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> I have some ideas, mainly around ensuring users aren't listing more than one property This would destroy them. The reason Airbnb has grown far beyond what in

> I have some ideas, mainly around ensuring users aren't listing more than one property This would destroy them. The reason Airbnb has grown far beyond what investors (and even the founders, probably) expected it to is because of individuals buying up and renting out large numbers of units as a full-time business, and because that phenomenon hasn't been stopped by regulators. You can't build a $20B+ business on the back of individuals renting out spare rooms here or there for some extra money. You can build one by unlocking untapped value in the urban real estate market by converting long-term rental properties to short-term ones (whether that's illegal or has negative externalities is another matter).

wpietri 11y ago
And that's the real thing that kills me here. I'm told architects have a saying: "form follows funding", and that now seems depressingly true. During my years in the industry I think things have steadily bent toward revenue at all costs, damn the mission, damn the government, and damn any sense of integrity. Zenefits is Exhibit A for me, but I hear story after story of companies building themselves to flip and doing shady things to maximize the next quarter's numbers. I wouldn't mind this so much were our self image purely about cash extraction, as in the financial industry. But once I think it was more about impact, and I fear we are telling ourselves that story more than the current reality justifies.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  The venture-backed technology industry is nothing more than an extension of the financial industry, and anyone who says otherwise is lying or deluding themselves. The guys on Sand Hill are getting their money from the same sources as the hedge fund managers on Wall Street.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    Which is, interestingly, the American middle class. Some Wall Street money is proprietary, sure. But a pretty good chunk of it is our 401ks and institutional pensions.
    - mooreds 11y ago
      > interestingly, the American middle class I would say, rather, "depressingly". I think the "arms length" chasing of return by pension and 401k funds (whether active or index funds) is a problem. Our money goes places and does things in pursuit of returns that we would never consent to if we had to knowingly make the decision. Out of which concerns have come socially responsible investing, triple bottom line and slow money.
    - nradov 11y ago
      Pensions yes. But most 401(k) plans only offer mutual funds as investment options, and those in turn mostly only invest in publicly traded securities ( not VC funds). A few public companies have captive VC arms but those are pretty limited.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I certainly agree it is becoming that. The reason I think it used to be different and could be again is that venture funding is in theory about creating very long term value. You don't get a company like Amazon or Google or Apple by focusing on the next week or the next quarter, as is typical in the zero-sum-oriented financial industry. You get it by focusing on the next decade, the next century. You get it by finding ways to create massive long-term value for everybody, and then taking a modest slice. The trouble I see is that the MBA religion of "up and to the right" leads people to make a lot of short term decisions. In the short term, short-termism does wonderfully well. I'm hoping that the current dose of unicorn fever is temporary. But in my case it's pure hope; I don't yet have a reason to believe it.
- bjelkeman-again 11y ago
  Completely agree. I got fed up with the whole thing and went looking for opportunities to do useful stuff with the technology, without venture money and extractive shareholders. And found it.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Could you say more? I'd love to hear about your search and what you found.
- exstudent2 11y ago
  To some of us the free market is integrity and the government and regulations are unethical beasts meant to be slain with technology. I see AirBnB and Uber as innovators in that space. I think it's more a cultural shift away from libertarianism amongst a new generation of techies as the cause of the disconnect.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I have a hard time understanding that as anything other than a religious view. And a relatively new one, despite your claim that people are shifting away. Read, for example, The Economist, which for 150 years has been advocating for free markets and against excess regulation. They've been doing it so long they prefer the phrase "classical liberal"; to them, "libertarian" is a johnny-come-lately term. Every time they advocate this stuff they do it not based on a tautological "markets are good because markets" argument. For them, markets are the best way to accomplish human ends: people that are better off, freer, more independent. But when markets work against that, they say so. For example, they're strong supporters of a carbon tax, because they see that as the least intrusive way to prevent further degradation on the atmosphere. Markets are tools, just like computers are. They can be used well or used poorly, for good or for bad. In my view you have mistaken a mechanism for the purpose. When we decide how to structure society, it cannot be to serve the individual aesthetic or ideological views of a narrow group. It has to be to best serve its members. Nothing else is sustainable.
    - exstudent2 11y ago
      I see free markets as providing the least resistance to unfettered technological progress (which is ultimately what I'm after). I don't think it's worthwhile to "decide how to structure society". Society should be emergent from individual freedom. Central planning can only cover the needs/ideologies of those doing the planning (and probably not even that). Admittedly my views are radically post-modern and include a healthy dose of moral relativism i.e. there is no "best" way to serve society's members, just progress and the by-product of that progress.
      - 11y ago
iiiggglll 11y ago
> $20B+ business There is no way it's worth that much. As we saw from the Square IPO ("valued" at $6B+ in their last round of private funding; current post-IPO market cap about half that), the valuations of the past few years are all wildly overstated, just as the pundits have said all along. AirBnB will never be worth that much in a public market.

wpietri 11y ago

And that's the real thing that kills me here. I'm told architects have a saying: "form follows funding", and that now seems depressingly true. During my years in the industry I think things have steadily bent toward revenue at all costs, damn the mission, damn the government, and damn any sense of integrity. Zenefits is Exhibit A for me, but I hear story after story of companies building themselves to flip and doing shady things to maximize the next quarter's numbers. I wouldn't mind this so much were our self image purely about cash extraction, as in the financial industry. But once I think it was more about impact, and I fear we are telling ourselves that story more than the current reality justifies.

w1ntermute 11y ago
The venture-backed technology industry is nothing more than an extension of the financial industry, and anyone who says otherwise is lying or deluding themselves. The guys on Sand Hill are getting their money from the same sources as the hedge fund managers on Wall Street.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Which is, interestingly, the American middle class. Some Wall Street money is proprietary, sure. But a pretty good chunk of it is our 401ks and institutional pensions.
  - mooreds 11y ago
    > interestingly, the American middle class I would say, rather, "depressingly". I think the "arms length" chasing of return by pension and 401k funds (whether active or index funds) is a problem. Our money goes places and does things in pursuit of returns that we would never consent to if we had to knowingly make the decision. Out of which concerns have come socially responsible investing, triple bottom line and slow money.
  - nradov 11y ago
    Pensions yes. But most 401(k) plans only offer mutual funds as investment options, and those in turn mostly only invest in publicly traded securities ( not VC funds). A few public companies have captive VC arms but those are pretty limited.
- wpietri 11y ago
  I certainly agree it is becoming that. The reason I think it used to be different and could be again is that venture funding is in theory about creating very long term value. You don't get a company like Amazon or Google or Apple by focusing on the next week or the next quarter, as is typical in the zero-sum-oriented financial industry. You get it by focusing on the next decade, the next century. You get it by finding ways to create massive long-term value for everybody, and then taking a modest slice. The trouble I see is that the MBA religion of "up and to the right" leads people to make a lot of short term decisions. In the short term, short-termism does wonderfully well. I'm hoping that the current dose of unicorn fever is temporary. But in my case it's pure hope; I don't yet have a reason to believe it.
bjelkeman-again 11y ago
Completely agree. I got fed up with the whole thing and went looking for opportunities to do useful stuff with the technology, without venture money and extractive shareholders. And found it.
- wpietri 11y ago
  Could you say more? I'd love to hear about your search and what you found.
exstudent2 11y ago
To some of us the free market is integrity and the government and regulations are unethical beasts meant to be slain with technology. I see AirBnB and Uber as innovators in that space. I think it's more a cultural shift away from libertarianism amongst a new generation of techies as the cause of the disconnect.
- wpietri 11y ago
  I have a hard time understanding that as anything other than a religious view. And a relatively new one, despite your claim that people are shifting away. Read, for example, The Economist, which for 150 years has been advocating for free markets and against excess regulation. They've been doing it so long they prefer the phrase "classical liberal"; to them, "libertarian" is a johnny-come-lately term. Every time they advocate this stuff they do it not based on a tautological "markets are good because markets" argument. For them, markets are the best way to accomplish human ends: people that are better off, freer, more independent. But when markets work against that, they say so. For example, they're strong supporters of a carbon tax, because they see that as the least intrusive way to prevent further degradation on the atmosphere. Markets are tools, just like computers are. They can be used well or used poorly, for good or for bad. In my view you have mistaken a mechanism for the purpose. When we decide how to structure society, it cannot be to serve the individual aesthetic or ideological views of a narrow group. It has to be to best serve its members. Nothing else is sustainable.
  - exstudent2 11y ago
    I see free markets as providing the least resistance to unfettered technological progress (which is ultimately what I'm after). I don't think it's worthwhile to "decide how to structure society". Society should be emergent from individual freedom. Central planning can only cover the needs/ideologies of those doing the planning (and probably not even that). Admittedly my views are radically post-modern and include a healthy dose of moral relativism i.e. there is no "best" way to serve society's members, just progress and the by-product of that progress.
    - 11y ago

iiiggglll 11y ago

> $20B+ business There is no way it's worth that much. As we saw from the Square IPO ("valued" at $6B+ in their last round of private funding; current post-IPO market cap about half that), the valuations of the past few years are all wildly overstated, just as the pundits have said all along. AirBnB will never be worth that much in a public market.