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Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com

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Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#171

Post by jgrahamc »

I have a simple question for AirBnB.

  Did one of the founders ask this woman to take down
  or limit access to her blog post?
When you cut through everything else I think the answer to that would be telling. If the answer is no, then it points to dishonesty on the part of EJ, if the answer is yes, then much has been learnt about how AirBnB dealt with this situation.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#172

Post by brazzy »

edw519 wrote: post #141

Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…

Please tell me you're not serious. What you're asking for goes well beyond taking responsibility and far into the realm of treatment given to pop stars.

Yeah, Airbnb could probably afford doing this out of PR considerations this once. But not for every single problematic hosting. And I do not believe the extent and support and compensation for crime victims should depend on their ability / luck in drumming up a social media / startup community shitstorm.

What Airbnb does need to do is find a sustainable method of dealing with incidents like this in the future.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#173

Post by microcentury »

edw519 wrote: post #141

Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…

The way things are right now, maybe this blows over and the AirBnB business model continues just the way it was, with its associated massive valuation. If they help everyone in the way you are suggesting, the model is _definitely_ finished, because you cannot create the expectation that AirBnB will pick up the pieces every time something goes wrong. And the more people use the service, the mores cases like this there will be. Also, AirBnB are almost certainly getting legal advice that says not to have any unnecessary communication with EJ in preparation for a law suit that looks to me like it's inevitable.

So your sentiments are admirable, but not practical. My heart goes out to that girl too, I have to say. She's clearly a sensitive soul, and this has really messed her up. I hope she can get over it and move on.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#175

Post by class_vs_object »

tpatke wrote: post #157
edw519 wrote: post #141

Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…

Not sure why YC should be getting blamed here? I give them a lot of credit as it appears that hacker news broke this story. If there was anything sinister going on I think they could have just deleted the story. Airbnb is another matter. Asking the blogger to remove the post sounds like such a bone-headed move that I have trouble believing it is true. Airbnb has lost all credibility in my book.

> YC should be getting blamed here?

What emphasis if any does the YC program place on ethics?

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#176

Post by [deleted] »

chegra wrote: post #144

Hmm... At this point, AirBnB has gone beyond the point of reconciliation with this EJ. Either she is lying or AirBnB is lying. The onus is on AirBnB to supply evidence to the contrary of what EJ has to say. They have more at stake. Their brand is now blowing in the wind along with the goodwill they have built up. What we have so far is that you have indeed offer to help financially. What we don't have is evidence to…

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#177

Post by jcc80 »

jcc80 wrote: post #94
karlhiggins wrote: post #20

What's telling about this whole story is how Airbnb tried to "manage" her. I thought the whole point of being a startup is you don't need to fall in line with the dehumanizing bullshit that you find in big corporations. That's why I'm in a startup at least and it works for me on that level. But there's such a stench of insincerity about the Airbnb approach that I will never use their site now.

Upvote - the CEO really comes off as a used car salesman here and serious d-bag.

edit: I just read her blog & she said she had no contact w/ the CEO, Brian Chesky so far. It was another co-founder who asked her to take down the blog it seems.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#178

Post by mbrzuzy »

edw519 wrote: post #141

Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…

It's not a woman, it's a man. He even cleared that up in this article.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#179

Post by nbpoole »

mbrzuzy wrote: post #178
edw519 wrote: post #141

Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…

It's not a woman, it's a man. He even cleared that up in this article.

"It's not a woman, it's a man. He even cleared that up in this article."

From the blog post:

"I do exist. I am a real person using a nickname my parents stuck me with long ago. I do not work for the hotel industry, though I admit I love a Four Seasons as much as the next girl. Oh and on that note, I am female."

Sounds like a woman to me.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#180

Post by wheels »

scott_s wrote: post #161
edw519 wrote: post #141

Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…

I get exactly what you're saying, but what about point 6? What do you do when this happens again? And I see absolutely no reason why it won't happen again. Let me put it another way: I think this problem kills the business model. What they currently do is not sustainable. They can't swoop in and replace everything for every person who is a victim of a scheme like this with their current model. If that becomes their s…

> And I see absolutely no reason why it won't happen again.

It will happen again. And it was clear that it'd happen at some point. And worse will happen. Shit happens, especially at scale.

> I think this problem kills the business model.

Nah. Let's do a little back-of-the-napkining:

• Let's assume that this is the first incidence of such.

• Let's assume that Brian's quoted 2 million nights of rentals is accurate.

• AirBnB's fees are 6-12%. To make things easy, let's assume an average rental of $50/night and 10% fees.

• There. AirBnB has now made about $10 million in revenue.

• Total cost of fixing this is maybe tops of $100k.

So this eats into their margins by 1% assuming the numbers are roughly correct and assuming that insuring against such would cost about the same thing as paying out of pocket (but would also cover the more catastrophic cases). Maybe it's a bit more and it's a couple percent, but it doesn't destroy the model by any means.

Also, if they offered insurance, they could do it as a default-on-with-scary-red-confirmation-text-if-you-uncheck upsell at a premium (say, cost + 20%) and make more money.

> But they have to change their company to address this problem

Going over the top on this one is the cost of waiting too long. They need to turn this story around. The next time, when they have a process in place for this, they just let the process take care of things and don't end up with a shit-storm on their hands.

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