OK, I, and others, have already piled on about the inappropriateness of tracking down EJ and passing her personal information without her permission to an investor...but I just want to nitpick specifically on your viewpoint of PR, which you should carefully reconsider in light of the mistakes you've already admitted to (i.e. "I would have probably [asked permission to forward a terrified and angry victim's contact information to an investor of the company that she is waging a public battle with] had I thought it through, but the thought that she would object never crossed my mind, my bad"
Yes, PR people are professionals whose jobs are to make something look good; companies don't hire PR pros to rip the company.
So yes, the cynical take is that PR will spin bad things into a positive light...but which major stakeholder of a company --including its founders -- wouldn't? Even when a founder or lead developer of a large company issues a mea culpa that starts with "We screwed up...", there has still been a calculation made that such an admittance is good public relations and relatively free of legal liability.
Your implication may be that PR pros are more likely to have less of a conscience, and since they aren't hard-working developers and builders like the rest of us, they are more likely to lie with a smile...
I can't point to any empirical evidence that they do or don't, and I predict neither can you. But what you did, and what the coffee-drinking co-founder reportedly did (from EJ's perspective), make a very strong case for the importance of a competent PR person.
Quite simply, that competent PR person is the overseer of what has been said so far by the company, by the plaintiff, by the lawyers, and by the media. He or she, ideally, when queried by any of these parties, will answer such queries honestly with what he knows has been previously stated and/or promised by the other party, or will say "I don't know that, let me ask [x,y,z] and I will get back to you."
I understand how that's not a good enough decisive answer for anyone here, but that's the limits of human communication when dozens of stakeholders are involved. Some things are delayed because due diligence requires it...such is the complexity of life.
So who knows what really went on in the mind of the co-founder when he asked EJ to coffee. But according to her, we might assume that he himself assumed that EJ was properly comforted enough to send her a get-down-to-business email. She apparently was not. How could such a drastic misunderstanding happen when a co-founder, in your perfect world, is ostensibly the end-all point of proper decision and action?
To compound the problem, Brian Chesky writes the prototypical PR statement that looks downright shady in retrospect after EJ swiftly responds with a dramatic blog post that also accuses someone at airbnb of attempting to silence her blog.
Let's give Chesky the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know or condone such a request. Well, some well-intended white (from the investors' perspective) or black (from many other people's perspective) knight from airbnb apparently did so.
On top of all of that, EJ accuses airbnb of cold shouldering her until the blog blowup at HN. Hell, I don't remember the exact timeline, but I doubt even most of the avid participants in this thread do...certainly none of the newcomers won't bother sketching out a flowchart for themselves.
Boy, having one competent person be the sole point of contact -- even just a smooth-talking PR underling -- sure sounds good right now. Even if we give the co-founders the benefit of the doubt of being as upfront and willing to help as possible, the apparent innocent miscommunications have made many people, including MA, very jaded.
And now you've thrown yourself into the mix, in the belief that this is all caused by the immature incompetent behavior of the airbnb executive team (boy, that's a great message to future airbnb investors) and failed PR...don't you think it's a wee bit ironic to make your "I-tracked-her-down-and-gave-her-info-to-PG-because-I-can't-see-PG-screwing-this-up" comment in a HN thread based on a TechCrunch post in which a self-professed fan of airbnb accuses PG of outright lying?
If providing fodder for another top-voted HN thread that accuses airbnb of a coverup isn't a screw-up, then, well...
In any case, you might be a well-intentioned, smart developer and entrepreneur. But you've made mistakes that I hope even an undergrad in communications wouldn't have. I hate to be the one speaking out for PR professionals, but for godssake, hire one in your next large-scale venture.