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Airbnb S-1

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Re: Airbnb S-1

#321

Post by julianozen »

EdJiang wrote: post #68
callmeed wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees that get and exercise stock options are not accredited investors either. Couldn't they take a similar route? I admit, I ask mostly selfishly (my wife and I are superhosts, we have managed a full-time AirBnB in CA for 2 years). But it's also an interesting thought experiment. It would be quite the contrast to how the rideshare and food delivery companies treat their non-employees.

Uber and Lyft did give long-term drivers “appreciation awards” which they could use to buy stock in the IPO. So not unprecedented. https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-is-dishing-out-apprec...

My understanding was that the Uber stock was a huge disaster because the value of the Uber stock imploded after drivers bought options

Disclaimer: I am an Airbnb employee

Re: Airbnb S-1

#322

Post by Accacin »

busterarm wrote: post #239
elamje wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This seems incredibly dangerous as visitors on a tourist visa are required to register themselves with the local police within 24 hours of arriving at their destination. Trying to stay under the radar seems like it courts risk of deportation, as I've known _lots_ of folks who got a visit from police at their place of stay who were not aware of this. Virtually all of them settled things fine but it was more headache t…

So my wife is Chinese and from Shantou, a pretty big city in the South. First time I went, of course we stay at her parents house and I tell them that it's required we get registered at the police station.

Her uncle, my wife, and I went to four police stations. All refused to register my stay and told me to go the next place. The final one told me that they require to see our marriage certificate (which we didn't have as I never read once that it was needed), so we gave up.

I've been many times now, and I've never had a problem although it's a city that foreigners probably do not travel to as much as say Shanghai or Beijing.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#323

Post by midasz »

triceratops wrote: post #234
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the Netherlands have a rule that you register with the local public security bureau for wherever you are staying? I really don't see AirBnB working in China because of that.

> Does the Netherlands have a rule that you register with the local public security bureau for wherever you are staying? Yes, I believe they do (Vreemdelingendienst).

Not for a holiday though, only when you're planning on living here - which does makes sense.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#324

Post by garmaine »

namdnay wrote: post #320
garmaine wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American it is so weird that a country would require you to register with the police at all, no matter your length of stay.

??? My memory is fuzzy now, but I’m 99% sure the same rule applies in the USA

Nope.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#325

Post by tomcooks »

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…

Just withhold the money they made with Airbnb until they have 3 excellent reviews.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#326

Post by smueller1234 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #19
wholien wrote: post #12

huh > Most of our guests discover Airbnb organically, with approximately 91% of all traffic to Airbnb coming through direct or unpaid channels during the nine months ended September 30, 2020. Anyone know what % of traffic to Bookings and Expedia (and others) are paid vs unpaid? 91% unpaid seems really high, and I wonder if it's because Airbnb is so differentiated / people want to "Airbnb" a place (vs. "stay somewhere…

Bookings and Expedia are way, way, way lower than that. Expedia has been complaining a lot in recent years how Google has been taking away a lot of their search traffic with in-results-page hotel listings. At one point in the past I heard Booking was the largest spender, worldwide, on Adwords.

That's correct, Booking was the largest Adwords spender. I worked on their adwords integration then. Good fun.

I wouldn't immediately consider the hotel metasearch products a problem for booking. It shifts traffic to different paid channels with different tradeoffs (eg. less fine grained control of spend if it's a revshare model). I ran the product development in marketing for a little while. Some years ago (ie. late in the game, largely due to politics), we started investing in cross channel attribution models to better direct spending.

Disclosure: I no longer work for Booking, though. I do work for Google, but am in NO way involved in Ads or travel and an not trying to comment on the company's business.

Re: Airbnb S-1

#327

Post by pembrook »

wikibob wrote: post #318
pembrook wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything can be both tech and not-tech if you want to argue semantics (ie. If you use a computer to do your job, is it tech?). That's not useful. But I find the zero marginal cost qualification useful. These companies are fundamentally different than companies that are further out on the marginal cost spectrum. Take for example CME, NYSE, Nasdaq, etc. Pure zero marginal cost. Virtually unassailable positions for th…

This is an incredibly insightful take. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. (Serious)

My takes are mostly stolen from other newsletters like Stratechery and Capital Minded

Re: Airbnb S-1

#330

Post by blablablub »

Torn wrote: post #303
wolco2 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is common then why did you say this was dangerous?

Chinese police are not known for a lax attitude to rule breaking when it comes to foreigners

Chinese police are known to shy away from any work that falls away from what they are normally doing. Registering a foreigner in a small town is a once in a lifetime experience for them, so many things can go wrong, so they wont do it.
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