121–130 of 510 posts
The internet is moving really fast, I've already seen non tech people I know commenting about this on Facebook. They might have lost already. When something like this happens I think you probably have hours to sort it out, rather than weeks. Remember that it was less than 24 hours from the story breaking that News Corp decided the best course of action was closing a business with ~7 million repeat customers. Of cours…
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Edit: bring on the downvotes! That's right, downvote a difference of opinion, and forget about logical or reasoned counterargument. Next time the internet lynch mob will come for your startup; hope that someone takes your side when they do. ---- Don't you think the CEO has to worry about the people he's paying? Who knows what their burn rate is; that funding could have been a life or death event, and in the event of…
Putting aside the questions of blame, and the eventual intent of the individual. Putting aside the question of culpability, and whether anyone acted inappropriately. Thinking about this entirely from the perspective of AirBnB. Doing what a company is supposed to do, by law, and considering only the shareholders. Given what they've done, do you think it's the best thing to have done to give the company the best chance…
A billion dollar co is a real juicy target, much more so than the actual bad guys.
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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?
Brian Chesky is not a douche. Whatever he did regarding this situation, he did with one billion dollars worth of pressure on him. If he made some kind of mistake, then it was much more likely due to the pressure of the moment than a flaw in his character. He's actually one of the few truly good people that I've ever met. When I read the other day that he had reached out to the woman with support and money, I figured…
I think you're right. But seriously, while it's not his job to be her counselor it's also pretty bad he tried to roll her. I'm sure he's charmed many people but good for her to call him out on this. He'd have been better off letting the CS reps handle it.
This is not going to be very popular, but I'm just going to go on the record and say that this whole story may be a hoax.
And I highlight "maybe". What we have here are two blog posts from someone we know nothing about who epitomizes a concentration of fears (woman, home, identity, violation) and manages, in two blog posts over the past seven months to bring about a PR nightmare for AirBnB. Is Chesky and idiot and/or sociopath? Probably not, and this could be some crappy CYA on AirBnB's behalf, but the second blog post in response to Chesky's On Safety release does nothing but reinforce and add onto the imagined fetal-curling fears the author expressed in her first post, but also systematically tries to disprove any actions mentioned by Chesky while simultaneously smearing unnamed AirBnB reps.
Two blog posts over seven months. Talented writer with no writing history able to communicate and project emotions and elicit visceral responses from complete strangers.
Am I the only one whose bullshit alarm is going off?
Disclaimer: I have no connection to YC, pg, AirBnB, Chesky, Starwood Hotels nor have I participated in AirBnB's program or any similar crashpad/couchsurfing/hosteling schemes.
He 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…
Edit: bring on the downvotes! That's right, downvote a difference of opinion, and forget about logical or reasoned counterargument. Next time the internet lynch mob will come for your startup; hope that someone takes your side when they do. ---- Don't you think the CEO has to worry about the people he's paying? Who knows what their burn rate is; that funding could have been a life or death event, and in the event of…
Well, how bad is bad PR? Their service has this major flaw that your home can get royally trashed & there is no backup. If they let this stand AS-IS, all it's going to take is a couple news networks to pickup on the dangers of social housing & down the toilet a lot of their potential customers go.
And that wouldn't help anyone, least of all this woman.
AirBnB existing & doing nothing isn't any better than AirBnB not existing and being unable to do anything. Why should she really care about their livelihood if they don't seem to really care about her livelihood?
AirBnB reported this to the police. They said they had someone in custody. What more do you want them to do? Go after them like Dirty Harry?
Recoup her losses or at least make an effort to. Then instigate a plan to cover their asses the next time this happens, because if they continue as a service this probably will happen more often. If they are going to leave the homeowners wholly responsible for any damages without offering some sort of insurance or protection, then they're going to remain niche & their word is as good as dog poo. "Yeah, we provide a safe way to do this, we just won't guarantee it, because that's not really exactly true."
Dollars to donuts this woman is planning a lawsuit and looking for a payday. Not against the drug addicts who trashed her apartment, but against AirBnB. She rents out a room to people she's never met in person and then acts surprised when sometimes it goes wrong.
So AirBnB has a flawed business model. They can't vet people properly, their word is not guaranteed. Why should I ever trust AirBnB again? Let's play roulette with my housing.
A pedestrian is hit by a DUI driver, does he sue or blame Honda? No?
Terrible analogy. If Honda advertised that their cars were safe, but in some cases under normal operation their cars had catastrophic failure despite the owner not doing anything out of the ordinary, then yes, Honda would have a major issue on their hands.
You seem to be pointing at how EJ was a fool for lending her house out to strangers, which just so happens to be the business model for AirBnB. So if she is stupid, what does that make AirBnB? "Social Housing For Stupid People", could win a lot of customer's with that slogan.
I am not down entirely on AirBnB, but when I first heard of them I thought "ehh, sounds risky, what happens if someone trashes your place?" Well now I know what happens & it ain't pretty.
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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…
I agree. I can't even start to imagine the pressure. It's easy for us to say "he should have done like that" because we can think clearly from a distance. This guy was one of us reading HN and hoping to make it a couple of years ago. Now he's managing millions. Nobody really prepared him for that. I can imagine phone calls from people above him counseling to kill the story. He may even had wanted to take a different…
A user of your service had their life upended as a direct result of loopholes in your vetting model. The LEAST you can do is reimburse them in full for their loss, take the monetary hit, and plug the holes in your model. If you are managing this in any other way you deserve to have your job forfeited.
Isn't Airbnb's reaction a normal one? Wouldn't anyone do the same if it could have adverse effects on their current round of funding?
He 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…
It gets worse. "Note: a second co-founder did email me for the first time around 2am yesterday, suggesting we meet for coffee as he 'would enjoy meeting' me. He made no inquiry into my current emotional state, my safety or my well being." Speechless. The lack of compassion for another human being here is staggering. Utterly oblivious — or indifferent. How does this happen to people?
Really a silly thing to make a fuss over, and fussing over trivial matters just weakens an otherwise strong case.
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That's from a couple days ago. I somehow doubt future stories will paint airbnb in such a positive light.
True it's from two days ago. But the title is 'AIRBNB HORROR' (yes in all caps). I wouldn't want that showing on a Google's first results page when googling my companies name.
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Putting aside the questions of blame, and the eventual intent of the individual. Putting aside the question of culpability, and whether anyone acted inappropriately. Thinking about this entirely from the perspective of AirBnB. Doing what a company is supposed to do, by law, and considering only the shareholders. Given what they've done, do you think it's the best thing to have done to give the company the best chance…
Well, ok. While being entirely rational, let's also think about a related angle. The woman is out quite some money. She wants it back. The most coldbloodedly rational act on her part would have been to wait till they closed the round and then sue. Which, if you read her post carefully, is almost certainly what will happen in terms of timeline. A billion dollar co is a real juicy target, much more so than the actual b…
a. She's in a fit state to be cold-bloodedly rational
b. She knew AirBnB was about to close a round
c. That closing was within a few weeks, and hence worth waiting
d. In the meantime she has no home, and has to deal with
d.1. the police,
d.2. all the credit card issues,
d.3. all the banks,
d.4. AirBnB themselves
Seems unlikely to me that she planned that. You call them as you see them. I'm saying that I think AirBnB did the wrong thing to start with, and continues to make it worse, even discounting the ethics and morals. Add those in and it's even worse still.
| Rock | AirBnB | Hard place |
As a director of two companies, one of which is involved in safety and security issues, I watch the unfolding - and perhaps unravelling - drama with interest (in both senses of the term).