.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#180

Post by nemothekid »

jbay808 wrote: post #156
mym1990 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb's main offering is its software and its ability to create a market between consumers and producers through that application. I imagine it is also a company that is heavily invested in its software engineering workforce and all the resources that support/flow from that. To note, it feels like 'tech company' is a bit ambiguous these days and doesn't necessarily have great clarity.

> Airbnb's main offering is its software and its ability to create a market between consumers and producers through that application. Is Expedia a tech company?

Expedia is literally a dotcom that was spun off from Microsoft.
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