
Airbnb reportedly lays off contractors and cancels summer internships - stu2b50
https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/17/airbnb-lays-off-contractors-and-cancels-summer-internships/
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tomashertus
I have nothing against the people working at AirBnB and I wish them all the
best of luck, but I genuinely hope that the AirBnB business model will get
heavily regulated and controlled.

I have heard plenty of horror stories from my hometown about the negative
impact of AirBnB on the overall quality life for residents. It was proven [1],
that number of AirBnB listings in a city has obviously negative impact on the
rents and the price of housing [2] in a given city. All of us pay every month
a premium for the success of AirBnB.

[1] [https://hbr.org/2019/04/research-when-airbnb-listings-in-
a-c...](https://hbr.org/2019/04/research-when-airbnb-listings-in-a-city-
increase-so-do-rent-prices)

[2] [https://www.epi.org/publication/the-economic-costs-and-
benef...](https://www.epi.org/publication/the-economic-costs-and-benefits-of-
airbnb-no-reason-for-local-policymakers-to-let-airbnb-bypass-tax-or-
regulatory-obligations/)

Edit: Formatting & grammar fixes

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jsonne
A long or short term rental discoverability platform with payments, dispute
resolution, and an availability calendar is really all that was needed. All of
the experience stuff seems nice but really feels like a distraction. Airbnb
for so long was so good at a very simple and useful thing.

Genuinely, I wonder why this happens. Is this because companies raise too much
money that they have to morph into some "experience" company that ever offers
more and more to get more and more revenue growth until they eventually bloat
to the tech equivalent of a department store? I see it repeatedly with not
just tech companies but DTC brands that pretend to be tech companies as well.
Is the pressure from VC money that you have short term opportunity but you
eventually will mutate into a blob of a company that isn't really good at
anything like so many old-world companies that die?

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CalRobert
I always assumed "experiences" was a hedge against being made illegal by
various jurisdictions.

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Mediterraneo10
I always thought it was a way to derive profit from not only people's
accommodation, but also whatever else they want to spend their time doing on
their holidays.

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rtkwe
It's both but there's no doubt they were feeling squeezed in numerous locales
for having people skirting or outright violating regulations on hotels and
vacation properties.

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kaesar14
Apparently internships are deferred till next year. Don't know how that'll
work.

It's entirely possible Airbnb never comes back after this, and that a
competing product will not be able to fill its shoes. The regulation free zone
that Airbnb was able to grow in no longer exists and will never come back, at
least in the more urban areas. I'm not sure how they come back from this.

They have 12k employees from what I've heard, there's significant fat to trim.
Hopefully they can stay afloat.

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yibg
Seems like they have enough cash to ride this out. But yes very possible that
they'll need to scale back dramatically and change their business model
entirely. I'm guessing even after restrictions are lifted, people will be
hesitant to travel and stay at airbnbs, and also many hosts will be nervous
staying on the platform.

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tenpies
Yes, even aside from all the ill will AirBnB has generated (both cumulatively
and specific to this event), you have to ask: when was the last time you went
to an AirBnB and it _felt_ clean? Most hosts seems to do the absolute bare
minimum since they know that the review system is mutually assured
destruction.

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esoterica
I've used AirBnb maybe 20 or so times and I've never had an AirBnB that felt
or looked dirty.

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xiaolingxiao
yeah it's def region dependent. There's hacker hostels in the bay that look
and smell like frat houses. You can't help but get the feeling the host is
exploiting immigrants/summer interns who don't know any better.

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xiaolingxiao
It's entirely possible state/local regulators will use the covid-19 moment to
really clamp down on AirBnB. Thus erecting severe obstacles to its operations
that endure long after Covid-19 has subsided. I'm not sure what kind of term
Silver Lake laid down on AirBnB, it's possible that if/when Silver Lake does
convert its debt to equity, it may wipe out most of the existing shareholders.

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Mediterraneo10
Poland recently announced that hotels will be allowed to open back up earlier
than many other things, because the hospitality industry is such an important
part of the economy. At this moment, I wonder if the authorities would be
happy if AirBnB rentals started again, because that would get cash right into
people’s hands during this time of crisis, and slightly lessen the expectation
that the state has to hand out that money.

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pjc50
That seems kind of backwards unless they've got very heavy testing - the last
thing you want in a pandemic is travellers!

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Mediterraneo10
Poland is a big enough country, and so a lot of the traveling is going to be
domestic, or from other EU countries with which the borders are opened as the
curve flattens in them, too. The authorities know that the weather is getting
warmer and some people are going to travel for leisure and they can't really
stop that. But also, a town’s accommodation options will be used by business
travelers, or by people visiting family who, for whatever reason, cannot stay
at those relatives’ homes, and that represents money coming into a local
community which might really need it now.

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JMTQp8lwXL
Has anything fundamentally changed (in the long-term) about the short-term
rental market? It's clear Airbnb would likely have a substantial drop in
revenue, but they only have to make it through the crisis.

What will this mean for the short-term rental properties themselves? There
could be a new supply of housing on the market, as much of it was
speculatively picked up. It's true that you can earn more operating a unit as
a short-term rental, however in aggregate only so many can do that before
demand dries up or price competition undercuts the increased profitably when
compared to a long term tenant.

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kaesar14
The short term affects the market. Apparently Airbnb spent a lot of money on
an Olympics marketing partnership, that's down the toilet. They've taken out 2
separate 1 billion dollar loans, one at 12%, another at 8%, in the last
month(?). With their budgets strapped, they'll have less money and wherewithal
to fight the legal battles they need to win to stay operational in many major
urban markets around the world. The situation is absolutely dire, and their
survival through the crisis is not a sure prospect in the slightest.

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look_lookatme
I live in a vacation destination (that's also the commercial center of my
state) and it's been interesting to watch the short term rentals start to pop
up on craigslist (the state has banned short term rentals during the
shutdown). There are a lot more than I thought there would be. The language
evades that they are otherwise airbnbs, they are generally are offering
limited terms (30-60 days) and they all have professional quality photos in
the listing. Also, why do people decorate rentals with so much white? Isn't
that a stain liability?

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bnjms
White bleaches out. Bright spaces are more inviting and photograph better. And
once something white is clean, you can see it is clean, so you can "feel" how
clean it is in a photo. And everything is from Ikea anyway so just throw it
out if it's really done in. You've likely made enough to exchange some covers
every six months.

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JumpCrisscross
There is a decent chance this crisis wipes out Airbnb’s equity, with the
recent lenders owning most of not all of it within a year.

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agustif
To everyone worrying about AirBnB surviving, didn't you see the 1 Billion loan
they got last week?

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333c
Interesting. My internship (not at Airbnb) is still happening, but now
remotely. I booked some housing through Airbnb without refunds, so now I am
attempting to get a refund from Airbnb due to COVID–19.

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ProAm
Layoffs coming after quarterly earnings.

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iampims
Airbnb is not a public company, which quarterly earnings are you thinking of?

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ProAm
AirBNB announces their performance on a regular basis [1][2], especially since
they were planning on going public 2020/2021, but Im talking about when they
finish their quarter internally and asses how they stand as a company. We will
start seeing a lot of layoffs from bigger companies when quarterly results
come in. The first wave of layoffs were service industry, front line,
immediately impacted by a stoppage of cash flow, there will be a cascading
effect on the economy for a long time.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/17/airbnbs-quarterly-loss-
repor...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/17/airbnbs-quarterly-loss-reportedly-
doubled-in-q1.html)

[2][https://skift.com/2020/03/12/airbnb-loses-276-million-
and-6-...](https://skift.com/2020/03/12/airbnb-loses-276-million-and-6-other-
takeaways-from-its-fourth-quarter/)

