So yeah, I don't buy the AirBnB has failed thing, because I'm a heavy user.
AirBnB hasn't failed. It has plenty of users, and over $2bn in revenue. That's not enough though, because the costs of running the business are higher than $2bn and so we see articles about how it made a loss again.
It seems fairly clear to me that a large number of loss-making unicorn companies need to get their costs under control, and the obvious way to do that is to lose some staff, or pay them less. At the moment that's hard because there's enough competition between companies that people can choose where to work but eventually the need to cut costs will outweigh the need for "the best people", and salaries for new jobs will start to fall. The result for many developers will be that they have to either stay in their role for a long time or accept a pay cut to move company. It might be worth considering that possible outcome if you work in dev right now.
> "The company has been spending heavily on marketing ahead of its public debut."
Airbnb doesn't have _that_ big a problem with costs; not like Uber, Wework, etc.
They were profitable in 2017 and 2018, and have been for most of their existence, unlike their fellow unicorns.
I also don't think staff is that big a cost for them; again, they're not like Uber, having to spend gazillions on both a huge on-the-ground workforce and bottomless-pit R&D for autonomous driving.
Unlike their unicorn peers, they're a fundamentally a very strong company, that has temporarily gone into deficit to accelerate growth leading up to their IPO, but they're still in good shape.
The coronavirus is an unexpected hit, but they'll fare much better than the rest of the travel industry.
AirBnB hasn't failed. It has plenty of users, and over $2bn in revenue. That's not enough though, because the costs of running the business are higher than $2bn and so we see articles about how it made a loss again.
It seems fairly clear to me that a large number of loss-making unicorn companies need to get their costs under control, and the obvious way to do that is to lose some staff, or pay them less. At the moment that's hard because there's enough competition between companies that people can choose where to work but eventually the need to cut costs will outweigh the need for "the best people", and salaries for new jobs will start to fall. The result for many developers will be that they have to either stay in their role for a long time or accept a pay cut to move company. It might be worth considering that possible outcome if you work in dev right now.