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Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

news.airbnb.com

241–250 of 736 posts

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#241

>Most companies don’t do this because of the mountain of complexities with taxes, payroll, and time zone availability, but I hope we can open-source a solution so other companies can offer this flexibility as well. I think this is a genius growth play for Airbnb. Make it easier for _other_ companies to operate in a similar way so that _their_ employees can travel and live in an... Airbnb! Next, they should lobby to g…

I'm not an immigration/tax lawyer and could be completely wrong but if you're from EU/US/UK/AUS etc I'm fairly sure you can work in another one of those countries for up to 90 days (and sometimes upto 183) without paying tax there or getting a work visa - as long as you're still resident and being paid in your home country under the Visa Waiver program. I've worked in NY offices and got paid in UK (admittedly a while…

As far as I know this is incorrect. In most countries working is entirely different to touristing and ‘doing business’ (i.e. selling). Just ask musicians - they have to get performance work visas for every country.

As far as their tax authorities are concerned, yeah, you normally have 90 days or so where they don’t care about your income, but immigration? Almost never. Most digital nomads just get away with it because it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things that customs and immigration authorities have to care about - witness the Thai visa tours etc.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make it known to your employer/s. This is a hugely stupid move that companies made. It was done because the benefits are tangible and immediate, and the costs are soft and indirect. CFO wins over HR. People should recognize what a big deal this is. I won't do it either.

lol, HR doesn't give a fuck.

Yes, the HR 'org' does not care, I just mean the 'notion' of it.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#243
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think everyone wins here. Everyone except the cities that have already lost a quantity of apartments and offices that have been repurposed as AirBnBs...

Why are the cities the losers? I travel a lot for work(300 days/year) and I don’t have an apartment, so when I’m not working I’m pretty much also traveling. Occasionally I use Airbnb and I think it’s a much nicer option than hotels.

Not the city, but the locals who are not in tech.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#244

>Most companies don’t do this because of the mountain of complexities with taxes, payroll, and time zone availability, but I hope we can open-source a solution so other companies can offer this flexibility as well. I think this is a genius growth play for Airbnb. Make it easier for _other_ companies to operate in a similar way so that _their_ employees can travel and live in an... Airbnb! Next, they should lobby to g…

I'm not an immigration/tax lawyer and could be completely wrong but if you're from EU/US/UK/AUS etc I'm fairly sure you can work in another one of those countries for up to 90 days (and sometimes upto 183) without paying tax there or getting a work visa - as long as you're still resident and being paid in your home country under the Visa Waiver program. I've worked in NY offices and got paid in UK (admittedly a while…

This only works if you are holder of passport of the origin country. As a third world country national, I cannot legally work anywhere except the country I got my work visa.

PS: Even if company is multinational corporation.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#246
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the cities the losers? I travel a lot for work(300 days/year) and I don’t have an apartment, so when I’m not working I’m pretty much also traveling. Occasionally I use Airbnb and I think it’s a much nicer option than hotels.

Not the city, but the locals who are not in tech.

The whole city suffers in the long run, as business get torn up to make a quick buck with rents, and the city becomes an empty fun park for tourists.

The problem obviously exists beyond AirBnB, but AirBnB massively escalated the problem.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#247

> The best people live everywhere, not concentrated in one area. Meaning that the best people are nomadic because its such a common choice amongst the best people, and would be a common choice among people with a choice. This is the experience they have with recruiting, and the CEO then pretends its because of a diverse pool of people that happen to live in a variety of towns where they stay all the time. Just helpin…

Okay, sure. Since we're sharing takes, here is how I read that statement:

Smart people exist outside of the SFBA. (Or Seattle. Or NYC. Or London. Or ...)

As someone who is intimately familiar with geographic discrimination, this was nice to read. I grew up and went to school in the US bible belt. When sending out resumes, the only companies I ever heard back from (even a 'no thanks'!) were local, or cosmic luck (hired an adjacent person and reached out to me.)

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#248

I work at a fully remote company. To be honest, I don't like it very much. I like that I don't have to commute, but I pay for it in lost productivity waiting to hear back from my coworkers when I have questions. What would normally be a 5 mins conversation turns into pinging on chat, setting up a meeting, and then chatting at a further time. Collaboration is much harder and the rate of doing work is much slower. If c…

Exactly. Just today in the office there was a coworker who was unfamiliar with a particular internal tool. He asked me, I walked to his desk, and pointed out the couple of buttons he needed to click in that internal tool. The whole exchange finished in one minute. After that minute I went back to coding. I stayed in my flow.

But if this request for help arrived via group chat, I wouldn't have bothered to help. It was simply too much effort to either do screen sharing, or open the internal tool on my computer, replicate the state of that UI, and then describe the buttons the coworker needed. The one-minute interruption would be a ten-minute interruption. I wouldn't stay in my flow.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#249

I work at a fully remote company. To be honest, I don't like it very much. I like that I don't have to commute, but I pay for it in lost productivity waiting to hear back from my coworkers when I have questions. What would normally be a 5 mins conversation turns into pinging on chat, setting up a meeting, and then chatting at a further time. Collaboration is much harder and the rate of doing work is much slower. If c…

I joined a company remotely for the first time in March.

I've been able to avoid stalling by anticipating questions I could have and ask them ahead of time. That might be a (partial) solution to this problem.

Re: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere

#250
post #237
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the cities the losers? I travel a lot for work(300 days/year) and I don’t have an apartment, so when I’m not working I’m pretty much also traveling. Occasionally I use Airbnb and I think it’s a much nicer option than hotels.

Because it's almost impossible to purchase a house if you live and work in a large city now. Airbnb "hosts" use their ever growing stream of reverse mortgages to purchase more and more single family homes at cash offers over what others can afford.

Do you think this is an primarily caused by Airbnb?
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