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How The Hell Is This My Fault?

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Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#31

Post by redthrowaway »

Sorry PG, but you have a steep hill to climb if you want to defend aribnb.

The crux of your (and their) problem is this: Why, if, as you say, airbnb was being as helpful as possible from the get-go, did the victim write that second post?

That's it. You cannot have a claim to credibility until you answer that question. Even if that answer is, "she was paid off", the existence of her second blog post puts the lie to airbnb's (and your) claims. Either she's telling the truth, or they (and you) are. They are mutually exclusive stories.

Bringing Arrington's Arringtonity into this is a red herring. The story isn't about him. There are two involved parties, here, and you've aligned yourself with airbnb. The victim's story isn't being run through the TC filter; it's there for everyone to see. So far, the collective 'you' have not addressed it, refuted her points, or shown how the two accounts are compatible.

It's easy to hop on the "Michael Arrington is a sensationalistic dick" bandwagon, because he is. That doesn't address the issue, though, and it comes across as a deflection.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#33

Post by gojomo »

bugsy wrote: post #12

That's extremely interesting. When the victim EJ posted (was it Thursday?) about being intimidated and lied to by Airbnb, it was obviously very different from what they were saying publicly. I figured though she is very very upset about everything and overreacting. However, this new report is a second witness that Airbnb is playing dirty behind the scenes while acting all nice guy in public, and PG defending it. Prob…

Before jumping to more conclusions, compare also the EJ quotes in her interview with SFChronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_i...

They sound to me like she's slightly walking back her criticism of AirBnb, attributing it, at least in part, to the emotional stress she was feeling.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#34

Post by kelnos »

mindcrime wrote: post #17
mahmud wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a "sub-story" only if you make it to be. What you can do also is not give a shit and not look for debacles, existent or otherwise. I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will legislation result? new insurance products? etc.

I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will legislation result? new insurance products? etc. I suspect that most, if not all, of us are interested in those things. That doesn't mean one can't also appreciate certain sub elements of the story fro…

Agreed. In the end, I want the best resolution possible for EJ, given that something terrible happened to her.

But in a more abstract sense, I'm very interested in how AirBnB (as a semi-responsible party) and YC (as a seed investor) handle and respond to the situation. Here on HN we talk a lot about treating your customers well and being as transparent as possible.

But something here is amiss. The victim is saying one thing, and the company and investor in that company are saying things that don't quite jive. We may never know where the truth lies exactly, but AirBnB doesn't seem to be handling this very well.

Regardless of whether or not AirBnB is legally responsible, they need to step up. Personally I think the best thing for them to do is to just fix the problem. They need to reach out to EJ, and not just in the "what do you need?" sense. They need to just do things for her. She's traumatized and in a very bad, vulnerable state right now. Who wouldn't be? Asking her what she needs is not the best approach, because she likely isn't really sure what she needs. They need to just go right out and help her find a new place to live, and help her replace some of the things she's lost, to the best of their ability.

I don't know if PG is checking his facts or is just trusting the AirBnB founders and telling us what he's been told by them, but, frankly, in this case, I don't care what he has to say. The AirBnB founders need to go all out on this, probably accept more responsibility for what happened than they are really responsible for, and just make it right as well as they can. It won't be perfect, but they have to show the community that the community comes first, and AirBnB's bottom line comes second. Because perhaps non-intuitively, putting the community first actually does put their bottom line first. But from what I've read and seen so far, they haven't done that.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#35

Post by hluska »

Let's engage in a little thought exercise. Pretend that you are the Airbnb victim. You live in incredible fear of psychotic criminals and identity thieves. The fear is so uncontrollable that you "spend [your] mornings recalling nightmares and breathing through panic attacks."

Would you:

a) go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low?

b) go extremely public and take on a startup?

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#37

Post by ig1 »

I think perhaps the more important question here is with pg going to bat for Airbnb against Arrington, is this going to affect the long term relationship between Y Combinator and Techcrunch.

Techcrunch have always provided favourable coverage to YC companies, but if that relationship is going tepid because of this affair, the negative fall-out could be far worse for YC than for AirBnB. Most consumers will forget about stories like this after a while, journalists tend to hold grudges (see Arrington vs Calcanis).

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#38

Post by suprgeek »

sriramk wrote: post #18

I can't believe I'm defending Arrington here but for once, I think PG is off and Arrington is right. Arrington's editorializing has been fairly tame in this story. A lot of the mess has been due to EJ's posts and Airbnb's attempts at damage control. If you look through the original post, there are only a couple of lines where Arrington says Airbnb isn't financially responsible and that is, imho, a fair interpretation…

Seconded. It is hard to write a defense of TC given past events. However in this case they are SPOT ON. None of the stories are overtly "drama" or "editorializing" on TC's part. EJs posts are dramatic enough.

PG has come out in explicit defense on AirBnB's behalf when they are very clearly falling short in the ethical and "right thing to do" department, not to mention trying to censor somebody by pressuring them. Taking about closing funding rounds to a person who has their house burgled and trashed is beyond ludicrous. Disappointing...all in all.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#39

Post by Steko »

hluska wrote: post #35

Let's engage in a little thought exercise. Pretend that you are the Airbnb victim. You live in incredible fear of psychotic criminals and identity thieves. The fear is so uncontrollable that you "spend [your] mornings recalling nightmares and breathing through panic attacks." Would you: a) go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low? b) go extremely public and take on a startup?

This is a silly oversimplification. If the facts are as stated the victim is justifiable in their outrage at the company.

Take a step back and stop the tinfoilesque blame the victim game that you've decided to engage in.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#40

Post by vacri »

hluska wrote: post #35

Let's engage in a little thought exercise. Pretend that you are the Airbnb victim. You live in incredible fear of psychotic criminals and identity thieves. The fear is so uncontrollable that you "spend [your] mornings recalling nightmares and breathing through panic attacks." Would you: a) go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low? b) go extremely public and take on a startup?

People come in a wide variety of personalities.
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