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Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

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Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#21

Post by bastardsage »

cpeterso wrote: post #15

888 Brannan does not look anything like the pristine building pictured in the article. Why would they need to post a clearly 'shopped picture of a building that already exists unless they were hiding something? The actual building's windows are all painted over and that tree in the foreground does not exist. The freeway overpass pictured just across the street is a homeless encampment strewn with shopping carts, huma…

"Airbnb has partnered up with the world-famous Gensler Architects (same folks who renovated Terminal 2) to design the space. The building is also going to seek LEED Silver certification"

Obviously, the picture is what the building will look like after renovations are done.

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#22

Post by sandieman »

brianchesky wrote: post #14
staunch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have their employees work out of Starbucks?

We originally wanted to work in our apartment forever. We figured we could fit 100 people in 5 apartment units in our building. Assuming we would need to scale beyond that, Joe and I talked about renting every home on the street. Imagine product in one house, marketing in another... Wasn't really feasible though.

That would have been epic.

Zoning code issues or hard finding a block of housing to buy with owners willing to sell?

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#23

Post by pbreit »

staunch wrote: post #10
brianchesky wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our customer support team is primarily home-shored, and works around the world in over 15 countries - less than 5% is in SF. The majority of people will be product, design, engineering... plus marketing, bd, operations, G&A, etc.

Completely sincere question that I'd love to hear your thoughts on: why in the world do you need 1000 people doing that stuff? I get how sales/marketing/customer service require high headcounts -- but product people? Is there really something useful for 500 developers to do that the top 50 of them couldn't have done? I've always assumed (since I don't understand it) that it's just a momentum thing. Did you ever consi…

To get big, you have to grow your headcount. Staying lean forever will not support the kind of growth that AirBnB is currently enjoying or would like to achieve. The "lean" mentality is fine when you're searching for a business model or want to run a lifestyle business. It's suicide if you want to build a large company to service a large customer base. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to grow big. In fact, it's admirable.

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#24

Post by untog »

pbreit wrote: post #23
staunch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely sincere question that I'd love to hear your thoughts on: why in the world do you need 1000 people doing that stuff? I get how sales/marketing/customer service require high headcounts -- but product people? Is there really something useful for 500 developers to do that the top 50 of them couldn't have done? I've always assumed (since I don't understand it) that it's just a momentum thing. Did you ever consi…

To get big, you have to grow your headcount. Staying lean forever will not support the kind of growth that AirBnB is currently enjoying or would like to achieve. The "lean" mentality is fine when you're searching for a business model or want to run a lifestyle business. It's suicide if you want to build a large company to service a large customer base. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to grow big. In fact, it's…

I don't think that's a global rule- look at Instagram (nothing to do with the sale, just the number of users served by a company with two employees). Obviously, AirBnb is a very different business, but it is possible to grow by orders of magnitude without also growing headcount.

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#25

Post by staunch »

brianchesky wrote: post #14
staunch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have their employees work out of Starbucks?

We originally wanted to work in our apartment forever. We figured we could fit 100 people in 5 apartment units in our building. Assuming we would need to scale beyond that, Joe and I talked about renting every home on the street. Imagine product in one house, marketing in another... Wasn't really feasible though.

Why, oh why, did this beautiful dream die?

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#26

Post by lyime »

brianchesky wrote: post #14
staunch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have their employees work out of Starbucks?

We originally wanted to work in our apartment forever. We figured we could fit 100 people in 5 apartment units in our building. Assuming we would need to scale beyond that, Joe and I talked about renting every home on the street. Imagine product in one house, marketing in another... Wasn't really feasible though.

That sounds amazing an scary at the same time. Wonder if you could try it out for a new product team, that's fairly isolated from rest of the company. A startup within AirBnb?

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#27

Post by encoderer »

cpeterso wrote: post #15

888 Brannan does not look anything like the pristine building pictured in the article. Why would they need to post a clearly 'shopped picture of a building that already exists unless they were hiding something? The actual building's windows are all painted over and that tree in the foreground does not exist. The freeway overpass pictured just across the street is a homeless encampment strewn with shopping carts, huma…

This must be your first experience with architectural renderings.

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#28

Post by brianchesky »

staunch wrote: post #25
brianchesky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We originally wanted to work in our apartment forever. We figured we could fit 100 people in 5 apartment units in our building. Assuming we would need to scale beyond that, Joe and I talked about renting every home on the street. Imagine product in one house, marketing in another... Wasn't really feasible though.

Why, oh why, did this beautiful dream die?

I know. Train has left. Inspiration for a new startup perhaps?

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#29

Post by hornbaker »

untog wrote: post #24
pbreit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get big, you have to grow your headcount. Staying lean forever will not support the kind of growth that AirBnB is currently enjoying or would like to achieve. The "lean" mentality is fine when you're searching for a business model or want to run a lifestyle business. It's suicide if you want to build a large company to service a large customer base. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to grow big. In fact, it's…

I don't think that's a global rule- look at Instagram (nothing to do with the sale, just the number of users served by a company with two employees). Obviously, AirBnb is a very different business, but it is possible to grow by orders of magnitude without also growing headcount.

It's about revenue, not user count. Money changes everything: when customers pay, they expect a different level of service.

A company's revenue per employee is a common benchmark, and is usually around $600K-$1MM or so for successful companies at or near scale, up to $2.2MM for outliers like Apple(1). A company cannot grow to $100MM revenue and higher without having a large number of employees just to manage those revenue streams, partnerships, contracts, and support issues.

I should add that Instagram had ~13 employees, not two. That is a very low number, but mobile apps are easier to scale, support-wise, than web apps – users are just less likely to bug you, especially with a free app.

(1) Comparing Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon's Revenue per Employee: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=revenue+per+employee+ap...

Re: Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

#30

Post by samstave »

ajross wrote: post #17
cpeterso wrote: post #15

888 Brannan does not look anything like the pristine building pictured in the article. Why would they need to post a clearly 'shopped picture of a building that already exists unless they were hiding something? The actual building's windows are all painted over and that tree in the foreground does not exist. The freeway overpass pictured just across the street is a homeless encampment strewn with shopping carts, huma…

Presumably they'll be renovating and this is planning artwork from their architect. This is the equivalent of my sending my family concept sketches of my kitchen renovation. I can't imagine what they'd be "hiding". Edit: this seems to be pretty close to the angle in the picture: http://g.co/maps/xj758

Exactly - there is a LOT of TI money to renovate for projects such as these.
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