
How The Hell Is This My Fault? - jamesgagan
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/how-the-hell-is-this-my-fault/
======
sriramk
I can't believe I'm defending Arrington here but for once, I think PG is off
and Arrington is right.

Arrington's editorializing has been fairly tame in this story. A lot of the
mess has been due to EJ's posts and Airbnb's attempts at damage control.

If you look through the original post, there are only a couple of lines where
Arrington says Airbnb isn't financially responsible and that is, imho, a fair
interpretation of what the spokesperson/Lukezic told him. TC has also done a
fair job of publishing Airbnb's side of the story - guest posts, updating
their posts, etc.

Airbnb's real problem here is EJ, not Arrington. Airbnb's image isn't getting
tarnished by posts on TC, it is getting tarnished by EJ's blog posts which
make Airbnb's people seem cold and insensitive.

If you look at PG's comments on the earlier thread, he seemed to imply that
Airbnb disagreed with EJ's version of events (they called her before her
second post, etc). That could be Airbnb's big problem - it seems to me they
want to say EJ is lying but can't in public.

~~~
suprgeek
Seconded. It is hard to write a defense of TC given past events. However in
this case they are SPOT ON. None of the stories are overtly "drama" or
"editorializing" on TC's part. EJs posts are dramatic enough.

PG has come out in explicit defense on AirBnB's behalf when they are very
clearly falling short in the ethical and "right thing to do" department, not
to mention trying to censor somebody by pressuring them. Taking about closing
funding rounds to a person who has their house burgled and trashed is beyond
ludicrous. Disappointing...all in all.

~~~
sliverstorm
_PG has come out in explicit defense on AirBnB's behalf when they are very
clearly falling short in the ethical and "right thing to do" department_

Well, he _is_ invested in them, and he is only human.

While I am not saying that _is why_ he is backing AirBnB, it's good not to
forget where people are coming from and where their interests lie.

~~~
wisty
It's also possible he thinks he is acting in good faith. It's possible that
AirBnB gave a different story to PG, when he asked what was going on, and they
complained about how the press was misrepresenting them. PG then blogs their
excuses, having taken them as gospel.

I'm really surprised how definitive PG sounds. He's not saying "The CEO
reassured me in a private chat ...", he's acting like he was a fly on the
wall, and saw it all take place.

------
jellicle
Sounds to me like Paul Graham has made a fairly fundamental and common
mistake, which is to say believing the AirBnb people when they reassure him
that everything is under control and there's no fire here.

Paul, if you actually read the statements made by the CEO on
news.ycombinator.com, it's _very clear_ that AirBnb are the primary, if not
only, ones at fault here.

I don't want to call Paul a liar, since it seems likely to me that he has just
made a mistake of believing someone else. But he's putting his own reputation
behind AirBnb, and AirBnb is lying. That's unwise.

Let me compare a different response that I'm familiar with. A friend of mine
had her apartment destroyed in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. Insurance
companies came and set up booths in Manhattan and were cutting checks left and
right, without even SEEING the damage. My friend had a check in her hand on
9/13 if I recall correctly. She didn't get in to SEE her own apartment until a
month later, and the insurance company didn't see it until much later than
that.

As of today and yesterday, there are articles in newspapers across the land.
There are phrases like "As of Friday afternoon, Airbnb had not returned calls
from The [Washington] Post requesting comment." - that's a quote from a
WashPost story, of course. One thing I know: when the Washington Post calls
and a company has something good to say about themselves, they take the call
(calls, actually).

It's apparent from the latest newspaper stories that AirBnb is now reacting in
a cover-it-up fashion - they're trying to offer the woman a sum of money with
the condition that she shut up. That's fine, I guess - very corporate of them.

But frankly I expected better. I guess I sort of expected that even if AirBnb
was being dumb, that when the first article hit news.yc, that someone would
call them and straighten them out. Instead it seems that PG, also, is blinded
by "going to be as big as Ebay".

~~~
true_religion
Air BNB is specifically _not_ an insurrance company.

They technically have no obligation to pay in the case of _any_ damage.

For them, the best possible course of action was to bury this case. However,
now that it's come into the public light they're torn between (a) trying to
re-iterate to everyone that they _do not have liability_ and (b) trying to
look good by doing the "Right Thing".

As a business owner, I feel for them. As a human being, I feel for her. I too
am torn, and think that there is going to be no satisfactory resolution to
this situation. Someone is not going to come away 'whole', and most likely it
will be AirBNB.

~~~
bugsy
I think there is a pretty good legal argument that they had a duty to know the
actual identity of each party. They failed to do that. When her house was
trashed the first thing she did is ask them the real identity of the person
who rented and then they revealed they had absolutely no idea whatsoever. This
is a huge surprise to me, it was to her, and it is to everybody that isn't
trying to defend this company's massive incompetence. The fact that they don't
know the identity of the parties is openly misrepresented by their materials
which indicate that the transaction is safe and intentionally try to distract
the customer with jokes about the difficulty of moving grand pianos, which are
an item few people would have in their house anyway.

~~~
kragen
> I think there is a pretty good legal argument that they had a duty to know
> the actual identity of each party.

I think that's absurd. Would you say the same thing about Craigslist?

> The fact that they don't know the identity of the parties is openly
> misrepresented by their materials which indicate that the transaction is
> safe and intentionally try to distract the customer with jokes about the
> difficulty of moving grand pianos

That's not how I read it at all. They don't claim to know the identity of the
other party; they claim that the transaction is safe. Which, it appears, it
is. If they've had 2 million nights booked, that's maybe a quarter of a
million bookings, and (they claim) this is the first time anything like this
has happened. That's pretty safe!

I read the joke about the grand piano as an admission that the only thing
that's preventing people from using Airbnb to rob people is that robbing
people is generally hard and unprofitable.

------
kyro
HN has been pretty disgusting the last few days: the level of schadenfreude
here has hit ridiculous new highs.

It seems that every time a story breaks about a successful company, a bunch of
envious and disgruntled people come out of the woodwork and jump onto the
bandwagon headed straight for the founders' heads. A community of seemingly
intelligent and rational individuals turns into the most rabid, emotionally-
charged group of catty girls I've ever seen. We only have one side of the
story here. What if the've offered help and she's rejecting it? What if there
are some very legitimate reasons that AirBnB is not going totally public about
it? _You don't know, and you have not heard the other side of the story._

The same thing happened with Dropbox. You guys were so ridiculously quick to
foam at the mouth with your theatrics and conspiracies.

It's pretty revolting. Envy is just not a good color on many of you.

Edit: Spelling. Thanks, Jacques.

~~~
jacquesm
It's 'schadenfreude'.

This issue is very emotionally charged because:

    
    
      - everybody that uses AirBNB thought 'this could be me'
    
      - everybody that has a sister thinks 'that could be my sister'
    
      - everybody that runs a start-up thinks 'this could be a
        shakedown' (including some preposterous claims about
        hotel chains putting her up to this)
    
      - everybody is wondering if AirBNB is sitting on a huge
        stack of cash why they didn't just put it right and
        changed their terms of service / signup process
    

Being the 'ebay of spaces' means that you will be doing the same things that
ebay spends the most of its time on: battling fraud. AirBNB is coming of age
with this incident, from now on the stakes will be raised considerably in how
they deal with the reputation of their hosts and tenants.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Looking forward to the period after
this incident has blown over when AirBNB will be a company that is that much
stronger and that will put action to their claims of transparency and being a
'trusted marketplace'.

If they can make that work they'll be fine.

~~~
rexreed
This is probably the most useful comment of the bunch for me personally and my
startup - I'm trying to learn from other people's lessons (it's the cheapest
way to learn), and I think what you said above really helps. I made the
comment elsewhere, but here's what I learned:

* Respond quickly

* Respond in the open so that there's no he-said / she-said

* Be fair, and err on the side of the customer

* Don't spin the company line - be thoughtful, especially if someone has lost money / time / confidence / data / faith in humanity

* Think "This could be me / this could be someone I know & love"

* If relevant, get the authorities involved quickly so that you can be sure it's not a shakedown.

* Assume the customer is telling you the truth unless you have specific and verifiable reason to believe otherwise

* Get insurance

* Don't let others (especially those with interests) speak for you.

* Try to establish a single point person for all contact with the customer, and make that person easily and quickly available to the customer at the customer's behest

* Try not to respond to what's said in the press

Did I miss any good lessons here?

~~~
jodrellblank
Are they really things you learned here that you couldn't mostly have written
down before by thinking on "how should a company interact"? They sound pretty
ideal, but what when you can't "be fair" and also "err on the side of the
customer"?

What when you can't establish a single point of contact because you don't have
the resources? What current state of your company will you deprioritize to
make that a priority?

What does "don't spin the company line - be thoughtful" mean? If your company
line changes as soon as you put thought into it then (a) where did you get it
in the first place? and (b) in what way does it represent your company,
anyway?

What if it turns out AirBnB believed they did respond quickly, fairly,
thoughtfully, got the authorities involved, didn't officially let anyone else
speak for them, etc. and this situation still developed because human
communication is like that and other people didn't perceive the same
intentions in their behaviour as they did?

 _Did I miss any good lessons here?_

You can't please all the people all the time? You can't make an omelette
without breaking eggs? No gain without pain? Whatever you plan for won't be
the thing which trips you up? The best laid plans of mice and men? Shit
happens? It's what you do with it that counts?

~~~
rexreed
This was just posted today: <http://blog.airbnb.com/our-commitment-to-trust-
and-safety>

In particular: "With regards to EJ, we let her down, and for that we are very
sorry. We should have responded faster, communicated more sensitively, and
taken more decisive action to make sure she felt safe and secure. But we
weren’t prepared for the crisis and we dropped the ball. Now we’re dealing
with the consequences. In working with the San Francisco Police Department, we
are happy to say a suspect is now in custody. Even so, we realize that we have
disappointed the community. To EJ, and all the other hosts who have had bad
experiences, we know you deserve better from us."

Looks like I wasn't so lame after all in taking some lessons learned. If
AirBnB can learn some "obvious" lessons from this incident, so can I... and
you.

~~~
jodrellblank
I didn't say you were lame or that they were bad points, I was more on the
side that (a) you can't always win, (b) if you wait to start until you are
sure you can win any situation, you'll be waiting forever.

We're not really thinking that the AirBnB founders, if asked last year, would
have said "don't communicate sensitively to a crime victim" or "good customer
service means responding slowly" of "don't work with the police", and now
they've been hit by this and learned these lessons they know better, are we?

Planning to do everything right first time is a common failure mode and
procrastination mode, that's all.

------
redthrowaway
Sorry PG, but you have a steep hill to climb if you want to defend aribnb.

The crux of your (and their) problem is this: Why, if, as you say, airbnb was
being as helpful as possible from the get-go, did the victim write that second
post?

That's it. You cannot have a claim to credibility until you answer that
question. Even if that answer is, "she was paid off", the existence of her
second blog post puts the lie to airbnb's (and your) claims. Either she's
telling the truth, or they (and you) are. They are mutually exclusive stories.

Bringing Arrington's Arringtonity into this is a red herring. The story isn't
about him. There are two involved parties, here, and you've aligned yourself
with airbnb. The victim's story isn't being run through the TC filter; it's
there for everyone to see. So far, the collective 'you' have not addressed it,
refuted her points, or shown how the two accounts are compatible.

It's easy to hop on the "Michael Arrington is a sensationalistic dick"
bandwagon, because he is. That doesn't address the issue, though, and it comes
across as a deflection.

~~~
adnam
This is someone who thought it was a good idea to rent out their home (not
just their property, their _home_ ) for a whole week, unattended, to a total
stranger. The biggest mistake Airbnb have made is not overly trusting their
travellers, but also their hosts.

~~~
dollarsigns
You would have a factual point if AirBnB prominently displays on relevant
pages "We assume you are not stupid enough to rent out your primary residence.
Make sure you don't since we are NOT in the insurance business and take NO
responsibility for any damages".

~~~
blub
This is the kind of situation that leads to 'Keep away from fire' labels being
added to t-shirts.

To me renting your _home_ to a stranger and then failing to check up on them
for an entire week is incredibly naive. 10 year old naive. I don't care if
airbnb said that they would provide 100% insurance, I would still not do this,
it is simply against how I know the world works. And don't tell me about the
'good human being assumption', this is a fairytale, anyone making that
assuption will get burned sooner or later.

~~~
cookiecaper
Your post is a bit cynical. Most people _are_ good in most interpersonal
matters. This doesn't mean that you should take the gamble, however, on
something as personal and important as your primary residence. We should
recognize that while _most_ people will not trash your home if you let them
stay there without any supervision for a whole week, _some_ people will. I
don't know the exact proportion, but even if the chance is small, you may want
to think carefully about whether you want to take that chance.

It's important to have a belief that most people are not looking to screw up
your life specifically. It's also important to not be so naive that you take
dangerous gambles, like the ones made in EJ's story. Better safe than sorry.

There's an important equilibrium to be struck here.

~~~
Uchikoma
In Russian roulette most chambers ARE empty. Most pulls on the trigger will
NOT kill you.

I'm sorry, but I can't understand this "most people are good" argument in this
context.

------
bugsy
That's extremely interesting. When the victim EJ posted (was it Thursday?)
about being intimidated and lied to by Airbnb, it was obviously very different
from what they were saying publicly. I figured though she is very very upset
about everything and overreacting. However, this new report is a second
witness that Airbnb is playing dirty behind the scenes while acting all nice
guy in public, and PG defending it. Probably he believes what they say, but
the fact is that it's Arrington that ends up being right on these articles,
but even if it wasn't, we already know the story came from EJ the victim and
not Arrington anyway, so PG either didn't do proper diligence in checking
before posting or is outright lying to protect his investment. I think PG is
honest and just didn't check up on things, but believed what he was told by
his unnamed contact at Airbnb, who is clearly angry at the victim. The unnamed
Airbnb contact's attitude of anger corroborates EJ's story that she was
intimidated by them. What a mess. It's obvious at this point both that PG
should apologize to Arrington and Airbnb is basically done for. I am sure they
have _many_ people there trying to do the right thing but they have at least
one person there in CYA mode who has basically both destroyed the company and
lied to PG.

~~~
jamesgagan
I can't imagine that AirBnb are "done for" after one such incident. I think
the real issue here is that HN readers, the kind who root for startups to
"stick it to the man", so to speak, are disheartened to see their champions
acting like the old regime. That's why this topic, and the public bun fight in
the aftermath have generated so much discussion.

~~~
gobongo
I can easily imagine they are done for. Not because of the PR backlash, but
because what they are doing is already quasi-illegal in a lot of places and
one juicy story like this that the media, lawyers and politicians can jump on
is just about all it will take to eventually remove the "quasi" part.

------
moonlighter
\- "Brian Chesky called me and I updated that post" \- "Chesky repeatedly
thanked me for the updates by email and on the phone"

Seems like Chesky and Lukezic spent more time talking to Arrington trying to
do "PR damage control" rather than talk to their customer EJ. Which, given
Arrington's new post, totally backfired, too:

"At least have the decency to stand up and say you’re wrong, Airbnb, and
apologize for the lies. Because hiding behind investors, and attacking the
press, is both dishonorable and stupid. That’s no way to gain customer trust."

Ouch. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

------
ig1
I think perhaps the more important question here is with pg going to bat for
Airbnb against Arrington, is this going to affect the long term relationship
between Y Combinator and Techcrunch.

Techcrunch have always provided favourable coverage to YC companies, but if
that relationship is going tepid because of this affair, the negative fall-out
could be far worse for YC than for AirBnB. Most consumers will forget about
stories like this after a while, journalists tend to hold grudges (see
Arrington vs Calcanis).

~~~
dredmorbius
Journalists get in fights. They drink and make up afterwards.

I think MA's been treated worse by others. If he's worth his stripes, he'll
report on other YC ventures as they deserve to be reported on.

Human nature may creep in, and if YC ventures continue to act in the manner of
AirBnB (as reported), I can see a justified negative slant.

Now, if PG wants to sue MA and see what sort of press that generates ....

------
OoTheNigerian
This is my little 2 cents on this whole fiasco that seems not to go away.

All this would not have come to this if Airbnb guys asked themselves a simple
question. How would I handle this if this happened to my sister of wife.

The main problem is Airbnb had about a month to fix this before it became
'viral'. It was only the post by TC that made me realise this issue was about
a month ago (30 days!).

As a fan of Airbnb, (I have not used the service, but i have given them a few
customers), I am a bit disappointed in the response. I do not blame them for
waat happened to EJ. The problem that has happened is as a result of their
reaction to what had happened.

I am kind of amazed that after a month, not one of the founders has gone to
see the house (they have the address) but rather they have been doing
"everything" to help. This is politician talk, not startup talk. Why startups
were really cool was the possibility of getting in touch with the founder of
it rather than the "automated customer service of big companies".

The only actionable thing Airbnb have done during the last few days fiasco is
try to cover their asses. i.e change the security page, write a blog post on
TC and defend themselves. Now anything they do will not be perceived in good
faith but in reaction to the angry mob (as PG calls it). It is never good to
be reactionary.

If I were the CEO of Airbnb, I would do this:

Go and look physically and look at the house.

Go and look for the victim and be sincere in my apology and request for
another chance to start again.

Behave as if it was my sister this thing happened to.

I really hope some good "no win no fee" lawyer has not got to her first. When
you are successful, people are out there trying to hang you, please Airbnb, do
not give them a rope.

I wish you guys all the best!

~~~
chrischen
So how would they help this person? Reimburse her? AirBnb is technically not
liable for those damages right? So how much do they give her? If it's too
little it might be insulting. Too much and people would still complain about
irreparable emotional damage.

They said they're trying to help catch the perpetrator right? In my eyes
that's all they really can do and the only thing that matters. The damages are
primarily the girl's responsibility but the criminal is partially Airbnb's
fault.

~~~
pbreit
> AirBnb is technically not liable for those damages right?

Totally irrelevant. This has obviously gone beyond "technical liability".

~~~
pbreit
Why the downvote?

------
coffeemug
The way many people here jumped to conclusions after the initial AirBnB story
based on almost no information is really disheartening. Insulting the founders
of the company, the victim, and concocting conspiracy theories based on a few
paragraphs of information with barely any evidence is a really poor way to
conduct oneself. Most decent people wouldn't do it in face-to-face
conversations without getting to know a person at least slightly, and it's
unfortunate that our psychology is built in a way that an extra layer of
anonymity afforded by the internet enables a large number of people to drop
all sense of tact and respect, and jump into personal attacks with very little
information about the actual incident. If you're one of the people that
engaged in this type of behavior, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're
doing real damage to real people, while knowing almost nothing about what's
actually going on, but more importantly, you're damaging your own reputation.

I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're
one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a
positive change into the lives of their customers. They live and breathe
positive change they bring to the world, to the point where they carry letters
from customers that thanked them for saving their lives because the bank would
have repossessed their home if not for AirBnB. Jumping on them because they
didn't have a chance to give a complete response _while handling a crisis_ is
really uncalled for.

I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going
through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding, but even if
it isn't, it's really inappropriate to insult people given the information
currently available. In fact, it's never appropriate to insult people, and
it's best to hold back criticism until more information is available, lest you
do some real damage to real people.

There are some valid concerns about where personal responsibility ends and
liability begins (legally and ethically), and how AirBnB's service will evolve
to address these issues, but there are different ways to discuss these
concerns, and discussions here so far have been nothing but poisonous.

EDIT: I posted this comment in the other thread
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2825045>). Sorry for the crosspost, but
this is getting ridiculous.

~~~
skue
Please don't lead off with telling us not to jump to conclusions, and then
laying out your conclusion for us.

> _I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're
> one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a
> positive change into the lives of their customers._

> * I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going
> through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding*

People aren't all good or all bad, and sometimes good people do bad things.
Even people you admire. It doesn't mean they're bad people, or that you're a
bad judge of character. It just means they screwed up.

You made a judgment about the character of the AirBNB folks and seem unwilling
to question them now. But you haven't met the victim, and you're more than
willing to imply that this is her misunderstanding while masking this in the
faux compassion of saying she's just traumatized.

That's not fair.

~~~
kyro
He's giving you another damn perspective: that from his personal experience,
he's seen the AirBnB folks to be good people and that maybe we don't have the
full story; so it's unfair to launch an all out attack on them. And how do you
respond? _Yeah, well, good people can be bad, too!_ Now you're just finding
any way to rationalize your jugement of the situation.

He said there are valid concerns here, but is urging people to consider that
there may be other factors.

Come on, people.

------
Legion
>> Airbnb has been offering to fix it

EJ said as much in the first post. But offers without follow-through are
worthless. And the problem is that, from EJ's perspective at least, there has
been absolutely none. And swinging a bat at Arrington won't change that.

------
resdirector
I really look forward to reading a Paul Graham essay about his experience
here, once the dust has settled. I know he has written about PR before, but
this is probably essay-worthy in of itself (perhaps something like "in the eye
of a shitstorm" or similar).

I'd like to know his philosophies and how he came to his decisions to do what
when, his thought processes etc.

------
rweba
This might now end up affecting not only Airbnb but also the image of
Ycombinator and pg.

Also the important issue here is not just the (terrible) handling of this
specific incident by Airbnb but the fact that it puts into question their
entire business model: Is it really smart to rent out your personal residence
to a complete stranger? Does the potential benefit($$$) outweigh the
significant risks(being completely violated)? Yes, they could put in some more
checks but will that be enough to make people feel SAFE?

Personally I think the risk is too high and the problem will only become worse
as the service tries to expand to more customers and scammers become more
aware of it. That nice "guest" may simply be casing the joint, copying your
keys and snooping in your mail. Who needs that risk?

~~~
cageface
I think the crucial context is even larger than that. There's a lot of anxiety
in the tech community about the recent valuations of several startups. First
there was the revelation that a lot of Groupon's reported "profits" are
products of clever accounting. Then Color implodes after a ridiculously
disproportionate funding round. And now AirBNB, the poster child of internet
disintermediation of old, hidebound industries, is caught totally unprepared
for a business model threatening crisis that everyone should have seen coming.

I suspect I'm not the only one that thinks that there's a lot of willful
ignorance underlying this boom we're all enjoying.

~~~
Nutella2
"a business model threatening crisis that everyone should have seen coming"

Airbnb did see it coming and were careful to cover it in their TOS section 1.2
and 1.4. They have, however, been marketing their service very differently.
They've now taken down the FAQ answer about security that had only a joke
about grand pianos, but it shows that they were deliberately trying to
obfuscate security issues in order to make more sales.

That makes it even more amazing that they had no PR or operational plan in
place to deal with the inevitable criminal user.

------
9oliYQjP
Long term, this kind of problem isn't going away for AirBnB. To ignore it
would be as foolish as a retailer avoiding the problem of shrink. To treat
this case like it is an isolated, unique event, is also ridiculous. AirBnB
might be tremendously safe. But so is flying, and people have irrational fears
of flying because the odd disaster happens. Airlines have entire disaster
teams in place to handle these rare events.

Honestly, I think a big problem here is that you have men handling a situation
in which they were completely oblivious to the feelings of their customer. Men
can't possibly appreciate the sense of vulnerability most women have walking
down the street alone at night, let alone the sense of violation that occurs
from events like this. What the woman in question implied in her blog post was
anger that the men were cold and not paying attention to her _feelings_. My
advice would be to find a woman with great customer service experience and
give her authority to personally handle this situation, in-person.

That would take care of the immediate problem. Long term, AirBnB needs to
develop a strategy for handling these sort of cases. Reports of insurance
being offered is a good first step. But they need to think about having
disaster teams in place similar to the ones airlines and insurance companies
have. They are in the same boat as these companies; when something goes wrong,
it goes very very wrong. That leaves people in severe distress and it takes
more than just a standard customer service response to deal with situations
like this.

------
lancewiggs
Hundreds of comments and votes. But I have not seen an apology from AirBnB on
HN. Perhaps I missed it, but they should be everywhere.

Why don't they understand this? Why are they not incredibly active on this and
other forums? Have they no conscience? Do they really not care? Is this really
still seen by them as a PR problem rather than a a horrible event that they at
least partially enabled and thus should feel terrible about and seek to help
the victim in any and all ways they can?

The success of eBay, a P2P business, was initially driven by its community,
and members treated each other with respect and were happy to trade with each
other. AirBnB is behaving as if it doesn't care about its community, its
customers.

Is that the death knell sounding? Perhaps. To me the only recourse now is a
new person or team at the top, folks that actually live the desired values of
the company.

~~~
babebridou
Let's be blunt: when there's a fire, the first thing that's required is to
contain it. They failed at containing their public presence to a specific
website/social network and now there are little flame wars sprouting
everywhere and no way to adress every opinion.

Unfortunately, I believe the best option at this point for AirBnB is to do
nothing about it for this specific case, and brace for the next impact by
preparing the field in advance (centralize comments in order to assimilate and
answer public questions).

This story should not be bigger than what's happened/happening to the victim -
and that's huge enough already. Make her feel better first, then see what you
can do about your "image". Tell your side of the story in one place and be
receptive for critics. Something good can come out of this mess, but they
won't find it if they think hiring more people to monitor/participate in more
forums on the internet is a solution.

------
ajays
Here is something I don't understand.

San Francisco is a tiny city (heck, I've walked from one end to the other;
it's just 7 miles x 7 miles, or 11km x 11km for the rest of you). Most of the
principles in this sad tale live in San Francisco. _HOW HARD IS IT TO JUST
WALK OVER AND MEET THIS PERSON??_ Instead of relying on PR and telephones and
email and blogs; just walk over, give her a hug, talk to her and treat her
right! Put a human touch on all this interaction, people! It's not like she's
living in Podunk, Nebraska (no offense to Nebraskans) and out of reach. She's
living right here!

Close your laptops. Put down your iPhones. Just meet her in person and solve
her problems. I am willing to bet that a face-2-face with the principles will
solve more problems than all the articles in TC, blog posts, etc.

~~~
forensic
Nobody lives or works in San Franciso. Silicon Valley is not SF. The Bay Area
is this big sprawling suburb that is a pain in the ass to get around in.

~~~
ajays
Are you kidding me, or just trolling? I live in San Francisco. There are tons
of people who live _and_ work in San Francisco.

From AirBnB's page: "Airbnb HQ is located in the heart of San Francisco, CA."

~~~
forensic
Was exaggerating. Point is that SV != SF.

------
todayiamme
This might seem stupid, but given the line of events if I was AirBNB's
founders I would do this; offer EJ my place to stay, and cook a simple meal
for her. That's it.

The shortfall of AirBNB over here is that they might care, but they aren't
coming across as someone caring, and a little bit of empathy coupled with a
genuine act of kindness will go a long way over here.

~~~
bugsy
I agree with you that is a smart approach.

I think the reason they don't do anything to really fix it rather than lip
service and lawyer wrangling and dirty PR tricks is they are afraid of setting
a precedent. However, they should have thought that through a bit more. They
are saying they've had a million rentals or some such with no incident. If
that is true, covering someone's damage for the 1 in a million case should be
something they can do. Let's say it costs $10,000. That's nothing compared to
their profit for those million cases where it didn't happen. By not doing this
they are sending several possible messages. One is that they believe that a
lot more robberies are going to happen and they have been lucky so far. It's
not going to be 1 in a million it's going to be 1 in a 100, and they can't
afford to fix 1% of all stays that turn into robberies. This message also
means they believe it is impossible to fix, they give up on the idea of ever
being able to truly identify renters (the rentees are not as big an issue to
identify since their names are on the deeds). I think that's crazy since it's
really obvious they have been severely legally negligent in not actually
acquiring real identities of renters, though they have certainly implied to
rentees that it was safe as if they had. That's probably going to end up being
determined by some court or consumer advocacy agency like the FTC to be a
misrepresentation. The other bad message they send with this is that if they
truly believe it is 1 in a million and they don't want to help her out by
finding a place to stay and fixing her apartment, then they are obscenely
greedy. There are costs to doing this sort of business after all, you can't
just starve the business and take it all for yourself. Some money needs to be
set aside for these sorts of 100% predictable and inevitable occurrences.

Whoever is on their hack legal team is should be fired and they should get
some real lawyers in there. Obviously they are obsessed with CYA and avoiding
responsibility. If that is where they want to be fine but then they have no
business running this sort of business. This business is going to have
robberies, rapes and murders from time to time. They should have had a plan.
Yelling "it's not our fault", threatening the victim, playing the hypocrite,
and attacking people who reasonably comment on the story (and through a third
party, what cowards) is absolutely not the right approach. What you mentioned
is pretty good though, but it's pretty clear that was brought up and dismissed
as something that might cost a couple hundred bucks they were too greedy to
let go of.

~~~
babebridou
The thing is, there's no reason why it should cost 10k bucks in the first
place. Okay, well, unless there are travel costs included.

Fact is, before anything else, this is a personal matter, so do it as a person
- ideally on your spare time (if you ever can make some) with your personal
funds if you can - everyone will accept a founder doing this, it will not
engage any responsibility/liability whatsoever, it will not establish any
precedent, and it will change the reception radically, for both the victim,
the company and the public.

This is a person offering another person to meet, talk aaaaaand 3 years from
now we have "Beds & Breaks" hitting the theatres, a movie loosely based on
real facts, starring...

~~~
rdouble
In San Francisco it can easily cost $10K to get situated into a new apartment.
The average rent is $2300, so $6900 and broker fees just to move in. Plus, she
needs all new stuff.

~~~
babebridou
I meant for the company. It's not needed to involve the company's money in
this case.

As a side note, how big are those appartments in San Francisco? Here in Paris
for that kind of money each month you get 60 square meters and no single
person can afford those. Most live in a third or a half of this surface.

~~~
rdouble
An apartment at that cost in SF could be anywhere from 45-60 square meters.
Here is a typical listing:

<http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/2521648827.html>

~~~
bugsy
That's very interesting, thanks for showing a typical example. They state they
require verifiable 3.5 x income to rent ratio. This means you must make at
least $2395 x 3.5 x 12 = $100,590 in order to be allowed to rent this dinky
old 1 bedroom that appears to have been constructed on the roof of a parking
garage.

------
WordSkill
You know, I am no cheerleader for Michael Arrington, we've certainly banged
heads a few times in comment threads (it's a fun way to spend an evening) but
what Paul Graham is doing here is pretty cynical:

Once it became clear yesterday that the empathically-challenged kids in charge
at Airbnb had no clue of how to manage the problem, and that the company was
hemorrhaging tens of millions in notional value every time Brian Chesky opened
his mouth and a bunch of lies and half-truths came tumbling out, the investors
called an emergency meeting and tried to figure out a way out of this mess.

Clearly, as the situation had been left to rot for a month, giving the victim
plenty of time to become more upset and alienated, it was too late to pretend
that the situation itself had been handled in any way properly.

There was also no longer any subtle way to silence to victim - that bridge
already been burned by the ham-fisted attempt to bully her into deleting her
original post... attempts made, incredibly, OVER THE PHONE!

And, as those attempts were now part of the another blog post, it was too late
to act like fucking professionals, meet her in person, put her up in five star
luxury while they arrange and pay to have her home cleansed, fumigated,
redecorated, refurnished, blessed by a witchdoctor, whatever it took to shut
her up.... it was too late for all that.

So, Paul Graham, an intelligent man with a good eye for small details, noticed
the one and only sliver of a chance Airbnb has to get out of this mess with
it's valuation above the billion mark, rather than far below it: the universal
antipathy towards Michael Arrington!

So, now, the course is set and, from here on out, Airbnb and their investors
are going to completely ignore the truth that it was the victim's own account
which contradicts Airbnb's rapidly shifting assertions, and, instead, they are
going to pretend that the whole controversy is a link-bait concoction by
Silicon Valley's favorite super-villain, Dr. Arrington. What actually happened
will not matter and, right now, you can bet the Paul Graham is down on his
knees praying that Jason Calacanis will take the tasty Arrington bait and run
this story in the other direction.

Of course, the only reason this story has legs is that Chesky's article turned
out to be so astonishingly and needlessly untruthful that the victim felt
compelled to sit down and write a practically line-by-line rebuttal. It was
truly one of the most remarkable own goals I have ever seen and, if you
weren't already questioning the sanity of the CEO of a supposedly $1.3bn
company not identifying, a month ago when it happened, that this could be a
serious IPo blocker and, as such, promptly nailing it down, you have to wonder
just how psychotic he is to have written something so bold, to have put
himself in the position of being publicly exposed as a complete and utter
bullshitter.

So, that is why Micheal is getting it in the neck and, on this occasion,
undeservedly so... but you shouldn't let that spoil your enjoyment of it ;)

~~~
AlexMuir
_... attempts made, incredibly, OVER THE PHONE!_

Nothing incredible there - had these attempts been made in writing/email then
there would be no arguing about what was/was not said.

Lesson: Do your shady dealing in person. Failing that, do it with an
unscheduled phone call.

~~~
lwhi
I think the point is, they should have been made in person.

------
jacquesm
Everybody calm down please.

EJ is real, she's a real person, it really did happen, just in case anybody
was still wondering about that.

I've passed her contact info to PG and him being the smart man that he is I'm
pretty sure that he can come up with a solution that will satisfy everybody
and will allow the victim to move on and get AirBNB past this crisis. Any
words to the effect that AirBNB is 'setting precedent' are null and void, of
course they aren't and even if they were it would not matter one bit,
sometimes you just need to do the right thing, even if that hurts you
financially. Sometimes lawyers are good, sometimes they muddle the water. In
this case I'd advise to leave the lawyers out of it, this is an emotional
train-wreck and lawyers are only going to make it worse.

The future can wait until _after_ this has been resolved to EJs satisfaction.
Customer = King. Be happy that so far the mainstream press seems to be
ignoring this story, the last thing you want at this point is to leave that
clock ticking to the point where they do pick it up and who knows how many
more EJ stories start hitting the news.

Yes, this could be an isolated case, but given the numbers involved it
probably isn't.

Whoever lied will have to come clean about it at some point, maybe PG will owe
Arrington an apology, maybe not.

Note that 'offering help' and 'giving help' are two very different things, and
PG has not said anywhere that AirBNB has given her help, just that they've
been offering it from the beginning, it may have been an unconditional offer,
or it may have been a conditional one with conditions unacceptable for EJ. If
they did nothing tangible for the last 30 days that really is a problem, but
that means that PG can still stand by his words. Whatever hang-ups that stop
'offering' turning in to 'given' need to be resolved immediately.

Time will tell, all that depends on _what really happened_ and other than EJ
and one or two people at AirBNB nobody knows, the rest is hearsay. It is very
well possible that PG is acting on incomplete or wrong info. The fact that
AirBNB is willing to move to keep this out of the media during a funding round
may tell us a bit about their attitude towards being truthful with investors,
assuming that that is true, which we can not take as read at this point.

As far as damage to the apartment, pictures with some proof would help (and
would indicate the extent of the damage), and if the truth is to come out
about the interaction with AirBNB then someone would have to dump their email
cache.

Personally I don't think that is the best way forward (other than for EJ if
she's telling the truth and wants to make that more than plain, and AirBNB
turns out to have not done anything tangible other than saying they will
'support her' and have 'offered help'), what this mostly needs is to be taken
care of, whether that happens in the public eye or not is not relevant.

I exchanged some email with the lady, EJ is right now literally scared out of
her wits, concern for her safety and well being should come first, after that,
when the situation has been normalized as far as possible there will be a time
of reflection for everybody involved, including PG.

YC companies are hitting bigger home-runs each year and with that comes a need
for a more professional approach to PR. When you're dealing at this level and
you have this many interactions with your customers (2 million nights booked =
4 million chances for someone to be dissatisfied) there will _always_ be
trouble. It is unavoidable, so you have to plan for it and you plan for the
worst case scenarios.

Luckily, there was no bodily harm in this case, the perps were gone when she
returned. But that is just about the only icing on this cake, other than that
there needs to be some real hard work done to set this right and to do what
can be done to avoid a repetition in the future. And if there is a repetition
(imo inevitable) that person should have been warned up front about the risks
in an un-ambiguous way.

Best of luck to all involved, especially to EJ and the AirBNB team.

~~~
dr_
If she's scared out of her wits, shouldn't she remove her blog postings, other
than the last few that pertain to the episode with AirBnB?

It's not that difficult to figure parts of her identity from her prior
postings and personally, if it happened to me and I was concerned for my own
safety, that's what I would have done.

~~~
tghw
The people she would be scared of already know her identity. In fact, they may
have stolen it from her.

~~~
jcunningham
I'm not sure whether she is more scared of the robbers or the consequences of
her publicity because of this event and going up against a well-funded company
in a potential legal battle.

~~~
dr_
Give me a break - this is not Exxon Mobil we're talking about.

~~~
jcunningham
From her perspective it might as well be if we're talking about a company with
a $1 Billion valuation versus a woman who is sleeping at friends' apartments
to keep herself off the street.

------
nikcub
airbnb chose to use Techcrunch as the venue, and there is still no mention of
this on their own blog or website.

they should just cut it straight and adress all their users on their own site

------
cookiecaper
There are a lot of long words in these posts, so I doubt anyone will read
this, but I want to say it anyway.

First, this whole thing just wreaks of a big disaster of miscommunication
between all involved parties. Many commentators I think are being overly
sensitive and pedantic (I commented yesterday on the shocking revelation that
an airbnb founder would "enjoy meeting" EJ). The following points seem clear
to me:

* EJ's perspective is tainted by her negative experience. While she criticized the founder for an impersonal meeting request, she could have disparaged the founder just as easily had it gone the other way: "Oh, the founder sent me this mail gushing with concern... if he really cared, he would have done X and Y differently, now he is just backtracking like a coward in light of media attention"

* airbnb believes that they are helping and is trying to do what's feasible, but is weighed down by concern over insurance, regulation, fault, and other pertinent issues involved in this precedent-setting incident. airbnb also is likely to (subconsciously) give a story that is perhaps unrealistically positive to one of its earliest mentors and investors, who readily believes and defends one of his earliest and most successful investments; I can't help but think there are child-parent-type instincts on that kind of relationship.

* Arrington is writing the story mostly accurately, perhaps not with the rigid journalistic method that ensures precision in retelling, as we generally expect to find lacking in the casual vernacular of a blog. In fact, I think a lot of TC-related controversy stems from nothing more than the casual format that leaves much room for misreadings (and miswritings). While it may not be fun to read or write an article that follows classical journalistic procedure, there is a reason that that procedure was put in place...

* Commentators jump to the defense of EJ prematurely, partly because of white-knight impulses and partly because of the victim's emotionally-charged writing.

I hope that people calm down over this. We need to allow all parties involved
some time, I think. This is a major thing in the history of airbnb and the
logistics require careful attention -- they may not get it perfectly right,
but I believe they're operating out of good faith and trying to do the right
thing. I also believe EJ is struggling to get a grip on her new circumstances
and would also benefit from some time apart from the sensationalism. As for
PG/TC/others, it just causes volumes of unnecessary drama to get publicly
entangled.

I'm not sure that anything else productive can be done at this point by
continuing to expound on the issue, it merely seems to create more controversy
for controversy's sake.

~~~
blntechie
"We need to allow all parties involved some time, I think"

The incident happened a month back and AirBnB didn't resolve it properly for a
month. That's enough time to build her a new home if AirBnB wanted to.

------
bennyfreshness
Another example of a select few bad apples ruining it for everyone. This is
such a shame. I've had great experiences with Airbnb. The last person who
rented my loft left it cleaner that it was before!

------
rmason
I remember seeing Jack Welch being interviewed once about the press. He said
for successful people it's a cycle - they're either building you up or tearing
you down. If AirBnB wasn't so successful their problem wouldn't be news.

If he hasn't done it already you will see PG bring in a top PR person who is
experienced in handling a crisis. Not just to get AirBnB out of trouble but to
be a resource for future YC companies in handling episodes of this sort. Quite
frankly I am shocked their VC's aren't helping them out this way.

------
orionlogic
Sometime ago i watched a video, a panel directed by Arrington and said to
myself "how could PG like this guy"(i see the Arrington way) because PG said
this several times. TC really supportive and give good reviews for Ycom
startups so its normal to say that i think.

But for this event TC is a bit prolonging the situation. Why not talking
millions of happy transactions instead of a unlucky bad one? In 2011 bad news
still sells.

------
badclient
Arrington nails it. It's the same thing I wrote yesterday in a comment: Airbnb
wants to call out the victim but are holding back whether it is for legal or
other reasons.

I can understand them. It's hard to just sit idle when someone irrationally
attacks you. At the same time, if you have a customer-business relationship,
airing the customer's dirty laundry may be strategicay bad no matter how wrong
she is. On the other hand, the customer can write piles and piles of
questionable content.

Here's what I'd love: for EJ to post the ordinal emails or to show them to
techcrunch or arstechnica for an independent take on the situation. At the
moment TC is just a megaphone for both parties. May be this can investigate
this at the root with original communication between EJ and airbnb, assuming
ej agrees to it. And if she doesn't, I would be as suspicious of her as I may
be airbnb having read her posts.

------
larrys
Maybe PG/YC/Airbnb see this for what it is. A great deal of notoriety that
will help this startup after the situation lands on the front page of every
major paper as well as the nightly news. Then will come EJ on 20/20, morning
shows etc. telling her story as a word of caution. Airbnb will respond that
they've fixed the problem though. Then even your aunt will know about airbnb.
What's that publicity worth.

In the end, this won't hurt it will help. (Think of all the weird stuff
selling on ebay like dead bodies, dead body parts etc that were constantly
publicized many years ago. At times it seemed like there were new stories
weekly.)

------
trotsky
I wish Arrington didn't try to make himself the story so much - I know it's
his schtick but it's very distracting from the actual story here.

He's obviously on HN regularly - if he had a problem with the way he was
characterized in a HN comment the easiest way to respond to that is right
there. Anyone reading pg's comment would see his rebuttal, pg would see it,
and people could directlly make up their own minds.

Instead he makes a "oh god look at this liar" TC post because he enjoys using
his bully pulpit to shape public opinion. No wonder he lets people like MG
call out random CSR lies on twitter and get them fired at AT&T.

~~~
HardyLeung
In his own forum, unprovoked, PG called MA "bullshit", "in typical Arrington
fashion", "not cool".

In his own forum, MA responded and made a big deal of out this comment.

I think it is a fair response. Not to mention, why would anyone expect MA to
not jump on it?

------
meinthecity
The tragedy about this is that everyone involved here could have done
something to avoid this except maybe EJ.

In order of culpability, here are the mistakes they made:

AirBnB's clearly inexperienced leadership has done a horrible job at
communication. Sadly, this makes any real action they have taken to help the
victim irrelevant to the public. Then again, their business has a fundamental
risk, one of crime, which they seem unprepared to address or mitigate. Given
their past resourcefulness, I have a feeling they will find ways to improve
their product to make this less likely. I am not so sure about their ability
to improve their communication.

Michael Arrington's job is to draw more eyeballs to TechCrunch and he
invariably picks stoking controversy over responsible journalism. If it wasn't
already clear to everyone including pg that he will do this at any cost, it
should be now. Michael could have done some real journalism and talked to the
police to find out more details, probed AirBnB for more details up front and
may be even the victim on the one hand. On the other hand he should certainly
have avoided comparing AirBnB to scamville, I don't think anyone thinks AirBnB
is _scamming_ users. But that's just who he is. He also takes great pleasure
in calling people names. Notice that his latest post about pg has "Liar"
emblazoned on the top. Can't say I expected any different, given his past
behavior but at least pg will remove his blinders now that Arrington is
treating him exactly like he treats non-luminaries.

The fact that PG had to jump into the public fray may have seemed inevitable
given AirBnB's incompetent response, but it is almost always a bad tactic to
have multiple people presenting the public face of a company. Even minor
differences between what they say will be highlighted and will cause more
confusion. PG even made the tactical mistake of responding emotionally to
Arrington's "make the story more interesting without giving a shit about
anyone else" approach, but in the long run this is a good thing. As I said,
he'll now remove his blinders about Arrington.

EJ is not at fault except that she should have known that she was taking this
risk when she rented her home to complete strangers sight unseen. This may be
a flaw in AirBnB's model and their lack of focus on safety on their site, but
if EJ had been my 6' 5" wrestler brother, I'd have waited a sufficient amount
of time before giving him a knock upside the head and asking him what he
expected when he handed over keys to an apartment that held all his belongings
to a complete stranger while he was abroad. If EJ were my sister I'd tell her
the same thing, minus the knock upside the head!

------
kristiandupont
It's amazing to me how polarized the comments are even here on HN where the
debate is usually very balanced.

Obviously we know very little about what's going on behind the scenes right
now. There are conflicting messages coming from all sides.

I am not saying that EJ is lying. But calling AirBnB are completely cynical
and lacking any sense of PR seems incongruent with the skills they have
otherwise shown and also with the empathy that they at least managed to convey
in interviews etc.

------
Shenglong
_do you really think they are so dumb that they don’t realize it’s not worth
the bad PR to save money and effort in this situation?_

I'm siding with pg on this one. I can't imagine any intelligent person making
this PR trade-off just for some cash. I don't want to analyze the he-said-she-
said, but I've been up to date since this went viral, and I don't see any
logiacl reason that AirBnb would refuse to pay for her expenses.

Think about it logically... rather than emotionally.

------
djloche
The key problem is that MA is reading 'we're not legally liable' as 'we're not
going to help her'.

There is a huge difference between the two. Companies go out of their way to
fix issues where they have no legal obligation to do so. However, they can
still claim that they have no legal obligation with the offended parties to do
so, they're just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts (and reputation
of the business going forward).

------
bane
Is it just me or has this entire debacle resulted in an awful lot of beating
up of otherwise upstanding HNers and armchair novice PR advice based on a case
full of conflicting details where apparently _nobody_ has the complete story?

I'm actually finding this entire thing distasteful from _all_ possible sides.
I'd rather just wait and see what happens while the various parties work this
out in relative private.

------
chappi42
I see airbnb as a match-maker and consider it quite naive to entrust a
'facebook-friend-like' stranger my appartment without proper checking who this
person is.

Typical America were drinking hot coffee leads to lawsuits.

(Which doesn't mean i'm not sorry for the person, or that risks shouldn't be
stated (more) prominently, or that insurances should be here)

~~~
evilduck
_Typical America were drinking hot coffee leads to lawsuits._

FYI, this is a really terrible case to cite against "Typical America" unless
you're trying to tear apart AirBnB, because it's a good example of a
_corporation_ trying to screw over someone they were found to have injured and
held liable, as determined by a jury in a court of law.

Liebeck, the victim in the "coffee lawsuit", received third degree burns to 6%
of her body, required skin grafts, etc, it's not like someone just scaled
their hand due to a splash or something.

------
lwhi
Diversionary tactics. Not admirable but I'll still be impressed if he pulls it
off.

------
puppetaccount
To AirBnB:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man
stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; _who errs, who comes short again
and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming_ ; but who
does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great
devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at
least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those
cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

------
NIL8
Arrington and TC irritate the crap out of me! There was a time when I loved to
read TC, but now they are so obnoxiously arrogant and dirty that it makes me
cringe to see links from them in HN posts. Why would they drop Paul Graham's
name into this empty story?

Can someone explain to me how this is anybody's fault other than the jerk that
robbed the lady (and maybe the lady's naïveté)?

I know AirBnB has made a lot of people angry with their business tactics, but
how are they responsible for this crime? Can you imagine if the Hampton Inn
sued Expedia for someone vandalizing a hotel room or expecting restitution
from Kayak for what a vandal did in their hotel?

AirBnB should listen to their lawyers and not accept responsibility for the
act of a criminal or the poor judgement of a user.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Why would they drop Paul Graham's name into this empty story?

Paul Graham waded into it by posting on HN[1] with a statement that directly
contradicts the victim's version of events. It's relevant, and TechCrunch
covering it should come as no surprise to anyone.

> I know AirBnB has made a lot of people angry with their business tactics,
> but how are they responsible for this crime?

Per PG's post: "Airbnb has been offering to fix it..." Whether or not they're
legally responsible, they've got a PR problem on their hands.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721>

------
ImperatorLunae
Does anyone else see the irony in responding to pg with a list of n things?
<http://www.paulgraham.com/nthings.html>

------
capdiz
After reading the lady's blog. airbnb dudes you really screwed up. You dare
suggest she takes her blog down. I had actually defended airbnb yesterday
before reading her side of the story. But am now inclined to believe that you
guys screwed up and need to do some damage control.

------
maurycy
Let me start with a very simple sentence: _people are good_.

The AirBnB service depends on this simple premise. This is the first axiom of
their business. No matter how insured everyone is, the axiom has to hold.
Otherwise, you end up with an infinite streak of disputes.

If you invite strangers to your home, then you assume that people are good,
either. It is that simple. Frankly, only a good person would invite strangers
to her home. It might be slightly too naive, but it does not change the fact
it takes a lot of good faith, and trust. (It might be too much, I agree, but
it is not her fault, as it was not BitCoin begginers' mistake to commit into
the idea of the digital currency _too much_. It is more experienced ones'
responsibility to share their knowledge.)

Once you find the property destroyed, your world view is going to collapse. It
turns out, basically, that some people are not good. What's worse, bad people
were physically close to you, just few days ago.

It is _extremely_ stressful.

Here and there I've read comments suggesting that EJ extrapolates a bit. Even
if so, so what? She is so distressed, I'm very surprised that there's so
little understanding about her current position.

The way the AirBnB folks behave does not reveal that they do genuiely believe
that _people are good_. The way the public sees it right now is that they're
very cautious, as well as lawyers, and all that stuff, is rather a defensive,
and unsafe, behaviour.

While I somehow understand them, the problem is that the service relies on the
assumption that _people are good_. After all, it is about _sharing your
property with complete strangers from Internet_ (no matter if it is your home,
or the other one.)

The reason why the story reads so bad is that it mixes up the social context
of sharing per se, with the formal context, relying on lawyers and PR firms.
All comments points out that getting her a new property sets a precedence for
further refunds are totally off the took. To come up with such comment, it
takes to view the world as a distrustful place. The view that, basically,
contradicts the whole idea.

To me, the whole story is about nerds facing social complexities. The business
they've created is not about numbers (i.e. brokering rooms, without having to
incur the costs of building a hotel), but about sharing. The sharing, in
nearly all cases, of single most valuable thing in your life.

I'm so frightened with lack of common sense.

First of all, the AirBnB folks should ensure her that _people are good_. I
mean, people _are_ good. That the unfortunate event was a nightmarish
accident, not the correct image of the world (no BS here, as, statistically
speaking, the event is an outlier.)

Ensuring someone that the world is a trustful place definitely does not
involve communicating publicly, or privately, with lawyers, or PR companies. I
don't know how to explain this but it is all about showing that you're a human
(of course, it still makes sense to speak with a lawyer before, though to
avoid some simple misunderstaindg.)

We don't know her. We have no idea what are the actions necessary in order to
make her safe. I think, though, it takes nothing more than showing your real,
not faked, care, and, what comes as a surprise, asking her, not a PR company.

Once this is solved, the community should be somehow informed about the
solution. If she wants to, EJ could write the explanation. She would have
control over the amount of private informations shared, giving her power she
has lost due to the abuse. Also, the really case closed means a good story
about the world within that __people are good __.

Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense to offer her a job. She is an
extremely talented writer, and seems to care about people. The AirBnB business
operates heavily in the social context, so so good person, coming from inside,
would be priceless for a now a bit dry company.

Of course, meanwhile it makes sense to get constant updates on legal
implications. This is mostly the internal process, though. It takes very
little to commit an honest legal mistake, so it cannot hurt (keep in mind to
ask EJ is she needs legal help, too.) The same goes with the PR firm. I'm
under impression, though, they would recommend similar steps to me. The PR
folks I know are really good people.

It might be that EJ does not want to speak with the founders anymore. There is
already a lot of misunderstanding, and I would understand her if they've lost
her trust. If so, either the investors or the directors should step in. I
realize that it sounds _too much_. However, PG is already involved, and
members of both groups signal that there is a more mature instance that
overlooks the things to be fine.

I do not believe that the solution cannot be reached. It does. It takes,
though, understanding that _people are good_.

(On a more formal side, the reason why it was really a bad idea to mention
lawyers publicly is that the AirBnB itself operates within a grey area.
Depending on the local laws, the service is either illegal or not covered with
all hospitality laws.

It means that signing up the property to the service takes valuying the social
relationships more than legal matters. It cannot be otherwise given that, it
turns out, some guests were completely anonymous (guests of the guests?), to
say nothing about lack of cameras in most buildings.

The lawyers, and formalities, raised so frequently create a state of
understandable confusion. If renting the property is dubiously insurable (I'm
not sure whether insurers were that happy if knew that they insure hotel rooms
per se; the fact has to spread, yet, though), and there are no legal
protections, there is nothing but the social trust to rely on.)

That said, I wish all the parties involved the best.

I wish EJ only good things from now. ;-) And, I wish AirBnB more luck, as
they've faced a huge sh*t-storm, and I like their service for the reason it
relies on _good_ behaviour.

------
babebridou
This situation is in fact a very understandable vendetta of the unfortunate
victim towards the rest of the world - and she is right - everyone should pay
for what she suffered. The actual word is compassion, and there's never enough
of it in the whole world for any single unfortunate person.

With that said, no company with AirBnB's business model can publicly say they
will assist victims whatever the cost. It's just impossible. It would be a
blatant lie. They must at least maintain some sort of windshield against
insurance frauds, and doing that requires tons of hard PR and legal decisions
to be made, and the assistance of lawyers. And everyone hates lawyers.
Companies are sometimes inherently good, sometimes not, but they should never
be inherently so stupid as to sign their own commercial/financial/legal doom.
You can get up from bad PR, but you can't get up from bankrupcy.

Now after this argument in favor of an actual public silence, let's see what
we have: 1) a victim 2) there is no 2. There is a victim and that's all.

Just fix the victim. No need to go through internet flamewars or PR messes, no
need to even listen to that. Airbnb should just send a team of 24/7 dedicated
people with quasi carte blanche (within what the company can afford, of
course) to see through that victim gets better, if that objective can even be
met. If the "get better" project goes so wrong as to lead to law suits or
whatnot, then let justice decide, because in the end, yes, someone has to pay
for what happened, and the legal system is here to decide who should pay.

Now about PR: switch the debate from a "what did AirBnB do in that situation"
witch-hunt to "This is what we are doing, this is how it's going from our
point of view, now what do you (Mr/Mrs Customer) think we could improve on?".
Open a public discussion on your social network and dedicate someone to
analyze public input. And use it the next time something like this happens
(because unfortunately, it will happen again). Centralize this debate
somewhere where you can handle all this information, and by "handle" I don't
mean "censor" but of course "assimilate".

...and just ignore those stupid emergent flame wars between big internet guns
who are mostly in for pride (white knights & trolls) and money (journalists,
consultants, lobbyists & investors). Let them deal with the crap they fling
around themselves, and keep focusing on the "get better" project: the victim
asked specifically for your help, and that's what really matters here.

Related link: an analysis of an excellent online PR crisis management by
Monoprix (in French only, sorry)
<http://guybirenbaum.blogitexpress.com/91728/html> The "victim" (an employee
who got fired for taking home unsold & trashed goods) explained that he "tried
hard to make a fuss and a buzz" of his situation because he felt that nothing
short of prosecution and trial could make him feel better. This is a case of a
failing "get better" project with exemplary PR - and to be honest, it's only
when the project fails that PR become important. What did Monoprix do? They
centralized the debate on their Facebook page, switched the focus from
"Monoprix is bad" to a laconic "here's what we are doing, tell us what we can
improve on" and they have dedicated Community Managers assimilating and
discussing the comments instead of censoring them.

~~~
cageface
I think their treatment of the victim is really a sideshow. The real issue
here is that the underlying assumption that it was relatively safe to let
total strangers into your home has been publicly shattered.

~~~
babebridou
Give it time, and people will get out in the streets again (terrorist
attacks), people will eat meat again (mad cow disease), people will buy
cucumber again (killing cucumber), strangers will shake hands again (H1N1
influenza), hell, people will even go visit Chernobyl as tourists.

It's not a "real" issue, it's more of a temporary difficulty. AirBnB's
business exists since the dawn of time. A setback, if you prefer.

~~~
cageface
The naive level of trust on which they've built their business is gone. I
think they can survive this but not without some significant structural
changes.

~~~
babebridou
To think a business can only survive if the savvy feel at ease is itself
naive, though. Most people in the world are deliciously ignorant about the
dangers of any activity. People still take hitchhikers for a ride, still cross
the road without looking, still share their public details on Facebook for
everyone to see, and still use Bed and Breakfast services, still get on one
night stands with complete strangers.

Change is often a good thing, but I don't think they should make hasty
"significant structural change" because it's clearly not what's needed right
now. Subtle evolution is much better to improve trust.

------
chailatte
Why is it left to PG to defend AirBnB? Why aren't the founders handling the
PR?

Why isn't AirBnb implementing solutions _5 weeks ago_ to prevent this from
happening again to their users? Why haven't their users heard about this until
now?

Why don't we have any tangible proof that AirBnb is actually helping this poor
woman? If no, why don't they do it _now_ , instead of saying they are trying?

Are there any grownups in AirBnb? This is not a side project selling cereals
that you have fun with anymore. It's a real business! What a sad, pathetic
group of people. 1000X valuation for a company that lets 'daddy' do all the
dirty work, while they go hide in the corner.

------
shareme
1\. Victim is not on trial here. 2\. This is not the time to score link bait
points. 3\. Several layers of communication that are not direct here..let the
parties come to their own way of helping and implementing solutions. I would
imagine it does not help the police either ..

above all else. MA you are not helping just shut up.

------
mindcrime
_/me_ puts some popcorn on to pop, cracks open a soda, and sits back to watch
the show...

~~~
mahmud
It's all fun and games until someone is homeless.

Remember, a midst all this BS, there is still that woman who still doesn't
have her house back.

~~~
mindcrime
I'm aware of that, but this part of the story seems to have evolved past that.
I'm only referring to the "Arrington vs. pg" sub-story that's fallen out of
this.

I certainly don't mean to make light of what happened to the lady who's home
was ransacked.

~~~
mahmud
It's a "sub-story" only if you make it to be. What you can do also is not give
a shit and not look for debacles, existent or otherwise.

I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does
the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online
business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will
legislation result? new insurance products? etc.

~~~
mindcrime
_I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated.
Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online
business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will
legislation result? new insurance products? etc._

I suspect that most, if not all, of us are interested in those things. That
doesn't mean one can't also appreciate certain sub elements of the story from
other angles. But to be fair, maybe it's still too early and maybe emotions
are still too raw (especially since the woman in question still hasn't had
this resolved to her satisfaction) for any indulgence in the possibly humorous
aspects of this. If so, I was wrong to post my original post, and I and
apologize to anyone who is offended.

~~~
kelnos
Agreed. In the end, I want the best resolution possible for EJ, given that
something terrible happened to her.

But in a more abstract sense, I'm very interested in how AirBnB (as a semi-
responsible party) and YC (as a seed investor) handle and respond to the
situation. Here on HN we talk a lot about treating your customers well and
being as transparent as possible.

But something here is amiss. The victim is saying one thing, and the company
and investor in that company are saying things that don't quite jive. We may
never know where the truth lies exactly, but AirBnB doesn't seem to be
handling this very well.

Regardless of whether or not AirBnB is legally responsible, they need to step
up. Personally I think the best thing for them to do is to just fix the
problem. They need to reach out to EJ, and not just in the "what do you need?"
sense. They need to just _do things_ for her. She's traumatized and in a very
bad, vulnerable state right now. Who wouldn't be? Asking her what she needs is
not the best approach, because she likely isn't really sure what she needs.
They need to just go right out and help her find a new place to live, and help
her replace some of the things she's lost, to the best of their ability.

I don't know if PG is checking his facts or is just trusting the AirBnB
founders and telling us what he's been told by them, but, frankly, in this
case, I don't care what he has to say. The AirBnB founders need to go all out
on this, probably accept more responsibility for what happened than they are
really responsible for, and just _make it right_ as well as they can. It won't
be perfect, but they have to show the community that the community comes
first, and AirBnB's bottom line comes second. Because perhaps non-intuitively,
putting the community first actually does put their bottom line first. But
from what I've read and seen so far, they haven't done that.

------
dools
AirBnB: Air Bold n the Beautiful?

------
jamesgagan
Listen, _someone_ was gonna post it.

------
grovulent
It's he said - she said - kinda stuff that ultimately we'll never get to the
bottom of.

But Arrington so often finds himself at the centre of these idiotic exchanges
and personal attack-fests that it's very hard not to believe PG about this.

It's just a real shame that the reputation of a really cool company rests on
that level of exchange between folks. It must be really frustrating for them.

~~~
sriramk
No it doesn't. Their reputation rests on their users, one of whom is trashing
them in public after a bad experience. Arrington/TC have published pretty much
everything Chesky have told them, including letting them do a guest post.

~~~
petegrif
I agree. Articles about spats between Silicon Valley insiders are not going to
determine how customers view the company.

------
realou
Hello. It seems that this Airbnb business model is a bit flawed because it
requires a level of trust from customers which cannot be obtained in the world
we currently live in. How to add trust? many solutions exist.

One such solution could be, for example, to have ALL the rented properties
daily cleaned up by Airbnb-hired people (contracted 3rd party companies will
be happy to do this in most civilized cities). This would be a cool service
the renters would appreciate, and would provide the rentees at least some
level of trust their home is not being vandalized.

A concierge service could also help.

I am sure many other ways exits to add Trust to the model. This must become
Airbnb's most valuable product feature... This should be considered an
important "enabling technology" without which the business cannot survive in
the long run.

------
hluska
Let's engage in a little thought exercise. Pretend that you are the Airbnb
victim. You live in incredible fear of psychotic criminals and identity
thieves. The fear is so uncontrollable that you "spend [your] mornings
recalling nightmares and breathing through panic attacks."

Would you:

a) go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low?

b) go extremely public and take on a startup?

~~~
yesbabyyes
_Would you:

go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low?_ ... for a month, and then

 _go extremely public and take on a startup?_ ... after a month.

Yeah, I think I might just do that.

~~~
bugsy
I would too. The person had been playing psychological games with her via
email. This is not some teenager stealing a TV, this is a psychopath that
plays long games with the victim the way a cat plays with a mouse before
mauling and eating it. We are not talking some routine crime, there is a very
sick component here that goes way beyond normal robberies. I carry (a gun in
case it's not clear) in public and know how to fight, and I would feel
extremely uncomfortable in my apartment until the perps were caught and in
prison, not out on bail after something as twisted as what happened. ... Oh
and yeah, I would _also_ publicly trash the company (the two things are
definitely not mutually exclusive) in order to warn other innocent people so
they don't have to experience the terror and abuse that I went through. Unless
the company fixed things. But obviously not knowing the identity of the person
that was renting means they were a major contributor to the problem so I would
definitely complain loudly, from wherever I was hiding out from the psycho
killer.

------
Confusion
Well, that's a non sequitur drama queen title if I ever saw one. A straw man
in so few words: cunning. No one is faulting Arrington for what happened to
EJ. Arrington is being faulted, rightly or wrongly, for bad journalism. Bait-
and-switch.

~~~
Confusion
Well, it seems I'm getting massively downvoted for calling out the
inappropriateness of a title. How the hell is this my fault?

~~~
HardyLeung
In case you don't know, this is the appropriate title for this story because
this is how Michael Arrington titled his. In most cases, using the original
title is the way to go.

------
merubin75
He had me until the last line: "I don’t know what Paul Graham means by
'typical Arrington fashion,' but I do know this. It’s not my job to fix it
when companies do stupid things."

Bullshit!

No, it's not your job to fix the mess other companies create through stupid
policy or bad decisionmaking. But it's also not your job to pile on and stir
up everybody's passions when something goes wrong.

Michael Arrington is a huckster -- Walter Winchell and Drudge mixed together.
For years, he's picked fights and written stories that destroy reputations.
Then when he's called on to the carpet for his behavior, he reacts in the
'typical Arrington fashion,' by protesting his innocence and calling on his
readers to save him.

I'm not an apologist for what Airbnb did here. But Michael Arrington and
TechCrunch helped fan the flames. Not because they reported on it, but
becausse of the WAY they reported on it. And now when they're called on it, he
reacts by wrapping himself in a flag of righteousness.

Yep, smells like bullshit alright.

