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Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com

21–30 of 510 posts

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#21
Just be a good company and take care of the customer. This isn't rocket science. Hire someone who is her personal assistant through the process until the process is over, help as much as possible.

Concerns for setting a cost-inefficient precedent? BS. Not helping her has become the real cost-inefficient precedent set in this case. I had no idea this had been going on for a month now.

This is a shame. Take care of your customers, so much more when they're in your backyard.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#23
post #12

Now wait for the mainstream media to jump on this.

Here's one: http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-not-safe-the-renter-st... and it showed up on the first page when i searched for AirBnB on Google. And there's a Techcrunch post on the bottom of the first page as well.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#24
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this seems like it would have been a really easy opportunity for them to get some positive PR? Why in god's name would they stop contacting her and then have a co-founder pressure her? It seems easy enough to offer $5k or $10k to restore the apartment at least. I mean the only thing would be that they might be concerned about setting a precedent. But honestly, the PR alone would have been worth $5k (or $100k) an…

"they might be concerned about setting a precedent." Well, they sure have set one now.

Here's hoping that "press blog users to take down negative reviews" is one they don't try and follow up on. This had "Streisand Effect" written all over it, even before this post.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#26
post #18
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like to be vulgar, particularly on HN, but it really needs to be asked. Is anyone here really all that surprised Chesky is a douche?

I know Brian personally and he is one of the nicest persons I've worked with in the valley. He also sincerely cares about his customers. I am surprised that anyone would think of him in that way.

I'm making this analogy extreme for the sake of clarity not because I think it's legitimately comparable:

Charles Manson's friends and followers were pretty fond of him too.

Leadership of a company tends to attract rather extreme personalities in all kinds of directions. One of the tendencies that is extremely common is sociopathy. Sociopathy is usually found is charismatic, likable people, but those people don't actually care about your welfare.

I don't know if Chesky is a sociopath or not, I can't say one way or the other, but the way he spoke to EJ smacked of the single-minded self-absorption of one.

But that doesn't mean a sociopath can't be charming as hell at a party. That's how they succeed.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#27
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Once our host’s safety was secured, our attention moved to further strengthening our system. In the context of this article, this sentence from their PR statement takes on a new and depressing overtone-- that of "Okay, we think the guy is arrested, so you're fine, right? We don't need to pay attention to you anymore, right? By the way, can you take down that blog post now?"

I don't like to be vulgar, particularly on HN, but it really needs to be asked. Is anyone here really all that surprised Chesky is a douche?

He's a spammer. He hired people to poison the well. He'd have to dedicate his life to feeding baby seal orphans to get upgraded to douche.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#28
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like to be vulgar, particularly on HN, but it really needs to be asked. Is anyone here really all that surprised Chesky is a douche?

He's a spammer . He hired people to poison the well. He'd have to dedicate his life to feeding baby seal orphans to get upgraded to douche.

As I noted in another comment, the way he spoke to EJ smacked of the way a sociopath speaks to someone in pain when they're really interested in something else.

Pretty jarring.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#29
So somewhere between, "we need to appear to have taken responsibility for this and done everything in our power to help the victim and prevent future incidents", and "we need to take responsibility for this and do everything in our power to help the victim and prevent future incidents", Chesky et al went seriously off the rails. If there's anything worse than doing nothing, it's saying you've done the right thing when, in fact, you clearly haven't.

I know pg isn't likely to talk about this while the situation is still ongoing, but it'd be nice to hear his thoughts on the matter. This is the kind of behaviour you expect from a major airline or telecom, not a YC startup. It certainly doesn't speak well of the character of the founders.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#30
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Once our host’s safety was secured, our attention moved to further strengthening our system. In the context of this article, this sentence from their PR statement takes on a new and depressing overtone-- that of "Okay, we think the guy is arrested, so you're fine, right? We don't need to pay attention to you anymore, right? By the way, can you take down that blog post now?"

I don't like to be vulgar, particularly on HN, but it really needs to be asked. Is anyone here really all that surprised Chesky is a douche?

Or it might just be that the guy is under a lot of stress and making bad decision. Watching your company potentially go up in flames with one incident is probably not an easy situation in which to make decisions.

We don't know the whole story. I understand the host stance also, basically on both sides they see things they've invested a lot into (her personal life and belongings, the company) be destroyed.

I'm not saying they are on the same level here (Her personal life and stuff is not easy to fix and she can't fail with that, at least not as easy as doing another company to me).

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