In our rush to disintermediate old industries we may discover that some of those intermediaries are there for a reason.
Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
41–50 of 510 posts
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#42We've had the initial blogpost and Brian Chesky's response on Techcrunch. I would love to read what Airbnb CEOs have to say about the second blog post.
I think they should take credible steps as soon as possible to improve the author's situation. While they're at it, an explanation of how such incidents can be stopped from happening again would also be good.
If trust is so important for their business model, they have to demonstrate that Airbnb is trustworthy.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#43He then addressed his concerns about my blog post, and the potentially negative impact it could have on his company’s growth and current round of funding. During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a “twist" of good news so as to “complete[s] the story”. If this is true it is downright…
I had doubts about whether this was just a misunderstanding or that EJ was blowing it out of proportion, but after reading that in her post, that's all that needs to be said. Dreadful.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#44"...keep the money and use it to book yourself into a nice, safe hotel room the next time you travel. You’ll be glad you did."
Statements like this certainly fuel the hotel industry conspiracy theories from yesterday for me. It doesn't even make sense, as she claims the hotels will be safer for the travellers. The travellers safety was never at question here was it?
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#45Does AirBnB educate hosts on the risks involved?
Does it encourage them to remove valuables and non-replaceable items from the apartment being rented?
Does it tell them that any damages incurred will probably not be covered by their homeowners insurance? Does it provide information on how to attain extra insurance?
Does AirBnB hold the guest liable for any damages to a hosts property?
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 say…
In the private sector, excellence in the absence of pressure isn't worth any accolades. Incidentally, the same is true of moral character.
I understand what you are saying. You are completely right, people can act and claim to have ethics but it's only under major situations where those ethics are challenged that they can be judged. But currently we have tidbits of information about the situation, we don't know how it's being played out inside AirBnB or exactly what was said to whom and who's pressuring who (inside AirBnB I mean, not the cofounder pressuring the host) and what not. I just don't like this internet justice vibe going on. It feels very much like what Nancy Grace would do.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#47They must have totally messed this up for her to write a rebuttal post like that. This post absolutely torn apart all positive points from Chesky's response. I just still can't believe airbnb didnt see this coming, and stomp on the problem as hard as they can to get EJ on their side. If everything she said is true here, airbnb truly screwed up and deserve the negative PR coming their way. Isn't this why you give up e…
I guess there are three options: 1) dive in help her, pay up make it all good get good PR. BUT if they are thinking that this is going to be a common problem and going to happen a lot then they may be making rod for their own backs… or 2) Ride the storm - which again you would only do if you thought this was going to be an ongoing issue or 3) they are idiots and have no idea how to handle PR (just like I wouldn't hir…
I would guess there's some of (3), but I'm surprised that a company with their level of funding, in a market with this kind of potential risk, didn't already have someone on staff with expertise in handling such a contingency. I can accept that the founders aren't experts in what to do in such an event, but surely someone hireable is.
Maybe it's encouraging from one perspective, because it shows that even big startups are still pretty ad-hoc affairs, run by the founders without the kind of tight PR-management that big corporations do. But past some point, especially in some businesses, it probably does make sense to copy some of the BigCorp approach of having a dedicated crisis-management team who are experts in what to do about major negative events (i.e. the mixture of the substantive angles, legal angles, and PR angles).
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#48Oh boy....this is going downhill fast!
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#49He then addressed his concerns about my blog post, and the potentially negative impact it could have on his company’s growth and current round of funding. During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a “twist" of good news so as to “complete[s] the story”. If this is true it is downright…
Once the mainstream press is going to pick this up (probably a WHEN, not IF the way it's going), they might not have another round of funding to give a shit about in the first place.
It's depressing, because AirBnB is a solid idea, if they can work some of the minor (ha!) kinks, like this, out of the system.
But after falling flat on their face like this, I wouldn't be surprised to see the idea of "social housing" go the same way as the Zeppelin did after the Hindenberg. It's going to be forever tied to every homeowner's worst nightmare.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#50Now 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.
That's from a couple days ago. I somehow doubt future stories will paint airbnb in such a positive light.