
Airbnb Raises $555M in Funding - alexkehr
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-22/airbnb-raises-at-least-555-million-in-funding
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palakchokshi
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong in assuming this but it seems a company
like AirBnb would only raise private capital instead of going IPO because it's
financials suck. I mean if you were doing really well and had profits that you
were pumping back into the company you would want to IPO to raise money for
lower dilution right? A private round might cause much more dilution than an
IPO. Maybe I'm missing something.

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jdoliner
The standard operating practice for Silicon Valley startups now is to put of
IPOing as long as possible. Facebook actually got several exceptions from the
SEC so that they didn't have to go public. Going public entails a ton of
hassle, for example if Airbnb went public and had one of their programmers
accidentally introduced a bug that misreported the number of users they had
they could be liable for fraud. There's very little benefit to going public
except that it creates a market for the stock which gives employees liquidity.
However public markets are actually pretty crappy for that too because in
order to avoid insider trading employees are often confined to a narrow window
of time when they can sell their stock. Because they are lots of employees who
want to convert their stock into money to but things this window gets flooded
with sellers and employees wind up getting 80 cents on the dollar compared to
other stock holders.

So yeah, you are missing something. Public markets are basically strictly
worse than private investors. Also it's not like there are a bunch of private
investors waiting to write $555M checks to company's whose financials suck...
how could that make any sense?

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vkou
> Because they are lots of employees who want to convert their stock into
> money to but things this window gets flooded with sellers and employees wind
> up getting 80 cents on the dollar compared to other stock holders.

I receive stock in compensation. I have elected to auto-sell it - this works
even during trade window freezes.

Alternatively, they may end up getting 120 cents on the dollar, compared to
other stock holders, if the stock rose in price between the time that other
insiders could sell, and the time that employees could sell. If the company's
on an upwards trajectory, this is quite likely.

> Also it's not like there are a bunch of private investors waiting to write
> $555M checks to company's whose financials suck... how could that make any
> sense?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com)

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jdoliner
> I receive stock in compensation. I have elected to auto-sell it - this works
> even during trade window freezes.

I don't think this works for employees who were already granted a huge chunk
of stock pre IPO.

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ameyamk
Why airbnb needs so much cash? They are not exactly subsidizing either side of
the market?

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rezashirazian
Self driving RVs. It's the future of the hospitality industry.

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beambot
Not just the future of hospitality... it's the future alternative to home
ownership.

Think about it: You could literally wake up, do your morning routine, and then
step out of the RV and into your workplace. You come back that night... and
the next morning you step out into Yosemite Valley for some hiking. You just
rent RV berths -- everything from campgrounds (Yosemite) to high-rises (in
major cities).

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TeMPOraL
> _You come back that night..._

... to a different RV. There's no reason for RV ownership; a self-driving RV
can fulfill the sleeping / transportation roles for at least two
people/families on different working schedules.

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srslyawesome
As someone who lives in an Airstream and works from home, I would have to
disagree. In the context of this idea of 'the future of home ownership', the
RV becomes the 'place for my stuff' in the George Carlin sense. Having my
house (RV) drive itself to the next beautiful state park or national forest I
want to camp in while I work or sleep or watch a movie would be amazing.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I disagree with myself too :). I was going for dystopia on purpose here, as a
way to criticize the whole trend. ;).

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pritianka
It's interesting they are offering employees the option to cash out. I wonder
if that's usual?

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holman
It's becoming fairly normal at this point for more mature private companies,
from what I can tell. If you've been at a company for 4-7 years with no IPO in
sight, it can make some sense for the company to do a buyback. I know Uber has
a tenure-based buyback program, Palantir did at least one in the last year or
so, etc.

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linkregister
From the rumors I have heard, the Palantir buy-back is limited. My
understanding is that most folks with options still haven't exercised the
majority of them.

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gm-conspiracy
Anybody know its previous valuation before the $555M?

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mtmail
Article from June 2016 reported it as $25.5 billion
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-16/airbnb-
sai...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-16/airbnb-said-to-
get-1-billion-debt-facility-from-big-u-s-banks)

