
Citing revenue declines, Airbnb cuts 25% of workforce - dancric
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/05/citing-revenue-declines-airbnb-cuts-1900-jobs-or-around-25-of-its-global-workforce/
======
keiferski
_Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each
year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also
dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with
under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also
provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and
health care coverage through 2020 in the rest of the world._

That strikes me as a pretty generous severance package.

~~~
schkkd
That's why when a yet another aspiring startup wants to hire me, I ask for a
high sign on bonus as an insurance, monthly vesting cycle, at least 200k in
base pay and high severance upon termination. Never been given that, but I
don't regret: looking back, all those "just 1 year till IPO" companies are
underwater.

~~~
itsmefaz
I think I'm missing something here.. but how can one negotiate severance pay
for termination.

I was under the assumption that companies offered severance pay as a means to
save face.. and this is not part of the offer negotiation.

~~~
SamReidHughes
For some high-level positions, it gets negotiated up-front. You're leaving
some other company, taking a risk, and there's a good chance you might not be
right for the new company.

But if you're less high-level but rare and desirable, well, some situations,
like moving cross-country, might make it a bit appropriate.

------
supernova87a
If Airbnb is willing to pay 14 weeks (3.25 months) of severance, they must
believe this is going to go on significantly longer than that. Or they're
using this as an opportunity to cut underperformers at the same time.

Because if they believed things would start to recover by fall, wouldn't you
just pay the people as normal and make a judgement call around then? You're
spending the payroll money either way -- 14 weeks of severance and people stop
working immediately, or 14 weeks of payroll and people are still working.

~~~
ashtonkem
I personally suspect that travel related industries will be one of the last to
recover, both due to consumer reticence and due to lower levels of disposable
income during the recovery.

~~~
jdminhbg
> lower levels of disposable income during the recovery.

There's also going to be a lot of pent-up demand from people who didn't lose
jobs and had no outlet for leisure spending during the quarantine. I'm not
sure which will win out.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
The pandemic doesn't end simply because quarantine is lifted. People will
seriously question flying or passing through airports, especially as case
counts are getting worse while the restrictions are being lifted.

~~~
jdminhbg
But the pandemic ends eventually, one way or another. The question is what
happens at that point: bacchanal or hermitage.

~~~
rhizome
Polio didn't stop. Smallpox is not extinct.

~~~
adwn
> _Smallpox is not extinct._

I beg to differ:

 _" Through the success of the global eradication campaign, smallpox was
finally pushed back to the horn of Africa and then to a single last natural
case, which occurred in Somalia in 1977. A fatal laboratory-acquired case
occurred in the United Kingdom in 1978. The global eradication of smallpox was
certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a
commission of eminent scientists in December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by
the World Health Assembly in 1980."_ (from
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070921235036/http://www.who.in...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070921235036/http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/)
)

The Wikipedia page starts with "Smallpox was an infectious disease". I believe
this is one of the most powerful sentences I've ever read on the Internet, and
it gives me so much hope for what we can achieve.

~~~
eatbitseveryday
Smallpox is not extinct:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_controversy)

> The debate centers on whether or not the last two remnants of the virus
> known to cause smallpox, which are kept in tightly controlled government
> laboratories in the United States and Russia, should finally and
> irreversibly be destroyed.

~~~
rhizome
Yep.

------
ping_pong
I'm shocked that 2020 revenues will come in only 50% below 2019. I don't think
anyone will be travelling for the bulk of this year, especially with the
looming threat of potentially getting sick in a foreign country or away from
your home.

It will take 5+ years for them to get back the same level of
inventory/hosts/customers as they had in 2019. Many hosts will foreclose on
their rented properties during 2020 or convert to long-term rentals. Airbnb
may lost inventory for multiple years, not just months.

The second wave will be the nail in the coffin for a lot of companies, I think
Airbnb is one of them unfortunately.

~~~
eganist
> I'm shocked that 2020 revenues will come in only 50% below 2019

This is a fair point, but it also suggests strongly that a significant
minority of their business is month to month rentals, possibly in place of
leasing.

And hey, being frank, I wouldn't mind considering going somewhere else for a
few months now that I can work remotely for a while.

~~~
ping_pong
I would too, but the thing holding me back is if the shit hits the fan, and I
need to do something like buy a freezer to store extra food, I can't
conveniently do that in an Airbnb. And if I somehow get sick, I'm at the mercy
of the doctors and hospitals in this foreign land. I'd rather be in my own
home with the doctors and hospital system that I'm familiar with. I think more
than 50% of people feel this way, which is why I think a 50% cut in revenue is
too little, I would say its more like an 80-85% cut in revenue. This is
catastrophic for Airbnb.

~~~
mycall
> This is catastrophic for Airbnb.

They have a functional system. If they can maintain it going on the cheap,
they can pull themselves back up. Still, this gives times for alternatives to
come and drink their milkshake.

~~~
ping_pong
They do have functional infrastructure but their business is suffering a
catstrophic shift. As I mention, a lot of the hosts are either going to go
into foreclosure or they will convert to long term rentals. A lot of people
were buying condos and converting them to Airbnb because the revenues were so
predictable. That won't happen in 2020 and 2021. It will take many years for
inventory to come back up to 2019 levels and less inventory means less
revenues, even if people started to travel again, which also is unlikely in
the next couple of years.

------
nsxwolf
My initial reaction is "wow, nice severance package!" My secondary reaction is
they must think things are going to be very bad for a very long time for this
kind of payout to make sense financially.

~~~
jlbnjmn
Good point. If they're wanting to part ways with 25% of the workforce now,
covering 3 months of full salary and 12 months of expensive healthcare, they
must be expecting fundamental market shifts.

Also, the debt they took on may have been partly to cover these lavish
severance packages while also extending the runway.

And yes, this is extremely lavish. Paying severance that appears roughly equal
to the median annual income in the USA.

~~~
beagle3
It is generous by US standards, but it's just nice for many other western
countries, where the _standard_ is a few months of salary, or e.g. one month
salary for each year worked (that is, if you had worked for the company for 5
years, you get at least 5 months salary on termination -- Israel mandates that
one by law, for example, and NOT paying it is considered a criminal violation
performed by the employer)

~~~
tjs8rj
Don't get the idea that those are free lunches. They are factored as an
expected value in your total compensation for sure. It's part of the reason
that median incomes in the US are much higher than Europe and everywhere else:
less benefits requires higher cash compensation for the same marginal product.

~~~
chillacy
To put some numbers on that, AirBNB compensation is no joke. They're paying
senior engineers 200k+ base and nearly 200k stock.
[https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb](https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Airbnb)

I have (regrettably) not found many companies in other countries which pay
that well, except maybe Google Zurich, which is hard to get in I hear.

~~~
beagle3
Link 404s for me. Do you know how many of their employees are in that range?
And especially how many of those being let go are in that range?

~~~
chillacy
Whoops, corrected:
[https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Airbnb&track=Software%20Engi...](https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Airbnb&track=Software%20Engineer)

I don't know specific numbers at AirBNB or their layoff details but you would
hit the equivalent L5 at other large bay area companies in about 5 or 6 years.

------
user5994461
Predicted that weeks ago. AirBnb is super bloated, they have a similar amount
of employees as the other major travel groups but only serve a fraction of the
products and customers [https://thehftguy.com/2020/03/23/will-airbnb-go-
bankrupt-and...](https://thehftguy.com/2020/03/23/will-airbnb-go-bankrupt-and-
when/)

Good to hear that they are giving a decent severance package.

~~~
ryneandal
> the company said that 1,900 employees will be laid off, or 25.3% of its
> 7,500 workers

Thought I misread that the first time through. What did those 7,500 do?

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Ugh, to be honest I get tired whenever I see the "Why did company XYZ need so
many people, they're just a website!"-type comments. While it is definitely
possible AirBnB was bloated, it's not hard for me to imagine at all what all
these people did.

AirBnB is a relatively high-touch business, so I imagine a huge number of
those people were in customer support/customer relations, both for travelers
and for property owners. AirBnB also operates in a huge number of countries,
and each of those countries need (a) marketers, (b) people with regulatory
knowledge (often at a level much more granular than the country level - and to
head off any 'but AirBnB ignores the regulations!' comments, while that may be
true, I guarantee they still have people that know what they are), (c) again,
customer service people knowledgeable with the local language and customs.

~~~
projektfu
It's a high-touch business but more and more that touch is someone to tell a
traveler that the scammer that took their money gets to keep their money.

~~~
jrockway
I would imagine that most AirBnB scams are in the other direction --
travellers defrauding property managers. If you are just a customer and you
don't like the experience, you simply tell your credit card company that you
aren't going to pay for it and the problem is solved on your end. Meanwhile,
if you manage the property people can consume nights of service and end up not
paying, and you're never getting that back.

I am sure there are horror stories where people didn't like their AirBnB, but
I am also sure they didn't pay for that AirBnB.

------
atomic77
While I don't want to seem like I'm wishing unemployment or hardship on
anyone, the implosion of Airbnb is already causing a rent price correction
that was sorely needed in many cities that have become severely unaffordable.

Wired published an article about this effect in London [1] and I've seen price
drops as much as $500 for condos in the downtown core of Toronto on Zillow
already.

[https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-coronavirus-
london](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-coronavirus-london)

~~~
drstewart
It's pretty bold to claim any and all price drops are directly attributable to
Airbnb when in the middle of a recession causing pandemic that is heavily
impacting normal housing/rental market activity.

~~~
atomic77
I admit that both my observations, and the ones in the Wired article I cited,
are anecdotal. And it's certainly not the only factor driving those rent
decreases. But it's oddly coincidental that the biggest and most immediate
price drops seem to be concentrated in the areas that had the most Airbnb
listings, at least based on what i've looked at in Toronto.

~~~
itake
In LA, there are a lot of airbnb properties being listed for mid to long term
housing on FB housing groups.

I also saw a lot of student rooms available.

------
hm8
I can only imagine how much it sucks to be laid off and what a difficult
decision it must be for Airbnb executives.

To me, the severance and exit benefits do seem to strike an employee friendly
tone. Kudos to the leadership to striking a good balance on keeping the
business alive and doing right by their people.

~~~
justaguyhere
These are abnormal circumstances. I wonder if it is possible to delay the
layoffs by cutting salaries - maybe instead of firing 5 out of 10 equally paid
people, they can cut the salaries of all 10 people by half (or something like
that).

Any which way these are hard decisions :(

~~~
pedrosorio
Cutting salaries in half guarantees they lose all the top performers, and
probably more than half, instead of the 5 they pick. I don't believe that is
the goal.

~~~
justaguyhere
Yes, during normal times. But these are not normal times - like, who is hiring
now? If I were a top performer, I'd take a salary cut if it means saving my
colleague's job.

I get what you are saying though. They are a business and I guess they're
doing what is best for their business. The severance package is generous
(relatively speaking), so there's at least that.

Edit : I guess I didn't word this properly. I was saying they'd lose top
performers if their salaries are cut, during normal times.

~~~
raz32dust
> "If I were a top performer, I'd take a salary cut if it means saving my
> colleague's job."

Would you, really? If you can get a job at FB/AMZN/GOOG/Netflix paying the
same or more, would you really stay? Highly unlikely I think.

~~~
justaguyhere
Yes, I would. Actually the higher the salary, the easier it is to give up a
portion of the salary, at least for me.

I understand your skepticism, but I would - I am single and my needs are
small, so it is not like my kids are gonna starve.

~~~
raz32dust
Good on you, but you are probably in the minority. Even if 1 in 10 people are
as charitable as you, the company wouldn't want to lost the other 9.

------
fapi1974
They are definitely doing right by their employees, which is commendable.

~~~
fancyfish
Agreed. Shoutout to AirBnB management who made the best of the tough situation
and did the right thing.

~~~
dorchadas
I'll agree with that, even given how much I hate AirBnB as a company for what
they've done to local housing in cities. They're at least doing the right
thing here.

------
actuator
It feels bad that this happened to one of the companies with a very good
engineering culture. The stuff they have put out in the open either on GitHub
or through their blogs is a testament to that. I think any company will be
lucky to have these folks.

~~~
tempsy
Good engineering culture...?

Airbnb is a simple CRUD app...it’s hardly a shining example of hard deeply
technical engineering problems that are fun and interesting to work on.

~~~
alfalfasprout
There's a great deal of recommendations, fraud detection, global payment
complexity, etc. behind the CRUD app.

~~~
tempsy
All solved problems. Or at the very least not problems other companies don’t
face as well.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
AirBnB was really a leader in these types of consumer-to-consumer payments.
While AirBnB has also changed their strategy WRT their mobile apps, I think
it's certainly commendable how they were leading with the technical approaches
they took.

------
lacker
There are going to be a lot of tough decisions for people who have to decide
whether to buy their Airbnb options or lose them. I bet a lot of people at
Airbnb are wishing they went public before all this.

~~~
capocannoniere
While Airbnb is clearly going through a rough patch right now, there is a
clear bull-case argument for why Airbnb will emerge stronger than it's ever
been after this:

\- Airbnb has sufficient cash in the bank to survive the crisis.

\- A significant % of hotels and budget chains will not survive the crisis -->
decreased competitor supply

\- People will be looking for budget options when traveling --> increased
demand for Airbnb

\- People will seek to make extra income to make ends meet --> increased
supply for Airbnb

~~~
hyperbovine
I honestly don't know what fraction of AirBnb's business still consists of
indies renting out rooms to vacationers for short-term stays. But that market
is simply hosed for the foreseeable future, if not forever. Complete lack of
enthusiasm from guests and hosts alike. Driving strangers around in your car
or having them stay in your home is never again going to seem like the great
idea that it once did.

~~~
taude
I think this is spot on. Every time I've been to Europe to stay in an Airbnb
in the last 4 or 5 years, it's been a professional operation. Same with most
of the properties in the states. These weren't people leaving their house for
a weekend and trying to get some extra income. These were people who invested
in real estate to get into the side-channel of psuedo-hotel business. They
obviously have mortgages, likely not under the same rules of own-occupied that
might potentially give them protections....

As far as AirBnb trying to get the customer base back, once the economy starts
to open, even their new policies for having hosts have 24 hours between guests
and rules for how to clean. How is AirBnb going to enforce that? Not to
mention, their refund policy basically sucks right now, so I don't see me or
my friends jumping back into using AirBnbs once travel does pick up, no way
I'm committing to a vacation when we my have more surges coming, etc... I'll
choose a hotel who I can cancel and not have to pay.

~~~
2rsf
> Every time I've been to Europe to stay in an Airbnb in the last 4 or 5
> years, it's been a professional operation

my experience is the exact opposite, but maybe because I travel with family
and rent bigger houses- do you ?

------
ryanwaggoner
_Separated employees will receive 14 weeks of pay, and one more week for each
year served at the company (rounding partial years up). The firm is also
dropping its one-year equity cliff so that employees who are laid off with
under 12 months of tenure can buy their vested options; Airbnb will also
provide 12 months of health insurance through COBRA in the United States, and
health care coverage through 2020 in the rest of the world._

Layoffs always suck, no matter what, but this is laudable behavior on their
part.

------
nopriorarrests
>According to Chesky’s missive, Airbnb anticipates its 2020 revenue coming in
under 50% of 2019’s total

Very optimistic. They should be happy to get around 25% of 2019 totals.

~~~
filoleg
Once places open up in a few months, I expect a massive short-term surge in
demand for AirBnB lodging.

I know for a fact that by the end of summer (assuming places open up like
planned), I will start traveling again. And I will be doing no less traveling
this year than I would any other year. Of course, that won't be the case for
everyone, but keeping that in mind, the 50% revenue drop seems like a pretty
reasonable expectation.

~~~
ashconnor
Our CEO emailed today we are work from home until September. I'm told Amazon
tech are work from home until October.

At this point I doubt I'll see my office in 2020. I definitely won't be
travelling.

~~~
filoleg
Good for you. For us, it was announced as an optional WFH, entirely at the
employee discretion (unless they are in a role that has hard requirements of
being in the office, like hardware engineering), until October.

To me, that sounds like a perfect opportunity to work remote on a nice beach
during the day, and enjoy my time during the evening in a new place, without
having to take days off for that. I get concerns of some people like you, and
I am not trying to diminish your choice to stay at home. But your take on this
is not representative of what everyone else will be doing (and neither is
mine, hence why I expect AirBnB to still have that 50% revenue drop), so I
wouldn't discount my original point based on that.

------
cletus
I'm kind of surprised it took this long, honestly. It does suck if you're one
of those affected so you have my sympathy if you're one of those. On the
bright side, at least by US standards, this does seem to be pretty generous.

That aside, if this whole pandemic manages to kill or mortally wound AirBnB, I
won't be upset. What AirBnB does to cities, neighbourhoods and the long-term
rental market is atrocious and it needs to be reined in.

~~~
JSavageOne
You can't blame AirBnB for cities failing to ensure their residents have
access to affordable housing.

------
garyclarke27
Was a mystery to me why they waited so long to do an IPO. They must be kicking
themselves now, will be a long long time, before they can match the kind of
cash they could have raised anytime in 2019.

~~~
Panini_Jones
I wonder what the previous CFO is thinking right now. I believe he tried to
take it to an IPO earlier but Chesky disagreed with him. This is rumor of
course.

------
jerzyt
Does anyone know what percentage of the call centers are not actual employees
but contractors? The contractors are usually demand based, therefore
"invisible" in these stats.

~~~
godzillabrennus
A lot of tech companies have relied on BPO (business process outsourcing) like
TaskUs for call center workers.

They try to take on fresh college graduates as employees in the Philippines
for about $400/salary + benefits and try to resell them to companies as
outsourced talent for about $1800/month.

~~~
subsubzero
I know a few people who work over at airbnb, they are very generous with who
they call an employee. Unless things have changed in the past year or so
security guards and food staff(people who make meals onsite) are all full
fledged employees who I assume get stock, I think this is awesome as a lot of
these folks come from low income backgrounds and having full insurance and a
extra bit of cash via salary and stock options goes a long way towards
improving their lives.

~~~
abhorrence
Things have changed (unless they changed back). Food hasn’t been in house for
nearly two years. Only a small portion of customer support are direct
employees. Most physical security was outsourced too.

------
mdamore
I can only hope this leads to a backlash against high growth companies staying
private for so long. Along with their jobs, I imagine many AirBnb employees
have lost a majority of their (paper) net worth because they were not given
the opportunity to sell and diversify.

~~~
duxup
I think if any employees were relying on that paper wealth... that's the
problem.

IMO People need to understand what that really is (usually not much) rather
than blame the company.

~~~
mdamore
We're talking about a decade-old company with billions in revenue. If your job
at AirBnb was your first chance to build any wealth, you never had the option
to diversify. I don't think it's fair in that case to blame the employee.

I don't necessarily blame the management either. I do hope this reminds
employees of private companies that their equity is only on paper until they
are able to sell, and they should pressure management to give them the option.

~~~
thatsenough
Or, don’t get lured in by a company offering you huge compensation that you
can’t actually touch (without realizing it’s a gamble).

To be fair, even the cash compensation at Airbnb was supposedly pretty high.
But I’m not sure whether that’s much consolation now, after they’ve been
dangling a golden carrot in front of employees for years.

~~~
duxup
Yeah that's kinda what I was getting at.

Education about what the value of something you can't sell seems a better
route.

And granted, at Airbnb, maybe they all knew.

------
b212
I'm wondering what's the ratio of IT folks to "others" in Airbnb, I suppose
most of the workforce is customer service, human resources, legal and so
forth? So maybe this cut won't touch engineering teams at all? After all dev
teams can still do something during times like these (eg. trying to make other
unicorns) but keeping big headcount in customer service is simply burning
money...

~~~
alfalfasprout
Eng was hit hard-- particularly product-facing engineers.

------
monkeyfacebag
14 weeks of pay + 1 week / year seems like a silver lining in an otherwise bad
circumstance.

~~~
vikramkr
The health insurance too. That's huge and really important for US employees,
multiplied 10x in a pandemic.

------
jedberg
The generous severance makes a lot of sense. Besides being the right thing to
do, if the economy somehow does have a V shaped recovery, they may want to
rehire a lot of these people.

It's a lot easier to rehire someone who still likes you than to try and find
new people.

------
nightshadetrie
The most famous unicorn bleeds today.

~~~
gaukes
Acquisition target IMO. While AirBnb bleeds, the FANGs continue to pile up
cash.

Google, Facebook, and Apple all have enough cash to buy several AirBnbs rn.

~~~
three_seagrass
Don't be fooled by the Q1 results that only cover a few weeks of the shutdown
- FANGs are hurting too.

30 M unemployed and growing means no disposable income for consumer
businesses, which in turn are shutting down and shrinking their spending on
B2B services. The latter is delayed and won't be fully visible until Q3.

~~~
filoleg
>which in turn are shutting down and shrinking their spending on B2B services

You are assuming the scenario where consumer division was making a lot of
money. For a lot of very successful B2B businesses, their consumer division
exists mostly to make small gains, while acting primarily as a getaway or
advertisement for their B2B offerings.

You would be surprised to find out how much more revenue (and profits) a
company like Microsoft makes on their B2B offerings compared to the consumer
ones.

~~~
three_seagrass
Microsoft isn't FANG, and even then, who do you think Microsoft's B2B
customers serve and get their revenue from?

Even those that are still B2B eventually need cash flows from consumer
businesses. Hence the statement that we won't fully realize the losses until
Q3. Less spending by consumers depresses all businesses, some sooner than
others, but FANGs are definitely hurting.

~~~
filoleg
>who do you think Microsoft's B2B customers serve and get their revenue from

The cool thing about B2B, as opposed to consumer offerings, is that the
contracts on those are usually multi-year. Just because the client enterprise
suddenly receives less revenue from customers, it doesn't mean that they would
be able to stop paying MSFT until the contract term is over. Unless this
current lockdown situation lasts multiple years, it shouldn't affect things
significantly.

~~~
three_seagrass
That's not how B2B contracts work. They have clauses for breaking them. They
are not paid out in bankruptcy. They tend to scale per variables like users or
calls.

AirBnB is now paying for 7000 less exchange accounts and office licenses, and
you have yet to explain how FANGs are doing well.

------
bbgferreira
_In an effort to keep both the demand and supply sides of its marketplace
healthy enough to survive hibernation, Airbnb has allowed users to cancel some
reservations without penalty, and provided financial succor to its hosts._

Unsure if this will ring true to most hosts. They were heavily penalized with
full cancellations, while Airbnb issued vouchers.

Airbnb will have to make a lot of effort to win hosts' trust back.

------
collectedparts
An official copy of the memo referenced in the Techcrunch article has now been
posted: [https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-
br...](https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-brian-
chesky/)

(dang, I wonder if the company release is a better article to link to?)

------
sriram_sun
A lot of people playing in the public markets should thank their lucky stars
that Airbnb did not IPO a couple of years back!

~~~
break_the_bank
That is a nice way to look at it. It'd have been on my buy list if it were
public.

------
subsubzero
I'm glad the employees got a generous severance package, hopefully ISO's was
misreported and the employees received RSU's instead, as it would be a burden
on the employee to have to come up with cash to exercise during such a time.
Its important to remember that Lyft and Airbnb also Uber are all heavily tied
to travel which isn't happening now due to covid. With states reopening and
warmer weather, plus a drug that reduces the duration of covid-19(remdesivir)
things will hopefully be getting better. If and when a second wave comes more
drugs could surface that show efficacy against the virus so it won't be all
doom and gloom.

------
PalsSolmeni
This hit me hard for some reason and really put things in perspective. You can
never take your career for granted and assume it's guaranteed.

The lesson I took from this is to always have a backup plan in case of
unforeseen events.

------
saadalem
At least they aren't doing it the wrong way, like when some big companies need
to clean house a bit, they move the office to a new location quite distant
from the current one. In the process they reduce the office size from 50,000
seats to 30,000 because they've estimated that amount of people will resign
rather than endure a 4 hours commute... But officially :

> totally you still have your job if you want, we are not laying you off, but
> I need you in the office everyday... Or you could resign if you don't like
> the new location...

------
dabeeeenster
Maybe they could pay some UK corporation tax next

------
jl2718
Why not furloughs or temporary part-time? I thought this was a rocket ship.
Why would they have even consider an IPO raise if they weren’t looking to
massively expand? Are they going to rehire all these people when business
picks up? Not that I disagree, but it smells like vanilla-variety cuts for
efficiency/performance.

------
onetimemanytime
Not privy of their figures but what are they gonna do with the 75% of
workforce? Maybe I'm biased related to where I'm sitting, but looks like
everything has stopped, travel especially. And looks like 2020 at least will
stay that way.

Of course they can't just shut down....they have to hope and be ready.

------
moltar
Wondering what that means for their new Montreal office. They erected this
whole new building in a trendy area.

~~~
luckydata
if anything I can see them move more of their operations there and downsizing
in SF where talent is still relatively expensive.

------
polskibus
I wonder how will the revenue drop be distributed globally. which countries,
places will see the worst revenue drops. In such places there will be highest
probability than some Airbnb landlords start selling off their properties -
can be a good time for people who want to buy a place for themselves!

------
rswskg
They wanted to do this for a while. Airbnb would make good money if it wasn't
so bloated.

~~~
nsomani
Maybe, but just the last August bootcamp of new hires was north of 100 people.
If Airbnb wanted to do this for a while, I'd imagine they would have hired
less even around then.

------
JSavageOne
Other companies that've recently had significant layoffs: Uber, Lyft,
TripAdvisor, Yelp, Eventbrite, Patreon.

Is COVID-19 the reason, or the excuse?

~~~
Kiro
Excuse for Patreon but there's a common denominator for the rest that should
give you an idea.

~~~
graeme
And patreon is the most discretionary spending there is. First thing that can
be cut if a budget is hurting.

------
OrgNet
its a good time to cut the fat (but either way, that 25% probably doesn't
include any of their real workforce, the landlords)

------
moneywoes
Are we aware how many engineers were affected?

------
exogeny
If any iOS engineers from Airbnb are in this thread and looking for what's
next, happy to chat. Email in bio.

~~~
sjroot
PSA your email is not actually in your bio.

~~~
exogeny
Ha! How stupid of me :)

------
Cyclone_
I had a guest that destroyed thousands of dollars of property at my house
weeks ago and it's still going through their claim process. They've been
stalling for a while now and it's been extremely frustrating since no one in
support seems to have any idea what's going on.

~~~
joyj2nd
Can you elaborate? What and why did the guest destroy something?

------
asdff
Good. The faster Airbnb pulls out of my local housing market, the better for
everyone else who lives here.

~~~
ifeedmartians
seriously wtf. 1900 people lost their jobs and you think that's "Good". Check
yourself

~~~
asdff
These 1900 people were well paid SV employees, being well paid by working for
a company operating in a zoning grey area that profits off of the removal of
housing stock from the market. Only 45% of my city holds a job right now, and
only 25% can afford the median house. I weep for these people struggling in my
city, not the comparative handful of people who chose to work for a
fundamentally degenerate company whose existence contributes to the housing
crisis.

~~~
nsomani
Many of these people are on work visas and will potentially need to leave the
country. Some are new grads who have no savings and might not be able to
afford rent. And the cut was across all roles, not just the ones that were
well-paid.

------
rootedbox
Does anyone want to sleep at someone else's house they don't know??? At least
not until there is a vaccine??

------
nojito
Another unicorn with a flawed business model poised to trim its bloated
company.

All signs are pointing to a bubble being popped. It's going to be interesting
to see how the tech sector looks in 9-18 months from now

------
nacho2sweet
Finally some good covid news.

------
julesqs
for everyone praising the severance package, laid off employees at kickstarter
are getting even more severance and full healthcare (not COBRA) because they
unionized:
[https://twitter.com/ksr_united/status/1256382357311012871](https://twitter.com/ksr_united/status/1256382357311012871)

~~~
pb7
Doesn't look like more to me. Roughly same salary duration (would bet a pretty
penny that Kickstarter doesn't pay nearly as much as Airbnb to begin with),
significantly less health insurance, nothing about equity. That's what a union
came up with for such a microscopic layoff compared to Airbnb? Sounds like the
free market is better off deciding these things.

~~~
julesqs
oh I might be confused about the COBRA situation actually. I can't tell if
Airbnb is actually paying for COBRA.

aside from that, assuming that non-engineers get paid better at Airbnb than
elsewhere is a big assumption.

~~~
pb7
Will agree on the point regarding non-engineers. I would bet all else being
equal they do, but will not fight over it as it's just an educated guess.

With regards to COBRA, the premiums are certainly covered by AirBnb as COBRA
is available to employees for 18 months by default and 36 months in California
where AirBnb is headquartered.

~~~
julesqs
right right, it was confusing to me that they mentioned COBRA but it does
sound like Airbnb is paying, which is good.

------
kovac
It's possible that the contract with these employees requires 3 month notice
period both ways. So, an immediate dismissal would require them to pay it in
compensation (guess this would also depend on the legislation). Regarding the
insurance, usually its already bought for a year or so, so they possibly let
it run as there's no point in revoking it without getting a refund.

If the 3-month notice is true and the compensation comes with that, then its
still cheaper to let go now than in 3 months as there will be other costs like
bonuses, expense claims for phone bills etc, other mandatory govt insurance
schemes in some countries, more leave accrued. I'm not too convinced that it
was all a nice gesture.

------
ProAm
I called this 3 weeks [1] ago and no one believed me. Were are going to see A
LOT of this the next 3-4 months as large companies experience bad quarters.
These are the companies that were setup and run well (i.e. not day to day,
burning stacks of money with no revenue).

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22901720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22901720)

~~~
random42
Such an odd 'I told you so' comment in a thread about thousands losing their
livelihood.

~~~
ProAm
I guess I was bitter because of the argument I got when originally discussing
it on HN. I do feel validated. It sucks for these employees but everyone
working for a VC fueled startup lives in this same boat. They had to know at
any moment they might get tossed overboard, they were going to have layoffs
prior to IPO as is.

And AirBNB has caused plenty of strife in the communities they operate in over
the years, impact is always relative to ones perspective.

~~~
banads
Now is a terrible time to be gloating about such things.

