
Airbnb CFO Departs Amid Tensions, Leaving IPO Timeline Unclear - dpiers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/airbnb-cfo-departs-amid-tensions-leaving-ipo-timeline-unclear
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geverett
'Tosi, who turns 50 next week, was focused more on cutting costs and pursuing
businesses that were revenue-generating instead of world-changing, they said.'

For now, Airbnb has the luxury to make these kinds of decisions, but they
can't exist in the world of paper valuations forever. A lot of the 'world-
changing' things they've been working on seem a lot more targeted at the
luxury market than transforming the industry as a whole (luxury retreats,
premium business products, experiences that cost $200+). Will be interesting
to see how this plays out..

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cptaj
Yeah, I've never really had any luck getting stuff that is really cheaper than
traditional options.

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contingencies
Ditto. IMHO their business model isn't hard to replicate, they didn't invent
it, and their biggest asset is inertia-eyeballs. Although they are a YC
darling, the fact is they scaled with loads of marketing dollar versus
established competition (eg. in Europe) and what this shows us is huge
financial backing and aggressive media engagement can create a sector-specific
behemoth. For all intents and purposes in the current world it has already
plateaued, though. There's a school of thought that they are probably one of
the last paper-valuation giants to climb out of the centralized marketplace
world.

In future, perhaps consumers won't use branded marketplace apps and will
instead publish data independently, branded search engine apps will rank and
return it and third party reputation services will assist with filtering. Why?
Because nobody wants a damn middleman app demanding its own
permissions/login/customer service loop for everything they do, and people are
slowly ceding anonymity for promises of assurance as the resource-constrained,
higher-density, more urban world moves toward the political right.

A cryptocurrency AirBNB clone could take a serious chunk out of their market,
since so many hosts are flying close to or beyond the legal or strata
relations radar and would prefer not to declare earnings.

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BlackjackCF
Looks like The Bee Token is already on it:
[https://www.beetoken.com/](https://www.beetoken.com/)

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jdlyga
AirBnb has recently been made illegal in my state (New York State) for stays
under 30 days. Of course a lot of people don't know or don't care about the
law, but they're giving out fines left and right. This is likely true with
other states as well.

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matwood
AirBnb is illegal or short term rentals? I recently stayed in a short term
apartment rental that I booked through booking.com. It was fully licensed,
etc..., but was an apartment in a building of otherwise long term renters.

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benatkin
With major cities that are in demand, long-term rentals on AirBnb can disturb
housing equality and rent control programs. So we hear about long-term rentals
being curtailed a lot.

The states don't need to address what's already being addressed by the major
cities, unless it's a big problem outside of the major cities because the
housing demand isn't as high. The long-term rental issues aren't as bad
outside of the major cities. The short-term rental issues, however, are a
bigger issue, because those living in a less urban area have more expectation
of knowing their neighbors.

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subpixel
You say “can”, but I live in one of those cities and I assure you it’s not a
possibility but a reality.

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benatkin
Oops. Unnecessarily using a qualifier is a mistake, albeit one made while
trying to avoid making other mistakes. I stand corrected.

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cryptozeus
I am surprised with the comments again airbnb here. I have used nothing else
but airbnb for last 3 years. They have amazing properties with prime locations
for reasonable price. I normally dont care for hotel services i.e. gym,in-room
food etc so its perfect. Usually the cost comes down to half than the hotels.

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teh_klev
I think a key issue with them is they've caused a harmful reduction of
available affordable rented accommodation in many areas. All those _" amazing
properties with prime locations for reasonable price"_ are now no longer
available to local residents to rent.

It's a thing that's happened around my rural'ish village. There used to be a
reasonable supply of rented properties but many have turned into AirBNB lets
where, for half the year, they're practically unoccupied, and even during the
holiday season (northern hemisphere summer) they're never fully occupied.

I know this is just how market forces work, but in some localities AirBNB are
a somewhat destructive force.

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whoisjuan
They released this last week: [https://press.atairbnb.com/brian-cheskys-open-
letter-to-the-...](https://press.atairbnb.com/brian-cheskys-open-letter-to-
the-airbnb-community-about-building-a-21st-century-company/) ... The part that
caught my attention was: "To begin measuring how well we are serving all
stakeholders, in March, we’ll release Airbnb’s first Annual Stakeholder
Report." ... You only come up with this crap when you don't want to go public.
You know...because reporting to stakeholders is what public companies do.

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whitepoplar
After the absolutely horrible customer service experiences I've had with
Airbnb, I hope they rot in IPO hell.

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derekdahmer
FWIW I've had the exact opposite experience. Called in late at night about a
host in Barcelona blowing me off, and within a few minutes had a US-based
support rep check the message log and immediately move me into another place
along with an additional credit for the problem.

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simonebrunozzi
I had one terrible experience too. And never an amazing one.

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ggm
Tried to use it this next 2 day trip to Berlin. Had low trust in the quality
of the matches against my budget and bedcount, and found better deals from
hotel aggregator websites I've used before with some confidence on what they
tell me

TL;DR can't trust the model when it doesn't out perform alternates with better
basis in search/price matching.

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konschubert
AirBnB is basically banned in Berlin.

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rorykoehler
Not anymore. The ban had been successfully challenged on numerous occasions
now. Seems unenforceable

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acct1771
Obligatory shoutout:
[https://www.cryptocribs.com](https://www.cryptocribs.com)

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matte_black
When AirBnB finally does IPO, who will want to buy it? What more growth could
possibly come out amidst the increasing regulation?

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user5994461
Who cares? They're in one of the most profitable niche in the planet. They
don't need IPO.

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vthallam
Airbnb employers and Investors. Most funds have a 6 - 8 year timeline where
they plan to cash out to certain extent, so there will be pressure from
employees and investors alike.

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ajmurmann
To make it worse, the fund gets dissolved after a while. So now instead of one
VC firm you have to deal with dozens of investors.

