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

Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 273 posts

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#51

Post by tempsy »

whimsicalism wrote: post #40
tempsy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all he said was it makes the stock market look bad when some people double their money in a day. has nothing to do with whether Airbnb was screwed over by wall street. no one can predict the public market appetite in this environment. Airbnb was arguably richly valued at $50B as is and is richly valued at $100B. Setting your price too high and then crashing your stock is worse for the company due to tax implications…

They handed over boatloads of money because that is the toll that Wall Street firms exact in illiquid markets and that is how Wall Street firms make money. I'm not saying that they were screwed over. > all he said was it makes the stock market look bad when some people double their money in a day. That is one part of what he says, very misleading. He describes it as an "error" that is due to a flaw in the "way Wall S…

No one could’ve predicted Airbnb would be bid up to $100B.

Just because you’re Goldman does not mean you can predict where a share price will go on day 1. we are in a massive speculative cycle that isn’t just impacting Airbnb’s IPO but a lot of tech stocks, many up 1x-10x in a year.

So to try to argue that wall street purposefully set the price too low when $50B is already high given travel hasn’t fully recovered yet is makes no sense.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#52

Post by ballenf »

tempsy wrote: post #18
boringg wrote: post #4

Talk about setting the wrong price for their stock. Looks like airbnb just handed over boatloads of money to wall street.

that isn’t how an IPO works. just because your stock pops doesn’t mean you handed over money to “wall street” if you’ve raised the money you sought at the set IPO price. the investors who bought the IPO allocation got an immediate 100% return but that is not at the expense of the company.

If you sell something for less than market value, that would seem to be me enriching the buyer at your expense.

Regardless of whether "you've raised the money you sought".

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#53

Post by maximente »

rezz wrote: post #47
whimsicalism wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the interior of America has given up on distancing.

Maybe ease up on the costal holier than thou sentiment. I’m in Miami right now and 90% of the people I’ve met are tech / finance types from NYC doing blow inside of clubs until 4am.

to be fair, that was also Miami pre-pandemic

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#54

Post by netsharc »

grailed wrote: post #8

I hear a lot of talk surrounding their "moat" and many skeptics are questioning whether or not they will be able to maintain their competitive advantage. However, it feels like Airbnb has solved a truly hard problem: how to make people trust your service. People are using this app to go stay in random people's homes. How often do you hear people talk about being murdered in uber? I still hear it. How often do you hea…

Don't they have a issue with scammers? https://www.vice.com/en/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-... . Although you got to love the ending, even after being scammed, the writer said she'd still use it:

> I can’t say I’ll be leaving the platform, either. Dealing with Airbnb’s easily exploitable and occasionally crazy-making system is still just a bit cheaper than renting a hotel.

And also dicking around renters when shit does go bad? (Typical example: host says $2000 in damages. AirBnB offers $200. Deliberately frustrate host with weeks/months of back and forth "negotiation". End with an offer of $500, host gives up and take it. Hey hey, $1500 saved!)

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#55

Post by v64 »

vageli wrote: post #39
solutron wrote: post #11

2x IPO strike price in first day of trading after $613M recouped stock options after the layoffs. Stock consolidation and 180 day lock up period creates a big risk for when employees sell. Lots of them probably have tens of thousands of shares, exercised them very cheaply, and will want to offload them. I'm not going to touch this stock with a 10-foot pole. I do wish I could short this stock but options aren't availa…

Many brokerages allow you to short the actual underlying, without resorting to options.

This isn't possible so soon after the IPO as very few shares are currently available for shorting

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#56

Post by tempsy »

ballenf wrote: post #52
tempsy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that isn’t how an IPO works. just because your stock pops doesn’t mean you handed over money to “wall street” if you’ve raised the money you sought at the set IPO price. the investors who bought the IPO allocation got an immediate 100% return but that is not at the expense of the company.

If you sell something for less than market value, that would seem to be me enriching the buyer at your expense. Regardless of whether "you've raised the money you sought".

No one could’ve predicted Airbnb would be bid up to $100B. We are in a massive speculative bubble that not even wall street can make sense of.

you’re giving too much credit to investment bankers if you think they would know a travel company that has $2 billion in debt on their balance sheet, losing money, and in the industry most hurt by covid should’ve obviously been set at $100B when that was no where near where the company thought it was valued.

We’re in a market where Tesla is a $600B company selling 500k a year.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#57

Post by [deleted] »

grailed wrote: post #8

I hear a lot of talk surrounding their "moat" and many skeptics are questioning whether or not they will be able to maintain their competitive advantage. However, it feels like Airbnb has solved a truly hard problem: how to make people trust your service. People are using this app to go stay in random people's homes. How often do you hear people talk about being murdered in uber? I still hear it. How often do you hea…

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#58

Post by tempsy »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #49
tempsy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all he said was it makes the stock market look bad when some people double their money in a day. has nothing to do with whether Airbnb was screwed over by wall street. no one can predict the public market appetite in this environment. Airbnb was arguably richly valued at $50B as is and is richly valued at $100B. Setting your price too high and then crashing your stock is worse for the company due to tax implications…

> Setting your price too high and then crashing your stock is worse for the company due to tax implications and overall investor sentiment. Raising double the money is a bad thing due to "investor sentiment"? What tangible negative impact does that have on Airbnb. You're gonna need to explain this one. Because it really sounds to me like repeating a talking point told by a counterparty.

you don’t raise double the money because you set the price 2x unless that was your plan. you would sell half the shares if you had a fixed goal eg $3B.

you decide on how much you need and then decide the number of shares you sell at what price. it isn’t like they would’ve raised twice the money if they upped the share price.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#59

Post by rezz »

maximente wrote: post #53
rezz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe ease up on the costal holier than thou sentiment. I’m in Miami right now and 90% of the people I’ve met are tech / finance types from NYC doing blow inside of clubs until 4am.

to be fair, that was also Miami pre-pandemic

No doubt, point I’m making is it’s not just folks from red states disregarding government advice.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#60

Post by iandanforth »

andy_ppp wrote: post #42
grailed wrote: post #8

I hear a lot of talk surrounding their "moat" and many skeptics are questioning whether or not they will be able to maintain their competitive advantage. However, it feels like Airbnb has solved a truly hard problem: how to make people trust your service. People are using this app to go stay in random people's homes. How often do you hear people talk about being murdered in uber? I still hear it. How often do you hea…

I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with Airbnb and hosts who are basically trying to rinse as much money as possible for as little effort as possible. I’m not sure after a long journey I want to wonder around the Edinburgh fringe again, trying to decipher Scottish, while the wind is going crazy and there are millions of people floating around just to get keys. I think Airbnb is great if there are 15 of you sharing…

Because I've had the opposite experience would you be willing to share how you pick places?

I rent: "Whole places", with a strong bias towards detached buildings, that rate 4.7 or higher on their scale, and have glowing reviews that mention how nice the host is. These are almost always $90/night or more, with an average of $120/night.

Post reply on HN