Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airbnb S-1

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 471 posts

Re: Airbnb S-1

#191

Post by andy_ppp »

firekvz wrote: post #181

Airbnb was cool when it was a place to share with hosts and rent a bed and a breakfast during my trips, allowing me to save some money and meeting some cool people. now it’s just a boring business of terrible managed apartments with really bad amenities and problems that make you lose time and totally diverges you from the whole concept of hassle-free vacation/renting. My last 5 airbnbs were apartments fully setted u…

Yup, I’ve had mostly hosts who while making a packet really do not give a crap about service. I always thought AirBnB was a terrible idea - it’s good if there are ten of you sharing a haunted house - but seriously for a room all I want is a cast iron guarantee to be able to check in and get the key without any hassle. This almost never happens.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#192

Post by hnburnsy »

afterwalk wrote: post #133
smitty1110 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like $3 billion, there's a notice that the IRS is telling them they owe $1.3 billion in back taxes, plus interest and penalties.

How can an unprofitable companies rack up $1.3b in taxes?

From the S1...

'While we have not yet received a Revenue Agent’s Report generally issued at the conclusion of an IRS examination, in September 2020, we received a Draft Notice of Proposed Adjustment from the IRS for the 2013 tax year relating to the valuation of our international intellectual property which was sold to a subsidiary in 2013'

Re: Airbnb S-1

#193

Post by dragonwriter »

conroydave wrote: post #146
elpakal wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you think AB&B qualifies as a "tech" company

they dont own the assets, their product is their booking technology

> they dont own the assets, their product is their booking technology

No, their product is their booking service.

The technology is capital (means of production), not product.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#194

Post by treis »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #100
treis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that they both missed the real killer edge here. Fred said it was Etsy, Paul said it would move up into hotels. Neither are really what happened. Turns out in most places it's profitable to arbitrage long term property cost and AirBnB income. So you have a bunch of small time operators buying or leasing property and putting them on AirBnB. AFAICT that seems to be the bulk of AirBnB business. Not Etsy…

>But a new kind of "hotel" that consists of one person running a handful to a couple dozen apartments. The most important part of Airbnb is creating a hotel "chain" or "brand" without having to deal with things like zoning or licensing or insurance for hotels. While Hilton/Marriott/IHG/Hyatt/Accor/Choice/Wyndham/etc collect 10% to 20% in exchange for putting their brand on the line, Airbnb also was able to create a b…

Those chains don't really deal with zoning or licenses. The actual hotels are almost all franchises.

The real difference, as you allude to, is centralized reputation. If you stay at a crappy Marriott you blame Marriott. If you stay at a crappy Airbnb you blame the host.

It will be interesting what happens in the long run. There's now a proven market for apartment style hotel options. I could see a reputable brand move into the space.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#195

Post by dmarlow »

Marciplan wrote: post #130
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.

Hi! Random q, but where could I read more on this specific topic? :)

Take a look at PAL, pledged asset lines or margin loans.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#196

Post by dimator »

firekvz wrote: post #181

Airbnb was cool when it was a place to share with hosts and rent a bed and a breakfast during my trips, allowing me to save some money and meeting some cool people. now it’s just a boring business of terrible managed apartments with really bad amenities and problems that make you lose time and totally diverges you from the whole concept of hassle-free vacation/renting. My last 5 airbnbs were apartments fully setted u…

> Aand lastly, Airbnb decided to just void a 500$ giftcard that I got in 2018 and I tried to use early 2020 and they said it was invalid, I just lost the money.

If this was in California, gift cards cannot expire (with some exceptions). You might have a recourse there.

https://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/legal_guides/s_11.shtml

Re: Airbnb S-1

#197

Post by vailripper »

elamje wrote: post #136
carlineng wrote: post #112

A few random observations I found interesting: - Looks like they are significantly leaner now as a result of COVID. Cost of revenue is at an all-time low in Q3 (17% of revenue on p164). There's a lot of focus the drastic cuts to Sales and Marketing, but it looks like there's a fair amount of increased discipline across the board. - It's interesting that Operations and support looks to be very similar in both the firs…

A fun anecdote about AirBnB in China: 2 years ago I travelled to Beijing and Shanghai and intended to stay in an AirBnB. AirBnB had tons and tons of listings in both places, all of which had specific instructions to tell the neighbors you were “a friend” and not staying there with AirBnB. At the time, and possibly still so, AirBnB was not operating legally in those particular places, and I presume most of the country…

Had the same experience staying at a AirBnB in Vancouver. In that case it was a unit where (unbeknownst to me) the condo board had banned AirBnB, so we were instructed after booking to say we were 'visiting friends'.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#198

Post by FDSGSG »

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-...

>The average private driver salary's is about 60k a year according to Google btw

Wow, that's crazy. I pay 28000USD/yr in London, most of my friends pay about the same.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#199

Post by smitty1110 »

afterwalk wrote: post #133
smitty1110 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like $3 billion, there's a notice that the IRS is telling them they owe $1.3 billion in back taxes, plus interest and penalties.

How can an unprofitable companies rack up $1.3b in taxes?

Well, you spend money as part of doing business, but then, in theory, you make some money. This is revenue. Revenue is taxed at 21% in the US as of the 2019 tax year. Now, if you screw up, and the IRS catches you, you owe penalties. And you owe interest on the money you didn’t pay. And these can add up, especially, like the S-1 filing says, if you have irregularities dating back 7 years.

I’m sure they will have to make a more detailed explanation of this at some point, and it should make for a good read whenever the release it. And they may take their accounting firm to court, because this is large enough to at least suspect negligence or fraud. But until something else happens, all we have is speculation.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#200

Post by gabereiser »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #173
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.

All these things. I’ve used AirBnB to snag a single bed at a hostel at $3/night to renting out a ski villa in Breckenridge for the whole clan of 14. While there are a lot of hotels pretending to be owners in high travel hotspots, most of the time it’s someone trying to offset or profit off a room/place they have and you’ll gladly take it for the different experience from the hotel room which start to all look the same.
Post reply on HN