361–370 of 471 posts
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Considering they’re borrowing at 10%, they could pay good interest on that money and both sides would come out ahead. https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-paying-10-percent-int...
That story happened when both the company and financial markets in general were in the dumps. As you can see from the headline, times have changed.
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…
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Yes. They make and sell technology to customers.
Then under your definition, Otis elevators and GE and Boeing and are also tech companies.
It is so frustrating with all those recent tech startups how much they're spending on sales and marketing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1559720/000119312520... How does one figure whether the business will keep growing without blasting people's faces with ads? If so much spend on ads is required to generate revenue growth then there will either never be profits or the revenue growth will stall (and thus th…
This is a common misconception I see on HN. To evaluate ad spend, you don't look at just short-term return. There's a reason that "lifetime value" is a critical concept for companies. It's fairly normal in large companies that, in a given year, you may spend more on ads than you gain from those ads - but you expect the customers you gain from them to continue spending over many years. So you may spend $100 to gain a…
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Heck, I remember it getting drilled into me in middle school that the Nazis were able to kill so many Jewish people because they had complete records of where everyone lived and their religious affiliation. When the time came, they knew what doors to knock on. It boggles my mind that this system still exists in modern Germany, of all places. The American model is highly distributed and need-to-know. Many government f…
America is even more extreme - there the state asks you for your political affiliation in many cases. That’s absolutely crazy to me.
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America is even more extreme - there the state asks you for your political affiliation in many cases. That’s absolutely crazy to me.
Hmm I've never been asked this on any official form other than when I register to vote (so I can join a party), and that's optional.
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You've hit the nail right on the head. When I first started using airbnb, I would run into these awful listings because I was scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel. On a visit to Boston, I once stayed in a cheap AirBnb in the bad part of Methuen, MA, where the local grocer knew I was from out of town because I paid in cash and not food stamps. My wife, on the other hand, always reads the reviews and I've never…
"Reading reviews" hit the nail on the head for me. I miss the days where I can just make purchases without having to "read the reviews." I'm so time-constrained as it is; making customers responsible for ensuring that they've contracted with a quality host / Uber driver / seller on Amazon -- is one of the things I hate about new age "marketplaces."
most people conveniently don't mention that there's a cost in the process of making a decision itself, and it isn't negligible.
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…
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Hmm I've never been asked this on any official form other than when I register to vote (so I can join a party), and that's optional.
Right... but why does the state want to know which party you're a member of? This doesn't get supervised by the state in other countries. It's usually a personal, private matter between you and the party.
Disclaimer: I'm not complaining about how it is in Germany/other countries in Europe. The trust in government is quite high here, and for a good reason :)
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…
I just had to go to local PSB (police) office to register for staying as a foreigner.
The biggest problem was of course the language as the police haven't spoken a word of English. They also didn't know Poland (issuer of my passport) is a real country.