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How The Hell Is This My Fault?

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Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#161

Post by cbs »

jacquesm wrote: post #134
jcunningham wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I think her words have done an excellent job of explaining why she feels the way she does and I don't want anyone else invading her privacy any more than it already has been violated. For that matter, I think you've got some nerve tracking her down, handing her contact details over to an Airbnb investor and claiming to be helping her to find an objective independent mediator.

Paul is not just 'some AirBNB investor', if you want to picture it that way, sure go ahead. AirBNB has - in my opinion - been doing the very wrong thing here for much too long and this will blow up at some point if something isn't done pronto. Tracking her down sounds like it was real work, believe me it wasn't, and as I explained below I gave her some hints on how to make that a lot harder than it was last night. I…

>Paul is not just 'some AirBNB investor'

I know we're posting on the HN temple of the YC church, so I always expect a little bit of fanboyism in attitudes towards PG, but you've really gone off the deep end if you think that in this situation Graham is anything but just another investor.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#162

Post by class_vs_object »

jacquesm wrote: post #148
class_vs_object wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've passed her contact info to PG This is the creepiest thing I've ever heard. She's had her personal space and privacy violated in a terrible way, and you're passing around her contact details? Did you ask her permission?

> She's had per personal space and privacy violated in a terrible way, and you're passing around her contact details? I passed her contact information to the one guy that I think can keep his head cool enough to solve this in a way that is beneficial to her. You may disagree with that but that's fine with me. > She mentioned in both blog posts that she is trying to keep her personal details private. Yes, and I helped…

> Yes, and I helped her doing just that by pointing out which parts of her blog allow people to figure out who she is.

Maybe you think you are doing the right thing - but think about this from EJ's perspective: A stranger contacts her and points out all the ways she can be identified from her blog... he then passes her contact details on to an investor in Airbnb. He goes on hacker news and comments about how easy it was to identify her.

If I was in her position, feeling vulnerable and suspicious, I'd start to wonder whether your "helpful advice" was in fact a veiled suggestion that she should take down her blog post, or face the risk of being publicly identified and humiliated.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#163

Post by trotsky »

I wish Arrington didn't try to make himself the story so much - I know it's his schtick but it's very distracting from the actual story here.

He's obviously on HN regularly - if he had a problem with the way he was characterized in a HN comment the easiest way to respond to that is right there. Anyone reading pg's comment would see his rebuttal, pg would see it, and people could directlly make up their own minds.

Instead he makes a "oh god look at this liar" TC post because he enjoys using his bully pulpit to shape public opinion. No wonder he lets people like MG call out random CSR lies on twitter and get them fired at AT&T.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#164

Post by jacquesm »

cbs wrote: post #161
jacquesm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul is not just 'some AirBNB investor', if you want to picture it that way, sure go ahead. AirBNB has - in my opinion - been doing the very wrong thing here for much too long and this will blow up at some point if something isn't done pronto. Tracking her down sounds like it was real work, believe me it wasn't, and as I explained below I gave her some hints on how to make that a lot harder than it was last night. I…

>Paul is not just 'some AirBNB investor' I know we're posting on the HN temple of the YC church, so I always expect a little bit of fanboyism in attitudes towards PG, but you've really gone off the deep end if you think that in this situation Graham is anything but just another investor.

I've butted heads with PG more than most here and to call me a fanboy is really hilarious.

Yes, PG is an investor (or, more accurately, YC is an investor), but I've seen enough of Paul to know that he's more than 'just another investor' and if it turns out I'm wrong about that I'll be most surprised, I have not seen any evidence to date that PG does wrong by anybody when he has all the facts.

And that last bit is where I think the problem lies.

Calling YC a church and HN a temple is really ridiculous.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#165

Post by true_religion »

jellicle wrote: post #154

Sounds to me like Paul Graham has made a fairly fundamental and common mistake, which is to say believing the AirBnb people when they reassure him that everything is under control and there's no fire here. Paul, if you actually read the statements made by the CEO on news.ycombinator.com, it's very clear that AirBnb are the primary, if not only, ones at fault here. I don't want to call Paul a liar, since it seems like…

Air BNB is specifically not an insurrance company.

They technically have no obligation to pay in the case of any damage.

For them, the best possible course of action was to bury this case. However, now that it's come into the public light they're torn between (a) trying to re-iterate to everyone that they do not have liability and (b) trying to look good by doing the "Right Thing".

As a business owner, I feel for them. As a human being, I feel for her. I too am torn, and think that there is going to be no satisfactory resolution to this situation. Someone is not going to come away 'whole', and most likely it will be AirBNB.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#166

Post by yycom »

jacquesm wrote: post #150
leftcoaster wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I did not ask for her permission, but I think that her information is in very trusted hands with Paul and I am 100% sure that he would never ever abuse it." Wow, how exactly is that your decision to make?

It may come as a surprise to you, but I generally do what I think is right in life. I've been wrong on occasion in the past but in this particular case I feel that this is the right thing to do. Feel free to disagree. With what I know about PG and the situation as it has been presented to date if he gets involved he will resolve it, if he does not then it will quite probably blow up with as the only winners the lawye…

> I generally do what I think is right in life

Jesus I wish these self-important fucks would stop bragging about how fucking great they are. Actually, just stop talking, all of you. Shut up, and do some fucking work.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#167

Post by chailatte »

Why is it left to PG to defend AirBnB? Why aren't the founders handling the PR?

Why isn't AirBnb implementing solutions 5 weeks ago to prevent this from happening again to their users? Why haven't their users heard about this until now?

Why don't we have any tangible proof that AirBnb is actually helping this poor woman? If no, why don't they do it now, instead of saying they are trying?

Are there any grownups in AirBnb? This is not a side project selling cereals that you have fun with anymore. It's a real business! What a sad, pathetic group of people. 1000X valuation for a company that lets 'daddy' do all the dirty work, while they go hide in the corner.

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#168

Post by skue »

jacquesm wrote: post #129
jcunningham wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think she needs to explain every technicality of what happened. The police will deal with those matters. She's not on trial in the court of public opinion.

Actually, she chose to make this public, and she chose to do so apparently because AirBNB refused to move on terms that are acceptable to her. Nobody here is claiming that she is 'on trial', but when you go public with a story there will always be questions. That is because people will align with your story and your interests if they consider you to be the party that is speaking the truth. This is a fairly normal thi…

> she chose to make this public

But she did this on her personal blog! She didn't go running to the media or fan this story. The story got picked up here then exploded. That was not her choice, and it caused her privacy to be invaded again -- by folks like us trying to figure out who she is, how credible she is, what she should or shouldn't have done, how she's feeling, etc. -- all while she's still recovering from the initial episode.

If you're referring to her follow up post, don't you think she's entitled to speak up to address this discussion, given how the circumstances unfolded (again, which she never chose)?

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#169

Post by kenjackson »

sunchild wrote: post #139
jacquesm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul is not just 'some AirBNB investor', if you want to picture it that way, sure go ahead. AirBNB has - in my opinion - been doing the very wrong thing here for much too long and this will blow up at some point if something isn't done pronto. Tracking her down sounds like it was real work, believe me it wasn't, and as I explained below I gave her some hints on how to make that a lot harder than it was last night. I…

The nagging issue for me is the extremely unusual eloquence of the victim. I wanted to believe this was just another online echo-chamber shit-show until I read her blog posts and found EJ to be a level-headed, articulate and eminently reasonable person. EJ says that AirBnB didn't offer to help and stopped communicating with her after the 25th of June. That's in direct conflict with pg's report to TechCrunch. It's one…

EJ says that AirBnB didn't offer to help and stopped communicating with her after the 25th of June. That's in direct conflict with pg's report to TechCrunch.

I don't think that's factually correct. I believe she says communication stopped after the 30th of June.

pg says this, "I’ve just learned more about this situation, and it turns out Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted."

I suspect they may have said that on June 30th. And then they went dark. It seems no one at AirBnB has actually said they made contact with EJ during the month of July at all, until the night before her second blog post on this incident.

To me it sounds like it may not have been malicious on AirBnBs part, but rather a dropped ball. Someone probably had tons of other work on their plate and didn't follow-up with her. After a week forget about it. Until her first blog entry went up...

Re: How The Hell Is This My Fault?

#170

Post by jacquesm »

skue wrote: post #168
jacquesm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, she chose to make this public, and she chose to do so apparently because AirBNB refused to move on terms that are acceptable to her. Nobody here is claiming that she is 'on trial', but when you go public with a story there will always be questions. That is because people will align with your story and your interests if they consider you to be the party that is speaking the truth. This is a fairly normal thi…

> she chose to make this public But she did this on her personal blog! She didn't go running to the media or fan this story. The story got picked up here then exploded. That was not her choice, and it caused her privacy to be invaded again -- by folks like us trying to figure out who she is, how credible she is, what she should or shouldn't have done, how she's feeling, etc. -- all while she's still recovering from t…

There was actually a considerable effort by friends of hers to get this story promoted.

And it worked, very well.

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